Station outside the harbor, waiting for inbound and outbound shipping. Shortly after the United States entered World War II, Roseway and Pilot where both taken into service by the Coast Guard; their pilots were made temporary reserve officers.
Roseway as Boston Pilot Schooner #2. Painted gray and carrying a 50-caliber machine gun on deck, Roseway guided ships to safety inside the protected harbor through waters devoid of lights and navigational aids, and defended with antisubmarine netting and minefields. For her service as a Coast Guard Reserve vessel assigned to the First Naval District (New England), Roseway, designated as CGR-812, was formally recognized by the USCG for outstanding wartime service. After the war, she continued her work as a harbor pilot and served in this capacity until 1972. Roseway was the last sailing vessel serving as a pilot boat in the United States when she retired from this duty after more than three decades of service. Roseway was sold by the Boston Harbor Pilot Association when it finally committed to faster, more efficient powerboats. Her new owner was a Boston syndicate that wanted to return her to swordfishing work. After an extensive refit where steel bulkheads, a galley house, and a pulpit on the end of the bowsprit were installed, Roseway headed out from Boston, bound for the fishing grounds in the North Atlantic. Unfortunately for the owners, Roseway’s luck at fishing did not pan out. After a few years of losses, the syndicate sold the schooner to Captains Orvil Young and Jim Sharp of the Yankee Schooner Company in February of 1975. They motored her home to Camden, Maine, engines deafening, on a
freezing February day to get started on converting her to a windjammer. Sharp and Young added cabins and bunks for thirtysix passengers, built a new galley, installed modern heads, and cleaned her up to make her comfortable and appealing for the passenger trade. In 1985, Roseway was sold to another seafaring entrepreneur who was seeking a life on the sea. He expanded the ship’s range, and Roseway began sailing to the
Caribbean for the winter months and returning to New England for the summer season. After almost fifteen years of this satisfying but relentless year-round work without any major maintenance periods, the Coast Guard deemed Roseway unfit to sail with passengers and pulled the vessel’s COI (Certificate of Inspection). Unable to make her way, Roseway was ultimately repossessed in the late 1990s by the bank that held her mortgage.
Roseway painted off-white for her work in the windjammer trade. Roseway sailed for the Yankee Schooner Company out of Camden, Maine, between 1975 and 1985 before being sold to another owner, who expanded her passenger cruises to the Caribbean in winter and back to New England waters for the summer season. After fifteen years of this year-round work, Roseway was looking tired; the Coast Guard inspectors agreed and pulled her COI, the kiss of death for many a commercial sailing vessel.
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