Harold Burnham, a 14th-generation shipwright from Essex, Massachusetts, will discuss the construction of the pinky schooner Ardelle in a talk at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine. Burnham’s presentation will be illustrated with photographs by Dan Tobyne, author and photographer of Thoreau’s Maine Woods, published by Down East Books. The free event will be in the museum’s Stephen Phillips Memorial Library on Saturday, March 31, from 5-7 p.m.
Ardelle is an authentic wooden pinky schooner, completed in 2011 to run day trips and private charters out of Essex, Massachusetts. Pinkies – so-called for their distinctive, high pointed or “pinked” stern – were a common New England boat type used for commercial fishing in the 19th century. Burnham, whose family has run shipyards in Essex since 1819, designed Ardelle, using as a model the pinky Maine, built in 1845 by Ebenezer Burnham. Harold Burnham and his volunteer shipyard crew of friends and family built the 55-foot, 45-ton vessel using local woods from a nearby tree company as well as components salvaged from a replica of the pinky Maine built by the Apprenticeshop of Bath in the early 1980s.
Photographer Dan Tobyne, who is also known for the books Boston’s Emerald Necklace and Thoreau’s Cape Cod, documented every step of Ardelle‘s construction. Color prints of Tobyne’s photographs will be offered for sale during the event to benefit Windward Passage, a Castine-based organization that provides traditional sailing experiences and sail training to Maine teenagers.
Admission to “Building the Schooner Ardelle: An Evening with Shipwright Harold Burnham” is free, and refreshments will be served. Penobscot Marine Museum’s Stephen Phillips Memorial Library is at 11 Church Street in Searsport, Maine.
Maine’s first maritime museum, Penobscot Marine Museum is home to outstanding collections of marine art and artifacts, small craft, ship models and historic photography. More information is at www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org or call 207-548-2529.
For more information about Windward Passage, visit www.windward passage.org.
Photos of Shipwright to Speak on Pinky Schooner Building Project
