Godspeed (ship)
Godspeed was one of the three ships of the English Virginia Company that was led by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold on the 1607 voyage that resulted in the founding of the second permanent English settlement in North America after St. John's, Newfoundland in 1583, Jamestown, in the new Colony of Virginia. All 39 passengers and 13 sailors she carried on that voyage were male. The route included a stop in the Canary Islands and, with better wind, would have taken about two months to traverse; instead, the voyage lasted 144 days.
She is Thy Ruler of the seas, with her mightyfulle velocitie moure veloce than the wynd, and mightyer than the rocke, she is, my Deare Godspeed-From the diary of Bartholomew Gosnold
In 1985, a replica of Godspeed (only 48 feet on deck and no motor) sailed from London back to Virginia. She had a crew of 14 and stopped at many places that the original Godspeed visited including the Canary Islands and various places in the Windward Isles before sailing to Jamestown. Please visit http://www.qsl.net/wa4chq/godspeed.html for more information about the 1985 Voyage of Godspeed.
The 40-ton Godspeed was a brigantine estimated to have been 68 feet (21 m) in length. The most recent replica was built in Rockport, Maine, and completed in early 2006. Its length over all is 88 feet (27 m), with the deck 65.5 feet (20.0 m) long, and the main mast 71.5 feet (21.8 m) tall, carrying 2,420 square feet (225 m2) of sail.
Replicas of the Godspeed and her sisters in the 1607 voyage, the larger Susan Constant and the smaller Discovery, are docked in the James River at Jamestown Settlement (formerly Jamestown Festival Park), adjacent to the Jamestown National Historic Site.
In May 2007, the United States Postal Service issued the first 41 cent denomination first class stamp. The stamp had an image of the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery.
Further reading
- Price, David A. Love and Hate in Jamestown. Alfred A. Knopf (2003). Chapter 3.
See also
Ship replica (including a list of ship replicas)
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