Wooden Boat AtlasDesigners, builders & classes · v3.0

Atlas / Designers

1867 – 1948 · Boston, Massachusetts

Bowdoin B. Crowninshield

Naval architect — Boston

Designer of the seven-masted Thomas W. Lawson and of Adventuress — the schooner that spent thirty-five years carrying San Francisco bar pilots out to the Farallones.

Trained
Under John R. Purdon
Firm
President and general manager of Crowninshield Shipbuilding Co., Fall River, 1917–1926
Bay connection
Adventuress (1913) was commissioned by John Borden for an Arctic expedition; when that failed he sold her to the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association, which worked her out to the Farallon Islands for about 35 years, into the early 1970s
Now
Adventuress is a National Historic Landmark and a sail-training ship at Port Townsend — one of only two NHL sailing vessels still active on the West Coast
  • 1901Independence — America's Cup contender
  • 1902Thomas W. Lawson — seven-masted schooner
  • 1913Adventuress — built by Rice Brothers, East Boothbay
  • Dark Harbor 12½ and 17½
  • US Coast Guard 'Six-Bitter' patrol boats — CG-130 to CG-139
Sourcing notes & unresolved questions
  • Adventuress's length is given as 133 ft by one source and 85 ft by another — probably sparred length against hull length, but not reconciled here.
  • John Borden commissioned both Adventuress and, fourteen years later, Northern Light from Henry C. Grebe — a link between two boats in this atlas that has not been explored.

Wooden Boat Atlas v3.0 · built 30 July 2026 · a project of the Golden Gate Wooden Boat Foundation · licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · open data · corrections