[alberg30] Re: Tancook Whalers,

Gordon E. White gewhite at crosslink.net
Sat Dec 12 05:11:57 PST 1998


    No, my schooner had a Primus stove to cook on. There was a charlie
noble and a smokestack but no Shipmate. I suppose it disappeared earlier
in the boat's life - she was built in Nova Scotia in '28.

    I checked with the Coast Guard four or five years ago and she was
still registered as of then, somewhere on Long Island Sound. I'd kinda
like to know if she's still afloat & where. She was strip-planked over
typical Nova Scotia basket frames, all inside ballast. (rock,
originally, but iron blocks when I found her) Traditionally she would be
dark green with a yellow stripe but we painted her white. An owner
before us added a very nice cabin over the original open well with tiny
cuddy for'ard

    The story I got from Fawcett was that a Norman Binnie, a
French-speaking Canadian, was shot down over France during World War II
and, with an American flier, Jonathan Pearson, was helped to escape to
Spain by the Maquis.
    After the war the Canadian went home and with his brother decided to
sail to Venezuela, bought the schooner from the Strathcona Canadian Sea
Scouts who had gotten her from the Canadian Navy, which had supposedly
used her in some way during World War II, named her Binnie B and started
out. Sometime in 1948 hey came down the canals and lakes to the Hudson,
and thence south. Around Troy, New York, they  had run out of cash. They
got in touch with Pearson, by then director of admissions at Union
College in Schnectady, who, with a friend named Kirkland, joined them
for a few drinks.
    The sailing to South America thought had paled a little already and
the wine flowed freely. By morning the Kirkland had bought the boat. (I
have correspondence with him in my files)
    Kirkland took her to Annapolis where Art Fawcett bought her and in
1959 sold her to me.
    Eventually the cost of keeping up a wooden boat exceeded my finances
and my wife had twins in 1964. I sold her to Tom Nichols of
N.Stonington, CT who took out the Atomic 4 (or its predecessor) put in a
diesel, and over eight years re-planked her in cypress. We sailed once
with Nichols in about 1972.
    Nichols is now dead and his son does not know who bought the boat.
    If anyone along the Connecticut shore sees Brigadoon I, a 34 ft
Tancook schooner, I'd love to know where she is. Official number is
286521 which I had carved on the main beam. She was listed in the
Customs Service's Merchant Vessels of the United States, now the USCG
registry.
                                    - Gordon White A-275
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