When nearly 20 Friendship sloops set out for the starting line off Rockland, Maine, this past summer, they didn’t just start milling about in preparation for the gun. Instead, they gathered together beyond the breakwater so a Friendship Sloop Society member could scatter the ashes of her late parents, per her father’s wishes. After a brief ceremony, the fleet turned back toward the starting line to begin three days of racing as part of the 60th annual Friendship Sloop Homecoming Days regatta.
Bringing together like-minded sailors and the sloops they love, the event provides the opportunity for a yearly gathering of the Friendship Sloop Society (FSS—fss.org), founded in 1961—a homecoming of sorts for many of the participants, who began taking part when they were toddlers in life jackets.
“When the event started in the 1960s, we didn’t expect for it to go on for 60 years,” says Carolyn Zuber, whose family has owned the 32ft, 119-year-old Gladiator since 1966. “What it has become is a community of sailors. There are lots of traditional boats, and when these are well sailed they are beautiful. You don’t have to be born into it, but people also don’t come to this lightly.”
“The excitement, when it began in 1961 was not only for the racing,” agrees boatbuilder and National Heritage Fellow Harold Burnham, who began sailing to Friendship with his parents, siblings and later his children starting in the late 1960s. “The event seemed to capture the country’s attention as people at that time were looking back and wanted to preserve things that were disappearing… Thousands of people came from all over the coast, and many remember when
