Down to the Sea

Perhaps no vessel in history paid off more handsomely or at more terrible cost than the Gloucester fishing schooner. These were one of the fastest, leanest, and most challenging working boats ever built. They carried enormous canvas and in their heyday were designed with the fine lines of racing yachts, but were expected to speed through wind and storm to the Grand Banks and back, their holds jammed with fish. The schooners in the days when Gloucester was the greatest fishing port in the world were built for speed, not safety, and if their payout was large, so was the loss of human life: 668 vessels and 3,755 Gloucestermen went to the depths in the 68 years between 1830 and 1897 alone. "Down to the Sea" is the illustrated chronicle of these vessels and a tribute to the captains and crews who worked them from the early eighteenth century until well into first quarter of the last century.