Jamestown Settlement’s Godspeed will be docked at the City of Alexandria Marina near the Torpedo Factory Art Center on October 12-16. The replica ship will be open for public tours as part of the Portside in Old Town Festival from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, October 12, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, October 13, and from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, October 14. Guests will be able to board the ship for free, but entry is first-come, first-served.
Godspeed, under Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, was one of the three ships (along with Susan Constant and Discovery) on the 1606-1607 voyage to the New World for the English Virginia Company of London. The journey resulted in the founding of Jamestown in the new Colony of Virginia.
The 40-ton Godspeed was a fully rigged ship estimated to have been 68 feet (21 m) in length.
As part of the original fleet to Virginia, leaving on December 20, 1606, she carried 39 passengers, all male, and 13 sailors. The route included a stop in the Canary Islands and Puerto Rico and, with better wind, would have taken about two months to traverse; instead, the voyage lasted 144 days. On June 22, 1607, Newport sailed back for London with Susan Constant and Godspeed carrying a load of supposedly precious minerals, leaving behind the 104 colonists and Discovery (to be used in exploring the area).
