The story of the Essex smack, Pioneer, is a long one and she is unique in being the very last of the larger size Essex smacks to survive, although only her bottom and parts of her other structure were salvaged as a basis for reconstruction. To give scale to the vessel, for her presents dimensions are 64ft registered length (about 71ft overall length) and about 15ft beam.

Originally she was somewhat shorter, but like many contemporaries she was lengthened and altered slightly in breath to suit changing fishery conditions some years after her launch. To understand the background Pioneer and her contemporaries, we must go back to the Essex fisheries in the mid-19th century, a time of great activity and development when every day existence at the small towns and villages on the Colne and Blackwater rivers, with their common estuary in North East Essex, depended on fishing, professional yachting, shipbuilding and other Maritime activities. There were then about 250 smacks under sail, working from the Colne alone, manned by about 1000 hands.

The Pioneer was built by Peter Harris at the Maritime Village of Rowhedge in the parish of East Donyland on the upper reaches of the river Colne. It has deep water by itsit's quays and was the home for many mariners and shipbuilders after the 1780s of large numbers of professional captains and hands for yachts of all sizes and types, many of whom found something of a winter living fishing in the 50 or so smacks owned there.