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Bluenose Visits Toronto

Posted by tony on July 10th, 2008

Bluenose II seen here at Toronto Harbour was built from the same plans in the same shipyard by some of the same men who built the original.

The original schooner Bluenose is the inspired design of William J. Roué of Halifax, built by Smith and Rhuland in Lunenburg on March 26, 1921 and celebrated on the Canadian ten-cent piece. She spent her first summer fishing the Grand Banks and in October entered the Fisherman’s Trophy competition. Canada had lost the race the previous year but in 1921 Bluenose defeated Elsie from Gloucester Mass. The competition launched in 1920 in response to the cancellation of the America’s Cup race because the 23 knot winds were too high for the yachts. The fisherman’s challenge was between real working boats that didn’t have the luxury of hiding in port when the winds got up.

The Bluenose not only took the cup the first time she raced, she didn’t surrender it. For 18 years until the schooner retired, the Fisherman’s Cup stayed in Nova Scotia. The last races took place in 1938, when Bluenose shook off the fatigue of many years’ hard work and won again, a tribute to the shipwrights who built her and the sailors who took her out. On January 28, 1946, the queen of the North Atlantic foundered on a reef in Haiti.