CAMDEN — The Camden Select Board Tuesday night unanimously approved a request to transfer the daysailer license for the schooner Surprise to Ramiro and Nicole de Acevedo Ramos.

The board's vote followed a previous unanimous vote by the Camden Harbor Committee to recommend approval of the transfer request, said Harbor Committee Chairman Gene McKeever.

"We unanimously and enthusiastically voted that this should go through," said McKeever to the Select Board. "We have precedence all over the place of this with the Olad, Betselma, Lively Lady II and Lazy Jack, so it looked like a no-brainer to the harbor committee."

Jack and Barbara Moore have been the owners of Surprise for 27 years, and have operated the daysailer out of Camden Harbor for 29 years. This season would have been their 30th on the water.

"This is the 30th time we have been before the select board with a request for a daysailer license. Our first one was in 1984. And it's sort of with mixed emotions we are presenting this to you," said Jack Moore Tuesday night. "A lot of us is tied up in that boat. When we came here 30 years ago, we had no idea we would be doing this for so long."

Moore said that the Acevedo Ramoses had approached them several year ago and expressed an interest in some day being the caretaker of Surprise and taking over the business.

"At that time, we were not interested in stepping aside so we said, 'Thank you very much and we'll keep it in mind,'" said Moore. "Over the years, we kept in touch and then last fall we spoke with them, and now, here we are."

Moore said he and his wife decided last year it would be good for them to step down while they were still able and to "pass it along to somebody with as much energy as we had when we were their age."

"We fell privileged to have been representatives of the town for all these years and we can't think of better custodians to whom to pass onto the Surprise than Nicole and Ramiro," said Moore.

He added that they plan to remain boaters in Camden Harbor on a pleasure vessel, and that they have fun on the water taking photos of Surprise into the future.

Nicole de Acevedo Ramos, a Camden native, told the board that she and her husband, who hails from Argentina, had been looking forward to this day for a long time.

"Ramiro and I have been together for 17 years and from the very beginning, we wanted to have our own boat to do charters with," said Acevedo Ramos.

The couple has spent much of their lives working on the water on other people's boats. They live in Camden.

"We have always admired the Moores and their working together and we've seen them sailing by us and motoring by us while we have been working on other boats and we said, someday, we would really like to do that," said Acevedo Ramos. "Finally, this dream of ours is coming together. We hope that you decide that we are a good choice for this and let us continue with sailing in Camden."

Before making the motion to approve the license transfer, Select Board member Leonard Lookner said he was pleased to see a local business being passed on to a younger generation.

"We've talked about this a lot on this environment, trying to get the town younger, and here is a business being passed to young people to carry on the tradition of local business and that's everything we hoped for," said Lookner.

Lookner's motion was seconded by Jim Heard, and the vote to approve was unanimous.

Following the vote, Town Manager Pat Finnegan thanked the Moores for their years of service in the town.

"Jack and Barb, you have been such a wonderful part of this community and the harbor and it's great that you can pass it on to people you trust, to know the Surprise will be in good hands and the fact you won't be going away, and that you'll still be godmother and godfather of Surprise and that's a very nice thing," said Finnegan.

Editorial Director Holly S. Edwards can be reached at hollyedwards@penbaypilot.com or 706-6655.