Senate votes to transfer control of Ernestina to Mass Maritime
The vessel’s home port will be in New Bedford, where it must be berthed for a total of 90 days per year over a three-year average, and the city’s schoolchildren are guaranteed access to the schooner for educational events.
The vessel’s home port will be in New Bedford, where it must be berthed for a total of 90 days per year over a three-year average, and the city’s schoolchildren are guaranteed access to the schooner for educational events.
BOSTON — Control of the historic Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey would move from the state Department of Conservation and Recreation to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, which will maintain the vessel and use it for training, under a bill the Senate passed Thursday.
The transfer comes as part of an effort to develop a long-term plan for preservation of the 125-year-old schooner, designated as the official vessel of Massachusetts.
Restoration has been underway since 2015 thanks to $3.8 million in combined funding from the state, the Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey Association and philanthropists Robert Hildreth and H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, according to Sen. Mark Montigny, who was the bill’s lead author.
Under the legislation advanced Thursday (S 2328), the Massachusetts Maritime Academy will take over management of the vessel, though DCR will provide funding to help complete existing renovation contracts in fiscal year 2020. The academy must use it as a sail training ship for at least 15 years.
The vessel’s home port will be in New Bedford, where it must be berthed for a total of 90 days per year over a three-year average, and the city’s schoolchildren are guaranteed access to the schooner for educational events.
“For decades, the people of New Bedford cared for and maintained the Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey,” Montigny said in a news release. “This meant we had to forgo public funding for other worthy projects in order to ensure we had the funding necessary to keep the Ernestina at sea. After many years and countless, dedicated volunteers, we are now poised to complete a fully restored vessel accompanied by a thoughtful long-term maintenance and operations plan.”
The first phase of restoration has been completed in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, but according to Montigny’s office, the legislation needs to be finalized before the second phase involving sails and rigging can wrap up. If that can proceed soon, the vessel is expected to return to New Bedford next summer.
First launched in 1894, the vessel, first known as the Effie M. Morrissey, served decades of fishing expeditions before being purchased by Arctic explorer Robert Bartlett. In 1940, the schooner came within 578 miles of the North Pole— a distance that the Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey Association claims is “the farthest north that any sailing vessel has ever reached.”
For years after that, the ship carried passengers and cargo between the United States and the Cape Verde, cementing its connection to the island nation off the western coast of Africa. It came to Massachusetts in the 1970s as a gift of the Cape Verdean people and was historically docked at New Bedford State Pier.
Montigny said when the Ernestina-Morrissey is docked in New Bedford, it will be featured in the annual Cape Verdean Recognition Week.
The bill also calls for establishment of a Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey advisory board bringing together state and local officials, a member of the schooner’s association, someone with expertise in Cape Verdean history, and others.
Although the schooner’s home berth will be in New Bedford, it will be allowed to travel up and down the state based on the advisory board’s recommendation.
The bill is awaiting a vote in the House.
