Beneath gray skies flickering with heat lighting, Lark, a 45-foot Alden gaff cutter, was relaunched from the Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway in Vineyard Haven Thursday afternoon.
Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway opened its doors Saturday for some shop talk, giving experienced boatbuilders and curious neighbors a glimpse of the historic boatyard.
Nat Benjamin opened the Sail MV winter lecture series, talking about his 2014 voyage to Haiti aboard his schooner Charlotte to deliver supplies and donations to an orphanage on Ile a Vache, a small island off Haiti.
The Gannon and Benjamin boatyard on the Vineyard Haven harbor was the scene of a festive launch Monday for a new design created by the venerable wooden boat yard. The Sheldrake is a gaff sloop daysailer and Nat Benjamin’s 85th original design.
Nat Benjamin’s Juno and Ross Gannon’s Eleda placed first in their class at the Caribbean regatta held over the weekend. Races concluded Monday. Eleda also won the Arne Frisell Prize for greatest attention to structural integrity and safety.
Winter is the ideal season when wood shavings fly, drills and sanders sing and Vineyard boat builders assemble and repair boats.
At one of the Island’s smallest boat shops, Rick Brown of Far Cry Boats in Vineyard Haven is working on two. Space is a premium inside his 15 by 36-foot workshop with limited heat. His fragrant shop is at Maciel Marine, next door to John Thayer’s cabinet shop, and has one of the best views of Lagoon Pond. The air smells of fresh-cut oak.
