Email This Page to a FriendPreview: The Buzzards Bay 25: An Evolution, of Sorts
December 21, 2016
Written by Bill Mayher with photographs by Benjamin Mendlowitz
My on-again, off-again romance with the Buzzards Bay 25 commenced on a breezy summer day in 1973. I was in East Blue Hill, Maine, at the time and as we were wont to do on sunny weekend mornings, my three-year-old daughter Jenny and I were rambling along the boatyard shore to see what we could see, toss a pebble or two into the drink, and lie on our stomachs on the dock staring down at minnows nosing among the pilings.
As I remember it, something made me look down the harbor. When I did, I couldn’t help noticing a sleek but ancient gaff-rigged sloop beating its way toward me against a choppy northwest breeze. With her swooped-up bow, low freeboard, and short stern, even from such a distance, it was clear this was quite a boat. Drawing closer, she grew even more intriguing. Hollow bow sections. An understated housetop suggesting good visibility from the helm and not much more than getaway accommodations below. A big, high-peaked gaff mainsail. Deep cockpit with coamings rolled-out just beyond plumb. The effect was unforgettable, all the more so because, as she gained ground tack after tack, I could see she was being handled with breathtaking ease.
Herreshoff Mfg.Co. built five of the boats in 1914, including BAGATELLE; within a few years, the class became dormant, with no new constructions until 1983. By summer of 2004, at least 17 new boats will have been built to the design–some with modified rigs and hulls.
The harbor at East BlueHill isn’t much more than a notch chopped out of a granite coast. Its western shore might be bold enough for close-in tacks, but off to the eastward things give way quickly to a rubble of ledges, with little Mink Island protruding back into a channel. Slapped down by puffs, this Buzzard Bay 25 sloop would weather-up to sail nearly parallel to the walls of the western shore for a few critical seconds before the helm went down and she tacked away again. She darted back and forth across the eye of the wind, brave as a terrier. There were running backstays to tend and scary yellow boulders looming from the depths. To beat against a northwester in that tight spot, with a chart in the lap, would have been a stunning performance by a crew of experienced sailors familiar with the waters. But on ARIA that day, only her owner, Paul Bates, was aboard-fresh in from Noank, Connecticut.
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