Thorndike_windy_deck 
Schooner American Eagle Newsletter
April 2009
In This Issue
Latest Postcard
Why do we go windjamming?
 
To preserve perishable skills

To pass along what little we have learned of what our sailing predecessors forgot

 
To share the art and fabric of working sail in our small but beautiful corner of the oceans
 
To provide a bit of adventure and a lot of fun. 

 
mbhh104
The American Eagle is on the cover of  Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors and also inside in a small picture under sail.  And expect an illustrated article about father and son cruises in an upcoming issue of Men's Health.
 
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Greetings! 

Since the first newsletter the snow has almost gone, I have spent two weeks sailing out of Galveston, Texas, as mate aboard the barque Elissa, and the crew and I have completed the American Eagle's annual out of the water experience on our marine railway. 

2009 Spring Haulout

In six days we put in several hundred hours setting up staging, scraping, caulking, sanding, priming, sanding, puttying, painting, sanding, painting.  Twenty gallons of paint later she was ready to go back in the water.  And we also took out the propellor shaft to be polished and checked for straight, replaced the propellor, shaft tube, and inside packing box.  Not exactly an enticing description of a summer day on the bay, but it takes a full day of work for every day we sail in the summer.  National Historic Landmarks own us, not the other way around!
Cruise/crew news
 
Raft_upFeatured trips this issue are our four day cruises early in the season when the bay is sparkling and free of the yachts of mid-summer.  With smaller groups and an enthusiastic crew fresh from the toils of spring, it's an inexpensive getaway before the big pressures of the main visitors season here on the Maine Coast.  And the lobsters are bigger in June!  There are  fleet raft-ups on both June 8th (cookbook gam) and June 15th (schooner gam).  The crew this season bring some stories with them of their recent adventures: sailing to Fiji for college credit, volunteering in New Orleans all winter, or building an electric car to go zero to sixty in three seconds.
 

2008 Crew

Where are the snows of yesteryear?  No no, I mean where are the crews of last year?  Left to right:  Adam is polishing his sailing skills on Nantucket this summer, Kelly will be volunteering on Iona in Scotland, Eric will be back yet again (thank goodness), Donna and her fiancee are working in food service in western Maine, and Heather will be back on board by early May.
 
 
 
Latest Postcard

For some years we've asked guests to "send us a postcard".  While some of them were unprintable, the one below is more typical, proving that a sailing adventure on the Eagle is part of world travel for sure.
April Postcard
River sailing in Egypt features no fog, just dust storms.  And what did the upper Nile fish say when he bumped into the wall?  Dam
See you next month,
 John and the crew
Captain John Foss, Schooner American Eagle

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Schooner American Eagle
P O Box 482 
Rockland, ME  04841
(800) 648-4544