USRC Massachusetts

This is from a contemporary description of the ship:

“The Cutter Massachusetts built at Newbury port in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the year 1791. She is a square-stern schooner, has quarter badges, an Indian's head for figurehead. She has a long quarter deck and a deep waist."

Below is a reconstruction of the vessel from the Coast Guard’s history website.

The above drawing appears to be based on the original plans from 1768 of the schooner Sultana, shown below.

These old plans were used about 20 years ago to make a recreation of the Sultana, which sails out of Maryland. I have sailed on it. You can see it firing a cannon in the short video I made.

Note: The Massachusetts was built with an Indian head as a figurehead. We will obviously have to edit that out. I’ll paint it with a generic figurehead called a fiddlehead or scroll.