My friend Alex was stuck up in New Hampshire for work. He lives in Portugal, but occasionally visits New England because of his job. Since I had some boat hardware for his boat, I went by his hotel yesterday to drop it off. Alex looked miserable, sailing withdrawal… Since my boat isn’t quite ready to sail at the moment, with the mast down and no sails aboard… I decided to take him for a little tour of New England’s boat building and fishing history.
Our first stop was the Essex Shipbuilding Museum. On Cape Ann, Massachusetts, in the little town of Essex, over 4000 wooden ship were built. Many of the most famous wooden schooners were built in this little town. When we got there, they were in the middle of the 90 minute tour, so Gui and I walked over to Woodman’s and got a quite bite to eat.
Back at the museum, the 90 minute tour includes a short film, about the Essex ship builders, which was originally an anti-communism propaganda piece. Then we were able to see a history of the progression of wooden boat building in the Essex, starting with relatively primitive cat schooners, and progressing to beauties like the Thebaud and the Columbia.
The small museum also has some of the oldest half-hull models for boats in the United States, most of which are on permanent loan from the Smithsonian.
The final part of the tour starts with a video on the Thebaud and its rivalry with the Canadian schooner Bluenose. This focuses on the history of the racing schooners, and the development of these sailing craft.
Only seven of the historic New England Schooners survive out of the 4000 vessels built in Essex during its 350 year shipbuilding history:
- The ERNESTINA ex/EFFIE M. MORRISSEY (1894, Welcome to The Schooner Ernestina — Official Vessel of The Commonwealth) is owned by the State of Massachusetts and hails from New Bedford;
- The LETTIE G. HOWARD (1893, South Street Seaport Museum) is a sailing exhibit at South Street Seaport Museum in New York City;
- The L.A. DUNTON (1921, Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea™ : Home) is proudly berthed at Mystic Seaport Museum;
- The ADVENTURE (1926, Home of the Schooner Adventure) is at Gloucester
- The EVELINA M. GOULART (1927) is at Essex (and in damn poor shape).
- The schooner yacht/pilot schooner ROSEWAY (1925, World Ocean School | Home Page) sails charters from Rockland, Maine.
- The pilot schooner HIGHLANDER SEA ex/PILOT (1924, www.achesonventures.com/highlandersea) as Port Huron’s flagship ambassador.
Here is a photo of the Ernestina, which sails my home waters, and is homeported in New Bedford today.
The small museum stands on the grounds of one of the oldest shipyards in Essex, that of A.D. Story. They are still a functioning shipyard and recently launched a boat. They still make small wooden craft here, and run educational programs for local school children.
From there, we went to the Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center, in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The ships started at Essex, often were completed in the railways in Gloucester. The two towns had a symbiotic relationship with Essex supplying the ships and Gloucester finishing and manning them, and sending them out to sea to bring back fish.
Unfortunately, much of the GMHC is currently under renovation. 
But we were able to see the railway and they have one Essex-built wooden ship undergoing renovation. It is being converted from a schooner to a square rigger, and going to be used as a replica “Boston Tea Party” ship.
There’s a small museum next to the GMHC dedicated to the sport of diving. Here Alex tried on an old Mark V diver’s helmet. Gui’s actually been underwater in an old Mark V… I saw it… very cool.
If you have any interest in scuba diving, I highly recommend you visit this tiny museum and say hi to Paul, the owner and curator.
We then walked over to The Crow’s Nest. This is the bar that is featured in the movie The Perfect Storm. On our way back to the car, we stopped and looked at some of the fishing boats used in Gloucester’s current fishing fleet. Some of the boats mentioned in the movie were in the harbor according to Alex. Here’s a satellite image from the 1991 Perfect Storm.
We then went to see the Fisherman Memorial that is an icon of Gloucester and New England’s fishing heritage.
The names listed at the Fisherman’s Memorial have an unusually high percentage of Portugese names, since the fishing fleets of Gloucester and New Bedford were manned heavily by Portugese immigrants.
From there, we went to Halibut Point State Park. This is one of my favorite places. The beach here is made up of giant slabs of granite.
Unfortunately, the park was far more crowded that I expected, so we had to pass on it, since we couldn’t get into the parking lot. The park’s current headquarters building is a WWII era anti-submarine observation tower, which you can see in the background of this photo.
The body of water in this photo is the remains of an abandoned granite quarry. Much of Boston’s financial district was built using granite from this quarry.
We then stopped by the Rockport Granite Pier, which had some boats sitting on the hard and in the water and went to look at boats. Here is a photo of the Granite Pier Cove’s boat ramp and some of the boats stored there.
From there, we went to Rockport center. While in Rockport, we stopped in and got some ice cream. 
Here’s some trivia: New England eats more ice cream in the winter per capita than the rest of the country does in the summer time, weird, yes? Alex thinks we do it so we can warm up… He thinks New England winters are too cold…
Rockport is a tiny artist’s colony and major tourist trap. Motif #1, the red building seen in the photo below, is one of the most photographed, painted and drawn buildings in the United States. The actual building is Motif #1 v. 2, since the original was destroyed in the Blizzard of 1978. The town rebuilt the small building later that year. A few years ago I did a circumnavigation of Cape Ann in a friend’s boat, and we tied up to the granite pier right in front of Motif #1.
We also stopped by the Sandy Bay Yacht Club, to look at some of the boats that were in the process of being readied for the season, including a small fleet of Stars, Optimists and Club 420s. We were guests of the SBYC on the Cape Ann circumnavigation a few years ago, since my friend is a member there.
We ended the day by having dinner at The Rosa Restaurant in Portsmouth, NH.
I hope you guys enjoyed a day spent with my friend Alex… I certainly did.