Built in 1902 on Bremen Long Island, Maine, Gladiator is one of the oldest surviving original Friendship sloops. She fished these waters, served in wartime, wandered south for half a century — and came home. This is her story.
Gladiator was launched in 1902 by Alexander “Bug” McLain on Bremen Long Island in Muscongus Bay, Maine. For the next two decades she worked as a lobster boat — running without an engine until 1911 — hauling traps in the same waters where Friendship sloops were born. After World War I she was sold south, fitted with a cabin for coastal cruising, and spent decades sailing the Chesapeake Bay before eventually drifting to a boatyard in New Jersey.
During World War II she served on coastal patrol, her hull painted Navy gray and her bow number stenciled in black: J3S652. The original name was gone, but the bones were still there.
In 1967, Bill and Caroline Zuber spotted her in a Philadelphia boatyard. Her deck beam was cut off. No builder, no year, no name anywhere visible. But below the waterline they found something telling: a five-digit documentation number. Boats registered after 1920 got six digits. This one predated the system.
Coast Guard records in Rockland confirmed it. Her original name, etched into that five-digit registration, was Gladiator. Built 1902. Builder: Alexander “Bug” McLain, Bremen Long Island.
The Zubers and their friends Stuart and Dot Hancock paid $4,600 for the whole wreck — split two ways. “Before we knew it, we were partners with the Hancocks,” Bill recalled. Over the next three years he replanked the deck, added a topmast and new topsails, and installed a diesel engine. In 1971 Gladiator sailed back to Friendship, Maine — the only original Friendship sloop still moored in the harbor that gave the boats their name.
“After 65 years, we brought Gladiator home to Friendship, and six years later she brought us home to Maine.”
— Bill Zuber
Specifications
| LOA | 32’2″ |
|---|---|
| Beam | 11′ |
| Draft | 6′ |
| Mainsail | 810 sq. ft. |
| Jumbo Jib | 240 sq. ft. (formerly jib and staysail) |
| Built | 1902 |
| Builder | Alexander “Bug” McLain, Bremen Long Island, Muscongus Bay, Maine |
Bill and Caroline Zuber
Bill and Caroline Zuber were longtime pillars of the Friendship Sloop Society. Bill, a Coast Guard-licensed captain since age 18, raced Gladiator at the annual regatta for over four decades. He was elected an FSS Honorary Member in 2014. Bill Zuber has since passed away, but his family and Gladiator‘s story remain permanently woven into the fabric of the Society — and the boat still rides her mooring in Friendship Harbor.
View Gladiator in the Fleet Registry →
Source: Janet Mendelsohn, “A Friendship Comes Home,” Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors, April/May 2006 (Issue 89). Download original article (PDF)
