The Schooner Windfall, Ocracoke Island, NC

Caroline Temple, the captain's teenage daughter, has also been sailing on schooners since long before she was old enough to be aware of it. She has been filling in as mate since 2010.

The Windfall II is a 32' Lazy Jack Schooner designed by Ted Brewer. She offers 1.5-hour sunset sails ($40 per person) daily and is also available for private charter. Departing from the Community Store Dock in historic Ocracoke village, she sails out onto Pamlico Sound and visits Teach's Hole where the infamous pirate Blackbeard was beheaded in 1718.

The Wilma Lee is a 46' skipjack designed and built by Bronza Parks in 1940. She dredged oysters on Chesapeake Bay for 56 years before being totally rebuilt for passenger service.

A Tarheel native, Rob Temple has been a U.S.C.G. licensed captain since 1978 and is also a sailing instructor certified by the American Sailing Association. He owned and skippered the original schooner Windfall from 1985 until he replaced her with Windfall II in May, 2010. Ocracoke has been his home port since 1993. Having acquired the reputation of an authority on Blackbeard, he was featured in the two-hour History Channel documentary True Caribbean Pirates in 2006. National Geographic purchased his poem about Blackbeard entitled "Israel Hands" for use on their website. You can check it out here:

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0607/feature6/multimedia.html

THE VESSELS

THE CRE