It started on an October evening in 1936, with a drink in hand, as so many of the best challenges often do. After a sumptuous dinner at the Gibson Island Clubhouse near Annapolis, Maryland, on a broad veranda overlooking Chesapeake Bay, J. Linton Rigg declared, “I’ve got the fastest bugeye on the bay.” The newest owner of the bugeye BROWN SMITH JONES had a point: she had been feared by nearly every oyster poacher on the bay 40 years earlier, when the Oyster Police used her to enforce catch limits.
After being fully restored to sailing condition by professionals with the help of a group of volunteers, PIRATE sails out of The Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle, Washington, not far from where she was originally launched.
WoodenBoat contributor Bruce Halabisky and his young family have been cruising in a 34′ wooden boat for the past seven years. Most recently the family crossed the Atlantic from Maine, via the Azores, and then sailed on to Senegal.