Monday, November 29, 2010

Sailing to St. Lucia


As Britain shivers in its coldest spell for 25 years, Captain JP dreams he could escape by sailing to St. Lucia. Who can blame him?

Bonus points for anyone who can name the schooner in the photo and triple bonus points for anyone who can say where she is now.

9 comments:

bonnie said...

Schooner Polynesia?

If so, here's her story as of August '09.

Tillerman said...

I believe you are correct bonnie. Tillerwoman and I did have the pleasure of sailing on her once, although not to St. Lucia. In fact I don't think either of her regular itineraries included St. Lucia so that photo was probably taken when she was being moved between the two cruising routes mentioned in your link.

But the story continues. I believe she is no longer tied up in Aruba "awaiting her fate". There is a happy ending to the story.

bonnie said...

Ah, I wondered if there might have been developments since then. Look forward to seeing who gets the triple bonus points!

JP said...

Aah that brings back memories..... can feel the warmth of the sun on skin just by looking at that pic.

bonnie said...

OK, I couldn't resist doing a little more online investigation & did find a tantalizing mention of her being bought & moved to Portugal (which would be appropriate since she was originally part of the Portuguese fishing fleet) - but that's actually dated March 2009 so is even older than the August '09 one that I was assuming was giving the right story.

Anybody have the rest of the story?

Tillerman said...

The dates on those two links are a bit weird bonnie, I agree, but I found several sources on the Internet that said the Polynesia, formerly the Argus, was moved to Portugal and is being restored there along with two of her sister ships from the Grand Banks fishing fleet.

See for example Jay Creswell's comment on this post on intheboatshed.net.

And if you want to see some great historic video of these ships go to YouTube and type in "os solitarios homens dos doris". It will take you to a six part 1964 National Geographic special about the Potuguese White Fleet on the Grand Banks.

Tillerman said...

Also check out this blog which has an amazing collection of historic photos and documents relating to the Argus, and photos of her arriving back in Portugal in the April 6 2009 post.

bonnie said...

Great links and definitely a better end to the story than "moldering away at a dock in Aruba". Can't wait to get home & watch the videos tonight. Thanks for fillng in the rest of the story!

bonnie said...

Oh, and in some sort of weird Portugeuse/schooner/caribbean synchronicity thing, Capt. Greg, the skipper who first hired me as a trainee on the schooner Adirondack was Portuguese & (naturally) a great skipper & if you are ever visiting St. John & would like to meet him, you can go for a sail with him & his lovely wife Capt. Barbara on their beautiful John Alden sloop, Spitfire.

Their permanent move to Caneel Bay was NYC's loss, the USVI's gain. It was so nice catching up with them when I went on that bare-boat charter with my schoonergal friends a few years back.

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