HMS Sultana - Modern Replicas

Modern Replicas

A new Sultana launched in Chestertown, Maryland in 2001 serves as an educational vessel for schoolchildren as it travels around the Chesapeake Bay. Each year there are public excursions out of Chestertown and other ports. Downrigging Weekend in Chestertown is always the first weekend in November. Replica sailing ships from all around the mid-Atlantic participate in sailing excursions and allow the public on board.

The replica vessel is not an exact reconstruction. It has a diesel auxiliary engine and otherwise conforms to Coast Guard regulations in order to carry passengers. The modern version is framed with osage orange and planked with oak; there is a lead ballast keel which the original did not have. It has only six guns, rather than the original eight. All work and can be fired. Given modern safety requirements, however, she was built following traditional methods as much as possible.

The Howard I. Chapelle drawings of Sultana, traced from the Admiralty draughts, also inspired another modern vessel, Larinda. She was junk-rigged, however, and featured whimsical details like a frog for a figurehead.