The biggest launch(a re-launch) I've seen was the ADVENTURESS in 2012. People lined the Goose River waiting to see the ADVENTURESS back down on a hydraulic trailer. Many stood on the bridge overhead. My dog and I watched it from the harbor. He's ignoring the Boxer on the inflatable. He's never been much for other dogs.

At 90' and drawing about 10', ADVENTURESS needed the top of high water without a lot of time on either side. She's longer than the Goose River is wide. And there is an old bridge abutment just beyond the red work boat that is tieing onto ADVENTURESS. ANDRE, the harbor masters metal launch would be drying out at low tide in that spot.

Quite a feat. That's why it's hard for me imagine that in 1885, the FREDERICK BILLINGS was launched in tiny Rockport Harbor. 285 feet long, 45 feet of beam and drawing 29 feet, the BILLINGS slid down a railway about where our travelift is today. Between the obvious thunder the FREDERICK BILLINGS made sliding down those rails, and the roar of the crowd, they must have heard this launch for miles around.