This Bluenose features:

 30" long x 23.5 tall x 5" wide        $349       S & H is $80

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Historical Significance:

Laughter echoed down the halls of the Halifax Herald office. Senator William B. Dennis, editor, had just scanned the sports page of a New York paper. "The New York Yacht Club," the item read, " has announced postponement of the race scheduled for today because of a twenty-three-mile-an-hour gale." The America's Cup race, the darling of yachting enthusiasts, was delayed because of winds that would barely tickle the sails of a Nova Scotia saltbank schooner. 

That article in a 1919 newspaper inspired Dennis and other Halifax businessmen to create "The Halifax Herald North Atlantic Fisherman's International Competition" between real working schooners. Over the next decades the Fisherman's Trophy races would thrill the world and make one Nova Scotia boat, the Bluenose, an enduring symbol of the Maritime spirit.

The contenders for the trophy were the fishermen who worked the Grand Banks. Lunenburg, Nova Scotia was the home of the greatest deep-sea fishing fleet in the world, and proud of its shipbuilding and fishing heritage. Its rival was Gloucester, Massachusetts, which shared the same kind of pride.  For generations, the "Yanks" and the "Novies" had delighted in racing each other to the fishing grounds.  The prospect of formalizing those races excited both towns.

Senator Dennis and his moneyed Halifax friends decided to build a craft that would not only beat the Americans, but would also be a symbol of Nova Scotian sailing superiority. They would name her Bluenose, after the traditional nickname for Nova Scotians.

When Bluenose was launched on March 26, 1921, all on hand agreed that she was a beauty. To the experienced eye, the Bluenose had a few distinctive features, but the source of her speed was always a matter of debate. Was it because she was a trifle longer at the waterline than most schooners? Or that her timbers had been hardened by a particularly hard frost? Maybe her speed was the result of the magical relationship that developed between the craft and her captain.

Before she raced, the Bluenose had to prove herself on the Grand Banks. The rules of the Fisherman's Competition demanded that any entrant work at least one season in the fishery.  The Bluenose had a good first season, and she would more than prove her worth in subsequent years, landing a record 646,000 pounds in one haul in 1923.

At the end of that first season, in October 1921, the Bluenose sailed into Halifax harbor to test her speed against the finest Canadian schooners. The winner would face the American champion in the second Fisherman's Trophy challenge. The Bluenose's speed matched her beauty: she won two races handily.

She met the Elsie for the trophy. The American schooner was skippered by the same Marty Welch who had won the first Fisherman's series. The two boats flew around the 40-mile course in strong wind. On the first day, the Elsie lost her fore-topmast. Gallantly, Angus Walters doused his own balooner, and still finished thirteen minutes ahead. In the next race, Bluenose completed the course with a lead of three miles. The news flashed by radio across the country: the Bluenose had brought the trophy home! Canada had beaten the U.S.! Overnight, the Bluenose became a national symbol.

The next year, the Bluenose retained the trophy against the Henry Ford. A fourth challenge, in 1923, was marred by a collision on the course, protests, and controversy. Angus Walters refused to complete the competition, taking the Bluenose home to Lunenburg rather than submitting to the judges' rulings. His opponent, Captain Ben Pine of the Columbia, would not accept the Fisherman's Trophy when it was offered to him. He had not beaten the Bluenose legitimately, and he would not take the prize.

Years passed. The Depression had hit North America, nowhere harder than the Maritimes. Fishermen stuck to their work, trying to eke out a living. There was little spirit left for racing. Then, in 1930, the Thomas Lipton Tea Company would put up prize money to see the Bluenose race against the Gertrude L. Thebaud, the new American favorite. Walters hemmed and hawed, but he showed up in Gloucester for the race. The Bluenose was in poor shape, her sails old and loose. For the first time, she lost a series. Americans crowed, but at least they had not won the cherished trophy.

A year later, the two boats met for the rematch, this time with the Fisherman's Trophy on the line. The Bluenose rose to the challenge, winning convincingly in both races. "The wood ain't growin' yet that'll beat Bluenose," Angus Walters loved to say.

Bluenose sailed to England in 1935 as Canada's representative in the celebration of the twenty-fifth year of George V's reign. The king was impressed by the Canadian beauty. On the way home, however, Bluenose encountered the worst storm of the many she had faced over the years. She keeled over and stayed down a full five minutes, masts and all. Then, with a shudder, the great boat righted herself again. Walters denied that he had ever doubted her strength. Her legend now included rising from the grave.

In 1937, the Bluenose was reproduced on the Canadian dime, where she has been ever since. Her last and greatest moment of sailing glory came in 1938. Bluenose faced the Gertrude L. Thebaud again for the trophy, this time in a best-of-five series. At the end of four tight races, the series stood 2-2. The Bluenose suffered damages, and began to look her age, but as she rounded the last marker of the deciding race, Angus pleaded, "One more time old girl, just one more time," and Bluenose responded, winning the last Fisherman's Trophy race by three minutes. Her average speed over the course was 14.15 knots, the fastest pace ever recorded over a fixed course by a canvased vessel in the history of sailing!

The final years of the Bluenose were sad ones. Powered vessels, steel hulls, and the demise of the schooner fishery made her a relic of a former age. Angus Walters tried to have her declared a national treasure and borrowed money to keep her afloat, but he was finally forced to sell her. She spent the war years carrying freight in the Carribbean. Then, on January 28, 1946, word reached Nova Scotia that the Bluenose had struck a reef off the coast of Haiti. Angus Walters wanted to fly to Haiti to direct salvage operations, but news was mixed, misinformation and confusion prevented action, and the Bluenose went down. No one has ever found as much as a splinter of the wreckage.

That is not quite the last chapter in the Bluenose story, however. In the early sixties, the Halifax brewery that bottled "Schooner Beer" put up money to recreate the Bluenose as a tourist attraction and provincial symbol. The Smith & Rhuland shipyard once again layed her keel, and in July 1963, Bluenose II was launched. Angus Walters was aboard her maiden voyage to the West Indies. Well into his eighties, he took the wheel. He silently studied the feel of the new Bluenose in the water and listened to the wind in her sails, as if searching for an echo. Finally, he told the hushed group that surrounded him, "She's a very fine wessel." Captain Angus Walters died in 1968, but Bluenose II is still afloat, her home port Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. She remains a beautiful reminder of the greatest schooner of all time.