Schooner Ernestina Commission

CONTACT:

PO Box 2010
New Bedford, MA 02741-2010
508-992-4900
www.ernestina.org

Gregg Swanzey, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

O. K., Pop Quiz: what is the name of the Official Vessel of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? Right! ERNESTINA is a 112-ft., 98 gross-ton ship, christened in 1894 as the EFFIE M. MORRISEY, part of the Gloucester fishing fleet. She is: the only surviving 19th-century Essex-built Grand Banks fishing schooner; the only surviving trans-Atlantic packet schooner to have carried European immigrants to America; one of two surviving Arctic exploration vessels, and she holds the farthest-north record for wooden sailing vessels, at 80° 22' N, or 578 miles from the North Pole. ERNESTINA came home to the United States in 1982 as a gift to our people from the republic of the Cape Verde Islands. She is now a National Historic Landmark and part of the New Bedford Whaling National Historic Park.

Today her mission is educational. She receives approximately 30,000 annual visitors, including 3,300 school children and 300 teachers. Her curriculum features six learning stations on board, illuminating the ship and the marine world around it. She can sleep 28 and day-sail 80 persons 11 years old and up, and can be booked for week-long passages at sea between Massachusetts coastal communities and beyond, and she wouldn't mind working in warmer waters from September to June.

Philanthropically, she is a special case: operated by a nine-member Commission in the Dept. of Environmental Management, created by the legislature and Gov. Weld in 1994, under MGL c. 6. But though she is supported by public funds, they do not give her a free ride. She must also raise earned income and tax-deductible charitable donations, or the government subsidy would disappear. With your support, she can double her service to our school children.

(1997: CULTURE: Education: Informal: Historic Preservation)