Our charter details

By Kim Kavin

Hope and freedom. Terror and justice. The American spirit.

These words and phrases are saturating American airwaves as the 2004 presidential election draws near. They are meant to tug at something down deep in citizens’ souls, something that reaches up and then reaches out to pull that lever in the ballot booth. In a few short weeks Americans will decide not just between George W. Bush and John Kerry, but also on what the nation wants to become as a people.

An intelligent choice cannot be made without a reckoning of lessons past, and there is perhaps no better place for rumination than Massachusetts. It’s where the Pilgrims landed, where Paul Revere rode, where the independent spirit refuses to yield.

It also happens to be a lovely cruising area, especially in and around Boston. Within about 30 miles, you have the city’s waterfront skyline, Marblehead’s quaint cottages, and fleets of third-generation lobstermen at work on Massachusetts Bay. A week here on a boat means little fuel, lots of scenery, and plenty of history to capture your heart and mind.

Many charter guests forgo this part of New England in favor of the “milk run,” which may start in Boston but quickly veers off to Martha’s Vineyard, Newport, and Sag Harbor. That’s a shame, I learned during a recent Boston-to-Boston charter aboard the Broward motoryacht Sovereign. Her captain, Tom Hartman, is a native of the North Shore, and he introduced me to a vacation experience in his old backyard that is just as much about learning as it is about lounging. Of course, Sovereign has a luxurious interior and offers all the water toys and sunpads that other yachts do, but with Hartman at the helm in this part of America, she also offers the chance for reflection and contemplation.

As he says of the itinerary we followed: “It’s a little bit of history instead of just going to Nantucket because everybody else goes to Nantucket.” 

In fact, this Boston-to-Boston itinerary is the perfect charter for families that want to go home with more than mass-marketed T-shirts. Though she’s only 120 feet long, Sovereign and her kid-friendly crew take 12 guests at an aggressive weekly rate of $55,000. The way she’s laid out, grandparents can have their own stateroom forward on the main deck, parents can have queen-berth staterooms amidships below, and grandchildren can follow a separate staircase down to twin cabins aft.

After a visit to Plymouth, all the generations can gather in the main saloon to discuss how the accommodations aboard Mayflower II look a lot less like Sovereign’s than they do like Russell Crowe’s in Master and Commander. A morning spent in the sky lounge watching Winona Ryder in The Crucible can be followed by a tour of the witch trials memorial in Salem. As the credits roll on George Clooney and The Perfect Storm, you can cruise past rows of commercial fishing boats in Gloucester and explain to your young ones how dedicated some hard-working Americans have to be to keep the rest of the country’s mouths fed.

All of it is terrific fodder for passionate political discussion. Our group’s conversations couldn’t help but draw intriguing comparisons between past and present—Puritans of the 1600s versus today’s Muslim fundamentalists, the Salem witch trial victims versus the Guantanamo Bay terrorism suspects, the vast number of unique works on display at Gloucester’s artist colony versus the seeming omnipresence of the American flag in the run-up to Election Day back in Boston.

Hope and freedom. Terror and justice. The American spirit. All have been embodied in this part of New England for centuries. With Sovereign’s captain as your guide, you can make it come alive more than it ever did in history books, on a fascinating charter of discovery. 

Hope and freedom are pretty much all the 125 or so souls aboard the Mayflower had when the 106-foot sailing ship leaked its way to a landing at Plymouth Rock. That’s right, a hundred people more than Sovereign carries, all crammed into a wooden hull just 24 feet longer. The crush of humanity is staggering—and easily imagined with a historic replica docked just across the harbor from the modern beauty.

The Mayflower II is a full-scale re-creation run as a living history exhibit. Workers present themselves as characters in period dress. You can talk to them about the way the ship is run, life in the England they knew, even their two-month Atlantic crossing. “I was casting out my belly at all times,” a woman in a thick wool skirt explained under the hot July sun. She told me they had all expected to die. I asked her why she got aboard in the first place. “Mistress,” she replied, “God did truly call us to come across the sea.”

Talk about a great way to start a charter through history, not to mention a terrific lead-in to an afternoon at the nearby Plimoth Plantation, also living history experience. I watched an English settler in 17th-century garb explain to a teenager in Nikes what the village does to those who challenge strict rules and order. “Twas in the spring of last year that they were banished,” he said with great fanfare. The boy was rapt beyond his history teacher’s wildest dreams. A short walk later, in a replica of a Wampanoag village, a Native American man quietly explained how the women work in the fields instead of the men. “Women are considered life-givers here,” he said. “They plant the corn. They sing to it. It’s a living, breathing thing.”

