Mystic — A full-scale replica of the ship that transported the Pilgrims to Massachusetts in 1620 was towed up the Mystic River Sunday afternoon, eventually making its way to Mystic Seaport, where it will be restored this winter.

The Mayflower II reached the Mystic River drawbridge shortly after 2 p.m. and was greeted by about 200 people who stood in Mystic River Park. The welcome came four months after massive crowds greeted the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan as it returned to the Seaport from ports around New England.

Some in the crowd whistled and clapped at first sight of the ship. And nearly everyone had their phones or cameras out to take pictures.

“It’s cool. I’m into history,” said Meghan Poehler, who grew up in Mystic.

Poehler has taken her children to see the ship at its usual home at State Pier on the Plymouth, Mass., waterfront. The ship is owned by Plimoth Plantation and sees between 300,000 and 350,000 visitors annually, according to Plimoth Plantation Deputy Director Richard Pickering.

Referring to her children, niece and nephews who were in Mystic with her to see the ship, Poehler said, “They like seeing the big boats come up the river.”

Her son, Wyatt, 8, agreed. “I just like ships and history that’s why I think that it’s cool,” he said.

The interest in the ship is not surprising as there are currently 25 million to 32 million descendants of the 102 passengers who traveled on the original ship, Pickering said.

“For a lot of people, they want to be on what is the closest reproduction of the ship that brought their family to this country,” Pickering said. “We also find for a lot of new Americans, when you’re interpreting aboard the ship, when you’re working as a guide or a role player, a person will come up and say I was just naturalized and I didn’t come on the Mayflower, and I didn’t have a grandparent that came on the Mayflower, but this is my story. So you find that the ship is symbolic of the first American in everyone’s family, unless your indigenous to the country, it really is the symbol of that first American journey.”

Perry echoed his words. “It’s kind of the immigration story for a lot of people even since 1620 who have left their families in other countries and come over,” he said.

A large crowd also watched the ship, which was towed by the tugboat Jaguar, leave its berth in Plymouth last week, Pickering said.

It then made stops in New Bedford, Mass., on Friday and New London on Saturday during its three-day voyage. Eight crew members from Plimouth Plantation, including the Mayflower II’s captain, Whit Perry, were aboard the ship during its voyage.

The ship took about 90 minutes to get from the mouth of the Mystic River to the Seaport shipyard on the afternoon high tide, Perry said. The timing of the trip, starting from Plymouth, was very specific.

“We had to wait for very specific weather windows to be able to leave, we had to time the tides to leave on a high tide, and we have currents on the Cape Cod Canal that we have to use, and high tides here at the mouth of the Mystic River,” Perry said while on board the ship after it docked at the shipyard in Mystic.

Lifelong Mystic resident Steve Coffel, who followed the arrival of the Mayflower II on Facebook and has seen pictures of the ship that friends have posted in recent days, was eager to see the vessel for the first time. Coffel used to live in an apartment in a building adjacent to the drawbridge that overlooked the river.

“I’m a seaman. Mystic is my home. All of the good things that happen around here, I try to keep up on them,” he said while standing in Mystic River Park.

Coffell told his cousin Kellee Holmes, who lives in Gales Ferry, about the ship. She brought her daughters Britanny Bonang and Cherokee Holmes, who were all anticipating seeing a beautiful ship.

“It’s a good thing to see with the kids,” Holmes said.

The replica of the ship, which was built in 1957, is slated to return to Plymouth in May 2015. During its stay at the museum, visitors will be able to view the ship and go aboard beginning Feb. 14.

“It’s really a collaborative effort because we’re really good at what we do, and she needs what we do best,” said Mystic Seaport Vice President Dana Hewson.

Plimouth selected the Seaport to do the restoration work over at least one other shipyard, he said.

“I think it’s because overall we had the best proposal,” Hewson said.

Work to prepare the ship for restoration will start today. First, the rig will come down. Then the bottom will get cleaned and the ballast will come out before the restoration work begins. Plans call for removing stone and iron ballast for the first time since the ship was built so the bilge area can be inspected.

The same firm that surveyed the Morgan and USS Constitution is slated to survey the Mayflower II. A work list will be generated after the survey is in place, Hewson said, “so we can begin to figure out how much is going to be able to get done, in which order it needs to get done, always with the eye that she needs to go back there in the spring.”

The restoration will be carried out over several years with the ship spending the winters and springs at the Seaport and returning to Plymouth each summer and fall. The project is scheduled to be completed prior to 2020, the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival.

For Perry, being able to restore the ship is fulfilling a childhood fantasy.

“If you like boats, you think you died and went to heaven when you come here,” he said about the Seaport.

Hewson said he expects it will take about three to four winters of restoration work, but, he said “she’ll go back (to Plymouth) every summer because she’s so important to their programs and their existence up there.”

j.bergman@theday.com

Twitter: JuliaSBergman