MYSTIC, Connecticut — The 139-ton schooner Amistad was rolled out of the Mystic Seaport in Mystic, CT yesterday in preparation for a Saturday launch. The $3.1 million project has been led by Captain Bill Pinkney, a circumnavigator of African descent. The vessel will serve as an educational vehicle to draw attention to human rights, race, and historical misconceptions. The 85-foot schooner was tilted 45 degrees using trucks and a network of cables and winches, and cleared the door by inches as a crowd applauded and cheered.
The Amistad will be the newest vessel participating in the summer-long festival of tall ships stretching from Puerto Rico up the East Coast to Maine. Major gatherings are planned in Norfolk, Baltimore, New York and Boston, among other cities, and the Amistad will also participate in OpSail in Connecticut in July.
Long before Steven Spielberg thought of filming the story of the original Amistad, Mystic Seaport was planning to re-create the ship that triggered a landmark decision in the nation's march to abolish slavery. Most of the drama was played out in Connecticut, and the state appropriated $2.5 million to help underwrite the ship's construction.
The modern-day Amistad will be some 10 feet longer than the original vessel to allow for twin auxiliary engines and watertight bulkheads. Its keel is made from purpleheart, a wood from Guyana, and the decks are African teak donated by Sierra Leone. The state of Washington furnished masts of Douglas fir, and the Amistad's frames were shaped from South Carolina live oaks toppled in Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Her 20 bunks will be covered by quilts stitched together in a project at Montgomery County Community College from fabric squares sent by quilters from all over the world.
In 1991, Pickney sailed around the world alone aboard a Valiant 47, via Brazil, South Africa, Tasmania and Cape Horn, weathering the 70-knot gales and 40-foot waves of the Southern Ocean. As near as can be determined, no African American had ever sailed that route solo. The trip took 259 days of sailing, during which he spoke by radio to Boston schoolchildren who were following his voyage. When he got back in 1992, he published a kids book about his adventure. This launched a new career as an educator and motivational speaker before he linked up with the Mystic Seaport?s plan to construct the Amistad to tell the story as a landmark of African-American history.