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Maritime Legacy at NMHS
I have been thinking a lot lately about the idea of legacy. When assuming the helm of such a storied organization, the connections the members and I have to the past loom large. I am humbled that the National Maritime Historical Society has entrusted me to help tell the stories of our past in a way that keeps them vibrant into the future. I am proud to share that endeavor with our members and the readers of this magazine.
In a world in which there are so many distractions, the sixty-year commitment of the Society’s members and contributors to ensure that we never lose sight of who we are by valuing and remembering our past is, in itself, something awesome. Ful f lling that commitment is something we have all contributed to in unique and individual ways. Together, we have woven the strands of what we value about ourselves and our history into a tough and resilient fabric of connections. We have accomplished this by keeping alive the stories of who we have been, and by f nding new ways to help people understand and appreciate the challenges and achievements of those who came before us.
their sale will both further support our work and ofer others a connection to his unique maritime perspective. We are proud to include many of the nation’s foremost marine artists among our members and are grateful for their generosity in sharing their work with us and our readers.
While long a repository for maritime scholarship, this past July NMHS celebrated a milestone in making our resources accessible with the ofcial commemoration of the Ronald L. Oswald Maritime Library at our ofce in Peekskill, New York. You can access the online catalog through the Westchester County Public Library or via our website at www.seahistory.org/education/library. Supporting the building of that collection has been a passion project for many years of our chairman emeritus, Ron Oswald, who particularly values education and scholarship. He was also responsible for establishing the NMHS maritime awards for students participating in National History Day. His legacy of fostering scholarship will dramatically expand the academic resources we can make available to researchers and the general public.
Tere are myriad ways to add to the warp and weft of this fabric, depending on one’s talents and resources. Not long ago, marine artist and longtime NMHS friend William Muller generously donated to NMHS prints of his original paintings. His gift to us is special because of our relationship with him as an artist and an advisor, but
A legacy can be that of an individual, but it can also be the combined eforts of our members, authors, historians, artists, maritime professionals, and nautical enthusiasts that allow our Society to thrive—each of us contributing according to our talents, interests, and resources. I invite all our members and readers to think
(photo above) NMHS Vice President and Advertising Director Wendy Paggiot a (lef) and Sea History Editor Deirdre O’Regan with acclaimed artist William G. Muller, presenting a print of his painting of RMS Olympic steaming out of New York Harbor in 1930. Bill Muller grew up along the Hudson River. In the 1950s he served as quartermaster aboard PS Alexander Hamilton, the last coal-fired steamer operating on the Hudson River. Much of his Bill’s art recreates maritime scenes on the Hudson River and New York Harbor, with a focus on the steamship era. He is a founding director and Fellow of the American Society of Marine Artists and is an elected member of the Society of American Historical Artists. Bill has donated the prints in his personal collection to the Society, and they are available for purchase through the NMHS website at www.seahistory.org. We thank Bill for his long-time support, advice, and generosity to NMHS.
PHOTO BY MICHAEL PAGGIOTTA
NMHS Chairman Emeritus Ron Oswald addresses NMHS members and guests during the ribbon-cuting celebration, oficially opening the Ronald L. Oswald Maritime Library at NMHS headquarters in Peekskill, New York, on 19 July.
about being a part of that legacy. Together we can share—and nurture in new generations—our passion for the sea and the ships and people that voyage upon it.
See our ad on page 51 for more about the print in this photo, or visit our online Ship’s Store at www.seahistory.org/store to view the variety of scenes Bill Muller has depicted in his art that are now available for sale as prints. Aside from their inherent beauty, these prints are one more way you can share your love of the sea and its stories with family and friends, while supporting NMHS. —NMHS President, Cathy Green
Sea History is sent to all members of the National Maritime Historical Society. MEMBERSHIP IS WELCOME: Afterguard $10,000; Benefactor $5,000; Plankowner $2,500; Sponsor $1,000; Donor $500; Patron $250; Friend $100; Regular $45. Members outside the US, please add $20 for postage. Individual copies cost $5.99.
NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY
PETER ARON PUBLISHER’S CIRCLE: Guy E. C. Maitland, Ronald L. Oswald, William H. White
OFFICERS & TRUSTEES: Chairman , CAPT James A. Noone, USN (Ret.); Vice Chairman , Richardo R. Lopes; President: Catherine M. Green; Vice Presidents: Deirdre E. O’Regan, Wendy Paggiotta; Treasurer, William H. White; Secretary, Capt. Je f rey McAllister; Trustees: Charles B. Anderson; Walter R. Brown; CAPT Patrick Burns, USN (Ret.); Samuel F. Byers; CAPT Sally McElwreath Callo, USN (Ret.); William S. Dudley; Karen Helmerson; VADM Al Konetzni, USN (Ret.); K. Denise Rucker Krepp; Guy E. C. Maitland; Elizabeth McCarthy; Salvatore Mercogliano; Michael W. Morrow; Richard P. O’Leary; Ronald L. Oswald; Timothy J. Runyan; Richard Scarano; David Winkler; Jean Wort
CHAIRMEN EMERITI: Walter R. Brown, Alan G. Choate, Guy E. C. Maitland, Ronald L. Oswald; Howard Slotnick (1930–2020)
FOUNDER: Karl Kortum (1917–1996)
PRESIDENTS EMERITI: Burchenal Green, Peter Stanford (1927–2016)
OVERSEERS: Chairman, RADM David C. Brown, USMS (Ret.); RADM Joseph Callo, USN (Ret.); Christopher Culver; Richard du Moulin; David Fowler; Gary Jobson; Sir Robin Knox-Johnston; John Lehman; Capt. James J. McNamara; Philip J. Shapiro; H. C. Bowen Smith; Capt. Cesare Sorio; Philip J. Webster; Roberta Weisbrod
NMHS ADVISORS: John Ewald, Steven Hyman, J. Russell Jinishian, Gunnar Lundeberg, Conrad Milster, William Muller, Nancy Richardson
SEA HISTORY EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Chairman, Timothy Runyan; Norman Brouwer, Robert Browning, William Dudley, Lisa Egeli, Daniel Finamore, Kevin Foster, John O. Jensen, Frederick Leiner, Joseph Meany, Salvatore Mercogliano, Carla Rahn Phillips, Walter Rybka, Quentin Snediker, William H. White
NMHS STAFF: President, Catherine M. Green; Vice President of Operations, Wendy Paggiotta; Senior Sta f Writer, Shelley Reid; Business Manager, Andrea Ryan; Manager of Educational Programs, Heather Purvis; Membership Coordinator, Marianne Pagliaro
SEA HISTORY: Editor, Deirdre E. O’Regan; Advertising Director, Wendy Paggiotta
Sea History is printed by Te Lane Press, South Burlington, Vermont, USA.
Memories of the Falls of Clyde
From the editor: We received this letter from Indrek Lepson, who worked under Jack Dickerhof, the master rigger who supervised the restoration of Falls of Clyde’ s rig in the 1970s. Dickerhof is the one who brought the rig of Balclutha back to life in the 1950s, and, despite failing health, went out to Hawaii to do the same for the Falls of Clyde, the last iron-hulled, four-masted, fullrigged sailing ship in the world. Indrek tells us that he carried a camera with him at all times and shot thousands of photographs, many of which ended up in his personal scrapbooks, which are now in the collection of the National Maritime Historical Society at its headquarters in Peekskill, New York. Indrek’s memories of Jack Dickerhof have resurfaced with the ongoing reporting of the ship’s demise. His letter has been edited for length, but we will follow up in a future issue with more on his story and more on those photographs.
I was pleased to see that the Falls of Clyde was featured in the recent issue of Sea History and saddened to read about her deteriorated condition. James Delgado did a f ne job describing her situation, albeit some information was lacking, or perhaps got lost along the way. I worked with Jack Dickerhof to restore her rig after her initial restoration and have a good many personal memories—and thousands of photographs—of this time under Jack’s tutelage. Jack was my friend, con fdant, and mentor. I probably know more about him than any person extant.
Sir William Lithgow, grandson of the owner of the Glasgow shipyard that built the ship, provided the top hamper, from the small iron cleats to the steel yards and mast sections and Oregon pine wooden spars, a boxcar full of steel tubes, tapered pine “logs” and fttings, all manufactured from the original ship’s plans.
I toiled on her for some eight years and have never worked so hard and hurt so much at the end of the day, hanging from a gantline in a bosun’s chair under the burning-hot tropical sun, sweat pouring into my eyes, wrangling rigging and yards into place—and couldn’t wait to do it again the next day, and the day after that.
Te main salon was resplendent in the best that craftsmanship could produce. I worked more than two months restoring it. Te paneling, overhead, and skylight were covered in greasy gray grime from the years the ship was used as an oil barge. I stripped everything, a messy job at that, especially the overhead. Te walls were Birdseye maple trimmed with teak and birch.
Jack Dickerhof and his wife joined the ship about two years after I did and stayed at a motel in Waikiki, from where I picked him up every day and returned after work, had a beer or a glass of Metaxa and jawed a bit. Jack was a master rigger, the last of his breed. He was brilliant and would have been the best in any feld, whether a physician, or a physicist, or a rigger. He rigged the notable historic ships Balclutha and Star of India and numerous others.
Due to gangrene, his right leg had been amputated four inches below the knee, and he had an arti fcial limb that gave him a peculiar gait but was of no hindrance on or of the ship. One day there was some kind of a problem getting the main yard in place. He asked to be sent aloft and was hoisted up in a bosun’s chair.
Jack was gru f, but patient, teaching us how to splice, worm, parcel, and serve, and how to put on seizings when setting up the rigging. He had enough tools to keep three rigging gangs going simultaneously at the three rigging vises on turntables welded to the deck.
By this time, Jack was dying of colon cancer. He had trained us to the point that, during his absences, work
on the ship continued. It was akin to the conductor being gone but the orchestra continuing to perform. He was getting weaker and became wheelchairbound, but he still had the resolve and drive to f nish the task.
Falls of Clyde’ s f gurehead was carved in England by wood sculptor Jack Whitehead, who carved f gureheads for numerous historic ships and the replica of the Golden Hinde. She was a big lady, eight feet tall and weighing more than a ton. Te medallion and chain around her neck were gold-leafed. Delgado’s comment about the sale of the fgurehead to a local tiki bar was true, but context tells a more positive story. For a donation to the Friends of the Falls of Clyde, the fgurehead was acquired by the owner of a bar who collects, so as to preserve, Hawaii’s historical artifacts. It was in poor shape, having been left to the ravages of the elements, and I imagine that, after repairs and a fresh coat of paint, it will be on display at his establishment to share the story of its role in Hawaii’s maritime history.
Capt. Jim Kleinschmidt was in charge of the ship. Te ship was drydocked, I believe, around 1977 or ’78, I don’t quite remember exactly. She was cleaned and painted; the rudder was pretty deteriorated by then. She had a donkey engine that ran the windlass, pumps, and the donkey winch, which was used for heavy lifting. Jim had the boiler cut into pieces and removed as scrap and replaced with a diesel donkey, as we called it, and ran anything with air pressure that previously had used steam.
Society is not to blame for the loss of the ship. Neither is the government, whether state or national. I lay the blame on the Bishop Museum. I don’t know what took place in the boardroom and what decisions were made about the plan for the ship’s future, but the end-result is that much of the funds
that were made available for her were used elsewhere.
Tere had been no real maintenance on her for years. Eventually, she was closed of to visitors. Having become a derelict and thus a white elephant to the museum, the decision was made to dispose of her. Todd Rigging Co. in Port Townsend, Washington, was contracted to cut her down.
I saw a video of his crew cutting and sawing, and lowering parts of her to the deck. It was like watching a swarm of ants dissecting a beetle, and it went through me like a knife. It hurt to see that what we had created with over a decade of dedicated labor, the crown jewel of Hawaii, turned into rubble. It was all for naught.
Te dock next to her was strewn with the cut-down rigging, like a big platter of spaghetti, and the sawn lengths of the wooden spars. At one time or another, I had my hands on everything that was piled up on that dock. I wept at the scene in that video, and I tear up even now as I write this. It was all for naught. Falls of Clyde is now a sad, stripped-down rusting hulk, waiting for her fate. Like the dodo and the white rhino, the likes of her is now extinct. It didn’t need to be.
Aloha, Falls of Clyde, I knew you well and loved you. Te song has ended, but the melody lingers on.
Indrek L epson Louisburg, North Carolina
I was a young Air Force ofcer stationed in Hawaii during the early 1960s, and clearly recall going out in my small sailboat with my wife and 18-month-old daughter to witness the arrival of the Falls of Clyde after she had been towed from the West Coast to be restored as a foating museum. Over the years, I followed her progress as she was restored and became a waterfront attraction by the Aloha Tower in Honolulu. She was
a wonderful example of the late-great days of large sailing ships. I was aware that her success as a tourist attraction did not generate su fcient funding to provide necessary maintenance required by an old, tired, iron hull. However, I was shocked to learn that things had deteriorated to the extent documented in the recent Sea History, and that her future probably means the salvage of limited artifacts before ultimate scrapping of the remains.
Reading the sad facts documented by Mr. Delgado reminded me of the fate of NMHS’s f agship Kaiulani, which met a similar fate in 1974 when she was scrapped because, despite the eforts to save her, was found to be too far gone to be restored. Two unfortunate but not unique fates. Enclosed is my small contribution to hopefully help prevent future catastrophes.
A ndrew A. R adel Newport, Rhode Island
Mutiny, Violence, and Punishment at Sea
In the Spring 2024 issue of Sea History, I read with great interest the article by William H. White entitled, “Mutiny Aboard the US Brig Somers.” I have long been curious and have conducted research as to the circumstances that led to both the mutiny on the HMAV Bounty and the Somers incidents, and the article placed both captains and their situations in clear juxtaposition.
With regard to the article’s assertion that upon being cast adrift from the Bounty (near the island Tofua), Bligh successfully sailed the overloaded longboat 1,500 miles to Indonesia with the loss of only one man, I would suggest that the true sailing distance is even more remarkable. His ofcial log entry for 12 June 1789: “It is not possible for me to describe the joy…indeed it is scarce within the scope of belief that in 41 days I could be on the coast of Timor in which time we have run by our Log
3623 miles, which on a Medium is 90 miles a Day.”
As to the assertion in the article that Bligh had only one man lashed during the ten-month outbound voyage from England to Tahiti (23 December 1787 to 26 October 1788), my research shows that there were two men lashed en route. Te ofcial log entry for 10 March 1788: “Until this afternoon I had hopes I could have performed the voyage without punishment…but I
found it necessary to punish Mathew Quintal with 2 dozen lashes for Insolence and Contempt.” Te log entry for 25 May 1788, remarks at False Bay, Cape of Good Hope: “Punished John Williams with 6 lashes for neglect of duty in heaving the Lead.”
In stark contrast to Captain Bligh’s sparing use of the whip, Captain MacKenzie’s use of the lash on the Somers, over 50 years after the Bounty mutiny, is almost sadistic. In his recent book Sailing the Graveyard Sea: Te Deathly Voyage of the Somers, the US Navy’s Only Mutiny, and the Trial that Gripped the Nation, Richard Snow highlights that MacKenzie continued to build upon his well-deserved reputation as a “fogging captain.” Prior to the actual voyage involving the alleged mutiny, when the Somers spent six weeks at anchor ftting out, Snow determined that MacKenzie ordered some 50 foggings with the cato’nine-tails and that the smaller “colt” (a piece of rope about 18 inches long with whippings at the end) was put to use 422 times, usually upon young teenagers in the crew. Of the 120 sailors aboard the Somers, 45 were between 13 and 16 years old. On 15 September, three days after departing New York for Africa, three young crew members received six lashes each of the colt; and a week later, nine sailors were fogged, and so on, throughout the entire twomonth voyage.
Te overall conditions onboard the Somers were bizarre by any measure, and call into question the “actual necessity” for Captain MacKenzie’s decision to hang a troubled and troublesome Navy midshipman and two sailors on 1 December 1842 (after they had already been con f ned and placed in double irons since 26–27 November). T is occurred during a time of peace, without hearing or trial, without representation or an opportunity to confront and cross-examine supposed witnesses—witnesses who were not even
sworn in. Moreover, “no overt act of mutiny” occurred before the arrest of Midshipman Spencer, i.e., there was no armed disobedience or violent action taken in furtherance of an actual mutiny.
It is important to note that at the time of the hanging, the Somers was only about 500 miles from the next port of St. Tomas (and probably only half that distance to other friendly Caribbean islands), arriving several days later during the early morning hours of 5 December. Instead of a summary execution amid ambiguous circumstances, these three prisoners could easily have been put ashore with the aid and protection of a friendly island government for later transfer to the United States and proper court-martial proceedings.
M ark R. E sher, E sq., CAPT, US Navy (Ret.) Estero, Florida
Tides,
Currents, and Astrophysics
In the June 2024 issue of Smithsonian, Howard A. Smith, senior astrophysicist with the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, mentions that “the moon has been slowly drifting away from the Earth since its birth—currently at a rate of about two inches per year.” How does this a fect the Earth’s tides and currents?
Paul and Susan H erer Hawthorn Woods, Illinois
From the Editor: At f rst, I was a little confused about why a reader would ask Sea History a question about something they read in another publication. I was about to respond that the reader should ask the folks at Smithsonian this question, but then, I became curious about it as well and thought our readers might appreciate learning the answer, too. I reached out to Dr. Smith, whose quote sparked this conversation in the f rst place, and he kindly responded:
From Dr. Howard A. Smith: As the moon drifts away from Earth, the strength of the gravitational interaction weakens, as you would expect. (It is proportional to the distance squared.) But it takes a long time to make any noticeable di ference at this minuscule rate! Te moon is approximately ten billion inches away at this moment, so, even after a few years, the slight drift is not going to make any di ference to us (ten billion inches plus a few inches is still almost exactly ten billion inches).
I would add a general pedagogic remark to a wide audience: Some (most) astronomical phenomena take place over eons of time, but our changing climate is fantastically fast—within our lifetimes(!) because global warming does not depend on the predicted variations in the moon or sun or other heavenly bodies. It depends primarily on heating of the Earth’s atmosphere. Howard Smith Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian
Marine Art Conjures Up the Past
As a former naval person, I enjoy every page of every issue of Sea History. As a Baltimorean, I was pleased to see in the background of the picture on page 42 (“A Maritime History of the United States: Commerce by Sea”) a Baltimore clipper. Tese vessels were two-masted, ga f-rigged schooners with square topsails. Tey served as privateers in the War of Independence and again in the War of 1812. In the page 43 painting of New York (then New Amsterdam) harbor, there is a Dutch lugger showing the uniquely Dutch feature of sideboards. Tese facilitated navigating shallow waters, where today we would use a centerboard. Te merchant vessel is fying the Dutch tricolor ensign of red, white, and blue. If you move the red stripe to the bottom, you get the old and present fag of Russia. T is fag was designed by Peter the Great, who
lived in the Netherlands for a while, studying Dutch shipbuilding in advance of establishing his own navy. Another image featured in this article is of particular interest to me; it is of a modern supertanker and shows a feature of the US Navy yard oiler—in which I (then a 19-year-old coxswain) served as acting skipper in 1945 and 1946 in the Philippines—namely the catwalk from the bow to the pilot house.
When I returned to Baltimore after my time in the Navy, I went back to college and law school, graduating in 1952 and practiced as a sole practitioner until I retired in 2014. In my last court trial in the 1950s, I was assisting in the defense of Captain John Meckling, owner and skipper of the Levin J. Marvel, a Chesapeake Bay three-masted vacation cruiser converted from a 90-year-old lumber carrier, known as a bald-headed ram. He was acquitted of the charge of negligence of a ship’s offcer causing death, largely because of the then-Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Richmond, who stood by the testimony he had given to a congressional committee to the efect that the age of the vessel had nothing to do with its sinking. He explained that any vessel blown onto a lee shore in a hurricane is bound to wreck.
John C. Weiss, Jr . Baltimore, Maryland
USS Bonhomme Richard Hull
Classi fcation Corrected I received my copy of the latest Sea History yesterday. I’ve only had a chance to f ip through it so far, but that was enough for me to spot an error on pages 27 and 28, in the article on freboats. On both pages, USS Bonhomme Richard is identi fed as LH-6 instead of the correct LHD-6. Te Navy has LHAs and LHDs, but no LHs, so that jumped right out at me.
