Friday, April 18, 2008
Bookworm Turns Boatswain
A Maine Sailing Odyssey Begins
A Maine Sailing Odyssey Begins
Ben McCanna
Ben McCanna: Bookworm to Boatswain in 6 months.
(page 1 of 2)
This summer I'm going on twelve windjammer cruises along the coast of Maine. How did I get so lucky? It's kind of a long story.
Four years ago, I was an unemployed New Yorker. The publishing company I worked for had been purchased by a rival, and I was laid off. When I cleaned out my desk, I promised myself that unemployment would be an adventure; I'd emerge from the experience a better man. My plan was simple: I'd keep a close eye on the job boards, but I'd also run five miles a day, write 2,000 words of fiction every morning, and reconnect with my dog — the poor mutt who'd spent most of her days shuttered in our studio apartment like a latchkey kid.
The unemployment got off to a good start, but within two weeks my resolve had evaporated like a New Year's resolution. My writing languished, and the dog and I fought for space during long hours on the couch. Before long, I was devoting entire days to scouring the job boards, clicking the browser's refresh button with the obsessive regularity of a lab pigeon.
Five months later, the endless clicking paid off. I answered an ad for a book editor in Rockport, and soon packed my belongings for Vacationland.
In my new job, I edited how-to books on boating. My nautical experience up to that point included canoes, a handful of ferry rides, and little else, but my new employers were willing to take a chance on a noob like me. I was learning quickly — seemingly by osmosis. By editing nautical books, I could soon name every part of a sailboat and I'd learned coastal navigation — without ever leaving the dock. My head was swimming in the arcane lexicon of the sea. It was interesting, but largely useless to me at the time.
Midcoast Maine was a welcome change from city life, but it wasn't easy. My wife and I had never been social butterflies, but our first summer in Maine was nonetheless lonely. The demographics here seemed eerie. Camden, for instance, was almost like the village in Temple of Doom. Instead of finding a town with no children, however, we stumbled into a community nearly devoid of twenty- and thirtysomethings. Camden may have been full of entitled boomers and despondent teens, but the Gen-Xers and -Yers were largely absent, as if they'd been driven out of city limits by pitchfork-wielding mobs.
As it turned out, the Gen-X/-Yers were simply schooner bums; they spent their summers crewing the windjammers on Penobscot Bay. When autumn rolled around and the boats were winterized, the schooner bums came ashore, and the community was suddenly bustling with people our age.
Throughout that winter and spring I'd see the schooner bums around town and at parties. I think I became a bit of a curiosity to them: I was the new kid who knew all about sailing, but had never raised a sail. I was a poseur of the highest order, and, in some strange way, that superlative earned me a measure of respect.
Suddenly, in these settings, my book knowledge was useful. Schooner bums, as a rule, talk solely about boats. They are passionate about sailing, about wooden boats, about the wind and waves, and their passion is infectious. Although I couldn't fully relate to the stories I was hearing, I could at least understand the vocabulary. The schooner bums, knowing this about me, didn't have to alter their conversations to be inclusionary — like some host family that talks of only the weather to their foreign-exchange student. The schooner bums' stories of life on the Bay intrigued me, and I pestered them with questions whenever I could.
Four years ago, I was an unemployed New Yorker. The publishing company I worked for had been purchased by a rival, and I was laid off. When I cleaned out my desk, I promised myself that unemployment would be an adventure; I'd emerge from the experience a better man. My plan was simple: I'd keep a close eye on the job boards, but I'd also run five miles a day, write 2,000 words of fiction every morning, and reconnect with my dog — the poor mutt who'd spent most of her days shuttered in our studio apartment like a latchkey kid.
The unemployment got off to a good start, but within two weeks my resolve had evaporated like a New Year's resolution. My writing languished, and the dog and I fought for space during long hours on the couch. Before long, I was devoting entire days to scouring the job boards, clicking the browser's refresh button with the obsessive regularity of a lab pigeon.
Five months later, the endless clicking paid off. I answered an ad for a book editor in Rockport, and soon packed my belongings for Vacationland.
In my new job, I edited how-to books on boating. My nautical experience up to that point included canoes, a handful of ferry rides, and little else, but my new employers were willing to take a chance on a noob like me. I was learning quickly — seemingly by osmosis. By editing nautical books, I could soon name every part of a sailboat and I'd learned coastal navigation — without ever leaving the dock. My head was swimming in the arcane lexicon of the sea. It was interesting, but largely useless to me at the time.
Midcoast Maine was a welcome change from city life, but it wasn't easy. My wife and I had never been social butterflies, but our first summer in Maine was nonetheless lonely. The demographics here seemed eerie. Camden, for instance, was almost like the village in Temple of Doom. Instead of finding a town with no children, however, we stumbled into a community nearly devoid of twenty- and thirtysomethings. Camden may have been full of entitled boomers and despondent teens, but the Gen-Xers and -Yers were largely absent, as if they'd been driven out of city limits by pitchfork-wielding mobs.
As it turned out, the Gen-X/-Yers were simply schooner bums; they spent their summers crewing the windjammers on Penobscot Bay. When autumn rolled around and the boats were winterized, the schooner bums came ashore, and the community was suddenly bustling with people our age.
Throughout that winter and spring I'd see the schooner bums around town and at parties. I think I became a bit of a curiosity to them: I was the new kid who knew all about sailing, but had never raised a sail. I was a poseur of the highest order, and, in some strange way, that superlative earned me a measure of respect.
Suddenly, in these settings, my book knowledge was useful. Schooner bums, as a rule, talk solely about boats. They are passionate about sailing, about wooden boats, about the wind and waves, and their passion is infectious. Although I couldn't fully relate to the stories I was hearing, I could at least understand the vocabulary. The schooner bums, knowing this about me, didn't have to alter their conversations to be inclusionary — like some host family that talks of only the weather to their foreign-exchange student. The schooner bums' stories of life on the Bay intrigued me, and I pestered them with questions whenever I could.
Posted on Friday, April 18, 2008 in Permalink
Views expressed in this blog belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect either Down East's editorial stance or the views of Down East Enterprise. We ask that comments be civil; anyone who refuses to self edit runs the risk of being banned from commenting on Down East.com content.
Reader Comments:
Your best experiences will be aboard the American Eagle and the Angelique. Those captains have been in the business since dirt and know what they're about.