The court-appointed receiver for the Amistad said this week that plans are to transfer ownership of the ship to the nonprofit organization Discovering Amistad on Nov. 1.

Attorney Katharine Sachs of New Haven also said she regrets that the $315,000 selling price of the financially troubled schooner will not cover the $2.2 million in debt that Amistad America still owes to a collection of small businesses, banks and individuals.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. But I had no other resources other than the ship to sell,” she said, adding that selling it at fair market value brought a higher price than selling it at auction where it could have gone for as little as $50,000.

While it cost $2.5 million to build the Amistad at Mystic Seaport in 2000, a marine surveyor hired by Sachs found that the current market for such a ship was soft.

“Like a full-scale bankruptcy, there won’t be enough money to cover all the debts. Some people who are not secured creditors will be disappointed while others will get something,” she said.

Despite the past financial problems of the ship, which spent this past summer in New London and is now at Mystic Seaport for the winter, Sachs said she is hopeful for the ship’s future.

“After some very dark times, there is a resurgence of optimism and good faith in the ship,” she said.

State Attorney General George Jepsen has proposed a directed sale of the schooner from Amistad America, which incurred $2.2 million in debt while operating the state-subsidized ship, to Discovering Amistad, the newly formed corporation that grew out of an advisory committee formed by Sachs to help her come up with viable uses for the ship.

Sachs said the plan is for Discovering Amistad to perform a significant overhaul of the ship while it is at the Seaport this winter.

“They want to make sure the ship starts out in the best condition possible,” she said.

Seaport spokesman Dan McFadden said the ship will remain docked at the museum for the winter and spring with the schooner’s crew making repairs. He said the Seaport has provided the crew with adjacent indoor work space.

While he said Discovering Amistad had expressed interest in possibly hauling the ship out of the water for more extensive work, McFadden said there are no plans to do that.

“That will be up to them,” he said.

One of the incorporators of Discovering Amistad, Len Miller of Essex, could not be reached to comment about future plans for the ship.

Miller founded Soundwaters, a Stamford-based educational nonprofit that offers educational programs about Long Island Sound aboard an 80-foot schooner and from a land-based classroom.

Sachs said Jepsen will be filing motions in Superior Court in the middle of October regarding the sale of the ship and distribution of its proceeds.

“I’ll be directed to hold the proceeds in an account until the court tells me how to distribute them to the creditors,” she said.

Sachs said there will be a process to notify the creditors and a hearing will be held.

Sachs, who has extensive receivership experience with entities such as nursing homes, said she had no maritime experience before being appointed as the Amistad’s receiver.

She said she has relied on the generosity of experts from the nonprofit and tall ship worlds to help her chart the ship’s future.

She added that the advisory committee she assembled has been “enormously helpful,” while Jepsen has been “extremely committed” to the ship’s future.

“There has been a wealth of positive feelings about this ship,” she said, pointing to the thousands of people who walked its decks when it was docked in New London this summer. “People are very upbeat that it has a future and will be viable.”

She said Mystic Seaport also has been extremely generous with providing its expertise and resources.

She said that Steve White, the president Mystic Seaport, sees the museum as the “Amistad’s birth parent.”

Sachs said the board of directors of Discovering Amistad is well aware of the potential pitfalls of owning a schooner and understands the need to develop a strategy that is viable.

The schooner is a replica of the ship that was commandeered by its African captives off the Cuban coast in 1839.

Captured off Montauk, N.Y., the ship was brought to New London and the captives were taken to New Haven, where they were held for trial and eventually set free.

The General Assembly has approved $342,000 in each of the next two years in funding for the Amistad. State funds are expected to be used to buy the ship.

Sach’s advisory committee has recommended that the new operators should provide year-round land-based programming in schools and in partnership with local organizations, including the Old State House in Hartford, the Custom House Maritime Museum in New London, the New Haven Museum and Mystic Seaport.

j.wojtas@theday.com

Twitter: @joewojtas