The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-02-10
BIGGEST SCHOONER IN THE WORLD
Steam, q Piano and Other Luxuries on
the John IL. Prescott. lust Launched

Steam, q Piano and Other Luxuries on
the John b. Prescott, just Launched.
A special dispatch to the New York
Sun from Bangor says: The five-mast-
ed schooner John B. Pres
colt, launched from the yard of
H. NJ. Beam at Camden. on
Penobscot bay, last Thursday, is the
largest fore and aft rugged sailing YES
sci in the world. She is 2S2 feet keel,
800 feet on top, 44.04 beam and q II feet
deep, with a gross tonnage of 2,4S0 and
net tonnage of 2,259. She is about IS
tons larger than the Bath five-master
Nathaniel T. Palmer launched a few
weeks ago. and will carry it is thought,
300 tons more, having better carry
ing model. The Bath schooner is ex-
pected to carry 1000 tons of coal, the
Camden craft 1900.
Like the Palmer, the Prescott has an
oak frame and is panked and ceiled
with hard pine. In her frame are 1925
tons of oak, and several good-sized
schooners were required to carry the
hard pine and other materials that have
entered into her construction. Her five
lower masts are of Oregon white pine,
each liz feet long, and her topmasts
all of spruce, except the fore, are each
IS feet long. From her bow chock to
her jibboom end is IS feet and from the
taffrail to the end of the jiggerboom
Is feet Her standing rigging is all of
wire, set up with turn buckles, and she
spreads 10000 yards of sail, which. with
her good model, ought to make her fast.
This big schooner has all the latest
labor saving appliances, including
steam for the operation of her windlass,
pumps and winches, for making sail
and working cargo and also for heating
purposes. Her pumps throw 200 gall
Ions minute. Her anchors weigh 5000
pounds each and she has 1870 fathoms of
5-l6 inch chain, weighing 35 tons. The
after house contains II rooms and is
finished in ash, cherry, sycamore, wal
nut, mahogany and quartered oak. The
furniture is as good as that in any
house In Camden, and there are fine
bathroom, piano, library and other
luxuries and conveniences not dreamed
Of at sea in the old days.
This great schooner was begun last
July, and 125 men have been employed
almost continuously in her construction
ever since. She is $40 tons larger than
the first five-master ever built, the
Governor Ames, and much larger than
most of the full-rigged ships that have
been built in Maine. She cost about
$4,000 ready for sea- is to be command
ed by Captain John G. Crowley of
Taunton, Mass, and is owned by John
B. Prescott of Webster, Mass, and by
Taunt;n, Camden and New York par
ties. She is intended chiefly for the
coal trade at which she is expected to
make big money. ..ssz rN,f
That big schooners are good invest
ments cannot be doubted. The Ma
thaniel L. Palmer, recently Launched
at Bath and now at Baltimore loading
coal for Portland. will get $1.50 a ton
for freight on 1000 tons Of cargo, thus
taking $4,000 on her first trip 1t has
been demonstrated that barges. towed
by tugs. cannot carry coal and make
any profit at less than 10 cents ton,
while the big schooners have done bust
ness at so cents a ton and more than
paid their bills. Now that business in
the carrying trade is reviving~ and coal
freights like most others, have advanc-
ed to nearly what they We're 20 years
ago, the Maine shipbuilders think they
see bright times ahead and are making
ready to build more big vessels and
wake to life again the deserted ship
yards.