HISTORIC SHIPS ON A LEE SHORE
What to do with the Evelina M. Goulart? by Deirdre O'Regan
T
he history of the celebrated G loucester fishing schooner is inextricably linked to the tiny hamlet of Essex, just up the road, or-by water-to the northwest, counterclockwise around the other side of Cape Ann. There, at the head of the narrow and twisting Essex River, a handful of shipyards built thousands of fishing vessels since the region was first settled by Europeans. Public riverfront land was des ignated as a shipbuilding site way back in 1668, and over the next three centuries, Essex earned its fame as a town of
shipwrights-equipping New England fishermen with strong seaworthy fishing vessels. In its heyday, the mid- l 800s, Essex's fifteen shipyards turned out fifty vessels a year. Of the more t han 4 ,000 vessels launched from Essex in her 350 years of shipbuilding, onl y seven still exist. Six of the seven have been, in their lifeti mes, converted forother uses and /o r substantially restored-some of them several times over. 1he seventh has not. She is the 1927 Evelina M. Goulart, the 82-to n dominant exhibit at the Essex Shipbui lding Museum. The Goulart has never been restored-patched, but not restored. As a result, if yo u are hop ing to learn about ship construction and design of historic watercraft, then she's yo ur o pportuni ty to inves tigate the real _ thing. Sounds ideal, but this is hardly ' the case. 1h e Goulart was never - restored because her salvage and return to the site from where she was launched 83 yea rs ago was the result of noble intentions and lots oflabo r, burno endow' ment, a critical missing compo nent. In 1985, the ... Goulart was o ut fishing, as she had done for
nearly sixty years, when Hurricane G loria roared up the New England coast. She suffered som e damage to her stern and limped into Fairhaven, Massachusetts, across the harb or from New Bedford. H er owners soon realized that repairing her was beyond their means. 1 h ey stripped out her engine and abandoned her. In time, she san k, still tied to the dock. Enter Captai n Bob Douglas ofMartha's Vineyard, owner of the schooners Shenandoah and Alabama (and also of the famous Black D og restaurant). A few yea rs after the Goulart settled o n the bottom, D ouglas was visiting the Essex Shipbuilding Museum when the subj ect of exhibits came up. The museum was enterraining the idea of creating an exhibit o n Essex shipbuilding that wo uld display a sectio n of a schooner's frames. Douglas mentioned that an original Essexbuilt schooner was sitting on the bottom of the harbo r back in Fairhaven and suggested they salvage som e of its parts . One thing led to ano ther and by the next year Douglas had paid for the vessel to be raised, patched and refl oated, and was having it towed up to Essex as a gift to the museum. When the Evelina M. Goulart made her return up the river, a supportive crowd had gathered to welcome her home and assist with the task of hauling her out at