PASSION FOR ALL ΤΙΜΕ

For a sailor who loves SCHOONERS, few places compare to the coast of Maine in the summertime.

- ANGUS PHILLIPS

Well, two, actually: the schooners Woodwind I and II. They are swan-white 74-foot twins that carry tourists on two-hour cruises daily from early spring to late fall. They're just too pretty to ignore.

So it is with schooners. There's something about the beamy, swooping hull shape and the dynamic angle of the rig that demands special notice. With a short mast forward and the tall one aft, the sail plan looks like a butcher's knife cleaving the wind.

When all the canvas is up and pulling-two or three jibs, foresail, topsails, and main-these graceful boats carry an air of timeless utility and majesty.

Imagine the scene 150 years ago, when schooners by the hundreds roamed the coast, laden with cargos of lumber, coal and other dry goods. What a sight to see them tacking and jibing off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, or Provincetown, Massachusetts, killing time waiting for a fair breeze to make the rounding.

No boat is perfect, of course, and schooners have their downside. Fred Hecklinger, the late guru of wooden boats around the Chesapeake, used to say, "If you love schooners, get a picture of one and put it on your wall." It was his way of acknowledging that for all their beauty, schooners of old were also heavy, not particularly good at going to windward, and relatively slow except on a screaming reach.