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A Sense Of History ... A sense of history is important to making the most of today and planning a better tomorrow. With a sense of history we are inspired by our rich maritime heritage: the little ships of Salem that opened new trades throu gh uncharted seas to lands still without names ... the dauntless whalemen of New Bedford, New London , Sag Harbor and Nantucket ... the great American clipper ships and the men who made them world famou s as the acme of speed and beauty under sail...the merchant ship s of World War II that carried the vital fr eights of war through sub-infested sealanes to bomb-pocked beachheads and battlefronts. With a sense of history we are inspired by the past. More importantly, we are able to profit from it. We remember the times when we have allowed our merchant fleet to wither and decay--and then had to rebuild it at tremendous expense in times of national emergency. We remember when American merchant ship s carried a large share of the nation 's foreign trade-- -when the American flag flew proudly in ports all over the world .. .and then almost vanished from the seas throu gh public indifference and government neglect. Our maritime history emphasizes again and again the need for a strong American merchant marine ... manned by well-trained personnel...carrying its fair share of imports and exports. The Seafarers International Union is pledged to these objectives. Profiting from a sense of history, all elements of the American maritime industry can move into the future with a versatile, modern fleet serving the nation's needs and interests: strong and prosperous in peace, a fourth arm of defense in times of national emergency.
Seafarers International Union
No. 7
SEA HISTORY is the journal of the National Maritime Historical Society, an educational , tax-exempt membership organization devoted to furth ering the understanding of our maritime heritage. OFFICES are at 2 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY 11201; at th e San Francisco Maritime Museum , Foot of Polk Street, San Francisco, CA 94109; and Suite 643 , 1511 K Street, Washington , D.C. 20005 . MEMBERSHIP is invited & should be sent to the Brooklyn office: Patron, $100; Regular, $10; Student or Retired , $5 . OFFICERS & TRUSTEES are Chairman: Rear Admiral Walter F. Schlech, Jr., USN (ret.); President: Peter Stanford ; Vice Presidents: Karl Kortum, John Thurman; Secretary: Alan G. Choate; Treasurer: Howard Slotnick; Trustees: Frank 0 . Braynard, Norman J. Brouwer, Robert Carl, Alan G. Choate, Harold D. Huycke, Karl Kortum , John Lyman, Walter F. Schlech, Jr. , Howard Slotnick, Peter Stanford , John N. Thurman, Shannon Wall , Barclay H . Warburton, III , Charles Wittholz.
SPRING 1977
1 EDITOR'S LOG, LETTERS 7 IN CLIO'S CAUSE 10 WORKING SAIL, by Peter Stanford 14 WORKING SAIL RETURNS TO BROOKLYN 16 TOWARD A WORLD SHIP TRUST, by Frank G.G. Carr 20 VOYAGES OF THE ERNESTINA, by Michael Platzer 22 A HEAD OF STEAM, by Frank 0. Braynard 23 OPERATION SAIL PASSES FLAG TO NATIONAL TRUST 24 THE ARMY ENGINEERS' ROLE IN HARBOR CULTURAL RESOURCES, by Simeon M. Hook 25 SHIP NOTES 26 SAIL TRAINING 28 MENHADEN MEN, by Michael Cohen 31 THE SEAPORT EXPERIENCE 32 SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS
ADVISORY COUNCIL: George Campbell ; American Museum of N atural History; Frank G.G. Carr; Cutty Sark Society; Robert G. Herbert; Melvin H . Jackson; Smithsonian Institution; R.C. Jefferson; John Kemble , Pomona College; John Lyman; Robert Murphy; John Noble, artist; Kenneth D. Reynard, San Diego Maritim e Museum; Peter Throckmorton; Alan Villiers; Seaman author; Alen York, Antique Boat & Yacht Club. STAFF: Headquarters Director: Rein Virkmaa; Coordinator: Peggy Murray; Curatorat-Large: Peter Throckmorton; Assistant Curator: Ted Miles; Publications Director: David 0. Durrell ; Ships & Piers Manager : James Diaz; Exhibitions: Jo Meisner; Membership : Marie Lore. Copyright © 1977 by th e National Mari time Historical Society.
