Cape Cod's Maritime Heritage Celebrated in Weekend Festival

By: Elise Hugus, June 7, 2012

Celebrate Cape Cod’s rich nautical history with the 11th Annual Cape Cod Maritime Festival this weekend! Held on the Cape Cod Maritime Museum grounds on the Hyannis waterfront, the two-day festival features boat-building demonstrations, theater with nautical themes and the first-ever Seafood Throwdown competition starring local seafood prepared by local chefs.

• Explore historic vessels, including the Black Dog Tall Ship Shenandoah at the Hyannis Marina, and sail on the museum-built 1886 Crosby Catboat replica Sarah.      

• Watch a boat-building demonstration while listening to live music from Mark Allen Lovewell, Craig DeMelo the “Whiskey Poet,” Cape Traditions, New Bedford Sea Chantey Chorus, and others continues throughout the afternoon at Aselton Park.

• Enjoy the Wolf Run Dance Company's stage performance of “There’s Nothing Like a Dame” from the musical “South Pacific,” while Pirates of the Cape roam the festival grounds and local nonprofit organizations offer children’s entertainment.

Continuing the 11-year tradition, locally caught seafood will be featured from area restaurateurs and food vendors for festival-goers to enjoy. New this year is the Seafood Throwdown contest, hosted by the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, in which two local chefs go head-to-head in a cooking competition inspired by local seafood.

Each participant will bring only their favorite cooking vessels and utensils, presentation plates and three of their favorite ingredients. Once the contest begins, they discover the secret seafood ingredient and are given $25 to use at local markets. With only an hour to prepare, cook and plate their dish for three judges, the chefs will also make enough to offer a small tasting to the public.   

Catch some wind...

This year will be the first the Cape Cod Maritime Festival is the culminating event of Maritime Days, which took place from May 13 to June 10. Even though the Maritime Days are ending, the Cape Cod Maritime Museum offers educational exhibits and workshops on nautical and marine themes for students of all ages from mid-March to mid-December.

From knot tying and navigation courses to boat building and model boat racing, the museum’s mission is to celebrate and preserve the Cape’s maritime heritage, said museum educator Shannon Eldredge.

Whether the workshops take place at the museum or in classrooms across Cape Cod, the museum aims to increase young Cape Codders’ access to maritime culture.
“We serve a lot of kids who haven’t been on a boat before, but it’s right at their fingertips,” said Eldredge, who is herself the daughter of commercial fishermen.

“We want them to have access and experience with this great resource, the ocean. There’s a lot of opportunity in terms of their future in marine trades and traditions, jobs and education. Getting them in early and exposing them to all the different cool nautical things, like boat building and fishing, can excite them.”

Catch the Wind, a special exhibit currently on display at the museum, is sure to excite water sports enthusiasts of all ages with its imagery of wind surfing and kite boarding at breathtaking scenic locations around Cape Cod.

On display through September 23, the exhibit features historic and contemporary photographs and surfing artifacts, demonstrating the broad scope of maritime sports available on Cape Cod.

“Recreational sports like surfing absolutely fall under the maritime umbrella. It’s closely related to sailing, and we’ve noticed the same skills help kids in school with STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects,” Eldredge said.