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Sail Number:

Wartime designation: (IX-60)

Type: Auxiliary schooner

LOA: 106’0″ / 32.00m – LWL: 82’0″ / 24.99m – Beam: 21’8″ / 6.58m – Draft: 11’4″ / 3.45m – Displacement: 96 long tons – Original Owner: L.A.Norris Co. San Francisco, Ca. – Homeport: San Pedro, California – Original Name: Seaward – Year Launched: 1920 – Designed by: John G. Alden – Built by: Frank Adams Company, East Boothbay, Maine – Hull Material: Wood – Design No.: 115 – Location:

Historical:

Seaward was designed by John G. Alden and was built by the Adams Company, East Boothbay, Maine in 1920 for Mr. L.A. Norris, of San Francisco, Ca. She was acquired by the Navy on 31 January 1942 from Cecil B. DeMille Productions, Los Angeles, California. Sold in April 1945 to Charles A. Williams of San Pedro, Calif., and resumed service as the yacht SEAWARD. Transferred to French registry 1951.

Under Cecile B. DeMille Stewardship

Cecil Blount DeMille was an American filmmaker. Between 1914 and 1958, he made a total of 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cinema and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history. His films were distinguished by their epic scale and by his cinematic showmanship.

Some of Hollywood’s most intense research for Cecille’s various Paramount Pictures spectacles were conducted onboard his yacht Seaward. While underway Cecille, along with screenwriter Harold Lamb, worked out the details for “The Crusades,” The Crusades is a 1935 American historical adventure film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and originally released by Paramount Pictures. It stars Loretta Young as Berengaria of Navarre and Henry Wilcoxon as Richard I of England.

Cecil B. DeMille and the Tiburón Island Adventure – Thomas Bowen

Cecil B. DeMille had been working hard preparing for a new motion picture to be titled “The Ten Commandments” (the 1923 silent black and white version), and he needed a break before the exhausting job of filming began. What better way to rest up he thought, than to get together with some friends on his beloved “Seaward” for a few weeks of sailing and casual hunting and fishing. And what better place to get away from the Hollywood pressure cooker than Mexico! He and his friends could sail south to the tip of Baja California and then head northward into the Gulf of California. To add a little extra adventure, they could chart a course for the fabled Tiburon Island and take a firsthand look at the notorious Seri Indians. But the idyllic voyage he had in mind proved to be anything but smooth sailing. Things began to go awry right from the start, and through a combination of misinformation, misunderstanding, perhaps a bit of hubris, and plain bad luck, it turned out to be a trip that would dog him for the rest of his life.

The idea of sailing into the Gulf of California and visiting the Seri Indians was a familiar one to Southern Californians, for intrepid sailors had been occasionally been doing just that for more than two decades.

Unfortunately, some of the earlier trips had come to tragic ends. Two parties of Americans who went ashore on Tiburon Island in the mid 1890s disappeared and were presumed killed by Seris. The fate of the missing Americans had made lurid copy for the Los Angeles newspapers. For a while, imaginative journalism ran wild, and the Seris were accused in print of cannibalism and a litany of other sins against God and Nature. These fanciful reports induced a number of prominent and self-righteous Southern Californians to concoct schemes to buy Tiburon Island, conquer or exterminate the louthesome Seris, and turn the Island into a cattle ranch or a vacation resort with luxury hotels. Nothing ever came…to be continued

WWII service

The auxiliary schooner was placed in service on 19 February 1942, assigned to the 11th Naval District, and homeported at San Pedro, California. On 23 July, Seaward was assigned to the Western Sea Frontier. Seaward ended the year at Mare Island Navy Yard. She was placed out of service on 1 April 1943, and was struck from the Navy List on 18 July 1944.

Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Notable Guest, and Reunion Information):

Owner: (1920-1923) – L.A. Norris Co. San Francisco, Ca.
Owner: (1923-1942) – Cecil B. DeMille Productions, Los Angeles, California
Screenwriter: Harold Lamb, was an American historian, screenwriter, short story writer, and novelist.
Owner: (1942-1944) – World War II Service
Owner: (1945) – Charles A. Williams

Comments:

William Thomas

Jun 26, 2021 at 01:07

My father served as crew with two of his friends when Charles Williams bought it. He and his friends were high school ages (15-16) and Williams paid them t help him repair the damage the boat had taken (rammed by a fishing trawler in a fog while in the hands of the navy). After damage was repaired, Williams taught the boys to sail and took it out for a shakedown cruise around San Pedro Harbor area. Later they sailed to Santa Catalina Island and back. He then offered to take them on as crew for a trip to Hawaii and they actually got permission from their parents and went! After many adventures the arrived in Honolulu and were greeted by a yacht club member who claimed to have greeted every sailing vessel to have come to Oahu from the mainland since the turn of the century (1900) and he was astounded by the age of the crew, saying they were the youngest crew he had ever met to do that passage.
Last word was the Seaward had run aground on the Great Barrier Reef and was destroyed. I don’t know when or exactly where, but that’s what my father told me.

Rob Davidson

Jun 19, 2021 at 12:21

Hello, thank you for your interesting post…. My father was a naval officer assigned to the Seaward in 1942-43 to serve as part of the Navy’s offshore patrol mostly off the California Coast between San Diego and San Pedro. My father was a crack navigator, John Davidson, and used the time primarily to train seamen on their navigational skills, proper use of sextants, dead reckoning, etc. I have a letter from him, written while on-board dated January 10, 1943! He always spoke highly of his time spent on the USS Seaward.

William Thomas

Apr 21, 2020 at 14:19

I communicated with Bob Brokaw, a yacht salesman from San Diego whose father George served on the Seaward during the war as well. At least they used an image of Seaward on their website for years and I asked them about it.

Wartime designation: USS Sea Cloud (IX-99)

Sail Number:

Type: Four-Mashed Barque

LOA: 316’0″ / 96.00m – LOD: – LWL: – Beam: 49’2″ / 14.99m – Draft: 19 ‘0″ / 5.80m – Displacement: 3,077 tons – Ballast: – Original Owner: Edward F. Hutton, Marjorie Merriweather Post – Original Name: Hussar V – Year Launched: April 25, 1931 – Designed by: Cox & Stevens – Built by: Krupp family shipyard in Kiel, Germany – Hull Material: – Propulsion: Diesel-electric; two shafts

Historical:

Sea Cloud was built in Kiel, Germany, as a barque for Marjorie Merriweather Post and her second husband Edward F. Hutton of Wall Street’s E. F. Hutton & Co.. She was launched in 1931 as Hussar V; at the time of her construction, she was the largest private yacht in the world. In 1935, the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph E. Davies, married Marjorie Merriweather Post. Mr. and Mrs. Davies renamed the ship Sea Cloud. Although Mrs. Davies owned the ship, she allowed Mr. Davies to claim ownership of the vessel. As a man with political influence, Davies entertained many high-profile people on the ship, including Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. The ship even served as an informal embassy, as Soviet and United States officials stayed and met on the vessel.

The HUSSAR was built for one purpose: to take the Huttons in their customary luxury to all those places they felt their presence was desirable, whether for representative or business reasons or simply the pleasure of travel and adventure. The HUSSAR spent at least nine months of the year at sea – and the Huttons set course for such exotic destinations as the Galapagos Islands, Hawaii and the Mediterranean

Coast Guard Service:

Mrs. Davies had first offered the ship to the U.S. Department of the Navy in 1941, but the Navy turned her down. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt objected to the ship entering service, remarking that she was too beautiful to be sacrificed. However, on January 7, 1942, the Navy reassessed their position, chartering the ship for $1 per year. The Navy sent Sea Cloud from Georgetown, South Carolina, to the United States Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland, to be refitted as a “weather observation station vessel”, and had its four masts removed and hull painted battleship gray. Sea Cloud was commissioned as a United States Coast Guard Cutter on April 4, 1942, and assigned to the Eastern Sea Frontier, with a permanent home port in Boston.

During 1942, Sea Cloud mostly served as a weather ship at Weather Patrol Station Number Two (position 52°0′N 42°30′W). On June 6, 1942, the ship rescued eight survivors from the schooner Maria da Gloria. On August 3, 1942 and August 4, 1942, Sea Cloud served at Weather Patrol Station Number One while USS Manhasset was converted to a weather ship.

WWII service

In 1943, the Navy asked for control of Sea Cloud and Nourmahal, another former yacht converted into a weather ship. On April 9, 1943, the United States Navy commissioned Sea Cloud as USS Sea Cloud (IX-99), though she maintained a Coast Guard crew.[2] She was assigned to Task Force 24.

