Regina Maris (schooner)

Description

Her original home port was Amsterdam. Her classification was SI Z1234+, EU 98/18. Her length overall was 48 meters (157 feet). Her beam was 6.90 meters (22.6 feet), with a draught of 2.80 meters (9.2 feet). Her masthead height was 29.00 meters (95 feet). Her displacement was 280 tons with a gross tonnage of 153 tons. She was rigged as a three-masted topsail schooner with a sail area of 720 m² (7,750 square feet) across 11 sails.

Her main engine was an eight-cylinder Caterpillar 3408 that produced 365 hp (272 Kw). Her generators were a Mitsubishi 15 kW and a Lister Petter at 20 kW. Her bunker capacity for gas and oil was 12,000 liters (3,170 U.S. gallons; 2,640 Imperial gallons). Her bunker capacity for fresh water was 16,000 liters (4,227 U.S. gallons; 3,520 Imperial gallons).

Her speed under sail was 12 knots and under engine was 9 knots. Her passenger capacity was up to 80 passengers for short-term voyages and 36 passengers for overnight voyages. She had two two-passenger and eight four-passenger cabins.

History

Regina was built to ply the Iceland-to-Baltic Sea codfish trade. The original wooden hull was completed in 1908, the 100th hull produced by the shipyard of J. Ring Anderson in Svendborg, Denmark.

On 15 February 1920, Regina was discovered abandoned in the North Sea. Her crew was rescued by the Swedish steamer Fritiof. Regina was towed into IJmuiden, North Holland, Netherland by the Dutch fishing trawler Eendracht II.

Regina at one time was believed to have been involved in the rescue of Danish Jews during World War II, but this was later disproven.

Until 1963, the ship sailed under Norwegian colors and was called Regina, rigged as a three-masted topsail schooner. Following a severe fire in 1963, she was purchased by the Norwegian shipping magnates Siegfried and John Aage Wilson and converted to serve as the latter's private yacht. Rebuilt with a very tall three-masted barquentine rig for this purpose, the ship was renamed Regina Maris ("Queen of the Sea"). Between 1963 and 1984, she was used in many television and movie productions, conducted two global circuits, and underwent stints as a cruise ship, sail training facility, and marine mammal research vessel.

The vessel was saved from being scuttled by Captain Robert Val Rosenbaum and moved from Boston. Massachusetts, to Greenport, New York, where Rosenbaum founded the Regina Maris Foundation and began a restoration process with 70 local volunteers in 1991. Hurricane Bob hit the east end of Long Island in August 1991, and Captain Rosenbaum scuttled the vessel at her berth to save her from being destroyed by the storm and to prevent the destruction of the nearby historic waterfront buildings. After the storm, the vessel was raised by Captain Rosenbaum and sold for one dollar to facilitate the restoration effort by a newly formed nonprofit organization. During the next eight years the corporation raised money through donations in Greenport to restore the vessel, but the funds were misappropriated and never found their way into the ship.

The vessel was towed to Glen Cove, New York, in 1998 as part of a plan to revitalize the city′s waterfront. Plans to restore the ship were hampered by the discovery that she was not involved in rescuing Jewish refugees in World War II, as well as the economic impact of the September 11 attacks in 2001. The ship was chronically leaky and sank at the dock in 2002. Efforts to raise her in 2003 damaged her beyond repair. The deck, gunnels, deckhouse, bowsprit, masts, and rigging were preserved and set in concrete on the nearby esplanade

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