Bluenose

For other uses, see Bluenose (disambiguation).

Bluenose postage stamp of 1929
Career (Canada)
Name:	Bluenose
Port of registry:	Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
Launched:	March 26, 1921
Fate:	Sold out-of-country in 1942 to become a tramp schooner in the Caribbean
Career (West Indies)
Name:	Bluenose
Acquired:	1942
Fate:	On January 28, 1946 she foundered on a reef off the coast of Haiti and sank
Status:	Sunk
General characteristics
Displacement:	258 tonnes (284 short tons)
Length:	49 m (160 ft 9 in) o/a 34 m (111 ft 7 in) lwl
Beam:	8 m (26 ft 3 in)
Draft:	5 m (16 ft 5 in)
Propulsion:	Sails
Mainmast, height from deck	38 m (124 ft 8 in)
Foremast, height from deck	36 m (118 ft 1 in)
Sail area	1,036 m2 (11,150 sq ft)
Mainsail area	386 m2 (4,150 sq ft)
Crew:	6 Officers, Chief Cook, 15 Deckhands

Bluenose was a Canadian fishing and racing schooner from Nova Scotia built in 1921. She was later commemorated by a replica Bluenose II built in 1963. A celebrated racing ship and hard-working fishing vessel, Bluenose became a provincial icon for Nova Scotia and an important Canadian symbol in the 1930s. The name "bluenose" originated as a nickname for Nova Scotians from as early as the late 18th century.

Career

Bluenose on the Canadian dime

Part of a series on the
History of Nova Scotia
Bluenose
Events
Port Royal established 1605 Conquest of Acadia 1710 Bay of Fundy Campaign 1755 Siege of Louisbourg 1758 Representative Government established 1758 Burying the Hatchet ceremony 1761 Battle of Fort Cumberland 1776 Capture of USS Chesapeake 1813 Freedom of the Press 1835 First Acadian MLA elected 1837 Responsible Government established 1848 ‪Chesapeake Affair 1861 ‪Anti-Confederation Party elected 1867 Saxby Gale 1869 Launch of William D. Lawrence 1873 First airplane in the British Commonwealth 1909 Halifax Explosion 1917 Nova Scotia [Women’s] Franchise Act 1918 Launch of Bluenose 1921 Pugwash Conferences established 1957 Springhill Mining Disaster 1958 Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission established 1967 First 'Treaty Day' 1986 First Black MLA elected 1993 Africville Apology 2010
Other
Military history of Nova Scotia History of the Halifax Regional Municipality
Nova Scotia portal History of Canada portal

Designed by William Roué and built by Smith and Rhuland, Bluenose was launched at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia on March 26, 1921, and christened by Audrey Marie Smith. She was built to be a racing ship and fishing vessel, in response to the defeat of the Nova Scotian Fishing Schooner Delawana by the Gloucester, Massachusetts fishing schooner Esperanto in 1920, in a race sponsored by the Halifax Herald newspaper.

Bluenose vs. Gertrude L. Thebaud, International Fishermen's Trophy, 1938, final race

After a season fishing on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland under the command of Angus Walters, Bluenose defeated Elsie (out of Gloucester), returning the International Fishermen's Trophy to Nova Scotia. In 1930, off Gloucester, Massachusetts, she was defeated 2–0 in the inaugural Sir Thomas Lipton International Fishing Challenge Cup by perhaps her most celebrated competitor, the Gertrude L. Thebaud. However, over the next 17 years of racing, no challenger, American or Canadian, could wrest the International Fishermen's Trophy from her.

She was no mere racing ship, but also a general fishing craft that was worked hard throughout her lifetime. She fished cod and other kinds of groundfish, and at least once won competitions for largest catches of the season and similar awards.

Fishing schooners became obsolete during the 1930s, displaced by motor schooners and trawlers. Despite efforts to keep her in Nova Scotia led by Capt. Walters, Bluenose was sold to work as a freighter in the West Indies. Laden with bananas, she struck a coral reef off Île à Vache, Haiti on January 28, 1946. Wrecked beyond repair, with no loss of life, she was abandoned on the reef.

Various divers and film makers have claimed to have found the wreck of Bluenose, most recently in June 2005 by divers from the Caribbean Marine Institute searching for Henry Morgan's ship HMS Oxford. However the large number of wrecks on the reef at Île à Vache and the scattered condition of the wreckage has made identification difficult.