Relieving USCGC Conifer in February 1944, Sea Cloud patrolled a 100-square-mile (260 km2) area near the New England coast, generating weather reports for the First Naval District. On February 27, 1944, Sea Cloud traveled to be refurbished at Atlantic Yard in East Boston, afterwards taking over a new one-hundred square mile area at Weather Station Number One.

On April 5, 1944, Sea Cloud received radar indication of a small target at position 39°27′N 62°30′W, bearing 350° at 3,000 yards (2,700 m). General quarters were sounded and battle stations manned, but contact was lost ten minutes later. The target was identified as a submarine, but after Sea Cloud carried out standard anti-submarine drills with no evidence of damage being inflicted, she returned to port. After minor repairs, Sea Cloud was rebased to Argentia, Newfoundland, where she was assigned to Weather Station Number Three. While patrolling the area on June 11, 1944, the crew spotted a Navy Grumman TBF Avenger, exchanging recognition signals. Sea Cloud received orders to report to the escort carrier Croatan and join the five other escort ships under her command. The envoy searched for a raft reported in the area, but returned with no sightings. After this event, Sea Cloud was once again reassigned to Weather Station Number Four. After a search for a downed aircraft, she returned to port in Boston. Sea Cloud was decommissioned on November 4, 1944, at the Bethlehem Steel Atlantic Yard and returned to Davies, along with $175,000 for conversion to pre-war appearance.

For her wartime service, Sea Cloud was awarded the American Campaign Medal and the World War Two Victory Medal.

Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Notable Guest, and Reunion Information):

Owner: (1931 – 1935) – Edward Francis Hutton, Marjorie Merriweather Post., Name Hussar V (1931–35)
Owner: (1935 -1944) – Mr. and Mrs. Joseph E. Davies (Merriweather Post), renamed Sea Cloud.
Guest: Queen Elisabeth of Belgium
Owner: (April 9, 1943 -November 4, 1944) – World War II Service
Owner: (1945 – 1955) – Marjorie Merriweather Post.,
Owner: (1955) – Dominican Republic, Presidential yacht, renamed Angelita
Owner: (1966 – 1969) – Operation Sea Cruises, Inc., renamed Patria
Owner: (1969) – Antarna Inc., renamed Antarna
Owner: (1978) – Hartmut Paschburg, Hamburg associates. eight months undergoing repairs in the now-named Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft shipyard, the very yard she was built in.

Wartime designation: CGR-812

Type: Gaff-rigged schooner

LOA: 137′ 0″ / 42.00m – LOD: 112’0″ / 34.00m – LWL: 90’0″ / 27.00m – Beam: 20′ 7″ / 6.27m – Draft: 13′ 0″ / 4.00m – Displacement: – Sail Area: 5,600 sq ft / 520 m2 – Original Owner: Harold Hathaway of Taunton, Massachusetts – Original Name: Roseway – Year Launched: 24 November 1925 – Designed by: John F. James – Built by: John F. James & Son – Hull Material: Wood – In service: May 1942 – Out of service: November 1945 – National Register Number: 97001278

Historical:

Roseway was designed as a fishing yacht by John James and built in 1925 in his family’s shipyard in Essex, Massachusetts. Father and son worked side by side on Roseway, carrying on a long New England history of wooden shipbuilding. She was commissioned by Harold Hathaway of Taunton, Massachusetts, and was named after an acquaintance of Hathaway’s “who always got her way.”

n 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, No. 3

WWII service

In the spring of 1942, Roseway was fitted with a .50-caliber machine gun and assigned to the First Naval District (New England). All lighted navigational aids along the coast were turned off during the war, and it was up to the Pilots and Roseway to guide ships through the minefields and anti-submarine netting protecting the harbor. At the end of the war, the Coast Guard presented a bronze plaque to the pilots in honor of Roseway‘s exemplary wartime service.

Post War Years:

Roseway continued to serve as a pilot vessel until the early 1970s, at which point she and San Francisco’s Zodiac were the only pilot schooners still in service in the United States. She was then sold and converted into a passenger vessel for the tourist trade. Roseway changed hands several times in the ensuing decades, operating primarily out of Camden, Maine and the US Virgin Islands.

