The restoration of the Schooner Yacht Coronet, “America’s Most Historic Yacht”, is underway at the International Yacht Restoration School (IYRS). Located on Lower Thames Street in the heart of Newport’s historic working waterfront, Coronet is currently the largest ship restoration project in the United States.
Coronet was built in 1885 at the yard of C.& R. Poillon in Brooklyn, NY, famed across America for their yachts and working vessels. Modeled on the fast able nineteenth century pilot schooners, she was created for New York Yacht Club member Rufus T. Bush to cruise the world’s oceans in comfort and style. He filled her elegant and powerful hull with fine appointments such as mahogany-paneled staterooms, a grand marble-treaded staircase, stained glass doors, a main saloon which featured etched mirrors, gilded moldings, a cloisonné chandelier, a tiled heating stove with a brass chimney and a piano.
The yard of C.& R. Poillon was well versed in the construction of wooden ships and yachts. They gave her the benefit of their experience and proven techniques. Her sawn oak frames, thick ceiling and treenail-fastened planking were the traditional way of constructing wooden ships, and different from experiments then being made with lightweight, sophisticated yacht construction by more scientifically-minded designers who drew and calculated their designs on the drafting board instead of whittling them at the workbench. Coronet was soundly constructed by the Poillon brothers of the finest available materials. Her yellow pine and oak planking is held to her oak frames by turned locust wood pegs called treenails. Wooden treenails also hold her ceiling, or inner skin of planking, to the frames. Her frames are of white oak, and her keel is of oak and yellow pine. Coronet was launched August 17th, 1885. It may be more than an accident of history, however, that generations of more “advanced” yachts have come and gone while Coronet is still afloat.
Rufus Bush desired a capable and comfortable yacht in which to cruise the oceans of the world, and on those grounds alone Coronet has been an unqualified success. Through well over 200,000 miles of open ocean sailing in all seasons and all weather, she has brought her passengers and crew safely home. Cruising on Coronet could have its moments, for at times even the most well-appointed and capable yacht cannot contend with the sea’s elemental strength. Most of the time, however, life on board Coronet was pretty good. Consider the following account of her interior written by George Spaulding, the sole passenger on a voyage from San Francisco to New York in 1896.
“Just forward from the wheel and binnacle and the short skylight over the captain’s and first mate’s cabin, one looks down the handsome balustrade leading to the large saloon and guests’ staterooms. The saloon runs forward to the mainmast. It is very spacious, about eighteen feet each way, handsomely finished in mahogany, with a ceiling of white and gold, and luxuriously upholstered with lounges, running the whole length, and ten or more plush-covered chairs suitable to place about the large dining table. Above the table is the spacious skylight that fills the room with mellowed brightness.”
From 1895 to 1897, Coronet sailed over 45,000 miles in the service of science. She was placed by her new owner Arthur Curtiss James of Newport at the disposal of the first joint Japanese-American scientific expedition to view the total eclipse of the sun on August 9th, 1896. Coronet sailed from New York around Cape Horn to San Francisco with the heavy scientific equipment on board. There she met most of the members of the expedition and sailed for Hawaii, and then to Yokohama.
Coronet was the pride and joy of six more yachtsmen after Bush. In 1905 she was purchased by the Kingdom, a nondenominational bible-study group founded by Frank W. Sanford. The group owned a succession of vessels, but it was Coronet which served them longest. She performed faithfully for them for an extraordinary 90 years, making two voyages to the Holy Land, a circumnavigation and a voyage to northern waters, as well as many shorter trips in her later years. In a record unprecedented in the annals of yachting, Coronet has been continuously afloat and in service for the 120 years since she was launched.
The Kingdom donated Coronet to The International Yacht Restoration School in 1995. Over the next several years, Coronet will be fully restored to her 19th century sailing condition. When completed, she will serve as the school’s flagship and embody the mission of IYRS: to preserve and teach the skills, techniques, sciences and aesthetic values need to build, maintain and restore classic yachts.
To volunteer, make a donation, or for more information about the restoration of Coronet, contact Davison Bolster, Coronet Development Director at 401-849-1995 or see our website at: www.yachtcoronet.org.
-by Davison Bolster
© 2000 Newport Harbor Guide. All rights reserved.