¶I captured this photo during a family trip to Maine in 2013. At the time, it didn't mean much to me beyond being a neat capture of a ship on the water. A friend of mine later recognized the ship as the three-masted Victory Chimes. I remember reading about her shortly after he told me, and being fascinated by her history. I'm not a sailor, but the story stuck with me, so much so that I'd Google the ship from time to time just to stay up to date.
¶Which brings me to 2026. I was reading about the parade of tall ships in New York, part of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and those stories naturally made me think of Victory Chimes. That had me looking back at this photo, along with others from that trip to Maine.
¶My next stop, of course, was the Wikipedia entry for Victory Chimes. I revisited the familiar story and was amazed all over again by her history.
¶Then my jaw dropped.
¶At the time of my reading of the entry, an unceremonious sentence at the end of the Sailing Career section flatly announced her demise: "Following being unused as a restaurant, Victory Chimes sank in the Gowanus Bay" (more precisely, the Henry Street Basin in Brooklyn, which sits off Gowanus Bay; See the Bangor Daily News article linked below).
¶That, of course, sent me searching for news of the sinking, which I quickly found. The Bangor Daily News reports that a squall rolled through on Friday, July 3rd, sinking Pilot, another historic ship that had been docked next to Victory Chimes. The exact day and time Victory Chimes went down is unclear, but she was also underwater by Sunday:
¶Vogel said a strong squall came through Friday night and negatively affected many ships. The historic schooner Pilot, docked next to the Chimes, sank Friday. Vogel said he saw comments by people who said the Chimes also went down and when he went there Sunday, he found it also was under water.
¶I'm writing this on Monday, July 6th. I made my walk down memory lane — inspired by a search for information on the parade of tall ships — yesterday, the same day Victory Chimes sank.