Physical Dimensions
Length Overall: 84 feet
Length on Deck: 57 feet
Length at Waterline: 51 feet
Beam: 17 feet
Draft: 7 feet
Height of Main Mast: 64 feet
Sail Area: 1,867 square feet
Power: 2 John Deere, 4-cylinder,
PowerTech 4.5L engines
About Maryland Dove
Architect
Iver C. Franzen Maritime, LLC, an Annapolis-based firm specializing in historic vessel naval architecture services, has been chosen by the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum to design the newest iteration of Maryland Dove.
Principal architect and firm founder Iver Franzen’s 40-year maritime career has included work both as a naval architect and captain. He became a licensed captain in 1980, and now has a 500-ton Master’s License, with endorsements for auxiliary sail and 1600-ton OSVs. After earning his Bachelor of Arts from Union College in 1974, Franzen worked many years as a charter and delivery captain, and many more as a commercial passenger vessel captain, throughout the East Coast and Caribbean.
Franzen has worked in naval architecture since 1987, starting with an intensive five-year apprenticeship with Professor Thomas Gillmer, becoming a member of Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers in 1992. He’s been involved with the design of tall ships such as Pride of Baltimore II, Kalmar Nyckel, and USS Constitution, among others. Franzen opened his own practice in Annapolis in 1996, and continues to work as a sailing, power, tall ship and commercial vessel designer, USCG certification consultant, writer, educator, public speaker, and, when an interesting situation comes along, as a captain.
The Maryland Dove is a reconstruction of its predecessor, built in 1978, and of the original Dove, a 17th-century trading ship.
Purchased by Cecil Calvert, the Dove accompanied the Ark, a vessel holding 140 colonists and their supplies, in 1634 to what is now Maryland. Dove then remained with the colony to serve as an intracoastal trading vessel. Later that year, Dove was sent north to Boston to trade corn for salt cod and other commodities, and in August of 1635, Dove was sent back to England with furs and timber to trade. Dove was never seen again, probably lost at sea.
Maryland Dove, launched in 2022, serves as an ambassador for Historic St. Mary’s City and as a public educational exhibit. Maryland Dove is owned by the state of Maryland and operated and maintained by the Historic St. Mary’s City Commission.