J & E Riggin - sailing on a historic schooner off the northeast coast of Maine.

Last weekend we were priveledged enough to be able to sail on the historic schooner J & E Riggin. From an excerpt from Under Sail, The Dredgeboats of Delaware Bay by Donald H. Rolfs.

“Undoubtedly, the most legendary schooner that ever sailed the bay was the J.&E. Riggin. This dredgeboat was 76 feet [accurate length is 89 feet], 4 inches long with a 22 foot, 3 inch beam. The J.&E. was polish rigged and carried 4,000 square feet of canvas. Captain Ed Riggin involuntarily glows from stem to stern as he relates the exploits of the grand old boat. “My gosh,” he said, “it was almost as if sea was a live creature a – risin’ up out o’ the sea, runnin’ before the wind, a-goin’ wing and wing. I would have to climb up on top of the wheel box to see where I was goin’. You know, she was never beat in a race. Many of the ‘old gents’ thought they could take her but nobody ever did. Sunday afternoons they used to wait for us at the mouth of the river to give her a try, but there weren’t nobody could ever take her.”

All I can say is that we had on fantastic day out. There was history for the children and adults alike. There was involvement in hoisting sails and riggings, the kids became pirates and we even fired a cannon. The crew were wonderful, superb, top-notch, just the best! We ate, drank, sang, and of course, took lots of photos! I cannot recommend booking a cruise on the J & E Riggin enough! We hope we’ll cruise again next year.

The ship

The pirates

The crew

The cannon

The children

Proof of a day well spent!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 7:46 PM and is filed under Random Still Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.