34 MARINE ART: A SUBLIME SATISFACTION, by George Campbell 38 BOOKS 42 PEKING BATTLES CAPE HORN, by Irving Johnson 44 SALT PORK AND PEA SOUP, By Jam es Gaby 46 PATRONS OF THE NATIONAL SOCIETY SEA HISTORY ADVISORY COMMITTEE Timothy G . Foote, Time, In c.; Oliver Jensen, A merican H eritage; Karl Kortum , San Francisco Maritim e Museum; Clifford Lord, New Jersey Historical Society; John Lyman; J. Roy McKechnie, Ogilvy & Math er; Robert Weinstein . SEA HISTORY STAFF Editor: Peter Stanford; Managing Editor: Norma Stanford; Associate Editors: Norman J . Brouwer, Ted Miles, Albert Swanson; Advertising Sales: David 0 . Durrell; Circulation : Rein Virkman ; Accounting: Jo Meisner.
COVER: South Street Seaport Museum's historic coasting schooner Pioneer, doing perhaps the most important work she's ever done: sailing city youth in crew toward new horizons. See "Working Sail. "
NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEW YORK
WASHINGTON , D. C.
SAN FRANCISCO
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Brooklyn/International Longshoremen's Association .
BEST WISHES LOCAL 1814 ·INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S ASSOCIATION· AFL -CIO
ANTHONY SCOTTO
PRESIDENT
343 COURT STREET· BROOKLYN , N.Y. 11231
Editor's Log Sea Day is celebrated in these pages with a review of the working sailing ships taking part in a four-day visit to celebrate the opening of the Brooklyn waterfront to people, in New York. Next year, we hope it will be celebrated in other seaport centers across the land . "Sea Day," said a Connecticut editorialist some years back , "is about the things it takes more than one generation to learn. " We essay some thoughts on that kind of learning at the end of " Letters " in this issue . Clio will go on with her immemorial work, we may be sure : the theme of this discussion is that what we make of our days might surely be made more lovely in Clio' s eyes. There is cause for some rejoicing in what we have to report on the campaign to return to Ernestina ex-Ef fie M . Morrissey to the United States-a ship now called "the Cape Verdean Mayflower" in the newspapers-but only for concern and redoubled effort to achieve breakthrough to save the Alexander
Hamilton, " White Swan of the Hudson ," last paddlewheeler on the East Coast. Frank Carr utters a stirring summons to move out ahead of tragic loss in "Towards a World Ship Trust" in this issue, and we report on progress under the Maritime Preservation Program of the National Trust-with a note on interesting possibilities from the National Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. "Sail Training" reports the remarkable national-and international-program of the American Sail Training Association, which, Chairman Waldo Johnston of the National Trust's Maritime Committee recently observed, gives the lead and the structure for real achievement in this vital kind of sea learning. And two new sections, "The Seaport Experience," and "Marine Art, " open other doors, we hope, that many may walk through to make their own explorations. As with all things in SEA HISTORY , we look to readers to
let us know what they think .... Advertisers are letting us know, and making this new work possible through their increasing presence in our pages. To reinforce this support for SH and for all our work, we are launching, on our last page, a campaign to enroll Patrons of the Society. Those who have led the way in this with contributions of $100 or more are listed. Any who wish to lend a hand are invited to be in touch! PETER STANFORD PS-On peril of missing a grand sailor in a great ship joining battle with Cape Horn, do not miss Irving Johnson's "Peking Battles Cape Horn," from his forthcoming book of that title to be issued this summer by the National Society. (And we are striving to import James Gaby's Mate in Sail-for reasons you'll appreciate when you read his memoir on seagoing food .)
