Sailboats Ships and Watercraft

The graceful three-masted schooner American Pride (red sails) was built in 1941, originally as a two-masted “schooner-dragger” and launched as the “Virginia”. She spent over forty years commercially fishing the Grand Banks and George’s Banks. Her career spanned the New Englandports of New Bedford and Gloucester in Massachusetts, Rockland in Maine. She was a working fishing boat, spending weeks at sea in search of Cod, Haddock, Flounder, and Ocean Perch. From 1968 to 1986 she was known as the “Lady in Blue”, named after a prayer, and was captained by Sam and Paul Frontiero, father & son who fished out of Gloucester. In 1986, she was completely rebuilt in Thomaston, Maine, and certified by the United States Coast Guard. The restoration included adding a third mast, watertight bulkheads, new deck, bulwarks, interior, rigging, machinery, etc. She was renamed the “Natalie Todd”, and operated as a charter boat out of Bar Harbor, Maine. In October of 1996, she was purchased by the Children’s Maritime Foundation, and began her historic 7,500 mile sail through the Panama Canal to her new home in Rainbow Harbor, Long Beach, California.
Irving Johnson & Exy Johnson have been designated the “Official Tall Ships and Maritime Ambassadors of the City of Los Angeles” at their launch in 2002, these 110-foot wooden vessels are charged with giving tens of thousands of young people the opportunity to experience self-discovery, life changing adventure and education found only on a tall ship at sea. Built to last 100 years, the state-of-the-art brigantine design is based on TopSail founder Jim Gladson’s decades of experience with adolescent education and youth sail training programs, years of valuable experience gained from the Institute’s first vessel,Swift of Ipswich, and discussions with sail training experts throughout the world. Purpose-built by the Institute to meet or exceed all U.S. Coast Guard requirements, the brigantines are named in honor of the late Captain Irving and Electa “Exy” Johnson, character-building sail training pioneers and seven-time circumnavigators with youth crew aboard their sailing vessel YANKEE.
The SSV Tole Mour is a 156 ft (48 m) schooner and sail training vessel operating in the Channel Islands of California, off the West Coast of the United States. Built by the Nichols Bros. Boat Builders on Whidbey Island in Washington’s Puget Sound to withstand the extreme conditions of the South Pacific, she is extremely seaworthy and meets or exceeds all of the United States Coast Guard’s regulations as a Sailing School Vessel, while offering luxurious accommodations in comparison to other tall ships. At 229 gross registered tons she is the largest active tall ship on the West Coast. The Tole Mour was originally commissioned by the Marimed Foundation of Hawai’i in 1988 as a self-contained primary health care support vessel, operating in the US trust territory protectorate of the Marshall Islands. The name of the ship was selected by a competition of Marshall Islands school children, and means ‘A Gift of Life and Health’ in the Marshallese language. With onboard medical, dental and ophthalmological offices, the Tole Mour provided medical services to over 15,000 islanders over a period of 4 years, until the Marshallese government commissioned their own fleet of medical delivery vessels and the Tole Mour returned to Hawai’i to serve other purposes.
The graceful three-masted schooner American Pride (red sails) was built in 1941, originally as a two-masted “schooner-dragger” and launched as the “Virginia”. She spent over forty years commercially fishing the Grand Banks and George’s Banks. Her career spanned the New Englandports of New Bedford and Gloucester in Massachusetts, Rockland in Maine. She was a working fishing boat, spending weeks at sea in search of Cod, Haddock, Flounder, and Ocean Perch. From 1968 to 1986 she was known as the “Lady in Blue”, named after a prayer, and was captained by Sam and Paul Frontiero, father & son who fished out of Gloucester. In 1986, she was completely rebuilt in Thomaston, Maine, and certified by the United States Coast Guard. The restoration included adding a third mast, watertight bulkheads, new deck, bulwarks, interior, rigging, machinery, etc. She was renamed the “Natalie Todd”, and operated as a charter boat out of Bar Harbor, Maine. In October of 1996, she was purchased by the Children’s Maritime Foundation, and began her historic 7,500 mile sail through the Panama Canal to her new home in Rainbow Harbor, Long Beach, California.

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