Here you see Grace Bailey departing Great Cove on Sunday morning as much younger sailboats prepare to do the same. The vessels overnighted in the Cove after the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta.
Grace is a 118-foot schooner out of Camden. She was built in 1882 for Edwin Bailey, who named her after his daughter. She was renamed Mattie in 1906 after being rebuilt then. In 1990, she was fully restored and rechristened with her original name.
As with most of her kind, Grace has two “bald” masts (devoid of added top masts) and a low-slung hull that sheers up to a long sharp bow. She is flat-bottomed to allow her to access shallow waters and be beached to off-load cargo without needing a pier. Nonetheless, she has a retractable keel (“centerboard”) that can be inserted through her hull for serious sailing. And, sailing is all she is capable of on her own -- Grace has no internal engine. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 6, 2023.)