Two factors contributed to the creation of the International Fisherman's Trophy,  the first being years of friendly rivalry between US and Canadian fishing schooners, the other being the view that the schoonermen had of the America's Cup fleet. They were "yachts" being sailed by "yachtsmen", forever being towed in from races for repairs or "adjustments" of one kind or another.  And, when in 1919 the New York Yacht Club cancelled a race because the 23 knot winds were too high, schoonermen could take no more. 
    So, in 1920, the Halifax Herald newspaper established a formal racing series. The races would be between real sail carriers that were bona-fide working ships. That year, elimination races in both countries selected contenders. The schooner Esperanto out of Gloucester, Mass., defeated the Delewana of Lunenburg and took the trophy to New England.  Dismayed Nova Scotians hired young Halifax designer William Roue to design a ship to challenge for the trophy. The schooner Bluenose was built and launched in Lunenburg early in 1921.
    In October, 1921, after a season fishing on the Grand Banks, Bluenose defeated Gloucester's Elsie and brought the trophy home. In an18-year racing career Bluenose did not give up the trophy. The American schooners Henry Ford, Columbia, Gertrude L. Thebaud, as well as a number of Canadian vessels built in an effort to surpass Bluenose's remarkable sailing abilities, could not take the trophy from her.  The final race series took place in 1938.
    The Bluenose, by then 17 years of age, defeated the Thebuad one final time. Still handling as smartly as ever, Canada's most famous sailing vessel was a tribute to the Nova Scotia shipwrights and sailors who built it and many other fishing and cargo schooners. The Second World War ended the era of the great fishing schooners. Replaced by modern steel trawlers, the fleets of sailing salt-bankers no longer set out to challenge the cruel North Atlantic to reap a harvest of cod for the markets of the world.

Launched on July 24, 1963 the Bluenose II was built from the identical plans as Bluenose,
in the same shipyard of Smith and Rhuland and by some of the same men.

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