The "Barba Negra" Took Nantucket Group for a Sail

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O l d W h a l i n g B a r k e n t i n e T o o k N a n t u c k e t G r o u p F o r A S a i l

On Thursday, October 16, the Barba Negra, an old Norwegian whaling barkentine, came to Nantucket for a short stay, and tied up at the end of Straight Wharf. The following day the 80-year-old vessel took aboard a group of Nantucket residents and went for a sail in the waters just outside the jetties. Arranged by a committee from the Nantucket Historical Association, the few hours spent proved most enjoyable.

Of Canadian registry, the Barba Negra is owned by Albert Seidl and her sailing master is Captain Gerry Schwisow. Leaving the South Street Seaport in New York City on September 26, she sailed up Long Island Sound, where she visited Sag Harbor, another whaling port of long ago. Thence she crossed the Sound to New London, Conn.; from there went to Mystic, and on to Newport, where she arrived on the weekend of October 4th. Her next port of call was New Bedford, where she spent the period of October 14 through 16. During her week at Newport she was used by a NBC-TV company for filming a Bicentennial special program for television.

In each of the ports visited Mr. Seidl has held rallies and also invited groups on board for a "Whale Hunt." In this respect, he has stated: "Of course, we have no intention of harpooning or capturing or otherwise antagonizing any whales, porpoises or dolphins we might see. This voyage, in fact, is to call attention to the fact that these marvelous creatures are a seriously endangered species. If we see any we will simply enjoy watching them swimming free and wish them Godspeed."

Over a century ago, the bark Oak sailed from Nantucket—the last of the Nantucket whalers to leave this port. She never returned, finally being sold in Panama in 1872. Both the schooner Abby Bradford and the brig Eunice H. Adams, the two Nantucket whalers which had sailed from this port before the Oak, were sold to New Bedford. Thus, from November 16, 1869, to October 16, 1975, no other square-rigged whaler has sailed around Brant Point.

The Barba Negra was built in Norway in 1896, and made her whaling voyages into the Greenland and Spitsbergen seas. Following her career as a whaler she became a trading vessel, in both trans-Atlantic and coasting business. Her new name, translated, means "Black Beard."

During the evening an interesting film was shown at the Band stand in Harbor Square which graphically revealed the characteristics of the varied members of the whale family, and in which these remarkable and intelligent mammals were presented as victims of modern whaling practices now leading to their extinction.