On Saturday afternoon a crowd gathered at the Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway. They had come to witness the launching of a 28-foot replica whaleboat which had been built at the shipyard as part of the restoration of the Charles W. Morgan, the only remaining wooden whaling ship in the U.S. The crowd was not filled with mere bystanders, though. Muscle was needed.

“It takes a village to put one of these together,” said Nat Benjamin, one of the shipyard’s founders. “It looks like it’s going to take a whole city to launch it.”

Sailors for the Sea, an ocean conservation nonprofit focused on the sailing and boating community, announced that Sail Martha’s Vineyard and Tisbury Waterways have taken the Clean Regattas Pledge for gold level Clean Regattas certification of the 2013 Vineyard Cup. Clean Regattas certification provides independent, third-party verification that a yacht club, sailing program, or regatta is environmentally responsible and is protecting and restoring the waters.

An old wooden powerboat from Chilmark named Souvenir is being rebuilt this winter at Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway. Souvenir is a 32-foot wooden Brownell powerboat with a diesel engine that was built in Mattapoissett in 1962. She is getting a whole new bottom: a new keel, below the waterline planks and ribs and a fuel tank. She is powered by a five-year-old 225-horsepower Cummins diesel.

They are all captains but don’t wear lifejackets. Membership in their yacht club only costs $5 a year. When a severe storm is brewing, they don’t have to worry about moorings, storm surges or high winds. Their boats weather the worst usually on a shelf in the living room. The dozen members of the Martha’s Vineyard Model Yacht Club are a unique group of mariners. This month they are gearing up for a busy sailing season with frequent racing and gams.