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Tuesday, August 12, 2008
I regret to report that the Schooner Maggie B was destroyed last night in a fire at Covey Island Boat Works. She is a total loss. She was to be re-launched next Monday.
Pictures at right.
Growing up, my kids’ (Alexandra and Alden) favorite book was The Maggie B by Irene Haas. In it, Margaret Barnstable wishes on a star:
“North Star, star of the sea, I wish for a ship Named after me, to sail for a day Alone and free, with someone nice for company.”
I named the Maggie B after the book, which my wife Margo and I read to the kids maybe 1000 times, and I hope to sail for more than a day, maybe even for a trip around the world, with good friends for company.
We’ve got lots of good ideas but we’re still learning. We hope that this site will help us keep in contact with all our other communities, gain more good ideas, and make new friends.
—Frank Blair
Friday, August 15, 2008 – I went to see the Covey Island yard on Thursday. It was still smoking. Some photos are up on the web site. What is more than a total loss? Even the propeller melted.
The current belief is that the fire started in the back of the shop, possibly by a retractable extension cord. The fire got so hot that the volunteer firemen were almost unable to pull out the fire trucks from the fire house 150 feet away.
The loss of the Schooner Maggie B is awful for me and all those who sailed on her and loved her. The loss of Covey Island Boatyard is even harder. Thirty years of plans, business records, and specialty tools. Those who worked there lost all their gear.
Bad news travels fast. People have written in from all over the world.
Chart Us »
In the old days, Navy ships made a great ritual about finding the ship’s position at Noon, which was the start of the Naval Day. We hope, given connection challenges, to update our Latitude and Longitude each day and display a Google map and satellite photo of locations for the current leg of our journey.
On Deck »
December 2007 The advantages of the Maggie B’s design are made obvious in this article by Annie Hill in the December 2007 issue of Yachting World. We met Annie Hill while anchored in New Zealand. You can Read the pdf here, complete with photographs of the crew and the Maggie B.
Building Maggie B »
The Maggie B was a 62-foot fusion schooner — a fusion between the best of traditional sailing and modern technology. Deck prisms and LEDs; a gaff schooner with graphite composite spars; soft Spectra rigging and cast bronze deadeyes.
The Maggie B was conceived in Chicago, designed in England, and built in Nova Scotia with components from the US, Great Britain, Canada, Denmark, Italy, France, Japan, Thailand, Holland, Portugal and many more countries.
I gave Nigel Irens the challenge of designing a fast, sea kindly, modern world cruising schooner. Covey Island had the challenge of building his design as “not a yacht, but not a workboat — efficient, smart, low maintenance, and experienced”. I think that both got it right.
Stick with us and we all will see how it turns out.
Sunday, November 4th, 2007 » This morning brought a new surprise. On his watch, Robert collected about a dozen inch long pea green round tubes, and asked me what they might be. My first thought was some strange sort of chewing gum pieces. On inspection they proved to be the inner rollers of one of our Lewmar main sheet blocks, which was spitting them out. We rigged a replacement block and were able to replace all the rollers in the original. Situation solved? Nope. Two other similar Lewmar blocks proved to have far less than their full compliment of rollers. Hopefully Lewmar will sell us some replacements and we can get them to Chile with our crew change at Puerto Montt.
HOW TO SEND US SNAILMAIL
Frank Blair
Captain, Schooner Maggie B
Schooner Maggie B
Covey Island Boatworks
2 River Road
Petite Riviere, Nova Scotia
B0J 2P0 Canada
Tel.: 902-688-2843
Tel/Fax: 902-688-2591