Although it fished on the Grand Banks, still holding the record of catching 74 swordfish in one day — with harpoon — the schooner Roseway wasn’t built as a commercial vessel. Unlike many of its sister ships that were constructed as Grand Banks fishing schooners, Roseway, called a “fishing yacht,” was launched to beat the Canadian schooner Bluenose in the international fishing vessel races held between Nova Scotia and Gloucester.
Roseway was designed and built by John James in Essex, Mass., in 1925 at the John F. James & Son Shipyard, a yard that had already produced many well-known schooners including Mayflower, and later the schooner Adventure, both highly regarded vessels.
Roseway, measuring 137 feet LOA, carrying 5,600 square feet of sail, drawing 13 feet and with a 25-foot beam, was built for Harold Hathaway, a Taunton, Mass., businessman. The vessel was named for the daughter of a family friend who apparently always got her way. Roseway is one of only six remaining Essex-built Grand Banks schooners. The ship was constructed to very high standards using an old stand of white oak located on Hathaway’s property. Unlike its working sister ships, Roseway had varnished rails and stanchions, and was protected every winter by a house built around her.
There is no available information as to how Roseway did, or if it ever competed in the international fishing races.
In 1941, the Boston Pilot’s Association bought Roseway. During the war, the vessel was fitted with a .50-caliber machine gun and patrolled Boston Harbor for the USCG, registered as CGR-812. The boat served the pilot association for 32 years and was the last of the pilot schooners operating in the U.S. when it retired in 1973. Upon retirement, it was sold and entered into the Maine windjammer fleet business, successfully working from Camden, Maine, for a number of years until repossessed by the bank.
In 2002, World Ocean School acquired Roseway, which underwent a long restoration that took years and cost upward of $1 million. Presently, Roseway does education programs and daysails, wintering in St. Croix and spending summers in the northeast.
We’re doing an afternoon sun line. It’s Sept. 23. We will be using the 2019 Nautical Almanac. Roseway is up near the Flemish Cap. The DR is 46º 20’ N by 52º 35’ W. The height of eye is 20 feet. No index error. And we’re doing a lower limb sight of the sun. The sky was overcast at local apparent noon, so we will treat this not as an ex-meridian noon sight but as a standard sun line, even though the time of the observation was shortly after local apparent noon.
Hs is 43° 27’. The time of the observation is 15:35:27 GMT.
A. What is the Ho?
B. What is the intercept?
C. Plot and calculate the EP.
Answers
A. Ho is 43° 37.7’
B. Intercept is 10.3 nm away
C. EP is 46° 18’ N, 52° 33’ W
