LB2016.15.1521

LB2016.15.1521

The arctic schooner BOWDOIN at a pier with a large group of people aboard with an even larger group on the pier, some off which can be seen climbing down a ladder to the deck of the BOWDOIN BOWDOIN (Arctic schooner) Original Owner: Donald B. MacMillan US Navy 22 May 1941 - 24 January 1945 MacMillan 1945-1959 Mystic Seaport 1959-1967 Schooner Bowdoin Association, Inc. 1967 - 1988 Maine Maritime Academy c.1988- Designer: William H. Hand, Jr. (designer) Builder: Hodgdon Brothers Shipyard Launched: 1921 Commissioned: 16 June 1941 as IX-50 Decommissioned: 16 December 1943 Struck: 14 May 1944 General characteristics Sail plan: Gaff-rigged Schooner Tonnage: 66 GRT Length at waterline: 72 ft Length Overall: 88 ft Beam: 21 ft Draft: 10 ft The schooner Bowdoin was designed by William H. Hand, Jr., and built in 1921, in East Boothbay, Maine, at the Hodgdon Brothers Shipyard now known as Hodgdon Yachts. She is the only American schooner built specifically for Arctic exploration, and was designed under the direction of explorer Donald B. MacMillan. She has made 29 trips above the Arctic Circle in her life, three since she was acquired by the Maine Maritime Academy in 1988. She is currently owned by the Maine Maritime Academy, located in Castine, Maine, and is used for their sail training curriculum. History The schooner's design and construction were carefully considered and well-executed, although neither was radical for their day. The vessel is unique today because of her specialized purpose-she is heavy and carries less sail for her displacement than most schooners because, in addition to the obvious ice hazards, the Arctic is known for having either no wind at all or too much. Bowdoin first crossed the Arctic Circle on 23 August 1921. A place unknown to most of the world, the Arctic had had few visitors. Only sixteen years before, the goal of many generations of Arctic explorers had been reached when a northwest passage was traversed - a route which was, practically speaking, unusable, and after the construction of the Panama Canal, no longer necessary. Peary's North Pole expedition was merely a dozen years past. The last few Hudson's Bay and Davis Strait whalers had made their final trip home two years before. Bowdoin sailed north with Macmillan two dozen times, carrying scientists, adventurers, and students. World War II On 22 May 1941 the United States Navy purchased Bowdoin from MacMillan for use in the war effort. She was placed in commission as USS Bowdoin (IX-50) on 16 June 1941. She was one of the very few sail powered vessels commissioned in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Her first commanding officer was her previous owner, Lieutenant Commander Donald B. MacMillan. (MacMillan had received a commission in the Naval Reserve in 1925 and was retired for age in 1938 but volunteered for active duty in 1941 at the age of 66.) MacMillan was soon reassigned to the Navy's hydrographic office. As of March 1, 1942, her commanding officer was Lieutenant (junior grade) Stuart T. Hotchkiss. Bowdoin was assigned to the South Greenland Patrol but did not report for duty at Ivigtut. The Greenland patrol existed for two major purposes: to assist in the defense of Greenland and to support the Army in its task of setting up air bases on Greenland as stopover and fueling points for aircraft being ferried to Great Britain. Bowdoin provided services in conjunction with air base site surveys and construction. That assignment lasted about 27 months. During that time, in October 1941, the two portions of the Greenland Patrol - the northeast and Bowdoin's south - were combined into a single command, the Greenland Patrol, Task Group 24.8 which took its orders directly from Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet. About two years after that event, on 23 October 1943, the auxiliary schooner was placed in reduced commission. On 16 December 1943, Bowdoin was placed out of commission at Quincy, Massachusetts. