It wouldn’t be proper to depart New England without a big thank you to Lyman-Morse. While the hail port on EXIT’s transom was Seattle, WA and is now Mountain View, CA, this is pro forma. Strictly to satisfy Coast Guard documentation requirements.

EXIT’s real home for the past 15 years has been the Lyman-Morse boatyard in Thomaston, Maine, around the corner from Penobscot Bay at the head of the St. George River, where shipwrights have been building and launching sailing vessels since the 18th century. We asked Gene Carlson, Drew’s uncle and EXIT’s previous owner, to contribute a few words on how this came to be.

Happenstance. Pure luck. Mimi and I made our first cruise to Maine in 2001. We loved sailing Down East, the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia. We were anxious to do more. At the time, we lived in Washington, D.C. Rather than spend considerable time sailing back to Annapolis, where EXIT had been moored, and returning north next summer, we decided to look for a place in Maine where the boat could winter over. (Full disclosure: Credit for this common sense idea goes to long-time friend and occasional EXIT crew Darcy Bacon.)

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