Schooners Columbia, American Eagle & Lettie G. Howard Race at Gloucester

This weekend, the 31st Annual Gloucester Schooner Festival was held, culminating in the Mayor’s Cup Schooner Race.  The Esperanto Cup, representing the large schooners, was won by the schooner Columbia, built in 2014, a steel replica of the W. Starling Burgess designed … Continue reading

Congratulations to Boatbuilder Harold Burnham of Essex – Awarded NEA National Heritage Fellowship

Wooden boat building is part science, part engineering and part pure artistry.  On Tuesday, the National Endowment for the Arts honored Harold Burnham of Essex, MA as a 2012 recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship.  Harold Burnham is an eleventh generation boatbuilder, … Continue reading

Launching the Schooner Ardelle – Essex Side Launch

The pinky schooner Ardelle was launched recently from the historic Burnham Boatbuilding yard in Essex, MA.  They used the traditional “Essex side-launch” technique, which, to my uninitiated eye, looks very odd.  Nevertheless, it obviously is effective. The Ardelle’s debut Thanks to Tom Russell … Continue reading

The Two Brothers and the Two Captains – Who was Unlucky?

The wreck of the whale ship Two Brothers, which sank 188 years ago on French Frigate Shoals, 600 miles northwest of Honolulu,  was recently located by divers.   The captain of the whale ship was George Pollard Jr., whose previous ship, … Continue reading