Historic Ships on a Lee Shore
Schooner Roseway,
by Eden Leonard
images for this article courtesy world ocean school
Sailing a New Course in the 21st Century
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photo by a. c. church, courtesy nps.gov
hen the big schooner with late November of 1925. The schooner was the tan-bark sails rounded overly built in comparison to other vessels up and dropped anchor late of her time: drifts between the ceiling last fall off St. Croix, the planking, slightly larger scantlings on the locals cheered in a way the crew had not frames and beam-shelf, for example. Her experienced before. Schooner Roseway has owner, Harold Hathaway of Taunton, Masspent the last dozen winters running sail sachusetts, maintained a reputation as the training and educational programs out of proverbial sailor with a woman in every St. Croix. When back-to-back hurricanes port. Some speculate that Roseway’s name devastated the Virgin Islands in fall of 2017, came from one of his mistresses, but the Roseway’s crewmembers were not sure what vessel is just as likely to be named after they would find when they made their way Roseway Bank—an offshore shoal south south for the winter, or even if they should of Roseway Head, Nova Scotia. go. But, Roseway’s story is one of ambition, resilience, and hope. Her history reaches back to the era of Grand Banks fishing schooners of the 1920s and can be traced through a number of careers in her working life, but her current mission and the experience that students gain under her sail is unparalleled. While Roseway’s history is colorful and varied, the details have proved difficult to verify. It is known that she was designed by John James of the J. F. James shipyard in Essex, Massachusetts, and launched in Roseway as a newly built fishing yacht, 1926. 22
The schooner’s early days were gentle compared to her sisters.’ As Hathaway’s personal fishing yacht, she spent her summers fishing for swordfish and her winters in port, covered and tended by a boatkeeper whose diligence went as far as washing the coal before it came aboard. According to legend, Roseway caught a recordsetting seventy-eight swordfish in a single day in 1934, an incredible feat considering that they were being harpooned from the bowsprit. It is unclear as to how long Hathaway owned Roseway. It is believed that before she was purchased by the Boston Harbor Pilot Association in December of 1941, she had been sold to a fisherman and fished commercially for a time. The sixteen-year-old schooner was put into service as one of two pilot boats working in Boston Harbor at the time. The other schooner, named Pilot, also had been built at James shipyard. The two pilot schooners alternated weeks of service, yearround, no matter the weather on station, doing long tacks to and from Graves Light SEA HISTORY 163, SUMMER 2018