The News, Culture and Practice of Sailing woodenboats
in Australia, New Zealand & The South Pacific.
Kangaroo Island volunteers' 'mad dream' to rebuild 19th-century US sailing ship
The original INDEPENDENCE was built in only five months by the ship's carpenter and some of the crew of a larger boat, the Union. The Union's captain Isaac Pendleton had learned from French explorer Nicholas Baudin of the existence of a large island, south of the South Australian mainland, where seals and other wildlife were plentiful.
an American schooner on Kangaroo Island
Now, 216 years later, the INDEPENDENCE is again taking shape on the shores of American River and the men involved have had to use as much craftsmanship and ingenuity as the crew of the Union to get it done.
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