Out in the cerulean bay, around the Point of Sharps, comes a cloud of white canvas and sparkling brightwork, taut lines humming in the afternoon shore breeze. The ratlines are festooned with bright-eyed folkies who have heard about the goings-on. Joe Offer stands to the helm, expertly gauging the wind and schooning her into the bay under the expert eye of Skipper Morse.

It is The Mudcat Schooner, one hundred and twenty feet of sheer nautical precision and grace, a poem in canvas and line, varnish and brass. She swoops down the bay to a point just a cable's length from shore, swings gracefully up into the wind, her canvas rattling down and her wide-tooth hook splashing down, into the sandy bottom. She sways ahead, to the scope of her chain, pauses, and lies back as the anchor digs in.   With a a gentle shudder, she lies to her anchor, home.

The summery afternoon air echoes with the combined voices of all hands, lining the rails and skittering down the lines to the deck, in four clear parts of sweet harmony:

Awaaaay-O! The Mudcat!
The Mudcat Schooner-o!
The Mudcat takes you anywhere
That you could want to goooooo.....

The decks rapidly wahsed down, the canvas furled and tied, the booms chocked and the hallilards taut, lines coiled and neatly made ship-shape, the schooner readies for a stay on the hook.

A few hands man a block and sway up a boom, which rapidly lifts away a long and graceful liberty boat, and then another, laying them alongside as neat as a librarian's pencils, bright white against the pale blue water. Oars are broken out and manned, and soon boatload after boatload of tanned and ready Folkies comes sweeping in and unloading at the beach, carrying mandolins, tambours, bagpipes, mouth harps, blues guitars, Dobros, 12-strings, banjos and tuners.

They scatter among the paths of the great carnival, the grog shopes, the midway pitches and the boardwalk displays of food, magic, music and affection.

At her hook with only an anchor watch on board, the great schooner nods in grace, talking things over with the gentling sea.