Thomas W. Lawson
1902
(GEM CSC-106)
- Type: Seven-masted schooner
- Hull: steel
- Dimensions: 385 x 50 x 35 ft.
- Displacement: 5,218 grt
- Masts: Fore, main, mizzen, no.4, no.5, no.6, and spanker --
all 193 ft.
- Sails: 26 (3 per mast + 5 head sails)
- Cargo: 11,000 tons coal
- Crew: 17
- Designer: B. B. Crowninshield
- Built: Fore River Shipbuilding Co., Quincy, MA, 1902
- Notes: The only seven-masted schooner ever built.
Equipped with auxiliary steam winches for sail and cargo handling, and
steam steering gear, but no propulsion. Built for coal trade on the east coast,
she was too deep for many of the ports she was intended to serve.
Converted for use as an oil tanker, sailing between Texas and the Delaware
River for a number of years before being chartered to the Sun Oil Company in
1907. On 19 November she sailed from Philadelphia for London with 2
million gallons of oil. Caught by a storm off the Scilly Isles, she tried to
anchor on 13 December and ride out the storm. However, she dragged
her anchors and broke up on Hellweather's Reef with the loss of all but
Capt George Dow and Engineer Edward Rowe.
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