As the old sloop of war Constellation floats placidly in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, a new book has begun to stir the waters of an old debate that once nearly sank the ship.

Fells Point naval historian Geoffrey M. Footner has written a 345-page book that seeks to reassert the historic ship's legal and physical ties to the old frigate Constellation, which was built in Baltimore in 1797.

Relying on government records and shipyard logs, Footner challenges the prevailing view - held by many naval historians and by Living Classrooms Foundation, the nonprofit organization that now maintains the vessel - that the frigate was scrapped in 1853 and replaced the next year by a sloop of war, built new from the keel up in Portsmouth, Va.

Instead, he says, historical documents demonstrate that the ship's construction in Virginia was carried out as a routine "rebuild" of the old frigate, much like earlier rebuilds in 1812, 1829 and 1839.

"Is this the same ship as 1797?" he asks. "I say yes. And I have proved that it is in this book."

Such rebuilding was common in the wooden Navy, Footner says, and the Navy always regarded them as the same ships.

Footner, 79, is a former U.S. naval officer, businessman and longtime Fells Point resident. He is the author of Tidewater Triumph, a well-regarded book about Chesapeake Bay sailing craft.

His new book, USS Constellation: From Frigate to Sloop of War, was published this month by the Naval Institute Press.

The book has been awaited with a mixture of hope and dread by those interested in the ship - hope that Footner might really have uncovered something new, and dread that he might revive the old controversy that nearly scuttled one of the city's major tourist attractions a decade ago. The Constellation draws nearly 100,000 visitors annually.

Older than 'Ironsides'?

Legal and physical descent from the frigate would make the Constellation the oldest U.S. naval vessel afloat - older by six weeks than the USS Constitution, the storied "Old Ironsides" in Boston.

Yet the Constellation Foundation, the nonprofit group then responsible for the ship, supposedly settled the question in 1994, when it sided with those who argue that the current vessel dates back no further than 1854.

Besides quieting a half-century of wrangling among historians, the foundation's declaration reassured potential donors, enabling the group to raise most of the $9 million needed to restore the Constellation to its 1854 sloop appearance.

Footner praises the restoration, and concedes that "they had to have peace to get it done." But the rescue came at the expense of "historical truth," he argues, and he contends that the ship's future is endangered by what he calls "a conspiracy of convenience."

Without claim to the frigate's Baltimore roots, Footner says, the money won't be there years from now when the Constellation needs another multimillion-dollar repair.

"It destroys the links between the original frigate and the sloop of war by a smoke screen," he said. "We need that actual history for the future of this vessel."

Historians at sea

Others, though, say it is Footner who has clouded the issue.

"This new book has turned back the clock and introduced all the old stuff again, and it's muddied the waters," said Dana Wegner, curator of ship models at the Navy's Surface Warfare Center in Bethesda.

Wegner argued in a widely accepted 1991 report that a detailed examination of the Constellation's lines proved that the ship was built new as a sloop of war after the old frigate had been scrapped.

Controversy and confusion have shadowed the Constellation for at least half a century.

The Navy knew throughout the late 19th century that the ship then afloat was a sloop of war, built in 1854. It was one of the last all-sail warships built for the U.S. Navy, as subsequent vessels were powered at least partially by steam engines.

In connection with the centennial of the War of 1812, however, then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered the ship restored to look more like the famed frigate Constellation, which saw action in that war. (It also fought the French in an undeclared war in 1798 and 1799, and the Barbary States in North Africa a few years later.)

The Navy soon began referring to the Constellation as a frigate. In 1955, when the decrepit vessel was towed to Baltimore and entrusted to the nonprofit Star-Spangled Banner Flag House Association, the Navy told the group to restore it as the frigate. But efforts to alter the ship's appearance weakened its structure, and the controversy over its identity confused the public and discouraged donors, both public and private.

Naval historian Howard I. Chapelle had demonstrated in the 1940s that the vessel's lines and dimensions didn't match those of the 1797 frigate. Dana Wegner's report in 1991 reinforced that conclusion.

By 1993, the Constellation Foundation was broke. The ship was so rotted that it was closed to tourists and in danger of sinking. Under pressure from City Hall, the foundation's board was ousted.

Ghosts and history

Their successors resolved to cast out the ghosts of the old frigate.

"It was a whole issue of credibility," said Louis F. Linden, then executive director of the foundation. "We had to make the mea culpas and say: 'I'm sorry this happened; this is the truth as best we know it, and we will never lie to you again.'"

The new board would restore and promote the vessel as the 1854 sloop of war, and recount its own proud history of fighting the slave trade off West Africa and patrolling the seas during the Civil War. And donors responded. The ship was restored and towed back to the Inner Harbor in 1999.

The vessel commissioned in 1855 was 12 feet longer than the original, with an altered hull profile. Its cannon were rearranged from two decks to one, which effectively altered its rating, or naval ship classification, from frigate to sloop of war.

Yet, Footner says that Congress and the Navy never approved construction of the Constellation as a new ship, and that the president never authorized that the old frigate be scrapped. He estimates, based on shipyard records and other documents, that 25 percent of the old frigate's live oak was transferred to the new ship. So were masts, metal water tanks, sails, spars, rigging and ballast.

Footner argues, by way of analogy, that Fort McHenry doesn't look like it did when the British attacked in 1814. It was rebuilt in the 1840s. But it is still Fort McHenry, and it is still revered for its role in the fight.

Wegner counters that there is little new in Footner's book, and much that is old and discredited, or supposition.

He says the only direct evidence that any wood was transferred from the frigate to the sloop of war is a contemporary newspaper account that mentioned a few frame pieces - 186 cubic feet - that were preserved in the new ship.

"It's kind of like putting a hubcap from a Porsche on a Chevy and saying the Chevy is now a Porsche," he said.

Paul Powichroski, project engineer during the Constellation's restoration from 1997 to 1999, takes a similar position.

"My philosophy on this whole controversy is that they laid a new keel, built a new boat with a completely new design," he said.

'Smoke and mirrors'

But some naval historians say that reflects a 20th-century mindset, while Footner's argument is truer to the attitudes of the 19th century.

There are plenty of examples where the Navy rebuilt old ships to update their design and function, and they were always regarded as the same vessel, says naval historian James Tertius deKay, author of Monitor, the story of the famous Civil War ironclad.

"There have never been any rules as to what is a rebuild and what is not," deKay said. "It's kind of smoke and mirrors."

Christopher Rowsom, the ship's executive director, was dreading the release of Footner's book. But he now sees benefit in the attention it will bring.

Footner's book is sold in the ship's store alongside Wegner's, he says. The ship's museum is focused now on the story of the 1854 ship, but it will eventually present all the arguments and let visitors make up their own minds.

"The worst thing for us to do would be to get caught up in an emotional argument," Rowsom said.

Powichroski, now the ship's manager, isn't worried about old controversies resurfacing.

"If it gives us more of a tie to the city of Baltimore, as long as it gets more people on the ship, I don't care."