Jim Royle San Diego, California
Model Ships by Ray Guinta
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Check out books at www.seahistory.org/ education/library/
Sail Aboard the Liberty Ship
On a cruise you can tour museum spaces, bridge, crew quarters, & much more. Visit the engine room to view the 140-ton triple-expansion steam engine as it powers the ship though the water.
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National Maritime Historical Society
2024 Annual Awards Dinner
24 October • New York Yacht Club • New York City
by Julia Church
The 2024 NMHS dinner chair Thomas A. Whidden, along with NMHS chairman, CAPT James A. Noone, USN (Ret.), invites you to join us for the NMHS Annual Awards Dinner, this October at the New York Yacht Club. We look forward to welcoming old friends and new as we celebrate exceptional leadership in maritime research, education, and preservation—Dr. Sylvia Earle, Dr. John B. Hatendorf, and Ford Reiche.
The 2024 Awardees
Dr. Sylvia Earle
It is quite possible that no human has experienced the magnitude of the ocean’s breadth and depth as has Sylvia Earle. Fondly referred to as “Her Deepness” and recognized as the f rst “Hero for the Planet” by Time magazine, she is a celebrated marine explorer, author, and lecturer, and a seasoned aquanaut. She has led scienti fc expeditions, resided in undersea habitats, piloted advanced subaquatic vehicles, and pioneered experimental marine equipment. One of the most
experienced and daring divers in underwater exploration history, Earle has led more than 100 expeditions and logged over 7,000 hours underwater. She earned global fame in 1970, leading the f rst female team of aquanauts for the Tektite II Project undersea research facility. In 1979, she set and still holds the record for an untethered walk on the sea foor at a depth of 1,250 feet in an armored dive suit.
Dr. Earle will receive the 2024 NMHS Distinguished Service Award for her life’s work exploring and advocating for our oceans. By probing the depths and sharing her discoveries and observations, she engages both the scienti fc community and a popular audience alike and is renowned for her impact on the conservation ethic.
Earle’s research concerns the ecology and conservation of marine ecosystems and the development of innovative technologies to access the deep sea. She has used 30 types of submarines and started three companies and a nonproft, Deep Search, to design and build systems for deep sea access. She is also the founder of the Deep Ocean Exploration and Research, Inc. (DOER).
From 1990–1992, Earle served as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s chief scientist, the f rst woman appointed to the position. In 1995, she put out a call to action to preserve the Earth’s oceans in her book Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans. In 2014, she wrote Blue Hope: Exploring and Caring for Earth’s Magnifcent Ocean and Ocean: An Illustrated Atlas. Earle states, “Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea.”
Earle led the National Geographic Sustainable Seas expedition for fve years and is now the Explorer in Residence
for the National Geographic Society. She is chair of the advisory council for the Harte Research Institute and has served on the Advisory Council of the Ocean in Google Earth. Te subject of the Emmy Award-winning 2014 Net f ix documentary Mission Blue, she is the recipient of more than 100 national and international honors and awards, including being named a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress.
Dr. Sylvia Earle embodies the spirit of exploration and brings us along on the journey. While her accolades are many, we at the National Maritime Historical Society would like to honor and thank her for emphasizing our connection to the ocean and how its health is inextricably linked to ours as a species.
Dr. John B. Hatendorf
Named “one of the most widely known and well-respected naval historians in the world” by the US Naval Institute’s Proceedings, Dr. John B. Hattendorf has received international acclaim for his scholarship. T rough his publications and original research, he explores the relationship between naval history and maritime strategy, examining the development and use of history within navies as a means of understanding strategy.
Dr. Hattendorf will be presented with the 2024 NMHS Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his years of service at the US Naval War College (NWC) and for the inspiration and guidance he has provided to scores of students at the Naval War College, the Munson Institute, and beyond. His impact has in fuenced generations of scholars.
Hattendorf was named the Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History at the NWC in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1984 and served in this role until 2016. At the college, Hattendorf served as director of the Advanced Research Department, 1986–2003; chair, Maritime History Department, 2003–2016; and director, NWC Museum, 2003–2016. He also served as the senior advisor at the John B. Hattendorf Center for Maritime Historical Research. Hattendorf also served as the director of the Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, and taught at Salve Regina University’s graduate program in International Relations.
During the Vietnam War, Hattendorf served as a naval lieutenant in three Atlantic and Pacifc Fleet destroyers: USS O’Brien (DD-725), USS Purdy (DD-734), and USS Fiske (DD-842). He earned a commendation for outstanding performance of duty during combat operations in April 1967. In 1972, he reported to the US Naval War College as fag
speechwriter, research assistant, and instructor under thenpresident Vice Admiral Stansfeld Turner. He taught in the college’s strategy and policy department and completed his thesis on the history of strategic thinking and wargaming.
Per Hattendorf, “History cannot predict anything, but it def nes context and situation.... As weapons change and ships change, it’s always the sailor who stays constant.... You can follow the technological developments, but it is the limitations of humans across history that is always constant.”
Born in Western Springs, Illinois, Hattendorf developed an interest in maritime subjects when he was a sailing instructor during his youth. He graduated from Lyons Township High School in LaGrange, Illinois, received his bachelor’s degree from Kenyon College (1964), and earned his master’s in history from Brown University (1971). He then completed his doctorate at Pembroke College, Oxford, (DPhil, 1979; DLitt, 2016).
A proli fc writer, Hattendorf has published many books, articles, essays, historical documents, and edited collections, including popular readers’ guides to the Aubrey-Maturin series of naval novels by Patrick O’Brian. He was editor-inchief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History (2007), which received the 2008 Dartmouth Medal of the American Library Association. Forthcoming is a new edition of Sailors and Scholars, on the history of the US Naval War College .
In 2011, the Naval War College established the Hattendorf Prize for Distinguished Original Research in Maritime History. Te 2014 Oxford Naval Conference— “Strategy and the Sea”—celebrated his distinguished career. In 2016, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral John
Richardson, presented him with the Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award. In 2009, he received the Department of the Navy Superior Civilian Service Award for his work as chair of the Secretary of the Navy’s Advisory Subcommittee on Naval History (2006–2008).
“Halfway Lighthouse was a stag lighthouse,” shares Ford Reiche. “It was not appropriate for families: It is a wave-swept lighthouse, located 20 miles of shore, sitting on a ledge. In the eyes of the government, the light station was the harshest of all lightkeeper existences and was for males only.”
Ford Reiche will receive the 2024 NMHS Distinguished Service Award for his restoration of several buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, notably the 1871 Halfway Rock Lighthouse in Maine. Te 76-foot-tall granite tower and attached clapboard boathouse and keeper’s quarters on Casco Bay marked the approach to the City of Portland from sea. Te Coast Guard sta fed the light station since World War II but abandoned it in 1975. In 2014, the federal government ofered the property for free to nonproft organizations, but none had the resources to take it on. Te following year, Reiche paid $283,000 for it at auction. He promptly assembled a team and began working to restore the exterior and reconstruct the 1950s-era interior spaces. “I am hands-on because I couldn’t a ford to do it otherwise. It has enabled me to do restorations that otherwise might not have been practical. I can sometimes f nd creative solutions that otherwise would be prohibitively expensive.”
“ T anks to Ford Reiche, seafarers will continue to be protected from this dangerous rock, and its proud stone tower will still battle the breakers that come from the other
Ford Reiche
USN PHOTO BY CHIEF MASS
John Hatendorf giving a lecture at US Naval War College.
end of the earth,” proclaimed Earle G. Shettleworth Jr., Maine State Historian. In 2016, the Maine Preservation Association recognized the project with its Preservation Award. Lighthouse Digest described it as “a miracle restoration in Casco Bay, Maine,” and in 2017, the American Lighthouse Foundation gave Reiche its Keeper of the Light award.
In his 2018 book, Halfway Rock Light Station, Reiche shares the story of Halfway Rock Lighthouse’s restoration with a historical overview of the light station and the lives and duties of its lighthouse keepers. Te restoration was also featured on the DIY Network series Building of the Grid in 2017.
In January 2024, the Maine coast endured back-to-back winter storms that caused widespread destruction and severe damage to remote lighthouse sites, including Halfway Rock Light. After the storm, Reiche and Bob Trapani Jr., American Lighthouse Foundation’s executive director, visited 23 of Maine’s lighthouses by helicopter to assess the damage. Teir footage from that f ight resulted in a three-minute video that is now used to spread the word about the importance of preserving and fortifying historic coastal structures. Te Maine lighthouses are nominated to the World Monuments Fund; later this year, a determination will be made whether they are to join the endangered list.
A self-taught historian with a passion for Maine and its history, he has, to date, restored fve buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, including two railroad stations. “I f nd myself drawn to properties that deserve to be saved because they are architecturally important, or more
Ford Reiche at Halfway Rock Lighthouse often, they are historically important. I get drawn to them because I am afraid no one else is going to do it.”
Reiche is eyeing Harpswell’s Little Mark Island Monument for his next venture. In spring 2023, the federal government announced it was giving away the aging of shore beacon and ofered it for free to any responsible non-proft organization. If chosen, Reiche’s group, the Presumscot Foundation, will own the building and fund its restoration.
A graduate of the University of Maine with a JD from the University of Maine School of Law, Ford Reiche was named Mainebiz’s Large Business Leader of the Year in 2009 and Maine Small Businessperson of the Year in 2008. He is a former trustee of Maine Preservation.
You’re Invited!
We are excited to gather again at the New York Yacht Club this fall for our annual New York City gala and hope you will join us. National Sailing Hall of Famer Thomas A . Whidden, dinner chair and recipient of the 2022 NMHS Distinguished Service Award, looks forward to welcoming you! We will enjoy feature videos about the honorees produced by award-winning documentarian, NMHS Vice Chair Richardo Lopes—always a highlight of the evening and a wonderful way to acknowledge our award
recipients. Richard T. du Moulin will serve as our emcee, and the US Coast Guard Cadet Chorale, directed by Dr. Daniel McDavit, DMA, will perform a traditional seafaring and patriotic set for the evening’s entertainment.
We gratefully acknowledge our event sponsors: Commodore Sponsor—Caddell Dry Dock & Repair Co., Inc.; Take Home Favor Sponsors— CAPT Sally McElwreath Callo, USN (Ret .) & RADM Joseph Callo, USN (Ret .) and Thomas & Betsy Whidden.
To make your reservation or to become an event sponsor, please visit www.seahistory. org/aad2024, or contact Wendy Paggiota at vicepresident@seahistory.org or 914-737-7878, ext. 557 Seating is limited, so make your reservation today!
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Roy Hatori and the Japanese American Abalone Fishery of Monterey Bay
by Melissa Ashley, Caleb Fineske, Leilani Leszkay, Tommy Hatori, Kylie King, and Richard J. King
“All right, Roy,” his father said, “jump of the ladder and go down to the bottom and see what it’s like.” With almost no training, eighteen-year-old Roy Hattori made his frst dive in about 15–20 feet of water of his family’s boat, embarking on what would become a career diving for abalone and a lifelong love of the ocean.
Japanese immigrants and their families once led the harvest of all ma-
rine life around Monterey Bay in California. In 1907, they owned and operated more than 80 percent of the salmon feet, and by the 1930s and early 1940s, they were running more than 80 percent of the shoreside businesses on the wharf, including fresh fsh processing and distribution at the dock. Te abalone f shery was worked entirely by members of the Japanese community. Typically, the men ran the boats
and did the diving, while the women processed the catch and worked in the canneries.
By the 1920s another immigrant community, Sicilians, largely ran the catching of sardines, but Japanese men participated here, too, and Japanese captains, such as Frank Manaka, were at the forefront of purse seine technology in the bay. Yet if you stroll the paths of Monterey today, walk the tourist gauntlet of Fisherman’s Wharf, or amble along the coastal walkway beside the statues and plaques about Italian fshermen, Yankee and Portuguese whalers, and Spanish explorers, past the monuments commemorating John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts, you might never know there was—and still is—a thriving Japanese American community that contributed immensely to the working waterfront and the modern maritime culture of the central California Coast.
Part of the reason for the current lack of awareness about the Japanese American community in the Monterey Bay area is their incarceration at the start of World War II. Two months into the war, authorities began rounding up individuals and families of Japanese descent, compelling them to sell of their vessels, gear, and belongings at absurdly low prices. Out of sheer terror, many also destroyed or hid their family documents and letters. While much of this history was, as a result, lost forever, a few stories have survived through oral histories and individual family records.
One of the abalone fshermen from this era was Roy Hattori, whose story
Roy Hatori in the dive suit he wore to harvest abalone. His dive helmet is in view to his lef
is well documented because he was the subject of a photo essay intended for Life magazine; decades later he also sat for recorded and f lmed oral history interviews. Hattori was the f rst and only Nisei (a US citizen born to Japanese immigrant parents) in Monterey to hard-hat dive for abalone, and he later identi fed a new species of abalone. He endured incarceration during the war and the loss of his livelihood, yet returned to Monterey after his release in part because of his passion for working underwater. His story ofers an ideal thread to introduce the history of the Japanese American community’s contributions to the California Coast, especially in terms of abalone and diving in Monterey Bay.
Hard-Hat Diving for Abalone
For Roy’s f rst dive in 1937, a mechanized engine pumped air from the surface down through a hose and into a large copper helmet screwed and sealed onto a rubberized canvas dive suit. Tick lead weights hung around Roy’s neck and were fastened to his boots to keep him from foating to the surface. Together, the suit and helmet weighed more than 150 pounds—more than Roy himself.
“When I hit the bottom, I was paralyzed,” Hattori explained years later. “It hurt so much I couldn’t even move.” He explained that he didn’t know what sounds to expect, about air pressure, the cold, or much of anything about what he was doing. He frantically tugged on the rope to come right back up. Back on shore, Roy got in touch with his older brother, an experienced dive crewman who lived in
another town, who explained how to equalize the pressure by lifting the small apron fap at the front of the suit and then blowing air out his nose. “Tat one little instruction was all it took for me to realize that it wasn’t all that bad. And the bottom was so beautiful,” he explained.
Soon Hattori was spending his days underwater from dawn until dusk, surfacing only for lunch and short breaks to warm up. When he was frst learning, friendly divers from other boats would wave for him to follow and learn about
the process and about the animals he was gathering.
Abalone is a large mollusk with a thick foot muscle, like an enormous fat snail with tremendous suction that enables it to withstand wave energy and predators. Tey typically attach to hard surfaces and, when disturbed, can become di fcult—if not impossible—to remove. Abalone divers had to sneak up and grab them from behind before the animals could sense they were near and latch on tight. In prying the animals of the rocks, the divers took care
(above right) Hard-hat abalone divers in Point Lobos.
(right) Red abalone within the Sea Lion Cove State Marine Conservation Area at Point Arena, California.
not to damage the shell or the animal within. Tey then put them in a bag, which, when full, would be sent up to the boat by a rope.
In the 1930s, dive trips usually lasted about fve days. Te crew would travel out and sleep on board a larger vessel, where caught abalone were kept alive in custom-made wooden boxes lashed on the deck, not unlike a modern f shing boat’s livewell. A tender would go out with a diver and support crew, usually four or so men. Roy would typically dive between 20 and 50 feet
but was known to go deeper, depending on the site and the weather. Twice during his career, he got decompression sickness at the end of the day, so had to be lowered back down—at night—for up to two hours. “You’re dangling, feeling like a piece of bait,” Hattori said. “It’s pitch black, and you can see shapes going by.”
One day the surge from a swell threw Hattori against the rocks, denting his helmet and cracking its glass side panel. Water began to rush in. He remembered hearing about an older
diver, who once used the abalone’s suction to seal of the crack in his dive helmet. “I pulled an abalone out of my basket and put it over the broken glass, and it was just like the guy said, it just immediately stopped…the stream of water coming in, and I was able to signal my dad and get him to pull me up.” Tey went back to port and his father soldered up the helmet and replaced the glass plate. Hattori was back underwater the next day.
Around the time Roy started diving for abalone, his father was often ill and was sometimes hospitalized. Roy’s mother Tama owned and managed an abalone cannery along the wharf, and while this business provided work for dozens of local people, her modest income was not enough to sustain the family on its own. So Roy became a commercial abalone diver because this position earned the lion’s share of the boat crew’s proft, and from the day of that f rst dive he took over as the main breadwinner of his family.
Establishing the Modern Abalone Industry
How the Hattori family and others in the Japanese American community came to develop a modern f shery for abalone along the California Coast is steeped in colonialism and racially motivated policies from which Japanese families f rst beneftted—but eventually were nearly ruined.
Hundreds of indigenous communities, including tribes of the Chumash,
(above lef) Back at the dock, the abalone that had been kept alive in wooden boxes or piled on deck were hoisted ashore to be processed.
(lef) Although there were no female hard-hat divers, many women were employed in the abalone canneries. Roy’s mother owned an abalone cannery on what is now Fisherman’s Wharf.
Roy Hatori on the ladder before his helmet is secured. Abalone hard-hat divers required a crew to stay at the surface to help them get their gear on, tend the air supply lines, and haul up the mesh bags when the diver indicated they were full of abalone. In the boat, Roy is accompanied by his older brother Koji James (lef) and Ish Enokida.
Drying abalone meat on racks on the beaches near San Pedro, California, ca. 1910.
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Valley Yahi, Hupa, and near Monterey, the Rumsen-Ohlone and Yokut had been harvesting abalone along the California coast for some 12,000 years before the arrival of European explorers and Spanish settlers and missionaries, the latter of whom enslaved the local people and had no taste for seafood. Modern linguists have traced the origin of the word “abalone” back to Monterey, speci fcally to the Rumsen word for red abalone, “aulun.” During the Mexican Era (1821–1848) and then in the f rst decades of California statehood, settlers were eager for sea otter pelts, whale oil, gold, and ranch land. Tey had little interest in harvesting marine life for food.
It was not until Chinese families arrived in California in the 1850s for work, such as building railroads, that a small community just south of Monterey Bay recognized the potential in the abalone f shery, abundant and in easy reach. Tese new abalone fshermen supplied a ready market in China.
Harvesting by hand or from a boat using poles ftted with hooks, they dried the meat and shipped it in sacks across the North Paci fc. Te size of this harvest, revealed by piles of abalone shells left on the beach, raised local hackles, even though early European- and Mexican Americans did not want the resource. In 1879, near the peak of this style of abalone harvest, Chinese f shermen from San Francisco to San Diego processed roughly 777,600 pounds of dried abalone and 3.8 million pounds of shell, the latter of which found a brief market internationally for high-value decorations and craftwork. Around this time, Chinese people had begun to suffer from xenophobic backlash from US state governments, leading to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which forced the Chinese community in Monterey Bay out of the abalone f shery altogether, as well as other lines of work and other f sheries.
A decade later, Japanese laborers came to Monterey to f ll some of the same jobs, including work in agriculture and lumber. In 1895 Otosaburo Noda, who was hired by the Paci fc Improvement Company as a labor contractor (and also did some salmon f shing), looked into the water and saw what he described as “a carpet of abalone.” With no one harvesting them and sea otters hunted nearly to extinction, the abalone populations were thriving. Aware of a market back in Asia, Noda sent word back to Japan.
Soon, Gennosuke Kodani immigrated to Monterey from Chiba Prefecture, on the Bōsō Peninsula just east of Tokyo. Noda and Kodani and their two families would, as historian David Yamada put it, “form the genesis of the Japanese community on the Monterey Peninsula.” As of December 1897, at least three male ama (free divers) arrived in Monterey. Te group consisted of Ichinosuke Yasuda, Daisuke Yasuda, and Rinji Yamamoto, as well as Kodani’s younger brother Nakajiro, who was a marine biologist. In the years to
come, however, since the water along the California Coast is signi fcantly colder than the waters in Japan, their style of harvest remained a fringe method. Hard-hat diving was the future. Kodani leased from a landowner and later partnered with him to establish a waterfront site at Point Lobos, the same location where there had once been a whaling station. Kodani’s family and other Japanese immigrant families collected and dried abalone. Tey started the Point Lobos Canning Company as a way to distribute their product.
An Iconic California Food Roy Hattori’s family grew up in a house in Monterey one block from the sardine canneries. Tey lived near Italian, Portuguese, and other immigrant communities that had also begun to move to the California coast, drawn for the same reasons: for the fsh, the moderate climate, and a landscape that reminded them of home. Roy learned Italian before he learned English.