Fame and commemoration

Bluenose, under full sail, is portrayed on the Bluenose postage stamp 50 cent issue. The Bluenose has been featured on a 1982 60-cent stamp that commemorated the International Philatelic Youth Exhibition. The Bluenose is featured on a 1988 37-cent issue that celebrated Bluenose skipper Angus Walters.

The Bluenose also appears on the current Nova Scotia licence plate. The fishing schooner on the Canadian dime, added in 1937 at the height of fame for Bluenose, was actually based on a composite image of Bluenose and two other schooners, but has for years been commonly known as the Bluenose. In 2002, the government of Canada declared the depiction on the dime to be the Bluenose.

Bluenose and her captain, Angus J. Walters of Lunenburg, were inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, making her the first and only non-human CSHF inductee until 1960, when she was joined by Canadian Hydroplane Champion Miss Supertest III. That same year another honour was bestowed upon the sailing ship when a new Canadian National Railways passenger-vehicle ferry for the inaugural Yarmouth-Bar Harbor service was launched as the M/V Bluenose.

Bluenose II

Main article: Bluenose II

In 1963 a replica of Bluenose was built at Lunenburg using the original Bluenose plans and named Bluenose II. The replica was built by the Oland Brewery as a marketing tool for their Schooner Lager beer brand and as a pleasure yacht for the Olands family. Bluenose II was sold to the government of Nova Scotia in 1971 for the sum of $1 or 10 Canadian dimes. The replica schooner is used for tourism promotion as a "sailing ambassador". In honour of her predecessor's racing record, Bluenose II does not officially race. The replica has undergone several refits to extend her life including a major rebuild that began in 2010 which aims to make the replica look more like the original Bluenose.

Bluenose IV

In 2007, Joan Roué, the great-granddaughter of the designer William Roué, started raising funds to build a new Bluenose. She cited the need for a new ambassador for Nova Scotia and Canada, listing the particulars at a Bluenose IV website. The name Bluenose III is owned by the province of Nova Scotia, and Ms. Roué could not reach an agreement for its use on the new schooner so Ms. Roué and North Atlantic Enterprises are proceeding anyway, however, under the name Bluenose IV. An agreement was reached with Snyder's Shipyard to build the new replica when fundraising was completed. However as of 2009, Roué had not succeeded in raising the required funds.

In the media

In 1977, The Houghton Weavers, a folk group from Lancashire, England, recorded a song titled Blue Nose. They described the song as "A well known sea shanty telling of one of the famous sailing ships on the jamaican rum run". The song featured on the album "Gone are the days".

Canadian Irish folk group The Irish Rovers released a tribute to the Bluenose on their 1979 album Tall Ships and Salty Dogs.

Canadian folk singer Stan Rogers honours both ships in his song "Bluenose", found on his albums Turnaround, released in 1978, and Home In Halifax, released posthumously in 1994. - Michael Stanbury – Bluenose is another musical rendition of the racing history of the bluenose. A sailing ship called Bluenose appears in the 1990s children's television program Theodore Tugboat. The children's television series TUGS features a character named Bluenose, who may be named after the schooner.

The ship is also prominently mentioned in the Circle-Vision 360° film O Canada! in the Canadian pavilion at Epcot in Walt Disney World in Florida.

In 2001 Canadian folk musician Stompin' Tom Connors (OC) released a song about Nova Scotia, its people, and the Bluenose Sailing Ship called "Bluenose" on the CD "Stompin' Tom Connors Sings Canadian History."

See also

• Bluenose II
• Museum ship
• List of museum ships
• Ship replica
• Ships preserved in museums
• List of schooners

Further reading

• Getson, Heather-Anne, Bluenose: The Ocean Knows Her Name., Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 2006.
• Keith McLaren. A Race for Real Sailors: The Bluenose and the International Fishermen's Race 1920 - 1938. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2006.
• Marq de Villiers. Witch in the Wind:The True Story of the Legendary Bluenose. Toronto: Thomas Allen, 2007.
• Higgins, Andrew & Jesse I. Spalding III World War II Adventures of Canada's Bluenose Publication Date: April 1, 1998 | ISBN 0966307305 | ISBN 978-0966307306 | Edition: 1st

External links

• Bluenose II
• Bluenose: A Canadian Icon
• Bluenose Heritage Minute
• Bluenose Model Builder
• "The Fisherman's Race", October 1930, Popular Mechanics
• The Canadian Encyclopedia, The Bluenose: "I gave her the power to carry sail"
• The Canadian Encyclopedia, The Bluenose