CASTINE, Maine — The training ship State of Maine cruised past Portland Head Light and headed to outer Casco Bay. It was early evening, and the sun put on its best red-rubber-ball show as it sank to the western horizon.
On the bridge of the 499-foot ship, Capt. Gordon MacArthur watched the course and the sea as his ship headed home to Castine—possibly for the final time.
“I’ve said before it was the last time, and we’ve gone back twice before,” the captain said. “But this time really feels like this is it.”
After more than 25 years with Maine Maritime Academy, the State of Maine is being returned to the U.S. Maritime Administration, which actually owns the training vessel. The ship will be put to some other use, and MMA will get a new training ship. For the first time, it will be brand new. The federal government is building five new training ships for the nation’s maritime academies. Maine Maritime will be the third school the receive one of those ships, which will be the next State of Maine. Delivery is expected sometime in 2025, though it isn’t certain whether that will happen in time for next May’s annual training cruise.
This year’s 75-day training voyage, reaching from New York to Spain to Newfoundland officially ended July 18 in Portland, where most of the 200 students left the ship. But the State of Maine had to return to Castine to drop off equipment, giving a quiet overnight trip for the full-time crew to contemplate the end of an era.
“It will feel very odd,” he said. “This ship has been part of my life for 25 years. When I came back to Maine Maritime (from the Coast Guard) to finish my last two years in 1998, the ship had just gotten there. I took my final cruise as a cadet on this ship, and I’ve been her captain for three years. … And I live in Castine, so it's been part of the waterfront in my town for 25 years.”
Third Mate Meagan Doucette admitted the trip home to Castine was “emotional” because of it being likely the last time the State of Maine would be there. Doucette said she took two cruises on the ship herself as a student, graduating in 2021. After two years at sea on a commercial ship, she came back to join the training ship’s full-time crew and help prepare new classes of mariners.
“They’ve been ambitious and thirsty to learn,” she said of the students who just finished their first trip and added it was fun to watch them work.
“Oh my god, yes, it's inspiring.”
Chief Engineer Aron Coy said the State of Maine is in great mechanical shape. After a departure delay in the spring to replace a hoist motor on a lifeboat, it only had a few problems during the long ocean voyage.
The engineering crew is made up of all MMA graduates, many of whom had their initial training on this same ship.
The same is true of many of the people who guide the State of Maine in and out of the harbors—the harbor pilots the ship is required to use to precisely guide her movements.
Calvin Clopp of Portland Pilots, a 2012 Academy graduate, said it was “good to be back.”
“It's nostalgic to be here but exciting to see what’s coming next. These kids deserve the best equipment, and it's good the federal government is putting the money in to provide that.”
The new training ship will have all the up-to-date equipment being used in the shipping industry, as well as a few more amenities, such as an elevator to avoid some of the many climbs up and down steep staircases between the many decks of the ship.
The essence of their training, though, will be unchanged. The captain and the crew and pilots all said young people have to spend time at sea to learn the job.
That was reinforced by Penobscot Bay Pilot Skip Strong, Maine Maritime class of 1984.
“One of the strongest things the Academy does in the education is it teaches us how to make decisions, how to think and make decisions. Those decisions might be right or wrong, but you know how to make a decision, and if you made the wrong decision to know how to correct that and go off and do it.”
The decision to go to school, to go to sea, so far was the right one for the students departing in Portland.
“The cruise was perhaps one of the most amazing experiences of my life,” Amanda, from New Hampshire, said.
Nicholas Morrell, from Florida, called the trip “amazing.”
“Not every college student gets to do this, go out on the training ship, get some experiences, on both deck and engineers, get your hands dirty.”
For many, if not most of the freshmen, the cruise was their first time on a deep-water cruise. After two and a half months, they’ve had their first real taste of the sea. They will be back at school in a few weeks as sophomores, ready for the next steps, their next training cruise, following their junior year, will be on the brand new State of Maine.