Born in 1919, Roy was the f fth of six children. By then, anti-Japanese
This is the actual white abalone found by Roy Hatori in 1939, who gave it to biologist Andrew Sorensen to investigate. Sorensen sent it along to Dr. Paul Bartsch at the Smithsonian. The animal was subsequently identified as a new species and named Haliotis sorenseni. Hatori was denied credit when it came to naming the new species, but correspondence between Bartsch and Sorensen confirms that it was Roy who discovered it.
policies had been percolating along the California Coast, resulting in regulations that limited immigration and removed the path to citizenship for anyone of Asian descent. Te California legislature enacted laws in 1913 and 1915 that declared that abalone could no longer be dried and that neither the meat nor the shells could be exported in any form out of the state. Tese policies were overtly racist, as there was no commercial interest in the use of abalone for food outside the Asian communities, and the Japanese were the only families involved in the harvest.
Meanwhile, a chef named Ernest “Pop” Doelter, a German immigrant who had a fair for marketing and entrepreneurship, had been searching for a new dish that would entice customers. He noticed the trend of eating abalone chowder on the beach, popularized by a group of writers and artists such as Jack London and George Sterling. Hitting the right note at the right time, advertising fresh and canned abalone at the 1915 World’s Fair held in San Francisco, Doelter and other restauranteurs, promoters, and distributors provided a new, much-needed market for the Japanese abalone f shermen. De-
mand for abalone boomed, unrestricted by the anti-Japanese legislation. For a time, Kodani even employed Doelter as a sales and distribution broker at their cannery and boatyard, providing a place for him and his family to live before he bought a new restaurant in Monterey.
Roy Hattori entered the abalone business in the 1930s, when the Japanese f shermen remained the primary Monterey supplier, diving as far south as Los Angeles, helping to secure abalone’s place as an iconic food of Central California. Maine had its lobster; New York had its oysters; the Chesapeake had its blue crabs; and now California, at least for a time, had abalone as its signature, high-status delicacy.
Identification of a New Species
During Hattori’s f rst year diving for abalone, a photographer friend named Rey Ruppel shot a series of photographs of the abalone industry to both document the technology and methods and as a potential story for a national audience. Te editors at Life expressed genuine interest, but as the Second World War was expanding, the article was never published. Ruppel’s photos, however, survived and provide an un-
matched visual record of the industry.
At the height of his diving career, Roy Hattori made a remarkable scienti fc discovery—a new species of abalone. Te indigenous harvesters, followed by the Chinese f shermen of the 1800s, working close to the intertidal zone likely gathered black abalone (Haliotis cracherodii), while divers in the early 1900s harvested primarily the common red abalone (H. rufescens), which is larger, has a wider range, and is found in deeper waters. Hattori and his fellow divers also collected pink abalone (H. corrugata) and green abalone (H. fulgens). One day while diving of Santa Barbara in September of 1939, Roy noticed a bed of abalone in about sixty feet of water with what appeared to be two di ferent types he had not seen before. He brought 18 of the animals to Andrew Sorensen, a shell collector and amateur malacologist, who subsequently sent them along to expert Dr. Paul Bartsch at the Smithsonian for further review. Soon a new species, the white abalone, was announced and registered under the scienti fc name Haliotis sorenseni.
Roy never discussed this slight publicly, but he did tell the story of his
discovery of the white abalone to his children and grandchildren. Another specimen he collected that day, a subspecies of red abalone, was named after him (Haliotis rufescens hattorii). Recently, writers and scholars, including Roy’s grandson Tommy Hattori, have begun to research the discovery and properly credit Roy for the identifcation of the new species. A signi fcant breakthrough in this efort came from historian Tim Tomas, who discovered a letter from Sorensen to Bartsch, which states: “Hattori also brought us the original large one [white abalone] that you named H. sorenseni.”
Today, there are eight separate species of abalone recognized along the California coast. Two of them, the white and black abalone, are now critically endangered. Commercial and recreational fshing of all wild abalone species is currently closed in California. Te drastic decline of all abalone species of California is due to a combination of overharvesting by commercial and recreational divers, coastal pollution, the return of the sea otter (its main preda-
tor), the efects of global warming, and other ecological shifts. Hattori’s white abalone was the f rst marine invertebrate ever listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Loss of Livelihood and Incarceration
Te expanding recognition for Roy Hattori in the scienti fc community has been especially meaningful for his descendants. “For our family,” wrote his grandson in 2023, “being able to see Roy Hattori given direct credit for fnding the f rst white abalone has been validation for us all. Given that he was forced into a Japanese American incarceration camp just a few short years after this happened makes it even more meaningful for us.”
A few months after the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, American ofcials forced all people of Japanese descent, regardless of nativity, to move into inland incarceration camps. In the spring of 1942, Roy and his family were assigned to Rohwer Camp in Arkansas and given only ten
days to pack their things and sell their belongings. Harried and pressured, Roy and his family had to rely on a friend to sell their boats, diving gear, and equipment, bringing in less than one percent of what they were worth.
Te Hattoris endured three years in the camp. One of the few silver linings was that Roy married the love of his life, Yoshi Grace Hattori, whom he had known before the war; they had their f rst child at the camp. Later, Roy was sent to Japan as part of the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) during World War II, arriving in Hiroshima one week after the bomb was dropped. He served for about a year in occupied Japan as a translator for doctors.
In 1945, after being released from the camps, many of the Japanese fshing families did not return to Monterey, instead moving elsewhere to establish their new lives, unwilling to try to restart from scratch in a community where their reception would be uncertain. Due to over f shing and shifts in oceanographic conditions, the sardine f shery crashed in the late 1940s, causing f shermen to switch to tuna and other more lucrative f sheries. Te seasonal salmon f sheries were in decline and commercial abalone divers, competing more and more with recreational divers, needed to travel farther and dive deeper to make money. A few Japanese families, like the Manakas, returned to Monterey and continued f shing. Frank Manaka became one of the coast’s high-liners for tuna and an outspoken advocate for the rights of Japanese workers—but even he had to be creative with fnances and travel great distances from home. After World War II, Japanese f shermen were f nancially,
Roy polished and inscribed this abalone shell for his girlfriend, Grace Hagio, whom he married during their incarceration at Camp Rohwer.
socially, and legally walled of from returning to the Monterey working waterfront in any meaningful way.
Fisherman- Naturalist for Life
Te Hattoris returned to Monterey after the war. To make ends meet and to support his growing family, Roy worked full-time at a watch repair shop, as well as taking an early morning shift at a dry cleaner. Hattori still made time to get in the water. He never lost his fascination with the kelp forests, the marine growth on the rocks, and all the underwater life. “It’s an entirely di ferent world,” he once said, “and I never regretted once the fact that I had to work and make a living at that. I think if a man could do this, or anybody could do this just for a hobby and see the ocean bottom like this—I thought that would really be something. Of course, I never had enough sense or education to capitalize on that.”
Hattori understood, in retrospect, that while he was in the water diving for abalone, Jacques Cousteau and Émile Gagnan were developing the Aqualung, and through their f lms and television shows were establishing scuba diving as a sport that would become a global and enduring pursuit for both professionals and recreation divers. Hattori kept diving after the war. He became one of the founding members of the f rst recreational freediving club in Monterey—the Sea Otters. Although he enjoyed scuba, he preferred freediving and would do it whenever possible. Roy felt using scuba gear (the aqualung) gave the diver an unfair advantage over his quarry, whether it was f sh or abalone. He also took up spear f shing, setting the world record in 1962 for the largest California halibut caught by spear f shing (a record that still stands).
Over the years Hattori witnessed the return of the sea otter to Monterey Bay, the rise of tourism and recreation-
al diving, and the establishment of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, only a block from where he grew up. He saw the working waterfront in Monterey evolve to serve tourism, recreational boating, and a handful of vessels going out for market squid, plus a few smaller boats going out seasonally for crab, salmon, and rock fsh. During his lifetime, Hattori observed the closure of all commercially harvested abalone and the establishment of a small abalone aquaculture business, which raised the animals directly under the commercial docks in Monterey. Inspired by Roy’s experiences as a diver, his brother, Dr. Tak Hattori, was one of the driving forces behind the acquisition and installation of the Paci fc Grove Hyperbaric Chamber in Monterey County. T is chamber is still in operation today, serving as the only emergency facility for treating decompression sickness between Southern California and Seattle, Washington. He managed the chamber for 44 years and gained local recognition as the “Dive Doctor.”
On Christmas Day in 2011, Roy Nobuyoshi Hattori died at the age of 92. Toward the end of his life, Roy was formally honored by the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), where he said, “I would like to be remembered as a person who spent his life by, near, on, and in the ocean.”
Japanese American Citizens League in Monterey
Established in 1929 to advocate for Japanese immigrants and their families, the JACL has remained a national network for social justice for Asian and Paci fc Islander Americans. Te Monterey chapter of the JACL was founded in 1932—while Roy was still in junior high school—to help new immigrants assimilate, navigate American bureaucracy, and advocate for their civil rights in California. Te JACL in Monterey is still going strong today. Based out
of the JACL Hall in the middle of what was historically Japan Town, since the 1930s, the JACL has served as a central meeting place for the Japanese American community. In the early 1990s, members of the JACL recorded sixty-four oral histories, several of which are related to f shing.
In 2019, the Monterey JACL board, with contributions from various members, including longtime JACL president, Larry Oda, opened a heritage museum curated by Tim Tomas. Te museum shares some of the stories of the Japanese Americans who made their living from the marine resources of Monterey Bay, including the Kodani, Manaka, Kuwatani, and Kageyama families. Te museum includes a central display case devoted to Roy Hattori, with a diving helmet exactly like the one he once wore, and a new exhibit that interprets his discovery of the white abalone. Roy Hattori is but one of hundreds of Japanese fshermen, dockworkers, and f sh processors whose stories deserve greater recognition.
This article was wri ten as part of a marine environmental history course at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey. The authors and researchers included undergraduate students Caleb Fineske and Kylie King from Middlebury College, as well as graduate students from the Environmental Policy and Management program, Melissa Ashley and Leilani Leszkay. Professor Richard J. King is a regular contributor to Sea History. We are grateful for the research and thinking of classmate Sophia Witing, and the expertise of Tommy Hatori and Tim Thomas of the JACL–Monterey. You can watch one of Roy Hatori’s interviews on YouTube by searching for “100 Story Project—Roy Hattori: Diving for Abalone.”
The Case for Historic Ships
by Ray Ashley and Timothy J. Runyan
In March 2001, six months before the 9/11 attacks on the United States by Al Qaeda, their hosts— the Taliban-led government of Afghanistan—made world headlines with the deliberate demolition of the famed 7th-century Buddhas of Bamiyan. In like fashion, fourteen years
later, in August 2015, the ascendant Islamic State blew up the ancient Roman cultural complex of Palmyra, Syria, which had stood since the T ird Century BCE.
Tese wanton acts of destruction shared the similar purpose of expressing contempt and provoked a common
reaction of outrage from the rest of the world, that something so obviously the patrimony of all humanity should be destroyed to score a political point. Similar to acts of terrorism that strive to stimulate horror by the taking of innocent lives, these acts seemed to emerge as part of a war on humanity itself, taking form as an assault on the heritage of the world. Moreover, the horror and outrage was grounded by the collective and formal designation of these places as World Heritage Sites: irreplaceable treasures of all humanity, which all nations of the world are formally charged with protecting. A recognition of eternal value stands as their foremost defense, albeit here it was an imperfect one.
At this writing, a former US National Historic Landmark, the fourmasted, full-rigged ship Falls of Clyde, built in 1878, sits abandoned on the Honolulu waterfront; the only attention she has received, as of late, has been to document her components and remove what can be removed. In 2008 her thenowner, the Bishop Museum, proposed that she be towed out to sea and scuttled. Subsequent eforts to stabilize and restore the ship, or even transport her to her birthplace in Scotland, have fallen through, and the ship was recently delisted from the National Register and National Historic Landmark lists. She is currently awaiting f nal preparations by the Honolulu Harbor Department to destroy her.
In 2011, the US Navy protected cruiser, USS Olympia, Admiral George Dewey’s fagship at the Battle of Manila Bay and the oldest steel warship a foat,
Falls of Clyde in Honolulu.
was likewise proposed for destruction by her own museum in Philadelphia. Independence Seaport Museum later revised those plans and announced an e fort to raise the millions of dollars necessary to stabilize and repair the ship, but by all estimates the challenge has been daunting. Tough they are (or were) both National Historic Landmarks, neither Falls of Clyde nor Olympia is a forded the level of recognition or protection of a designated World Heritage Site. Destroying them, rather by the modest distinction that separates simple neglect from outright terrorism in such cases, would not generate worldwide disdain and horror, because the world’s foremost program that identifes irreplaceable treasures of humanity does not consider any ship to fall under that category, or at least not yet. Ironically, just up the hill from USS Olympia sits
the architecturally less complex and less structurally imposing Independence Hall, which is a World Heritage Site and thus is assured survival in perpetuity at whatever cost as a national and international imperative.
World Heritage Sites are landmarks or areas of special designation and administered by the United Nations Educational, Scienti fc and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as places of outstanding signi fcance to humanity
USS Olympia in Philadelphia.
The UNESCO World Heritage Site at Palmyra, Syria, was destroyed in 2015 by the Islamic State.
and are a forded legal protection by international convention. Sites are f rst identi fed by their host country to be placed in a “Tentative List,” from which they are selected for inclusion in the “Nomination File” and evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the World Conservation Union, which in turn makes recommendations to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee representing 21 “states parties” elected by the UN General Assembly.
Te program began with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Natural and Cultural Heri-
tage, adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972, and since ratifed by 192 nations, making it one of the most widely recognized international agreements. As of April 2024, there are 1,199 individual sites on the World Heritage List— 933 cultural sites, 227 natural sites, and 39 mixed cultural and natural sites. Tere are 48 transboundary sites that span two or more nations. Italy has the most sites with 59, followed by China with 57. Tere is not a single work of naval architecture among these lists, despite awareness that the entire ancient legacy of human interaction with the
sea is physically embodied within a few remaining historic ships or shipwrecks that transcend thousands of years of world heritage.
At present, within the most esteemed and efective international system of heritage recognitions, ships are not a forded the same level of signi fcance as comparable terrestrial structures. T is is the case despite the fact that some of them will remain forever in place as archaeological sites or have been installed as permanent features of the landscape. Moreover, because the signi fcance of these treasures is sometimes not well understood or recognized, this patrimony is at risk everywhere.
Like any historic site, a ship may be of world signi fcance, but it is usually up to the community where it resides to f nd the means to sustain it. Without a popular understanding of that signi fcance, the resources to sustain the asset are di fcult and sometimes impossible to generate. Tere are several World Heritage Sites recognized partially or entirely because of their relationship to the maritime story, including L’Anse Aux Meadows, the Naval Port of Karlskrona, Liverpool
(above lef) The 143-foot Khufu ship, known as the “solar barque,” was sealed into a pit alongside the Great Pyramid of Giza around 2500 BCE, during the 4th Dynasty of the Egyptian Old Kingdom. The ship is “the biggest and oldest organic artifact made of wood in the history of humanity,” according to the Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Ministry.
(le f) The Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site stretches more than 3,100 miles across Europe, marking the border of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent in the 2nd century AD.
(right) The Oseberg Viking ship is part of the Viking Monuments and Sites transnational nomination that has been on the Tentative List under review by the World Heritage Commitee since 2011.
(below) The 71-foot-long Oseberg ship (ca. 800–830 AD) was discovered in a burial mound on a farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold County, Norway, in 1903 and excavation began in 1904. It was reassembled, conserved, and put on display at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo.
Maritime City, and Maritime Greenwich. Tese are often clusters of architectural works, but no ships are referenced as their essential elements.
Ships are cultural assets linked by the narrative of humanity and the sea that transcends geography, suggesting that they be considered collectively as a common transboundary site. Several non-contiguous and multinational sites are already recognized as World Heritage Sites because of their cultural linkage within large-scale stories of human contact, migration, and cultural di f usion, such as the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, the El Camino
Real de Tierra Adentro, and the Silk Road network extending from China to the Zhetyhu region of Central Asia. Tese places sometimes function as the architectural nodes of cultural routes as identi fed in the ICOMOS Charter of Cultural Routes. No purely seaborne routes are so identi fed, despite their appearance in some of the earliest maps (e.g., Carte Pisane, 1270).
Te cultural criteria for evaluating a site’s potential for inscription as a World Heritage Site are readily applicable to ships as set out in Article 1 of the Convention. (See sidebar, opposite page.)
In many instances, ships have been signi fed within heritage recognition frameworks of nation-states, such as National Historic Landmarks or the National Register of Historic Places within the United States. As treasures of all humanity, historic ships are truly worthy of the same level of international consideration a forded monumental historic structures. Ships are works of (naval) architecture. Often, at the time they were constructed, they were the most complex architectural or technological works created by their respective societies. At the time of their creation, these objects were not only
The 1863 barque Star of India (originally Euterpe), built in Ramsey on the Isle of Man, is part of the Maritime Museum of San Diego’s ship collection. She is believed to be one of only four ships remaining which participated in the oceanic migrations of humanity during the Age of Sail and the only one still sailing.
among the most complex constructions within view, but often the largest and most monumental features of the landscape. Ships are repositories, as well as conveyances of culture—representing the f rst world-wide, large-scale technological system in history and the last such system in which people, objects (cargoes), ideas, and information all moved together within a single unit. Te presence of a ship installation within a historic landscape also memorializes the signi fcance of the sea as an essential juxtaposed element of that landscape, as a pathway for trade, communication, and projection of power. Refecting the connective nature of the enterprise of the sea and its in fuence on human history, it is appropriate that historic ships be considered as elements of a single extended site, connected across both the oceans and time as nodes in pathways of human exchange.
Recognition that historic vessels represent the patrimony of humanity furthers UNESCO’s e forts in maritime archaeology to protect and conserve submerged cultural resources. Indeed, some submerged wreck sites would warrant inclusion as elements within the multinational site. It is not possible to appropriately recognize and memorialize the enterprise of the sea solely by reference to dockyards, naval complexes, and landing sites. Ships constituted the primary objects to which these places were purposed. To neglect ships in the World Heritage Site program through omission is to ignore the role of seafaring in the development of civilization. Ships are the primary architectural expression of this story.
Te signi fcance of these objects in human history has spilled over into other disciplines. Tough the concept of the Anthropocene, a proposed new geological epoch following the Holocene, is itself enmired in controversy, in the article “Defining the Anthropocene” (Nature, March 2015), Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin argue for the year
Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage
Article 1 — Definition of the Cultural & Natural Heritage
For the purposes of this Recommendation, the following shall be considered as “cultural heritage:”
Monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting, elements or structures of an archaeological nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings and combinations of features, which are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science;
Groups of Buildings: groups of separate or connected buildings which, because of their architecture, their homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science;
Sites: works of man or the combined works of nature and of man, and areas including archaeological sites, which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological points of view.
The Criteria for Selection
Sites must meet at least one out of ten selection criteria; historic ships meet six of them:
• represent a masterpiece of human creative genius; or
• exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design; or
• bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared; or
• be an outstanding example of a type of building or architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history; or
• be an outstanding example of a traditional human setlement or land-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change; or
• be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance (the Commitee considers that this criterion should justify inclusion in the List only in exceptional circumstances and in conjunction with other criteria, cultural or natural).
1610 as the beginning of the new geological epoch, signi fed by the irreversible efects of worldwide trade, facilitated, obviously, by the advent of the oceanic sailing ship and its ability to link all the people of the earth within a global system for the f rst time. By this argument, the arrival of the oceanic sailing ship would qualify for consideration as the single most important event in Earth history since the end of the last ice age.
Te world has more or less come to the conclusion that humanity is an expression of the stories that it tells of itself and that some of those stories inhabit special places that evoke value. If we are going to be serious in that assertion and continue to regard the values evoked also as a guide to our future,
HMS Victory (center) is one of three ships at the Portsmouth Naval Dockyard nominated by the World Ship Trust as “irreplaceable treasures of humanity.” The other two ships are the 1510 warship Mary Rose and the 1860 iron-hulled, armored batleship HMS Warrior
The Swedish warship Vasa sank on its maiden voyage in 1628. Discovered to be in a remarkable state of preservation, the wreck was salvaged in 1961 and is on display at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm.
then we need to arrive at a more complete understanding of the human story and it must include our relationship with the sea. All World Heritage Sites have needed their advocates. Why is it that we, who are charged with the stewardship of these treasures, their stories, and their traditions, do not likewise rise as their advocates?
