Video: Spirit Leaves With A Block Of Limestone
The Spirit of Bermuda — and a number of local students and a block of Bermuda limestone — have departed the island for a special learning voyage focusing on Mary Prince, which will sail to the Turks & Caicos as the students receive lessons from Bermudian historian Dr. Theodore Francis.
A spokesperson explained that the Spirit is delivering a block of Bermuda limestone to Turks and Caicos “as a part reenactment of history” and the video below shows a small snippet of the crew loading it aboard.
It “was exported to the Caribbean [eg Grand Turk, et al] and US Mid-Atlantic [e.g. Norfolk VA, Charleston SC],” a Sloop spokesperson said.
“Sloops would carry hundreds of block [each large one shown weighing 87-90 lbs] on the outgoing voyage acting as ballast to stabilise the ship until loaded with salt etc. and earning revenue.”
Dr. Francis — a Bermudian who is the Associate Professor of History at Huston–Tillotson University in Austin, Texas — previously told Bernews, “Over the next two weeks, I’ll be sharing with students as we travel from Bermuda to Turks & Caicos, Mary Prince’s history of resistance against enslavement, the ways in which Bermuda was a pioneer in the making of enslavement, not just simply here on this island colony, but also in the wider Atlantic world.”
Dr Francis added, “In the Wake of Mary Prince is an opportunity not just to explore a book, hopefully we can do that through the library, but it’s also an opportunity to be embedded in a context of sailing training on the Spirit of Bermuda sloop so that students can learn about the actual skillsets, as well as the courage it took to brave the Atlantic, to move to new places, but also some of the legacies of the more problematic aspects of maritime trade and Bermuda’s history of maritime trade.”
Great experience for the youth. What is the current price of the two blocks of limestone here in Bermuda?