Sound Experience, a Puget Sound, Washington–based nonprofit that uses the 97-year-old schooner Adventuress to demonstrate the vital role oceans play in the environment, is urging the public to cast online votes as part of an indirect fund-raising effort to raise $125,000 to restore the vessel’s stern.
The Adventuress is one of 25 historic regional sites competing for support in the Partners in Preservation grant program, sponsored by American Express. The program will award $100,000 to the site that receives the most online votes. The competition runs through May 12, and Sound Experience is asking community members, maritime enthusiasts and anyone who values maritime history and environmental education to vote online to help the schooner secure funding for essential restoration work.
Sound Experience operates the Adventuress as a sail-training vessel and environmental education platform. The organization’s mission emphasizes hands-on learning about ocean and Puget Sound ecosystems, and the schooner serves as a floating classroom where students, volunteers and the general public can learn about marine science, stewardship and local maritime heritage. Restoring the stern is critical not only to maintain the vessel’s structural integrity but also to ensure that Adventuress can continue sailing and hosting educational programs for years to come.
Catherine Collins, executive director of Sound Experience, highlighted the significance of the campaign: “It’s a very appropriate topic for Earth Day, given how invested we are in the environment here at Sound Experience. We modeled our schooner after Pete Seeger’s work to clean up the Hudson River using the sloop Clearwater as a means to inspire the public to action.” That connection underlines the dual mission of preserving an historic vessel while using it to promote environmental stewardship and community engagement.
Adventuress is a 133-foot, gaff-rigged wooden schooner, originally commissioned in 1913 and built by the Rice Brothers in East Boothbay, Maine. Over its long life the vessel has served multiple roles. The first owner, John Borden II of Chicago—founder of the Yellow Cab Company—sailed Adventuress on extensive voyages, including passages through the Straits of Magellan and into Arctic waters during an expedition that sought bowhead whales. Following that era, the schooner was sold to the San Francisco Bar Pilot’s Association in 1914 and was derigged to serve for approximately 35 years as a workboat, transporting pilots to and from large ships entering San Francisco Bay.
After a decade laid up on the hard beginning in 1951, Adventuress found a new purpose when she was restored as a sail-training vessel in Seattle in 1962. In 1988, when Sound Experience was established, the organization purchased Adventuress and has operated her ever since as a living classroom and a piece of regional maritime history. The vessel’s longevity and continued use are a testament to dedicated preservation efforts, but maintaining a wooden schooner of this age requires ongoing care and, periodically, significant restoration work such as the current campaign to repair the stern.
To encourage public participation, Sound Experience has announced that people who vote for the boat and notify the organization may also be entered in a drawing for a free three-hour sail aboard Adventuress for up to 45 people. This opportunity serves both as an incentive to participate in the vote and as a chance for the community to experience the schooner firsthand, learn about its history, and see the environmental education work the organization conducts on board.
Because Sound Experience is a nonprofit, securing grant funding through the Partners in Preservation program would help sustain its programs and preserve an important part of maritime heritage in the Puget Sound region. Restoring the stern will not only protect the vessel’s structural health but also ensure that the Adventuress can continue to carry students, volunteers and the public on meaningful educational voyages that connect people to the marine environment.
Community support through voting is essential to help Adventuress remain an active, seaworthy platform for ocean education and historic preservation. Those who value preserving maritime history and advancing environmental education are encouraged to participate in the online vote before the May 12 deadline and to share information with friends, family and local networks to amplify the campaign’s reach.
— Elizabeth Ellis