Senator Ted Kennedy

“For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die”, a quote from one of the longest serving members of the United States Senate, Edward “Ted” Kennedy. The brother of JFK served for over 40 years as a US Senator from Massachusetts. Kennedy’s time in the US Senate is marked with numerous achievements related to civil rights, health care and the economy. Kennedy was passionate about ensuring quality health care for all and called health care, “the cause of my life”. Here in Hyannis you could often catch a glimpse of the Senator enjoying the day sailing aboard his sail boat, The Maya. He called Hyannis Port home from the late 1980’s up to his death from a brain tumor in 2009.

The Dedication of Sarah

Senator Ted Kennedy attended the dedication of the Cat Boat, Sarah. The ceremony was held in 2007 right at the site of this trail marker, here at Gateway Marina. Senator Kennedy said in his dedication speech, “Today is about wood, not about fiberglass. It’s about hemp not nylon. It’s about compass and charts, and not GPSs. Let me mention a few wonderful quotes from a marvelous book about the sea, with words from Eugene O’Neil and how he describes the sensation of sailing: “I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, with the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight towering high above me. I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself—actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself!”