Schooner Adventure

CONTACT:

P.0. Box 1306
Gloucester, MA 01931
(978) 857-8397
schooner-adventure.org

Martin Krugman, President

DESCRIPTION:

Historic seagoing vessels come down to us loaded with interest, embodying historic science, technology, biology, ecology, economics, sociology, crafts, art, and human lives, among many other aspects. Massachusetts was once, of course, a boat and ship-building powerhouse—4,000 wooden vessels were built in Essex alone. Of those, the Adventure, a 122-foot "knockabout" built in 1926, is one of only 5 surviving fishing schooners—the world-famous "Gloucestermen," immortalized in Rudyard Kipling's Captains Courageous. In her time, she was one of the most successful commercially, and for a time the "highliner" of the North Atlantic fleet. When she was retired in 1953, she was the last of her type still working.

She then spent 33 years as a windjammer, plying the coast of Maine. In 1988 she was donated to the people of Gloucester, America's oldest (378 years) fishing port. In 1989 she was named to the National Register of Historic Places. Since then, she has served as Gloucester's historic flagship, educating both tourists and local schoolchildren about the history of the fishing industry, the lives of fishermen, and the arts and crafts of shipbuilding. In 1994, Adventure was designated a National Historic Landmark, and in 1999 an Official Project of Save America's Treasures.

This Special Project will restore Adventure to seaworthy condition, for U.S. Coast Guard certification as a safe passenger vessel; she will then become an historical museum and sailing classroom for environmental and marine education—a destination site on the Essex National Heritage Area Maritime Trail. You are hereby invited to visit and join the Adventure.

(2001: CULTURE: Education: Informal: Historic Preservation)