Ambassador ship to be celebrated Saturday in N.C.

MANTEO

The captain of the Elizabeth II had just flown to Raleigh and back for a meeting and was circling Manteo before landing. From the air, he caught sight of the vessel he was about to help launch the next morning.

"The ship was shining, flags were flying, and everything was ready to go," Horace Whitfield recalled. "It was alive and vibrant. That was exactly the spirit of what it was about."

It was 25 years ago that the 16th-century representative sailing ship was christened before it slipped into the water at Shallowbag Bay to cheering crowds as it began its role as an ambassador for the Outer Banks and North Carolina.

Festivities to mark the occasion will be held Saturday at the waterfront in Manteo, the vessel's homeport. The state-owned attraction is moored at Roanoke Island Festival Park, which opened 14 years after the ship's arrival.

The three-masted, six-sailed vessel is a reproduction of the merchant ship that Sir Thomas Cavendish sailed from England during the 1584-87 Roanoke Voyages, when many English vessels journeyed to the Outer Banks. The 69-foot ship serves as a hands-on museum where visitors are told stories of Elizabethan sailing life by authentically garbed interpreters.

Whitfield was involved as a volunteer practically from the conception of the Elizabeth II, which was constructed at the behest of then-Gov. Jim Hunt to commemorate the 1585 sailing expedition that included the Elizabeth.

When he was offered the job as captain, Whitfield jumped at the opportunity. "For a young man who's 30 years old, whose... best dream was to be a good boat builder and sailor," he said, "it was pretty heady stuff."

Launch day was not exactly smooth. Shortly after Carolyn Hunt, the governor's wife, christened the Elizabeth II, it began its slide down the shipway and got stuck, albeit briefly.

That was the least of Whitfield's challenges. "The biggest problem for me was there was water gushing in down below," he recalled. "The keel was an old telephone pole, and the wood was dry." The problem was solved by putting sawdust on the outside so it was sucked into the crack, sealing it.

Things were even more dramatic during the ship's first voyage, on Sept. 19, 1985, he said. As a hurricane passed, Whitfield stayed on a tugboat and kept an eye on the ship.

"We almost got taken out by an Army landing craft that night," he said. "We were the first vessel back in Beaufort. Gov. Martin caught our bow lines. He handed us a dozen roses with a card that said, 'Congratulations on your good seamanship.' "

After Whitfield left the post in 1987, Bill Rea took over as captain. When Rea left in 1997, Whitfield was persuaded to come back. He left again in 2004, handing the helm to the current captain, Robbie Putnam.

The ship was built for $670,000, and a team led by Maine boat builder O. Lie-Nielsen constructed it, working off the designs of 1585 vessels.

In a March 2000 interview, Lie-Nielsen said that building the 50-ton Elizabeth II - which took 400 days - was the highlight of his long career. "It's very exacting to design a vessel as complicated as that," he said. "I had a ball. It was different, and I had a good crew."

Lie-Nielsen, then 91, also led the team when the ship underwent a $400,000 restoration in 1999-2000. He has since died.

Tanya Young, a spokeswoman at Roanoke Island Festival Park, said the colorful Elizabeth II, docked prominently on the edge of Dough's Creek, is a big draw to visitors and a work of pride to residents.

"Definitely," she said, "the ship continues to be our star attraction at the park."

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, cate.kozak@pilotonline.com