About Us

HISTORY

The Northeast Harbor Fleet formed in August of 1923. Northeast Harbor has long been a popular sailing destination with the first organized races recorded in the 1890s. The Fleet is a seasonal organization formed to promote boating and sailboat racing in the waters surrounding Mount Desert Island. The Fleet House is located on Gilpatricks Cove in Northeast Harbor, Maine.

The Northeast Harbor Fleet acquired the property on which it now sits in 1943. The dock, formerly the Rock End Dock, was first built to service the Rock End Hotel that burned down the night of March 4, 1942.

"In 1944 the Village Improvement Society donated an additional building brough down from the top of Browns Mountain (now Norembega) where it had been used for airplane spotting [during WWI]... it became the Captain's Shack," (Grant 82).

A Boston architect, Roger Griswold, and Northeast Harbor builder, Horace W. Bucklin, together built the Fleet House in 1945. Beatrix Farrand, a renowned landscape architect with preserved gardens on Mount Desert Island, voluntarily landscaped the grounds. Ana Thompson reworked the Northeast Harbor Fleet’s grounds in 1992.

Friends of Vance C. McCormick, Rear Commodore in 1946, donated the Fleet’s flagpole the year of his passing. Prior to 1946, McCormick led the effort to acquire and rebuild Clifton Dock by generously giving to and gathering funds for the project.

Christopher Hutchins donated the pink granite curbing and stonework surrounding the flagpole.

Classrooms for the Northeast Harbor Sailing School were recently added to the Fleet House thanks to George Putnam.

1. Grant, Joseph L., History of the Northeast Harbor Fleet. Seal Cove: Sawyer Cove Press, 2006.