Jacht-ing

Classic yachts of Maine.

The waterways here in Maine are full of pretty wooden boats these days. And for that we can thank England’s King Charles II and the Dutch. The King, who was in exile in Holland during the mid-1600s, brought back a yacht, or jacht, as the Dutch say—a sixty-six foot pleasure cruiser given to the King as a gift by the Dutch East India Company, with hopes that the handsome bribe would keep the king from war. It succeeded in fascinating the regent, and launching the British fashion for boat racing.  As the King’s friend Samuel Pepys wrote, “two leagues travel at sea was more pleasure to him than twenty by land.”  Charles built 20 more boats for himself, his mistresses and his family. Often he could be found sailing his own boat, Mary, on the Thames.