|
|
Photo courtesy Detroit Publishing Company
The Rose Dorothea, shown here with a broken mast and only yards ahead of the Jessie Costa, managed to hang on to her lead and win the 1907 Fishermen’s Cup, one of the greatest sailing competitions ever raced. |
|
|
Rose Dorothea win reverberates 100 years later
Banner Daily Update posted Tues. July 24
By Pru Sowers
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN – One hundred years is a long, long time. But the impact Provincetown felt on Aug. 1, 1907, when a Provincetown fishing schooner won the first and only Lipton Cup fishermen’s sailing race still reverberates, particularly among the town’s older residents, who light up when asked to remember the stories their grandparents told them about that day, the day the Rose Dorothea beat all comers.
The victory allowed the largely Portuguese fishing village to look beyond the ethnic slurs it often heard; past the smug superiority of Gloucester, which was famous for building the wooden fishing schooners; and even past Boston, where the wealthy upper class raced yachts that cost more than an entire fishing crew made in their lifetime.
“The Portuguese were an awful proud people. One thing you can’t beat is the Portuguese at sea,” said Francis “Flyer” Santos, whose grandfather was a crewmember on the Rose Dorothea. “We won the Lipton Cup. That’s the highest honor you can give anybody for sailing.”
That year, 1907, was one where Provincetown finally received the credit its residents had worked very hard to earn and thought was overdue. The victory of the Rose Dorothea, captained by Marion Perry, wetted the town’s appetite for an even bigger event three weeks later: the laying of the cornerstone for the Pilgrim Monument, itself a beacon designed to force Provincetown to the forefront of the country’s history books, reminding the world that Provincetown, not Plymouth, was the landing place of the Pilgrims.
There was no way residents could have known that 1907 was one of the last golden years that Provincetown and its way of life – fishing under sail in beautiful wooden boats – would see.
For the complete story of Rose Dorothea, see the July 26 Provincetown Banner.
|
GLAD honors Stephen Mindich
Benefits for Caleb Potter
Parakeet on the loose
Strawberry Fields takes you down
Selectmen revert back to old dump fees
Gallery openings
|
|
|
|
|
Jul 19th, 2007