In Maine: A Bold Launching into the Past

By Hays Gorey

The past never seems to give up on the state of Maine. Or perhaps it is the other way around. The present, at any rate, remains at best an intruder there, particularly in the heavily wooded coastal areas, which have adjusted to the automobile but not to the six-lane highway. In Maine the sturdy frame houses off narrow winding roads plainly belong to the century past. The people grow their own vegetables, chop their own firewood, bottle their own pickles and paddle their own canoes.

Where better than Maine, then, for a man to launch a dream--and a wind-driven cargo schooner? If fuel costs are to force America to retreat from the technological revolution wrought by the internal combustion engine, the first step backward is shortest, and easiest, and most welcome where there has never really been a wholehearted step forward. So it was that on a bright, late-summer day, farmers, fishermen and their families--6,000 of them in all--flocked to the ramshackle Wallace Shipyards in Thomaston (pop. 2,500) to cheer "that Ackerman boy" as his new two-masted, gaff-rigged schooner slid down the ways and eased majestically into the clean waters of the St. George River, exactly as hundreds of schooners used to do before steamboats, trucks and trains put most of them out of business more than half a century ago.

The launching of the schooner John F. Leavitt was not a sentimental return to the past. It was an experiment to see if perchance the past has a future--and will work. In a sense "that Ackerman boy," who turns out to be Edward Arthur ("Ned") Ackerman, a bearded, moderately grouchy 36, is simply doing what most pragmatic Maine-landers are also doing these days: turning away from expensive fossil fuels as fast as they can. Wood is already stacked high against nearly every house, ready to be fed to wood-burning stoves and fireplaces this winter, when the temperature, as it always does, will drop to 20DEG below and the cost of heating oil will rise to 90-c- per gal., about twice as much as last year.

For three years Ackerman has worked in the Wallace Shipyards, helping build his 97-ft.-long schooner. Her hold can accommodate 150 tons of freight and haul it cheaply and cleanly along the New England coast, or south to Haiti, into the Caribbean, and back. As recently as the early 1900s, schooners carried most of New England's southbound ice, fish, lumber and granite, returning with molasses and coal. But not for 40 years has such a commercial vessel been built, and Ackerman intends to turn a profit with this one. "It better," he proclaims, "and it will." Like his vessel, Ackerman is a throwback. A fiercely independent Yankee out of Newmarket, N.H., with skilled hands and shoulders like a fullback's, he doesn't give a damn for anyone who doesn't give a damn for him.

The John F, Leavitt, red and white, constructed from the oak and pine of the Maine forest, is the fulfillment of Ackerman's dream, but he resents that description. The very word suggests impracticality, something Ackerman wants no part of. "Would it seem like a dream to you if you bought a new truck?" he asks. Is he the forerunner, the leader in something new, something that could become a trend? "Nah," he sneers in a New Hampshire twang. "If a lot more schooners are built, it will be because a lot of people independently came by the same conclusion I did." His conclusion: with fuel now responsible for 40% of the cost of running any engine-driven ship, and the price still rising, freight rates will force merchants to find a cheaper way to haul goods. "Some day," says Ackerman, "there may not be any more fuel-driven trucks or motor ships at any price. But wind is plentiful." Cargo sailboats used to make the run from Maine to South Carolina in as little as a week's time. But there is always tacking against the wind. All together, Ackerman hopes to average 100 miles per day.

The John F. Leavitt is named after a maritime writer whose book Wake of the Coasters first inspired Ackerman's notion that the era of the wooden sailing ship might again be at hand. Ackerman gave up the pursuit of a doctorate in Middle English, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman French at the University of Pennsylvania to build his ship. There is enough romance in the hard-nosed seaman that he sought out John Leavitt's widow, Virginia, and invited her to break the obligatory bottle of champagne over the ship's prow at the christening. She did, splashing it all over her face, dampening her snow white hair and proper navy blue dress. The crowd cheered. The Thomaston High School band thumped out a march. Members of the Newmarket militia fired a one-gun salute.

Once aboard, not even Ackerman could remain dour. Lovingly fingering one of the telephone polelike masts, which will carry 6,441 sq. ft. of sail, he allowed his eyes to drink in the full magnificence of the vessel. An understandable pride began to creep into his voice: "I'm personally responsible for every penny in this schooner. I've put everything I own into her. It's quite an investment. I've got to get it back." How much? "That's my secret." The Leavitt will use cotton sails, partly because they are cheaper, partly because they wear longer on a working ship. A set will probably cost $15,000. Her hull and spars must have cost more than $350,000. The total outlay had to be considerable. But, snaps Ackerman, "whatever it is, there is no mortgage. Not one cent."

Ackerman expects to work the ship with a small crew, two professional deck hands, a cook and one or two apprentices, plus himself as captain. She has no engine, but will carry a 15-ft. boat with a diesel that can serve to nose her up to a dock or through a narrow channel. Because of the Leavitt's shallow draft (6 1/2 ft.), she has a big advantage in direct loading and unloading of cargo that originates near the water. Ackerman's first load will be 150 tons of lumber and building materials being shipped from Quincy, Mass., to Haiti by Builder William Duane. Because the Leavitt will eliminate the cost of several transshipments between the Quincy yards and a Boston container ship dock, Duane figures Ackerman will be successful, moving cargo "at half the cost charged by conventional carriers." Ackerman himself figures to undercut fuel-powered vessels by 15% to 20%.

Another shipbuilder, Richard Dennison, 59, of South Thomaston, who has been in the business for 29 years, is also optimistic. Said he: "I'd like to see more of the same kind of boats. Maybe then the Arabs would drown in their own oil." Not likely. But one thing is certain: when Ned Ackerman takes the Leavitt on her maiden voyage, whether they sail north or south, skipper and ship will be moving in the right direction.--Hays Gorey

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