Second Wind: Sailing Memories on a Maine Windjammer

It was as if the wind had been lying in wait, perhaps even stalking us all afternoon. One minute, Captain “Cap” Noah Barnes is picking softly on a mandolin at the helm, the placid blue of sea and sky shimmering behind him; the next, he is on his feet, hand on the helm, calling to his crew as the Stephen Taber’s two enormous sails swell with a whoosh of cool air.

“Man the fores’l!” Cap shouts as the great wooden boom shifts with the wind, sending a small group of lounging shipmates scrambling out of the way. The crew of five men and women leap to the corners of the deck, loosening, pulling, and then finally tying off lines, harnessing a stiff breeze that would have us to the horizon before dinner.

It is an ungentle maelstrom of activity, and I am left slightly breathless, my pulse racing. And for this, I can’t help but feel a little ashamed.

The truth is, I have spent my whole life along the water and around boats, but I am not a sailor. I even spent 15 years living on one of Maine’s outer islands, where nearly the entire population is employed on boats—where the only way on and off of the island is by boat—and yet I managed to not once stern, or crew, or even tie a half hitch to the town dock. If someone had the bad judgment to throw me a line, indeed I would not have known what to do with it.

But it wasn’t always this way.

I grew up the daughter of a sailor. Not the kind trained by the navy, nor one of the well-heeled yacht set, but a former Girl Scout who learned to sail small boats on the lakes and ponds of upstate New York. Likewise, my siblings and I learned to sail as soon as we could swim. My mother taught us on a light, one-person boat that she—with just the help of one of her three kids—could lift onto the roof of the family station wagon. We spent our summers exploring the mountain lakes of California, and learned to rig the rainbow-sailed Minifish (a diminutive version of the Sunfish) and how to sail it in pairs or alone.

My mother loved to sail, and for me, her joy on the water was as irresistible as birthday cake—a special treat you didn’t want to miss. Life at home wasn’t easy, and the mother I knew within those walls was very different from the woman on our bright little boat, one hand on the tiller, the other gently guiding the sail, face browned and beaming in the sunshine. For this reason, more than the desire to actually learn to sail, I was her dedicated student. I was in the thrall of that joy. And the memory of it has stayed with me all these years, long after those sailing lessons faded away.

* * * * *

I have been a guest on the Stephen Taber, one of nine sailing vessels in the Maine Windjammer Association fleet, once before. In 2019, owners Noah and Jane Barnes had a sudden vacancy in a single cabin due to a late cancellation. At the time, I had been writing a cookbook about farm-to-table food in Maine, and the trip was an opportunity to experience one of the boat’s themed “gastronomy cruises.”

When I walked off the Taber five days later, I felt not the remembered pleasure of the seemingly endless menu of stunning meals, but rather the gripping impulse of so many sailors before me; I wanted nothing more than to run away to sea, and never come back.

So when Jane asked me to join them as a presenter on their five-day “Wine, Dine & Chocolate” cruise in July 2023, I didn’t even have to think about it. “I’m in!” I shot back before I’d even finished reading her email. I would gladly trade my handmade chocolates and guide their guests through chocolate tastings in order to again experience a few days aboard the Taber. And I was happy to be of any help I could to their new chef, who had the task of weaving chocolate throughout both the sweet and savory dishes that would define the trip.

Work has often served as my entry ticket to adventures and experiences for which I might not normally have the time or the budget. But in this case, it was also an opportunity to investigate just what it was about sailing and boats that so enchanted me. I longed for the feel of the wooden deck on my bare feet, the stickiness of salt air on my skin, and the endless days spent drifting in Penobscot Bay’s finicky summer winds.

* * * * *

“Two pumps to fill the bowl. Two pumps to flush.” Cap is demonstrating the use of the ship’s head to a rapt gathering of perfect strangers. There are 27 of us, including the six crew, and we will be sharing a grand total of two toilets for four nights and five days. To the credit of Noah and his crew, the two bathrooms are pristine—even cozy—with a bouquet of garden flowers in each sill of their tiny windows. But I steal a glance at the faces of my shipmates, and I recognize the look of apprehension on some. I imagine the vacations that will be made or broken by their experience with the minimal facilities aboard this 19th-century boat. But over the next five days my shipmates surprise me, embracing life on board with frank and open good humor.

“When I was 16, I took an Outward Bound trip to learn to sail,” says New Hampshire resident Naomi Praul, referring to the famously primitive outdoor education program for teens. “There wasn’t a lick of wind the entire trip, so we never actually got to sail. But I did learn to relieve myself off the side of a boat, and that I could go a week without a shower.”

Naomi, who is accompanied on the Taber by her own 16-year-old daughter, is hoping that she’ll get to do a few things on this trip that she never did on that ill-fated sailing trip as a teenager. “I want to haul a sail and jump into the ocean,” she tells me. She confides, too, her wish that this time aboard the Taber might spark her daughter’s interest in an Outward Bound trip of her own. (Admittedly, life aboard the Taber—two toilets notwithstanding—is far from primitive. Naomi confesses that the promise of lush meals prepared by a skilled chef sealed the deal.)

