SABINO (steamer)

About this property

Sabino (pronounced Sah-BYE-No) is a small wooden, coal-fired steamboat built in 1908 and located at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. It is one of only two surviving members of the American mosquito fleet, and it was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1992. It is America's oldest regularly operating coal-powered steamboat. Sabino was built in the W. Irving Adams shipyard in East Boothbay, Maine, and the 57-foot vessel was christened as Tourist on May 7, 1908. She began her career as a ferry for the Damariscotta Steamboat Company on the Damariscotta River in Maine...owned by LaForest "Foss" Etheridge.; The "Tourist" sank in 1918 due to an accident but was salvaged. On October 8, 1921, she was sold to the Popham Beach Steamboat Company on the Kennebec River, and the new owners changed the vessel's name to Sabino in honor of Abenaki sagamore Sabenoa. On July 23, 1927, Sabino was purchased by the Cape Shore Ferry Company in Portland, Maine. She ferried passengers from Portland to the many islands of Casco Bay, and sponsons were added in 1928 to help stabilize her in the open water of the Bay. She was again sold in 1935, this time to the Casco Bay Lines. After a few years, she began to show her age and was put into the company's reserve fleet. She was returned to regular ferry service in 1956 when another ferry ran aground. However, her usefulness to the Casco Bay Lines was short-lived and she was sold to Red Slavit in 1958, who sold her to Philip and Irene Corbin of Salisbury, Massachusetts, soon after. The Corbin family spent a great amount of time repairing the vessel and bringing her up to Coast Guard regulations for a passenger vessel. In 1971, the Sabino was sold to C. Bruce Brown, Joseph Pulvino, and Philip Corbin's son Jim, doing business as Steamship Sabino Inc. Jim was made part of the corporation because neither Pulvino nor Brown had any practical experience running a steamboat. Brown was an insurance salesman and Pulvino was an aeronautical engineer with the General Electric Company in Lynn, Massachusetts. The Sabino had run on the river a year before but had no licensed captain or engineer. In order for her to do real business, they needed a licensed captain and a licensed engineer. Capt. Dana Terell from Cape Elizabeth, Maine was hired as the captain, and Pulvino approached the Commander of the US Coast Guard in Boston and asked for an engineering license. He was told that experience was needed as a seaman in the engine room. Pulvino explained the situation and it was agreed that, if he could pass the examination to be a marine engineer, the Commander would issue a license limited to the Sabino. Pulvino passed the exam along with his mentor John Clements, and he was issued a limited license.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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