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 organization’s 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 Ernestina’s mission today extends from the vessel’s 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, "Sojourner’s" 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 25^th 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 museum’s 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 Warburton’s 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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