Schooner Woodwind II Goes Hollywood

Here’s an article in the Washington Examiner about actor Christopher Walken’s use of the Annapolis day-sail schooner, Woodwind II. Walken was filmed sailing the boat for the new Vince Vaughn comedy, The Wedding Crashers. Not having seen the movie, I can’t vouch for the cameo but I used to crew aboard the Woodwind when I lived in Annapolis in 1998. That spring, having hopped a yacht delivery up from the U.S.V.I., I scored a bartender job at Pusser’s Landing and by June had a 2^nd job as deckhand aboard Woodwind. The family (Ken and Ellen Kaye, daughter Jen) that owns and runs the program are tremendous people – the Examiner article features daughter Jen Brest who was steering the boat, flat on her back with a compass on her chest, during the film sequence with Walken. The first Woodwind, the one I worked on, was built in May 1993 by the Scarano Boat Builder's Yard in Albany, NY. Her hull is made of Port Orford Cedar ribs and strip planked with the same material, her decks Douglas Fir, a thin sheathing of fiberglass on the outside of the hull. As the business grew, they added the Woodwind II in 1998. My deckhand job ended as the season wound down post Annapolis boat show. I let my apartment near St. John's College go and sailed on a yacht bound for Ft Lauderdale and points south.