Monday, October 27, 2008

The Adventure Has Arrived

The Adventure is the new ship has landed at Charles Towne Landing. The SC State Park website shares this information about the ship.

The Adventure is a 73-foot representation of a 17th-century trading ketch was built at Rockport Marine in Maine and, like its predecessor of the same name, will be used as an educational and interpretive exhibit at Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site. The new Adventure fills the spot left vacant by the original Adventure when it was claimed by the elements after more than 30 years docked at the spot where the first permanent English settlement in the Carolinas was established in 1670. That ship was built as an original attraction at Charles Towne Landing when the park first opened as part of the state’s tri-centennial celebration in 1970. The builders of the second ship also followed the original plans by William Avery Baker, a Colonial ship expert whose credits also included the Mayflower II.


The new Adventure is expected to take about a month to reach its final destination in the marsh-lined creek off Albemarle Point where South Carolina as we know it today was born. There it will be a floating classroom, helping to tell the story of how English settlers, Native Americans and enslaved Africans used land and sea to build the plantation economy of the American South. A welcoming celebration for the ship will be held once it’s in place and secured for visitors to board, tentatively in early November, depending on the weather during the trip. The arrival of the new Adventure culminates the rebuilding process of Charles Towne Landing, a multi-year effort that also has resulted in a new visitors center and museum, replica working cannon embrasures and indentured servants quarters, ongoing archaeology digs and displays, and an interpretive history walking trail.
Adventure Fast Facts:
Length – 50 feet on deck, 73 feet from bowsprit to furthest point, 40 feet on the keel.
Weight – 50 tons. (The anchor weighs 350 pounds.)
Height – The mast, with an extension, measures 53 feet from the hull, 43 feet of that above the deck. (The ship is taller than it is wide.)
Construction – Cedar, pine and oak. The boat took nine months to build.
Masts, sails – Two masts from the desk (main and mizzen), top mast attached to the top of the mainmast, and the bowsprit (which leans horizontally out over the front of the boat.) There are five sails: main, lateen, top, stay and jib.
Diesel Engine – To meet modern requirements, the Adventure is equipped with a 180-horsepower Volvo diesel engine.
Builders – Rockport Marine, an internationally known wooden ship boatyard on Rockport Harbor in Maine. Its work includes the Godspeed II now at Jamestown in Virginia. (
www.rockportmarine.com)
Time, Cost – The boat took nine months to build. The cost is $1.4 million, funded by state appropriation.

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