On July 5, in a very close race, the schooner Mary Day won the 43rd Annual Great Schooner Race.  Fourteen schooners sailed in Penobscot Bay from Gilkey Harbor in Islesboro to the finish line at the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse in the race sponsored by the Maine Windjammer Association. 

The first to cross the finish line was the schooner Columbia, a modern steel replica of the 1923 A.J. Story-built schooner. The 141′ LOD Columbia had a 20-minute handicap over the 90′ LOD Mary Day. Mary Day finished the race 19 minutes and 16 seconds after the Columbia and was awarded the Great Schooner Race Cutty Sark Award, on corrected time.

The Mary Day was launched in 1962, the first commercial sailing passenger vessel built in the twentieth century and the first coasting schooner ever designed especially for windjammer vacations.

In keeping with tradition, Mary Day’s captain, Barry King, was presented with the trophy and the coveted “Eat My Wake” flag, both given to the first Maine Windjammer Association boat to cross the line.

Knox Village Soup quotes Marti Mayne, PR, events and content manager for the Maine Windjammer Association, saying. “It was an amazingly exciting finish,”

“With boats ranging from 48 to 141 feet, and the two oldest windjammers in America racing against newer, sleeker ones, it was a race filled with skill, luck and who caught the wind first,” she said.

“Throughout the race, the schooner Mary Day was in hot pursuit, but Columbia pulled ahead and was first over the line,” she said. “The Maine Windjammer Association’s Race Committee kept careful track of elapsed time from the start.”

Great Schooner Race 2019