The Vineyard Gazette carried this October, 1992 account of the Vernon Langille - Dick Everett’s famous Tancook schoner

Harthaven Harbor is often pictured in postcards - like this one

And in newspaper photographs like this one by Alison Shaw - (she took many photographs in Harthaven)

Icehouse Pond Sailing School - under the direction of Jim Hart - taught many young sailors the basics.

And Ed Abbe conducted a sailing school on farm Pond.

“I remember Bettlebung sailboat races led by Ed Abbe with the a roll of Lifesavers for the grand prize. Gram and Grandad also had three matching rowboats in small, medium and large, about 1960. I learned to row on the pond in the smallest one. We still have just that one boat under the Banana Stand in Chillmark. Doug Pease

Sail - Harthaven

Memories of Jim Hart

“Jim, our great uncle Howard Hart, bought a number (six, I think) of two man sailing dinghies,” Bung Young remembered, “and had us racing several days a week, sometimes in Farm Pond, sometimes in Nantucket Sound. They were essentially rowboats that he had fitted with a centerboard, a mast and some kind of a rag for a sail. When we were off Buoy Beach, he would have seamanship races that required the crew to wait for the starting gun before swimming out to their boats, weighing anchor and raising sail and heading for Harthaven harbor without colliding with a fellow contestant. (from Harthaven - A Brief History by John Moore.)

“We had wonderful summers framed around my grandfather, Jim,” says Hpwdy Eddy. “First he taught us how to row, then to swim and finally to sail. The gang of us consisted of Bill and Bideau Hart, Bung (Howard Young ... but not Bill or Geoff Young), Phronsie, Ed and Bill Abbe, Dorsey Coholan, Pete, Mary Jane and Dave Hart, Martha Patty and Mike Pease, Bruz and George Hart (Merv’s boys) and, when they were there, Bourne and Haywood Upham.

“Jim applied some hard and fast rules for rowboat safety. First we had to swim the channel near the Youngs, about 20 to 25 yards wide. Once we could do that we would be allowed to go out in the harbor in a life jacket. To be able to go out in the harbor without a life jacket we had to swim across the wide part of the harbor. This also enabled us to go out of the harbor with a life jacket. The ultimate was to be able to go out of the harbor without a life jacket. The test for this was to swim across the jetties, some 150 yards. When there were nor’easters we would row five or six rowboats out the harbor entrance and ride the breakers back into the entrance. We never had an accident.

“He loved teaching us kids to swim and to sail, says Pete Hart. Had it not been for him, many of us would never have learned to sail a boat. He was responsible for many of my generation learning to sail properly; this is something like learning to ride a bike ... something you never forget. He was ruthless about getting us to learn how to respond to the wind, how to come about, how to jibe, how to race and win, etc. He was always very careful about safety.

(from Harthaven - A Brief History by John Moore.)

“Chester” - owned by Jed Conlin and Carol Jann

“Katzenjammer” - owned by Ken Maclean and Stephanie Mashek