On August 21, 2024, I took several photographs of two boats with long and storied histories that are now docked at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier Six. I previously published an article about one of these two boats, a retired fire boat by the name of the Governor Alfred E. Smith, along with some notes on its namesake. The second boat is visible in the third and final photograph of the Alfred E. Smith in my article. I captioned by photo as follows: “There is an interesting nice boat in the background. We will get to that one too.” Today we finally “get to that one” – I present the fair schooner, Victory Chimes.
The Victory Chimes is quite a bit longer than the Alfred E. Smith, which you can see in the background above, and somewhat worse for wear. However, the boat’s name is far more visible than that of the Smith. In the case of the Smith, I had to conduct independent research to learn about the boat. In this case, the owners of Victory Chimes (who happen to also be the owners of the Alfred E. Smith) made my life easier.
![Description of the Victory Chimes schooner posted at Pier 6 of Brooklyn Bridge Park. It notes that "Victory Chimes is a wooden schooner built in 1900 by the George K. Phillips Co. Shipyard" and that "[s]he is the oldest wooden sailboat in New York and one of only two surviving examples of a three masted wooden schooner in the United States." It adds that Victory Chimes was "[o]riginally designed for and used as a general purpose cargo hauler" before, beginning in 1946, being used for "sailing passengers up and down the East Coast." It adds that Victory Chimes is closely associated with Maine, depicted on the back of Maine's state quarter, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.](https://thenewleafjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/victory-chimes-information-sign-bbp.jpg)
We learn that “Victory Chimes is a wooden schooner built in 1900 by the George K. Phillips Co. Shipyard in Bethel, Delaware.” The fair schooner was “[o]riginally designed for and used as a general purpose cargo hauler” before being “converted to a passenger cruise vessel in 1946…” Victor Chimes “spent the majority of her life sailing passengers up and down the east coast.” She is, we are told, “one of only two surviving examples of a three masted wooden schooner in the United States.” Interestingly, despite finding herself in New York City, Victory Chimes “spent considerable time sailing in Maine and has been named ‘The Official Windjammer of Maine’ with her likeness depicted on the back side of Maine’s quarter.” While being depicted on a state quarter is almost certainly Victory Chimes’ finest post-professional accomplishment, second place is her being added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
The Victory Chimes sign at Brooklyn Bridge Park has a QR code in the bottom right corner. I usually advise against scanning random QR codes, but I made an exception here – scanning the code from my photo and then sending the link to my computer using KDE Connect. The link goes to the home page of CREW, which owns the Alfred E. Smith, Victory Chimes, and several other historic boats (apparently with designs on turning them into floating restaurants). I already discussed CREW at some length in my article on the Alfred E. Smith, so I will skip the re-introduction and focus on Victory Chimes. I poked around CREW’s website until I found its page on the boat of the article (see archived version).
Not content with a brief introduction to Victory Chimes, I found some additional articles of interest. An article on New England Travel Planner, which predates Victory Chimes’ retirement, noted that she is 127.5 feet long and 23.8 feet wide, 208 tons (gross weight). It could (or can), according to the article, “accommodate up to 40 passengers in 22 cabins and suites.” The article also described how it maneuvered for cruises in Maine:
Designed for the days of wind power, the Victory Chimes has no engine. The ship’s six sails provide all the power it needs while cruising, and it tows a 19-foot yawlboat with a 135-horsepower diesel engine, which pushes the windjammer when necessary for maneuvering.
A 2021 post on Going Places, Far & Near added some detail about the yawlboat as well as Victory Chimes’ anchor:
There is a six-horsepower Sea Gear engine to raise the anchor (the same one that was installed in 1906 to replace the original donkey engine) but no propulsion engine, so now – as then – there is a yawlboat, Enoch, that pushes the ship when the wind is not sufficient.
The website of Victory Chimes’ previous owners (archived) noted that: “Victory Chimes is largely original, although a limited number of changes have been required to allow adaptive reuse of a freight carrying schooner as a passenger vessel.”
The website of the United States Mint previously had a page on the Maine State quarter which noted that “The schooner [on the reverse side of the quarter] resembles ‘Victory Chimes,’ the last three-masted schooner of the Windjammer Fleet.” The Mint added “‘Victory Chimes’ has become synonymous with Maine windjamming.” I found this link to the archived United States Mint resource on Wikipedia’s entry for the Victory Chimes. The Wikipedia page also pointed me to the former National Historic Landmarks page for the Victory Chimes.
How did a boat so associated with Maine end up in New York City? On May 10, 2023, the Portland Press Herald reported that Victory Chimes was sold to the two brothers who own CREW for $75,900. The article goes into some detail about the many changes in ownership of Victory Chimes over the last 120 years and change and that its last sailing season prior to the sale came in 2022. I also found a press release about the end of Victory Chimes’ sailing career by its previous ownership (see archived). The Associated Press reported that at the time of the 2023 purchase of Victory Chimes by its current owners, the owners “haven’t yet decided what they will do with the schooner.” The Old Salt Blog reported that Victory Chimes arrived in Manhattan in October 2023, about five months after she was sold. Returning to the start of this paragraph, while Victory Chimes is closely associated with Maine, an article on Victory Chimes’ brief 1980s stint in Duluth, Minnesota, quoted its now-previous owner as explaining that Victory Chimes was not, in fact, from Maine.
Between Victory Chimes and the Governor Alfred E. Smith, it is fun to see historic boats pop up in Brooklyn Bridge Park and, as my two articles demonstrate, each of these boats presents a learning opportunity. Victory Chimes has had a long career in both freight and cruising, and whether it turns into a floating restaurant or something else, it looks like it has many years of work ahead of it.