In 1997, Roseway appeared in a 1977 television remake of Rudyard Kipling’s “Captains Courageous” featuring Karl Malden. And she is now believed to be one of only six Essex-built Grand Banks fishing schooners left in existence. Roseway was listed as a National Historic Landmark. Roseway, at that time, retained between eighty and ninety percent of her original hull fabric and was badly in need of repairs. She remained docked in Rockland, Maine until she was repossessed by the First National Bank of Damariscotta, which in 2002 donated the vessel to the newly founded World Ocean School.

Following two years of restoration in Boothbay Harbor, Roseway again set sail in 2005. She currently serves as the platform for the World Ocean School, which offers various educational programs in St. Croix and the northeastern United States.

Roseway appeared in a 1977 television remake of Rudyard Kipling’s “Captains Courageous” featuring Karl Malden. And she is now believed to be one of only six Essex-built Grand Banks fishing schooners left in existence.

 

Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Notable Guest, and Reunion Information):

Owner: (1925-1941) – Harold Hathaway of Taunton, Massachusetts
Owner: (1941–1942) – Boston Pilots
Owner: (1942–1945) – Coast Guard Reserve
Owner: (1945–1972) – Boston Pilots
Owner: (1972–1974) – A Boston syndicate
Owner: (1974–1987) – Jim Sharp, Orvil Young
Owner: (2002–present) – World Ocean School

John G. Alden PURITAN

Wartime designation: Zahma (IX-69)

Type: Schooner, Center Board

LOA: 126′ 0″ / 38.00m – LOD: 102′ 9″ / 31.32m – LWL: 74′ 8 / 22.76m – Beam: 22′ 10″ / 6.96m – Draft: 9′ 0″ / 2.74m – Displacement: 262,000 / 118,841 – Sail Area: – Original Owner: Edward W. Brown – Year Launched: 1930 – Designed by: John G. Alden – Built by: Electric Boat Company (Hull number 16) – In service: 1941 – Out of service: 28 June 1944 – Former name(s) Sapphire Seas – Club: CRV Italia – Official Number: 230644

Historical:

The Puritan was built by the Electric Boat Company in 1930. The plans for the schooner were originally presented to Edward W. Brown by John Alden in 1929. The ship was completed in 1931 and was the only pleasure boat build by the Electric Boat Company during that period due to the beginning of the Great Depression. The ship was christened in 1931 and made its maiden voyage from New London, Connecticut to Oyster Bay.

The Puritan was put up for sale in 1932 after the death of Edward Brown. It was purchased in 1933 by Harry Bauer, the president of Southern California Edison, for $35,000. He sailed the ship from the eastern United States to California by way of the Panama Canal. Sterling Hayden, only seventeen at the time, was a passenger on the journey and would later write about it in his 1963 biography, Wanderer. Bauer sold the Puritan for $1 to the United States Navy on December 7th, 1941, the day of the Attack on Pearl Harbor.

Bauer owned the Puritan up until his death in 1961. In 1957, he allowed the American Museum of Natural History in New York to use the Puritan as a base of operations for an expedition. The expedition focused on the gulf of California and logged more than 4,000 miles while collecting specimens and studying the region. Members of the expedition included Oakes Plimpton, Richard Van Gelder, and Richard G. Zweifel and led to the discovery of Van Gelder’s bat, among other finds. In 1963, the boat was purchased at auction for $90,300 by Doyle D.W. Downey after sitting in mooring for two years after Bauer’s death.

Downey had previously purchased the Satartia (later known as Southwind) from Bauer, another schooner designed by John Alden. Downey used the Puritan in the charter trade in the Virgin Islands. In 1967, he ended up selling the Puritan to Mariano Prado-Sosa for $120,000. Mariano was a member of a wealthy Peruvian family that included Mariano Ignacio Prado, former president of Peru. Mariano refurbished the schooner and begins using it as a charter between Miami, Florida and the Virgin Islands. The boat was seized by the Mexican government on a charter to Acapulco. It was seized on behalf of the Peruvian government who blamed the Prado family for inequalities in Peru.

In 1971, the Puritan was towed from Acapulco to Costa Rica and then brought back to Miami. At the time, the schooner was in poor shape in that nothing on the boat was operative except for the main engine. The toilets were plugged, batteries dead, and it could not travel more than four knots due to the condition of the hull. It was purchased by Bill and Patsy Bolling in 1972, who spent seven months restoring the schooner. They returned the Puritan to charter in the Caribbean and also took part in schooner races, winning the Mystic Seaport Invitational Schooner Race in 1973.

