MDIslander – Sunbeam Back Home After Major Rehab
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Sunbeam back home after major rehab
October 5, 2020 by Dick Broom on News, Waterfront
MOUNT DESERT — Following an absence of nearly 18 months for repairs and renovations, Sunbeam returned to its Northeast Harbor home last Friday and will be back in action within a few weeks.
The Maine Seacoast Mission uses Sunbeam to deliver health care and other services to islands and coastal Downeast communities.
It was taken to Front Street Shipyard in Belfast in May 2019 because rust was starting to eat away at the inside of the steel hull. The furnace and two generators needed to be replaced, and the crew’s very small and rather spartan living quarters needed to be reconfigured and spruced up. The galley needed new appliances, and the floor in the salon area needed to be ripped up and replaced because of rust.
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Sunbeam serves a trio of functions.
“We take the nurse around, we take the chaplain around and we are also like a floating coffee house,” [Capt. Mike] Johnson said. “When we show up on Isle au Haut, for example, people come aboard to get coffee and play cribbage and mingle with their neighbors.”