Manuel Swartz, the well-known boat builder, near Steamboat Wharf, has just built for Capt.
After 27 years of building the wooden boats of other men's dreams, Nathaniel Benjamin, 60, built a boat for himself.
They christened her Charlotte under parted skies on Saturday afternoon. Hundreds of onlookers spilled onto the beach, down to the end of the dock and up to a rooftop of the boat yard. The potluck was plentiful and the beer flowed from a rowboat packed with ice. Boat launchings mean big parties at Gannon & Benjamin and this was no exception.
Vineyard Haven harbor was lit up on Saturday evening by a fully
involved boat fire. Tisbury firemen and harbor masters from two towns
responded to a blaze aboard a 30-foot Catalina sailboat called Tippy
Canoe, owned by Tyler Weggel of Port Washington, N.Y.
There were no injuries. The vessel, a total loss, now lies partially
submerged, a black shell, in shallow water at the foot of Grove street.
CROTON-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. - The Mabel made it.
They pulled away from the Coastwise Packet Wharf in Vineyard Haven on Friday, June 13, their oars waggling a bit uncertainly in the air and in the water. Seven days later - late on Friday afternoon - they put the bow of their boat on the shore of a cove some 30 miles north of Manhattan and dropped themselves a bit unsteadily onto hard sand shaded by weeping willows at a park on the Hudson River.
Manning the front lines of the Island economy, Vineyard harbor
masters often see business trends before merchants do. As summer draws
to an end, four of the five Island harbor masters told the Gazette that
a season typically busy in some regards was even busier than normal in
others.
On the Vineyard Haven waterfront you can see, smell and hear the bustle of activity. The town's boatyards are all party to boat building and launching. Anyone who walks the shores of the town will discover a wide variety of vessels undergoing extensive work. It was a busy winter and there is evidence everywhere.
Maciel Marine, Martha's Vineyard Shipyard and Gannon and Benjamin boatyards are witness to a resurgence in interest in Island built and restored vessels.
