Many tourists would sooner take a schooner

MOBILE, Ala. — As a child growing up in the north Alabama city of Sheffield, Carol Bramlett had a recurring dream about a sailboat. The boat had a name: Joshua.

She began building the boat in 1993 at a boatyard in south Mobile County. Nine and a half years later, her dream came true in the form of a 72-foot-long double-masted wooden schooner.

Bramlett sails the Joshua from its Grand Mariner homeport on Dog River, and the sight of the old-fashioned windjammer with its broad sails and tall masts is a delight to tourists and locals alike.

Bramlett says the only way she can afford the vessel is by having it work for her, so she and a crew of 10 take passengers on bay-area sailing trips.

"Anybody can charter us," Bramlett said. "Most people don't have a destination. They just want to be out on the water where it's quiet."

Schooners are uncommon sights along the Gulf Coast, according to Mike O'Brien, senior editor at WoodenBoat Publications in Brooklin, Me.

Although there are well over 100 working schooners around the United States, they are clustered regionally, with more than 50 in New England and the next-largest groupings along the California and Florida coasts, according to a Web site called www.seadragon.com/schooner. Around the South outside of Florida, "you go a long way before seeing one," said O'Brien.

Two schooners are harbored at New York City's South Street Seaport: the Lettie G. Howard, used mainly for educational purposes, and the Pioneer, which has regularly scheduled excursions in New York Harbor from mid-May to September, past the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Like the Joshua, the Pioneer is popular with tourists. South Street Seaport President Peter Neill says the fascination that 21st-century Americans have for 19th-century vessels is easy to explain.

"They're authentic," Neill says. "We live in a time when we have to fake reality, where reality is virtual, where everybody sits in their armchair and wants to be an armchair sailor, but you can actually do it in these vessels. It's exhilarating and rewarding, both as entertainment and for renewal."

Maine is home to more than two dozen schooners, 14 of which belong to the Maine Windjammer Association, which offers three- to six-day cruises, from late May to mid-October, to see wildlife, coastal islands and picturesque harbors. Most of the vessels are turn-of-the century wooden cargo schooners retrofitted to carry passengers; more than half have been designated National Historic Landmarks.