On Saturday, we celebrated the return of the Ernestina to New Bedford Harbor. Fully restored and ready to sail, the Ernestina-Morrissey will soon embark on its latest chapter as a floating classroom and living history. 

The return of the Ernestina-Morrissey was hosted and attended by Massachusetts Maritime Academy, the Department of Conservation and Recreation and the City of New Bedford, in conjunction with the prime minister of Cabo Verde Ulisses Correia e Silva, Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito, Consul General of Canada to Boston Rodger Cuzner, and many other state and local government officials. The vessel was also open for public tours over the weekend.

The Schooner Effie Morrissey was launched in 1894 and for the next 20 or so years carried Gloucester fishermen to the Grand Banks, Labrador, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Following that, she served as an arctic exploration ship and then as a supply and survey ship for the U.S. Navy during World War II. In 1948, Captain Henry Mendes purchased the ship and brought her back to life after a catastrophic fire. Renaming her the Ernestina, he then began sailing her as a transatlantic packet, carrying goods and passengers between the Cape Verde islands and the United States through 1965. For years thereafter, she was an important means of inter-island transportation and communication in Cape Verde. After five years of dedicated fundraising and restoration work, in 1982 the Ernestina was given to the people of the United States by the people of Cape Verde in recognition of the longstanding ties between the two countries.

Legislation passed in 2019 returned the Sailing School Vessel Ernestina-Morrisey to her home port of New Bedford, under the care of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. For years to come, she will serve the Commonwealth – and her citizens of Cape Verdean descent – as an educational asset, teaching upcoming generations about the majesty of the oceans, the history of sail navigation, the strength of the Cape Verdean people, and the ties that bind them all together.

I am very proud to welcome home the historic Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey. The Ernestina-Morrissey is a living testament to the connection between the people of Massachusetts and Cabo Verde. Its future as a floating classroom and training vessel for Massachusetts Maritime Academy will ensure that history — and the importance the Ernestina-Morrissey holds not only to the Cape Verdean community, but to New Bedford seamen — will not be lost.

As the ceremony showed, there are simply too many people to thank who have dedicated years of their blood, sweat, and tears to reach this point — but the presence of the Cabo Verde Prime Minister underscores the powerful bond between Cabo Verde and the United States, Massachusetts – and particularly, New Bedford. The Ernestina is the physical embodiment of that connection, and like the ship, it is strong, revived, and ready to sail ahead.