Ships Plan Great Lakes Schooner 3 Masted Blueprint Drawing 19"x 29" (057)

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Great Lakes Three Masted Cargo Schooner A detailed blueprint of one of the most familiar schooners on the Great Lakes a hundred years ago the Lucia A. Simpson, a sailing vessel which carries the distinction of being the last of the thousands of three masted schooners which were built and operated on the Great Lakes. The Lucia A. Simpson was built in Manitowoc in 1875 by Rand and Burger. Constructed of oak, the vessel measured 127 ft. long with a 28 foot beam. Late in 1879 the schooner was purchased by E. Golden Filer for use in delivering lumber from the D.L. Filer & Sons at Filer City to the Chicago Market. The vessel spent over twenty uneventful years in this service. Throughout its life, the Simpson gained a reputation as one of the most beautiful and fastest schooners on the Great Lakes. It was often logged at more than sixteen miles per hour in a fair wind. The year 1886 was perhaps the most eventful for the Lucia A. Simpson during her years in Manistee. On Sept. 12th of that year, shortly after leaving Michigan City, the schooner was struck by winds later described as a "hurricane" which greatly damaged the mast and rigging. The repairs cost over a thousand dollars. Later in the same year on Dec. 1st, the vessel came near to the same fate that destroyed so many of her contemporaries. The schooner was caught by an early winter storm with high winds out of the northwest. As she was already on this side of the lake and seas were too high for an attempt to enter the harbor, the schooner was forced to anchor and ride out the storm. Despite both anchors being out it was never possible to hold a vessel in the high winds and thus the schooner slowly approached the sandy beach. The life saving crew left their Manistee station with the "apparatus: and went to the scene of the impending disaster near Old Freesoil. In most such cases the vessel would go aground and break to pieces with the crew climbing the masts, hoping to be rescued before they were forced into the water. This type of accident was so common that a Manistee newspaper prematurely published on the same day that the Life Saving Crew went out, carried a description of the wreck and stated that the entire crew had been lost. Around the turn of the century, the Lucia A. Simpson was sold to Captain Simenson of Milwaukee. She continued until 1927 hauling lumber and similar cargoes to various ports around the Great Lakes. The Simpson was idled in 1928, but in `1929 she was fitted out by the Northern Marine Company of Milwaukee for salvage and deep sea hard hat diving use. She left Milwaukee in July under a fair wind with a full spread of canvas. Late in the day when twelve miles off Algoma, Wisconsin, a sudden wind snapped off her old mizzen mast just above the cabin and carried it overboard in a tangled mass of rigging and sails. The crew immediately chopped away the stays leaving the mast, shrouds, sails and rigging to float away. The loss of the mast caused a strain on the old wooden hull and within a short time the seams opened causing water to climb steadily in the hold. Distress signals were run up and within several hours were sighted by the Ann Arbor #7 which arrived and assisted the old schooner to Kewaunee…Plan measures 19" x 29" and is produced on standard type blueprint paper…..57…....This is not an old blueprint. It is a newly produced blueprint created from an original architectural drawing on typical lightweight blueprint paper. It is not a poster. The deep blue background color varies depending on the age and quality of the original drawing. In most cases it will be shipped untrimmed with the image having extra blank space around it. The extra paper helps protects the image area of the blueprint during shipment.Awesome looking plan will look fantastic when matted and framed properly for display. *NOTE:...To get an idea what a blueprint looks like when nicely matted and framed for display ...Framed Blueprint... Digital camera does not do justice to the rich solid blue background and details of this awesome looking plan. read more

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