David Dows

3D ModelNoAI

There is not much left of the David Dows, the first and only 5-masted schooner to ever sail the Great Lakes. When built in 1881 this 265 ft behemoth was the largest schooner ever built in the world. Rigging five masts takes a large crew and it was also difficult to maneuver causing the ship to be involved in several collisions and accidents docking. For those reasons it only sailed as a schooner for two years. In 1883 it was cut back to a barge and towed for the remainder of its relatively short career. In 1889 it was being towed to Chicago when it was swamped in a late November storm ten miles from Chicago and sank in forty feet of water. The crew survived but the ship never sailed again. Today it is a popular dive destination from the port of Hammond, IN. The model was created from 1,366 30-megapixel images shot by Andrew Goodman in the 2025 season.