Britain and the Royal Navy yesterday celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. Bermuda should also be celebrating its small but significant role in the battle which established British naval supremacy for more than a century.

At the end of the battle,HMS one of the fastest vessels in the Royal Navy, raced back to England with news of the victory and the death of Admiral Lord Nelson.

Making the journey from Cadiz to Falmouth in nine days, the ship?s captain then hired a carriage which took him to London from the west of England in just 37 hours. Normally the journey would have taken a week.

What was Bermuda?s connection to this journey? was a Bermuda-built cedar schooner which was launched as the and was bought into the Royal Navy in 1800, just five years before Trafalgar.

She was one of a large number of fast-sailing Bermuda cedar sloops that would be used to reconnoitre enemy coastlines and carry messages between fleets and the Admiralty.

These vessels were built for speed and carried plenty of sail. Strong and weatherly, they were the Royal Navy?s equivalent of the Pony Express and helped to make Bermuda?s shipyards and the Bermuda rig famous around the world.

With the advent of steam and steel, this golden age of Bermuda sailing would later come to an end. But during that period, Bermuda?s shipyards and sailors ? black and white ? were renowned both for the quality of their craft and for their skill.

That the Royal Navy first bought Bermuda-built sloops into the service and then started commissioning them directly speaks volumes for their quality.

It is worth remembering too that as the age of sail ebbed, Bermudians, with some impetus from Governor Reid, looked to the land and revitalised Bermuda?s agriculture with a particular emphasis on onions, arrowroot and Easter Lilies. The ability of Bermudians to adapt and move from one economic ?pillar? to another is a hallmark of the Island?s character, and not something that started with the recent move from tourism to international business.

Just three years after ?s dramatic voyage from Trafalgar, she was shipwrecked and lost, having run aground off Cadiz, a far from uncommon occurrence in the stormy Bay of Biscay.

Today there is a replica of the which this summer is sailing around British ports to mark the anniversary of Trafalgar. Bermuda has also issued stamps of the anniversary and these include two images of the , one of which is pictured here.

However, the replica was in fact built in Russia and has since been refitted to be closer to the original. Bermudians will have to wait until 2006 when the a replica of a Bermuda schooner, arrives at the Island for sail training, to get a real idea of what the would have been like.

While the ?s rigging is different from the ?s, they will be very similar.

But the goal of the Bermuda Sloop Foundation in building the is to have sail training go on in Bermuda year round, and through it, to give young Bermudians from all walks of life self-confidence, self-reliance, some practical educational experience and, most importantly, the chance to test their limits, just as their ancestors did some 200 years ago.

That?s a worthy goal and it deserves support.