Cruising is a maritime activity that involves staying aboard a watercraft for extended periods of time when the vessel is traveling on water at a steady speed. Cruising generally refers to leisurely trips on yachts and luxury cruiseships, with durations varying from day-trips to months-long round-the-world voyages.
A dory is a small, shallow-draft boat, about 5 to 7 metres or 16 to 23 feet long. It is usually a lightweight boat with high sides, a flat bottom and sharp bows. It is easy to build because of its simple lines. For centuries, the dory has been used as a traditional fishing boat, both in coastal waters and in the open sea.
Bluenose was a fishing and racing gaff rig schooner built in 1921 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada. A celebrated racing ship and fishing vessel, Bluenose under the command of Angus Walters, became a provincial icon for Nova Scotia and an important Canadian symbol in the 1930s, serving as a working vessel until she was wrecked in 1946. Nicknamed the "Queen of the North Atlantic", she was later commemorated by the Bluenose one-design sloop (1946) and a replica, Bluenose II (1963). The name Bluenose originated as a nickname for Nova Scotians from as early as the late 18th century.
SS Savannah was an American hybrid sailing ship/sidewheel steamer built in 1818. She was the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean, transiting mainly under sail power from May to June 1819. In spite of this historic voyage, the great space taken up by her large engine and its fuel at the expense of cargo, and the public's anxiety over embracing her revolutionary steam power, kept Savannah from being a commercial success as a steamship. Originally laid down as a sailing packet, she was, following a severe and unrelated reversal of the financial fortunes of her owners, converted back into a sailing ship shortly after returning from Europe.
The Banks dory, or Grand Banks dory, is a type of dory. They were used as traditional fishing boats from the 1850s on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The Banks dory is a small, open, narrow, flat-bottomed and slab-sided boat with a particularly narrow transom. They were inexpensive to build and could be stacked or nested inside each other and stored on the decks of larger fishing vessels which functioned as mother ships.
Dame Naomi Christine James, DBE is the first woman to have sailed single-handed around the world via Cape Horn, the second woman to have ever sailed solo around the world. She departed Dartmouth, Devon on 9 September 1977 and finished her voyage around the globe on 8 June 1978 after 272 days, thus improving Sir Francis Chichester's solo round-the-world sailing record by two days.
Abercastle is a village in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Abercastle has a working harbour which is managed by Abercastle Boat Owners Association.
Effie M. Morrissey is a schooner skippered by Robert Bartlett that made many scientific expeditions to the Arctic, sponsored by American museums, the Explorers Club and the National Geographic Society. She also helped survey the Arctic for the United States Government during World War II. She is currently designated by the United States Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark as part of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. She is the State Ship of Massachusetts.
The sport and practice of single-handed sailing or solo sailing is sailing with only one crewmember. The term usually refers to ocean and long-distance sailing and is used in competitive sailing and among cruisers.
Howard Blackburn (1859–1932) was a Canadian American fisherman. Despite losing his fingers and toes to frostbite while lost at sea in a dory in 1883, he prospered as a Gloucester, Massachusetts businessman. Yearning for adventure, he twice sailed single-handed across the Atlantic Ocean, overcoming his disability and setting record times for the crossing.
The clipper route was derived from the Brouwer Route and was sailed by clipper ships between Europe and the Far East, Australia and New Zealand. The route, devised by the Dutch navigator Hendrik Brouwer in 1611, reduced the time of a voyage between The Netherlands and Java, in the Dutch East Indies, from almost 12 months to about six months, compared to the previous Arab and Portuguese monsoon route.
Captains Courageous is a 1937 American adventure drama film starring Freddie Bartholomew, Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore and Melvyn Douglas. Based on the 1897 novel of the same name by Rudyard Kipling, the film had its world premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. Directed by Victor Fleming, it was produced by Louis D. Lighton and made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Filmed in black and white, Captains Courageous was advertised by MGM as a coming-of-age classic with exciting action sequences.
Red Jacket was a clipper ship, one of the largest and fastest ever built. She was also the first ship of the White Star Line company. She was named after Sagoyewatha, a famous Seneca Indian chief, called "Red Jacket" by settlers. She was designed by Samuel Hartt Pook, built by George Thomas in Rockland, Maine, and launched in 1853, the last ship to be launched from this yard.
The SS Nerissa was a passenger and cargo steamer which was torpedoed and sunk on 30 April 1941 during World War II by the German submarine U-552 following 12 wartime voyages between Canada and Britain. She was the only transport carrying Canadian Army troops to be lost during World War II.
Sealed Cargo is a 1951 American war film about a fisherman, played by Dana Andrews, who gets tangled up with Nazis and their U-boats. Claude Rains, Carla Balenda, and Philip Dorn co-starred. Andrews' younger brother, actor Steve Forrest, had a small, uncredited part, one of his earliest screen roles. The movie was based on the novel The Gaunt Woman by Edmund Gilligan.
James Wharram was a British multihull pioneer and designer of catamarans.
Codseeker was a Canadian fishing schooner launched in April 1877 and capsized the following month east of Cape Sable Island, at the southwestern tip of Nova Scotia, resulting in the loss of four lives. The ship is primarily remembered for its two crew members who remained trapped inside the hull until being rescued three days later. Codseeker was later repaired and returned to service; its ultimate fate is unclear.
Richard Moses Murphy (1838–1916) was a well-known schooner captain who sailed out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, during the late 19th-century. Some of his experiences as a mariner are detailed in a chapter titled "The Adventures of Captain Richard Murphy" in The Fisherman’s Own Book, published by Proctor Brothers in 1882.
City of Ragusa of Liverpool was a 20-foot (6 m) yawl, owned by Nikola Primorac, which twice crossed the Atlantic in the early days of 19th-century small-boat ocean-adventuring. She carried the former alternative name of Dubrovnik, the birthplace of her owner. She was originally a ship's boat of a merchantman. The 1870 east-west trip between Ireland and the United States was crewed by John Charles Buckley, a middle-aged Irishman with seagoing experience, and Primorac, a Croatian and tobacconist. The crew on the west–east return trip of 1871 were Primorac and a "lad" called Edwin Richard William Hayter from New Zealand, who had been a steward on the steamer City of Limerick of the Inman Line.
