Boaters can spend days exploring the many tidal rivers around Bath.

Travel north along the Kennebec River and you’ll come to a place where the past, present—and even future—mix and mingle. As you round Doubling Point and enter Long Reach, the rolling grounds of the Maine Maritime Museum spread before you, marked by six towering, flag-topped masts representing the 329-foot schooner Wyoming, the largest wooden sailing vessel ever built in the United States. Just beyond that is the Bath Iron Works, where the most advanced Navy warships are launched. Farther on, a skeletal, iron railroad bridge built in 1927 spans the river just downstream from its hulking 21st-century neighbor—the steel-and-concrete, four-lane Sagadahoc highway bridge. During summer, both are busy.

And so is the city of Bath, one of the most interesting and underrated boating destinations in Maine!

Named the “City of Ships” for its long history as a shipbuilding center, modern-day Bath has a lot to recommend it to visiting boaters, including a public float with 200 feet of free dockage for waterborne daytrippers. Step ashore and you’ll find yourself amid a thriving downtown filled with shops, galleries, and restaurants.

Brick sidewalks run the length of Front Street, Bath’s primary retail district. As they have for more than 100 years, strollers check out the shop windows, kibitz with friends and strangers, relax on benches under shade trees, and walk the family dog.

Modern shipbuilding on display at Bath Iron Works.

A duality of old versus new occurs throughout the city. If you want to immerse yourself fully in Bath’s shipbuilding past, set a course for the aforementioned Maine Maritime Museum, which offers tie-up space along its dock and pier for day visitors on the doorstep of one of the state’s premiere attractions (overnight stays are also possible). The museum’s 20-acre campus occupies the former site of several 19th century shipyards, and features a series of fascinating exhibits on how massive wooden sailing vessels were constructed. It also maintains a large collection of beautifully restored wooden boats, kayaks, and canoes, as well as an on-site boatbuilding workshop. In short, plan on spending a full day here.

Shipbuilding techniques of an even older era can be witnessed closer to downtown Bath, where a full-scale, wooden replica of the Virginia—the first English ship built in North America—is docked at the foot of Commercial Street. The original Virginia was a 50-foot pinnace built between 1607 and 1608 by the Popham Colony, a failed English settlement at the mouth of the Kennebec. The replica was fashioned using mostly hand tools by a group of volunteer shipwrights and students. Tours and demonstrations are available.

In stark contrast to the past on display at the Maritime Museum and Maine’s First Ship is the state-of-the-art shipbuilding facility of Bath Iron Works, a General Dynamics company that the locals refer to only by its initials. But even the waterfront-dominating BIW has deep roots in the city, going back to 1826 as the Bath Iron Foundry. Bristling with cranes and featuring a huge submersible dry dock, BIW is the city’s largest employer and a major contractor for the U.S. military. Since 9-11, the waters near the facility have been off-limits, with an armed patrol boat standing ready to shoo off wayward boaters who wander inside the orange-buoyed no-go zone.

Byrne’s Irish Pub offers Celtic fare and hospitality.

After getting your fill of shipbuilding, you may be ready to explore Bath’s downtown scene. Loaded with antiques shops, restaurants, and specialty stores, this is where most visitors end up. Maine’s premier department store, Reny’s, is perhaps the most-visited local outlet, being well known for its cut-rate prices on name-brand clothing, nonperishable foods, over-the-counter drugs, beauty aids, lawn chairs, and you-name-its. Galleries, bookstores, jewelry shops, cafés and boutiques also vie for the attention of tourists and serious shoppers.

If all of this shopping and walking gets you hungry, downtown Bath offers a wealth of dining options, including Thai, seafood, pizza, and more within steps of the waterfront—but you don’t have to stray even that far for a cold beverage or bite to eat. The Kennebec River Tavern & Marina offers free dockage, as well as a large deck for enjoying the view. You can also arrange to keep your boat here overnight if you decide that Bath deserves more thorough exploration.

If you happen to visit on a Saturday, you’ll find no end of delicacies and fresh produce at the Bath Farmers’ Market, held along Commercial Street in Waterfront Park. The quality and variety of goods on display are impressive, and area boaters often make the trip just to stock up on local goods. If you miss the Farmers’ Market, Brackett’s IGA on lower Front Street carries an extensive array of meats, wine, vegetables, local beer, and the like, all at competitive prices (meaning not adjusted for tourist season).

One way to work off all the tempting libations and victuals of downtown Bath is to get back out on the Kennebec River and try your hand at striper fishing. Striped bass can be found anywhere between the river mouth and Swan Island, eight miles north of Bath, but the deep area directly in front of Bath Iron Works offers some of the most dependable action.

The Doubling Point Range Light.

Other natural delights await the observant river cruiser. A leisurely trip either up- or downriver will usually yield a bald eagle sighting, along with seals, leaping sturgeon, osprey, and a variety of wading birds. You can often see all of this on a tour with River Run Tours, which offers guided trips on the lower Kennebec and its tributaries aboard a 25-foot pontoon boat.

The area’s many watery inland connections to a variety of neighboring harbors make it a perfect base when foul weather or fog hinder ocean travel. The most popular “inside route” destination is Boothbay Harbor, accessible via the Sasanoa River—a trip that’s described in great detail in most cruising guides. But there is also Wiscasset, Five Islands, Bowdoinham, Richmond, Hallowell, and even Augusta, all of which can be reached from Bath using channels that are well marked and plenty deep enough for all but the largest megayachts. Nooks and crannies for gunkholing enthusiasts number in the dozens.

So. regardless of whether you’re headed to Bath for its past, present or future, the nation’s “Cradle of Shipbuilding” is bound to keep you gainfully occupied for days, maybe even weeks. Follow the Kennebec north on the first of the flood and be prepared for a 12-mile trip and a destination like no other you’ve experienced before—or will again.