In a city full of contrasts, a clone of a 19th-century schooner brought the slowness of Vermont to the city hooked on speed yesterday.

The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum’s canal schooner pulled into slip S5 of the North Cove Marina yesterday with the help of a tugboat and docked next to an “extreme racing” yacht waiting for the right winds to carry it transatlantic under the record of six days, four hours.

Unlike the French racing boat, the 88-foot wooden ship from Lake Champlain, the Lois McClure, was made to carry 10 times more cargo than a tractor-trailer. “This is the 18-wheeler of the 19th century,” the museum’s founder and director, Arthur Cohn, said.

The schooner is no mere project built from plans bequeathed by boat builders. Nautical archeologists, led by Mr. Cohn, spent 1,000 hours scuba diving Lake Champlain, mapping two 19th century shipwrecked schooners to create the measurements for the Lois McClure.

The floating museum and maritime education center has been en route to New York via Lake Champlain, its eponymous Canal and the Hudson River for 61 days, following the old trade route used by such boats before the railroads made shipping obsolete.

What the 19th century relinquished in the pursuit of economic gain, the 21st century has reclaimed for the same reason, only this time the boat is carried on the trade winds of tourism. This collusion prompted a question yesterday by one tourist, Howard Pronsky, who lives in Battery Park.

“What’s with the cheddar cheese?” Mr. Pronsky, 59, asked as he made his way to the boat’s kitchen.

One of the nine members of the boat’s crew, Sarah Lyman, 27, explained that the sign at the boat’s stern – “Vermont Cheddar from the Farms” – was a plug for one of the tour’s sponsors, the Cabot Creamery. There were more questions.

“You literally sleep here?” Mr. Pronsky asked.

“Literally,” Ms. Lyman, who sleeps on a cot in the boat’s galley, said. “Some nights more literally than others.”

Along with the maritime history of Vermont, the boat was a drumbeat for the state’s local tourism economy, which by the looks of exhibitors displayed along the esplanade through Thursday includes purveyors of maple sugar flavored cotton candy, fudge-covered scones; basket weavers, makers of wooden pens and furniture, snowboarders, fly fisherman, rowers, and people who make rugs.

A woman selling old-timey country games, Amy Cunningham, included hop-scotch, of medieval English origin, in her mix, though it is perhaps more popular on the streets of New York.

“My neighbors play hopscotch,” Ms. Cunningham said. “Though I wouldn’t submit that as historical record.”