The Legendary Bluenose to Sail Again

From the start, the original Bluenose earned her title, ‘Queen of the Banks.’

NEWS ITEM: “Problems turning Bluenose II’s rudder mean it’s unlikely to sail this summer.”–Times-Colonist, June 24, 2014.

In July 1967 a Halifax brewing company turned back the hands of time to Canada’s most glorious chapter in sail by launching the second Bluenose whose illustrious predecessor owed her genesis to a bitter ‘Scotian defeat at the hands of New England mariners in 1920’.

For years, doughty Grand Banks fishermen had derided the world-known American Cup race, sneering that the rakish yachts were mere toys, unable to weather anything stronger than a summer breeze. What would happen, they loudly crowed for two decades, if REAL men in REAL deepwater boats raced?

Their chance came when a Halifax newspaper publisher offered $4000 to the speediest Nova Scotian or New England fishing schooner. The only stipulation was that entries must be “bona fide work horses, with at least one qualifying trip to their credit, as proof of their capabilities in the hazardous North Atlantic salt-fish trade”.

After eliminations, the Canadian and American champions battled off Halifax. Alas, Nova Scotia’s pride, Delawanna, was soundly trounced by the Esperanto in both heats and the first International Fishermen’s Schooner Racing Trophy went to New England.

Smarting at this turn of events
Several adventurous businessmen took the challenge to Halifax marine architect William J. Rose. His assignment was to the point: design the fastest Saltbanker that ever crowded canvas. And he did just that, “a big, lean-hulled schooner… From the first touch of pencil to drafting paper she was named, BLUENOSE.”

To the established firm of Smith & Rhuland went the contract. The Lunenburg yard had launched 130 sailing ships over the years but none like the sovereign they now commenced to build. All the way from Ottawa travelled the Governor-General to hammer the first spike of solid gold into her sturdy keel and on the day of her launching, Mar. 27, 1921, cheering crowds waved the graceful 112-foot hull down the ways for its first taste of salt water.

From the start, Bluenose earned her title, ‘Queen of the Banks,’ her first season ending with a record catch that was never equalled. When fishing ended for the year, she trimmed for racing and handily defeated eight of her sisters in the elimination contest.

But she never had the chance to meet the defending champion, Esperanto having been wrecked off notorious Sable Island months before. Instead, Bluenose was to battle the specially-built Mayflower–until the racing commission barred Mayflower’s entry. After a ruling that she was more yacht than fishing craft and therefore ineligible, the chagrined Yankees staged an elimination race among their Gloucester fleet, only to have the winner Elsie prove to be little threat. By pummelling her 2-0, Bluenose captured the coveted International Trophy, “a mantle of honour [she] was destined never to surrender”.

The following year again saw Bluenose the home champion
The first heat, vs. the Henry Ford off Massachusetts, was called when both boats failed to hear a recall gun. In the second race, wafted along by a pale wind, Ford ghosted over the line well ahead of Bluenose. But the Saltbanker tied her the next day and the final race saw Bluenose surge to the lead and retain the trophy.

Next year, 1923, saw one of the greatest racing duels in the history of sail. For the first time, Bluenose fought a schooner specifically designed to seize the International Trophy. As had happened the year before, the first race was voided after Bluenose, crowded toward a reef, had to throw hard-over. The neck-and-neck contest became a wrestling match when her main boom arched into the Columbia’s rigging and in the minute it took Bluenose to free herself, she actually towed her opponent before sweeping away to an easy finish well ahead of the limping Columbia.

When officials ruled against the race, both crews cleared their ships for action. But this tournament ended in a much disputed draw, with each vessel claiming victory despite Bluenose having crossed the wire two minutes, 40 seconds ahead of Columbia. The American master protested the Canadians had failed to pass a certain buoy to port, Capt. Angus L. Walters heatedly replying that he’d passed a buoy to starboard, but it was one left over from the navy from the First World War and not one of the markers laid down for the course.

When Walters was denied a third race and the trophy about to be awarded to Columbia, Bluenose stalked home in a sulk. With the Canadians’ departure the official naming of a winner was dropped, resulting in ‘no contest.’

Not until 1931 was the trophy again contested
In the intervening years, Bluenose had faced competition in local waters as her designer Rose had determined to create a schooner even faster than his famous brainchild. To again quote from the record: “When Bluenose again swept across the finish at the end of the first race, Haligonian was not even in sight. Bluenose went on the following day to take the second race by more than seven minutes. So much for the home-fashioned threats!”

