The South Street Seaport Museum is offering FREE tickets to tour the 1885-built windjammer Wavertree on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through October 2021, with timed entry, from 11am-5pm at Pier 16 on Manhattan’s East River, (Fulton and South Streets).
From the Seaport Museum’s website:
Visits will be self-guided along a set route and will include access to the main deck and quarter deck. Learn how people worked and lived aboard a 19th-century cargo sailing vessel, from the captain to the ship’s officers, cooks, and crew. Then visit the cargo hold and stand atop the viewing platform where you can take in the massive main cargo area.
The Museum will allow no more than 150 guests onboard the ship at any time to encourage social distancing from different households.
All guests above the age of 2 will be required to wear a face-covering at all times aboard Wavertree and at the Museum’s pop-up gift shop.
Additional activities for Wavertree Open Days, such as 19th-century printing demonstrations, tours of the 1908 lightship Ambrose, and sailing excursions, will be announced throughout the summer.
Click here to book your visit.
In 2016, the 1885 windjammer Wavertree returned home to New York’s South Street Seaport after a $13 million, sixteen-month restoration in Caddell Drydock in Staten Island. She was escorted home by the 1885 schooner Pioneer, the 1893 schooner Lettie G Howard and the 1931 fireboat John J. Harvey.
The Wavertree, a full-rigged iron-hulled windjammer, has been a museum ship in at New York’s South Street Seaport Museum since 1969. She is one of the largest iron-hulled sailing ships afloat. Wavertree was built at Southampton, England in 1885 for R.W. Leyland & Company of Liverpool.
Here is a short video of her return to the seaport.
She is a large ship, making the 100 foot schooners look tiny. I crewed on the Pioneer – anytime anyone can crew on a schooner or tall ship please do it as it is a phenomenal experience. My wife and I were married on the Peking.
The positioning of the name on the bow concerns (almost offends) me, also the lack of a figurehead.