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CONTACT: Janice B. Zenter, 207-326-2256

Sail training club hosting lecture

CASTINE, Maine –Maine Maritime Academy’s Sail Training Club will host its first public lecture of the year on Tues., Oct. 18. Guest lecturer, Captain Jim Sharp, will talk about the great Gloucester fishing schooners and the schooner, Adventure, which he owned and operated out of Camden, Maine, for many years. The lecture will be held at 7 p.m. in the Humanities Lecture Hall of the Bath Iron Works Center for Advanced Technology on the college campus. The lecture is open to the public and is offered free of charge.

While on Adventure, Sharp sailed to Isle au Haut and where he met and interviewed Jack Crowell, a former mate aboard the schooner Bowdoin from the days of expeditions with Adm. Donald MacMillan. Sharp sat down with Crowell and a tape recorder and recorded numerous stories. The interview, which has been put on to a DVD along with movies taken aboard the Bowdoin, will be presented as part of the evening lecture.

The flagship of Maine Maritime Academy’s small vessel operations program, the Bowdoin is a national historic landmark and Maine's official sailing vessel. The Bowdoin enjoys a long history of seafaring education and Arctic exploration, as well as notoriety in the history of the development of remote communications. Built in 1921 at the Hodgdon Brothers Shipyard in East Boothbay, the schooner sailed on 25 scientific expeditions to the Arctic Circle by Adm. Donald MacMillan. Bowdoin sent the first shortwave communications from the region in 1923 while wintering in Refuge Harbor, Greenland.

Following withdrawal from Arctic service in the 1950s, the Bowdoin supported the educational initiatives of Mystic Seaport in Connecticut and the Outward Bound School in Maine. The schooner was later acquired by the Schooner Bowdoin Association. Maine Maritime Academy leased the vessel in 1988 and bought her outright a year later.

For further information on the lecture, contact Capt. Andy Chase, at 326-2126.



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