Canada's Bluenose

Posted to Underwater Archaeology forum (sub-arch) reply to "Bluenose info" inquiry. For an interesting description of the national symbol of Canada (on it's ten cent piece for many years) see this discussion in the archives of sub-arch and this: "Bluenose - In Search of the Truth" in Model Ship Builder

There are some similarities to the Captain Brewster Hawkins designed and built yacht "Wanderer" in Setauket, NY in 1856 or so. It's reported his son Thomas was it's captain for about a year before it was sold and used as "the last slaver" (before the US Civil War and boarded by British Navy blockade off of Africa, thought harmless) to the "Bluenose" as I recall the one painting I saw somewhere, in possession of the Port Jefferson Yacht Club in the adjoining harbor, where it was thought once to have been built, actually fitted with water tanks for crossing the Atlantic there. The rear mast would have been copied in the forward mast and the bow flatter with the distinctive triangular sails set repetitively aloft. I was reminded a bit seeing it of the big J yachts raced in the early 20th century shown at the Long Island Maritime Museum near Sayville, NY on the Great South Bay, with their tall masts and steel wire rigging. It went down in a storm off (or on) Maysi, Cuba (old Spanish spelling by Christopher Columbus, the cape just to the north of Guantanamo) after the Civil War, used in the fruit trade. It is commemorated at a plaque and large cast iron pot on Jekyll Island, Georgia, where it discharged its slave cargo, the yacht having been bought by Louisiana cotton merchant's agent. Then used as a military mail packet, referred to a "chess piece" in the ensuing hostilities. I would think the metal tanks might still be a magnetometer signature in the water.