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Christened by the crew with the nickname of Old Stormalong, the schooner Bluenose, is certainly the most famous of a long line of Canadian schooners.
Designed by amateur naval architect William Roue the schooner was launched in the Lunenburg, Nova Scotia shipyard of Smith & Rhuland in 1921. The 121st fishing schooner to be built at the yard, the Bluenose was designed as a Lunenburg response to the famous rivalry between Gloucester, Massachusetts and Lunenburg in the Fisherman's Trophy Race. To pay for his schooner, Captain Angus Walters sold 350 shares at $100 apiece.
Under his command, the Bluenose entered the 1921 Fisherman's Trophy Race; and won. Over the next seventeen years the Bluenose would successfully defend the championship sixteen times against all comers, losing only once. Of that loss, the embarrassed captain said: "They didn't beat Bluenose; they beat me."
Since 1937, the fishing vessel's exploits have been honored with the schooner's likeness being minted on the Canadian dime and the vessel has been featured on several Canadian postage stamps. This 50 cent stamp from 1929 is one of the most famous stamps of all time.
Hard times loomed in 1940 and in an effort to stave off the schooner's sale, Captain Walters mortgaged his house. Despite all his efforts, however, the ship was sold to a West Indies trading company in 1942. In 1946 the schooner hit a reef off Haiti and sank. A replica, Bluenose II was built by the same Lunenburg yard in 1963 and still sails the Eastern Seaboard promoting the province of Nova Scotia.
In 1999, seventy years after the first stamp bearing the Bluenose was issued, Canada Post once again honored Bluenose with a stamp of her own. This one dedicated to her designer, William Roue (1880-1970) the self-taught naval architect who designed over 100 ships in his lifetime becoming the greatest designer of wooden vessels in Canadian history.
Displacement: 285 Tons Length: 143 ft (43.5 m)
Beam: 27 ft (8.2 m)
Scale: 1 in 470 Length of Model: 4.75" (120
mm)
Model ship photos & text © D.S. Smith 2003
Three Models of the Bluenose
The largest of these is 1 in 470 scale model shown above; the second, with a scale of 1 in 1500 is constructed inside a 50ml (2oz.) whiskey bottle and the smallest, at 1 in 1200 scale (.5" (10mm) long) is in an old cork-stoppered perfume sample bottle.
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