The fast, able, and beautiful Essex-built schooners that fished out of Gloucester during the latter half of the nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth brought fortune and lasting fame to their communities, and were in their time the envy of the maritime world. This book explores how they evolved over a timeline in response to the demands of the fisheries, changing technology, and calls for greater safety to better protect those who put their lives in harm's way, and does so in a way comprehensible and enjoyable for afficionado and layperson alike. It demystifies the plans of these vessels, and through the use of fine-art models shows how they, at once both scullery maids and princesses, actually appeared when fitted out and ready to do business on the great waters.
Willard E. Andrews has deep family roots on Cape Ann, and after retirement from the practice general surgery in Juneau, Alaska, returned to those roots to spend twenty-five years studying, researching, and building fine-art models of Essex-built Gloucester fishing schooners. This book is the ultimate expression of that work. He and wife Linda now live in the central Idaho Rockies, but return to Gloucester every year to be around saltwater and spend time at the cottage built by his grandfather on land that has been in his family since 1803.