Well, there we were, through the canal, the Picton Castle moored in hot steamy Balboa on the Pacific side of the Isthmus of Panama getting ready to shove off into the broad South Pacific Ocean, working hard to get provisioned and stowed, sailing time bearing down on us – and we had to get this new main sail finished for the legendary Sloop Mermaid and her Skipper of long renown, John Smith. The Mermaid is a 50’ wooden working sloop built in Carriacou without an engine in the 1960’s. So many like her were built for trading in the Grenadines, fishing and maybe once in a while a leetle bit of smuggling of rum, whiskey and cigarettes from St Barts before that island blew up and became a jet-set destination. Jutting bowsprit and a raking mast she is little different than the small pyrate sloops that once did their deeds o’swashbuckling in the isles of the Caribbees…
In Anguilla, with Captain Kevin Gray’s masterful help and encouragement, we got the sail cloth landed in from Doyles in Barbados. Then we immediately laid out and cut the sail and seamed it up on our big machine at Roy’s Place on the beach at Sandy Ground– we did the second layout there too right away in order to get the final dimensions and tableings – on the way to Bonaire, even though we did not know we were going to Bonaire, we sewed up the tableings and corner patches with our small machine – in Bonaire, with a nice clean dock available we got the big machine out and sewed on all the other patches, reef bands and the like – on the way to Panama the gang sewed in grommets by hand furiously even working on night watch on the quarter deck. Now we had to rope it and stick on the cringles. As it happens we had an equally nice large cement floating dock at Isla Flamenco complete with awning and light to work with. So Rebecca, Jo, Brad, Ollie, Nadia, Nadja and others got to it. And got done in time to toss it on a small hop plane with Ollie and WT to get it to the Mermaid at Boca Del Toro and bent on to see what it looked like. We think it will be a strong sail. Maybe a few too many barefoot prints on it, but that adds to the charm, John is a barefoot kind of guy, Mermaid is a barefoot kind of vessel…
Those who worked on this sail for the Mighty Mermaid are…
Rebecca Libby
Johanne Aase
Krista Watson
Julie Vermeer
Siri Botnen
Alex Moore
Nadja Nitschke
Meredith McKinnon
Brad Woodworth
Dan Rutherford
Logan Livingston
Paula Washington
Shawn Anderson
Dave Farrall
Leonard Weaver
Jimmy Gordon
Adrienne Bode
Georgie Lockwood
Kate Addison
Joani Cain
Clark Munro
Lauren Berdow
Nadia Vassos
Christian Barmettler
Maggie Ostler
Katelinn Shaw
Sophie Martel
Cheri Davidson
Jan Caselli
Davey Laing
Mike Weiss
Meredith Spratt
Joanna Clark
Via Christensen
Niko Griffes
Tammy Sharp
Tiina Randoja
Ollie Campbell
WT Simmons
D. Moreland
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