At the Essex Shipbuilding Museum, in Essex, Massachusetts, the keel of the replica of the 1812 privateer, Fame, was laid on Labor Day, September 2. Festivities began at 11 a.m. at the Essex Shipbuilding Museum’s Waterline
Center, located off Route 133 in downtown Essex, at the west end of the
Causeway. Those who attended had a tour of the H.A. Burnham Shipyard and an opportunity to sign the keel, which is made of white oak and contains a 15,000-pound lead casting to deliver the stability required of small passenger vessels by the U.S. Coast Guard. The keel was cast by the Mars Metal Company of Ontario, Canada. For more information about this project, log on to its website, www.schoonerfame.com. Visitors to the site can follow the progress of her construction, learn more about the history of Fame, and check out our plans to sail her from Salem’s Pickering Wharf beginning on Memorial Day 2003. To contact the building project, e-mail it at schoonerfame@aol.com
