Schooner (4m).
L/B/D:
188.8 × 32.5 × 19.5 dph (63.7m × 9.9m × 5.9m). Tons:
696 grt. Comp.:
70. Hull:
steel. Mach.:
oil engine, 475 hp diesel. Built:
De Haan & Oerlemans Scheepsbauwerft, Heusden, Neth.; 1939.
Owned by the Parceria Geral de Pescarias of Lisbon, Argus and thirty-two other sailing ships were a vital part of the post-World War II Portuguese Grand Banks fishing fleet. Their story is celebrated in Alan Villiers's Quest of the Schooner "Argus." With his characteristic respect for ships and men, Villiers records how he sailed under Captain Adolfo from Portugal to the Grand Banks and then north into Baffin Bay. Every day from April until October, Argus's 53 cod fishermen took to 14-foot, flat-bottomed dories from which they paid out and hauled in, by hand, 600-hook long-lines. Eventually converted for side-fishing, Argus remained under Portuguese ownership until 1976 when she was sold to Windjammer Cruises for use as a charter boat in the Caribbean. Renamed Polynesia II, she remained in that work through the 1980s.
Villiers, Quest of the Schooner "Argus."
