Former captain doubts historic Maine ship will float again
The Pilot, left, and the Victory Chimes, seen Sunday, both sank in the Henry Street Basin, Red Hook, Brooklyn. (Courtesy of Brad Vogel)
Even as owners of a historic former Maine windjammer that recently sank in New York Harbor say they are working to refloat it, a former longtime captain believes the ship will be dismantled where it sits.
Officials at Crew, the company that owns the 128-foot schooner, have said they are working with their insurance company and marine salvage experts to refloat the Victory Chimes as well as the Pilot, another historic schooner that also sank in early July.
The three-masted schooner Victory Chimes sails in Penobscot Bay off North Haven in this undated photo. The ship sank in its New York Harbor mooring over the Fourth of July weekend. (David Leaming/Staff Photographer)
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So far both vessels remain mostly underwater in an industrial area of Red Hook, Brooklyn.
“We’ve been working closely with our insurers, marine salvage experts, and multiple marine surveyors to determine the best path forward for Pilot and Victory Chimes,” Marisa Chiarello, vice president of a public relations firm working for Crew, said in a statement.
One of the last photographs of the Victory Chimes afloat, July 3, in New York. (Courtesy of Brad Vogel)
Paul DeGaeta, a former captain of the ship when it was part of Maine’s windjammer fleet, co-owned the vessel with Capt. Kip Files from 1990 to 2018. He saw Victory Chimes, the last surviving Chesapeake Ram schooner and a U.S. National Historic Landmark that’s featured on the 2003 commemorative Maine state quarter, last year while he was visiting New York.
He was so dismayed by its condition and what he said was a lack of maintenance that he predicted it would sink this summer.
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DeGaeta doesn’t believe the vessel, built in 1900, will ever sail again.
“If I were a betting man, I think all that incredible and beautiful history — those wood planks that had 120 years of blood, sweat and tears drenched into them from people who protected, loved and cared for her — will be broken up and hauled off,” DeGaeta said in an email.
He said such vessels are meant to be sailed, not sit and be neglected or turned into restaurants. Captains and crew who maintain them daily is what keeps the few historic traditional sailing vessels alive.
The schooner Victory Chimes makes her way past visitors from New York and Florida in June 2003 as she closes in on Boothbay Harbor and the 41st annual Windjammer Days festivities in Boothbay Harbor. (Fred J. Field/Staff Photographer)
The company’s statement appears to address concerns the Victory Chimes, which sank July 4, and Pilot, which sank July 1, may be scrapped in place. A recent New York Post article casts doubts on whether the current owners could afford to refloat and restore them.
“”Raising wooden vessels of this size is a highly complex operation that requires specialized equipment, careful planning and extensive coordination,” Crew’s statement said. “The vessels remain submerged as part of that ongoing process while assessments and planning continue. Any suggestion to the contrary fundamentally misunderstands the complexity of an operation of this scale.”
Brothers Miles and Alex Pincus, owners of Crew, bought Victory Chimes at auction in 2023 for $75,900, and brought it to New York Harbor, where it has sat since.
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One salvage expert estimated refloating the ships could cost up to $500,000.
A plastic boom surrounds the Victory Chimes, where it sank at the Henry Street Basin in Red Hook, Brooklyn. (Courtesy of Brad Vogel)
DeGaeta said Domino’s Pizza and Detroit Tigers owner Tom Monaghan, a prior owner, spent $2 million in 1987 to rebuild Victory Chimes. It’s in far worse shape now.
The three-masted schooner was built in Delaware and was originally known as the Edwin & Maud, hauling cargo on Chesapeake Bay until 1946, when it was converted into a passenger vessel. In 1954, it came to Maine and was put to work as a windjammer, taking people on short cruises.
In 1989, Domino’s put the infrequently used vessel, then named the Domino Effect, up for sale. After Files and DeGaeta bought it and returned it to the Maine windjammer trade, the Maine Legislature bestowed on it the honor of “Official Windjammer of the state of Maine.”
Maine Gov. Angus King discusses the design for the Maine state quarter in his Augusta office in August 2002. The winning design, featuring the Victory Chimes sailing past Pemaquid Point Light, was chosen from four finalists voted on by residents with paper ballots and on the internet. It was the 23rd in the state quarter series. (Joe Phelan/Staff Photographer)
Sam Sikkema purchased Victory Chimes in 2018. He announced in August 2023 the ship’s long sailing career in Maine would end in October. He cited the cost and availability of materials for maintenance and operating losses from the 2020 season — the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic — as among the reasons.
DeGaeta says now the demise of Victory Chimes can be blamed partly “on the ridiculous Maine restrictions” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The Chimes had earned her way her entire life — often on a razor-thin profit line,” DeGaeta said.
Sikkema got one year of decent sailing.
“Then the virus arrived, and the government stepped in and scared people about a virus and doubled down with restrictions on capacity and crew,” DeGaeta said. “She wasn’t able to rebound.”
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Tagged: New York City, ocean
Keith Edwards covers the city of Augusta and courts in Kennebec County, writing feature stories and covering breaking news, local people and events, and local politics. He has worked at the Kennebec Journal. More by Keith Edwards
