The Dirigo

Dirigo is Latin for "I direct" or "I lead" and is found in the Coat of arms of Maine. The Mutiny of the Elsinore is a novel by the American writer Jack London first published in 1914. The novel is partially based on London's voyage around Cape Horn on the Dirigo in 1912. The Dirigo was built by Arthur Sewall & Co. in Bath in 1894. She was the first steel sailing vessel built in the U.S., and the Sewall shipyard was the only yard in the country to switch from building wooden sailing vessels to building steel ones. She measured 3,005 gross tons, registered length 312 feet. A. Sewall & Co. owned her until 1915, when they sold her to San Francisco owners. In 1917 she was sunk off the Irish coast by a German submarine. -Maine Historical Society’s Maine Memory Network