Amistad deserves better [Record Journal]

Record Journal Editorial | http://www.myrecordjournal.com/opinion/editorials/7653123-129/amistad-deserves-better.html

FOR SALE: Freedom Schooner Amistad. Needs work.

Type: Baltimore Clipper. Launched: March 2000. Displacement: 136 tons. Length: 129’. Beam: 23’. Draft: 10.6’. Height of Masts: 100’. Sail Area: 5200 square feet. Engines: 2x CAT3304 diesel, 135hp each. Home port: New Haven. Present location: New London. Original cost: $2.5 million. Annual operating cost: $400,000. Seller: State of Connecticut.

Price: $315,000 or best offer.

As we wrote on this page just weeks ago, the Amistad is a Connecticut cultural treasure — or at least it should be. The ship is a replica of La Amistad, which was taken over by African captives who were being brought to Cuba in 1839 to be sold into slavery. They were jailed in New Haven but won their freedom in a famous legal case that ended in the U.S. Supreme Court, with the captives being defended by former President John Quincy Adams.

The ship was, and still is, a symbol of the struggle against slavery in this country, and we had hoped that its educational and cultural missions would be put on an even keel. Sadly, that was not to be, and now the state is trying to unload it.

The Freedom Schooner Amistad had been allowed to flounder for years under poor management, shoddy record-keeping and shaky finances. After the operator of the ship, Amistad America Inc., had run up debts of more than $2 million — and had lost its tax-exempt status, and had acted in ways that state Attorney General George Jepsen said were “destructive” to the ship’s educational and charitable missions — he asked that a receiver take over, and one was duly appointed.

But there was only so much the court-appointed receiver, New Haven lawyer Katharine Sacks, could do. A wooden ship is an expensive thing to maintain, in any case, and the organization behind the Amistad was a mess. Some lawmakers faulted the Department of Economic and Community Development for not managing state funds for the ship more carefully. It seems that the numbers just couldn’t be made to work.

The one potential break in the clouds is that the state has sighted a potential buyer, called Discovering Amistad Inc., and Jepsen is hopeful that it will preserve the ship’s educational mission.

“It is essential that we protect and preserve the Amistad for future generations,” state Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, said earlier in the process.

“The Amistad is an important piece of Connecticut’s history and cultural heritage,” Jepsen said last year.

We agree. But with the state unable or unwilling to operate the ship, selling it to Discovering Amistad Inc. looks like the best hope of continuing that mission. Maybe the only hope..