Old and new, Wind Horse and the Dashews

For many years I have admired the work of Steve and Linda Dashew and the style of narrow slippery sailing craft that they pursued. After reaching a "certain age" they moved from sail to a powerboat and designed a very unique craft Wind Horse.  It is this very attitude of narrow long easily driven hulls that inspired me when I purchased Pandora.  In a day where it seems that it's more about what's down below and focused on "how many can it sleep?" to me it's more about performance and sea keeping ability, not to forget speed.

Having read much about the Dashew's work over the years, imagine how thrilled I was when we arrived in Camden earlier this week to see Wind Horse anchored in the harbor.   On Thursday morning I dropped by to say hello and had a nice chat with Linda Dashew who was sitting out on deck enjoying the view of the Camden Hills.

Interestingly, Steve keeps a blog and many of his photos from Camden two days ago are similar to the ones that I took.  His blog is well worth looking at.   Here's his post on Camden.  Funny, he didn't take a photo of Pandora.  No wait, his post was from the day prior to our arrival.  Yea, that's the ticket as he would have certainly included Pandora had he seen her.

Wind Horse is known for her long narrow slippery hull.   This boat looks like it is designed to take anything, and it is.  If you check older posts you will see that they were in Arctic waters not long ago.   I guess that they have a good heater.   This boat is just so impressive.  Check out this tour of her.  It really shows what she is made of.   She's not a lot wider than Pandora and yet nearly twice as long.    This link to their site is a video about a cruise near Greenland that they took.  There are lots of other videos there worth viewing.

You can really see just how narrow she is.  No wonder she knifes through the waves.

Speaking of narrow, this was also the style way back when this Victorian era steam yacht was launched.  So different and yet the same.  What a contrast to see them both anchored together in the same harbor.

What an amazing sight with all that varnish.  

And, a sweet clipper bow.  Certainly different than today's focus on interior accommodations.   However, I'll bet that she is lovely down below.

Speaking of long and narrow, as that's the theme of the moment.  Here's a very modern Aegis Battle Ship from Bath Iron Works here in Maine visiting Rockland for the annual lobster festival.  The color is a lot like Wind Horse and I'll bet that she's plenty good in rough seas.  And yes, she sleeps plenty, narrow hull and all.

I posted shots of Bystander last week but can't resist a few more of her on dock in the inner harbor in Camden.   What a classic she is even though she was built in 2004.  I am told that between her and the
J class sailing yacht Velsheda the combined crew is in the neighborhood of 25.  Running these two boats is like running a corporation.  Actually the combined budgets might be like a small city.  No, make that a large city.  It's nice to know that even the big guys have technical difficulties and Bystander was visiting because of generator problems.  Parked on the dock beside her was a portable generator half the size of a tractor trailer to supply power to her while they worked on her own power plant. No yellow shore power cord would work here.

She is styled like a classic ship from early last century.  Wonderfully done.

I should also show these few shots of our brief visit to Stonington for lunch last weekend.  What a lovely place to visit.

It's mostly a fishing village but there are some very nice places to have lunch such as this deck on the water where we stopped.  Good food.  We admire this sort of shade treatment and would enjoy having such an arrangement on our deck at home.

It's hard to imagine a more scenic side yard on a sunny August afternoon.  

Now this is a place that I could sit down and enjoy a nice gin and tonic.   

It's Saturday and we are at the the Seven Seas Cruising Association (SSCA) rendezvous and I am very much looking forward to meeting lots of new people sharing the cruising lifestyle and seeing old friends.   I also am hopeful that we will get a tour of Wind Horse as Linda Dashew said that they will be here.  Should be a great weekend.

The sky here is just amazing.  Hard to imagine seeing clouds like this "for real".  Put these in a painting and they would say that they looked fake.