SHIP
DESCRIPTIONS
Hudson River Sloop Clearwater (USA)
Hudson River Sloop
Clearwater, Inc. is a nonprofit environmental
organization founded in 1966 by folksinger and
social activist, Pete Seeger. The
organizations mission is to defend and
restore the Hudson River and related
waterways through education, advocacy, and
celebration. For thirty years, sloop Clearwater ,
a 106 foot replica of the boats that sailed the
Hudson during the last century, has sailed as a
floating classroom. This award winning program, Classroom
of the Waves, reaches over 12,000 students
and teachers annually and has successfully
introduced a generation of children to the
ecology and history of the Hudson River through
hands-on experiential education.
For seventeen
years, Clearwater has been a leader in hands-on,
field-based environmental programs that embrace
students in the learning experience. Clearwater
sails from Albany to New York City, northern New
Jersey, and the Long Island Sound. The Classroom
of the Waves programs are primarily for 4th
through 7th grade, but also reach high school,
college, church, and community groups. More than
three hundred educational sails are offered each
season aboard sloop Clearwater and schooner
Mystic Whaler, with 25% of these programs
departing from docks in New York City. This means
that over 4,000 New York City school children
participate in programs annually. Hudson River
Sloop Clearwater will cap its 30th year of
environmental leadership with the 'Ship to Save
the Waters' Conference. The StStW Conference will
serve as the focal point and kickoff for all
Clearwater Sloop Clubs' environmental activities
into the new century.
Schooner A.J. Meerwald (USA)
Schooner A.J.
Meerwald is owned and operated by the Delaware
Bay Schooner Project, a not-for-profit
educational organization with the mission of
providing education and building stewardship to
conserve and enrich the culture, history and
natural resources of the Delaware Estuary. The
A.J. Meerwald is a 115 foot Delaware Bay Oyster
Schooner, built to meet the demands of New
Jersey's oyster fishing industry which, at the
time, was the backbone of the region's economy
and culture. The Delaware Bay Schooner Project
was founded in 1988 to conserve and enrich the
history, culture and environment of the Delaware
Estuary and the coastal waters of New Jersey. The
A.J. Meerwald was donated to the Delaware Bay
Schooner Project in 1989 and was painstakingly
restored by dedicated New Jerseyans. The Delaware
Bay Schooner Project uses the ship as a sailing
classroom to promote ecological and historical
awareness of the Delaware Bay and the waters of
New Jersey. In 1995, the A.J. Meerwald was added
to the National Register of Historic Places and
is designated New Jersey State Tall Ship.
Students of all
ages sail the historic schooner and experience
the immediacy of the Delaware Estuary and learn
how each of us affects our environment. The
students help crew the schooner, raise the sails
and handle lines, go fishing with a trawl net or
set and retrieve an oyster dredge, and learn
about the importance of our home tributary to the
Delaware. The Meerwald educators tailor the
experience to support the learning goals of the
target audience by drawing from four or five
small group "learning stations" onboard
from over a dozen alternatives. The sessions can
be thematically oriented to include shore-based
field trips; maritime traditions; natural
resources; public service; or customized to a
group's program content or discussion of local
issues. These can be incorporated into the sail
by advance arrangement.
Schooner Ernestina ex-Effie M. Morrissey (USA)
Schooner Ernestina
was launched the 156' gaff-rigged Effie M.
Morrissey at the James and Tarr Yard in Essex,
Massachusetts on February 1, 1894. Within six
weeks of launching the schooner was rigged,
crewed-up and provisioned for four months of dory
fishing on the Grand Banks. Many years later,
after a fire and scuttling at dockside in
Flushing, NY in 1947, the Morrissey was raised,
repaired and sailed under a new name, Ernestina,
as a Cape Verdean packet.
The essence of
Ernestinas mission today extends from the
vessels phenomenal track through history.
The schooner served as a commercial vessel
engaged in the honest objectives of fishing the
Grand Banks of Newfoundland and coastal commerce.
