Published by Joey Ciaramitaro
The creator of goodmorninggloucester.org Lover of all things Gloucester and Cape Ann. GMG where we bring you the very best our town has to offer because we love to share all the great news and believe that by promoting others in our community everyone wins.
View all posts by Joey Ciaramitaro
Yes, Great to see one of these Rockport Harbor photos of the 1960’s hat isn’t backwards. It makes it easier to identify the boats. My memory isn’t that great but I will take a stab at a couple of these boats and if anyone knows better or remembers anything from my start on this, please pipe in. The green boat on the right is the Bosun Bird, an absolutely stunning sloop that I was so in love with when I was a girl growing up at the Sandy Bay Yacht Club. The schooner right in the middle is the Joncien and she was as graceful and gorgeous as any ship could be. The double ender in front of the Joncien was the Sea Scout boat. I can’t remember the name of it but I believe it may still be around and in Lobster Cove. It was rumored that it could completely turn over and right itself. The white boat in front of the double ender was a Choy Lee owned by Avery Sawyer and was a sweet thing….with a sheer to die for and bright work that was gorgeous….I was also in love with this boat and I can’t believe I can’t remember the name….someone help me….. I always wanted to go on it and I loved the Sawyers who owned it…I even named my daughter Avery because I adored them so much. The sawyers lived on High St. in Rockport. Between the double ender and the Joncein you can see a small white sloop and that is one of a fleet of “I” or eye boats which had a curved mast at the top and an amazing amount of sail area which made it really fun to sail. Jackie Alexander used to have one years ago in Smith’s cove but now since they were wooden boats I do not believe there are any I boats still around. When I was a kid in Rockport there were 3-4 of them. In a couple of the backwards pictures I saw my own red turnabout moored in the lee of Bearskin Neck which my father bought for me in Rowley on my 10th birthday which was in 1963. Thats all I can say for now and it is bothering me that I can’t identify every boat because there was a time when I could. My grandparents, Bill & Melissa Smith, had a restaurant on Rockport Harbor (The Blacksmith Shop) and I grew up sailing, rowing, and hanging out in that harbor.
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It’s an I-boat, not eye-boat. My father was a member of Sandy Bay Yacht Club before WW-II. He owned and raced Sea Dog.
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Great set of pictures.
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You can see the view today by going to the Sandy Bay Yacht Club webcam.
I learned to sail there in the mid ’60s. We had a Turnabout too.
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The big white sailboat in the foreground was an annual visitor from Larchmont, NY called “Lodestar.” The double-ender that Melissa notes above had a rather radical un-stayed cat-ketch rig, and I think she was called “Itatae” At the very mouth of the harbor is “Jolly Buccaneer,” the Swanson family’s summer home. I was a water rat in my youth around Rockport, where I later raced a Firefly. I sailed on “Joncien” and “The Jolly Buck” many times. Great memories!
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