Maine Maritime Academy’s schooner Bowdoin will sail to southern ports in Virginia and Maryland, and make port calls in New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island in June as part of the college’s sail-training curriculum. The vessel is scheduled to get underway on Wednesday, May 30, between 1000 and 1100.
A highlight of this year’s sail training cruise and subsequent summer programming will be the vessel’s participation in a series of sailing races, cruises, crew rallies, and maritime festivals organized by the American Sail Training Association (ASTA) in conjunction with U.S. and Canadian ports on the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts of North America and in the Great Lakes.
This year’s voyage plan includes a sail up Chesapeake Bay with stops at St. Michaels and Baltimore. Bowdoin will then sail on to New York City , Mystic Seaport (Conn.), and Newport, R.I. Bowdoin is due to return to Castine on Saturday, June 30.
Bowdoin, a national historic landmark and Maine’s official sailing vessel, enjoys a long history of seafaring education and exploration. 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. Following withdrawal from Arctic service in 1954, 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.
