About the Schooner
Vessel Specifications
Built: 1930
Capacity: 26 guests overnight, 56 daysail guests
Crew: 6
Length on deck: 92 feet
Sparred length: 123 feet
Beam: 19.8 feet
Draft: 11.4 feet
Tonnage: 70 tons

Image courtesy of the Penobscot Marine Museum
Our Small Boats
Seine Boat
- Built in 1985 during the rebuild of the Eagle
- Modeled after traditional seine boats used to fish for school fish like herring or mackerel up and down the Atlantic coast
- The Eagle would have carried one from 1930-1945 on summer seining trips
- Now used as the main shore transportation on trips
Amesbury Skiff
- Built in 1973 at Lowell’s Boatshop in Amesbury, Massachusetts
- The design is based on the Grand Banks dory, which Lowell’s historically supplied in great numbers to the Gloucester fishing fleet. The addition of an engine to create this “power dory” changed the design somewhat
- The Eagle would have carried similar dories powered by oars and a small sail when dory trawling for ground fish.
- Each dory could carry thousands of pounds of fish.
Roscoe
- The second hull of a design built by John Foss for the Lewis R. French in the 1970s
- Roscoe is a unique mixture of the Swampscott dory and a traditional each tender marrying the stability and agility of both types
- A great boat for an early evening row after a day of sailing
Whitehall
- Built in Lowell’s Boatshop in an unknown year
- Whitehalls were popular recreation boats in the early 20th century, know as “bicycles of the sea”
- The Whitehall style was developed in the United States in the 19th century, however the basic design is of much older European ancestry
- Strongly resembles a ship’s gig or Thames River wherry used by watermen as a taxi service
- First made in the US at the foot of Whitehall Street in New York City to ferry goods and people to ships in New York Harbor
The Last Schooner of Gloucester
Launching: June 2, 1930
Gloucester, Mass.
“Standing at her bow, arms laden with flowers, and grasping a bottle of something we used to see much of before Prohibition, Miss Rosalie Murphy, daughter of Captain Patrick Murphy, who will command the craft, smashed the bottle on the shoe of the schooner as she started…”
– Gloucester Daily Times


June 2, 1930
Launched as the Andrew & Rosalie, the last fishing schooner built in Gloucester.


Patrick Murphy (center) with his son Andrew (left) and daughter Rosalie (right) at the launch
June 26, 1930
She leaves on her first fishing trip

The Andrew & Rosalie as she was set up for sword fishing leaving Gloucester Harbor sometime in the 1930s
July 14, 1937
May 5, 1941
Renamed American Eagle by then owner Capt. Ben Pine
December 16, 1981
The trawler American Eagle is featured on Good Morning America
August, 1983
Made last fishing trip

The American Eagle in Gloucester in 1977
October, 1984
Made it to Rockland, Maine for rebuilding


1984-1986
When the American Eagle tied up at our North End Shipyard in 1984, 53 years of hard fishing really showed. From then until the spring of 1986, great efforts went into her reconstruction. The ingenuity and expertise of Captain Foss and five other schooner captains completed her restoration.
April, 1986


Relaunched after complete rebuild
June, 1986
Sailing the coast of Maine
July 1986
In Parade of Sail, New York for Statue of Liberty rededication
1991
Designated a National Historic Landmark
1992
Sail Boston
1994
First trip to Canada since her fishing days
2000
Sail Boston
Opsail Maine
Today the American Eagle looks and feels like a new boat. Her fair lines, solid timber and tarred rigging are as they were three generations ago when she first went to work in the waters off New England. She was recently designated a National Historic Landmark, and is one of very few sailing vessels licensed for international voyages.
2009
Participated in SailBoston 2009
2010
Twenty fifth season windjamming
2012
Completed our twelfth international cruise to Canada