NRHP Reference # 04000571 Added to NRHP 3 June 2004 | Architect William Townsend Year built 1885 | |
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Similar Fort Adams, Claiborne Pell Newport, Isaac Bell House, Bellevue Avenue Historic D, Fort Adams State Park | ||
Coronet, a wooden-hull schooner yacht built in 1885, is one of the oldest and largest schooner yachts in the world.
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History
The 131-foot (40 m) schooner Coronet was designed by William Townsend and built for Rufus T. Bush by the C. & R. Poillon shipyard in Brooklyn. Bush then put forth a $10,000 challenge against any other yacht for a transatlantic race. The ocean race between Coronet and the Caldwell Hart Colt's yacht Dauntless in March 1887 made Rufus T. Bush and the victorious Coronet famous—the New York Times devoted its entire first page for March 28, 1887 to the story (as seen at left).
After winning the 3,000-mile race and the $10,000 purse, Rufus T. Bush decided to sell Coronet and listed the vessel in England for $30,000. Rufus and his son Irving T. Bush then circumnavigated the globe on Coronet in 1888. Coronet was the first registered yacht to cross Cape Horn from East to West. After crossing the Pacific Ocean and stopping in Hawaii, Coronet made port in China, Calcutta, Malta and elsewhere.
Coronet was sold before Rufus's death in 1890 The vessel then passed through six different owners (Arthur E. Bateman, John D. Wing, Arthur Curtiss James, Fred S. Pearson, John I. Waterbury, and Louis Bossert) by 1905. The Coronet circumnavigated the globe several times and was used for a Japanese-American scientific excursion during an eclipse.
The Kingdom, a religious organization founded by Frank Sandford, purchased the ship in 1905 for $10,000 and took it around the world on prayer missions, including to Palestine. Coronet took a poorly planned missionary voyage to Africa in 1911 which resulted in six persons on board dying of scurvy. After the voyage, The Kingdom kept the yacht moored at Portland, Maine as well as Gloucester, Massachusetts and owned her until 1995.
Restoration
The International Yacht Restoration School, in Newport, Rhode Island acquired the boat in the 1995 and began restoring of the vessel. IYRS added Coronet to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. In December 2006, IYRS conveyed title of the boat to the Coronet Restoration Partners in San Francisco to complete the restoration on IYRS's campus in Rhode Island, where restoration works started in 2010.