Spirit Of Bermuda

Story

The purpose-built sail training vessel is based on civilian Bermudian-type schooners built 1810-1840. Bermudians, enslaved and free, built the schooners in the period spanning the Emancipation of Slavery in the British Empire (Aug 1st, 1834). The original hull shape were adapted from the Bermuda-built RN “Shamrock” class, fast dispatch / patrol vessels that ran from the RN Dockyard, Bermuda, northwest to Halifax and Southwest to Jamaica to contain the rebel colonies. Noteworthy is the Bermuda rig that was innovated on the coastal Bermuda sloops that abounded in the 17th, 18th and early part of the 19th century; faced with impassable pathways by land, locals had evolved the lateen rig to short-tack up(wind) the island and up to the fishing banks to windward of Bermuda.