their plans at a series of public meetings around the Island.

The Bermuda Sloop Steering Committee, which wants to run the ship as a sail training vessel, is already canvassing for funds to pay for the project.

Committee members launched the scheme last month when a similar sailing ship used in Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie Amistad visited Bermuda.

The sloop committee aims to set up a charitable trust and start ocean-going missions involving young people.

Spokesman Malcolm Kirkland said the public meetings would begin this week.

He said: "The first meeting is scheduled for (tomorrow) Sunday, January 18 at 4 p.m. on the first floor of the Clocktower mall in Dockyard.

"Subsequent meetings will be scheduled in the central and eastern parishes over the next month.

"The proposed objective of the charitable trust is to teach self-reliance and inter-reliance developing both self esteem and a shared Bermudian spirit.

"This would be based on sail training and much improved understanding of Bermuda's national character, formed from world class shipbuilding and sea-trading for over 150 years of her history.'' The sloop, to be built at Dockyard, would be the same size as a replica Amistad ship being built in Connecticut.

The same marine architects who designed the Amistad copy are also scheduled to design the Bermuda sloop.

Amistad tells the story of a group of African slaves who kill the men keeping them captive on board.

The Africans fight a long legal battle for freedom, which eventually paves the way for slavery to be abolished.

Slavery in Bermuda was abolished in 1834 but the sloop dates back to the same period.

Former Olympic sailor Alan Burland, also on the sloop committee, said the meetings would show Bermudians how the sloop could help develop "a truly inter-racial community event''.

He said: "It would be to the benefit of all Bermuda and especially young Bermudians.

"We are a multi-racial society and there is a need to come together more.

"There is also a need to plug the gap in youth leadership skills and that will be one of the major issues in Sunday's meeting.'' Project leaders who unveiled their plans during the visit of the Spirit of Baltimore II said the sloop could even be finished in time for the Bermudian leg of the 2000 Tall Ships Race.

The idea would be to use the race to parade the sloop.

The ship would then be used as a sail training vessel for sea cadets, scouts, guides and Outward Bound youngsters.

It could also be used on sea voyages to the US to promote Bermuda to tourist and business leaders.

Committee members are now contacting top Island businesses to find a $1 million deposit to build the ship.

Backers could even try to save money by salvaging lead ballast from the wreck of the steel schooner Ramona , which sunk off Bermuda in the 1960s.

SAILING SLG