Hundreds celebrate their shared love of boats in Brooklin
Event raised funds for Friend Library’s new marine research center
Two boat-themed films were a draw for the crowd in Brooklin. Photo by Steele Hays.
Aug. 8, 2026
By Steele Hays
More than 300 people crowded into Brooklin Boat Yard’s old factory building on Aug. 7 to see two new documentary films and to celebrate Brooklin’s role as a mecca for wooden boat builders, boat lovers and sailing enthusiasts.
The two boats featured in the films – Cirrus and Holiday – were on display at the BBY dock to be admired up close.
“There are some boats that are not boats. They are portals to another world, and Cirrus is one of those boats,” said Ken Murphy, producer and co-director, in introducing his film Cirrus: A Wooden Boat Story.
Cirrus is a Fishers Island 31, one of only 15 designed and built by renowned marine architect Nathaniel Herreshoff at his yard in Bristol, Rhode Island. Built in 1930, Cirrus was brought to Brooklin in the 1930s by the late Alan Bemis, a physicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose summer residence, High Head, overlooks Eggemoggin Reach less than a mile east of Brooklin Boat Yard.
With its graceful lines and distinctive deep red topsides, Cirrus has long been admired by wooden boat enthusiasts and participants in the annual Eggemoggin Reach Regatta.
“She was the queen of the fleet,” Jon Wilson, founder of WoodenBoat magazine, says in the film.
The film tells the story of Cirrus’s early years and then her deterioration between 2017 and 2020, sitting “on the hard” in a Rhode Island boatyard. Murphy stumbled upon a for- sale ad for Cirrus in 2020 and drove to see her out of curiosity after admiring her for many years. He soon decided to buy her and engineer her restoration.
Two years later, a restored Cirrus was relaunched and later donated to Mystic Marine Museum under a program that lets historic boats remain in active use. In 2023, Cirrus sailed back to Brooklin for the first time in many years.
Watch the film trailer to Cirrus: A Wooden Boat Story.
“Having Cirrus come back to Brooklin is a dream come true for me,” Maynard Bray, a longtime editor and columnist at WoodenBoat, says in the film.
The event was designed to help raise funds for the expansion of Brooklin’s Friend Memorial Library and its marine research center, which has been under construction since April and is scheduled to open in June 2027. The center will be named the Anne and Maynard Bray Center, after Bray and his late wife, Anne.
Robert Baird, chairman of the library Capital Campaign Committee, said the campaign has now raised $3.15 million, but needs another $1.25 million to reach its revised goal.
The other featured film – Steward-ship: A love Letter to the Maine Coast produced by Luke Kaneb and Luc Milam – focuses on Kaneb’s experiences sailing downeast Maine aboard Holiday, a 28-foot ketch. Holiday is also based on a Hereshoff design, but she was built by an unknown builder. Kaneb didn’t know how to sail when first saw Holiday and decided to buy her. Now, he spends each summer sailing the Maine coast with his dog Lucky, writing about his travels and posting videos and photos on Instagram (@holidayinmaine) and through Substack.
“The magic of sailing, that’s what this film tries to capture,” Kaneb said in introducing the film.
Ironically, Cirrus is now owned by Hans and Kate Morris, who also own Bemis’s former home, High Head. Cirrus is available for charter under Captain Finn Welch. Morris’s brother, Tom Morris of Blue Hill, manages Cirrus charters.
The Cirrus film was released earlier this year and has been screened at eight film festivals so far this year. More information on the film and future screening opportunities may be found on the film’s website.
