In May 1946, newspapers across the country carried stories about the three-masted schooner Lucy Evelyn as it set sail from Massachusetts, bound for the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa. The interest was sparked because it was one of the last true sailing ships from a bygone age, with no auxiliary power or even a radio on board.

Six months later, in November, the ship was towed into Norfolk, Va. by a Coast Guard cutter, with stories of losing its rudder and sails in Mid-Atlantic, of a…