The Puritan was sold to Oscar Schmidt in 1978. Schmidt sailed the Puritan to Newport, Rhode Island in 1980 for the America’s Cup races. While there, he entered it into the Classic Yacht Regatta where it won first in class. The schooner spends the next decade sailing the world, visiting places such as Bermuda and France. In 1989, it was sold again, this time to Arturo Ferruzzi who keeps it in Antibes until it is sold to the current owner in 2015. It underwent a full refit and was put into service as a charter vessel with The Classic Yacht Experience.

WWII service

Beginning active duty with the U.S. Navy, commissioned as USS Puritan (IX-69), Puritan was assigned to the Western Sea Frontier, 11th Naval District, San Diego. Fear of Japanese attack had reached a zenith on the west coast by 1942. Puritan operated on the San Diego Coastal Patrol throughout her Naval career, guarding against such an attack. Puritan had but a brief tour with the U.S. Navy and was placed out of service at San Diego, California, on 27 September 1943. She was struck from the Navy Register on 28 June 1944 and transferred to the War Shipping Administration for return to her former owner on 18 November 1944.

Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Notable Guest, and Reunion Information):

Owner: (1915) – Edward W. Brown
Owner: (1933-1941) – Harry Bauer, Newport Harbor Yacht Club member.(Homeport Balboa from 1933 to 1961)
Owner: (1941-1944) – War Service
Owner: (1944-1961) – Harry Bauer
Owner: (1963-1967) – Doyle D.W. Downey
Owner: (1967-seized by the Mexican government) – Mariano Prado-Sosa
Owner: (1972-1978) – Bill and Patsy Bolling
Owner: (1978-1989) – Oscar Schmidt
Owner: (1989-2015) – Arturo Ferruzzi
Owner: (2015-current) – Private
Captain: (2019) – Simon/PANDOLFI

References

This Historical information incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

• Carrick, Robert W.; Henderson, Richard (1995). John G. Alden and His Yacht Designs. Mc Graw-Hill. ISBN 9780070282544.
• Serafini, Flavio (2002). Vele allo specchio (Interni, particolari e restauri di scafi d’epoca). ISBN 9788879061865.
• Oristano, Victor (December 1973). “A Queen Is Reborn” (in Italian). Motor Boating.
• “Shipping News”. Los Angeles Times. 20 June 1933.
• Hayden, Sterling (1998). Wanderer. Sheridan House. ISBN 9781574090482.
• “Expedition to Hunt for Coast Animal Specimens”. Los Angeles Times. 3 March 1957.
• Template:Plimpton, Oakes A., ”1957 Expeditions Journal: Baja California American Museum of Natural
• History Expedition Journal Spring 1957 Huautla Mexico Seeking The Sacred Mushroom With Gordon Wasson Summer 1957” (2016)
• Ames, Walter (17 June 1963). “Owner of Two Yachts Buys 3rd in Southland”. Los Angeles Times.
• Devlin, John C. (23 September 1973). “Schooners Rule for a Day at Mystic”. The New York Times.
• “Puritan, 1931” (in Italian). Nautica Report.
• Pozzo, Fabio (2 July 2017). “L’ingegnere aerospaziale che riporta in vita le principesse del mare” (in Italian). La Saampa Mare.

Historical:

The gaff topsail schooner rig evolved from the needs of the East Coast fishermen who sailed one thousand miles from Gloucester, Massachusetts to fish the bountiful Grand Banks of Newfoundland and back, to deliver their catch to market as quickly as possible. In the spring and fall, when gale force winds in the northwestern Atlantic are frequent, the rig could be shortened by un-shipping the ‘appendages’ so to speak. The bowsprit and both topmasts were removed to improve vessel stability. This lowered the vessel’s overall center of gravity and the sail’s center of effort, and reduced its sail area. A schooner, so rigged was called a “knockabout”. The extra spars and associated sails were replaced in the spring to improve speed when prevailing winds were lighter and storms less frequent.

Pilot’s designer, William Starling Burgess, still a well-known name in yachting design, is the designer of three early America’s Cup defenders, Rainbow, Ranger and Enterprise. He also designed the fastest and most elegant fishing schooners ever built in the United States: Mayflower, Puritan, and Columbia.

