Five More Ships Added To OpSail 2012 Flotilla

Five more ships have agreed to take part in OpSail 2012 when the event comes to New London this summer.

The new additions bring the number of vessels participating in the event up to 13. Saverio Mancini, one of the event's organizers, said more ships are expected to join in the coming weeks and that Coast Guard and Navy ships will also be taking part.

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The ships that have joined are:

• The Freedom Schooner Amistad, a recreation of the 19th century schooner La Amistad on which a slave rebellion took place in 1839. The ship was built at the Mystic Seaport Museum's Restoration Shipyard.
• The New Horizons, a 60-foot luxury Tortola motorsailer from Boston, Mass.
• The Regulus, a 90-foot steel-hulled scallop harvester based out of Stonington.
• The Ticonderoga, a 72-foot racing yacht owned by State Senator L. Scott Frantz of Greenwich.
• The Tyrone, a 75-foot yacht based out of Chatham, Mass.

The ships will join eight more that have : the Coast Guard barque and training ship Eagle, the Brazilian naval training ship Cisne Branco, and schooners Argia and Brilliant from Mystic; Spirit from Essex; Meerwald from Jersey City, N.J.; Appledore V from Bay City, Mich.; and Wolf from Key West, Fla.

OpSail 2012, which recognizes the bicentennial of the War of 1812, will be held in conjunction with Sailfest between July 6 and 9. The parade of ships will arrive in Niantic on July 6 and sail into New London on the next day. Ships will be open for visits at Fort Trumbull, State Pier, and City Pier with shuttle buses running to the vessels.

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