Herodotus tells of a debate on a beach in 480 BCE, illuminated by the distant f ames of a great city on f re. Te debate was whether to make the last stand of the Greek world a naval battle in the nearby Salamis Strait separating the beach from the burning city, or to retreat to the fortifed Isthmus of Corinth to make their last stand a
land battle. Te Spartan general Eurybiades and supporters from his neighboring cities argued for taking the second option, whereas the Athenian admiral Temistokles asserted that ceding control of the sea to their enemies would be suicide. Furthermore, he demanded that they fght in the narrow strait because it was Athens that possessed most of the triremes available for the battle.
“How do you demand anything?” he was asked by his Spartan counterpart. “Look over your shoulder, and you see that you have no country anymore.”
Te Athenian admiral pointed to the long line of triremes pulled into the beach before them. “Do you see those ships? So long as we have them, we have
our country. And if you do not agree to fght here, we will load our remaining people on board, sail far away, and leave you to confront your fate alone.”
We know how the story turned out, of course, because the Acropolis, then on f re, was rebuilt and now, 25 centuries later, is a World Heritage Site.
As for us though, as long as we still have our historic ships, we have our stories. If we do not fght for them here in the narrow philosophical strait we f nd ourselves, winning recognition for what they truly are, then one by one they will slip away, beyond the far horizon, beyond recall or tactile memory, and we will be left to face our uncertain future alone.
Ray Ashley, PhD, KCI, is president and CEO of the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Tim Runyan is emeritus professor of Maritime Studies at East Carolina University and serves as a trustee of the National Maritime Historical Society.
NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY
2025 Wall Calendar — Celebrating Historic Ships
The National Maritime Historical Society’s 2025 calendar celebrates the American historic ship fleet today. These vessels represent our maritime heritage from the Age of Sail to steam and modern propulsion systems. The careers these vessels operated under range from warships and troop transport vessels to commercial enterprises, passenger travel, fishing, exploration, immigration, and training ships.
12-month calendar is wall hanging, saddle-stitched, and printed on quality heavyweight paper.
18”H by 12”W (open)
$14, plus $5.50 s/h (media mail) within the USA. NYS residents add sales tax. Please call for multiple or international shipping charges.
TO ORDER, call 914 737-7878 ext. 0, or online at www.seahistory.org/calendar2025.
Fair Way to Rio
by John Grady
In the Age of Sail, merchantmen, whalers, and US Navy captains and sailing masters bound for the Brazilian and Paci fc stations accepted as gospel truth: avoid at all costs the great eastern bulge of the Southern American continent at Cape São Roque, Brazil. To best the Cape and the wild gyre to its south, ships should stay far, far to the east, almost to Africa. Yet the Navy leadership back in Washington left instructions to: “Stand boldly on, and if need be tack and work by under the land.”1 If the Navy’s navigators ashore were proven right, the “fair way to Rio” would open new whaling grounds, speed clippers to China, and create a “safety valve” for American slavery, where slavers and their enslaved labor would be relocated to the Amazon.
In Washington in the early 1840s, lying in storerooms at the Navy’s Depot of Charts and Instruments on Pennsylvania Avenue and in Lieutenant Charles Wilkes’s home on Capitol Hill were hundreds, probably thousands, of ships’ logbooks, the accounts of the feet’s operations since the department’s founding. Additionally, in that mix of moldering uncataloged records were a few equally barely legible logs from merchantmen. Not only were they uncataloged, the data—distances traveled, winds, currents, barometer readings, weather, etc.—were all helter-skelter, and any nautical charts in the collection had been bought from the Royal Navy.
With the appointment of 36-yearold Matthew Fontaine Maury as the
new superintendent of the Depot of Charts, these stores were all to be moved—along with the chronometers, sextants, quadrants, and spyglass telescopes—to the depot’s new facilities in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, situated above the swampy banks of the Potomac. Te Depot would be renamed the National Observatory not long afterward.
Left disabled following a stagecoach accident in southern Ohio, Maury had not been to sea in years. Once he was assigned to permanent shore duty, he made a name for himself as a “naval reform” polemicist among men who now counted in Washington: the “accidental president” John Tyler and his take-no-prisoners con fdante, Secretary of the Navy Abel Parker Upshur.
The Naval Observatory in the Foggy Botom neighborhood of Washington, DC, was built to house the Depot of Charts and Instruments. The Naval Observatory remained at this location until 1893. Maury was appointed its first superintendent in 1844.
Upshur brought to the ofce a personal understanding of the service’s ills.2
Te awarding of the National Observatory to the sea service was politically controversial. Howls of outrage over spending for “a “lighthouse in the skies” to study the “man-in-the-moon” reverberated through Congress. Others on Capitol Hill, like Representative John Quincy Adams, and New England academia grumbled that James Smithson’s bequest was squandered on “the needs of the Navy.”3 Smithson had left his fortune “to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase & di f usion of knowledge among men.”
Within the sea service, selecting Maury to direct the observatory was equally contentious. Opponents questioned how Upshur’s successor, John Y. Mason, could ignore the painstaking work of Lieutenant James Gilliss in securing the observatory for the Navy. Above all else, Gilliss had recently published the f rst star catalog published in the United States and other astronomical observations. T at Mason had ordered Maury’s 1836 navigation book, Elementary, Practical and T eoretical Treatise on Navigation, to be placed in all the Navy’s shipboard libraries should have been the clue as to what lay ahead. Te secretary’s priority was not astronomy, but the other duties the old depot owed the Navy. Maury had already been doing that work since 1842.
Despite its name change to the National Observatory, it remained a Navyheavy agency. At the observatory, Maury had under him three lieutenants, six midshipmen, and a machinist. In 1845, four more lieutenants and three naval professors were added to this corps. Astronomers who had worked with Gilliss were let go.
Academics sco f ed that Maury lacked “scienti fc pretensions,” but they were dead wrong. When it came to the
oceans, Maury’s f rst book placed him in company with Nathaniel Bowditch, the mathematician/astronomer often considered the father of navigation. Maury was hardly a novice. In 1831, when he was 25 years old and still serving aboard ships, Maury was made sailing master aboard the sloop-of-war Falmouth, soon to depart for an extended voyage to the Paci fc. In preparation for getting underway, he scoured New York’s bookshops and ship chandlers looking for charts and sailing directions for its route to the Paci fc station. Not a scrap could be found. Underway, Maury ensured the sloop’s log recorded astronomy, weather, currents, tides, and coastal descriptions.
What he could not f nd in New York, he would provide for others.
As the Falmouth approached Cape Horn, Maury detailed the batteneddown vessel’s transit. “ Te barometer has not been found to be of much practical utility. … Here the mercury below the mean height of lower latitudes becomes very unsteady, falling and rising several inches in a few hours.”4 Like Bowditch before him, Maury worked in a small cabin to record the passage for publication. When satisfed with what he had written, he sent notes and designs for a device to measure longitude to Benjamin Silliman, editor of the American Journal of Science and Arts in New Haven, Connecticut. Te young
Mathew Fontaine Maury (1806–1873)
ofcer’s style appealed to Silliman, who published Maury’s “On the Navigation of Cape Horn” in July 1834.
By 1842, the journal article was as old as many of the Navy’s logbooks held in storage. With his small sta f and so many logbooks, selecting a route to prove the charts’ validity was imperative. From their shared time at sea and together again at the observatory, Maury and his brother-in-law, William Herndon, a naval ofcer, along with Falmouth shipmate, William Whiting, settled on the run from New York to Rio.
Why Rio de Janeiro? For several years, the Navy had been operating a Brazil Station, keeping an eye on American interests along South America’s Atlantic coast. In addition, Rio was a regular port call for American warships heading for Paci fc Station operations.
In that frst summer at the observatory, the careful choreography of publicity that would mark Maury’s endeavors debuted. It started with a letter to the frst chief of the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, Captain William Crane, followed by Crane’s letter to the feet, and not long afterward, notice by Congress and the press. Maury was soon authorized to send to the feet his “abstract log,” with ten pages of instructions and 24 pages left blank for shipmasters to record distances run daily, barometric readings, wind direction, when and where they encountered fog and rain, unexplained currents, and more. He soon also asked for notes on any “sighting of marine phenomena ‘calculated to be of service to those who may hereafter follow in the same track.’”
To document their tracks across the seas, he supplied them with blank charts. From all this data, Maury would calculate the averages of weather and oceanographic conditions observed in every region in every season. His analysis would yield the “fairest” route to Rio and beyond.
Despite the Navy’s push, completed charts were slow to arrive back at the Observatory; those that did were often poorly done. Maury wrote his mentor, Captain Francis H. Gregory, that “(a)s much as can be given will be thankfully received though it be simply the track of a vessel.”5 While sifting through data, Maury and his sta f decided their
William Henry DeCourcy Wright, namesake of the first ship to try Maury’s new wind and current charts on a passage to Rio de Janeiro. His firm’s vessel made the round trip between Baltimore and Rio in just 75 days, cuting considerable time of the average voyage of 110 days.
wind and current charts must be visually stimulating to appeal to reluctant maritime f rms and shipmasters. He wrote, “Books, if I may say so, impart information through the ear—these charts through the eye, and, therefore in a manner and form much more condensed and available.”6 On the charts, Maury underlined water temperature, used arrows for current, and arrow length represented strength in knots. Roman numerals denoted magnetic variation, and colors represented seasons.
Once the f rst chart for the North Atlantic was published in 1847, Maury was quick out of the gate to sell it to seagoing shipmasters. Newspapers along the Atlantic Coast posted notices that the new charts were available. Te Navy promised shipowners and masters that if they f lled out the abstract logs and marked up the blank charts, the service would send them updated charts when they became available.
It would take a shipowner confdent in his ability to gamble the success of a commercial voyage to get things moving. Te f rst to give it a go was Robert C. Wright & Co., sending the barque W. H. D. C. Wright to Rio de Janeiro under the command of 29-year-old John J. Jackson. Te Brazilian capital was a destination frequented by Wright & Company vessels, then the dominant shipping frm trading between Rio and Baltimore. Captain Jackson and his employer well knew that mariners, as a rule, avoided the gyre south of Cape São Roque, but if the Navy’s new charts were proven right and they could avoid the long tack eastwards towards the African coast, a shorter passage would guarantee greater profts. Tey had been known to take risks before and were willing to gamble on Maury’s guidance.
On 24 January 1848, Captain Jackson got his ship underway and headed f rst to tiny Port Walthall on the Appomattox River. Tere, the barque’s holds were f lled with barrels of four for the trip to Rio. Te Fells Point-built vessel was but one ship in the merchant feet sailing for Maxwell, Wright, & Company, a trading partnership led by Englishman Joseph Maxwell and Maryland native William Henry DeCourcy Wright. Based in Rio de Janeiro and Baltimore, the partnership dominated the four-and-cof ee trade between South and North America during this time.
Like many other merchant houses and shipping f rms in Rio, Maxwell,
Wright, & Company had been profting indirectly for years from the illegal slave trade. Between 1840 and 1846, Maxwell-Wright consigned or sold seventeen ships to known slavers operating as Brazilian merchantmen to the African coast—no other f rm came close to those numbers. In 1847, Henry Wise, the mercurial American envoy to the Brazilian court, warned the f rm that the “slave-trade is the main, the staple business” between Brazil and Africa, so “cease and desist these charters and sales.” Seeking to avoid an American bite, the f rm complied.7
Joseph Maxwell was born in 1777 to an Anglo-Portuguese family; William Henry DeCourcy Wright was born in Queen Anne’s County, Maryland, in 1795. Maxwell moved to Brazil in the early 1820s as a merchant trader; Wright followed in 1825, frst to pursue business interests and later staying on as the American consul. By 1841, the partnership was so comfortable with its dominant position that it published a comprehensive guide— Commercial Formalities of Rio de Janeiro— for merchants in the United States, Europe, or South America—spelling out the ins and outs of navigating taxes, tarif s, and customs for imports and exports.
During this time, the Wrights were establishing a business presence in Baltimore, and by the end of the 1840s they had emerged as giants in the city’s maritime trade. Once Captain Jackson in W. H. D. C. Wright put to sea, months of silence followed for the Baltimore shipowners in tracking the vessel’s movements. In Brazil, however, when the ship showed up on 8 March after a 38-day passage from the Virginia Capes—a transit that typically took 55 days—there was much to celebrate. Weeks later, the Baltimore partners could celebrate on their end when the ship returned after a quick 37-day homeward passage. News of the ship’s speedy voyage ricocheted
Data from the abstract log of the brig Oceanus printed in Maury’s The Wind and Current Charts
around the waterfront, and soon merchants, shippers, and insurance agents were demanding access to the Maury charts. Te Navy’s agent on site had “to request a special shipment of charts and log forms.” Attention further intensi fed when a local newspaper account conveyed the younger Wright’s exuberance in crediting Maury’s charts with the achievement. Te word was out.
Only a few weeks after the barque’s arrival back in Baltimore, a “Notice to Mariners” in the New York Herald declared the chart had opened “a new
route to the Pacifc.” Te paper’s advice: “No vessel should go to sea without those charts.’’8
“I am encouraged by the Wind and Current charts in the hope of shortening the passage of the Liverpool, London, and Havana packets, something like a day [illegible] a week or more,” Maury wrote a correspondent two months after W. H. D. C. Wright returned. Later that summer, his paper on the charts was read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science. After noting the importance of the collaboration between Washington
EMPIRE OF BRAZIL
Cape São Roque
A section from sheet 2 of Maury’s 1853 Wind & Current Chart, S. Atlantic showing water temperatures, wind direction, current strength and direction, and other data useful to mariners navigating the South American coast.
Rio de Janeiro
and London in collecting oceanic and meteorological data, he couldn’t resist pointing out how American charts had shaved weeks of the transit. If that were not enough, the “information already collected has enabled me to strike out numerous virgas and fabulous dangers, which deface our best general charts… and which greatly increase the sources of anxiety which at all times surround the navigator.”9
Te interest Maury created in nautical science could not have come at a more propitious time in the United States. In 1848, the country’s two largest scienti fc societies—the National Institute for the Promotion of Science and the American Association of Geologists and Naturalists—merged, creating the American Association for the Advancement of Science. At its inaugural session in September of that year, Maury would unveil a plan to expand the collection of data to vessels of all nations.
Interest in the charts had exploded that summer when another New York Herald piece, this time a front-page story, reported on the discovery of a long and wide stratum of gold barely “below the surface in soft sand rocks” near New Helvetia (present-day Sacramento) in California. In an address to Congress that December, President James K. Polk announced an “abundance of gold” that “would scarcely command belief.” Te newspaper ar-
NOTES
1 General Orders, No. 5, “In Memoriam, Mathew Fontaine Maury, LL.D, University Cambridge, England,” Academic Board Minutes, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, VA, Feb. 1, 1873
2 Secretary A. P. Upshur to MFM, 15 Nov. 1841, MP, vol. 2, LC; MFM to Secretary Upshur, Nov. 18, 1841, Maury Papers, vol. 2, Library of Congress; “Report of the Secretary of the Navy, Dec. 4, 1841,” in collected reports, Department of the Navy Library, Washington, DC.
3 Steven J. Dick, “John Quincy Adams, Smithsonian Bequest, and the Origin of the United States Naval Observatory,” Journal of the His-
ticle noted that miners and merchants were desperately needed on the West Coast. Te rush was on!10
Maury’s legacy as the “Path f nder of the Seas” and the “Father of Oceanography” is undisputed. His work meticulously documenting wind patterns and ocean currents signi fcantly advanced understanding of global weather systems and ocean currents. His charts and guidance helped mariners optimize their sea routes, both reducing the time it took to make passages and enhancing safety. His legacy in history, however, is more complicated.
Te story of Maury’s achievement, the new Atlantic charts, and interest in the Amazon and Brazil does not end with the 1848 triumph of his “fair way to Rio.” Maury was a vocal supporter of race-based slavery and later would join the Confederacy when the Civil War broke out. T is chapter of Maury’s story ends with him viewing Brazil as a “safety valve” for American slavery. Cuba and the French Caribbean islands, where slavery was still legal, were too small for that role, he argued. Combined, they could never meet Brazil’s wealth of territory.
Anticipating that Brazil would open the 7,000-mile Amazon River to steam navigation by other nations, Maury and two Navy secretaries (f rst William Graham, followed by his successor, John P. Kennedy) sent a twoman scienti fc expedition to explore its
tory of Astronomy, vol. 22, iss. 1 (1991), 31–44.
4 MFM, “On the Navigation of Cape Horn,” American Journal of Science and the Arts, vol. 26, art. 5 (July 1834): 60–1.
5 Naval Records, MFM to Capt. F. H. Gregory, Aug. 29, 1843, Naval [National] Observatory Leters, vol. 1, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
6 MFM to John Quincy Adams, Nov. 14, 1847, Southern Literary Messenger, vol. 14, no. 1 (January 1848), 9–10; William Whiting to John M. Brooke, May 11, 1873, Maury Papers, vol. 44, Library of Congress.
fora, fauna, topography, geology, and hydrology. To his brother-in-law Herndon, the expedition’s senior ofcer, he gave a con fdential set of instructions. Tey were to secretly assess mining prospects and potential sites for cities and plantations for tobacco, cotton, indigo, and gutta-percha. “Shall it be peopled with an imbecile and indolent people or a go-ahead race” to reap the Amazon Basin’s benefts, Maury wrote. American citizens—North and South—“with their goods and chattels” will “revolutionize and republicanize and Anglo-Saxonize that valley.” For a decade, he preached that message at Southern Commercial Conventions and in the leading periodicals of the day. For the next decade, Maury encouraged Southern audiences in lectures and magazine articles: Look to the Amazon for your future.
John Grady, retired communications director of the Association of the United States Army, is the author of Matthew Fontaine Maury: Father of Oceanography. He has contributed to Sea History, Naval History, the New York Times Disunion series, Civil War Monitor, Civil War Navy, and the Journal of the American Revolution, and was a contributor to the Navy’s Sesquicentennial of the Civil War blog. He would like to thank Drs. Robert Browning, Jason Smith, and Michael Verney for their comments on this article.
7 Leonardo Marques, The United States and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1776–1867, diss., Emory University, 2013.
8 Anon., New York Daily Herald, “Notice to Mariners,” May 20, 1848.
9 Report of the 18th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Held at Swansea, August 1848, “Observations Concerning Wind and Current Charts of the North Atlantic,” sent by “Lieut. Maury, US Navy to Prof. H. D. Rogers for the British Association.”
10 James K. Polk, Presidential Message to Congress, Dec. 5, 1848.
Deep Dive
How an Antique Dealer in the Corn Belt Became One of the World’s Largest and Most Trusted Purveyors of Diving Helmets and Material Culture
by Kevin Sites
The two men were nervous and sweaty, young guys with tattoo ink creeping up their necks. Tey claimed that they had won the dive helmet in a storage auction but had lost the key, and then proceeded to snap the unit’s lock with bolt cutters. Antique dealers Don and Jenny Creekmore had driven three hours to the pickup location, carrying more than a thousand dollars in cash for the transaction. “It was a potential catastrophe,” said Don. “So many things didn’t add up, but the item was there and it was authentic. I thought, ‘Let’s get it done.’” Within
minutes of the cash exchanging hands, police had the place surrounded. It seems the two sellers were wanted on outstanding warrants—warrants that had nothing to do with the Snead helmet they’d just sold the Creekmores. T is experience for the antique dealers, however, highlights the intrigue, history, and high stakes of one of the most lucrative collector’s markets today— vintage and antique underwater diving helmets. How lucrative? Don and Jenny’s antique dealership, Nation’s Attic, sold the Snead shallow-water rig on eBay for $2,000, a tidy 100% proft margin.
T at was chicken scratch compared to the rare mid-1850s Canadian John Date helmet that topped out at a whopping $54,000 (including the buyer’s premium) at their December 2023 online auction.
