The schooner
Coronet was designed by William Townsend and built for
Rufus T. Bush by the
C. & R. Poillon shipyard in Brooklyn. Bush then put forth a $10,000 challenge against any other yacht for a transatlantic
race. The ocean race between
Coronet and the
Caldwell Hart Colt's yacht
Dauntless in March 1887 made Bush and the victorious
Coronet famous—
The New York Times devoted its entire first page for March 28, 1887 to the story. After winning the 3,000-mile race and the $10,000 purse, Bush decided to sell
Coronet and listed the vessel in England for $30,000. Rufus and his son Irving T. Bush then
circumnavigated the globe on
Coronet in 1888.
Coronet was the first registered yacht to cross
Cape Horn from East to West. After crossing the Pacific Ocean and stopping in Hawaii,
Coronet made port in China,
Calcutta,
Malta and elsewhere.
Coronet was sold before Rufus's death in 1890 The vessel then passed through six different owners (Arthur E. Bateman, John D. Wing,
Arthur Curtiss James, Fred S. Pearson, John I. Waterbury, and Louis Bossert) by 1905. The
Coronet circumnavigated the globe several times and was used for a Japanese-American scientific excursion during an
eclipse. The Kingdom, a religious organization founded by
Frank Sandford, purchased the ship in 1905 for $10,000 and took it around the world on prayer missions, including to Palestine.
Coronet took a poorly planned missionary voyage to Africa in 1911 which resulted in six persons on board dying of scurvy. After the voyage, The Kingdom kept the yacht moored at Portland, Maine as well as Gloucester, Massachusetts and owned her until 1995. ==Restoration==