Tampa Bay · Clearwater Beach
A 52-foot steel staysail schooner built in Clearwater in 2016, sailing daily from the Clearwater Beach Municipal Marina. Two-hour afternoon and sunset sails by the seat, 22 guests at most, plus private charters. The course follows the wind, and guests can help raise sail.
The schooner is local in a way few charter boats are. Mark Tilly, a lifelong sailor and merchant mariner, built her near downtown Clearwater over four years with a local naval architect, commissioned her in November 2016 and had her Coast Guard certified in June 2017. She is steel in hull and deck, 52 feet overall on a 15-and-a-half-foot beam, 45,000 pounds with 10,500 of ballast, drawing six feet, and she sets 1,048 square feet in a four-sail staysail rig with self-tacking headsails. The operator calls her Clearwater Beach’s only monohull sailboat.
Sails run every day, an afternoon sail at three and a sunset sail at a quarter past six (times move with the season), each two hours, each capped at 22 guests. There is no set course and no narration; the boat goes where the wind and tide suit, generally off Clearwater Beach in the Gulf, and guests can settle into a beanbag with their own drinks or haul on a halyard with the crew. Private charters run two and a half hours, and the boat also does memorial sails for scattering ashes. Check in 45 minutes early at the ticket booth among the marina trailers, across from Crabby’s Dockside; marina parking is scarce and the operator recommends the Jolley Trolley or the Clearwater Ferry on busy days.
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