Later, northern expeditions into the Arctic
regions made manifest the spirit of the explorer,
willing to take astonishing risks in the pursuit
of knowledge. Ernestina carried immigrants to
America while flying the Cape Verdean flag. Now,
through preservation efforts and an active
program schedule, we link the lessons of the past
and to promise of the future. The ship is the
embodiment of the ties of culture, family and
tradition that encircle the American immigrant
epoch.
The Mission of the
Schooner Ernestina Commission is to
preserve, restore and operate the historic
Schooner Ernestina, ex-Effie M. Morrissey, and to
establish educational, cultural and experiential
programs in a context that celebrates human
diversity, creativity, value and dignity.
Aboard the
Ernestina, the official vessel of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, students of all
ages use the ship and its rich and varied history
as a platform to study the marine environment and
human impacts. They gain confidence and build
self esteem while learning how to orient
themselves in the natural world and solving
real-world problems. Many find important cultural
connections through the shipboard experience.
Program offerings range from dockside programs
for any age, daysails for sixth grade and up and
five day passages at sea from coastal communities
of New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Each
structured education program uses a series of
learning stations to explore the environment of
the ship and the world around it.
Barque Picton Castle (Canada)
The Tall Ship Picton Castle
-- recently returned from an 19-month, 47-port,
22-country, 37,000-mile world cruise that crossed
the Caribbean, Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic
Oceans -- is seeking voyagers (virtual and real).
From the outset, the 180-foot, three-masted,
square-rigged barque has faced its world-circling
adventure with a crew composed of equal numbers
of men and women. These sailors face the same
exhilarating challenges together whether learning
celestial navigation, standing watch, furling
sails, repairing rigging or hoisting anchor.
The prime mission of this
sailing ship is deep-ocean voyaging and sail
training. An ASTA member, its professional
sailors are constantly providing instruction in
navigation, seamanship, sail making, and related
marine arts. Not surprising, the goal of most
amateur sailors is to come away with an
able-bodied seaman certificate.
Future adventure travels will
take Picton Castle sailors to more than 50
ports of call in 25 countries -- a world voyage
that if conventionally pursued would cost almost
a quarter million dollars. It is a unique
combination of travel, vacation, training and
more travel. To date, the Picton Castle
crews have visited some of most remote, beautiful
and intriguing Caribbean and Pacific Islands
(e.g., San Blas, Pitcairn, Bora Bora, Palmerston,
Neiafu, Takaroa, Malaita, and Tahiti) as well as
Bali, the Seychelles, St. Helena, Barbados,
Martinique and Bermuda. Future tall ship cruises
will travel to Europe, Asia, and Australia and --
again -- to Pacific and Caribbean islands.
The Barque Picton Castle
was completely overhauled and outfitted for
tropical ocean voyaging as a training ship in
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, during a 2 million dollar
refit in 1996-97. The ship is registered in
Avatiu, Rarotonga Cook Islands, headquarters for
her South Pacific voyages. She is inspected by
qualified surveyors and certified as a Sail
Training Vessel for World Wide Service by the
Cook Island Department of Transportation and
Tourism. She is outfitted with the high standard
of safety equipment her Certificate of Safety
Equipment requires. Her stability and ballasting
has been calculated and tested by inclining tests
supervised by a qualified naval architect and
marine engineer trained by the Webb Institute.
The ship is outfitted with six water-tight
bulkheads for collision and damage control and
every effort has been made to equip the ship for
safe ocean voyaging. No other endorsement by any
other classification or regulatory agency is
inferred or implied.
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Schooner Pioneer (USA)
Pioneer was originally
built in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania in 1885 to
carry sand -- mined near the mouth of the
Delaware Bay -- to an iron foundry in Chester,
Pennsylvania. She was re-rigged as a schooner ten
years later when the sloop rig lost favor,
primarily for economic reasons: The large single
sail took more crew members to handle than the
smaller sails of the two-masted rig. In the days
before paved roads, schooners were the delivery
trucks of their era, carrying various cargoes
between coastal communities: lumber and stone
from the islands of Maine, brick on the Hudson
River, and oyster shell on the Chesapeake Bay.
