Norma and Gladys NFLD Schooner

By: Garry Cranford

ISBN:	096987670X
Page Info:	157 pp. Trade Paperback
Publisher:	Flanker Press

Launched from a Trinity Bay shipyard in 1945, the early years of the Newfoundland schooner Norma & Gladys encompassed the shipbuilding tradition, the Labrador floater fishery, the Grand Banks fishery, and coasting. She was purchased for a floating museum by the Newfoundland Government in 1973; her legacy soon included blunder, cover-up, mutiny, a stowaway, and perhaps, the ghost of a sealing captain.

In 1975, Canada's External Affairs appointed Norma & Gladys as a roving ambassador...But she was unseaworthy...After being ravished by the Newfoundland media...she nevertheless promoted Canada and Newfoundland to 78,900 visitors in 19 European ports...

Sold to the highest bidder, she started her final journey on October 27, 1984, and never returned. Today she rests on the bottom of Placentia Bay.

Here is the story of her early, obscure years, and the saga of her 22,000 mile voyage, set against the background of Newfoundland's favorite bloodsport: partisan politics.