By James Heinz
The Discovery World museum on Milwaukee’s lakefront once had its own floating replica of a Great Lakes schooner. Launched in 2000, the ship was named the DENIS SULLIVAN after the longest serving captain on the Great Lakes. In 2022, the DENIS SULLIVAN was sold to a marine education foundation in Boston and departed the Great Lakes.
Discovery World also owns another replica Great Lakes schooner that they will never get rid of:
They built the building around it.
The ship Discovery World chose to replicate was the two masted schooner CHALLENGE, built in 1857 at Manitowoc, Wis., by William Bates.
WMHS member Chris Winters was once the official photographer for Discovery World. He gave me photos of the replica being built. Instead of being constructed in one piece, the replica was built in place while the building was being constructed around it in 2006.
Chris told me that the timbers for the hull were placed in a steam box to make them flexible enough to bend. However, that flexibility only lasts 20 minutes so the carpenters had to move fast to install them.
The current replica is 85% the size of the real ship. When it was first built, it included a number of fittings that could be moved by visitors. Discovery World designers had failed to anticipate how these fittings would fare when confronted with the most destructive force in the universe:
Small children.
Chris told me that at first the boom on one of the masts could be raised and lowered slowly until a small boy figured out how to disengage the safety mechanism and caused the boom to come crashing down very suddenly. Another time a little girl got her fingers stuck in a mechanism that no one thought anyone could get their fingers stuck in.
What at first I thought were historically inaccurate boarding nets turned out to be nets rigged to prevent small children from jumping off the sides of the ship. When I visited Discovery World recently, there was an employee stationed on the replica just to make sure that small children descended the ladder into the forward hold safely.
Today when you go to Discovery World you can have 85% of the experience of being on a Great Lakes schooner that will never sail. The story of the real CHALLENGE will follow shortly. Stay tuned to this channel.
Photos courtesy of Chris Winters.
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James Heinz is the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society’s acquisitions director. He became interested in maritime history as a kid watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures on TV. He was a Great Lakes wreck diver until three episodes of the bends forced him to retire from diving. He was a University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee police officer for thirty years. He regularly flies either a Cessna 152 or 172.