Almost all American cargo
sloops and schooners were wood, but because she
was built in what was then this country's center
of iron shipbuilding, Pioneer had a
wrought iron hull. She was the first of only two
cargo sloops built of iron in this country, and
is the only iron-hulled American merchant sailing
vessel still in existence. By 1930, when new
owners moved her from the Delaware River to
Massachusetts, she had been fitted with an
engine, and was no longer using sails.
In 1966 Russell Grinnell, Jr.
of Gloucester, Massachusetts decided to rescue Pioneer,
rebuild her hull with steel plating, restore the
schooner rig, and use her in his dock building
business. He unfortunately died in 1970 and that
same year Pioneer was donated to the
museum, where, manned by a crew of professionals
and volunteers, she sails daily, taking the
public on harbor tours. Pioneer is also
for hire for corporate and private charters, and
has a well-known education program for grades
4-12. Pioneer is fitted to accomodate the
disabled.
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Hudson
River Ferry Sloops Sojourner Truth & Woody
Guthrie(USA)
Following the success of the
Hudson River Sloop "Clearwater", Pete
Seeger envisioned the creation of a fleet of
old-time Hudson River sloops. Their traditional
design evolved in the Hudson River valley during
earlier centuries when sloops carried building
materials and produce, as well as passengers.
Recreating this traditional form of sailing would
convey the "Clearwater" message of a
cleaner and safer river and offer sailing to many
more people than one single boat could carry.
Additional boats should also be smaller than the
106-foot "Clearwater" in order to be
able to dock at river towns with shallow harbor
access.
To realize this vision, two
smaller ferry sloops were built and launched
during the mid- 1970s, the first one being
"Woody Guthrie", now at Beacon, NY.
Construction on her sister ship "Sojourner
Truth" was begun in 1977. Both sloops
measure 42 feet, are gaff- rigged and can be
sailed with a crew of 4 and up to 10 guest
passengers. The major difference is that, while
the "Woody" is of traditional wood
construction, "Sojourners" hull
is fabricated of ferro cement. "Sojourner
Truth" is maintained by Ferry Sloops, Inc.,
a non-profit volunteer group of sailing
enthusiasts, river lovers and environmentalists,
sailing out of Croton-on-Hudson. Every year,
Ferry Sloops offers 12-week sailing instruction
classes and lectures and is participating in
civic activities during Hudson River Revivals and
festivities, such as shadfest, pumpkin sails and
tall ships events.
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Sloop
Rainbow Race and Ketch Adam Hyler (USA)
The Sloop Rainbow Race and
Ketch Adam Hyler are the physical symbols of the
Monmoouth County Friends of Clearwater (MCFC). The Rainbow Race, named for Pete
Seeger's song, is a 39 foot Sprit-rigged sloop of
the Chesapeake Shipjack design. The Rainbow Race
was originally designed to dredge for clams and
oysters and plied the Raritan and Sandy Hook Bays
out of Belford, NJ. Built in 1952, it is one of
the last examples of her type ever built. The
Adam Hyler is a 27 foot flat-bottomed,
Sprit-rigged ketch. Adam Hyler is of the
Tuckerton Garvy design that predates the
Revolutionary War and was used for clam dredging.
MCFC is a non-profit,
grassroots environmental group, fully run and
staffed by volunteers dedicated to a cleaner
environment. Since 1974, MCFC has been actively
preventing and controling water pollution in and
around the Raritan Bay and the New Jersey coast.
Its record of successes against pollution and
polluters has become a model for other
environmental groups. Its current campaign is to
stop the dumping of untreated toxic harbor dredge
materials off the Jersey coast and to find safe
alternatives that both protect the environment
and its economy.
With over 200 members, MCFC has
diverse and dedicated resources that are
channeled into 17 active committees including the
boat, environmental education, environmental
action, festival, and house committees. Our
programs include clean-ups, environmental
watches, political action, and education
programs. While modeled after Clearwater's Classroom
of the Waves, MCFC has adapted the concept to
create the Traveling Environmental Festival
(TEF). TEF brings the hands-on shipboard
stations to the classroom and youth organizations
at a fraction of the cost of the shipboard
experience thereby enabling MCFC to reach a
broader audience all year round. In the sailing
season, the TEF augments the limited size of our
boats at bay and riversides. This year 2000 marks
the MCFC's 25th anniversary of its
Sandy Hook Clearwater Festival on August 19-20,
the largest in NJ. It is the aim of MCFC that
each member in their own way touch the people
immediately surrounding them and in their
community, and by word or deed convey the
importance of conservation and reparation of the
earth.
