Abigail II and Victory Chimes

Rockland Maine
No LL

This is a story about the good and the bad.  First the good part.

Yesterday, as I walked through downtown Rockland, I was stunned to see a sign pointing to a ships berth that said Victory Chimes.   Seeing that made the memories well up.  You see fourty three years ago, Libby and I were in Boothbay Harbor Maine on our vacation.   While there, we saw the most beautiful ship in the world sail past the promentary where we were sitting.  That ship was The Victory Chimes.   She was the most beautiful and majestic thing we could imagine.   We learned that The Victory Chimes is a cruise ship that takes passengers on vacation cruises.   

 

The Victory Chimes

I am delighted to hear that 43 years later, The Victory Chimes is still sailing and still taking passengers.   We hope to get a glimpse of her while we are here in Maine.

Now for the bad news.   On Saturday, as we returned to Rockland from Islesboro, we heard a boat calling the Coast Guard on VHF asking for help.  The boat was named Abigail II.   She must have been close to us in Rockland because we could hear her clearly.   The captain explained to the Coast Guard that they had just chartered this boat, and that the steering was jammed and that they couldn't raise the sail.   That left them pretty helpless and in need of a tow.   We presumed that they tried calling the charter company first, and were calling the Coast Guard out of desparation.

It is our understanding that any reputable boat charter company thoroughly inspects the equipment before turning it over to the customer.  We chartered sailboats five times ourselves and this was always the case.   We've found faults on some of those boats, but nothing major and nothing obvious. In this case though, the poor customer had an entirely different, and bad experience.   If it were me, I'd be furious.   Getting towed in and getting the faults repaired eat time out of their vacation week.  Tsk tsk.