How about that for a bowsprit! It’s the business end of the replica of the three-masted schooner Atlantic which is currently under construction in Rotterdam at the Van der Graaf shipyard. Ed Kastelein, who built Eleonora, the Westward replica, is the man behind the project. Atlantic, built in 1903 to a William Gardner design is famous for setting the longest standing record for a transatlantic race when Charlie Barr scorched across from Sandy Hook to the Lizard in 12 days four hours and one minute to win the Kaiser’s Cup in 1905. It was a record that stood for almost 100 years and Atlantic’s American owner Wilson Marshall paid his skipper the current equivalent of US$100,000 for his efforts!

The new schooner is 227ft (69m) long from her bowsprit to the end of her overhanging mizzen boom, 185ft (56.38m) on deck and she will displace about 300 tons. She is remarkably narrow in the beam for her length – just 29ft (8.85m) and with her 18,500 square feet of sail set on three alloy masts she looks as though she’ll be a very quick vessel indeed, if a tad went on deck.

The new yacht is about to launch in Holland and will be sailed to the south of France where her interior will be completed. There will be accommodation for 12 guests and 12 crew who will undoubtedly exist is a touch more comfort than the 39-strong crew who originally sailed the yacht and lived aboard all year round, sleeping in pipecots.

Atlantic will be one of the most stunning new yachts of the century and there’s every chance she will take on Adix, a similarly sized three-masted schooner, in the modern day version of the Kaiser’s Cup this time in the 2010 Transatlantic Challenge. See the March issue of Yachting World for more details and amazing pictures of the new Atlantic?