A schooner is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schooner also has a square topsail on the foremast, to which may be added a topgallant. Differing definitions leave uncertain whether the addition of a fore course would make such a vessel a brigantine. Many schooners are gaff-rigged, but other examples include Bermuda rig and the staysail schooner.
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.
Jolie Brise is a gaff-rigged pilot cutter built and launched by the Albert Paumelle Yard in Le Havre in 1913 to a design by Alexandre Pâris. After a short career as a pilot boat, owing to steam replacing sail, she became a fishing boat, a racing yacht and a sail training vessel.
The Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race (MHOR) is a biennial sailing race which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2005. It runs between Marblehead, Massachusetts and Halifax, Nova Scotia. It is believed to be the longest running offshore ocean race in the world and is considered one of the pre-eminent ocean races of the North Atlantic.
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.
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.
William James Roué was a naval architect famous for his design of the fishing schooner Bluenose, which sailed to victory in the Halifax Herald International Fisherman's competition in 1921, 1922, 1923, 1931 and 1938, and held the record for the largest catch of fish ever brought into Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
The Delawana was a fishing schooner based in Riverport, Nova Scotia.
Esperanto was a fishing schooner based in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Martin Leander Welch (1864–1935) was a fishing schooner captain out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. He was captain of the Esperanto in 1920 when it defeated the Canadian schooner Delawana in the first International Fishing Schooner Championship Races in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The American Eagle, originally Andrew and Rosalie, is a two-masted schooner serving the tourist trade out of Rockland, Maine. Launched in 1930 at Gloucester, Massachusetts, she was the last auxiliary schooner to be built in that port, and one of Gloucester's last sail-powered fishing vessels. A National Historic Landmark, she is also the oldest known surviving vessel of the type, which was supplanted not long afterward by modern trawlers.
Roseway is a wooden gaff-rigged schooner launched on 24 November 1925 in Essex, Massachusetts. She is currently operated by World Ocean School, a non-profit educational organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, and is normally operated out of Boston, Massachusetts and Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. She was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997 as the only known surviving example of a fishing schooner built specifically with racing competition as an objective. In 1941, Roseway was purchased by the Boston Pilot's Association to serve as a pilot boat for Boston Harbor, as a replacement for the pilot-boat Northern Light, which was sold to the United States Army for war service.
Angus James Walters was a sailor and sea captain who skippered the famed Grand Banks fishing schooner Bluenose from 1921 to 1938. Walters captained Bluenose to five international sailing championships, and was undefeated for seventeen years.
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.
Louis A. Thebaud was an American businessman, sportsman and philanthropist in the Gilded Age. After working for C. H. Raymond & Co., a contractor of the Mutual Life Insurance Company, for a dozen years, he was caught in a corporate scandal and sued alongside other members of his family. In his retirement, he sponsored sailing races and supported the First World War effort as well as a hospital in New Jersey. Additionally, he introduced Brittany spaniels, a breed of hunting dogs, to the United States, and he was the founding president of the American Brittany Club.
The Columbia was an American schooner, a fishing vessel launched in 1923. She took part in several races, and subsequently disappeared off Nova Scotia in 1927. A replica was built in 2014.
The Hesper was a 19th-century Boston pilot boat built in 1884, designed from a model by Dennison J. Lawlor as a Boston yacht and pilot-boat for merchant and ship owner George W. Lawler. She was known to be the largest pilot boat under the American flag at 104 feet long and the fastest of the Boston fleet. She competed in several first-class sailing races, and in 1886, the Hesper won the silver cup in what was known as the first Fishermen's Race. She was withdrawn from the pilot service and sold in 1901. The Hesper became a wreck on the point off Cape Henlopen in 1919.
Thomas Francis McManus was a fish merchant who became a naval architect, who introduced a shortened bowsprit and long stern overhang to make his vessels faster. He was well known for revolutionizing the Gloucester fishing schooner. He made the fastest vessels of their type in the world, and was honored on two continents for his skill as a naval architect. He became known as the "Father of the Fishermen's Races." 500 fishing schooners used his designs to improve speed. He was a friend of Sir Thomas Lipton and President Theodore Roosevelt.
The America, No. 1 was a 19th-century American pilot boat built in 1897 for Captain James H. Reid Sr. of Boston and designed by Boston designer Thomas F. McManus. The Boston America did not resemble her famous namesake, yacht America, rather she was designed with a fishing schooner "Indian header" bow. After serving 21 years in the Boston Pilots' Association, the America was sold to David W. Simpson of Boston in 1918.
Moses Adams, was an Essex County shipbuilder. He had his own shipyard and built eighty-five schooners and pilot boats. Adams died in Essex, Massachusetts in 1894.
Gloucester, Massachusetts 
