SHE DID IT!
“When Warwick Charlton started his project, there were those who said that plans could not be found, but they were. Then came the statements that the ship could not be built, but she was. Lastly, having to admit that the plans had been found and the ship built, the critics said that she would not sail but she did and crossed the Atlantic, [even] weathering a fifty-knot gale with ease,” wrote the ship’s architect William Baker of his beloved creation in “The New Mayflower, Her Design and Construction.”
On June 13, 1957, he watched as 25,000 people crowded the Plymouth Harbor shoreline and cheered the wooden 180-ton 17th century cargo ship he designed, as it sat peacefully in the water.
It was a fabulous achievement thanks to Charlton’s British non-profit Project Mayflower, Australian Captain Alan Villiers sailing expertise and the Stuart Upham Shipyard in Brixham, England, that transformed tons of Devon oaks from mere timber into a maritime titan that was celebrated around the world.
Baker’s replica was now a famous ship in its own right, because it had just recreated the voyage that launched a nation.