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ISEA Receives Donation of Classic Friendship Sloop |
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31' Replica of 1880 Workboat to be put in Service to extend ISEA Educational Programs Classic Vessel is the Gift of David Shelby of Gills Pier and Chicago There is a new boat in Suttons Bay, a classic Friendship Sloop, the gift of David Shelby of Northport and Chicago to the Inland Seas Education Association. The 31' vessel is 43' overall including the bowsprit, with a fiberglass hull built by Jarvis Newman in 1975 and spars of Douglas fir. The hull lines were taken from a 1905 Dictator Friendship Sloop. The boat was completed and launched in Maine in 1980 where it was sailed until 2000. Liberty was moved to Chicago in 2001. ISEA to Launch New Sloop Program to Supplement Great Lakes Schoolship Inland Seas Summer of 2005 The Friendship Sloop "Liberty" will be used to launch a new season of educational programs in the spring of 2005. These programs will supplement the award-winning Great Lakes Schoolship Program now completing its 16th season aboard the schooner Inland Seas sailing out of Suttons Bay and the chartered Manitou out of Traverse City. Programs aboard Liberty will include a variety of Great Lakes science programs, sail-training programs, sailing and cultural programs. Historic Origins The Friendship Sloop was developed around 1880 for fishing and lobstering on Muscongus Bay on the Maine coast. These sloops varied in length from 21' to 50'. The basic design was scaled up or down depending on length and followed a pre-set formula. All of the Friendship Sloops had an elliptical stern, and most of them a clipper bow with a long bowsprit. They were all gaff rigged. Many of the men who built these boats went into the woods to cut their own wood and hauled it to the sawmill with horses. Their wives were put to work making the sails with a treadle sewing machine. Some sloops were dragged on to the ice in the spring and left to float when the ice melted. Others were hauled to the water by oxen. Thus it was before the turn of the century one could see Friendship Sloops all over Muscongus Bay engaged in seining for herring, hand lining for cod, sword fishing, mackereling, and lobstering. The advent of motors and modern equipment around 1915 almost relegated this great craft to extinction, but her fine lines, her seaworthiness, and her great record have added "yachting" to her long list of uses. The Friendship Sloop "Liberty" is the same classic design as her wooden predecessors. She will be laid up for the winter at the Inland Seas Education Center in Suttons Bay and will be launched into service as part of Inland Seas' educational mission in the spring of 2005. posted 09/21/2004 Site Map |
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 Inland Seas Education Association 100 Dame Street • Suttons Bay, MI 49682 (231) 271-3077 • Fax: (231) 271-3088 email: isea@greatlakeseducation.org • web: www.greatlakeseducation.org |