Seacoast History Blog #130 
November 6, 2011

I missed the October 2001 launch of the $3 million Privateer Lynx in Rockport, Maine. It was an incredible event, I hear, with thousands of cheering spectators. I interviewed people who were on the scene for my brand new book AMERICA’S PRIVATEER. So you can be sure I wasn’t going to miss the launch of Little Lynx ten years later. It wasn’t quite as spectacular. Little Lynx is only a few feet long. And there were not quite a dozen of us in attendance at South Mill Pond last week. But the mini-schooner performed beautifully and struck out like she was born to the waves – or ripples. I took a lot of photos to commemorate the moment. (See photos below)

We couldn’t find a teeny-tiny champagne bottle and the brass band got held up in traffic, so modeler Alain Jousse handled the launch on his own. Alain set the launch to coincide with the incoming tide, a wise decision, since, after two quick turns of the pond, Little Lynx got hung up on a sandbar. But the rising tide lifts all boats, and soon the radio-controlled privateer was again on the prowl for prizes. With no other ships in sight, after half an hour of successful trials, Little Lynx returned to the dock.

Alain was pleased with the first run. He will return to the pond, he says, when he installs the square topsails for greater speed. The plans, he says, came from Melbourne Smith himself, designer of the modern Lynx, which is fashioned after an 1812 letter-of-marque built at Baltimore. The original Lynx was captured by the British in 1813. The modern Lynx is currently traveling the Atlantic Coast from Florida to Canada each year. Lynx, registered at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was last in her home waters in 2010 when 8,000 visitors came aboard. We hope to see her again in 2012, the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

In reward for a perfect sail, the Discover Portsmouth Center was happy to award Capt. Jousse a copy of AMERICA’S PRIVATEER, just released by the Lynx Educational Foundation in California. Alain has agreed to display Little Lynx at the DPC during the 2012 season – when she’s not on a cruise in search of enemy booty. -- JDR

All photos by J. Dennis Robinson 
(c) SeacoastNH.com 2011