LETTERS "On Top of the Pile" To the Editor: I've followed the Society very loosely over the past couple of years so I'm not familiar with any of the politics involved, but it seems to me that there is a real need for an organization "on top of the pile." The NMHS is that organization. The questionnaire you sent around some months ago is an example of the kind of activity that most of the maritime museums around the country could not do. They do not have the resources or the perspective to take on projects of national scope. All are interested , though, in how the others are doing. I've been looking at the problems I have in the day-to-day maintenance in the Falls of Clyde as well as those coming up in the new restoration planned for the next year. The product research I'm doing to solve these could be shared with other museums through some central, interested, question-asking, filekeeping, xeroxing location. Many of the problems I have could be solved by the research Jim Williams in Balc/utha or Steve Hopkins in Wavertree or. .. have already done. As it is, I have written letters all over the world for opinion and suggestions,
many of them are unanswered and I have a large investment of time in this "non-productive" work. A set of files on the basic problems faced by all of us, and by new museums trying to get under way, might save a lot of time and energy that could go into the ship or building being worked on. "Simple" problems like hull protection can be very difficult for a museum faced with financial and exhibition demands. Another service that could be provided would be to organize some form of "personnel exchange program" among the museums. You would get support from some of us, I know. Federal assistance is available to maritime museums and might be available to you. Federal Assistance for Maritime Preservation: an Introductory Catalog, published by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation ( 1511 K Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005) offers some suggestive programs. Your organization might make an effort to sort out what programs are functional, what kinds of requests gain approval, and then make this known to all of us around the country. This might prove more valuable than all the other things I've suggested. ls any of this appropriate to the
framework you're establishing for the National Society? JOHN EWALD Manager, Falls of Clyde Bernice P . Bishop Museum Honolulu, Hawaii We're indeed interested in every topic you raise, and in informal ways we've begun to supply some of the information exchange system you suggest. Our beginnings are very sketchy and support is needed if we're to make that system function as it should. We're passing on your letter to the Council of American Maritime Museums and Maritime Preservation Committee at the National Trust, both founded somewhat at our initiative. Let us hear from others on this, define the tasks, sort out the roles, and get on with this vitally needed work!-ED.
Sailing in the Public's Eye
To the Editor: Congratulations on the opening of your new national headquarters situated along the banks of the East River. I am sure the sight of the world's ships passing by the location will provide your staff with the inspiration needed to
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LETTERS "If a man knew his work ... "
carry out the daily tasks and to come up with special circumstances designed to keep all things maritime in the general public's eye. S. MARSHALL CONLEY Public Relations Director The Mariners Museum Newport News, Virginia To the Editor: A seaman' s huzzah for the outstanding fall issue of Sea History. As one associated in one way or another with work on Moshulu, the Olympia and Becuna, and on the Maritime Museum's own Gaze/a Primeiro, I know I can speak for many who appreciated the reporting on activities in Philadelphia. But what moved this late Gloucesterman so deeply was news of great things in and around Cape Ann: Ted Miles' nifty article on surviving Gloucester schooners, Mr. Garland 's report about the Great Republic, and welcomed news of the new Shipbuilding Museum in Essex. And I have heard of things brewing in my own beloved Rockport. An "angel," a quarry stone sloop and the late Olaf Norling's lobsterboat would be a grand beginning there. With so many wonderful things going and on tap on the historical end of our maritime heritage, how ironic to note in a conference held locally last yea r that little was underway . Beware the landsmen, tinkers and invaders in our domain! A. W. SA VILLE Curator Philadelphia Maritime Museum Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Ernestina, Ernestina! To the Editor: The Wareham Board of Selectmen is very pleased to learn that the Ernestina would be using the Massachusetts Maritime Academy as a home port. If the Town of Wareham can be of any assistance in helping the Ernestina, please feel free to contact us. EDGAR C. GADBOIS Executive Secretary Board of Selectmen Wareham, Massachusetts
Letters expressing similar interest in the success of the project to return the Ernestina ex-Effie M. Morrissey to the United States have been received from Mayor Beame of New York, Mayor Markey of New Bedford, Mayor Cianci of Providence. See Morrissey article, this issue.-ED .
