Here you see a sight that we haven’t seen for a while. It’s the distinctive cutter “Norna” in Great Cove Monday. Her two-year Atlantic Ocean circumnavigation was featured in the book Accidental Sailor Girl by Kourtney Patterson (2014, Paper Sailor, Inc.). She’s had quite a history.
“Norna” was built and launched in Denmark in 1988 and sailed to St. Augustine, Florida, where she was blown apart in a propane explosion, according to the reports. She was bought for $10.00 and rebuilt over a 10-year period before sailing the high seas again for several years. One 2021 report indicated that she was on-the-hard in Maine and up for sale and she appears to have a Maine registration number on her bow. It’s good to see her sailing again.
Information from the technical reports: “Norna” is 38’ long on deck with a 12.5’ beam (widest part). She’s got quite a combination of woods. Her lapstrake (overlapping planked) hull is larch on oak with copper rivets and Monel (nickel-and copper-based) fastenings. Her mast is built from Sitka Spruce, her bowsprit and gaff boom from larch, and the boom and yard from Douglas fir. She sails mostly with a gaff-rigged mainsail and two jibs, but has two rectangular sails that can be rigged from her yardarm, as well. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 21, 2023)