Today, the Creekmores sell between 60 and 100 copper-and-brass vintage and antique diving helmets each year, either online or in digital auctions, making Nation’s Attic, arguably, the largest dealer in authentic hard-hat diving helmets and artifacts of diving history. Nation’s Attic is based in Wichita, Kansas, a landlocked location about 600
John Deane diving on the wreck of HMS Royal George in 1832, wearing his newly invented diving helmet.
miles from the closest major body of water. Te shop’s only connection to the watery world is that it occupies the original site of a plumbing business started by Don’s grandfather in 1948.
Te diving helmet’s beginnings trace back to 1820, when a former merchant seaman named John Deane saved a stable full of horses trapped in a f re. He grabbed a medieval helmet from a local suit-of-armor display, slid a hose inside it from underneath, and told the f re brigade to pump air through it instead of water, allowing him to breathe inside the inferno. Te horses were saved; John and his brother Charles soon patented their “smoke helmet,” and later adapted it for underwater use. In 1836 the Deanes used their new rig to dive on the 1545 wreck of the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s fagship.
Te Creekmores’ own deep dive into the undersea world began at a
Wichita estate sale in 2005. Among the more typical lots of furniture and f ne china they typically see for sale, Don stumbled upon a World War II-era German diving helmet. “You rarely see something like that in Kansas,” he said, “but immediately it felt, to me, like a portal to another place, so foreign it might as well have been the surface of the moon.”
Te success of that frst transaction inspired him to resurrect his earlier idea of selling antiques online. Perhaps ahead of its time in the 1990s, by 2005 the marketplace had proof of concept and Nation’s Attic had found a niche with potential for explosive proftability.
Inspired by their new f nd, Don and Jenny immersed themselves in the undersea world. Tey became certi fed scuba divers and even tried out standard dress diving, with heavy canvas drysuits and the iconic Mark V helmet. “ Te
[company’s] diving helmet niche grew, as my knowledge did,” Don explained that he f lled much of his knowledge gaps by reading the complete archives of Te Journal of Diving History, published by the Historical Diving Society. Some details regarding the evolution of the technology of diving gear were easier to remember than others, he recalled, because of the dramatic and graphic nature of certain examples, such as the invention of the non-return valve in the mid-1800s. “Te valve prevented a sudden rush of air from escaping from the diving helmet in the case of the air hose being cut,” said Don. “Depending on the depth, the sudden escape of air would severely injure or kill the diver in a horrible way.” To grasp just how horrible, watch the YouTube clip from the popular television program MythBusters, which substituted a pig carcass
(above) The helmet that started it all for the Nation’s Atic. Don Creekmore found and purchased this WWII-era German diving helmet at an estate sale in Wichita, Kansas, in 2005.
(lef) This John Date dive helmet, ca. mid-1850s, sold for a whopping $54,000 at a Nation’s Atic online auction in December 2023.
Nation’s Atic co-owners, Don and Jenny Creekmore, got their first hard-hat diving experience (a. k. a. standard-dress diving) in Lake Michigan in 2018. In the first photo, Don (at right) and US Navy Master Chief and Master Diver John Hopkins, Jr. (at lef) breathe in fresh air following a dive in Shrader’s Son, Inc. Mark V helmets manufactured for the Navy in 1944. In the second photo, Jenny is suited up for her dive. “On my first dive, my leg was stuck in the mud and I tried not to panic,” she said. “I was brave and went for the second dive the next day and since then, I was hooked on hard hat diving.”
for a human diver to simulate that kind of rapid shift in pressure a body would experience in this situation. Te unfortunate (albeit deceased) porcine aquanaut was squeezed into a bloody frappe inside its own helmet.
Te most valuable treasure in any historical dive locker, according to Don, is the US Navy Mark V helmet. Te Mark V allowed divers to go much deeper than earlier models. It became the Navy’s underwater workhorse for nearly 70 years (1916–1984) and was supplied by four di ferent manufacturers: Miller-Dunn; Schrader’s Son, Inc.; Morse; and DESCO (Diving Equipment and Supply Company), which had adopted standards for parts and process over the previous build-as-you-go mentality of helmet-making.
With three glass ports and a hinged faceplate, the nearly sixty-pound helmet is so ingrained in the popular imagination (helped by media depictions like the 2000 f lm Men of Honor, about the f rst black US Navy diver Carl Brasher, and countless movies featuring underwater scenes) that it has become a universal symbol of human-
kind’s descent into the sea. Te Mark V was not designed for exploration on the sea foor, but rather as a robust tool of the gritty work of underwater salvage. Air from the surface was pumped through a hose into the helmet and suit, just as John Deane had done, to supply air underwater. Te pumped-in air also allowed divers to control their buoyancy through an exhaust valve in the helmet that could be activated with their cheeks.
Today, for both buyers and sellers, the helmets are more than just museum pieces, they are a valuable commodity— recession-proof luxury items with a price tag approaching that of an automobile. Nation’s Attic once made a deal in Maryland with a widow who was looking to liquidate her late husband’s entire collection of 100 helmets. Te f nal price they agreed on: $250,000 cash. To access that amount of paper currency, the Creekmores had to request it from the US Federal Reserve, which in turn required them to hire a private security company and a secure transport carrier to safeguard it. “Planning, planning, and even more planning—but
that is my strength,” said Jenny. “I am not the risk-taker. I was nervous, for sure, but I believed in Don and our business.”
“Making a business out of f nding these treasures is not for the faint of heart,” says Don. “Owning and operating any small business is a daily challenge with zero guarantees. Tere are stretches of absolutely nothing turning up and then periods when fantastic pieces of diving history turn up.” In the end, everything went as planned, and Don and Jenny drove back to Wichita towing a 53-foot trailer packed with copper and brass “gold.”
It was a transaction in 2014 that gave Nation’s Attic its bona fdes in the diving collectibles world. Following up on a lead, Don learned of a family that owned an entire building of pristine helmets and equipment that had come from a diving company started in the 1930s. Te dive equipment company was based in Minnesota but did much of its contract work on the Mississippi River, f xing bridges and recovering submerged vehicles. What made the cache even more valuable were the
PHOTO BY GREG DAVIS
photographs and newspaper articles showing the gear in action that came along with it. T at kind of evidence of an item’s provenance, as any antique dealer will tell you, adds more zeroes to the bottom line.
“It brings an inanimate object to life,” Don explains. “Sometimes people are buying the story rather than the item,” like the battered, plum-colored Morse helmet once owned by diver John W. Crisp that was used to salvage the African Queen, an oil tanker that sank of Ocean City, Maryland, in 1959. It was consigned to Nation’s Attic by Crisp’s son and brought in $13,200 at its August 2024 auction. T at record-breaking $54,000 John Date helmet sold at auction in December 2023, along with a space-age, stain-
less-steel helmet, handmade by industry maverick Joe Savoie, which had been featured in a 1979 episode of the television show Hawaii 5-0. It sold for $10,800. Meanwhile, a 1943 US Navy Mark V helmet, dubbed “ Te Key to Freedom Helmet,” discovered near Guantanamo Bay and snuck into Canada with the Cuban asylum seeker who found it, sold for $8,100. More proftable yet, the 100-pound US Navy Mark V Helium helmet, steampunk elaborate and nicknamed “Te Widowmaker” by divers because of the extreme, deep-dive missions it enabled, sold at Nation’s Attic in July 2022 for $20,400. A rare 1966 Kirby Morgan helium hat matched that same price in the recent August auction. If there is provenance, there is usually a story.
Who’s buying these kaleidoscopic and expensive pieces of diving history? Many come from the military or commercial diving communities, as might be expected. Tey make up approximately sixty percent of Nation’s Attic’s customer base. Tese buyers often are not satisfed with spending that kind of money just to look at them on a shelf or in a glass case—they want to use them. “I have a dozen helmets, and they are all pre-1940 American,” said Marc Cohen, a former US Navy Seabee who lives in Florida and is a regular and active bidder in Nation’s Attic auctions. “All my helmets are maintained and diveable.”
“I think the history stays alive by diving the helmets,” said Fernando “Chico” Lopez, a former Navy diver
The Mark V dive helmet became the standard apparatus for underwater work. In this photo from 1943, a US Navy salvage team is clearing wreckage from Naples Harbor, Italy.
and the creator of the website TeDiversLocker.com. He owns a prized Miller Dunn Type 3 shallow water helmet. “You can’t just put it on a shelf. If you’re going to spend $5,000, make sure you can dive it.” After bringing his Miller Dunn up to spec, Lopez used it at a recent hard-hat diving rally at Vortex Springs in Ponce de Leon, Florida, with other enthusiasts trying out ten di ferent “hats.”
With these kinds of objects bringing in big money, it is almost assured that there are going to be knock-of s. Experts warn that the internet is loaded with fake Mark Vs, many made in India and China. “You never forget getting stung with a replica,” said Don Creekmore. It happened to him once in his early days of helmet brokering, but subsequent years of handling real Mark Vs have honed his skills for sni fing out the phonies. “ Tey [the fakes] tend to be lighter in weight and usually in mint condition. Often the glass is loose and they either have no serial numbers or use the same one over and over,” he said. “ Teir favorite, for some unknown reason, is 8-29-41.” Scammers also use fake accounts to post pictures of real helmets they don’t own, hoping to lure prospective buyers into paying up front for gear they’ll never receive.
As is the case in many collecting communities, the hunt for helmets can sometimes expose the eccentric and the obsessive. Buying trips, said Don, can take hard turns into “weirdville.” He recalled meeting with a man who answered the door wearing only his underwear and cowboy boots, with the butt of a pistol peeking out from one of them. Creepier yet, Don once visited the home of one potential seller who had pictures and articles taped to his refrigerator, a sort of “stalker collage”— all about Don. Nevertheless, he says it’s all been worth it, not just for the payout, but for the adventure.
This Morse helmet was owned by John Crisp and used in the salvage of the oil tanker African Queen in 1959. It sold in August 2024 for $13,200.
Author Kevin Sites lowers himself into the water at Vortex Springs, Florida, on the final dive toward his Recreational Standard Dress Diver certification in 2023.
In my business, it’s one helmet here, one helmet here—business as usual. On some rare occasions, you might turn up a garage full.… Often I get a chance to speak to the divers who used them, and it takes me to another place that’s unimaginable to me. While I don’t pretend to know just how di fcult, both mentally and physically, that job was, I do sincerely appreciate being allowed into that inner circle on occasion. Te helmets are a physical reminder that those harrowing adventures and dangerous jobs were—and are—real.
Perhaps this is why, to those who collect them, these copper and brass windows to the undersea world are more than just valuable, like many old things, they can represent memory itself.
Kevin Sites is an award-winning journalist, author, and novelist. He worked as a reporter for more than 30 years, half of them covering war and disaster for ABC, NBC, CNN, Yahoo, and Vice News. He is the author of three books on war: In the Hot Zone, The Things They Cannot Say, and Swimming with Warlords. His debut novel, The Ocean Above Me, published by Harper in July 2023, was longlisted by the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize,
US Navy divers in position of the fantail of USS Grapple (ARS-7), ready to drop to 150 feet of Lanai, Hawaii. No date.
a finalist for the Hawthorne Prize and American Fiction Awards, and the American Legacy Book Awards winner for
Diving Museums
Best Psychological Thriller. For more about the author, visit www.kevinsiteswrites.com.
While most diving helmets and standard diving dress equipment are kept in private collections, there are public spaces in the US and worldwide that have examples across the spectrum of diving history. These include:
•The History of Diving Museum in Islamorada, Florida (www.divingmuseum.org)
•The Man in the Sea Museum in Panama City, Florida (www.maninthesea.org)
•US Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington (www.navalunderseamuseum.org)
•Avalon Diving History Exhibit on Catalina Island, California (www.hds.org/videos/avalon-diving-history-exhibit)
•The Diving Museum in Gosport, UK (www.divingmuseum.co.uk)
•Hong Kong Maritime Museum (www.hkmaritimemuseum.org)
South Street Seaport Museum A Beach Scene from New York’s Past
by Martina Caruso
The Curator’s Corner series in Sea History ofers maritime museums the opportunity to feature historical photos from their collections that, while available to researchers upon request, rarely go on public display. Each issue, we ask a museum curator to pick a particularly interesting, revealing, or representative photo from their archives and tell us about it. In this installment, we are invited into the archives of South Street Seaport Museum in New York City. Enjoy!
Amateur photographer Tomas W. Kennedy (active ca. 1890–1915) was an accountant at the Standard Oil Company, and a member of the Camera Club of New York. T rough Kennedy’s lens, we see a city in the midst of tremendous change: a Manhattan skyline with no skyscrapers, streets f lled with horse-drawn carts, and sailing ships along the piers of South Street— but we know now that the fnal years of sail were on the horizon. Kennedy’s photographs capture elements of the late 19th- century port that would disappear within his lifetime.
T is striking image is one of the 200 glass plate negative photographs in the South Street Seaport Museum’s collection that Kennedy shot in and around New York Harbor. It depicts beachgoers on a hot summer day at Coney Island, including many men, women, and children using the assistance of ropes.
Tese ropes, also known as “swimlines,” “lifelines,” or “safety-lines,” were attached to poles driven deep into the sand and stretched across the water, held in place by buoys at regular intervals. Te wider a given beach, the more rows; the distance between rows was set by the beach owner. Te cross-ropes were spaced to correspond with tide levels. Swimmers could hold onto these ropes to avoid being swept away by the
current, as it was probably hard to keep one’s balance in those heavy woolen bathing costumes!
Tis system was frst patented and installed in New Jersey in the 1870s on the beaches of Seabright and Atlantic City, and waterfront property owners from the Rockaways and Coney Island traveled there to look at the lifesaving device in action. As a result of those observations, the patented devices were installed on the beaches of Rockaway, Far Rockaway, and Coney Island to help prevent drowning.
Unfortunately, these lifelines were not always suffcient, as struggling swimmers were not always able to grasp and hold on to the rope. Colorfully striped foating wooden barrels attached to the ropes appeared later on. Tese additions lasted for no more than a decade or two, as it was thought that they gave swimmers a false sense of security, and that inexperienced swimmers would venture out too far to reach the barrels. Eventually, communities saw the need to hire men and women speci fcally trained for water rescue, and so the lifelines were replaced by lifeguards.
Safety ropes remained a part of the Coney Island beach for more than a century, and were used in Far Rockaway and Coney Island well into the 1960s.
Martina Caruso is the Director of Collections and Exhibitions at South Street Seaport Museum.
“Through Kennedy’s lens, we see a city in the midst of tremendous change: a Manhatan skyline with no skyscrapers, streets filled with horse-drawn carts, and sailing ships along the piers of South Street—but we know now that the final years of sail were on the horizon.”
The South Street Seaport Museum illuminates New York and its people through the lens of its origins as a great seaport. Founded in 1967, the museum houses an extensive collection of works of art and historical artifacts, a maritime reference library, exhibition galleries, education spaces, working 19 th-century print shops, and an active fleet of historic vessels to provide interactive experiences to a visitorship of over 80,000 and growing, as well as hands-on educational programs for upwards of 5,000 students, to tell the story of “Where New York Begins.” (www.seaportmuseum.org)
12 Fulton Street and Pier 16, New York City • Ph. 212 748-8600 • www.southstreetseaportmuseum.org
THOMAS W. KENNEDY COLLECTION, 2016 003 0083
Coney Island Beach Scene, ca. 1890–1915
A Maritime History of the United States AMERICAN FISHERIES
Before the arrival of Europeans in North America, Native Americans depended on the bounty found in coastal and inland waters. In the 17th century, when colonists from across the Atlantic settled in New England, they too pursued fshing for both sustenance and trade, with cod dominating local diets and export markets. Whaling emerged as a signi fcant industry in the 18th century as the demand for whale oil, used for lubrication and lighting, soared. By the 19th century, Nantucket and New Bedford, Massachusetts, dominated as the world’s
by Charles Raskob Robinson
1 illustrated by the American Society of Marine Artists
leading whaling ports, with other New England port towns playing a role as well. Around this time, driven by the abundant salmon runs and the presence of signi fcant whale populations along the West Coast, f shing and whaling became important industries in the Paci fc Northwest.
Coastal communities on both coasts developed robust industries that thrived until the mid-20th century, when over fshing and regulatory changes led to a signi fcant decline in the catch. By that time, over fshing and evolving environmental regulations led to a decline in both sectors,
prompting eforts to balance economic interests with sustainable practices. Te legacy of fsheries and whaling in the United States is remembered for its economic contributions, cultural and historical traditions, and its impact on marine ecosystems.
Te following pages feature images by some of today’s most acclaimed marine artists. Tese scenes of fshing and whaling work are part of our marine art series featuring the people, watercraft, and scenes of the American experience, available as a whole in the new American Society of Marine Artists book of the same title.
1 This article is based on the book, A Maritime History of the United States: The Creation and Defense of a Nation, writen by Charles Raskob Robinson and designed by Len F. Tantillo.
(opposite page)
Whaleship Morgan, oil, 22 x 26 inches, by Charles Joseph Lundgren (1911–1988)
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, whale oil was a principal source of fuel for lighting and lubrication. The American whaling industry developed in the Northeast, initially on voyages in the Atlantic, but as the fishery grew, whaleships extended their range to encompass the globe, with voyages lasting years. The dangerous and rough life of these men in relatively small and fragile whaleboats is evident here as they approach a pod of whales.
Volya at Rest, oil, 12 x 16 inches, by Laura Cooper
This peaceful painting focuses on a working vessel safely moored afer a hard day’s work with two fishermen quietly puting everything away. Loosely translated, “volya” means “freedom” in Russian.
(opposite page, top)
Heading Home, oil, 26 x 38 inches, by Thomas M. Hoyne (1924–1989)
Fishing on both coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico long existed among Native Americans and intensified upon the arrival of Europeans, particularly in New England, where they worked the plentiful Grand Banks fishing grounds of Eastern Canada.
(opposite page, botom)
Where the Wind Is Like a Wheted Knife, oil, 18 x 30 inches, by Christopher T. Blossom
Thousands of diferent types of fishing boats have experienced demanding sea conditions of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts. In this scene, a fishing vessel powers through choppy seas under reduced sail. You can see how these sharp and fast schooners got into racing. In the background, a square-rigger is hull-down, coming into view over the horizon.
Lorraine Rose, oil, 18 x 27 inches, by Charles Raskob Robinson
The skipjack was once ubiquitous on the Chesapeake Bay, but today only a handful have survived. Fewer work as they were originally intended, dredging for oysters under sail. Their design and rigging allow them to navigate shallow waters and harvest oysters using a large, specialized dredge. As the boats aged, they tended to be retired and not repaired, instead replaced by more modern vessels or simply abandoned by owners who, likewise, abandoned oystering as their livelihoods. This was the case for the Lorraine Rose. Built in 1949, she had a long and productive career but was ultimately lef to rot in the mudflats of Knapp’s Narrows on Tilghman Island, of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Today, no trace of her remains.
The Vanishing Fleet – oil, 24 x 36 inches, by John M. Barber
Skipjacks working the oyster beds in the Chesapeake Bay.
oil, 30 x 40 inches , by Don Stone (1929–2015)
Although modern, motorized vessels have replaced sailing craf for working fishing boats, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) still lists fishing as the most dangerous work in America, as measured by its fatality rate. In this painting by the late Don Stone, although it depicts a beautiful coastal scene, it also shows the inherent danger for lobstermen hauling traps in the dead of winter of the Maine coast.
Charles Raskob Robinson is a Fellow and charter member of the American Society of Marine Artists (ASMA), the nation’s oldest and largest not-for-proft educational organization dedicated to promoting American marine art and history. In 2013, he directed the Naval War of 1812 Illustrated, a documentary by the Society in conjunction with the US Navy and dozens of museums. He is the curator of the current exhibition at the Pentagon, also titled, A Maritime History of the United States: Te Creation and Defense of a Nation, which will run through 2024.
Len F. Tantillo is a Fellow and long-time ASMA member and board member. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, he is a licensed architect who left that feld to pursue a career in the f ne art of historical and marine painting. His work has appeared internationally in exhibitions, publications, and documentaries, in addition to f ne art museums and galleries. He is the author of four books and is a Fellow of the New York Academy of History.
To purchase the book or learn more about ASMA, visit www.americansocietyofmarineartists.com.
Winter Fishing
Only15Remaining!