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 16 May 1944. She was sold as a hulk on 24 January 1945 through the Maritime Commission's War Shipping Administration. Purchased by friends of MacMillan, the battered schooner was refitted once again for Arctic exploration. Post War In 1959, Admiral MacMillan (who was promoted to rear admiral by a special act of Congress in 1954) sailed the vessel to Mystic Seaport, in Mystic, Connecticut, and turned it over to them for display. Little was done with the ship, and the seaport removed (and broke) its masts and left it in a state of neglect. In 1967, at MacMillan's urging, the Schooner Bowdoin Association, Inc. spearheaded by Dr. Edward Morse (the last surviving member of Admiral MacMillan's arctic voyages) was formed including friends of the admiral's, former crew members and others interested in saving the ship. Mystic Seaport relinquished the schooner to the Association, which leased her to Captain Jim Sharp of Camden, Maine. Sharp restored the schooner to operating condition and sailed her to Provincetown, Massachusetts, in 1969 on a sentimental journey to MacMillan's home, where the admiral, in his 90s, saw Bowdoin sail again one last time. Jim Sharp had restored what he could on Bowdoin for $25,000, using her as a wharf side museum in Camden, Maine and sailing her on charters. In the mid-1970s, though, Coast Guard requirements for passenger carrying, which would have called for rebuilding the schooner and destroying her historic character, forced Sharp to return Bowdoin to the Schooner Bowdoin Association. Used for sail training and leased by the Association to various groups, Bowdoin has persevered since then. A major restoration effort at the Maine Maritime Museum between1980-1984 brought the schooner back to excellent condition. The work was supervised by Jim Stevens, owner of the Goudy-Stevens Yard in East Boothbay, formerly Hodgdon Brothers, who first built Bowdoin in 1921. Bowdoin was declared the official sailing vessel of the state of Maine in 1986. In 1989 Bowdoin was designated a National Historic Landmark in recognition for her significant role in Arctic exploration. The restored schooner sailed in OpSail '86 in New York harbor in the parade of ships that celebrated the Statue of Liberty's restoration. In 1987-1988 she was leased to Outward Bound, Inc., an educational organization, and in 1988 was turned over to the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, Maine on a two-year lease with an option to buy. In 1990 Bowdoin sailed to Labrador, which was her first voyage to the North since the 1950s. In 1991 she carried students for the first time, traveling 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle to Disko Island, Greenland. Since that voyage in 1991 she has generally remained in the area of the maritime provinces of Canada with visits to St. Pierre and Miquelon as well as Newfoundland and Labrador. The exception was in 1994, when she sailed 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle to Umanaq, Greenland. Between June and August 2014, Bowdoin was fitted with a new laminated mast after the previous mast was found to be "compromised". On August 15, 2014, Bowdoin set sail for Nova Scotia, with Eric Jergenson in command. BOWDOIN'S NEW CAPTAIN: EMMA HATHAWAY Master and educator, Emma Hathaway, has accepted the position of Bowdoin Captain at Maine Maritime Academy. Hathaway has had ties to midcoast Maine since she was a teen. She fell in love with sailing at the age of14 while on a three-day sail out of Rockport on the schooner Timberwind. For the next two summers, she worked on the vessel as an assistant cook, and over the following 15 years, she would serve as a crew member on the Pride of Baltimore II, Spirit of Massachusetts and Niagara. More recently, Hathaway captained the Seaward out of San Francisco Bay and the Unicorn, sailing from Connecticut through the Saint Lawrence Seaway to the Great Lakes; she has worked as a trainer, mentor and teacher on ocean classroom vessels (Seaward, Harvey Gamage, and Lynx); and has taught US Sailing curriculum at the Olympic Circle Sailing Club in San Francisco Bay. Between 2013 and 2015, she was captain of Makani Olu, a 96-foot, three-masted staysail schooner, the centerpiece of the Kailana Program, an ocean-oriented experiential treatment and education program based in the Hawaiian Islands. "I am very excited to be part of the next phase of Bowdoin's sail training history," said Hathaway. "This is the perfect job for me, combining education with sailing."