Beloved boats need tender loving care when they’re put “on the hard” in the winter. Here you see a de-masted sailboat in the gentle grip of a heavy-duty mobile boat hoist at the renowned Brooklin Boat Yard Tuesday. She’s being helped to balance temporarily on her keel like a ballerina student learning to pose en pointe.
Boats like this are eased at high tide into a high-sided channel landing from Center Harbor up to the BBY. The hoist is driven astride the channel, where its sling can be spread below the boat to hoist it and motor it slowly to a place for stabilization and eventual storage, usually undercover.
On the other hand, skiffs and other small vessels and mooring gear are hauled onto land in most-any convenient way and snuggled in an attractive jumble inside BBY’s old boat shed, near the channel landing:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 18, 2025.)