Olympic Steams Out of New York Harbor in 1930
Operated by the White Star Line between 1911 and 1934, RMS Olympic was the largest ocean liner in the world at the time of her launch and was only surpassed by her sister ship, Titanic, for a short while. She served as a troop ship during World War One but regained her reputation as a fast luxury liner after the war until she was retired from transAtlantic service and sold for scrap in 1935.
Marine artist Bill Muller grew up on the Hudson River. As a young man, he served as quartermaster aboard SS Alexander Hamilton in the 1950s and went on to become a master painter, specializing in the steamboat era in the Hudson River and beyond. A founding director and Fellow of the American Society of Marine Artists, Muller serves as an advisor to the National Maritime Historical Society.
Image size 16” x 25” • Sheet size 23” x 30.5” • Signed & numbered limited edition of 950 $150, includes free shipping (within the US, NYS add applicable sales tax)
To order this and other prints by William G. Muller visit www.seahistory.org.
Marine Weather Forecasting
Listening to the weather report to plan your weekend or to decide what clothes you might wear is something most Americans do every day. Today, people can use apps on their phones that provide live weather radar and relatively accurate forecasting. Mariners use these tools too, but they also rely on the National Weather Service’s scheduled marine weather broadcasts on the marine radio and online.
What did sailors use to predict the weather before modern times? Well, for one thing, marine weather forecasts have been around for a long time. The US Navy started issuing 3-day marine weather forecasts for the North Atlantic in 1901. That responsibility transferred to the newly established Weather Bureau in 1904, and in the 120 years since then, meteorological science has evolved with the use of new technologies, including satellites, radar, aircraf monitoring, and high-tech buoys that broadcast data from wherever they are located at sea.
What did mariners use before 1901? People have been going to sea for thousands of years,
and, by necessity, sailors are very much in tune with the natural world around them. Then, as now, they used observations of the sky, seas, and even animal behavior. By looking skyward, mariners observe cloud types, formation, and movement. With a litle practice, they can predict when squalls are headed their way or a cold front is in the ofing.
Learning your cloud types is the first place to start, and it can be fun to try out. You don’t need any special instruments, and you can do it wherever you happen to be. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has some great tools online to guide you. Visit www.weather.gov/education/ to learn more. When you’ve mastered identifying these basic cloud types and want to learn more, visit www.noaa.gov/jetstream/clouds.
Clouds are classified according to their altitude and appearance. There are four core cloud types: cirrus, cumulus, stratus, and nimbus, with lots of combinations that occur in between, such as cirrocumulus, altostratus, and cumulonimbus, for example.
Cirrus clouds are high, wispy clouds made of ice crystals. A day with cirrus clouds against a blue sky is usually a fair–weather day, but cirrus clouds are ofen the first sign of an approaching warm front, which will bring a change in the weather.
Cumulus clouds look like big white coton balls. They indicate the vertical motion of air taking place in the atmosphere. The base of a cumulus cloud is ofen flat compared to its upper half, where it is round and puf y shaped. Cumulus clouds are usually present in nice weather, but they can change quickly and dramatically and produce an intense storm system, with lightning, strong winds, and heavy rain.
Stratus clouds (from the Latin word for layer) are usually big broad blankets of gray clouds without a distinct shape. They tend to occur along warm fronts. Stratus clouds can be free of precipitation or they can produce light rain that can last all day.
Finally, when the word “nimbus” is at ached to one of these three cloud types (cumulonimbus or stratonimbus, for example), you can expect rain. Under a cumulonimbus cloud, you should anticipate heavy rain, ofen with thunder, lightning, and strong winds. If you are sailing and see a cumulonimbus cloud to windward, you would be wise to alter course and put some distance between your vessel and that cloud system.
Cirrus
Cumulus
Stratus
Cumulonimbus
ANIMALS IN SEA HISTORY
by Richard J. King
ne day in 2002, a swimmer was making her way across Neko Bay in Antarctica when she was surrounded by chinstrap penguins. Taking a swim in Antarctica? Swimming with penguins? To explain how this came to pass, let’s start with the penguins.
The chinstrap penguin is one of the more common of the eighteen species of this group of flightless seabirds and one of a handful of species that raise their chicks on the shores of Antarctica. Each year, several million chinstrap penguins migrate to the Antarctic Peninsula and the islands in the region. So, seeing them here was not a surprise.
Cox swimming in Antarctic waters.
Seeing a person in the water was. It was the middle of December, and though it was the austral summer, the water was a frigid 32°F, nearing the freezing point of seawater in the region (typically about 28˚F). Lynne Cox was atempting to be the first known person to swim a mile in Antarctic waters wearing only a swim cap, goggles, and a regular bathing suit. When she slipped into the water from an anchored ship, she braced against the stinging cold and shock and found herself paddling far more rapidly than she wanted. She tried to relax and breathe more evenly.
Humans and other mammals, as well as birds, regulate their body temperature with blood flow. When a person immerses in cold water, the outer capillaries immediately shrink, forcing warm blood back to the regions of the body where it’s critical—the heart, brain, and internal organs. Physical activity, like shivering and swimming, can warm up the inner core as the extremities grow numb. Then blood vessels will reopen to send some blood to the rest of the body to avoid frostbite. The person might be doing okay in the cold water for a short while, but if activity can’t warm the blood suficiently, hypothermia will set in. People die from being in frigid water, ofen quite quickly.
Penguins, though, who spend more than ¾ of their lives in the ocean, not only have a thick layer of insulating fat and densely set water-repellent feathers, but they have evolved a heat exchanging network of blood vessels in their wings and in their feet to warm incoming colder blood with the outgoing, freshly pumped warmer blood.
Lynne Cox, not quite a penguin, does have a rare physiological trait that makes her especially good at swimming in polar seas. Medical researchers discovered that her capillaries barely re-open in frigid water,
Lynne
Lynne Cox
meaning that cooled blood has less chance to recirculate into her head and torso. Cox explained in a 2019 interview: “My body basically says lose the hands, lose the feet, keep the core warm and keep the brain and lungs and heart going.” More importantly, Lynne Cox has a superhuman drive and mental strength for ocean swimming. When she was just 15 years old, she set the speed record for the swim across the English Channel. She repeated the feat and broke her own record a year later. She then became the first woman to swim across the Cook Strait in Aotearoa New Zealand. By the time of her Antarctic dip, Cox had also swum across the Straits of Magellan at the tip of South America, and in 1987 she swam across the 40°F international waters of the Bering Strait—a major public event symbolizing the thawing of the Cold War.
As she swam in the waters of Antarctica, adjusting her stroke to keep as much of her head out of the water as possible to stay warm, she maneuvered around brashes of ice—occasionally banging into ice chunks and pawing through water that was more slush than liquid. Afer 25 minutes and 1.2 miles, Cox started heading toward the shore. That’s when the penguins showed up.
“One hundred yards from shore, I saw chinstrap penguins sliding headfirst, like tiny black toboggans, down a steep snowbank,” Cox wrote. She explained how they used their tails like brakes in the snow and spread their wings out for balance. They dove into
MICHAEL S. NOLAN / ALAMY.COM
Hundreds of chinstrap penguins porpoising in Antarctic waters.
the water, then “porpoised” across the surface, leaping over the waves. Cox continued: “They zoomed under me in bursts of speed, and their bubbles exploded like white fireworks. More penguins joined in. One cannonballed of a ledge, another slipped on some ice and belly-flopped, and three penguins swam within inches of my hands. I reached out to touch one, but he swerved and flapped his wings, so he moved just beyond my fingertips. I had no idea why they were swimming with me, but I knew it was a good sign; it meant there were no killer whales or leopard seals in the area.”
Approaching the beach among the penguins, Lynne Cox had not only survived, but she had accomplished the firstever Antarctic swim of its kind, pushing her body beyond anything anyone thought possible. It took her three months to get full feeling back in her fingers and toes.
We’re still waiting on the chinstrap penguins’ side of the story. I’m sure it’s b-r-r-r-illiant, but maybe they got cold feet?
For previous Animals in “Sea History,” see www.seahistory.org or the book Ocean Bestiary: Meeting Marine Life from Abalone to Orca to Zooplankton, which is a revised collection of more than 18 years of this column!
Chinstrap penguins colony at Half Moon Island, Antarctica, across the Bransfield Strait from where Cox swam at Neko Bay.
Thousands of sailors went to sea in the Age of Sail; many never returned. Lost without a trace, their loved ones ashore were left wondering what happened to them. We can assume that many ships were lost in storms, but if there were no survivors, then no one was left to give testimony about what had befallen them. In an attempt to explain these mysterious disappearances, people concocted all kinds of stories of supernatural phenomena and giant sea creatures that preyed on ships and sailors.
Few were as terrifying as the threat of the Kraken, the legendary tentacled sea monster that sailors feared would grab their ships and pull them beneath the waves to their deaths. Was there any truth to the legend?
Large cephalopods—marine animals with tentacles, such as squid and octopuses— ft the description pretty well. Reported sightings of giant squid date back hundreds of years, but the animal is so elusive that no one had ever captured a photo or video of a live giant squid until 2004. We know now that there is an even larger squid (by mass)— the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni).
What about the octopus, like the one depicted in this painting by Russ Kramer? Te largest octopus ever recorded was a Giant Paci fc Octopus, which measured 30 feet across and weighed more than 600 pounds, although most are closer to 16 feet and less than 200 pounds.
Could any of these creatures grab and sink a ship? Not likely. Even the smallest oceangoing ships in the Age of Exploration were about 40–50 feet in length, not small enough for an octopus or squid to wrap its tentacles around.
Could a marine animal damage or even sink a ship? Yes! Te most famous example is the sperm whale that sank the whaleship Essex in the South Paci fc in 1820. In the last four years, pods of orcas have wrecked at least seven boats near the Strait of Gibraltar, one as recently as May 2024. Scientists interpret the orcas’ behavior—ramming boats—to be a form of play. Fun for the whales, but not so much for the people in the boats.
Should sailors be afraid of sea creatures? Not really. But, respecting wildlife of any kind is always your best bet, for your safety, and theirs.
KRAKEN BY RUSS KRAMER
MARLINSPIKE NEWS: SAILING SHIPS & SAIL TRAINING
by Captain Michael Rutstein
Sailing Ships Maine
Alex Agnew is a co-founder and the current executive director of Sailing Ships Maine (SSM), which delivers experiential learning programs at sea. SSM creates life-changing experiences for teens to discover the ocean environment, expand leadership skills, and consider further maritime training. In recent years, SSM has used the beloved sail-training icon schooner Harvey Gamage for its programs, but this past year made a switch to smaller “six-pack” vessels. Marlinspike spoke with Agnew recently about the change.
Agnew: We were the only user of the Gamage for about three years. Before that, we were in charge of scheduling programs and operating the vessel. We did six semesters-atsea during that time, working with Proctor Academy, a private high school in New Hampshire, which has provided at-sea programs for its students for decades on various schooners. We did our own fall semesters twice, and then we did two spring semesters for which half
Schooner Harvey Gamage
the students came from Proctor and half were from the MET School in Providence, Rhode Island.
Marlinspike: Te MET school is the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center High School, a network of six small public high schools located in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, which offer opportunities for underserved urban students.
Sailing Ships Maine’s Schooner Sara Jane
Agnew: On those spring trips, we sailed from Charleston, South Carolina, to Mobile, Alabama, with a visit to Montgomery. A lot of the history class focused on AfricanAmerican history. Our students studied the story of the slave ship Clotilda, the last vessel to bring a group of enslaved Africans to the United States in 1859/60, long after the slave trade was abolished. It was a pretty emotionally amazing program!
But we started to have trouble f nding licensed crew to run the ship, especially the quality captains you need to run the Harvey Gamage. So last June, we ended the charter and handed the Gamage back to her owner, Phin Sprague [owner of Portland Yacht Services in Portland, Maine]. And he’s been investing in her since then. Tey’re working on her, and she’s in pretty good shape. Our decision, for economic reasons, was to start working with small boats. Right now, we own three, and we borrow others. We’ve continued doing our sail training programs, but by doing it on six-packs, we can
hire captains who don’t need a big license to do the one-week, overnight programs that we do.
We have a 36-foot sloop with eight bunks, a 42-foot Murray Peterson coaster with nine berths, and a 1970s race boat that can carry eight onboard for overnight programs. So that’s our new model: six kids, a captain, and a deckhand. Tey go out for four or fve nights and run a sail training program called Nautical Studies, accredited by Falmouth High School in Maine.
Te kids don’t pay. We raise the money through grants and donations. Tese are expensive programs to run. If you need to make individual families pay, you get a certain demographic, and we’re trying to give every kid the opportunity.
It’s hard work, and it keeps changing. We were all set to go for this summer with 144 kids, but then we were unsuccessful in recruiting the right crew. But still, we’ve had 1,500 kids over the last nine years. Te struggle remains fnding qualifed captains, who want to run overnight programs and live onboard with kids. Tey need to have the skill and the experience to do that safely—and well. I think it’s a real challenge for sail training programs in general. (www.sailingshipsmaine.org)
Lofing the Sylvina W. Beal Harold Burnham writes from Essex, Massachusetts, to say he has made signi fcant progress in lofting the 1911 sardine carrier Sylvina W. Beal —and that he’s carved enough models of her to open a museum.
Burnham: We’ve completely lofted the vessel in the half scale. We’ve drawn the Beal’ s prof le, transom, all its waterlines, diagonals, buttocks, and station lines in the half scale in preparation for drawing the
full-scale keel prof le and station lines for making the patterns and molds, which we will use to build the vessel.
Te process took my friend Phil Stearns and I about 252 man-hours. I’m getting more e fcient. At one point, while I was building the Tomas E. Lannon, I didn’t leave the loft except to eat or use the bathroom
for 46 hours! I was only 29, and I was scared. We needed the molds, and I was a lot healthier then. At 57, it’s good to know exactly what I am doing and not be in a hurry, as my knees and back can no longer handle that kind of strain. Truth be told, I am a lot more happy and relaxed. Te schedule I have set for myself now is to f nish the Beal before I die.
And the idea of not fnishing the Beal really should not worry me. In the meantime, I hope to use the project to pass on the skills required to build a schooner to as many people as I can, and have as much fun with the process as I can have. In my dad’s words, “What else would you do?”
I took on another project last winter. T at is the gill-netter Phyllis A., another lovely Maine-built f shing boat and an early example of the power-driven craft that were developed after diesels replaced the sailing rigs on vessels like the Beal. Wish me luck!
“If you feel like supporting these projects, the most fun way to do it is to book a ticket or charter with our active schooners, Ardelle and Isabella, out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, at maritimeheritagecharters.com
A New Captain for Niagara
Te Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission (PHMC) announced the appointment of Greg Bailey as its new captain of the Erie-based brig Niagara, the state’s f agship. An Erie native with an extensive maritime career in traditional sail, Captain Bailey will oversee the res-
toration of the ship and its return to active service. Greg Bailey started his maritime vocation volunteering aboard the ship as a teenager. Since that time, he has sailed around the world and, a true hawsepiper, worked his way up to captain. He has been in command of well-known traditional sailing vessels such as the schooners Adventure, Amistad, Spirit of Massachusetts, Harvey Gamage, and Lynx. Said Bailey, “T is vessel is more than just a ship; it is a cornerstone of our region’s identity. I am eager to work
with the PHMC, the community, and our partners to restore the Niagara to her full potential and re-establish her vital role in Erie’s resurgence.”
Under Captain Bailey’s guidance, Niagara will undergo a comprehensive restoration, starting this fall. First up on the restoration “to do” list is to replace the propellers, initiate engine improvements, and perform a below-the-waterline survey. Subsequent shipyard work, scheduled for 2024–25, will address critical structural issues. Additionally, the vessel’s electrical, plumbing, and pump systems will be upgraded to meet modern standards.
PHMC is collaborating closely with the US Coast Guard to ensure that all restoration work complies with all safety and regulatory requirements. Captain Bailey holds a USCG-issued merchant marine license: “master of self-propelled vessels including sail or auxiliary sail of less than 1600 gross registered tons upon oceans.” Te Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission is the ofcial history agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. (PHMC, www.pa.gov)
Schooner Sylvina W. Beal
Brig Niagara
Capt. Greg Bailey
On 6 June 2024, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced the designation of the Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary (NMS). It is the third sanctuary to be designated in the Great Lakes (joining the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast of Lake Michigan and Tunder Bay in Lake Huron). Te new sanctuary contains 41 known historically signi fcant shipwrecks, including the oldest known commercial sailing vessel in Lake Ontario, the Washington (1797–1803); a World War II-era Beechcraft C-45 Expeditor aircraft; and the recreationally accessible shipwreck St. Peter (1837–1898), a three-masted schooner resting upright in 117 feet of water northeast of Putneyville, New York. Additionally, the sanctuary has other potential shipwreck sites, three potential aircraft sites, and several underwater archaeological sites. Te Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Tuscarora) have deep connections to the region; O f ce of National Marine Sanctuaries Director John Armor stated that the “Sanctuary provides a national stage for Indigenous
Peoples of these waters to share their stories. We hope to highlight the value of this special place for its past and present communities, and the signi fcance of eastern Lake Ontario to our collective histories.” In managing the site, NOAA will enforce regulations on activities such as prohibitions on moving, injuring, possessing, or selling sanctuary artifacts, anchoring on shipwrecks, and operating tethered underwater mobile systems (such as ROVs) without a permit. Considerations were taken to ensure compatible use with commercial shipping and other activities important to the local, regional, and national economies. One of the benefts of becoming part of the NOAA National Marine Sanctuary System is that the management plan for the new sanctuary will include an education and outreach component. T is means funds can be allocated towards things like developing standards-aligned lesson plans, educational videos, articles, virtual reality experiences, museum exhibits, supporting school feld trips, and professional development opportunities for teachers. (www.sanctuaries.noaa.gov/lake-ontario/) …
Belem
The historic three-masted French barque Belem had the honor of transporting the Olympic flame from Greece to France for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. Te torch was conveyed to the ship in Piraeus in April after a lighting ceremony at the ruins of the city of Olympia. She arrived in Marseille’s inner harbor on 8 May, welcomed by grand celebration witnessed by a crowd of approximately 250,000. Belem was built in 1896 by the Dubigeon shipbuilding company at Chantenay sur Loire. She carried cocoa from Brazil for the Menier Chocolate company, as well as rum and sugar cane, until 1914, when she was sold to the Duke of Westminster. He had an engine installed and had the ship converted into a private yacht. She was later sold to Irishman Arthur Guinness of Guinness Brewing, who renamed her Fantome II and sailed her with his family on a world cruise. After World War II, she became a schoolship for the Venice-based Giorgio Cini Foundation under the name Giorgio Cini, serving around 250 cadets per year. In the 1970s she returned to Nantes, where she is operated by the Belem Foundation as a sail training vessel. (www.fondationbelem.com) … Berlin’s oldest passenger vessel, the 1886 passenger steamer Kaiser Friedrich, is plying the city’s waterways again, thanks to its conversion to electric propulsion Te boat’s popular tours had to be suspended in 2012 due to fuel costs and ecological impact. T e installation of an ultra-e f cient
Kaiser Friedrich
electric drive system with twin Deep Blue 50 kW inboard motors and a 400 kWh Deep Blue battery bank will allow the boat to continue to show passengers the city from a unique perspective for years to come. Built in 1886 at the shipyard Möller & Holberg in SzczecinGrabow, Kaiser Friedrich steamed along Berlin waterways until her decommissioning in 1967, when she was converted to ofces and residential space. Te German Museum of Technology purchased her in 1986 and had her restored to her original appearance. She was subsequently purchased in 2022 by Volker Marhold and Julius Dahmen, who both have experience converting historic boats to electric propulsion. Tey contracted with the electric marine-propulsion company Torqeedo for the conversion. “ Te Kaiser Friedrich is a longtime maritime landmark of the city,” said Marhold, “and now it is also a symbol of transformation towards the mobility of the future.” (www.kaiserfriedrich.berlin) … A routine sea foor survey conducted in 2023 by the natural gas company Energean revealed the shipwreck site of a Late Bronze Age cargo ship of the coast of northern Israel. Te company immediately alerted the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), which investigated the site. Jacob Sharvit, head of IAA’s
Marine Unit, stated: “ Te ship seems to have sunk in crisis, either due to a storm or an attempted piracy attack— a well-known occurrence in the Late Bronze Age. T is is both the f rst and the oldest ship found in the Eastern Mediterranean deep sea, [56 miles] from the nearest shore. T is f nd reveals to us as never before the ancient mariners’ navigational skills—capable of traversing the Mediterranean Sea without a line of sight to any coast.” Te only other two known shipwrecks with
(below) The Canaanite amphorae recovered from the wreck site afer more than 3,300 years underwater. (right) Amphorae lying on the seafloor as viewed from the ROV camera.
