Museum unfurls schooner replica

A couple of years ago, James commissioned Ronnberg to make a model of the long-lost Elsie, a storied vessel once owned by members of James’s mother’s family. The finished product is on display through Labor Day at the Cape Ann Museum, where James is on the board of directors.

The Elsie was built in 1910 at the Arthur D. Story shipyard in Essex and was a working fishing vessel, taking dorymen to the fishing grounds and bringing them and their catch back to Gloucester.

On its first trip, the Elsie landed 140 tons of salt cod. It also contended in the International Fishermen’s Races of 1921, at a time when it was owned by members of James’s family through the Frank C. Pearce company.

Under a later owner, the Elsie began taking on water and went down in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in January 1935. All the crew members survived, James said.

Today, James leads RockPort Capital Partners from a modern office suite 18 floors above Boston’s Financial District. He is cofounder and managing general partner of the firm, which specializes in renewable energy investments, and where a vintage photo of the Elsie hangs among the original paintings on his office walls.

Ronnberg works alone in his tidy model shop on the second floor of a bland Rockport strip mall. Books and a few models fill shelves, along with woodworking equipment, cabinets of modeling supplies, and a poster-sized blueprint of the Elsie.

Ronnberg’s father made ship models as a hobby, and a photo of him sitting at his workbench hangs over Ronnberg’s own workbench.

The elder Ronnberg also modeled the Elsie in a much smaller version, and James owns that piece as well.

The new model is of a different order. Ronnberg is considered one of the best modelers in the world. His version of the Elsie, at a scale of 3/8ths of an inch to one foot, is precisely detailed.

“When you have a model like this, you want to tell a story, to put some narrative in it,’’ Ronnberg said. “But you want to keep it as realistic as possible, so you have to freeze the action.’’