Seven Schooners, One Loss, and Why Wooden Boats Matter

There is a lot to celebrate this July.

As Boston prepares to welcome the world for Sail Boston 250, we'll witness something that only comes around about once every decade. Ships from around the globe will gather in Boston Harbor this time to celebrate America's 250th anniversary. It is an extraordinary display of international cooperation and cultural exchange. There is something uniquely unifying about life at sea. Different languages, different flags, different histories, but once the sails are set, we all speak the same language.

For Essex, this year's gathering is especially meaningful.

Seven Essex-built schooners will be represented in Boston Harbor between July 11 and 16: Ernestina Morrissey, Adventure, Thomas E. Lannon, Lewis H. Story, FAME, Isabella, and Ardelle.

Think about that for a moment.

Out of roughly sixty participating vessels, seven were built right here in Essex. More than ten percent of an international fleet traces its roots to one small Massachusetts shipbuilding town.

Even more remarkable, the latter five, Thomas E. Lannon, Lewis H. Story, FAME, Isabella, and Ardelle, were all built by Essex master shipwright Harold Burnham. Harold deserves tremendous credit for carrying our community's shipbuilding tradition into the modern era. His work was never about recreating the past for nostalgia's sake. It was about proving that Essex shipbuilding is not a lost art. It is a living tradition. Because of Harold, and the many people who have worked alongside him, wooden schooners are still being built on the Essex River.

Of course, Harold didn't invent these boats.

His work stands on the shoulders of generations of Essex shipbuilders who refined the American schooner into one of the most capable working vessels ever built. Designers like W. Starling Burgess continued that tradition, drawing on the knowledge of Essex builders to create vessels that were as beautiful as they were practical. These weren't simply elegant boats. They were functional works of art, designed to earn a living.

Which brings me to another Essex-built schooner.

One that won't be joining the celebration.

Earlier this month, the 1924 pilot schooner Pilot sank at her berth in Brooklyn, New York. Just days later, Victory Chimes, the National Historic Landmark tied alongside her, also settled to the bottom.

For those of us who care deeply about wooden vessels, it was heartbreaking news.

Our first reaction was sadness.

Our second was hope.

We sincerely hope Pilot will be raised and restored. She has earned that chance.

Before she became a floating oyster bar in Brooklyn, Pilot had already lived a remarkable life.

Built by John F. James & Son and designed by W. Starling Burgess, she was launched on October 2, 1924, and immediately entered service with the Boston Pilots Association. For nearly fifty years she met incoming ships outside Boston Harbor, carrying pilots safely through every season and every kind of weather. She is widely regarded as one of the longest-serving pilot schooners in American history.

When her piloting career ended in 1971, her story was only beginning.

She spent time in Essex CT,  before beginning an ambitious voyage through the Panama Canal and across the Pacific. Renamed Star Pilot, she sailed for years under the ownership of Norman Paulsen's community, serving as both home and research vessel while exploring the South Pacific. Along the way she appeared in the 1977 film adaptation of Captains Courageous and became a familiar sight to generations of sailors on the West Coast.

In 1998 she returned to the East Coast, this time bound for Nova Scotia. Renamed Highlander Sea, she underwent an extensive restoration before beginning a new career as a sail training vessel. She raced in the Gloucester Schooner Festival, competed in the Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race, sailed in Tall Ships 2000, crossed to Antigua for the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta, and introduced countless people to life under sail.

Another restoration followed after she moved to Port Huron, Michigan, where she continued serving as an educational vessel before eventually returning east once more.

In 2015, Pilot found perhaps her most unusual purpose. Purchased by the owners of Grand Banks and later CREW, she was transformed into a floating oyster bar in Brooklyn. Thousands of visitors who might never have stepped aboard a historic wooden schooner suddenly found themselves enjoying dinner on the deck of an Essex-built vessel. It wasn't the life she was built for, but it was another chapter in a century-long story of adaptation and survival.

Until this month.

It is easy to point fingers when something like this happens.

The truth is, wooden boats are demanding.

People often ask why the museum doesn't have several large vessel restoration projects underway.

Our answer is always the same.

A wooden boat is like a workhorse.

You have to feed it.

You have to water it.

You have to exercise it.

You have to give it a job.

These boats were built to move. They were built to flex. They were built to work. When they lose that purpose, keeping them healthy becomes one of the greatest challenges in preservation. Every museum, nonprofit, owner, volunteer, and shipyard caring for a wooden vessel understands just how difficult and expensive that responsibility can be.

Here at the museum, we've chosen a different path for Evelina M. Goulart, who will celebrate her one hundredth birthday next year.

After sinking during Hurricane Gloria, The Goulart came home to Essex. We have never intended to return her to the water.

That surprises some people.

But Goulart has another job.

She is one of the most complete surviving references to pre 1950 Essex shipbuilding. Unlike many vessels that have undergone repeated restorations, she still retains much of the original craftsmanship that makes her invaluable as a teaching tool. Every student, shipwright, historian, and visitor who studies her learns something that can't be found in a book.

Sometimes preserving a wooden vessel means keeping her sailing.

Sometimes preserving a wooden vessel means letting her teach.

Whether Pilot is raised or not, nothing can erase what she accomplished over the last 102 years.

Wooden boats rarely live just one life.

They are repaired.

They are rebuilt.

They are renamed.

They change jobs.

They outlive generations of owners.

They become part of families, communities, and memories.

They become part of us.

As Sail Boston fills the harbor this month, I hope you'll take a moment to appreciate not just the ships under sail, but the people who have kept them there. Behind every one of those vessels is a community that decided it was worth saving.

That, more than anything else, is the story of Essex.

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