The legendary former owner of the topsail schooner Shenandoah will receive the prestigious Creative Living Award for 2020-2021, the Martha’s Vineyard Community Foundation announced Wednesday.
Last Thursday night, Capt. Bob Douglas was honored by Tall Ships America, the largest tall ship education programmer in the world, for his “lifetime of achievement under sail.”
Fifty-six years after sailing into the Vineyard Haven harbor for the first time, Shenandoah — the one-of-a-kind, square-rigged topsail schooner — is going to have new owners. Capt Robert Douglas will donate the vessel.
A convivial crowd filled the Black Dog Tavern Wednesday night for the first in this season’s Sail Martha’s Vineyard dinner lectures. Capt. Bob Douglas was the man at the microphone.
Growing up in western Massachusetts, I didn’t have much exposure to the sea, or to seafarers. It was by freak chance that I met my first sea captain.
The U.S. Coast Guard investigated a mishap in which a fishing boat struck the yawl boat of the schooner Shenandoah Wednesday. The yawl boat, hanging from davits off the stern of the Black Dog ship, was destroyed; the two larger vessels were unharmed.
This week concludes Capt. Robert Douglas’ 50th summer skippering the Shenandoah, what amounts to the longest-running relationship between a captain and his boat he’s ever heard of.
“To my knowledge, no one has ever been tied up to the same boat, without interruption for 50 years,” he said this week on the porch outside his office in Vineyard Haven.
