Oops. One last post about boats in the Baltic!

OK, I really thought I was done, but one of my sailing friends from Sebago was intrigued by this extremely handsome chrome-plated pointy end and asked me if I knew the class of the yacht to which it was attach't, and what the sign said.

A quick Google search on my lunch hour didn't tell me much. What I could make out on the sign in the expandable Picasa (Blogger photo file) version was that the boat was named Neptun, something about hours, and, "BOARDING BY INVITATION ONLY!!!!!"

I did notice that that was in English - what, is it always Americans that the owner comes back and finds poking around on his boat? Or maybe it's just in case that infamous fictional Aussie blogger/sailor/journalist Buff Staysail finds his way to Helsinki (although at the moment that shouldn't be likely as he apparently just got arrested while covering the Olympics...stay tuned, eh?). At any rate, aside from the name and the pointedly stated request, I couldn't quite make out the rest. Do you know how many million hits you get if you google "Yacht Neptun"? "Sailing Vessel Neptun" isn't quite as bad, but there's still a lot of sailing vessel Neptuns out there (and Google would like to help you out with all the boats named Neptune too, you have to tell it "No, I mean NepTUN, stop assuming I can't spell!").

I did find something called the Neptunkryssare, or Neptun Cruiser, which appeared related, but a bit smaller, and then I was also thinking maybe this was one of those square metre rule class boats I'd learned about from a couple of wooden-boat-savvy friends after I posted the pictures of the stunning yachts we'd accidentally parked among at first in Suomenlinna.

I found myself getting intrigued, too, but I didn't spend too long on it, because, as I told my friend, I was pretty sure I'd taken a clearer shot of the sign, where the additional info on it would be legible - and if I didn't, I was going to just throw the picture up again and ask if anybody knew anything about it. Hey, it worked for that cool old boat with the leeboards in the Mashpee River, so why not give this one a shot?

However, I did indeed have the sign, and it had more info than I'd ever hoped for - what a very nice thing for the owner to do!

S/Y Neptun

Class: 6 mR (six metre rule);

Length: 10.5 M
Designer: H. Heikel

Builder: 1912 A Petterson, Helsinki
Bar Hours: 11:30 am - 11:00 am
BOARDING BY INVITATION ONLY!!!!! (as mentioned before)

Here's a shot from aft (this boat had really caught my eye)

My friend had asked if the boat was for sail - I'm not sure whether he meant available to take people out for rides (which I was almost thinking might be the case until I figured out that the words I couldn't quite make out were "bar hours") or whether he'd meant to type "for sale" - if it was the latter, well, here's one that is. Nice, yeah?  

Oh, and as long as I'm doing a few more pictures of lovely wooden boats - I know that a lot of people I know do not think much of motorboats (although they are said to have their uses), but...

how about this little number?

And that's it. I promise. Tomorrow, I'm getting back to my traditional subject matter, which, as I've been reminded, is CUCUMBERS. Yay Cukes!