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By Jeannine Guttman Sunday, February 4, 2007

This year stands as a remarkable moment in Maine history, marking the state's 400th anniversary of shipbuilding.

In the summer of 1607, the first ocean-going New World ship, the Virginia, was built in Popham Colony at the mouth of the Kennebec River.

Today, Maine remains a world-renowned maker of boats. Whether built from wood or steel, using new technologies and high-tech composites or traditional craftsmanship, Maine's superior sailing vessels are coveted around the globe. At our newspaper, we will celebrate these four centuries with an ambitious journalism project, "A Legacy of Ships," which starts today with coverage on Page A1.

As reporter Tom Bell's article notes, the industry remains robust: "The boat-building industry is the third manufacturing sector in the state, behind metal fabrication and wood products. The industry directly affects tourism, fishing, composites, fabricated metals, lumber, financial services, transportation and research industries, producing a total state economic impact of $550 million in sales, $160 million in payroll, 4,500 jobs and $25 million in state and local taxes ..."

Numerous stories will run throughout the year, including a summer-long series leading up to the August anniversary.

The project, assigned to repor-ters Bell and Seth Harkness, is being directed by Angie Muhs, assistant managing editor. Photo editor Brian Fitzgerald, presentation editor Andrea Nemitz and convergence editor Dan Dinsmore also will play key roles.

With various media partners, we'll use the power of print, audio, film and the Web to convey the rich history and bright future of shipbuilding in Maine.

Most importantly, we're enlisting you, our readers, in this storytelling adventure.

Today, on MaineToday.com, we debut a special online section that enables you to enter personal information - letters, diaries, photos, remembrances, maps ­ about your family's experiences with this chapter of Maine history. Through this Web site, we're asking readers to help us tell this story by sharing their personal anecdotes and memorabilia.

Did your grandmother work at the South Portland shipyard in World War II? Did your great-grandfather man a lobster boat? Does your daughter race J-boats in the summer?

Did members of your family stitch sails, sell nets, teach navigation, write about the sea or tell unbelievable ocean-faring tales? We want to know all these stories - and more.

Your insights will help us frame the news coverage of this milestone. Your individual stories, woven together with the recollections of other readers, will help our newspaper fully capture Maine's legacy of ships.

Simply go to Shipbuilding at MaineToday.com. Easy-to-follow directions will show you how to add your information to the Web site.

If you prefer that we download your photos or written materials, please contact our reader services manager, Marcia MacVane, at 791-6318 or at mmacvane@pressherald.com.

With your help and newspaper staff support, this Web page will grow and expand over time, becoming an extensive and rich resource.

The culmination of this work will be a 15-part, summer-long series that will run in the Maine Sunday Telegram from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend. Each Sunday, a new installment will be published.

"The online component to the 'A Legacy of Ships' series is very exciting," said Suzi Piker, online content producer.

"We've empowered our readers to contribute their own shipbuilding stories and photographs using online tools. Contributions will be accessible not only in list form but also from an interactive map that displays contributions by location.

"As the project unfolds, this reader-driven section will showcase shipbuilding experiences across generations - a virtual show-and-tell - continually offering a new story to discover. Stay tuned for additional multimedia additions throughout the year, including an interactive shipbuilding timeline."

Added Dinsmore: "Reader interactivity is a key to getting this project off the ground. We want to hear from you because this is very much your project, just as much as it is ours. In fact, it's Maine's project."

Muhs, the editor who is managing the project, said, "What I'm especially looking forward to is hearing from readers about how your lives have been shaped by boat building and its influence on the state's development." During this year and into the next academic year, we'll also be working with Maine teachers on 400th anniversary curriculum plans that have already been approved by the state Department of Education.

Our goal here is to use newspaper, video and Web content to bring lesson plans to life in Maine classrooms. We hope to feature students' finished work on our shipbuilding Web site.

Maine's shipbuilding spans a huge continuum, from small wooden boat builders to the mammoth Bath Iron Works, where steel is molded into military destroyers. Between those bookends are schooners, clipper ships, lobster boats, fishing boats, racing boats and freighters.

There are famous characters such as John Paul Jones, who commanded the naval ship Ranger, launched at Kittery in 1777.

And there are the boat names many Mainers will recognize - Friendship sloop, Downeasters, Hinckley, Liberty ships.

It's the stuff of superlatives and here are a few, identified by our project researcher, Julia McCue:

From 1833 to 1894, Maine built more ships than any other state. From 1850 to 1856, Maine built some 90 clipper ships. In the 1850s, Bath launched 12 schooners and 199 square-riggers. During World War II, BIW was the most active American shipyard, launching a destroyer every 17 days at its peak. In South Portland, at the New England Shipbuilding Corp., more than 35,000 Maine men and women worked during the Second World War. From 1942 to 1945, they built 236 Liberty ships and 30 British cargo ships. The Liberty ships were known as the workhorses of the sea, supplying the Allied effort in Europe.

Each example represents a small portion of the many powerful stories to be told.

"I really enjoyed putting together the working timeline on shipbuilding because the history is so rich," said McCue. "Every shipbuilder and yard has its own fascinating story, but developments in ship design were tied to what was going on in California (the Gold Rush), the West Indies and China (trade). So it is the history of Maine reflecting world history."

At the newspaper and at MaineToday, we are very excited about the prospects of this project. It reflects the heart and soul of Maine, recalling its amazing past and examining its future.

Please help us in this important endeavor. We want your voices ­ your stories and your experiences - to be a central part of this report. It all begins today.

Jeannine Guttman is editor and vice president of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. Send e-mail to jguttman@pressherald.com or write to 390 Congress St., Portland, ME 04101.