by Emily Pearce
This year, Gloucester celebrates not just a milestone, but a living testament to its soul. The Schooner Adventure—launched in 1926 at the John F. James & Son Shipyard—turns 100! In a city shaped by salt, toil, and the steady pull of the horizon, Adventure is far more than a vessel. She is Gloucester’s story, carried across a century of change, loss, resilience, and pride.
Built as a “highliner,” the fastest and most profitable of the last Grand Bank dory-fishing schooners, Adventure represents the pinnacle of Gloucester’s fishing fleet. Designed for speed, strength, and the harsh conditions of the North Atlantic, she hauled record catches in her early years and survived when nearly all her contemporaries were lost.
By the 1950s, she was one of the last living links to a fleet that had once numbered in the thousands, a relic of an era when Gloucester ruled the North Atlantic. Retired from fishing in 1954, Adventure embraced new roles, first as a windjammer traveling along the Maine coast, promoting the beauty and practicality of sail-powered travel. By the 1980s, she returned to Gloucester weathered and fragile, her survival uncertain. A dedicated community of volunteers, shipwrights, schoolchildren, donors, and dreamers rallied to preserve her. This labor of love included a 1999 Save America’s Treasures grant, supporting careful restoration that honored her craftsmanship while keeping her seaworthy. The result was more than a repaired vessel—it was a living symbol of Gloucester’s working waterfront, maritime skill, and community spirit.
Today, Adventure sails again, carrying passengers of all ages on journeys that bring history alive. Students learn about fishing traditions, shipbuilding, and navigation firsthand, experiencing maritime history not from textbooks but from the deck of a century-old schooner. Visitors can sail aboard, feeling the wind in the rigging and the rhythm of the sea beneath their feet, sharing in the stories of fishermen who never returned home and those who persevered. Musicians, artists, and storytellers continue to find inspiration aboard, interpreting the North Atlantic as both a workplace and a muse.
Adventure now calls the Harriett Webster Pier at Maritime Gloucester home, where she rests against the backdrop of the historic Marine Railway. This location places her at the heart of Gloucester’s maritime heritage, surrounded by the tools, docks, and stories that shaped the city. Visitors can explore her decks, attend educational programs, or embark on a sailing adventure, all while experiencing the living history of Gloucester’s waterfront in a setting that evokes both past and present.
Adventure’s centennial celebrates more than a ship—it honors a city that refused to let her fade. Gloucester preserved her not as a static relic but as a dynamic, living vessel, teaching the next generation, preserving vanishing skills, and keeping the city’s maritime identity visible amid economic and cultural change.
One hundred years after her launch, Adventure remains at work—educating, inspiring, and sailing. She is proof that heritage is not fixed; it moves, breathes, and endures. In her centennial year, the Schooner Adventure calls on all of us to celebrate not only where Gloucester has been but where it is headed. As long as she sails, she carries the spirit of the city forward, a testament to courage, memory, and the enduring power of the sea.