Welcome to the web site for the Grand Banks Schooner Museum Trust. The Museum is a non profit organization dedicated to the preservation of the maritime history of Maine and New England with close ties to the Canadian Maritimes.

The Museum owns and operates the vessel Sherman Zwicker which is pictured here in Halifax Harbour at Tall Ships 2000.

 

 

 

 F/V Sherman Zwicker

 Ram Island Light Station, Boothbay, Maine
The F/V Sherman Zwicker leaves the port of Halifax, Nova Scotia after attending the Tall Ships Challenge of 2007.
The F/V Sherman Zwicker at the south coast of Newfoundland during a visit in the mid 1990's.

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 The Grand Banks Schooner Museum Trust was founded as a non-profit educational organization in 1981 for the purpose of preserving, and interpreting artifacts of fishing, and maritime history. The primary mission of the GBSM is to preserve, operate, and exhibit the F/V Sherman Zwicker. This 142 foot wooden schooner was built in 1942 in
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia for the Zwicker and Co., by the Smith and Rhuland Shipyard. The Sherman Zwicker was one of the first, and last of its kind to be built. This modern transition vessel was designed with a schooner hull similar to the famous Bluenose her sister ship, but boasted a powerful diesel engine. It is the only original Grand Banks fishing vessel that is still fully operational, and seaworthy.

The Sherman Zwicker plied the rich fishing waters of the Grand Banks until 1968 from the ports of Lunenburg, and Glovertown, Newfoundland. Starting in March the vessel would make three trips each year to the Banks for a three month period to dory fish for cod. After the "summer trip" in September the vessel sailed to South America with a cargo of salt fish, and returned with a hold full of salt. The dorymen where a precarious lot risking their lives each time the dories were launched in all weather conditions into the cold, unforgiving waters of the North Atlantic.

Today, the Sherman Zwicker is a fully operational, traveling museum. When not on one of her modern three-week voyages, or starring in a maritime event in the northeast she is docked at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine. Here she provides visitors with an exciting, and authentic view of our maritime past, and its uncertain future. In addition, it plays a historical part in educating students from the local schools. In 1969, George McEvoy of Boothbay Harbor, Maine brought the Sherman Zwicker to Maine where he restored her to museum quality after rescuing it from its watery grave in Glovertown, Newfoundland. The largest wooden ship in Maine waters, the GBSM intends to keep the Sherman Zwicker fully operational, original, and active.

The ship has attended many tall ship festivities along the eastern seaboard, and frequently visits her old ports of call in Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.

 

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 The Grand Banks Schooner Museum Trust is located in Boothbay, Maine. email

PO Box 123, Boothbay, ME 04537

(207) 633-4727