Blue Moon and 2023 Calendar Going . . .

I’ll get to the blue moon reference in a moment, but first . . .

Need one or more calendars for 2023?  I’ve approached the project differently this year:  the calendars are ready, you can preview, you can order here, and they’ll come directly to you.  That’s good for me because it frees me from tedious packaging and mailing, leaving time to be out taking photos.  Watching sixth boro traffic, traveling among traffic, taking photos of traffic, and researching traffic . . . are all preferable to me, as you know.  Case in point . . . blue moon, which is actually a sea story with the usual losses and gains, some photos I took yesterday.

Don’t the lines look somewhat Chesapeake…ish, a bit of bugeye in her lines?

Yesterday morning she crossed the Upper Bay, heading south late in November all under sail.  

Blue moon and today’s post photos have a tighter connection than blue moon and my 2023 marine calendar.  Here’s the connection:  the “three-sail bateau” aka ketch here is called Blue Moon.  The 69′ aluminum-hulled sailboat was built in the late 1980s as a cargo schooner, transporting tropical hardwoods.  Later she was owned by a co-founder of Crocs shoes. Now she’s a Nantucket-based excursion vessel whose owner makes an interesting sea story himself with a maritime Covid love story thrown into the mix.  Teased enough?  Find the details here.    There are even references to King’s Point USMMA, color blindness, and lobstering in the story.

She was not on AIS yesterday morning, so I needed to do a bit of research to identify her, and researching is another time-consuming task I enjoy.  In a past life I may have been an intelligence analyst.  Puzzling things out certainly beats waiting on line at my local USPS.

Here’s more on the boat.  It was designed by Thomas E. Colvin, designer of Rosemary Ruth and Le Papillon and built by Reuel Parker. 

All photos yesterday, WVD.  Fair winds, Blue Moon.  

Repeating myself here:  my 2023 calendars are available here.  At that link, you can preview all the pages;  no sailing vessels are included despite Blue Moon‘s, going south, appearance in this post.  The calendars could be going out into the USPS system tomorrow. 

If you want something customized, I can do that too.   

 

S. S. S. Lotus

 I took these photos back in early August 2019 in the village where I learned to swim . . . Sodus Point.   When I asked a few people about it, I heard that it was a wreck, it was done  . . .  etc. 

The small schooner clearly had been loved at one time.

Last week I learned the good news that the lift had loaded it onto a trailer to take it to a yard for  . . .

restoration!  So I finally googled it, which I’d not thought to do before, and lo and behold . . . it has pedigree!  It was designed by William H. Hand, and launched in Rocky River OH in 1918.  The S. S. S. means “Sea Scout Ship.”  Thirty years ago, it had been trucked to Rivendell Marine, in Monument Beach MA in 1991. 

All photos, WVD, and story to be continued.

Photo and discussion below can be found on FB, John Kucko Digital . . .  December 21, 2020.  By the way, John Kucko is a legend up in western and central NYS. Tugboat in the background is Donald Sea.

Since this post features a sailing post, let me share what I’ve been watching, based on a suggestion of a reader from South Africa.

First a trip from the Falklands to Capetown on an impressive boat this past summer.

Then I learned the name of the boat and the concept developer, Skip Novak.  Here‘s more Skip Novak.

Then I learned of his latest project . . . 2020 into 2021, appropriate for these days.

Thx, Colin.  This is good winter fare.