Historically Accurate Wooden Sailing Ships/Replicas

[Mission]

I thought it would be nice to have a collected list of historically accurate wooden ships and their websites for reference purposes. I am thinking of historically accurate ships here, not partially historically accurate ships (for example, those with motors and such that travel to festivals.) I am also not talking about museums that are about ships, unless they are a part of the ship itself like the Vasa museum.

I'm focusing on ships you can actually tour and see inside the whole of the ship, set up as it might have been during its actual sailing days. I restricted the list to ships from 1600 - 1750. The early 17th century ships are a stretch, but I've not been real lucky finding stuff for our period. (Jennie Gist suggested some of these to me.)

Adventure II - Ketch - Late 17th (1670) - Charles Town Landing, SC, US (Note: original website gone, may no longer exist)

Batavia - East Indies Merchant - 650 Tons - Early 17th century (1628) - Lelystad, Netherlands

Dufyken - Barque - Early 17th century (1606) - Freemantle, Australia (Note: original website gone, may no longer exist)

Half Moon - Dutch Vlieboot (like a Carrack) - Early 17th Century (1608) - Based out of Albany, NY, US (Note original website shows an image of the boat, but no info. Half Moon)

Jamestown Settlement Ships - Susan Constant - 120 Tons (1605), Godspeed - 40 Tons (1605), Discovery - 20 Tons (1602) - Williamsburg, VA, US

Kalmar Nyckel - Pinnace- 300 Tons - Early 17th Century (1625) - Based out of Wilmington, DE, US

Maryland Dove - Trading Ship - 40 Tons - Late 17th Century - Historic St. Mary's City, MD, US

Mayflower II - Merchant Ship - 242 Tons - Early 17th century (1607) - Plymouth, MA, US

Vasa - Galleon Warship - 1210 Tons - Early 17th Century (1627 or 😎 - Stockhold, Sweden

Feel free to suggest additions, although if you do, please include the name, time period, city where the ship/museum is located and website to make this list more useful. (Also nice are the type of ship or at least the tons burthen.)

[Brit.Privateer]

First, an addition. The 1670 Ketch, Adventure II at Charles Town Landing Historical Site

http://www.friendsofcharlestownelanding.org/attractions/living-history/adventure-ketch

Now, for the ones already on the list. Two things you might want to concern yourself -

The Amsterdam. It isn't accurately built (it's more of a floating attraction that gives the appearance of a period ship, but can't sail and isn't proportionally accurate). It was more of a response to the Batavia reproduction, trying to sponge off that ship's success.

The Vasa. You can't "tour and see inside the whole of the ship, set up as it might have been during its actual sailing days." It's just there, and you can walk around it and look down on it, that's it. I know this since a good dozen people I know at East Carolina University (archaeologists in the Maritime Studies department) have worked on the Vasa for computer scanning points on the ship (so that 3-D modelling can be used to study the ship historically and from a preservation perspective). They say people ask to get on all the time and tried to sneak on when they go onboard for work. One tried jumping from the higher balcony onto the thing. You have to be something of a overwhelmingly huge donor, top top leader in the world to get on there, working with the archaeology people, or documentary team to get on her. It's the same situation with the Mary Rose in England.

Also, the 7 Provinces isn't completed yet, I don't know if that plays into anything for this list.

Edited July 15, 2013 by Brit.Privateer

[Coastie04]

How about the Half Moon? I haven't been onboard personally, so I'm not sure about the level of accuracy (though all replicas that I know of that actually sail are equipped with an engine and some other modern safety devices-the sinking of the Pride of Baltimore really helped convince people that sometimes replicas could be too accurate). She's a replica of a Dutch East India Company ship from around 1600 (major voyage was in 1609).

[Coastie04]

A couple more that came to mind as I was thinking about it:

Kalmar Nyckel (1638) Swedish colonizing ship which made 24 round trip voyages to the New World.

El Galeón (16th Century) Spanish galleon of 495 tons. Supposedly an authentic replica of a galleon of Spain's West Indies fleet. I don't know much about this ship and how accurate she might be, but she looks nice in some of the pictures I googled (at least on the outside). I wasn't able to find a homepage for the ship, unfortunately.

[Mission]

Thanks for the suggestions! I removed the Amsterdam and added the Adventure II, Half Moon and Kalmar Nyckel. I did some research and El Galeon is actually called the El Galeon Andalusia and is based out of Seville. Very neat. So I added that too.

The Vasa will always be on the list because it is one of the few ships which has royalty-free photos of an orlop deck on-line. (Perhaps I am just giving in to sentiment here.)

To be most honest, I was putting this list together for myself as a reference to find images for my surgeon's articles on Wiki Commons - which sports searchable, usually royalty free images. I thought it might be of interest and use to others, so I posted it. (I am a big fan of sharing information as you may have noticed.)

The reasoning here... Wiki Commons is pretty well organized (and gets better all the time), but sometimes people name things incorrectly and the search function doesn't turn up what you're looking for. (Like orlop decks for example.) In these cases, it's best to have other things to search for such as period accurate sailing ship's names.

[Swashbuckler 1700]

Well I see if I can be helpful at all.

