Tall Ship American Pride

The Los Angeles Maritime Institute (LAMI) serves to empower youth to discover their greater potential through extraordinary at-sea experiences aboard educational sailing vessels built to train and equip young people with 21st century leadership skills, and inspire maritime and STEM career paths.

The American Pride is an older vessel with a few more days at sea and a few more tales to tell. Christened as the Virginia, she was built in 1941 at Muller Boat Works Inc. located in Brooklyn, New York as a two-masted eastern rigged trawler. The finest white oak available was used in her construction. She later became the Araho out of Rockland, Maine as part of the O’hara fishing fleet and then the St. Catherine, out of New Bedford, Massachusetts and Lady in Blue (1968-1986) out of Gloucester, Massachusetts captained by Sam and Paul Frontiero, father and son. She spent her fishing career, of over forty years, fishing the waters of the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank and the Grand Banks in search of cod, haddock, flounder and ocean perch.

Captain Steve Pagels took ownership in 1986 and converted the trawler to a three masted schooner at the Wallace Yard in Thomaston, Maine. The vessel was fitted with 17 passenger cabins each with two bunks with a dining room and lounge in the main cabin, three heads and Forecastle accommodations for a crew of five. All of the refitting was achieved under the guidance of master boat builder David Short. In 1987 she was re-christened the Natalie Todd and sailed to her new homeport of Bar Harbor to sail as part of the Maine Windjammer Fleet. As a reminder of how she looked when she was a working vessel Captain Pagels kept the Pilot house which contained the quarters for the captain and mate, he placed it in his back yard at his residence in Addison, Maine.

In October of 1996 she was purchased by the American Heritage Marine Institute (AHMI), and began her historic 7,500 mile sail through the Panama Canal to her new home in Long Beach, California where she was operated by the Children’s Maritime Foundation. She served the youth of Long Beach for over 20 years.

In 2018 the Children’s Maritime Institute, a wholly owned division of Los Angeles Maritime Institute, took ownership of the American Pride and performed a modern stem to stern restoration so she can continue to provide educational programs for Long Beach. She received her US Coast Guard certifications in March of 2019 and has resumed her educational, summer camp and charter programs.