Over four days, chef Jason Mathiason feeds us a wine-and-chocolate-themed menu from dawn until dusk. Dinners begin with appetizer boards heaped with local and imported cheeses, house-made pickles and duck prosciutto, Marcona almonds, and a rotating selection of local honey and preserves. Jason prepares meals like coq au vin and eggs Benedict on the 100-year-old Clarion wood-fired cookstove in the below-deck galley. He presents it all with shy composure and a modesty that is at odds with his skill: “Tonight I’ve made a pork ragù lasagna,” he informs his guests one evening, but this barely begins to describe what is in fact an elegantly layered dish of hand-rolled cocoa-imbued pasta filled with a melting braise of pork and wine.

After dinner on our first night, Naomi and I don bathing suits and leap from the gunwales into the frigid bay. It is an act of solidarity in support of those friendships that exist only in the span of time we are fellow travelers—and I am happy for my shipmate when she emerges from the sea laughing and beaming like the teenager she is reclaiming. But in truth, I am overcome with my own visceral memories of afternoons on a still mountain lake, jumping again and again from the white deck of our little boat while my mother contentedly tacks to and fro, waiting for the breeze.

Among her lessons were the ways to recognize the wind before it reached us. In a boat as small as ours, responsive even to the slightest breeze, this was doubly important. Even a moderate gust could topple us if we were caught unawares. My mom would guide my eye to the seemingly invisible wind, appearing as a skirt of glittering blue sequins gathered against the lake’s satin calm. She taught me to take the sail, the sheet loose in my hands, and let the wind come. Then, when it was fully upon us, I’d rein in the sail as much as we dared—leaning our whole bodies against the wind—and race that little boat back to shore. We would arrive breathless and victorious, pulling up the centerboard as we glided into the shallows and slid gracefully onto the sandy beach.

* * * * *

The second morning aboard the Taber, after a breakfast of Dutch babies the size of hubcaps, we gather to sail off the anchor—a maneuver choreographed by captain and crew, in which the sails are set and the anchor pulled as we swing into the wind. It is an aerobic and all-consuming exercise, so that when it is done, our only hint as to the magnitude of our accomplishment is in the look of pride on our captain’s face.

After a month of fog and rain on the coast of Maine, we have at last a crystal-clear day, revealing a bay of spruce-studded islands. The white sails rustle in the finicky breeze, as if testing their beauty against the blue sky. Cap is at the helm, resplendent in a white button-down and ruddy from the sun. There are porpoises! There are seals! There are lighthouses! He points these out to us, joyous as a child.

We float through an afternoon of dazzling sun-soaked views, lazing in small groups on deck, chatting or reading or napping. Cap is playing his mandolin, occasionally consulting a map with his first mate, Will, or discussing that night’s cheese board with Jason. I am lulled by the calm and the view, until I hear a shout from the helm: “Man the fores’l!”

For Cap, who has been tracking the wind on the water for the past 15 minutes, it is a joyful cry. But I hear only the urgency, the tone of it blowing me back through the decades until I am again on an alpine lake, as wide and blue as the bay, sailing alone in the afternoon calm.

I am celebrating my first summer of solo sailing by venturing out farther and farther each day, and that afternoon I glide lazily across the center of a vast placid lake, lounging with my feet up on the deck, mainsheet held loosely, poking the tiller every so often with a finger.

I don’t see the wind until it is in the sail, ripping the sheet through my soft hand, the boom swinging wildly away. I manage to catch the line just as the knotted end reaches my fingers, and I let go of the tiller so that I can concentrate on reining in the sail. With the rudder freed, the boat spins drunkenly in what has become a rough eddy of wind and hail. Still, having managed to grasp both sheet and tiller, I struggle to harness the wind. And I do—but at barely 100 pounds, I am no match for the summer squall. In less than a minute the boat and I succumb, and as it topples, I am thrown from the far side of the hull atop the swamped sail.

Just as quickly as the wind comes, it leaves. An unwelcome, blustery guest; short-lived, and embarrassing. I am unable to right my capsized boat, the rainbow sail heavy and rippling just below the surface of the lake, mocking me like some giant aquatic clown.

By the time help comes in the form of a good Samaritan on a catamaran, I am wrinkled and shivering. My mom is aboard, nearly rabid with panic, and wraps me roughly in a thick towel until I can barely move.

The next morning she hands me my life jacket and tells me to take the boat out. It is not a suggestion, and I don’t bother to argue. I go for a short, conciliatory sail. Then I never sail alone again.

Perhaps it would have happened anyway. I was a few months shy of my 13th birthday, and my interests were changing. But after that summer, sailing and I parted company for good.

My mother, on the other hand, sailed our little boat until just a few a years ago. At 80, she was finally unable to wrestle it onto the top of her car on her own. And though she has since traded the Minifish for a kayak, she is, in my mind, forever a sailor.

* * * * *

With the breeze, the late afternoon on Penobscot Bay has cooled dramatically, and I am wrapped in a fleece blanket, watching our captain guide his ship toward our evening anchorage. He is a vision of joy, as are the passengers around me. We are sailing; this is what we are here for. But for me, I know, that’s not quite true.

On our last night, after dinner, Cap fires up the yawl boat and ferries most of the passengers ashore to attend a street dance on North Haven Island. I like North Haven, but I choose to stay behind with a few others. I can’t say why until Brian Blair, an oft-returning passenger, says, “I dreamed for years of being on this boat. I don’t want to go ashore.”

He says this with such reverence, such fervor, and I am struck dumb with the feeling that I have seen it before.

I realize, at last, that I am not here to sail. I am here to watch them sail. To be amid the joy of it, among the people who love it.

We call them sailors.

This feature was originally published as “Second Wind” in the July/August 2025 issue of Yankee.

Kate Shaffer

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