A historic former Maine windjammer has sunk in New York City.
The Victory Chimes, a 128-foot schooner featured on a 2003 commemorative Maine state quarter, was previously based out of Rockland. In 2023 it was sold to two brothers who have a history of converting ships into floating restaurants and moved it to New York.
The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed receiving a report of a vessel, later determined to be the Victory Chimes, taking on water near Henry Street Basin, near the Red Hook area of Brooklyn, around 5 p.m. on Saturday.
The Coast Guard’s Sector New York issued an urgent marine broadcast, and New York City police responded and tried to remove water from the vessel, but it did sink, Sydney Phoenix, a Coast Guard public affairs specialist, said on Monday. She said there were no known pollution risks from the sinking.
The vessel was tied to a mooring wall. Phoenix said the sinking remains under investigation.
The ship was sold at auction for $75,900 to Miles and Alex Pincus, through the company Crew, which owns multiple floating restaurants in the New York area.
Another vessel owned by the company, the Pilot, sank around noon on July 1, while berthed near the Victory Chimes.
Phoenix said that the Coast Guard received a report of the Pilot sinking due to unknown causes on July 1. She said the owner was conducting a salvage plan and had a boom deployed around the vessel.
The ships’ owners could not immediately be reached for comment Monday, however, Alex Pincus told the blog South Brooklyn History they did not know the cause of the sinking of the Pilot.
A large fleet of tall ships was in New York for the weekend as part of July 4 celebrations on America’s 250th birthday, but the Victory Chimes was not part of those festivities.
Paul DeGaeta, a former captain of the Victory Chimes, said on a Facebook page that he saw the Victory Chimes in New York a year ago. He said it didn’t appear the vessel was being maintained and predicted it would sink last winter. He posted about its demise on his page.
“Heartbreaking. But you’d have to show me a three-masted or larger American sailing vessel that represented the American spirit any better than Victory Chimes,” he wrote. “Victory Chimes supported herself, until she couldn’t anymore. You’ll never convince me that vessels lack a soul; that was her final message as an American National Historic Landmark and representing Maine on the state quarter. She didn’t want to be a restaurant; she was meant to run free before the wind.”
Brad Vogel, a writer in New York, posted on his Instagram page that he had gone down to the waterfront to confirm reports of the Pilot’s sinking. When he did, he saw the Victory Chimes had sunk, too.
Built in 1900, Victory Chimes operated as a windjammer starting in 1954, giving tours of the Maine coast, accommodating up to 43 passengers.
It was previously known as the Edwin & Maud, and hauled cargo in Chesapeake Bay until 1946 when it was converted to carry passengers.
In 1987, Tom Monaghan, then owner of Domino’s Pizza and Major League Baseball’s Detroit Tigers bought and restored the schooner. In 1989, Domino’s put the infrequently used vessel — then named the Domino Effect — up for sale.
DeGaeta and Kip Files purchased Victory Chimes in 1990 and returned it to the Maine windjammer trade. That prompted the Maine State Legislature to bestow on it the honor of “Official Windjammer of the state of Maine.”
