ROCKLAND — With the distinctive rake of the masts, the replica Baltimore clipper ship Amistad is in Rockland Harbor through the weekend and open to visitors who want to climb aboard to learn more about the vessel, whose illustrious namesake is intricately tied to the abolitionist movement.

“We sailed down from Shelburne and Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and are on our way to Mystic Seaport and New London, Conn.,” said Second Mate Jesse Doucette, of Nova Scotia, on a sunny Thursday evening, May 29.

The boat had been sailing through the Gulf of Maine, and detoured to Rockland, where it anchored for the night. Thursday morning, May 29, Capt. Patrick Flynn and his crew of 11 were invited by Rockland Harbormaster Ed Glaser to move closer to land, tie up at the Public Landing, hook into electricity and visit the city.

The Amistad crew took him up on the offer, and will be at the float until early next week. Crew members are opening the Amistad to visitors this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, from 1 to 4 p.m.

The Amistad is a replica of the original La Amistad, built in the 1800s in the United States. Originally named Friendship, a Spaniard purchased the cargo schooner and renamed it La Amistad, and used the boat to transport slaves.

July 2, 2014, marks the 175th anniversary of the Amistad Incident, when slaves who had been captured in West Africa commandeered the schooner and ended up off the coast of Long Island, N.Y. On Aug. 26, 1839, the U.S. Navy took control of the schooner and brought it into New London, and put the slaves in prison in New Haven. Their fate became entwined in the first civil rights case argued on behalf of Africans before the U.S. Supreme Court and they were eventually freed. They were transported in 1841 back home to West Africa.

Th Amistad replica was built at Mystic Searport in 1999 and launched in 2000. It is owned by the nonprofit Amistad America Inc., whose mission is to foster unity among people of diverse racial and cultural backgrounds, and to promote the legacies of leadership, cooperation, perseverance and social justice inherent in the Amistad Incident.

According to the Amistad website, the vessel was: “built using traditional skills and traditional construction techniques common to wooden schooners built in the 19th century. Some of the tools used in the project were the same as those that might have been used by a 19th century shipwright. Tri-Coastal Marine, designers of Freedom Schooner Amistad, used modern computer technology to provide plans for the vessel, bronze bolts are used as fastenings throughout the ship, the modern Amistad has an external ballast keel made of lead and two Caterpillar diesel engines.”

The replica Amistad is 129 feet in length, with a 23-foot beam, and draws 10-feet-six inches. It is 9 feet longer than the original Amistad and has a higher freeboard.

The boat spent the winter in the Caribbean, and was featured in the television series Crossbones, which debuts Friday night, May 30.

For the past several years, the vessel has been working under the auspices of the Maine-based Ocean Classroom Foundation and was in the Dominican Republic and in Puerto Rico filming with a television production company. Crossbones is about the pirate Edward Blackbeard Teach.

This spring, in Canada, the vessel was also featured in another television production, this time with the Canadian Broadcasting Company, which was filming a series based on the Book of Negroes, about a young girl sold into slavery and the Black Loyalists who were promised freedom if they fought with the British.

For the crew aboard the Amistad, it is about the mission of telling the tale, and it is about sailing. Read about the nonprofit’s struggle to keep the vessel on course in a New Haven Register article: Amistad close to continuing voyage on freedom mission.

Doucette said he is committed to the boat, its mission, and he likes getting under sail. He was aboard schooners and tall ships in years past, then went into the merchant marine, earning a commercial license. He is back on board the Amistad and wants someday to become the vessel’s captain.

“She has a complicated rigging and can sail in most wind,” he said.

Deckhand Darius Pomeroy also joined the crew while Amistad was in Canada. He never sailed before, and wanted to learn. It’s been cold and raw sailing through the northern waters, said Doucette.

They ran into some weather crossing the Gulf of Maine, and look forward to visiting Rockland for a few days.

Editorial Director Lynda Clancy can be reached at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657.