Last Saturday at Martha’s Vineyard Shipyard, amidst the swirl of bagpipes and the boom of cannons, Rick and Chrissie Haslet launched their 42-foot ketch Destiny. Joining them were hundreds of Vineyard residents, friends of the couple, Rick’s dad and sister and Chrissie’s father who flew in from New Zealand.

Rick is quality control manager for Martha’s Vineyard Shipyard. His job is to check each boat that is launched every spring to see that everything is ready for her owner. It’s a perfect fit for a finicky boat builder. Chrissie is the sole proprietor of an interior decorating business — called, appropriately, Destiny Interiors. She sewed all the cushions for Nat Benjamin’s schooners Juno and Rebecca. In her Chappy studio she designs shutters and shades and creates almost anything out of fabric for the best homes on the Island.

Sixteen years in the building, Destiny is strip planked with inch and a quarter strips of western red cedar, each glued to the other. This technique allowed Rick to build the boat himself because you don’t need massive timbers to provide strength. “I could do it all with small tools,” he says. For added strength, Rick put bronze ring nails every eight inches — staggered throughout the vessel’s length. He laid two layers of fiberglass by hand on the inside, two outside and six on the keel and stem.

According to Rick, Destiny is as much a product of the Vineyard community in which it was built as it is of his hands and Chrissie’s support. Ben Reeves and Cappy Sterling, for example, provided a place for her initial layup and Phil Hale carved out space in a shed at Martha’s Vineyard Shipyard for her to be completed. The burled Silver Bali wood that graces the cabin was supplied by Brad Ives, a local importer of exotic hard woods, at such low cost that “it really was a gift,” as Rick will tell you. Nat Benjamin provided the wood for Destiny’s bowsprit and was instrumental in her design. “Vineyard Haven is the wooden boatbuilding capital of the East Coast,” Rick says. “If I have a problem there are a dozen or so shipwrights who know how to solve it. Every now and then I’ll ask Nat Benjamin for advice and he always finds his way over here. This is the perfect place to build a wooden boat.”

And to launch one, as attested by the thronging well wishers. “Launch day is an Island institution,” Rick said after Destiny was finally tied alongside the Shipyard pier, “everyone we knew seemed to be here, and a lot of folks that just happened by. “I was overwhelmed,” Chrissie added. “I don’t know what we did to deserve all this outpouring of love and affection.”

Chrissie and Rick’s plan is a little different than most sailors who cast free of land and set out for an endless voyage. Each year, they will spend six months sailing and six on the Vineyard. It’s partly out of necessity — they need to earn money — and partly out of fondness for the Island. It’s also because Chrissie loves her small business and doesn’t want to give it up.

This winter, Rick will work on the spars, sails, booms and running rigging. Next year they will sail her locally, on weekends and evenings, and voyage to Maine on a shakeout cruise. Then they will journey into the Caribbean, returning to the Vineyard for one more summer to fill the till, as Rick puts it. Finally, they will sail over the horizon bound for the South Pacific. Ultimately Rick and Chrissie will reach New Zealand where Chrissie was born. They have found the place where they will eventually settle.

“Great Barrier Island is about twice the size of Martha’s Vineyard,” Rick says. “There’s no power there. Everyone is self sufficient. It’s a beautiful place. There are miles and miles of deserted beaches. And it’s not far from Chrissie’s family, so I think that’s where we will settle down. But not for awhile. I think Destiny will carry us a long ways before we finally tie her up and go ashore.”