The tall ship Denis Sullivan sails under the Mackinac Bridge as a participant in the Great Lakes United Tall Ships Challenge Tuesday, August 10. The three-masted schooner is 137 feet long and hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photograph courtesy of the Great Lakes Media Project) Tall ships sailed through the Straits of Mackinac over the past week as they made their way to Green Bay, Wisconsin, as part of the Tall Ships Challenge 2010 race. Sponsored by Great Lakes United and the American Sail Training Association, the ships are passing through all five Great Lakes over the course of one month, stopping for maritime festivals along the way. The 25 participating ships are from the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, and Germany.

At stages throughout the challenge, various tall ships will race in handicapped competition.

The ships docked in Toronto from June 30 to July 4, Cleveland from July 7 to 11, to Bay City from July 15 to 18, and Duluth from July 29 to August 1. They are now at Green Bay from August 12 to 15 and will be at Chicago from August 24 to 29. Each port is hosting a maritime festival and visitors have the opportunity to board the ships and meet the crews. The finale at Navy Pier in Chicago will allow visitors to board up to 12 vessels and take a sail on five of them.

Below: Europa, a 185-foot barque from the Netherlands, was fogged in at Mackinac Island August 8, on her way to Green Bay. She has a professional crew of 14 and is participating in this year’s Tall Ships Challenge. (Photograph by Robert Benjamin) Each year, ASTA sponsors a race for tall ships to promote youth and leadership development and the preservation of maritime heritage in North America. The previous three years included races on the Atlantic coast, Pacific coast, and the Atlantic Challenge. Next year, the ships will again race the Pacific coast. The Tall Ships Challenge race series provides sail training to youth ages 13 to 25, who crew the boat under the supervision of professional crews.

Bounty was one of several tall ships landing at Mackinac Island this week as ships paricipating in the Great lakes United Tall Ships Challenge made their way to the Baylake Bank Tall Ship Festival in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Bounty was sailing from Thunder Bay, Ontario and calls Greenport, New York home. The 180-foot, full-rig ship was built in 1960 for the movie “Mutiny on the Bounty” with Marlon Brando and modeled after the original Bounty, which was used by the British Admiralty in the late 1700s. The ship has also been featured in Disney's “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.” Behind her at the Arnold Dock is the 118-foot Unicorn, a top-sail schooner from St. Croix, Virgin Islands. She is distinguished by her all-female crew. She was built in 1947 in Holland from This week in St. Ignace German U-boat metals. This year, the ships are promoting freshwater conservation education. Throughout the race, the ships will carry the message of celebrating and protecting the Great Lakes. The tall ships are one of the most sustainable forms of transportation, making the Tall Ships Challenge series one of the most environmentally friendly races in the world, according to ASTA.

Great Lakes United is a sponsor the the race this year to help spread freshwater conservation awareness and education. The coalition of environmentalists, citizens, conservationists, businesses, and scholars has advocated the good health and future of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River ecosystem for more than 27 years. Among their goals are to clean up toxic pollution, stop invasive species, and protect the Great Lakes from damage.