Why build a tall ship from scratch at the beginning of the twenty-first century?
A full-rigged, ocean-going ship hasn’t been attempted in the United States since 1904. SSV Oliver Hazard Perry, now in its final stages of construction at Senesco Marine just north of her future homeport of Newport, RI, is exactly that: a 500-ton, three-masted vessel, with square sails on all three masts, the tallest being 130 feet over the water. She takes her name from the Rhode Island-born hero of the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812, whose pivotal victory was achieved beneath a flag emblazed with the words “Don’t Give Up the Ship!”