Floreat Great Britain! To the Editor: In the Great Britain restoration this year, much will depend on a vital fundraising drive . To date, we've had nearly a million visitors to Isambard Kingdom Brunel 's great iron ship, now undergoing restoration in the dock from which Prince Albert launched her in 1853. Our four lines of attack are: (1) getting the bridge on the ship (we have it in sections on the dockside) ; (2) putting in the mainmast (at Iast!)-it is promised for this summer; (3) starting (at last) on the main weatherdeck; and (4) pushing forward with detailed design drawings for the engines, so that a special subcommittee, now formed, can obtain gifts of various component parts from commercial engineering firms. Sixty-four companies have so far helped us with materials or services, and private citizens have followed the lead of Jack Hayward in contributing funds, for which we now have major matching funds in prospect. The best of good wishes to the Society and its works! RICHARD GOOLD-ADAMS Chairman S.S. Great Britain Project Bristol, England The steam clipper Great Britain extended reliable fast railway service across the Atlantic, using the nascent Victorian technology of steam and iron. Her recovery from the Falkland Islands in 1970 must rank as the greatest oceanic ship-save of our time. We hope to publish a full account in a future issue. Meantime, inquiries and vitally needed contributions may be forwarded to: SS Great Britain Project, Great Western Dock, Gas Ferry Road, Bristol, BSJ 6TY, England.-ED.
To the Editor: My very great friend Oswald Brett, marine artist, who comes from this part of the world, sent me the July issue of your SEA HISTORY-a fine magazine. A couple of ante-World War I shellbacks and I are enjoying its pages. As Patron of the Australian Cape Homers, I am interested in all things to do with the wind ships. I went to sea on 8th January 1910, just catching the last great days of sail. That is something of which I am very proud, for it is great to look back to the days when my ship was one of fifty big sailing ships awaiting charters and coal loading cranes in Newcastle, New South Wales, away back in 1911-12. I have been in retirement now for getting on to seventeen years-I will be 82 in April next (if I make it)-and during that time I have written a couple of books besides contributions to our Australian Cape Homers quarterly magazine. This letter accompanies my first book, Mate in Sail, which I would like to present to you for your library. The San Francisco and San Diego museums have the Mate and I thought I would like to leave part of me in New York. During my knockabout the world before getting my certificates, I spent a year in the U.S.A.-sailed in two Luckenback ships, one from San Francisco to New York via the Straits of Magellan, the other the fourteenth ship to go through the Panama Canal. I worked in the rigging gang at the Newport News shipyard, and then sailed from that port to Boston and way ports towing old exsailing ships cut down to coal barges. I stayed at the South Street Sailor's Home, and from there luckily got a job at the Marine and Field Yacht Club, in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, before I passed on to England and back to my own country, New Zealand. To be sure, much of my American experience rubbed off on me. I admired the American style where if a man knew his work he was treated as a man and in after life as officer and mate in ships and when manager of a Sydney stevedoring firm, I found myself going along those lines. I was happy to meet Karl Kortum who with his wife came to our house when last he was in Australia. CAPTAIN J . GABY Balgowlah, New South Wales Australia The International Association of Cape Horners, formed in St. Malo, France, flourishes in different parts of the world
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LETTERS
