Cranes Refloat 3-Masted Ship at Boston Dock

An 80-year-old, three-masted square-rigger that sank Jan. 15 was raised from the murky Boston Harbor on Friday by three giant cranes.

The Danish-built Regina Maris, believed to be the nation’s last working square-rigger of its size, had gone down in 30 feet of water at dockside, leaving only its masts protruding from the water.

The deck broke the surface Friday afternoon, eliciting a sigh of relief from salvagers who had slung cables around the hull of the historic, 114-foot barkentine.

Needs Uniform Lift

“With a ship this age and it being a wooden ship, we were concerned that if it wasn’t lifted uniformly . . . we would pull one of the lifting cables through the ship, so it was important that we lifted it evenly,” said Jim Frye, managing director of Marina Bay of Quincy, owner of the vessel. “It was a little dramatic, to say the least.”

Debris cluttered the deck and hung from the rigging, but the Regina Maris did not appear damaged.

The ship had been docked at Marina Bay for two years. It had been taken to Boston Marine Workers for routine maintenance when it sank without explanation.

The vessel will be put in dry dock, where an effort will be made to determine the cause of the sinking.

Floating Restaurant

Frye said the proprietors planned to turn the vessel into a floating restaurant.

He said the $50,000 operation to refloat the ship took six weeks of planning. One of the giant cranes had to be brought in from New Jersey.

Field superintendent David Kenny of Cashman Co., which raised the ship, said the Regina Maris weighed more than 100 tons. “The knot left everybody’s stomach” as the ship came up, he said.