The historic 131′ schooner CORONET, which has been under restoration on the IYRS School of Technology & Trades campus in Newport since 1995, is scheduled to splash into Newport Harbor on Friday, December 2 as preparation continues for her departure to her new home in Connecticut.
Originally built in 1885, CORONET will complete her restoration at the Henry B. DuPont Preservation Shipyard at Mystic Seaport Museum.
Mystic Seaport Museum is preparing CORONET by installing 68,000 lbs of gear so that a 1000-ton barge crane can lift CORONET, weighing approximately 350,000 lbs, off the hard at IYRS and into Newport Harbor.
“CORONET will be fenced off for safety but there will be a public viewing area on the right-hand side of Restoration Hall (The Reef side). The window right now is 12 (pm) – 4 (pm),” Kim Norton-O’Brien, Director of Marketing at IYRS, shared with What’sUpNewp on Thursday morning.
Watch – Live Stream: Coronet makes way into Newport Harbor
The journey from Newport to Mystic is expected to be an eight-hour trip that will end through the Mystic Bascule Bridge and up the Mystic River to the ship lift at the south end of the Mystic Seaport Museum, according to a press release from IYRS earlier this month. CORONET will reside there until restoration is complete, a process that is expected to take approximately three years.
Coronet was recently purchased by Crew, a New York-based company run by brothers Alex and Miles Pincus, according to IYRS. The purchase and continued restoration efforts of Coronet are in line with Crew’s notable history of historic vessel restoration. “Coronet is without equal. Her restoration is a calling that we feel destined to pursue,” says Alex Pincus, CEO of Crew.