cargo found in the Mediterranean Sea from this era, a vessel near Cape Gelidonya and the Uluburun Boat, were discovered relatively near shore, supporting the assumption that trading vessels sailed along the coastline, relying on the land for navigational references. In May 2024, IAA archaeologists joined the crew aboard Energean Star, the gas company’s of shore supply ship, to head out to the site and conduct a remote-sensing survey and retrieve two of the amphorae from the wreck site more than a mile below the surface. Dozens of amphorae could be seen sticking out of the silt via the ROV camera, and a limited excavation dredge penetrating the seafloor indicated a second layer of cargo underneath. From the surface, no remains of the ship itself could be seen, but archaeologists allow that some components buried beneath the upper layer may have survived. At present, the IAA has no plans to return to the site. (www.iaa.org.il) …
Te 80-year-old MV Plover, believed to be Washington State’s oldest footpassenger ferry, is back in the water after nearly two years of restoration work . Owned by the city of Blaine, WA, and operated by Drayton Harbor Maritime Association, Plover is once again taking passengers between Blaine
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and the Semiahmoo Resort. In fall 2022, the US Coast Guard discovered that Plover required signi fcant repairs before she could resume carrying passengers. Te shipyard work, carrying a price tag of about $146,000, comprised the replacement of the stem post, forefoot, 11 feet of the keel, the sistering of 20 frames, and re-planking 24 strakes, as well as repairing the engine’s cracked oil pan, pressure plate, and cutlass bearing. After an in-water inspection on 10 July, she resumed her regular service route. MV Plover was built in Seattle by Bryants Marina in 1944 for Blaine’s Alaska Packers Association cannery. She carried workers to and from the cannery, and worked as a day tug as well, towing barges and helping to position fsh boats on and of the plant’s marine railway. In 1964 she was converted to work solely as a harbor tug. Te cannery closed in 1982, and Plover spent the next 14 years on blocks in a shed. In an effort led by Captain Richard Sturgill, in the mid-1990s, the boat was restored; he was also involved in the recent restoration. Te vessel was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. (www.blainebythesea.com/plover-passenger-ferry/; www. draytonharbormaritime.com )
A team of divers from Baltictech in Poland discovered a 19 th -century shipwreck in the Baltic Sea “loaded to the sides with champagne, wine, mineral water, and porcelain.” Te dive team, led by Tomasz Stachura, reported observing more than 100 bottles of champagne and baskets of clay bottles containing mineral water. Te clay bottles bore stamps from the German Selters brand, a product that is still sold today, and helped date the wreck to between 1850 and 1867. “I have been diving for 40 years, and it often happens that there is one bottle or two... but to discover a wreck with so much cargo, it’s a f rst for me,” Stachura remarked. Te wreck was discovered about 23 miles south of the Swedish island of Öland. Swedish authorities were noti fed of the discovery, and the dive team expects that it will take at least a year to iron out the details with the Swedish government before the cargo or other artifacts might be extracted from the site. Meanwhile, they are developing guidelines for exploring the wreck. (www.baltictech. com) … Mystic Seaport Museum has announced its plan to convert a 35,000-square-foot section of the historic 1898 Rossie Mill into an exhibition space to highlight its collection of historic small boats. Pieter
Nicholson Roos, former director of the Mark Twain House and Museum, has been appointed the exhibition curator of the planned facility, to be named the Wells Boat Hall after museum trustee Stan Wells and his wife, Nancy Wells. Visitors will encounter the stories of more than 100 vessels, whose histories
collectively cover more than 182 years of history, including an Indigenous dugout canoe; a modern Mini Transat racer; the 1880 sandbagger Annie, the f rst vessel the museum acquired back in 1931; and the Analuisa , a f shing boat used by Cuban refugees to escape to Florida in the summer of 1994. Te new exhibition space is expected to open to the public in fall 2025. (75 Greenmanville Avenue, Mystic, CT; www.mysticseaport.org) … In May, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society (GLSHS) announced the discovery of the wreck site of the steamship Adella Shores, which was lost in May 1909. Te ship was listed as “Went Missing”—never seen again after departure, with no witnesses or survivors. Te GLSHS identi fed the Adella Shores in over 650 feet of water, more than 40 miles northwest of Whitef sh Point in Lake Superior. Te 195-foot, 735-ton wooden steamer was
More than 100 champagne, wine, and mineral water botles on a Baltic Sea shipwreck.
built in Gibraltar, Michigan, for the Shores Lumber Company, and named for the owner’s daughter. She sank twice over the course of her career but was refoated each time and put back into service. On her f nal trip, she was carrying a cargo of salt to Duluth, Minnesota, when she disappeared in a gale. Te wreck site was identi fed in 2021 by GLSHS Director of Marine Operations Darryl Ertel and his brother, Dan, who were performing a side-scan sonar
grid search. “I pretty much knew that had to be the Adella Shores when I measured the length of it, because there were no other ships out there reported missing in that size range,” said Ertel. “As soon as I put the ROV down on it for the frst time, I could see the design of the ship and I could match it right up to the Adella Shores.” (Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, 18335 North White f sh Point Road, Paradise, MI; www.shipwreckmuseum.com) …
On 7 August, the US Coast Guard refloated the 75-year-old wooden sardine carrier Jacob Pike, which sank in a storm in the New Meadows River near Harpswell, Maine, last winter. Te boat, which spent her active years after her 1949 launch carrying fish to canneries ashore for the Holmes Packing Company, was purchased last year by a resident of Harpswell, who had hopes of rebuilding her. Te Pike was no match for two strong winter storms, and she sank in place on 10 January. Te sunken vessel was deemed a pollution threat to the river, and when the owner did not take action to remove her, the Coast Guard issued a Notice of Federal Assumption and contracted to have the fuel tank pumped and put a containment boom in place. About 400 gallons of oily water mixture were extracted from the vessel, but it was estimated that the wreck could contain up to 1,000 gallons
Adella Shores
of diesel fuel. The Federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund (OSLTF) paid for the response to the pollution threat; the owner will be billed to recover expenses incurred. Te vessel was towed to South Portland for removal of residual pollutants; USCG ofcials did
not know, as of press time, how the vessel would be disposed of afterwards. … The wreck of Shackleton’s exploration ship Quest has been discovered upright and intact at a depth of about 1,300 feet in the waters of the coast of Newfoundland and
Labrador. Te f nd was made public at a press conference on 12 June by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS), which led the international team that made the discovery. The schooner Quest was the explorer’s last expedition ship, when he set out on the Shackleton-Rowett expedition to the Antarctic. He died on board on 5 January 1922. RCGS CEO John Geiger served as expedition leader of the team that set out to locate Quest; other participants hailed from Canada, the UK, Norway, and the United States. Shipwreck hunter David Mearns was its search director, and the lead researcher was Antoine Normandin. Te expedition used sonar equipment operated by Memorial University’s Marine Institute. “Finding Quest is one of the final chapters in the extraordinary story of Sir Ernest Shackleton,” said Geiger. “Shackleton was known for his
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Jacob Pike refloated
courage and brilliance as a leader in crisis. Te tragic irony is that his was the only death to take place on any of the ships under his direct command.” Co-patrons of the expedition in search of Quest were the explorer’s granddaughter, Hon. Alexandra Shackleton, and Traditional Chief Mi’sel Joe of the Miawpukek First Nation. Said Chief Joe: “I was happy to share local knowledge with the captain and crew of the search vessel ahead of time to fnd Quest and honored that Miawpukek Horizon Marine assisted in planning the expedition. Having our presence and involvement in this expedition demonstrates the respect that RCGS has for our
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Quest sinking, 1962
peoples and our territories.” Originally called Foca 1, the schooner was built in Risør, Norway, in 1917. She was renamed Quest by Lady Emily Shackleton. After her husband’s death, the vessel was acquired by a Norwegian company and would be involved in a series of expeditions, such as the 1930–31 British Arctic Air Route Expedition led by Gino Watkins. In WWII she served in the Royal Canadian Navy, and after the con f ict she was used as a sealing ship. She sank on 5 May 1962; the wreck site is only 1.5 miles from her last known position. All of the crew survived. (www.rcgs.org)
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The Descendants of Whaling Masters encourage you to honor your whaling ancestor with a membership. DWM celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2024 and is eager to hear from anyone who had a relative who served on board a WHALER.
The Descendants of Whaling Masters encourage you to honor your whaling ancestor with a membership. DWM celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2024 and is eager to hear from anyone who had a relative who served on board a WHALER.
The Descendants of Whaling Masters encourage you to honor your whaling ancestor with a membership. DWM celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2024 and is eager to hear from anyone who had a relative who served on board a WHALER.
www.whalingmasters.org
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www.whalingmasters.org
Inquiries to: whalingmasters@yahoo.com
Devoted to stories about engine-powered vessels, their crews, and their passengers, and published quarterly by SSHSA for more than 80 years.
Email info@sshsa.org or call 1-401-463-3570 and we’ll send you a FREE copy and tell you how to subscribe.
Inquiries to: whalingmasters@yahoo.com
Inquiries to: whalingmasters@yahoo.com
Te Last Ships from Hamburg: Business, Rivalry, and the Race to Save Russia’s Jews on the Eve of World War I by Steven Ujifusa (HarperCollins, New York, 2023, 328pp, illus, notes, index, ISBN 978-0-06-2971876; $32hc)
Immigration to the United States has always been a complex issue. On one hand, the United States brands itself—and is seen by the world—as the land of opportunity, the Golden Door, the last refuge, the home of liberty. On the other hand, periods of massive migration instill fear in those already established in the country. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, millions of impoverished Jews, Poles, Slavs, Italians, and people of other ethnicities and nationalities from Eastern and Southern Europe poured into the United States, creating a nativist backlash against the onslaught of foreigners, who (it was thought) would become a f nancial drain, bring disease and superstitious beliefs, could never assimilate, and would dilute the white Protestant stock that made America great.
Steven Ujifusa’s Te Last Ships From Hamburg examines the topic of immigration by sea between the 1880s and 1914, when prominent German and American Jews worked against rising business competition and intensifying pseudo-scienti fc racism to bring more than one million Jewish refugees from the “Pale of Settlement” in western Russia and Ukraine to the United States. Te Jews needed to leave. Te czars were blaming them for all the malignancies of Russian society and worked to rid the country of Jews with pogroms, allowing Cossacks to ravage villages and conscripting Jews for 25year army service. Some of this sad reality was portrayed in the musical Fiddler on the Roof.
Albert Ballin, of Hamburg, rose from poverty in the late 1800s to become the managing director of the
Hamburg-America Line (HAPAG) and one of the so-called “Kaiser’s Jews” (kaiserjuden). He craved acceptance into German society but realized that was never going to happen, despite hosting lavish parties for the haut monde on his yacht.
Ballin built HAPAG into the largest steamship line in the world with stout, fast ships, but its real profts were made on the steerage passengers, many of them Jewish immigrants. Ballin was not a religious man, but he refused to abandon persecuted Jews. He devised a system to streamline their emigration and persuaded the kaiser to privatize German-Russian border crossings to guarantee the fow of passengers for his ships.
To placate anxious Germans, HAPAG hired doctors to inspect immigrants for disease at the border and built an enormous settlement outside of Hamburg to house them and keep them away from German civilians until berths became available on the next HAPAG ship. Ballin had to fend of not only the rival German steamship line in Bremen, North German Lloyd, but also British steamship lines, and fnally, an international consortium put together by J. P. Morgan.
Ballin managed to keep HAPAG independent and proftable. He built ships that were fast, safe, and luxurious for the f rst-class passengers, with unadorned but not unbearable accommodations for the emigrants in steerage. He became a skilled diplomat, working both with and against international competition. Opposing the militarism of the Prussian-centric German state, he strove for peace with Britain, foreseeing that war would bring ruin to Germany—and to his business.
But Ballin could not operate without American capital. Enter Jacob Schi f, the head of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in New York. Schi f is considered as, perhaps, the greatest Jewish American of his time, a religious man whose philanthropy was unrivaled. T rough various charities, Schi f ensured that poor Jews had enough money to get out of the Pale of Settlement, take the train to Hamburg (or one of the other ports), and sail across the Atlantic to start a new life. While Ballin ran the gauntlet of competition and navigated German prejudices and politics, Schi f and American Jews confronted increasing antagonism to immigration. Although some businessmen continued to welcome immigrants as a source of cheap labor, some of the WASP aristocracy began to push back, led by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts and the Immigration Restriction League. Ujifusa observes that nativist, anti-immigrant sentiment had been a working-class phenomenon in earlier decades (the “Know Nothings”) but became an upper-class philosophy in the 1880s and 1890s. By the 1920s, immigration from Europe no longer went unchecked and the US government instituted quotas based on country of origin, intended to keep out most Jews, Slavs, and people of other unwanted ethnicities.
Albert Ballin died in the last days of World War I and viewed his life’s
work as wasted. But as Ujifusa points out, citing the Talmud (“He who saves one life, saves the world entire”), Ballin helped save more than a million Jews, who otherwise would have languished in Europe and likely perished in the Holocaust. Some of those penniless refugees, as well as some of their children, would emerge in just one generation to become icons in American law, business, science, medicine, music, f lm, and theater.
Te Last Ships from Hamburg is a mix of stories—business, immigration, Jewish, and maritime—all of which Ujifusa handles with precision and colorful detail. He writes with a sure hand, expertly discussing everything from business deals to Ballin’s meetings with the kaiser to anti-Semitism in Germany and the US. His portraits of Ballin, Schi f, Morgan, and others are sharply drawn. One only wishes there were more individual stories of the immigrants—their journeys by train through alien European towns and countryside and leaving everything familiar behind; the experience of being inspected, fumigated, and warehoused in Ballin’s village; and then the ocean crossing and their f rst ideas about America.
Ujifusa has written a powerful, intelligent book that is both good history and a prism through which Americans might think about their country in their own time. Te hopes and hard work of immigrants coming to America might be a tonic for modern cynics.
Frederick C. L einer
Baltimore, Maryland
I Am Fighting for the Union: T e Civil War Letters of Naval O f cer
Henry Willis Wells edited by Robert M. Browning Jr. (University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, 2023, 335pp, illus, biblio, notes, index, isbn 978-0-81736105-1; $130hc)
Henry Willis Wells joined the Union Navy shortly after the beginning
of the Civil War. He wrote hundreds of letters to his family that lived near Boston while he was assigned to various ships in squadrons blockading the Confederacy along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. Te ships Wells served in were a typical sampling of the many vessels mobilized for the blockade, some built for the occasion and others converted from various civilian uses. Powered by sails or steam—or a combination of both—and armed with an assortment of guns, they proved efective in choking the Confederacy. Te two great values of this book are the detailed personal view of service in the blockade and the reader’s close acquaintance with Wells himself.
Just over half of the book covers his frst ffteen months of service aboard USS Cambridge, an 858-ton screw steamer purchased from private owners and armed with two eight-inch cannons and two smaller pivot guns. Assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron based in Hampton Roads, the Cambridge operated from there to Cape Fear, guarding the approaches to North Carolina ports. Already an experienced seaman, Wells began his federal service as a master’s mate. Conscientious and competent, Wells was eager for action and dissatisfed with the Cambridge and blockading duty. In his letters he wished at one point that he could “get out of this miserable, inefcient vessel” and “on board a Man of War.” T is was partly due to his displeasure with his fellow ofcers, though at other times he was pleased with his shipmates, including some of his commanding ofcers.
Of particular note, Wells and Cambridge took part in the f rst day of the Battle of Hampton Roads—the clash of ironclads—for which Wells provides a lively participant’s account. To his disappointment (as well as the reader’s), Cambridge was ordered away on other duty before that engagement was
concluded. Later, he was captured and taken prisoner. Promptly paroled and exchanged, Wells was sent to the steampowered gunboat USS Ceres, where he came to appreciate Cambridge more. A two-gun, 150-ton sidewheeler weighted with tons of iron armor, that ship’s condition was such that it took threat of court-martial to make the ofcers take her into the weather of Cape Hatteras. (“A mere cockle,” Wells told his mother, “and you may never hear from me again.”) Indeed, based on Wells’s recounting of their voyage, they were lucky to survive.
Wells saw action in charge of a land-based naval battery at the siege of Washington, North Carolina, in April 1863. After supervising the construction of a small fort equipped with a large cannon, a howitzer, and manned by crew from Ceres, Wells exchanged volleys with attacking Confederate gunners. He proudly quoted the recognition
of his “coolness and gallantry under trying circumstances.”
Te great bulk of his letters home, however, dealt with more mundane concerns. Although any Civil War bu f will have a good general sense of the blockade, Wells’s account ofers a rare opportunity to live it. A thoughtful, energetic participant, Wells wrote copiously and clearly, despite the difculties of writing in a cramped and rocking space shared with others, where even f nding suitable paper was a problem. Te ofcers and men he served with represented a wide range of abilities; many were fresh recruits with minimal knowledge of how to operate a ship of this type or its ordnance. Nearly all of his personal needs were supplied in packets and boxes shipped from home: shirts, cigars, coats, books, paper, and postage stamps. He constantly wrote asking for newspapers. “Imagine how you would feel at home not to see a
paper for a week or two, and then when we do get news, we know it is 10 or 15 days old, and everything may be at the time just the reverse of what we hear.” Most of all, he wanted letters from home, writing as often as he did in hopes of inspiring mail in return.
T is reader found him an engaging personality. His abundant correspondence demonstrates very strong bonds of a fection between him and his family members. He joined the Navy to fght for the Union because it was the right thing to do. Explicitly asked his opinion on slavery, he wrote that it “is a sin,” and he expressed willingness to fght for the cause of abolition, even though, like many contemporaries, he viewed black people and other nonwhites as inferior. Having cared little for church when younger, he came to f nd considerable pleasure in reading a book of sermons and a hymnal sent from home.
Tough Ceres’s primary mission was to interdict blockade runners, various other tasks were undertaken when they arose. Wells participates in rescuing escaped slaves (“contrabands”), conveying wounded or paroled Union troops homeward, and bombarding Confederate targets ashore. His assignments from one ship to another took him progressively further south and up the southwest Florida coast, where the true enemies were tedium, oppressive heat, and mosquitoes. His f nal station was at Key West. He was a competent, courageous and ambitious junior ofcer; Wells’s qualities were recognized by some of his superiors to the extent that
he became an acting ensign in command of his own small vessel before the end of his too-brief career.
Robert Browning Jr., retired chief historian of the US Coast Guard, expertly edited Wells’s correspondence, wisely and deftly choosing to correct Wells’s text lightly, retaining the basic f avor of his writing while providing clari fcation that makes the reading efortless, or nearly so. Errors of spelling, capitalization, and grammar are retained as long as they are understandable to a modern reader. At times the reader may share with Wells a desire to know more of the wider picture, but doing so would distance us from the
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immediacy of his experience. T is book is a good read for anyone with a general interest in the Civil War and makes a fresh and lasting contribution to the naval literature of the period.
H erb Gilliland Arnold, Maryland
Vasa II: Rigging and Sailing a Swedish Warship of 1628 . Part I. Te Material Remains and Archaeological Context edited by Fred Hocker and Olaf Pipping, et al. (Nordic Academic Press, Lund, Sweden; and the Swedish National Maritime and Transport Museums, Stockholm; distributed outside of Sweden by CasemateUK, 2023, 472pp, illus, notes, index, ISBN 9789-18890-911-4; $115hc)
In 2006, the National Maritime Museum of Sweden published Vasa I: Te Archaeology of a Swedish Royal Ship of 1628, the f rst book in a planned series exploring all aspects of the history, design, recovery, and context of the sailing warship Vasa. Sunk about a kilometer and a third into its maiden voyage, the Vasa was famously raised from the bottom of Stockholm harbor in 1961 and is now the centerpiece of one of the world’s most compelling maritime museums.
