Tall ships return to Sturgeon Bay this summer, and you could sail on one. Here's what to know

AI-assisted summary
• Four tall ships will dock in Sturgeon Bay from July 31 to Aug. 5.
• This will be the first time in six years that the city has hosted tall ships.
• Unlike previous visits, the ships will be available for deck tours and sailing experiences.

This story was updated to change a photo.

STURGEON BAY - Tall ships return to Door County this summer for the first time in six years, including one with ties to Sturgeon Bay's lengthy maritime history. And this time around, they'll be there for more than just an overnight stay, and you'll be able to head out onto the water on them.

A collaborative effort by Destination Sturgeon Bay and the Door County Maritime Museum has four tall ships scheduled to dock in Sturgeon Bay from July 31 to Aug. 5 in what Destination Sturgeon Bay executive director Cameryn Ehlers-Kwaterski said might be their only appearance in Wisconsin in 2025.

Besides being a big event and likely major tourist draw, their appearance also is around the time of the maritime museum's annual Classic & Wooden Boat Show and the city's Maritime Week celebration organized by the museum.

Their appearance opens with a Parade of Sails when they arrive around noon July 31. Special programs and other details are being decided and will be announced, but here's what we know so far.

Which tall ships are coming to Sturgeon Bay, and which one is connected to the city?

The ships scheduled to appear in Sturgeon Bay are:

• Pride of Baltimore II, a 157-foot-long topsail schooner built to the lines of an 1812-era Baltimore clipper.
• The Liberty Clipper, a 125-foot-long replica of a mid-19th century Baltimore clipper that operates in Boston Harbor during summers and the Bahamas in winter.
• When and If, a restored 83-foot-long Alden schooner commissioned by famed U.S. Gen. George S. Patton in 1939.

• Utopia, a 77-foot-long staysail schooner designed by the late Fred J. Peterson, the founder of onetime Sturgeon Bay shipyard Peterson Builders, Inc., which built Utopia in 1946. The vessel has covered an estimated 60,000 miles in its life, including an around-the-world cruise from 1956 to '59, and is now homeported in Manitowoc under its new private owners after it was donated in 2016 by Peterson's son, Ellsworth, to the Inland Seas Education Association, a nonprofit organization based in Traverse City, Michigan.

Why is this special?

Well, they're tall ships, spectacular clippers and schooners with thousands of square feet of sail on masts reaching high into the sky that have proven popular and been used for educational purposes across the country.

Sturgeon Bay hosted stops for the tall ships every three years from 2010 to 2019 when they came to Lake Michigan as part of the Tall Ships Festival and Great Lakes Challenge sailing race held by the Tall Ships America organization. The hope was that the three-year cycle would bring them back in 2022, but the COVID-19 pandemic threw off those hopes.

And, as Ehlers-Kwaterski noted, this might be the only appearance this group of tall ships makes in a Wisconsin port in 2025. The Tall Ships America website shows it has ships scheduled to be in Duluth, Minnesota, before their appearance in Sturgeon Bay, then in Detroit afterward, and it has yet to announce a location for the Great Lakes Challenge.

How did Sturgeon Bay get tall ships for 2025?

Ehlers-Kwaterski said Destination Sturgeon Bay approached the maritime museum about working together to bring back the ships, noting the museum, which holds big annual events like its Classic & Wooden Boat Show and Maritime Week, has great experience in dealing with the logistics involved.

Plus, she said the city wanted to get back on a three-year cycle of hosting tall ships after missing out in 2022.

Sam Perlman, deputy director of the museum, said they contacted Tall Ships America in March of 2024 to learn if it was possible to hold a full tall ships event in Sturgeon Bay this summer, knowing even that 15 or 16 months was unusually short notice to put everything together.

That didn't happen, but Tall Ships America contacted the maritime museum last fall to ask if the city would be interested in hosting a smaller event this summer – still relatively short notice, Perlman said, but doable.

"It really does take quite a bit of time to do all the logistics," he said.

What's different about the 2025 tall ships appearance in Sturgeon Bay?

Fewer tall ships will stay in Sturgeon Bay this year than in their past appearances as part of the Tall Ships Festival – nine vessels came to Sturgeon Bay for their last appearance in 2019, for example, compared to the four coming in 2025.

But in those past appearances, the tall ships only were in Sturgeon Bay for one night as they passed between Green Bay, where the weeklong festivals took place, and Lake Michigan. This time, they'll be in the city for a week.

Ehlers-Kwaterski said while the tall ships' previous appearances have been tremendously popular, having them in port for a longer time opens up more opportunities for people to see them and more related activities.

"The last couple of times the tall ships have been in Sturgeon Bay, they've just been kinda passing through," she said. "The fact that we'll have a fleet of ships here for a whole week will be a great opportunity. It's looking to have a positive impact for bringing day-trip travelers coming from Green Bay, Milwaukee, Madison, even Chicago to see the ships."

Plus, there will be the rare opportunity to take rides of one and a half to two hours on the ships. Tickets for these sailing experiences are expected to go on sale around the end of April.

And the Utopia and Pride of Baltimore II will host free deck tours while docked.

"It's a little different than the ships just sitting in port, as in past years," Ehlers-Kwaterski said.

Also for something a little different, Perlman said the Parade of Sails will include the StJarna, a sailing vessel docked at the museum this summer and being restored by the Patriot Racing Project, a Green Bay-based veterans organization dedicated to friendly sailing competitions.

And he said it's a big deal to have the tall ships at the same time as the museum's Classic & Wooden Boat Show, which on its own draws thousands of boat fans to the museum grounds each year. The show is scheduled for Aug. 1 to 3, the Friday-through-Sunday of the tall ships being in town.

"Just building upon it, it makes it even more of a special weekend," Perlman said

For more information

For updates on the tall ships' visit to Sturgeon Bay, including ticket sales for sailing experiences and more on the ships, visit sturgeonbay.net/tall-ships.

Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@gannett.com.

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