Growing up in western Massachusetts, I didn’t have much exposure to the sea, or to seafarers. It was by freak chance that I met my first sea captain.

The U.S. Coast Guard investigated a mishap in which a fishing boat struck the yawl boat of the schooner Shenandoah Wednesday. The yawl boat, hanging from davits off the stern of the Black Dog ship, was destroyed; the two larger vessels were unharmed.

This week concludes Capt. Robert Douglas’ 50th summer skippering the Shenandoah, what amounts to the longest-running relationship between a captain and his boat he’s ever heard of.

“To my knowledge, no one has ever been tied up to the same boat, without interruption for 50 years,” he said this week on the porch outside his office in Vineyard Haven.

Robert S. Douglas, captain of the topsail schooner Shenandoah, received the Walter Cronkite award Saturday at the 21st annual Sail Martha’s Vineyard Seafood Buffet and Auction at Tisbury Wharf. The award is bestowed to those who have distinguished themselves above and beyond, following the precepts of Sail Martha’s Vineyard’s own goals, to enrich the lives of others.

On Saturday, at the bow of the historic schooner Alabama, Capt. Ian Ridgeway addressed a group of Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School fifth and sixth grade students who had just returned from a five-day sail at sea.

“This is a bond that the 20 or so of us will all have together for the rest of our lives,” he said. “You are now ambassadors for this boat.”

When the topsail schooner Shenandoah goes sailing this summer, credit for some of the work this spring in preparing the beautiful wooden vessel for another season goes to a 26-year-old West Tisbury resident. Working in his shop in the woods, Myles Thurlow built and restored several important spars on the 47-year-old Shenandoah.