Recently I was contacted by a gentleman, Bill Girolamo, who was a passenger aboard the magnificent Schooner Denis Sullivan during the Parade of Sail and race. He was hoping to find images of the Denis Sullivan from shore and after a google search he found mine. The Schooner Denis Sullivan is a 3-masted Great Lakes cargo schooner and was recently purchased by the World Ocean School. 2023 marks the first year the Denis Sullivan participated in the Gloucester Schooner Festival.

Photo by Ron Grant: the Schooner Roseway crossing Whaleback Lighthouse in Kittery Maine

Bill shares that the Schooner Roseway, also owned by the World Ocean School, is in Mystic, Connecticut, undergoing a complete restoration. I hope this means we’ll see Roseway in next year’s festival! Bill writes that “The Roseway will be 100 years old next year. There will be a Centennial Celebration for it once it is out of Mystic CT, in one more year. Its life was amazing, having been built originally in Essex MA by the owner of the Hathaway Shirt company from lumber on his land in Ipswich as a Schooner fishing boat and the story continues for the next 100 years… amazingly.”

Last year, in 2022, Bill was invited to sail aboard the Roseway during Schooner Fest as his uncle was a pilot on the Schooner during the years it was a pilot boat in Boston Harbor. The Schooner was also a patrol boat during World War II and was was mounted with guns and painted gray. Bill wrote the lovely sonnet in tribute to the Schooner Roseway.

Many, many thanks to Bill Girolamo for sharing these wonderful connections!