Author: Marty Luster

In 1973, the shipyard of Harvey F. Gamage, located on the banks of the Damariscotta River in South Bristol, Maine, sent a brand new schooner down the ways to the sea. Her name wasHarvey Gamage. Her lines were reminiscent of the coasting schooners, but her mission was very different.

For twenty years Harvey Gamage was owned and operated by Captain Eben Whitcomb. She sailed the waters of the Northwest Atlantic and Caribbean Sea with high school and college students, adventurers, naturalists, and many vacationers. Some of the longest running and most successful sail training programs in the U.S. originated in Gamage. It would be hard to count the number of people who have been introduced to a life at sea while aboard her. Many of those sailors have gone on to careers in marine fields and/or have become professional mariners.

In December of 1993, Harvey Gamage was purchased by a non-profit educational organization in Bath, Maine that evolved into the Ocean Classroom Foundation (OCF) of today. Harvey Gamage is now devoted exclusively to sea education programming, while still following her traditional route between New England and the Caribbean.