Replica schooner departs New London
New London — Following an extended layover, the schooner Columbia departed City Pier on Tuesday, bound for St. Martin, via Bermuda, for the winter season.
Columbia is a steel-hulled replica of the original Gloucester fishing schooner of the same name, which went down in heavy seas with all hands on Aug. 24, 1927, near Sable Island in the north Atlantic.
Columbia's rebirth was the dream of Brian D'Isernia of Eastern Shipbuilding of Panama City, Fla.
The original Columbia was a 141-foot classic Gloucester fishing schooner built at the historic A.D. Story shipyard of Essex, Mass., and designed by William Starling Burgess as both a fishing schooner and to compete in the annual International Fisherman's Cup races between the fishing fleets of Gloucester, Mass., and Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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