Pilot closely resembles Puritan in her lines and dimensions and was launched in 1924, the year after Columbia, the last Burgess’ designs, competed in the International Fisherman’s Cup races.

It has been rumored Pilot was originally conceived as a racing schooner to challenge the great Nova Scotia schooner Bluenose in the International Fisherman’s Cup. As the story goes, she was sold by her racing-minded syndicate when the race was cancelled and before construction was completed, but this has not been confirmed. What can be said is that Pilot was born from a racing heritage and blessed with the lines of the fastest and most graceful schooners ever built.

Pilot was built by J.F.W. James & Son, and launched on October 2, 1924, for the A.D. Story shipyard in Essex, Massachusetts. Her owners, the Boston Pilots Association, had her ‘knockabout’ design modified from the typical fishing schooner to best suit their purposes. They needed a fast, maneuverable ship with good sea keeping qualities that could race harbor pilots out from Boston Harbor to meet, board and pilot visiting ships safely into the harbor. Accommodations for eight pilots, five apprentices, the engineer and cook were necessary. They had no need for a spacious fish hold, but auxiliary power was necessary to handle the ship in light winds or when the wind blew from the wrong direction.

The below decks arrangements aboard Pilot reflect these modifications; a large engine room in the middle of the ship where the fish hold might have been, separates two large accommodation spaces, forward for the crew and aft for the pilots.

The Pilot’s Association also modified the stern and transom to accommodate a pilothouse. The tall pilothouse could not handle a large, low main boom, nor could a small crew handle a large boom. The main mast carried a trysail instead of the massive gaff sail and the 65′ long, 2000-pound boom she carries today.

A boomed staysail, located where the current foresail is, cleared a 5′ high engine exhaust funnel. Remarkably, with her knockabout rig, just four men were all that was needed to work the ship. Pilot continued her role as Pilot for nearly 40 years.

In the 1970’s Pilot was purchased by a consortium of two doctors and two lawyers to circumnavigate the globe. Modifications were made to the vessel to make her the full-rigged gaff topsail schooner she is today. She sailed as far as the South Pacific and was sold in 1976.

Her new owner, Norman D. Paulsen of California, renamed her Star Pilot and used the schooner for marine biology classes based out of Santa Barbara in the winter and San Pedro in the summer. This is when Jacques Cousteau was aboard, as part of Catalina Island School. High Hunter took possession of the boat in 1985 and brought her to Hawaii and then to Boston and the 1986 Chesapeake Schooner Race. Mr. Paulsen then repossessed the boat in Boston and brought her back to Los Angeles via a yard period in Gloucester

In 1998 Mr. Paulsen sold the boat to Fred Smithers of Secunda Marine Service. The ship was sailed to her new home in Nova Scotia, Canada. The ship was renamed Highlander Sea and a refit was completed so the ship could be used to train young seafarers.

In April of 2002, Acheson Ventures, LLC purchased Highlander Sea. In the summer of 2003, Highlander Sea participated in the ASTA Tall Ship Challenge on the Great Lakes. She was given the 2003 Black Pearl award. In October of 2004, Highlander Sea celebrated her 80th Birthday.

On September 11, 2011, Highlander Sea left her berth at the Bean Dock (Seaway Terminal) in Port Huron and sailed to Gloucester, Massachusetts. Acheson Ventures had not sailed her since 2009 as a cost-cutting measure.

Currently renamed Pilot she is currently operating as a seasonal oyster bar, showcasing sustainably harvested oysters and nautically inspired cocktails, Pilot presents a concise menu of ingredient-driven seasonal plates by nationally acclaimed chef, Kerry Heffernan.

WWII service

During WWII, she was commandeered by the US Coast Guard. She made over 1,300 trips, moving “troop transporters, freighters, tankers, and ‘explosive ships’ loaded with tons of concentrated hell fire,” as an article from the October 14, 1945 issue of the Boston Globe phrased it.

Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):

Owner/Guardian: (1924) Massachusetts Pilot’s Association
Owner/Guardian: (1976) Norman D. Paulsen, California (renamed Star Pilot)
Owner/Guardian: (1985) High Hunter
Owner/Guardian: (1998) Fred Smithers, Secunda Marine Service, Nova Scotia, Canada (renamed Highlander Sea)
Owner/Guardian: (2002) Acheson Ventures, Port Huron, MI
Owner/Guardian: (current) Pilot Brooklyn, Pier 6, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn, NY