In the late 1980’s and with the help of the Parks & People Foundation of Baltimore, the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School (HIOBS) urban-center offshoot Chesapeake Bay Outward Bound School (BCBOBS) raised the money to build four wooden pulling boats. Those four were the last to be built of the fleet of twenty-two, distinctive wooden boats that Outward Bound has sailed for nearly 50 years. They were used by BCBOBS until the Chesapeake sailing program ended in the mid-2000’s.
The boats were laid-up and somewhat forgotten in Annapolis, Maryland for a few years until Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center (TIOBEC) in Boston Harbor borrowed two of them for their sailing program. The boats were under-utilized at TIOBEC and were eventually offered to the new HIOBS. So on his way back to Maine from dropping off the last boats in Key Largo, Florida for our winter sailing program, HIOBS Director of Fleet & Facility, Capt. John McBride, stopped in Boston in mid-January and loaded the 2 boats, HIOBS #22 and First Mate, on his empty boat trailer and brought them up to Wheeler Bay.
Fortunately, the four so-called “Baltimore Boats” historically came to Maine every fall for their winter maintenance and USCG Inspections, so Capt. John is very familiar with them. They were the most ruggedly built of the fleet and are also the newest (a mere 25-years-old). We plan to put them back into service in 2013 and take some of the workload off of our oldest pulling boats. Welcome back HIOBS #22 and First Mate!