Captain Jim Sharp and the
Sail, Power & Steam Museum
by Tom Seymour
A very few of the ropes, knots and equipment associated with it aboard ship in the days of sail. Rope was the connective tissue of the power plant aboard a sailing ship. There were miles of it on large vessels. Measured by the ton per ship, used for nearly everything and mastery of it all was required of able seamen. Tom Seymour photo
When Megan Pinette of the Belfast Historical Society and Museum told me about the Sail, Power & Steam museum in Rockland, it sounded like something that would make a good topic for a column for this newspaper. So I went online, found the phone number and gave the owner/curator, Captain Jim Sharp, a call. He was more than pleased to give me a private tour of his amazing museum.
The museum sits on the site of the former Old Snow Shipyard. Photos and physical vestiges of the shipyard remain, and a portion of the museum preserves that heritage. Captain Jim pointed out that from the late 1700s to the early 1900s, more ships were built here than any other place. But these were not huge, multi-masted, “picket fence vessels,” as Captain Jim called them. Instead, the Old Snow Shipyard turned out sturdy, rugged, 2- and 4-masted vessels, built for commerce and trade.
Many of these vessels hauled coal and were, as Captain Jim said, the “UPS of the day.” In other words, these were the ships and boats that did the work, delivered goods and kept the wheels of commerce turning.
In the museum is a boat model of a Snow Shipyard-built ship, the Little Victory. The Little Victory had a working life of 95 years. Despite accolades, the age of wooden boats and the age of sail for commercial use was in essence over by the early 1900s and much of the material from the shipyard was cut up and buried.
Captain Jim
Captain Jim Sharp, a retired sea captain, walks with a cane because of arthritis in his legs. But that doesn’t slow him down a bit. Captain Jim told me he had been retired for some time before deciding to open his museum. “I flunked retirement,” he said with a glimmer in his eye.
The museum represents the physical embodiment of Captain Jim’s effort to preserve the history of all things related to boats, shipbuilding and sailing. It is also his way of bringing these things to the public so that new generations can learn the ways of the sea and become active participants. It was Captain Jim’s honest, straightforward love of the sea and ships that convinced people from far and wide that here, in the Sail, Power & Steam Museum, was the proper place to display all their maritime treasures. The museum brims with donated and loaned items, one-of-a-kind artifacts of maritime history.
Captain Jim Sharp sailed the schooner Adventure out of Camden for 25 years. This was part of the Maine Windjammer Fleet. The fleet was begun, according to Captain Jim, by Frank Swift in 1936. Swift was able to buy boats for only a few hundred dollars, since at the time these wooden, wind-powered vessels were in little demand and could be bought for a song. Thus, Frank Swift was able to establish a fleet that, at one time, numbered 18 vessels.
Because of the low purchase price, it wasn’t a big deal if any one vessel turned out to be beyond repair. The Enterprise, for example, leaked terribly. And so, rather than spend money trying to refurbish her, the Enterprise was stripped and burned.
A model of the Adventure sits in one of the museum’s rooms, along with a vast array of other memorabilia of the windjammer fleet.
Captain Jim was no stranger to power vessels, either. He once owned a work boat that, during the energy crisis of the 1970s, he used to haul coal to Maine’s offshore islands. This he did for some years, singlehandedly, in the dead of winter. Models and photos of powered vessels, from steamships to diesel-powered vessels, adorn the museum.
The Exhibits
My visit to the museum lasted a little more than one hour and that was barely sufficient to do anything else but scratch the surface of what the place has to offer. Captain Jim’s memory of the tiniest detail of the exhibits was startling. But with so much information, my ability to digest everything became overloaded.
However, the museum also offers self-guided tours. For this, the visitor takes a laptop computer and does a walk-through while enjoying a recorded narration. In order to fully embrace all this amazing resource has to offer, do plan on taking several hours. And at that, there will be more left to see.
Some of the exhibits, each in its own room, are pretty much one-of-a-kind. For instance, one room features artifacts from Donald B. MacMillan’s voyages to the Arctic on the schooner Bowdoin. After her life of active service, Bowdoin was given to the maritime museum at Mystic Seaport, in Connecticut. There, she languished until being purchased by The Schooner Bowdoin Association, Inc., a group of friends of Admiral MacMillan, in 1967. The association then leased the Bowdoin to Captain Jim Sharp. Captain Jim restored the historic vessel and, in 1969, sailed her to MacMillan’s home in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Captain Jim said it was foggy as he sailed into the harbor, but suddenly the fog broke and there on his dock was the old admiral, in his 90s by then, ringing a bell. Admiral MacMillan, thanks to the efforts of Captain Jim Sharp, got to not only see but also sail on the Bowdoin one more time.
Some artifacts in the room include a narwhale’s tusk, a “tea doll,” made by Inuits for their children (the doll served dual purposes, first to cheer a child and second to hold precious tea) and a book of the Inuit language that Donald MacMillan put into writing.
Red Jacket
Red Jacket, the fastest clipper ship ever, made the voyage from New York, New York, to Liverpool, England, in an incredible 13 days. This record was never beaten. In addition to a painting of Red Jacket, a cross-section of the hull of this 250-foot-long vessel is attached to an outbuilding just across from the museum. Looking at this huge artifact gives an ample suggestion of just how massive Red Jacket was.
Other Rooms
The variety of exhibits in Captain Jim Sharp’s museum seems endless. One room displays knots and rigging, with enough examples of rope and knots to provide a graduate-level course to anyone interested. In another room, steam engines, all in working order and run now on compressed air, come to life as Captain Jim cranks up the power. This same room also features one of the first Evinrude outboard motors ever made, along with other early examples of outboards.
In yet another room, instruments of navigation, many of antiquity and very rare, vie with an ancient chart of northern waters for the visitor’s attention. And another room features builder’s models of ships, mostly from Snow Shipyard. Captain Jim pointed out that when someone wanted a new vessel, the builder would first sit down with a soft piece of pine and a sharp jackknife and carve out the design. Then the vessel would be built according to those specifications.
According to Captain Jim, a great number of these models were used as fuel in the fireplace, but fortunately, a few dozen remained unscathed.
One room hosts a mock-up of a lime kiln, along with vintage photos from the lime industry. And another room, the Simulator Room, puts students of navigation in the captain’s chair for a cruise around Rockland Harbor. This even shows vessels in the harbor in real time.
Over the museum, Captain Jim teaches navigation in a classroom whose wholly relaxed atmosphere is reminiscent of an old-time seaside café.
And in a nearby building, the Dory Shop, the public is invited to come in and build a dory. Captain Jim has dory forms available, as well as some of the best expertise around. In-process dories are available for display. The museum has plenty of volunteers who are keen to help people learn to build a dory that they can sail around the harbor. In lieu of a fee, the museum accepts donations. This is all because of Captain Jim’s goal of promoting boatbuilding and teaching seamanship.
This article barely scrapes the surface of what is available at the Sail, Power & Steam Museum. Of course the driving force is Captain Jim Sharp himself. Anyone with the slightest interest in boats, ships, boatbuilding, navigation and maritime history owes it to themselves to visit the museum.
The museum is located at 75 Mechanic Street, Rockland, and is open Wednesday to Saturday, 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m., Sunday, 1-4 p.m., or by appointment. The phone number is (207) 701-7627 and the email address is capnjim@midcoast.com. Also visit the website at www.sailpowersteammuseum.org.