My wife and I recently saw “The Boat Factory” a two actor play, starring Dan Gordon and Michael Condron, which celebrates the sprawling Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland. That’s right, a play about a shipyard. But not just any shipyard. Harland & Wolff is best remembered as the yard that built the Titanic, but the yard also built something like 1,700 other ships and at its peak employed 35,000 people. It was a city within the city of Belfast.
The play, written and performed by Dan Gordon, is based on his family experiences of growing up in Belfast in the shadow of the shipyard where his father and other relatives worked. The play follows the career of “Davy Gordon” from his apprenticeship in the shipyard to his death. Gordon refers to the play as his “long song to Belfast” and it reflects a fascinating mixture of kinship and pride in what the shipyard workers accomplished, while honestly recounting the often brutal conditions in the shipyard, where concerns for safety were secondary, at best. In many respects, it is a clear-eyed tribute to a time and place that no longer exists. A wonderful play, well acted and staged. The play finished its run in New York and is moving on to performances across Ireland during July, and then on to London from July 23 to August 17th and then to Caithness, Scotland from August 21-24. Definitely worth seeing if you are nearby.
The 
Mitsui O.S.K. Line has announced
The SSV Oliver Hazard Perry, still not quite finished but nicely taking shape, has arrived in Newport RI to be hauled and to get a fresh coat of paint. She will then will be dockside at the Newport Shipyard for a fund raising event on Friday July 5. She will be open to the public at Fort Adams on Saturday and Sunday July 6 and 7. A formal dedication of the ship, also open to the public will be held on Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m. at Fort Adams. 
I wished that I could have sailed aboard a classic schooner when I was a kid. For those in the New York/New Jersey Area, The 
Joan Druett’s