The contrast in cultures is vivid, and it’s easy to see why a clash was imminent. Hartman and I began to discuss the similarity to today’s worldwide religious differences over an evening appetizer of curried sunflower soup. By the time we got to our dessert of bananas foster, we were both eager to explore our next morning’s destination—whose civility exploded from within the hard-core religion of those early buttoned-down settlers. 

Terror and justice are the themes at the Salem Witch Museum, which recounts the hysteria that overtook the village in 1692 and resulted in 20 deaths. All but one person was hanged; 80-year-old Giles Cory refused to plead guilty or innocent, so he was pressed to death beneath boulders meant to purge a confession of witchcraft.

Salem nowadays is full of “witch kitch”—it’s a one-trick town full of haunted houses, wax museums, and shops that play off its history—but the memory of what happened is startling in the context of our worldwide hunt for terrorists today. There were good people in this village and there were evil-doers. The good people took it on faith that the evil-doers were getting what they deserved, even when there wasn’t any evidence beyond the circumstantial.

Not until three years ago did the elected officials of Massachusetts finally clear the remaining names of the witch trial victims, posthumously restoring their civil rights. The story is a powerful reminder not only of how quickly a society can get swept into the mania that accompanies fear, but of just how long that mania can last. 
 
The American spirit has survived such episodes throughout its existence, and in no place is this more evident than Gloucester. Sovereign ties up at the only dock that can hold her—smack in the middle of Rocky Neck Artists Colony, said to be the nation’s oldest. This is not a town full of Matisse posters and Monet umbrellas. It’s a few blocks’ worth of true individualism where any hint of repression, religious or otherwise, is drowned out by colorful oils, watercolors, and sculpture. 

Some of the craft shops are like designer flea markets: There are hand-woven bags for $20, hand-stamped wrapping paper ($15 for four rolls), and handmade silk flowers the size of grapefruits for five bucks. The proprietors are just as cool as their offerings. I asked the owner of Ken’s Art Shop about some carvings I admired, and he walked me out onto his deck overlooking the harbor and introduced me to the 87-year-old artist who’d made them. Up the street, an artist named Elynn Kroger had an impressive gallery of works in the style of American greats Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollack, and Arthur Dove. “This place has changed my life,” she said. “After 35 years as an artist, I’m finally self-sufficient. People come here and buy art.”

The town is changing, as American towns always have; five years ago, I’m told, there were 50 artists operating there, and today there are maybe a dozen. But they’re good enough to lure charter guests like media darling Jennifer Lopez into a place where nobody will recognize her (she bought a painting at the Paul George Gallery during a recent charter). 

A 20-minute cab ride away is Bearskin Neck, which is less earthy but just as crammed with interesting works by regional artists. The owner of the Gentile Gallery summed up the town’s decisive lack of tourist junk by saying, “You can go to the mall for that.”

Quite a jab, I thought, at the commerce that has replaced religion as a dominating force in modern American culture. 

You will find so much of America in all of these places, but you won’t find any food or service on par with what Sovereign’s crew provides. “When (guests) go to get off the boat, my goal is to have them disappointed wherever they go,” chef Christopher Wear says. “I want them comparing every other chef to me.”

Wear cooks with creativity. Every dish is an amalgam of flavors you’d never think to combine, but that are delightful on the tongue: red wine and cranberry vinaigrette atop pole beans and peaches; “essence of clam” chowder thickened with mashed potatoes instead of cream; a ground filet mignon hamburger topped with a jam of roasted red peppers, champagne, and red onions. “I try to listen to the people I cook for,” he says, “and I’m price conscious. I don’t play with their money.” 

The presentation at each seating is unique, and the service by chief stewardess Kelly Collins and second stew Courtney Kane is impeccable. Kelly’s brother is first mate Sean Collins, who keeps things lively with deckhand Ben Cole. All four grew up together in Michigan and genuinely enjoy working together to create a memorable charter experience.

I suppose that’s the spirit of America in and of itself—four kids from the Midwest growing up to work aboard a fabulous charter yacht under the tutelage of a New England captain whose ancestors predate the Mayflower by two full years. 

If past is indeed prologue, Sovereign has a wonderful future of chartering ahead. Whoever wins the U.S. election in November might think about booking a week to wind down and stay focused for the years to come.