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Schooner
Sultana(USA)
The Schooner Sultana Project is
an undertaking of Chester River Craft and Art,
Inc., a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization based
in Chestertown, MD. The mission of the Sultana
Project is to provide unique, hands-on
educational opportunities for children and adults
that focus on the history and natural environment
of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed.
The principal classroom for the
Sultana Project will be a full sized reproduction
of the 1767 schooner, SULTANA. SULTANA's
reproduction is currently under construction at
the Sultana Shipyard in Chestertown, MD and is
scheduled to be launched and operational in the
summer of 2001.
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Brigantine
Black Pearl(USA)
The Black Pearl is a wooden,
50-foot Brigantine built in 1948 by Lincoln
Vaughn, a Newport, R.I. shipbuilder for use as
his personal yacht. Vaughn sold The Black Pearl
in 1958 to Barclay Warburton III, a wealthy
Newport man, who helped promote the South Street
Seaport Museum in New York City, by anchoring The
Black Pearl at the museums pier in the
early 1970s for sea music festivals.
Warburton sailed The Black
Pearl to the Caribbean many times and to Europe
for the first TransAtlantic OpSail race. In 1974,
Warburton organized the American Sail Training
Association and The Black Pearl became its
flagship. Upon Warburtons death, The Black
Pearl was willed to the organization.
After several different owners,
The Black Pearl was purchased by the Aquaculture
Foundation in 1993.
Since her purchase, The Black
Pearl has been used for sail training programs
with students at the Bridgeport Regional
Aquaculture School, a regional high school
devoted to teaching marine science, environmental
awareness and marine trades via hands-on learning
techniques.
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Schooner
Inland Seas(USA)
Inland Seas
Education Association (ISEA) is a non-profit
organization whose mission is to provide a
floating classroom where people of all ages can
gain first-hand training and experience in the
Great Lakes ecosystem. The knowledge gained
through these experiences will provide the
leadership, understanding and commitment needed
for the long-term stewardship of the Great Lakes.
ISEA was established in 1989 to provide aquatic
science, environmental awareness and sail
training classes for learners of all ages.
Classes are conducted aboard tall ships to
complement traditional classroom studies in
ecology, history, geography, geology, biology,
chemistry and meteorology. Students learn through
hands on experiences.
Over 30,000 students have already participated in
ISEA's shipboard programs, which are taught by
one-hundred-fifty trained volunteer instructors
and ISEA's professional staff. Members and
friends support ISEA's mission of Great Lakes
education with financial contributions and by
volunteering as instructors, organizers,
fund-raisers and office helpers.
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Denis
Sullivan(USA)
It
is a truly unique educational initiative, a
project that has built a community of learning
that cuts across all boundaries, and a platform
that works to reacquaint people with one of their
most important natural resources, the Great
Lakes.
Learn
all about our newly built Floating Classroom, a
traditional Great Lakes schooner, the S/V Denis
Sullivan - its construction, specifications, and
plans for the coming year. This site is packed
with information about our diverse catalog of
educational opportunities for learners of all
ages, from learning expeditions for youth, to
Field Learning on Lake Michigan for education
professionals, and Volunteer Crew Training for
those who really want to get their feet wet! Be
sure to check out our Special Events page for
information about the coming Commissioning of the
S/V Denis Sullivan, and the Lakefront Plans
section outlining the exciting development of the
second phase of this project - a new interpretive
education and tourism center on our site on
downtown Milwaukee's lakefront, and plans for the
reconfiguration of the North Harbor Track.
We
are still looking for a few good hands! If you're
a skilled woodworker, boat builder, or
able-bodied sailor, and would like to learn about
job opportunities at WLSEA, please contact us at:
500 N. Harbor Dr. Milwaukee, WI 53202
414-276-7700
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