Te f rst book tells the ship’s story and explores in detail the history of its excavation and salvage. Te Vasa research team, led by archaeologist Dr. Fred Hocker, has now published the frst part of Vasa II: Rigging and Sailing a Swedish Warship of 1628. Subtitled “ Te Material Remains and Archaeological Context,” this book examines “all the relevant [archaeological] fnds,” which survive from Vasa’s rigging, steering system, and navigational equipment. A second part of this massive study, still in preparation, will “reconstruct the environmental, economic, and performance context within which ships like Vasa were rigged and sailed, along with the rigging process, sailing
performance, and social and tactical implications of this type of rig.”
As an archaeological study, the book is intended to form a permanent published record of a discrete but centrally important portion of the artifacts from the Vasa wreck. While perhaps most useful to scholars of shipbuilding, seafaring, and seamanship, it is accessibly written and flled with new insights that deepen our collective understanding of European sailing technology and culture.
Te book is the work of eleven contributing authors, led by Hocker and Olof Pipping and superbly edited by Hocker. Te team’s work presents more than one thousand artifacts, starting with those parts of the rig attached to the hull (the hull furniture) and moving to spars, tops, tackle, rope, sails, capstans and windlass, anchors and their gear, and the steering gear, with a f nal chapter on the navigation equipment. Te treatment is detailed and methodical, stepping logically from artifact to artifact and function to function, with perceptive analysis complementing enormous amounts of description. Many diagrams, drawings, and photographs illuminate the discussion, accompanied by copious tables of dimensions. Take, for example, contributing author Nathaniel Howe’s 68-page discussion of the ship’s blocks, part of the 100-page chapter on tackle. While it necessarily focuses on categorizing and describing the wide variety of blocks found in and around the wreck, every few pages Howe provides the reader with clarifying discussion and interpretation of such things as the physics of blocks, their centrality to the functioning of the rig, and how they were made. Each chapter is rich in this way, with lucid explorations of terminology, use and craft, manufacturing, and construction methods.
At 472 pages, the book is not light reading. T ijs Maarleveld, in his review
of Vasa I for the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, declared, “ T is book has one major setback: it is absolutely impossible to read it in bed. You cannot even reasonably take it with you on the train or on other travels. It is simply too bulky.” Vasa II Part I is the same, but it is not necessarily a book that needs to be read straight through. In fact, after the introduction, I could hardly decide which parts to read next, as so many artifacts and ideas drew my attention every time I opened the book. I look forward with great anticipation to the publication of Vasa II Part II and the other volumes that the research team at the Vasa Museum have planned for the future.
M ichael R. H arrison Nantucket, Massachusetts
Tailships: Te Hunt for Soviet Submarines in the Mediterranean, 1970–1973 by CAPT John Rodgaard, USN (Ret.) (Helion and Co., an imprint of Casemate, Havertown, PA, 2024, 84pp, illus, maps, biblio, notes, ISBN 978-1914377-09-9; $29.95pb)
In the 1950s, the US Navy built thirteen Dealey- class destroyer escorts: 315 feet long overall, with a beam of 36 feet 8 inches and a draft of 11 feet 10
inches. Te Dealey destroyer escorts had a relatively short life as a class; nearly all were stricken from the Navy’s list or sold abroad by 1974. Some critics of the class, including the author, have opined that they were already obsolete by the time they were built. Slightly faster, larger, and more comfortable than the World War II escorts they supplanted, the Dealey- class escorts were ftted with twin-mounted 3-inch guns, anti-submarine rockets (Weapon Alpha), a depth-charge rack, and six depth-charge launchers.
Later modernizations removed the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) rockets and the depth charges in favor of nuclear-capable anti-submarine rocket launchers and torpedo mounts, which fred lighter homing torpedoes. For basic electronic search-and-navigation equipment, the ships were equipped with SPS-3 air search radar, SPS-10 surface search radar, and a large SQS 23 sonar ftted in a bow sonar dome. Several of the Dealey- class were also ftted with a hangar and landing pad for drone helicopters to deliver MK 44 and MK 46 torpedoes. Te drone helicopters would prove unreliable, and their failure contributed to the curtailed life of the class.
John Rodgaard, a former US Navy enlisted veteran and intelligence ofcer, and now a historian with more than forty years of naval service, has written this short book, one of a series of specialized volumes published by Helion & Company covering topics on European warfare since World War II. Rodgaard is the ideal person to author this book, having served as a radarman in the Courtney, one of three of the “Tailships,” so-named in the 1970s because they steamed with an Interim Towed Array Sonar System (ITASS) reeled out from a coaxial cable drum on the stern
Te three Dealey destroyer escorts modi fed for the ITASS were USS Courtney (DE-1021), USS Hammerberg,
(DE-1015), and USS Lester (DE-1021). It is likely that these three ships were selected for this experiment because they were in the best material condition, despite their aging equipment. Tey arrived in the Mediterranean in late 1970 and departed in 1973. Te Van Voorhis (DE-1028) arrived in the Med before the Lester but transferred her ITASS gear to the Lester, and returned to homeport. With the exception of several naval abbreviations and acronyms, this book is a succinct account written in layman’s language, enhanced by images and diagrams. Rodgaard describes the threat environment facing the US Cold War navy and explains how anti-submarine warfare worked in the days when the Soviet Red October and USS Dallas sailed under the seas.
Te burden of Rodgaard’s book is the evolution of the interim towed array sonar system during the Cold War. Te con f ict was “fought” mainly in the
North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea between the US and Soviet navies; each sought to outmaneuver and ba fe the other in the struggle for supremacy at sea. While it was not a war of equals in technology and size, neither was it a war of destruction, although it could have been. Te Soviet navy’s submarine force units during this period were more numerous than those of their American opponent, and the same was true of the Soviet ASW escort force. Importantly, however, it was also a war of intelligence gathering beneath the sea, and this is where the US Navy excelled. As the author states, his objective is “simply to tell the story of these three ships and their men within the context of the greater events of the Cold War at Sea in the Mediterranean: the successes and failures of passive towed array sonarhunting the Soviets with a microphone.”
Te author is a f ne researcher and writer, and this book is a fascinating
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example of the type published by Helion’s Europe@War series, containing sixty black-and-white photos, twentynine map/diagrams, four tables, six artistic full-color prof les of US and Soviet ships and submarines, and one map of the Mediterranean cruising grounds and bases. Te bibliography is comprehensive in English language primary and secondary sources. T is book is highly recommended for military and naval students, Cold War enthusiasts, and naval and maritime professionals.
William S. Dudley Easton, Maryland
RMS Queen Mary : Te World’s Favourite Liner by David Ellery (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 2024, 392pp, illus, ISBN 978-1-68247-911-7; $39.95hc)
See also the Shipwreck Index with Chronological listing.
Never was there so much signi fcance in a ship’s name as that of RMS Queen Mary. At the ceremonial launching in September 1934, Queen Mary, consort of King George V, christened the liner with a bottle of Australian wine. T is Cunard liner was majestic in appearance and power as well as a workhorse with many important missions for the Crown—that role was indicated in the designation RMS (Royal Mail Steamer). During World War II when the ship was requisitioned by the British Ministry of Shipping to serve as a troopship, Queen Mary was simultaneously transporting tons of mail between Britain and the United States. Some of the letters carried across the Atlantic were written by my father, who was serving in the US Navy in Britain from 1942 to 1944, to my mother back home in Cincinnati, Ohio. Consequently, I have a personal a fection for this famous ocean liner.
David Ellery has created a masterful historical panorama of this illustrious ship, from her construction starting in 1930 to her retirement in 1967 in
Long Beach, California. Her records of being the frst or the best are admirable: she was the f rst ship over 1,000 feet in length, she set the record for carrying the largest number of people in one voyage (16,683 in 1943), and twice she was the winner of the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic.
In her early years before the outbreak of war in 1939, Queen Mary was a foating resort. Refecting the British social system of the 1930s, there was a f rst or “cabin” class for the wealthy, a “tourist” class, and a third class (otherwise known as “steerage”). Many of the book’s photographs focus on the elegant and opulent features of the ship, including the indoor swimming pools, paddle tennis courts, cinema room, beauty salon, and several restaurants. Evening dress was expected for the main cabin two-story dining salon, where the guests enjoyed the fnest cuisine. Te Verandah Grill on the Sun Deck was transformed into the Starlight Club at night. Celebrities like Bob Hope were among the passengers and entertained the guests on some evenings. Out of approximately 2,000 passengers, there were 769 passengers in cabin class traveling in “one of the most sumptuous, prestigious and expensive ways to cross the Atlantic Ocean.”
Although the text is dwarfed by the size and number of the photographs, the images are worth a thousand words. Queen Mary ’s towering height and four massive propellers can be conveyed best by a photo rather than words. Nevertheless, the author regales the reader with great descriptive details, from the Art Deco décor, including the “bronze double doors featuring the fgures of Castor and Pollux—the guardians of sailors,” to one incident of disaster on 27 September 1942, when Queen Mary collided with one of her convoy escort cruisers. During that incident, the liner’s massive bow split Curacoa in half; the cruiser sank in a matter of minutes,
taking 337 of her crew to their deaths. At the beginning of World War II, when Queen Mary was transformed into a troop carrier, she was stripped of her luxurious amenities. Removed to storage were six miles of f ne wool carpets and all of the f ne furniture. She was armed with anti-aircraft machine guns on the upper decks and a degaussing coil around the outside of the hull to detect magnetic mines. After she was painted camou fage-gray, Queen Mary became known as “the Grey Ghost.”
To manage and maintain order of the thousands of troops onboard, the ship was organized into red, white, and blue sectors; each passenger was assigned a corresponding color to match the sector in which he was quartered. Mealtimes were also based on a rotation system, whereby the “chow line” was never-ending, but everyone got two full meals per day. Safety drills, gun drills, and blackout procedures kept everyone aware of the danger from German U-boats lurking in the North Atlantic, the North Channel, and the Irish Sea. From 1943 to the end of the war, Queen Mary and her sister ship, Queen Elizabeth, made the passage from Scotland to New York in a constant shuttle of US troops to Britain and wounded troops and POWs on the return passages to America. Over the
course of the war, she carried more than 810,000 passengers and traveled over 661,700 miles.
After her last voyage as a troop transport on 17 March 1945, she returned to Southampton, where she was converted over the next ten months back into a luxury liner. Te author explains the di ferent improvements and distinctions between her pre-war appearance and her reft after the war. At this time, the stem of the ship, which had been damaged in the collision with Curacoa, was also replaced. In July 1947, Queen Mary made her maiden postwar voyage carrying 2,000 passengers to New York, where cheering crowds welcomed her. One traveler recalled the smooth crossing and magni fcent service, remarking on all the freboats that were in the harbor to greet them with jets of water. Te chapter titled “ Te Golden Years” is replete with splendid photographs of famous passengers— Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Winston Churchill, and Fred Astaire, to name a few—and fascinating details about the liner’s commercial success.
In 1967 Cunard owners sold the aging liner to the City of Long Beach, California, where she would become a museum and tourist attraction. On 16 September, Queen Mary departed New York in an emotional farewell by those who appreciated her long service, arriving in Southampton eleven days later. Cunard had agreed to deliver her to Long Beach. City representatives insisted on a “Last Great Cruise,” and on 31 October 1967, Queen Mary departed with 1,093 passengers and 806 crew, with Captain John Treasure Jones in command. Te ship made seven ports of call, including Rio de Janeiro, Valparaiso, Panama, Acapulco, and, fnally, thirty-nine days later arrived in Long Beach.
Fifty million people have visited Queen Mary since then, and controversy continues about the millions of
dollars needed to maintain her. Some have suggested that she be turned into a national landmark. T is would please all of her fans. As her last serving captain said: “She is the nearest ship ever to be a living being. She breathed, she had character and had personality.” After reading Ellery’s book, the reader will agree!
Suzanne
Pool-C
amp Fredericksburg, Virginia
Spice: Te 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World by Roger Crowley (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2024, 320pp, illus, maps, ISBN 978-0-30026-747-1; $25hc)
for instance, is covered in greater depth by Felipe Ferná ndez-Armesto in his fne 2022 book, Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan. And Crowley rightly quotes heavily from contemporary accounts, such as those written by Antonio Pigafetta and Andres de Urdaneta. T at said, for anyone interested in the 1511–1571 struggle between the two Iberian powers for global mercantile supremacy, this is a famboyant, often bloodthirsty primer that is well worth reading today.
Two contrasting realities dominate this engrossing book: the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas by which Spain and Portugal, under papal guidance, divided the non-Christian world into zones of infuence along a vaguely defned northsouth line about 300 miles west of the Cape Verde islands; and the interest in clove and nutmeg plants that were grown at the time only on a couple of small outposts 1,000 yards apart called Tidore and Ternate, later known as the Spice Islands, in the little-known Malay archipelago.
Also central to this book are ships, maps, and the sea—specifcally, the vast Paci fc Ocean. Five hundred years after the events described in Spice, living in an age when it is a matter of a click of a hand-held device to connect across the world, it is hard to imagine another one where, for Europeans, the known world excluded China, Japan, and Australia; longitude could not be determined accurately; and maps were largely matters of guesswork.
Such was the appeal of sweet-smelling spices in the fetid urban communities of 16th-century Europe that the markup on cloves from source to market could be more than 1,000%—a huge incentive to explorers and traders. In Spain and Portugal, then vying for global maritime supremacy, it became a national mission funded by monarchs to control this business. T at, e fectively, meant occupation and war, since neither of these pioneering states would compromise or cede dominance of this trade to the other.
Crowley is a fuent narrative historian who researches deeply, writes stylishly and marshals his copious material well. But he is not notably original. Much of the earlier part of the book,
Te Portuguese quickly realized, when they arrived from their base at Malacca, that large ships of 500 tons had an intimidating impact on the inhabitants of the Moluccas (Maluku). Te Spanish, thanks to the Treaty of Tordesillas, had to learn this the hard way after losing most of the smaller ships and their crews they sent south around Cape Horn. In García Jofre de Loaís’s 1525 expedition, seven ships left A Coruña—only one made it back to Spain. Of 450 men who embarked on that voyage, just 145 reached the Spice Islands 440 days later. Most of the missing died of starvation or exhaustion crossing the interminable and often stormy Paci fc. Te few who later (often years later) returned to Spain were greeted “like astronauts back from the Moon,” writes Crowley in a characteristically vivid phrase.
T is is not the place to recount chapter and verse about the various attempts into the mid-1570s to gain the
Veteran master mariner Christopher McMahon shares true depictions of life aboard the merchant ships he sailed aboard during the 1970s and ’80s engaged in worldwide trade with tales of raging storms, bizarre captains and crews, piracy, and the magic of the sea.
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upper hand in this lucrative competition and f nesse the usually unpredictable and often warlike native peoples. Su fce to say, Portugal prevailed in the Spice Islands but Spain—able to build increasingly large ocean-going vessels on the west coast of Mexico—moved on to seize Manila in the Philippines and use it to pivot to focus on opening trade with China and Japan.
For those primarily interested in things maritime, the book highlights numerous innovative cartographical improvements, some key developments in shipbuilding in the 16th century, and in particular the 1565 voyage of the 500-ton San Pedro. T is was the remarkable voyage that, for the f rst time, solved the riddle of global navigation—how to sail east across the vast Paci fc to reach Mexico. Te detailed pilots’ logs and charts made available to the Spanish once the San Pedro had sailed safely 11,160 miles in 123 days into Acapulco (the longest non-stop
oceanic voyage yet made) were in Crowley’s words, “the fnal buckle in the belt of circumnavigation.” Te Paci fc was no longer a dead-end for the all-conquering Spanish.
Looking back, the 16th century in Western evolution was the age of information fueled by Europeans’ insatiable demand for knowledge. Competition for spices encouraged many lasting developments in this race for understanding, such as the evolution of cryptography as a means of protecting secrets. It also underlined the extreme lengths to which people go to make their fortunes.
Robin K night London, UK
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New Bedford — The View Across to Fairhaven from Centre Street in 1884 by John Stobart (1929–2023)
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• Robert Kamm
• Roy Kapani
• Russ Kramer
• Cyrus C. Lauriat
• Christopher M. Lehman
• Hon. John Lehman
• Dr. Jennifer London
• Com. Chip Loomis III
• Ann Peters Marvin
• David J. & Carolyn D. McBride
• Alan R. McKie • Walter C. Meibaum III
• Carolyn & Leonard Mizerek • Claire Montgomery
• William Gordon Muller
• John & Elizabeth Murphy • Mystic Seaport Museum • Wynn Odom • Dr. Alan O’Grady • Erik & Kathy Olstein • Ralph & Dorothy P. Packer • COL Bruce E. Patterson USA • James S. Perry • Brian R. Phillips • Carl A. Pirolli • Mr. & Mrs. Andrew A. Radel • Charles Raskob Robinson • David & Susan Rockefeller • Lee H. Sandwen • George Schluderberg
• Philip & Janet Shapiro Family Foundation
• Douglas H. Sharp • Gail Skarich • C. Hamilton Sloan Foundation • Sharon Slotnick • Te Smith Appellate Law Firm • Edmund Sommer III
• Patricia Steele • Anne Stobart • Philip E. Stolp • David Stulb • Daniel R. Sukis • Alix Torne • Steven J. Traut • US Navy Memorial • James Vance & Dr. Stephanie Pincus • Roy Vander Putten • Andrew Jay Vinson Tomas Wayne • William R. Walsh • Women’s Sports Foundation
DONORS: CAPT John Allen, USN (Ret.) • American Maritime Congress • Scott Altman • Charles B. Anderson • Matt & Rita Andis • Association of Maryland Pilots • Carter S. Bacon Jr. • CAPT Scott Bailey, USN (Ret.) • John D. Barnard • Capt. Jonathan Boulware & South Street Seaport Museum • Michael Bower • James Brandi • Scott F. Brown • CAPT Patrick Burns, USN (Ret.) • Mary Burrichter & Bob Kierlin • Steve & Julie Chapin • Dr. Christopher Cifarelli • John C. Couch • RADM Samuel J. Cox, USN (Ret.) • CAPT R.L. Crossland, USN (Ret.) • June Delaney • Henry DePew • Dicin Electric Co. • George & Tellie Dixon • Richard H. Dumas • John W. Evans Jr.
• Ben P. Fisher Jr. • Robert P. Fisher Jr. • Rip & Noreen Fisher Charitable Fund • Richard B. Flynn
• Lars Forsberg • Michele Gale-Sinex
• Chris Gasiorek • Benjamin Green • Laura Grondin • Sonia Hallenbeck • Steven Hartmann
• Professor John Hattendorf • CAPT Dennis Hickey IV, USN (Ret.)
• CDR Sarah Higgins, USN (Ret.)
• Peter Hollenbeck
• Timothy A. Ingraham
• Joseph Jackins • Christopher P. Jannini
• Andrew MacAoidh Jergens • David L. Kelsey • CDR Robert E. Kenyon III, USNR (Ret.)
• James L. Kerr • Laurence & Omie Kerr • K. Denise Rucker Krepp • Donald R. Kritsch • James P. Latham • Robert Lindmark • Louis & Linda Liotti • Brooks Martin • Tomas McKerr
• Richard Merhige
• James Moore • CAPT R. G. Moore, USCG (Ret.)
• Robert Moore • Morris Arboretum & Gardens • Michael C. Morris
• David Mosher
• Capt. Eric Nielsen
• Mark Pacious
• Capt. William Palmer III
• Eleanor Perkins • Nicholas A. Raposo • W.E. Richardson • CAPT John A. Rodgaard, USN (Ret.)
• William M. Rosen • Bruce S. Rosenblatt
• Michael Runyan • Larry C. Schramm • Sea Bags • Monica Shanahan • Michael F. Smith
• John & Barbara Stotsenburg • Craig Tompson • Peter N. Trielof
• Robert L. Van Nice • Otokar Von Bradsky • Lee P. Washburn
• William L. Womack • US Sailing • CAPT Channing M. Zucker, USN (Ret.)
For more information on how to support our work, please visit us at www.seahistory.org.
Te National Maritime Historical Society is a 501(c)(3) nonproft organization founded in 1963 whose mission is to preserve maritime history, promote the maritime heritage community, and invite all to share in the adventures of seafaring.
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“An outstanding presentation deserves ongoing recommendation for both art and nautical collections.”
10”x12” Hardbound book; 132 pages, 85 full page color photographs; Price $45.00
For more information contact: Anne T. Converse Phone: 508-728-6210
