Pictured: a built model of this ship — not the historical vessel.

Kate Cory

Type

Whaler

Period

19th Century

Nation

United States

Overview: Kate Cory was a small American whaling brig (originally rigged as a schooner) built at Westport Point, Massachusetts, notable as one of the last vessels built specifically for the whaling trade and the last large ship constructed at that shipyard. She was commissioned by prominent Westport merchant Alexander H. Cory and built by the Allen and Sisson yard, named for his young daughter Kate. Specifications: At 132 tons, she measured seventy-five and a half feet long with a 22-foot beam — modest dimensions compared to most whaling ships of 300 tons or more. She was originally rigged as a schooner but was re-rigged in 1858 with square sails on the foremast and a gaff rig on the mainmast; this hybrid rig has led sources to variously describe her as a brig, hermaphrodite brig, or brigantine. Service History: Kate Cory sailed on voyages into the Atlantic and Pacific whaling grounds out of Westport for several largely uneventful years. On April 15, 1863, during CSS Alabama's South Atlantic commerce-raiding campaign, she was captured off the coast of Brazil; her crew was removed and the ship was burned to the waterline after only five voyages. Notable Facts: The square-sail conversion in 1858 was intended to give her a steadier motion in heavy seas and while cutting in whales alongside the hull. Surviving whaling logbooks/journals from voyages aboard Kate Cory (held via the New Bedford Whaling Museum/Old Dartmouth Historical Society and digitized on Internet Archive) are a key primary source for modelers, and plans developed by longtime New Bedford Whaling Museum curator Erik A. R. Ronnberg Jr. in the early 1970s have been used as the basis for both commercial kits (Model Shipways) and scratch-built museum-quality models.