Capt. Steven Pagels of Downeast Windjammer Cruises is working on a deal to bring the schooner Quinnipiack back to Maine from Connecticut.
The New Haven Register originally reported Thursday about negotiations by Pagels’ company to buy the ship from the sailing education nonprofit Schooner Inc.
Pagels confirmed by phone Friday that he and the nonprofit have reached an agreement and are working to close the deal on the vessel originally built for him by shipwright Phil Shelton in 1984 in Milbridge.
The schooner was originally named for Pagels’ wife, Janet May. He sold the ship in 1990 to Schooner Inc.
Pagels said it’s “premature” to say whether he’ll rename the ship if it makes its way back to Maine, but that’s something he would consider.
The New Haven Register reported that New Haven Mayor Toni Harp said the ship has been a fixture of the city’s waterfront for 20 years and “to see her leave is to sadly watch a living part of the city’s nautical heritage sail over the horizon for the last time.”
The newspaper reported the nonprofit that owns the schooner has been embroiled in a legal fight after the organization’s board of directors sued its executive director last fall in part over allegations that the director blocked the board from accessing financial records and other information about the nonprofit.
The newspaper reported a competing bidder for the schooner, Bob Shaffer of Michigan, said Pagels reached a deal to buy the vessel for $50,000. Pagels declined to comment to the New Haven Register or the Bangor Daily News about terms of the sale.
He said he would hope to have the ship back in Maine sometime in the spring and that it would become part of a sailing fleet for which his company provides passenger cruises.
His company also manages ferries from Bar Harbor to Winter Harbor, Southwest Harbor to the Cranberry Isles and Eastport to Lubec.