Alcyone Sail Training

In 1956, Seattle master shipwright Frank Prothero launched
a boat he had been working on for six years. She was a 65'
gaff-rigged topmast schooner, which he built for his personal
use, a project undertaken to please no one but himself. He
named her Alcyone.

Alcyone is modeled after the Gloucester fishing schooners of
New England. She sets eleven sails: mainsail, foresail, staysail,
jib, flyingjib, main and fore gaff topsails, fisherman, course,
raffee and stunsail. These can be used in different
combinations to suit various wind conditions. The rigging is
complex, but pleasingly logical, having evolved pragmatically
over the last two hundred years.

Frank Prothero sailed Alcyone for nine years before selling
her to the Hanke Family. The Hankes moved Alcyone to Port
Townsend and she was under there care, with Frank's
supervision, for the next twenty-four years. The Flanagan
Family have owned and operated her for twenty years,
chartering and doing sail training in the Pacific Northwest
and taking her offshore for five extended voyages.

Sugar and Leslie purchased Alcyone in Port Townsend,WA
in November of 1978 and started their first charter season
with her in June of 1988. In September they headed south to
California for a winter season of chartering, then to Hawaii
and back to Port Townsend.

On Janruary 4, 1991, Alyce Flanagan was born. After Alyce
got her sea legs during the summer charter season the family
once again headed south for the winter. Searching for warm
sunny beaches for Alyce to learn to walk on they spent
the winter in Mexico, Sea of Cortez, and headed back to PT
via Hawaii by June of 1992.

1994-1996 the Alcyone, family and crew headed off for a
two-year trip to New Zealand and back chartering different
legs of the trip. The trip first headed down to California then
Mexico, Costa Rica, Galapagos, Easter Island, the Marqueses
and Tuamotus, the Societies-Fiji via Cook Island, Nuie,
Tonga and down to New Zealand. The trip back from New
Zealnd visited the Societies via the Austral Islands, then
Hawaii, Alaska and home. Kate "Darby" Flanagan join the
crew in California, Oct 22, 1994 and was a shell-back by the
time she was three months old.

The summer of 1997 saw Alcyone, family and guests heading
up to explore the Queen Charlotte Islands.

In 1998 the forward cabin was reworked to hold three bunks
instead of a double and the Alcyone began a sail training
program with youth, for the next three summers.

In the fall of 2000 the Alcyone headed to Ireland and back
once again doing ocean charter. The trip took her through
the Panama Canal to the Caribbean, then to the East Coast
of the United States, across the Atlantic to Ireland, back
through the Canal, out to revisit the South Pacific and then
back home to Port Townsend.

2003-2004 saw the Alcyone back home for more sail training
programs, this time with Alyce stepping up and filling the
seaboots as crew.

The latest offshore trip in 2005-2006 had the Alcyone heading
south to California in the summer so she could participate in
the McNish Classic Yacht Race. Then heading home via
Mexico, Marquesas, Tuamotus, Societies, Hawaii and Alaska.