- Boat type — a two-masted wooden schooner, gaff-rigged, built for trade between the islands
- Built — in 1969, in Carriacou
- Built by — carpenters from Carriacou, whose names have yet to be found
- Dimensions — 80 feet overall, including bowsprit · 54 tons · 60-foot masts above deck
- Materials — Cedar frames hewn with an adze, keel of greenheart, Grenada and Carriacou wood, planking of Canadian pitch pine
- Owner and captain — Martin Jennett
- Rebuilt — in Carriacou, after Hurricane Ivan in 2004
- In Saint-Barthélemy — West Indies Regatta 2012 and 2014 · «Queen of the Fleet» in 2012
- Home port — Union Island, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Today — in service, day trips to Mayreau and the Tobago Cays
1969: a merchant schooner born in Carriacou
Scaramouche was built in 1969 in Carriacou to transport goods from island to island. For the frames, the shipwrights scoured the woods for cedar branches whose curve already matched the hull's shape. They roughed them out with an adze, then fixed them to a greenheart keel. The frame was made of wood from Grenada and Carriacou; the planking, of pitch pine imported from Canada.
Overall, including the bowsprit, the schooner measures 80 feet and has a tonnage of 54. Below deck, the cedar frames remain visible. In 2012, journalist Stephen Sammons compared the interior to a Tudor-era pub: warm, cozy, and fragrant with old wood.
Hundreds of wooden merchant schooners once sailed the Caribbean. By 2012, the Caribbean Compass listed only two: Scaramouche, from Union Island, and the schooner from Bequia. The Friendship Rose.
A Scotsman in Union Island
Martin Jennett is Scottish. He left Glasgow in the mid-1970s, with no other plan than to find a passage to a tropical beach. "Luck is what brought me to The Grenadines," he sums up: it was chance that led him to the Grenadines.
On Union Island, Martin Jennett started by polishing the deck of a French sailboat, then became a skipper for day trips. More than thirty years before 2012, according to All At Sea magazine, he bought Scaramouche, which was still operating as a coastal freighter. A full year of restoration followed. The current masts, made of imported pine, are replacements fashioned to resemble the originals.
2004: Ivan, the reef, the trawler
In 2004, as Hurricane Ivan approached, Scaramouche was moored in Clifton, one of the best anchorages in the Grenadines. A crew member misunderstood the mooring instructions. In winds of 130 miles per hour, the schooner was driven onto a reef.
First, it had to be pulled into deep water, then turned over to seal the holes in the hull. To right it, ropes were attached to the masthead and hauled in by a powerful trawler. But the trawler veered off course and ripped the masts aft. Martin Jennett watched the bowsprit separate from the hull, then the masts and all the rigging collapse, piercing the hull with new holes. "I could have cried from frustration and grief," he said.
The return to Carriacou
Martin Jennett refused to abandon the wreck. He towed it to Carriacou, the island where Scaramouche was born. There, the old shipwrights and their children understood the importance of the ship and also refused to let it die. With the same skills as a generation before, they rebuilt the schooner, which returned to the sea for a new chapter.
Pirates, cameras and the Tobago Cays
For the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean, In Disney's Scaramouche, she was transformed into a Portuguese merchant ship. The BBC filmed her for an adventure series, and the schooner appeared in several television commercials.
From Union Island, Scaramouche takes passengers to Mayreau and the Tobago Cays: breakfast, lunch prepared by the ship's cook, homemade punch, masks and snorkels for swimming above the reef. Stephen Sammons recounts that a Swiss passenger returned six years in a row.
May 2012: a shipment to Gustavia
On March 17, 2012, the West Indies Regatta announced the arrival of Scaramouche, presented as one of only two original cargo schooners still operating in the Grenadines.
On May 1st, at dawn, the schooner left Union Island. In the hold: several hundred fresh coconuts loaded at Chateaubelair, on the leeward coast of Saint Vincent, honey from Bequia, chocolate and cocoa balls from Grenada, rum from Saint Vincent—enough to supply the island markets during the regatta. The crew included longtime friends from Union Island, Saint Vincent, England, and France.
Once out of the Soufrière shelter, Scaramouche sped due north at over eight knots, sails trimmed like a racing yacht, under the moonlight. The 350 miles to Saint-Barth were covered in two days.
At dawn, Alexis Andrews, founder of the regatta, guides the fleet to the main quay of Gustavia aboard the sloop Genesis.
Scaramouche is given a place of honor opposite the Harbour Master's Office, next to the famous American schooner Ticonderoga. Bruno Magras, President of the Collectivity, and Daniel Blanchard, from the UNESCO Club, a partner of the regatta, come aboard. On Friday, the welcoming party is held on the schooner's deck. Mr. Ollivierre, from Bequia, opens more coconuts than anyone else and asks to be left in Saint-Barth when Scaramouche departs.
In the rankings, Scaramouche receives the title of "Queen of the Fleet".
Stephen Sammons recalls that in the past, a schooner like Scaramouche would have returned laden with duty-free goods, without giving customs much thought. This time, the crew says they respect the work of the customs officers, while hoping they will forgive the oversight of leaving behind a case or two of good French wine.
2014: Two schooners in Gustavia
Scaramouche returns to Saint Barthélemy for the sixth West Indies Regatta, from May 1st to 4th, 2014. Nine traditional boats are at the starting line. Alongside the Carriacou sloops, two schooners: Scaramouche, from Union Island, and the’Alexander Hamilton.
The organizers then announced that they would invite the only other original merchant schooner still in operation the following year., The Friendship Rose.
What remains to be found
The names of the shipwrights who built Scaramouche in 1969, the names of its first owners, its trade routes, the exact year it was purchased by Martin Jennett, and the year it was relaunched after Ivan. If you know any part of this story, please write to us.
Sources
- Tradition’s Alive Aboard Scaramouche, Stephen Sammons, Caribbean Compass, June 2012, p. 15 — the construction, Ivan, the reconstruction in Carriacou, the May 2012 trip to Saint-Barth.
- The ‘Wet’ Indies Regatta!, Alexis Andrews, Caribbean Compass, June 2012, p. 17 — the welcome party on board, the island market, the title of «Queen of the Fleet».
- Caribbean Compass, juin 2014, p. 13 — the West Indies Regatta 2014 and its two schooners.
- Captain Martin Jennett and Scaramouche, the Carriacou Schooner, Ellen Lampert-Greaux, All At Sea, August 28, 2012 — Martin Jennett, the dimensions, the woods, Pirates of the Caribbean.
- Schooner Scaramouche Attending 2012 Regatta, westindiesregatta.com, March 17, 2012 (archived copy).
- Scaramouche, Ins and Outs of SVG — day trips and coordinates.
- Scaramouche, Escaped At Last, May 22, 2023.
- Photo : Montgomery Howard, groupe Caribbean Photographers, March 26, 2025.
Contact — Scaramouche
- Phone — +1 784 458 8418
- E-mail — scaramouche@vincysurf.com
- Facebook — scaramouchegrenadines
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