Mystic — After a five-year restoration project that involved replacing most of its wood, the brightly painted Mayflower II is scheduled to be launched Saturday afternoon at Mystic Seaport Museum.

The project has been a collaborative effort between the Seaport and its team of shipwrights, riggers and other craftsmen and Plimoth Plantation, the museum that owns the 63-year-old ship, a replica of the historic vessel that brought the Pilgrims to what is now Massachusetts in 1620.

The ship is a major tourist attraction on the Plymouth, Mass., waterfront and is slated to return in time for the 400th anniversary celebration of the Pilgrims’ arrival next June.

Saturday's ceremony is slated to begin at 2 p.m. and include musical performances, remarks by officials involved in the project and a keynote adddress by author Nathaniel Philbrick, who has written best selling books such as "Mayflower" and "In the Heart of the Sea."

The ship will be christened with water from all 50 states as well as Plymouth, U.K., and Leiden, Netherlands, where the Pilgrims lived before leaving for America.

The public is invited to attend the launching, which is included with admission to the Seaport, while admission is free for museum members. A limited number of seats will be available in the shipyard for purchase through special event ticket sales at www.sailingmayflower.org.

While crews worked on the ship in the rain one day last week, Kate Sheehan, the associate director of media relations and marketing for Plimoth Plantation, said her organization could have taken the project to a commercial shipyard.

“But coming here, choosing to work with Mystic Seaport was a natural choice. We have a shared educational misson and a shared interest in making this project available to the public,” she said.

Visitors to the Seaport over the past several years have been able to watch the work as it progressed, something that could not have happened at a commercial yard.

Sheehan said that in addition to maintaining the spirit of the 17th century methods used to construct the original Mayflower, the skill of the staff in the Seaport’s Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard “is second to none.”

“I love that the people of Mystic are so invested in this project and so welcoming to us. It’s become a second home for us,” she said.

Sheehan added that Plimoth Plantation is appreciative of the camaraderie of the crew that worked on the ship, and the passion they have for what they are doing.

“It means a lot that they are so invested in it,” she said.

One of those working on the Mayflower II, shipwright James Kirschner, is just that.

He said he started working on the 2008-14 restoration of the Charles W. Morgan whaling ship halfway through, but with the Mayflower II,  “I got to see from day one to day end.”

“It’s been a fun project. It was a big job, a lot bigger than we thought,” he said. “It was exciting to meet the deadlines, keep it on track and things progressing. And it always exciting to see a ship sail again.”

The Mayflower II is a full-scale reproduction of the ship the Pilgrims arrived on and was built in the mid-1950s in Brixham, England, as a gift to the people of the United States from the people of England "to honor the bonds of friendship formed during World War II." It arrived in Plymouth on June 13, 1957. It has deteriorated in recent years, and Plimoth Plantation began a $20 million capital campaign for its restoration and future maintenance as well as other museum needs.  

The Mayflower first came to the Seaport in the winter of 2014-15 when it was hauled out of the water for an extensive survey of what work needed to be done. It returned the next winter for work on its half deck. 

The longtime director of the Seaport shipyard, Quentin Snediker, said it was then determined the Mayflower II needed to come back for a 30-to-36-month period to address the skeletal structure of the ship. 

While it was initially estimated that about 50 to 60 percent of the wood would have to be replaced, that increased to about 75 percent once shipwrights began removing wood from the ship. All of the outside planking of the hull had to be replaced, 90 percent of the knees and half of the decking. Three new masts were built.

One challenge for such projects is acquiring the wood such as live oak needed for the work. In this case, Plimoth Plantation benefited from the contacts, especially in the southeastern United States, Snediker had made in obtaining wood for the restoration of the Morgan. 

Snediker said the fact that the Mayflower's captain, Whit Perry, and two other Plimoth Plantation employees, remained at the shipyard during the project made the decision-making process easier and more efficient.

Sheehan said this has also meant a transfer of knowledge to Plimoth Plantation staff, who will now bring back the skills needed to help maintain the ship.

In addition to replacing much of the ship's wood, Snediker said, many more improvements were made to the ship. Lead ballast replaced the original stone and iron, improving stability; use of more modern material will dramatically lighten the rigging; and there are improvements to the electrical, plumbing and generator systems.

The paint scheme is based on research of how ships of the period appeared and was how the replica was originally painted. 

Snediker said that while recent projects at the Seaport such as the restorations of the Morgan, Mayflower II and steamboat Sabino and the construction of the replica of the Amistad are intriguing and pose different challenges, "fundamentally, it's wooden shipbuilding."       

Seaport spokesman Dan McFadden said the restoration is an example of how nonprofit museums can support each other.

While Plimoth Plantation had the ship restored to last another 50 years by shipwrights highly skilled in traditional wooden boat building, the project generated revenue for the Seaport.

The project also helped the Seaport retain "the talented staff we need to work on our own projects,” added Chris Gaciorek, the Seaport's vice president for watercraft preservation and programs. 

At the height of the project, 28 full-time shipwrights were working on the ship.

"We managed to assemble a fantastic cadre of skilled people for this project, as good as we've ever seen and younger," said Snediker, adding that wooden shipbuilding is nothing new at the Seaport.

Instead, he said, the museum shipyard is now on its third generation of skilled shipwrights, riggers and craftsmen.

"That's the benefit of having a continuity of tradition rather than a rediscovery," he said.

With the work on the Mayflower II beginning to wind down, the museum shipyard will soon shift its attention to its next project, a multi-year restoration of the fishing schooner L.A. Dunton that is scheduled to begin this fall. 

After the launch, the Mayflower II will remain at the Seaport through the winter with final work being completed. Plans call for sea trials to take place next spring before the ship departs in May 2020. Plans call for it to be in Boston from May 14 to 19, 2020, for Mayflower Sails 2020, a maritime festival at the Charlestown Navy Yard, where the ship will dock next to the USS Constitution. The Mayflower II is expected to arrive back in Plymouth for a homecoming celebration on May 21, 2020.

"For Plimouth Plantation and our community, it will be a very exciting event. The town missed her, we missed her," Sheehan said.

j.wojtas@theday.com