Shearwater (schooner) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Designer:

Theodore Donald Wells

The Shearwater is an 81.5 feet (24.8 m) wooden schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

docked in Lower Manhattan

Lower Manhattan

Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...

in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. The schooner was designed by Theodore Donald Wells and built by the Rice Brothers Corporation in East Boothbay

Boothbay, Maine

Boothbay is a town in Lincoln County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,960 at the 2000 census. It includes the villages of East Boothbay and Trevett. The Boothbay region is a center of summer tourist activity, and a significant part of its population does not live there year...

, Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

in 1929. During World War II, it was requisitioned into the United States Coast Guard

United States Coast Guard

The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...

to patrol for German U-boat

U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

s. The Shearwater completed a circumnavigation of the world in the early-1980s and later worked as a research laboratory for the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

's Institute of Environmental Medicine. Docked about 200 yard west of the site of the World Trade Center

World Trade Center

The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...

, it is operated by Manhattan by Sail, which gives 90-minute long tours of New York Harbor

New York Harbor

New York Harbor refers to the waterways of the estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River that empty into New York Bay. It is one of the largest natural harbors in the world. Although the U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not use the term, New York Harbor has important historical, governmental,...

, and is licensed to carry 48 passengers. The schooner was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

in 2009.

Construction

The schooner is 81 in 6 in (24.84 m) in overall length, extending 64 in 6 in (19.66 m) on deck and 48 in 3 in (14.71 m) along the waterline. At 36 gross tons, her maximum beam is 16 in 6 in (5.03 m) and she draws 10 feet (3 m) of water. The design is a semi-fisherman type with a spooned bow, that was popular in the early twentieth century. The full keel is made of solid oak and the hull is yellow pine over an oak frame. The floor timbers are oak, the stern is laminated mahogany, and the decks are teak. She has two spruce masts.

The engine room below the deckhouse holds a Detroit 4-71 diesel engine.

History

Her designer Theodore Donald Wells was a naval architect and marine engineer, who began his career as a member of the firm Herreshoff and Wells, N. Y. City in 1902. From 1903 to 1907 he worked for Wintringham and Wells and then began designing ships on his own. Wells joined the Navy Department in March 1917 and became Superintending Constructor of the Baltimore District of the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

.

Rice Brothers was well known for building luxury pleasure yachts and produced about 4,000 hulls over a period of 64 years. Shearwater's keel was laid down on January 4, 1929 and about 40 workmen helped in the construction. She was launched on May 4, 1929. Her first captain was Leon Esterbrook and her first owner was Charles E Dunlap, a member of the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club

Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club

The Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club is one of the oldest yacht clubs in the Western Hemisphere , located in Oyster Bay, New York, with access to Long Island Sound.-History:...

in Oyster Bay, NY which became her first homeport after her fitting out was completed in late September 1929.

On November 7, 1942, after being requisitioned by the War Shipping Administration

War Shipping Administration

The War Shipping Administration was a World War II emergency war agency of the US Government, tasked to purchase and operate the civilian shipping tonnage the US needed for fighting the war....

, she became a member of The United States Coast Guard

United States Coast Guard

’s Coastal Picket Patrol. She was painted gray and bore the numbers CG67004. Based at Little Creek, Virginia

Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek

The Naval Amphibious Base, Little Creek is the major operating base for the Amphibious Forces in the United States Navy's Atlantic Fleet. The base comprises four locations in three states, including almost 12,000 acres of real estate. Its Little Creek location in Virginia Beach, Virginia totals...

she patrolled the waters east of the Chesapeake Bay

Chesapeake Bay

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...

entrance and south towards Cape Hatteras

Cape Hatteras

Cape Hatteras is a cape on the coast of North Carolina. It is the point that protrudes the farthest to the southeast along the northeast-to-southwest line of the Atlantic coast of North America...

. She was designed and built as a gaff rig

Gaff rig

Gaff rig is a sailing rig in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar called the gaff...

ged schooner but during this period was changed to a Marconi rig

Bermuda rig

The term Bermuda rig refers to a configuration of mast and rigging for a type of sailboat and is also known as a Marconi rig; this is the typical configuration for most modern sailboats...

.

She first traveled through the Panama Canal

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...

in July 1946 and in the late 1970s and early 1980s completed a two and a half-year global circumnavigation

Circumnavigation

Circumnavigation – literally, "navigation of a circumference" – refers to travelling all the way around an island, a continent, or the entire planet Earth.- Global circumnavigation :...

. In December 1971 she was donated to the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

's Institute of Environmental Medicine. She worked as a yacht-for-charter in 1966 while on the West Coast sailing to California's Channel Islands

Channel Islands of California

The Channel Islands of California are a chain of eight islands located in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California along the Santa Barbara Channel in the United States of America...

and was again used as a charter while owned by the University of Pennsylvania.

The Shearwater was purchased by her current owners in 2000. On the morning of September 11, 2001, she was hit by falling debris from the World Trade Center

World Trade Center

, but was sailed to New Jersey for safety. The Shearwater was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

on March 9, 2009.

Construction

History

See also