Some replicas of ship of the first half of the 18th century

I am not sure how accurate replicas these are though and I don't know their official sites so it is just Wiki

For replicas these are in Europe but I think you can visit them at least technically...

Shtandart a replica of Russian ship of 1703 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtandart_(frigate)

Götheborg a ship replica of 1745 Swedish East-Indiamanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6theborg_(ship)

Edited July 16, 2013 by Swashbuckler 1700

[Commodore Swab]

El Galeon is actually a steel vessel that has had planks added to the exterior of the steel hull.

[Swashbuckler 1700]

Well I see if I can be helpful at all.

Some replicas of ship of the first half of the 18th century

I am not sure how accurate replicas these are though and I don't know their official sites so it is just Wiki

For replicas these are in Europe but I think you can visit them at least technically...

Shtandart a replica of Russian ship of 1703 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtandart_(frigate)

Götheborg a ship replica of 1745 Swedish East-Indiamanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6theborg_(ship)

oh Well... it seems that Götheborg is not really good

"While the exterior remains true to the original, the interior is highly modern. The ship has an electrical system, and propellers powered bydiesel engines. The engines are however only intended for port navigation and in emergency situations."

[Mission]

Oh, that's too bad about the Galeon. I will remove it. Just for the record, here is the entry as it originally appeared in my list for those interested in it.

El Galeón Andalucia - Spanish Galleon - 495 tons - 17/18th Century - Nao Victoria Foundation, based out of Seville, Spain

Thanks for the input, but I actually looked at the Shtandart and Götheborg when I started this and they're both completely modern inside. This is why I was originally focusing more on ships and reproduction ships that served as museums. It appears to be extraordinarily challenging to make a traveling ship authentic inside for reasons of both comfort to a modern crew and regulations. In fact, it was the reason I originally left the Kalmar Nyckel and Half Moon off the list - after seeing too many traveling ships that were modern inside I decided most of them probably wouldn't fit my criteria and stopped including them. Although the Nyckel and Moon do appear to be mostly PC inside. (Unless I missed something, which I may have.)

This is definitely not a complete list of reproduction ships from the period I identified. That would be redoing work that has already been done, because you can find most of them on wikipedia in the Ship replica entry. You can also find a list of historical ships in the Museum ship entry, although there are obviously not a lot of them from the 17th and early 18th centuries.

[Coastie04]

Well, if you keep the Wasa, then what about Mary Rose (1510-1545)? I know she's before the time period (only 55 years by the time she sank), but knowing earlier forms of ship organization and construction might help to understand the time period you're looking at. Organization of ships seems to have changed slowly during this time period, only radically changing once the ships themselves changed substantially with the advent of steam, iron and radio. In fact, if you ever tour the HMS Victory (1765-1812) and HMS Warrior(1859-1883),both at the same museum as Mary Rose, it's remarkable to see that even with radically different technology for the ships themselves, the crew accommodations and lifestyle remained relatively unchanged over those hundred years. Of course, the HMS Warrior represents the tipping point of that organizational change that I mentioned earlier, but even that change was somewhat slow to come about until the late 1800's with the advent of the dreadnought style battleships and an increasing reliance on steam power, even on sailing ships (many clipper ships and eventually the majority of large merchant vessels started using steam powered winches to assist in raising and sometimes handling sails with smaller and smaller crews).

[Jake the SeaSnake]

just had to put it here too, but it's a shame what's happening to this ship, somebody bought it without the intent of maintaining her, so she sits dry-docked and rotting http://sealionprojec...com/sealion.htm

[flagman1776]

Sloop Providence has a glass hull... hidden very well. I consider her a good replica for these modern times... I hear she has new owners.

[Jib]

What about the Royaliste? How period is that ship?

[Coastie04]

I can't believe that I didn't mention Lady Washington. She's stretching it a bit, but the original was a sloop from the 1750's, but her current rig is based on the 1780's era of the brig's history. Although a bit late, there isn't much change from a small merchant boat of the earlier 1700's.

[boogator]

was just up in st. augustine for Searls raid, and EL GALEON is docked there. we went on it and looked at a vidio of them building it.i dont remember a steel hull, i was amazed at how big the rigging was, and wondered how they rigged the original ships without a crane. was the best replica i have seen. 2 of columbuses ships were in town acouple weeks ago, they are not nearly as accurate looking as the EL GALEON. hoping to set sail next week on my ship the PON-TIKI and sack and pillage the coast here, and drink a lot of rum and more rum.,much lime to keep away the scurvy.........some of my crew have already jumped ship...

[flagman1776]

I know the desire for wooden ships but in this age, I'm willing to have modern hull materials to have a vessel which is sustainable over time. I am turned off by the degree of modern deckhouses. Maybe I'll feel differently when completed...

www.ohpri.org Ship under construction Oliver Hazard Perry...

Edited June 26, 2014 by flagman1776

[BCarp]

Here's a roster of some 17th-19th C. craft operating in the eastern US:

http://www.privateermedia.com/Boats/boats.htm

They are available for hire for festivals, reenactment events, film projects, school demos, etc.