In 1930, Bluenose finally met her match–not the International Trophy this time but the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy. In defense, it must be said that she was then 10 years old and challenger Gertrude L. Thebaud spanking new. Also, the aging queen was handicapped by a set of ‘badly-stretched sails.’ Most importantly, her gleaming black hull had been severely battered from piling into reefs in Placentia Bay during a thick fog.

Despite these handicaps, she led Thebaud in the two opening heats, both of which were called due to heavy weather that barred both vessels from adhering strictly to commission regulations. But the final record listed the Gloucesterman over the line before Bluenose in the two remaining races.

The aging matron got her own back a year later when she again faced Thebaud, this time for the International Trophy, and, with disdainful ease, she shut out the upstart, 3-0.

Seven more years passed before the final International series
Between busy seasons on the Grand Banks, Bluenose represented Canada at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair and attended the King George VI Jubilee celebrations across the Atlantic. In a hectic race around the Isle of Wight, against the speediest yachts of Great Britain, she placed third. Her prize was a suit of sails sewn for the royal yacht Britannia.

By 1938, the fabled Saltbankers were sailing “under the growing shadow of an era’s end. The mighty fleets of schooners were on their way out. The diesel engine was coming in, changing the face of the fishing trade. For the tired old Lunenburger, her final tournament was to be a battle royal.”

Despite her 17 years, Bluenose won in a blaze of glory. By the end of four heats, she and her old opponent Gertrude Thebaud were tied, two apiece. To break the draw, a fifth race was held. Bluenose seemed alive as, sails stiff in a firm wind–10,000 square feet of canvas–she skimmed over the line, two minutes ahead of Thebaud.

But it was the beginning of the end
Never again would she wing forth to meet the cream of the opposition. The Second World War spelled the end of her racing career and for three years she lay quietly at her Lunenburg slip. There was talk of making her a public memorial to a passing age but… In 1942 the West Indies Trading Co. bought the queen, sending her into the tropical waters of the Caribbean as a tramp. During the night of Jan. 30, 1946, her hull of Nova Scotian birch shattered on a reef. Hours later, she was gone, pounded under by a storm.

The birth of Bluenose II was inspired by the 1960 launching of the movie model, HMS Bounty (lost in a hurricane in 2012), by the original builders, Smith and Rhuland. When the crowds trickled home from the gala ceremony, an old idea had been rekindled among deep-water seamen. Public meetings were held to discuss financing, although funds were slow in coming until the brewing firm of Oland and Son, seeing potential in marketing their Schooner Lager, promised backing.

July 24, 1963, to the cheers of 15,000 spectators, the ebony hull of Bluenose II slid down the ways, just 60 feet from the spot where her fabled parent first touched salt water. Bluenose II is an exact replica although her tall masts, at time of launching, were of British Columbia Douglas fir rather than Oregon pine.

Sold for $1 to the Nova Scotia government in 1971, she was later turned over to the Bluenose II Preservation Trust which agreed to keep her shipshape and operational for the benefit of the people of the province. After restoration–and a scandal over the accounting for $2.3 million provided by the federal government–she was re-commissioned in May 1995 and later placed under the management of the Lunenburg Marine Museum Society at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic.

Despite lingering controversy over her restoration funding, she has “serve[d] as a goodwill ambassador, tourist attraction in Lunenburg, and symbol of the province,” an entry in Wikipedia tells us. Rebuilt again in 2009 and re-launched in September 2012, she was expected to return to her sea duties in the spring of 2013 then in spring 2014. As noted, however, rudder problems–she needs a modern hydraulic system to turn her 3200-kg rudder and make her seaworthy–have postponed her re-commissioning yet again.

The original puzzle remains unanswered –
What was the secret of Bluenose I’s remarkable speed? There have been numerous theories over the years. Most mariners favour the legend that a last-minute alteration of her bow to allow greater foc’s’le headroom, which gave the schooner her most distinctive feature, a spoon-like bow, “lent her a marvellous ability to crest over ocean swells rather than to surge through them”.

Some claim she touched bottom when launched, warping her keel in a manner no shipbuilder could duplicate. Others say frost altered the curve of her beams during construction. But many do not credit Bluenose’s speed to a caprice of the sea gods. The glory, they said, belonged to her master, Capt. Angus Walters. Or the genius of architect William Rose. Or the generations-old craftsmanship of Smith and Rhuland.

Has Bluenose II inherited this famous speed? We’ll never know. Oland and Son, and the residents of Lunenburg, vowed that the new schooner must never race. Explained a brewery spokesman: “The old Bluenose worked hard to win her honours. Our schooner does not have the right to race and tamper with the reputation of her wonderful namesake.”

Bluenose I has been immortalized on the reverse of the Canadian dime since 1956.