Throughout his adult life, Al Mason's free time was devoted to designing a wide variety of boats (over 150 in all)—racing hulls, cruising yachts, powerboats, trawler yachts, houseboats, runabouts, sport fishermen, dinghies, launches, workboats, etc.—for construction in wood, steel, aluminum, fiberglass, and ferro-cement.

Among his many well-known build-it-yourself, stock,, and custom designs were the beloved Ostkust, Manana, Carinita, Dutch Treat, Sitzmark II, Sitzmark IV, Carolyn, Lotus, Independence, and Harm's Way, to name just a few.

A number of his stock designs also became successful production boats marketed by such firms as Transpac, Joel Johnson, Norge Boats, and Hans Christian.

In addition to designing, Al was a regular member of racing crews for over 25 years, most often aboard one of his designs. During the 1950s, he regularly participated in the Newport/Bermuda, Newport/Annapolis, Off-Soundings, and Storm Trysail races, among others. For many years, he was also a well-known yacht measurer around Long Island Sound for Storm Trysail Club and Cruising Club of America.

Gilbert Klingel was a naturalist, boat-builder, and adventurer, author, and contributor to the Baltimore Sun, for a time affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and a long time member of the Maryland Natural History Society.
He is best known for his book about the Chesapeake Bay, The Bay, winner of the John Burroughs Medal.

Born in 1908, Klingel built his first boat when he was 20. In 1930, at a boat shop in Oxford, MD, Klingel supervised the construction of a replica of Spray, the rotund sloop in which Joshua Slocum became the first man to sail solo around the world in 1898.

During World War II, Klingel worked for ARCMO Steel in Baltimore, and rose to Chief of Metallurgy for ARMCO in the course of his career there. After retiring he started Gwynn's Island Boat Yard in Virginia. He built a dozen steel sailboats in the 30' class, along with a 42' ketch, a 51' schooner, PIPISTRELLE, a 75' C/B ketch, CLEMENTINE, and one large power boat (a 62' yacht, MANTEO, now named MARIAH). In addition to building these steel boats he also built several diving bells that he used for research in the Chesapeake Bay.

It was foggy, rainy and windy on Sept. 24th when Vinalhaven vocational education teacher Mark Jackson and one of his students, Philip Hopkins, set off on the 30-foot steel sloop Freya for the first six-week leg of a four-leg trip down and up the east coast. Crewmembers will change in the Chesapeake Bay area and St. Augustine, Florida.

The trip is the realization of a dream project initiated by Jackson's students three years ago. Jackson had challenged his students to design a project that would test the limits of their imaginations. They decided building a boat capable of sailing around the world and then taking it on a long-distance voyage was that project. For the next three years, Jackson and his class were consumed by planning the project, rebuilding the boat and then planning the voyage.

This final part of the project has come to be known as VIVA, an acronym for Vinalhaven Island Viking Adventure. Students who participate in VIVA will be expected to keep up with their regular course work via mail and Internet access aboard Freya. In addition, each sailor will be responsible for maintaining, operating and navigating the boat, as well as keeping a journal, preparing reports for a website log, using audio equipment to document the trip and preparing and presenting a five- to eight-minute talk upon his or her return.