Schooner · United States
Lavengro
A Biloxi schooner of 1927, today sailing the lakes around Seattle.
Technical data
- Rig
- Schooner
- Flag
- United States
- Home port
- Seattle
- Built
- 1927
- Shipyard
- Jack Covacavich, Biloxi, USA
- Hull material
- Wood
- Length
- 19.2 m
- Beam
- 4.4 m
- Sail area
- 105 m²
- Sailing area
- Pacific Northwest
A classic gaff-rigged Biloxi schooner built by the Biloxi shipwright Jack Covacavich in 1927. Her first name was Helen and her first owner the family of Thomas Bayne Denegre, who used her for private sailing and racing in the Gulf of Mexico and on Lake Pontchartrain.
During the Second World War she served as a Coast Guard sailing trainer, and after the war returned to private sailing under several owners in the Gulf. In 1959 her owner Robert Wilson renamed her Lavengro — "lover of words".
The owners Leslie and Byram Bates brought her to Hawaii and sold her to Peter Jones; after grounding damage and repairs she became a charter boat, and in the 1980s worked briefly in charter in southeast Alaska.
She was then donated to the Northwest Schooner Society, a non-profit dedicated to the preservation and use of classic wooden sailing vessels. Skippered by Captain Dierk Yochim she sails at Seattle on Lake Union and Lake Washington and makes periodic trips to the San Juan Islands. Her hull was thoroughly overhauled in 2010.