Schooner to take part in Charleston Harbor Fest

Ahoy, Amistad

©Wojtek (Voytec) Wacowski

The schooner Amistad, a Connecticut-based replica of the 19th century La Amistad, is currently sailing from Africa and will reach the United States with a stop at Charleston Harbor Fest in May.

The city's annual maritime festival will cut a wake across the harbor this year — and bring in folks from across the Atlantic.

The schooner Amistad, a replica of the famous 19th century ship commandeered by enslaved Africans, will make its first U.S. landfall in nearly a year at Charleston Harbor Fest 2008.

The ship is on an 18-month transatlantic voyage to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the United Kingdom in 1807 and the United States the year after that.

Among other ports, the ship has been to Halifax, Nova Scotia; London; Liverpool, England; Lisbon, Portugal; and Freetown, Sierra Leone, in the last year. It will sail from Barbados to reach Charleston in time for the beginning of Harbor Fest on May 16.

"It's the first landing of our homecoming and it's the right place for studying a part of our history," says Gregory Belanger, CEO and president of Amistad America Inc., the nonprofit that owns and operates the Amistad.

Belanger said the Amistad's stop in Charleston is continuing a great voyage of linking places already historically intertwined. And that is a perfect theme for Harbor Fest, the new name for the maritime festival.

Brad Van Liew, executive director of the South Carolina Maritime Heritage Foundation, said this year the size and scope of the festival has been enlarged, adding venues at Patriots Point and starting partnerships with nearly everyone on the water.

"The idea is to make the whole Harbor Fest an annual event for everyone in the community to enjoy the harbor," Van Liew said. "We want to make it one of the staple events in the city of Charleston."

Aside from the Amistad, the research vessel Corwith Cramer and the schooner Virginia, a replica of the last pure sail pilot schooner, will join the Spirit of South Carolina for a smaller version of a tall ship program. Van Liew said the bi-annual collection of tall ships has been so popular at previous maritime festivals, the foundation decided to have a tall ship presence every year.

The year's Harbor Fest will include the return of the wooden boat-building class and pirate camp. There will be additional activities at Patriots Point and the South Carolina Aquarium, and organizers are planning a water shuttle to move people across the harbor. Plans are in the works for an air show/demonstration over the harbor.

The Amistad and the other tall ships will be available for tours, and then the Amistad will stick around Charleston — taking day trips to some barrier islands — and be on hand for the opening of a Spoleto opera based on the story of the ship and the people on it.

Reach Brian Hicks at 937-5561 or bhicks@postandcourier.com.