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The state agency that operates New Bedford’s major offshore wind staging terminal has secured its first “tenants” after Vineyard Wind’s buildout: the schooner Ernestina-Morrissey and off-duty Seastreak ferryboats.
Massachusetts Maritime Academy, which owns the historic 156-foot schooner, is set to execute a dock licensing agreement with the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center next month, according to an agency spokesperson. The ship was previously docked at the State Pier, but was displaced after the state closed the pier due to its deteriorating infrastructure. It’s currently at the Foss Marine Terminal, which sits just north of the Marine Commerce Terminal.
The closure is affecting other tenants, including Seastreak, which will continue to operate its ferries from downtown, but needs a new dock for off-duty ships. Seastreak started using the Marine Commerce Terminal’s quayside this month for seasonal vessel support that will continue through August, the MassCEC spokesperson said.
Christopher Cote, Northeast general manager for Seastreak, said the company is building a barge to support four ferries in anticipation of construction at the State Pier. Until then, it will use the Marine Commerce Terminal through the peak season as a place for its boats to “sleep” when they’re not running back and forth between the mainland and islands.
The Ernestina-Morrissey, built in 1894 on the North Shore, started as a fishing boat out of Gloucester, was taken over by an Arctic explorer, and then was purchased in 1948 by a Cape Verdean man who had it brought to New Bedford. From there, it transported food, cargo and people between New Bedford and Cape Verde into the 1970s. In 1982, Cape Verde gifted the boat to the commonwealth, and in 1990 it became a national landmark.
Mass Maritime gives tours of the Ernestina-Morrissey to schoolchildren and trains its own students and cadets on the schooner.
The glossy oak-hulled schooner will be a stark visual shift from the modern heavy-lift vessels, more than three times its length, that had been a fixture at the terminal since 2023. A marshaling vessel, likely the last for the next several years, left the terminal this week with three wind turbine blades aboard — leftovers from Vineyard Wind.
The Ernestina-Morrissey won’t be the only historic vessel at the terminal this summer. As part of the state’s 250th anniversary celebrations for American independence, a Portuguese tall ship, the Sagres, will arrive July 19 and stay in the harbor through July 23. The ship will be open for free tours.
Built in 1937 in Hamburg, Germany, the 292-foot Sagres was used by a few countries, including the U.S., before the Portuguese Navy acquired it in 1961. It last visited New Bedford in 2015. Today, it is used as a training vessel, much like the Ernestina-Morrissey.
Despite this vessel activity, the once-bustling Marine Commerce Terminal is relatively quiet, again, now that Vineyard Wind has finished construction. Where there were blue metal cages and stacks of towers and blades, there is only a flat dirt surface that geese and seagulls have reclaimed. On the western edge, construction is underway as part of the terminal’s expansion project. Eventually, work will also be done on its quayside.
SouthCoast Wind is set to be the terminal’s next major tenant in 2029, but the future of that project is uncertain amid legal challenges by the Trump administration.
Email Anastasia E. Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org.
With our city in such financial trouble, a huge deficit hanging over the city’s head, and a economic outlook that is very bleak. Why isn’t the Mayor and our State Delegation reaching out to the Governor and asking that the ownership of this land (offshore wind terminal property) be returned to the city so we can jump start our private economic development and start generating revenue that our city so desperately needs. 100% we need New Leadership, a New Direction, and a Better Vision for the Future of Our City.
Jeff, just run for Mayor.