Guest 10:07-

You make some good points about the Mystic ships, and the "plans" to rebuild the Morgan (she is badly hogged and needs a new bottom). You're obviously well informed. I do love the Amistad and she is a model of what can be done in this day and age. I do still worry about the Conrad, even if she was purposely designed as a sail training ship in the last years of the great age of sail; some of her plates down below do not look sound. The Conrad did have a working engine and the fact that she is no longer operating as a sail training ship may have more to do with a lack of vision on the part of the Mystic Seaport Board of Directors than the bottom line; when was the last time anyone at the Museum attempted to design a business plan for her maintenance and operation?

"What of the Margaret Todd, Charles? 151 feet of four-masted schooner, sailing daily out of Bar Harbor?" Good point! She looks lovely but she's really a minature 4-master. The classic 4-masters such as the pair that rotted away at Wiscasset were over 200 feet long; that piggy little town was 90 % subsidized from the property taxes related to hosting a nuclear power plant for 30 years and never spent a dime on their maintenance, or commissioned a replica. Maine shipyards still turn out smaller sailing replicas for museums and other enterprises: the revenue cutter Lynx, the Jamestown ships, and windjammer schooners by the dozen.

I don't object to modern upgrades to historic ships or commissioning replicas which include engines and other modern navigational equipment. The replica Endeavor, again in Australia, is a fine standard for other groups around the world to aspire to. I would object to "tailfins" and advertising logo on the sails which while traditional is, dare we say, tacky. Getting the museum ships sailing again should be a priority.

I wonder if the Great Britain in Bristol, UK, will ever make it out to sea again? She does look lovely.

And I'd be very excited if the C. F. Thayer were ever to sail again.

Of course I'm too ancient to do much more than lead a shanty or two to encourage the process.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble