A longtime member of the Rockland tourist sailing fleet and the last surviving Chesapeake ram schooner, the 128′ long Victory Chimes is going to end its days as a restaurant in New York.
The one-time lumber hauler converted to accommodate passengers is a US National Historic Landmark and is represented on the Maine State Quarter, originally minted in 2003.
At least she’s not goint to the breakers.
That’s sad - we always enjoyed encountering the Chimes in our travels around central Maine. He she is leaving Burnt Coat Harbor on Swan’s Island in 2022.
A friend was captain for the owner of Domino’s who already owned a couple of yachts when he bought her to take his employees out on junkets. My buddy eventually had the chance to buy her from his boss when his business ran into financial trouble. He and another tall ship captain from Maine scraped every penny they had to pull it off but they made it. They used to laugh that their motto was “No guts no glory.”
Spending a week gunkholing in Maine on that hundred plus year old three masted gaff rigged schooner was therapy for the soul.
Fortunately for them, they sold her not long before covid shut things down and escaped the finacial hit. I don’t know whether that had anything with the decision of the current owners to retire her.
PS I spoke last night with my buddy who sold the VC just before the pandemic and he confirmed that the new owners sold it because they were unable to survive the loss of revenue brought on by covid.
