Thank you to all the Schooner Captains and Crews for providing a glorious 40th Annual Schooner Fest for us all to enjoy!
Schooner Strombus – Parade of Sail
Schooners Adventure and Strombus
Scene from last night’s Schooner Challenge –
Schooner Strombus, restored by local shipwright Geoff Deckebach, and the majestic Schooner Adventure
I love trying to capture friend’s boats during the Parade of Sail. Here’s our neighbor’s Geoff and Mandy’s beautiful Schooner Strombus that they built and launched back in 2017, and the sweetest crew of East Gloucester friends!
The Schooner Strombus won the 2023 Betty Ramsey Award in the Marconi Rigged Class!
Strombus Schooner Launch Party, from July 2017-
A new schooner was added to Gloucester’s growing fleet. The schooner was launched today at 11am from the Rocky Neck Marine Railways. Strombus, built by Geoff Deckebach, with help from his wife Mandy, was twelve years in the making. They began gutting and restoring the boat all those many years ago when work and raising a family slowed progress. About a year ago, Geoff decided to turn his full attention to the restoration. The schooner is simply beautiful. More work will continue on the interior and it will be ready enough to motor along in this year’s upcoming Schooner Festival.
The beautiful wooden ice sail boats that Andy Lee is generously sharing with the neighborhood kids are his family’s boats. Andy grew up ice sailing on Chebacco Lake with his Dad.
Michelle Barton pointed out that there aren’t too many places in the area where the ice and wind are just right for ice sailing, and Niles Pond happens to be one of those unique places. Andy shares they were sailing at 40mph today!
Andy Lee (from Lee Tree) and Geoff are restoring the ice boats at Geoff’s woodworking studio and I think they are planning to build more!
Andy (left) and Geoff (right).