|
|
|
| Sun, Nov. 08 - - Mobile - RSS | |
|
|
Colonial Beach now schooner's new port
Schooner finds a homeport at Colonial Beach for its floating-classroom program and charters
Date published: 6/23/2006
• Story by RUSTY DENNEN
FROM SHORE, the schooner Phoenix looks like a ghost from the past, her two masts reaching into a robin-egg blue sky, and freshly painted white hull unlike any other boat floating nearby. The 71-foot sailboat, which will become a floating classroom and charter venue for paying clients beginning this summer and fall, rests serenely against a pier at Colonial Beach Yacht Center. Capt. Dennis Watson and First Mate Kurt Spitzner have been getting her ready this week for a two-day, 185-mile sail to Beaufort, N.C., for America's Sail, an international tall ships gathering. They will depart Sunday and expect to return July 5. "Every day there's something to do" to keep up a boat of this size, says Watson, who grew up on New York's Long Island and recently moved his boat and business to the Potomac River town. He and his wife, Bette Ann, live in Spotsylvania County. Once a year, Phoenix's steel hull has to be chipped and painted--stem to stern. There are lines, mechanical and electric equipment to be maintained, supplies to buy and stow. "You're always touching up something," he said. With its steel hull, Phoenix handles differently than wooden vessels. "It's a heavy boat. In light winds, it doesn't go," Watson says. But it's a different story when the wind blows. "I've had it out in 40 knots and when most boats are going home, this boat comes into its own." Phoenix is a replica of a 1900s coastal schooner, launched on Long Island's Patchogue boat yard in 1984. It has four sails, draws 6 feet of water and has an inboard diesel engine. Its main mast is 60 feet high and it's 16 feet wide. Phoenix ran cargo between Port Jefferson, N.Y., and Bridgeport, Conn., then it started carrying passengers. The boat is the only model of its kind with a pilot house. And it has an unusual rounded, rather than square, stern. The term "schooner" comes from the Scottish word "scun," meaning to skip a flat stone across water. Schooners have two or more masts, with a distinctive taller main mast.
Date published: 6/23/2006
|
 |
|||
|
|||
