Resurrecting the SULTANA When the Sultana sets sail in Chestertown some 200 years after her birth, two men can start living in the present again.
Like most grand projects, this one was born on the tiniest fleck of inspiration. A boat carpenter from the Eastern Shore named John Swain was in Europe when he found a rare Dutch compendium of American colonial ships, and the plans for one called Sultana stuck with him. The Sultana, with its smooth lines and 68-foot spars, looked more majestic than the other vessels in the book. She was small, too, only about 97 feet from stern to bow. A ship, Swain thought, that looked buildable. That was in 1995. Two years later the Echo Hill Outdoor School hired Swain to rebuild two classic Chesapeake Bay ships, a skipjack and a buyboat. The project manager was a young guy with a captain's license named Drew McMullen, who had recently dropped out of the New York financial scene to head up Echo Hill's nautical arm. It took about two years to rebuild the Ellsworth and the Annie D. McMullen and Swain were a team: McMullen kept the books, raised the funds, and made sure their antique vessels met modern Coast Guard guidelines; Swain rebuilt the boats.	One day in January 1997 at Echo Hill, McMullen and Swain were wrestling the Annie D's transom back on. The rain was falling hard and cold. The thermometer registered 33 degrees, and the shipyard's ground was mud and slop. A miserable day to build a boat. But McMullen wasn't long for Echo Hill, anyway. In a few months he would be making a fresh start professionally, for the third time, pursuing a master's degree in maritime history at the University of South Carolina. He hoped to write some scholarly books on Chesapeake vessels, or become curator of a nautical museum. Either way, the Echo Hill life of building boats and teaching under sail would be far behind him. Then Swain brought out his colonial ships book, and pointed to the Sultana drawing. "I think this would be a nice ship to build in Chestertown," Swain said. "I'd like you to help me do it." McMullen dismissed the idea, at least for him. "I wasn't as courageous as John was that first week," McMullen recalled. But Swain was patiently persistent. A week later, McMullen was at his computer, hammering out a mission statement for the Sultana with Swain. Then a budget. Then a plan. McMullen, currently director of the Sultana Project, is one of the effort's few paid staffers. He scrapped his master's for a chance at resurrecting a chunk of maritime history himself.
by Douglas Hanks III Photographs by Gibson B. Anthony