On Monday, the US Coast Guard rescued nine crew members from the schooner, Liana’s Ransom, off the coast of Maine, after the schooner suffered engine failure and her sails became fouled. There are now reports that the schooner also lost her main mast.  If so, this would be the second time that the schooner has been dismasted in just the last three months. On the previous Friday, the schooner left a shipyard where repairs had been made to damage from the first dismasting.

Liana’s Ransom is a “fake pirate ship”, an 85′ steel schooner built in 2005, dressed up as a Hollywood version of a pirate ship, which offers day cruises out of Tortola. Their marketing material claims: Liana’s Ransom is a replica of an 18th century Pirate Schooner and just about everything on board (except the safety equipment) is identical to the authentic gear pirates were using some 300 years ago.  Our crew is dressed in pirate costumes and armed with flintlock pistols and cutlasses.  Well, the schooner is “identical” except for the steel hull and masts, diesel engine in the bilge, dacron sails, the on-deck bar, sound system and the snorkeling gear. And what is considered to be the “Golden Age of Piracy” ended around 400 years ago.  But other than that …

On December 13, Liana’s Ransom departed from Halifax, Nova Scotia, bound for St Kitts and Nevis.  Two days later 25 miles southwest of Cape Sable Island, the schooner was partially dismasted when a stay parted and the main mast came down. Fortunately, no one was injured. The schooner was towed into Clarks Harbor and then to the A.F. Thériault shipyard on Meteghan River. A new mainmast was fabricated, stepped and rigged repairs were made to the railing and the nav station that were damaged when the rig came down.

Liana’s Ransom sailed from the shipyard with a crew of nine, on Friday, March 27, bound for St Maarten.  In a storm on early Monday, March 30, the schooner suffered what is described as a “total power failure.” Something went wrong with her sails which the Coast Guard News Release describes as “wrapped around the mast.”  Coast Guard search and rescue crews from Station Gloucester, Air Station Cape Cod and the Coast Guard Cutter Ocracoke rescued the nine crew members from the drifting schooner. The schooner was later taken in tow by a fishing boat and towed to the Kittery Point Yacht Yard in Eliot. ME.

Thanks to Phil Leon and Miroslav Antic for contributing to the post.