It was a beautiful sunny day just perfect for launching the long awaited restored CORNET. This project has been two plus decades in coming and it was with a big sigh of relief on the part of the IYRS (International Yacht Restoration School) that her hull was launched without a hitch. It was a cooperative effort of the IYRS and The Mystic Seaport Museum who will be her guardians and continue the restoration to it’s completion.
Coronet is a 131′ wooden-hull schooner yacht built for oil tycoon Rufus T. Bush in 1885. It is one of the oldest and largest vessels of its type in the world, and one of the last grand sailing yachts of the 19th century
The International Yacht Restoration School, in Newport, Rhode Island acquired the vessel in 1995 and began its restoration. IYRS added Coronet to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
In December 2006, IYRS conveyed title of the boat to the Coronet Restoration Partners in San Francisco to complete the restoration on IYRS’s campus in Rhode Island, where restoration works started in 2010 and has continued for many years.
The wood-hulled sailing yacht still has three years of restoration work ahead of her and will remain on display at the museum for the remainder of the project. Exact details of the project remain under wraps, but it is understood that the interior will be the next point of focus.
The yacht was acquired by Newport-based IYRS School of Technology and Trades in 1995 and a buiding placed around her to protect the hull and workers as she was sliced in half to be rebuilt. The building became a fixture on the Newport waterfront for many years.
Built in 1885 at New York-based shipyard Poillon, Coronet is the oldest registered yacht in the US and has had a number of high-profile owners, including oil tycoon Rufus T. Bush and railroad magnate Arthur Curtiss James, one of the wealthiest men in America in the 1900s.
She famously won a transatlantic race with a cash prize of $10,000 in 1887 and has circumnavigated the globe with visits to Africa, Hawaii, China and the Middle East.
Now she will be towed to The Mystic Seaport Museum by the tug Jaguar and be completed by their shipwrights over the course of the next few years.
To follow her completion go to Mystic Seaport or visit the Mystic Seaport Museum in person.
See more photos of the CORONETS launch at the IRYS HERE
Article by Donna Erichsen
Photos by George Bekris