BALMY DAYS

BALMY DAYS

BALMY DAYS at the Friendship Sloop races, July1978 The 60’ BALMY DAYS was built in 1932 and launched on the Kennebec River’s Swan Island. Builder/owner/captain Charlie Wade immediately started the boat on a Boothbay Harbor-Monhegan run, which continued the boat’s whole in Maine. BALMY DAYS docked at Simpson’s, later Ned’s Garage/wharf, at the passenger boat landing on Wharf Street. In the 1930sthe boat included a long, low cabin forward with room for three rows of seats at the bow. A canopy in back sheltered the aft open cockpit. Later the aft cockpit and helm were protected with a cabin, and both aft and forward cabin tops had seats on them. The trips ran from late June to early September and normally took an hour and 45 minutes with the twin engines. According to Wade’s son Charles “Chuck” Wade Jr., Wade was a hard, constant worker. In the summer he’d sleep aboard the Balmy as night watchman. If he came home after the Monhegan run, and later the Indian Island run, he’d hop right on a tractor at the Adams Pond Road house and keep working in the fields – still in his captain’s outfit. In the 1930s and some 1940s winters, Wade took the boat to Florida. Also seen is the 32' Friendship sloop LADY (Later LADY M) built in 1977 by Harvey Gamage, South Bristol, Maine for Myrna G Snider