The H.M.S. Rose, the world's largest sailing wooden ship, is trolling through the Great Lakes as it marks its longest journey since being restored in a Connecticut harbor five years ago.
The 18th-century British warship replica, a 500-ton wonder with masts reaching 150 feet into the air, docked in Chicago earlier this month and is touring several Wisconsin ports along Lake Michigan before returning to Connecticut in late September.In all the ship will cover 5,000 miles, far fewer than its namesake traveled when it crossed the Atlantic to attack rebel colonies during the Revolutionary War.
"It has been a very huge success at the ports that it's been in," said Ron Sonntag, spokesman for the Milwaukee-based Festival Events Inc., which arranged the tour. "It's a huge spectacle. People don't have any idea how big it is until they get next to it."
The vessel measures 179 feet long and 14 stories tall.
Hundreds of Midwesterners flocked on Friday to watch the ship as it sailed into the harbor at Racine, Wis. The spectators were rewarded with a full 24-cannon salute.
"It's very impressive . . . It's something I never thought I'd get the chance to see. I'm bringing the children so they can see it. I don't want them to miss a wonderful vision of the past," said Susan Penn, 40, of Highland Park, Ill., who traveled north to Racine to see the ship.
The H.M.S. Rose left the Bridgeport, Conn., harbor June 20, sailing up the Atlantic Coast to the St. Lawrence Seaway. Its stops have included Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago; it arrives in Milwaukee, its last stop, Aug. 27.
The replica was built in 1970, incorporating a cannon and the keel salvaged from the wreck of the original H.M.S. Rose, built in 1757 as the British Navy's main warship. The British had scuttled the ship in the Savannah, Ga., harbor at the end of the Revolutionary War to avoid capture by the French.
But the replica was allowed to decay. Williams bought it for $70,000 in 1985 and spent $1.3 million to restore it as part of his development of a marina and restaurant.