The Greenhorns announce a last minute vessel change for the Maine Sail Freight maiden voyage from Maine to Boston. We will be sailing, and selling as scheduled, thanks to the alacrity and fluid logistical finesse of Captain Stefan Edick and the Schooner Adventure. We are ocean legal and on our way to BOSTON HARBOR. Many thanks to the nautical architects, marina stewards and coast guard officials animated the prospect of Adventure-based commerce. It takes a team to hoist this sail!
The Gloucester Adventure, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit maritime historic preservation and educational organization. We are the stewards of the 1926 dory-fishing Schooner Adventure. Our mission begins with restoration and preservation in perpetuity of the National Historic Landmark Schooner Adventure, one of the last surviving Grand Banks dory-fishing schooners. The Schooner Adventure is a national treasure that has resumed active sailing as an icon of the American fisheries and as a floating classroom for maritime history and environmental education programs. The Schooner will be operated at sea, primarily along the New England coast, as a living monument to Massachusetts’ fishing heritage. As such, the Schooner Adventure is important not only to Gloucester, but also to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and all America.
Our goal is to heighten awareness of Gloucester’s role in the development of the American Fishing Industry, the plight of the thousands of men lost at sea, and how a fleet of fast and able schooners defined a regional economy.
ADVENTURE HISTORY:
The Schooner Adventure was designed by famous marine architect Thomas McManus as a “knockabout”. The schooner was built in 1926 in Essex, Massachusetts by the John F. James and Son Shipyard. From 1926 – 1953 Schooner Adventure fished cod, haddock and halibut from Nantucket to Newfoundland, along the Grand Banks of the North Atlantic. Carrying a sailing rig, diesel engine, and 14 dories, Adventure was an exceptionally fast and able vessel, the ultimate evolution of the fishing schooner. When retired in 1953, Schooner Adventure was the last American dory fishing trawler left in the Atlantic. In 1954, Schooner Adventure was retired from fishing and converted into a windjammer for passenger cruising, removing the engine, propeller, and prop shaft. Adventure carried passengers along the coast of Maine until 1987. Her grace, beauty, and prowess as a sailing vessel earned her the nickname “Queen of the Windjammers.”
Adventure was then donated to the people of Gloucester, Massachusetts by way of The Gloucester Adventure Inc., a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization formed to be steward of this historic vessel. The organization’s mission is three-fold:
- Restore and preserve Adventure in perpetuity,
- Utilize Adventure as an educational resource with programming for maritime, environmental and cultural issues and,
- Sail Adventure as a symbol of Gloucester’s maritime heritage.
For more information: http://www.schooner-adventure.org
The mission of the Maine Sail Freight project is to enliven public conversation about the logistics of regional trade, to draw on our long, storied maritime history as a basis for a long-view conversation about shifting our farm economy for the future. There is an economic action at the middle of this project, attended by pageantry and panel discussions, we invite the public to get involved directly, carry some cargo, and discuss tactics for re-regionalizing our farm economy.
the irresistible fleet of bicycles 