where men who have been around Cape Horn in sail foregather. Captain Gaby observes in his splendid book: "There was the challenge! You were your own keeper. No one to hang on for you. No one to say 'I'll do it for you. ' Scared as hell the first few times aloft, but the job was still all yours. No going down until the sail was furled .. .. " Alan Villiers notes in Mate in Sail, that it includes the work of "real marine artists who obviously know their stuff as well as the author knows his, which is praise indeed. " -ED. Friends of Nobska To the Editor: We feel a great link in the history of water transportation is being forgotten, and the last existing examples of steamboating are fast disappearing forever. Such events as Operation Sail brought to the public eye the importance of the preservation of the great sailing ships of the past. At this point in time, I dare say we couldn't muster enough old fashioned steamboats to accomplish the same awareness. We would, therefore, welcome participation in the National Marine Historical Society, to help complete the picture of America's Marine History. ROBERT C. CLEASBY President Friends of Nobska, Inc. Cranston. Rhode Island
The steamer Nobska is now in Baltimore as a restaurant ship. We are going to pay more attention to steam and we look forward to working with Friends of Nobska, whose concerns we share.-ED. From Cruising Club's Skipper To the Editor: Charlie Sayle is just a little off on Howard Blackburn's old sloop Cruising Club (SH 5, page 3). She's 32 feet LOA, not 25, and Blackburn had her built himself in anticipation of the Cruising Club of America's planned rendezvous in Gloucester in 1929 to do him honor, he having been elected an honorary
member. The old man had hoped to do a lot of cruising in her but was not well or agile enough and had to sell her the next year. You ask reader reaction to running ads ... I think you'd be crazy not to! JOSEPH E. GARLAND Gloucester, Massachusetts Learning from Dhows To the Editor: Stanley Gerr's "Language of Command in Sail" (SH 4, pages 44-47) opens the possibilities of learning from non-English speaking countries. Let me call attention to M. P. Nougarede's Qua/ites des Navires Arabes, published in Lisbon in 1963 by the Centro de Estudos Historicos Ultramarinos. Paul Nougarede commanded the very largest of the Arab dhows. He is a good friend of my friend Captain Marcel Legros, with whom I sailed in Richelieu in 1924that's how I know of this excellent study, which I commend to your attention. GORDON CHAPMAN Belmont, NSW, Australia The Cooper and Her Village To the Editor: I was fascinated by the Falkland Islands article in your July issue, in particular the story of the Charles Cooper. I live in Black Rock, Connecticut, next door to the William Hall Shipyard where the Cooper was built. There isn't much remaining of the actual yard, although many houses adjacent to the site date from the early 19th Century. There is currently a movement among some Black Rock residents to designate the area an historic district in order to save the many beautiful old homes clustered around the waterfront. Ironically, one of the homes we are attempting to save from destruction (while you strive to save the Cooper) is the William Hall Homestead. Hall's home was the showpiece of the village, a magnificent example of early Victorian architecture and will possibly be razed if commercial development plans are put through. We would greatly appreciate hearing from Peter Throckmorton or other members of your staff if there is any way we can help in the effort to retrieve the Charles Cooper. Perhaps if more people in our area can see, in the Charles Cooper, their rich local maritime heritage, a ship will be saved and a village to boot. BRUCE R. WILLIAMS, Secretary Black Rock Historic District Committee Black Rock, Connecticut
Elissa: "A Positive Energy" To the Editor: Things are going well for the Galveston Historical Society's project to bring back Elissa, the little bark of 1877, which called in here in the 1880s (SH 4, pp. 30-32). We expect to have a nearly complete restoration kit loaded aboard a Lykes Line ship for Livorno by the end of April. We'll transship this to Greece, and then work will begin on the ship at Piraeus. Finally! Progress has been slow and steady .. .it has certainly taught me to take each potential crisis as a mere event while maintaining a positive energy for the idea as a whole. Peter Throckmorton is going to Greece to help us set up. We have been extremely fortunate in obtaining help from Texaco, General Motors, and Lykes people as well as others in Greece. We will work through the summer and probably be recassed by a Lloyd's as a motor vessel-with a sound hull, new deck, and new propulsion system. At that point a look will be taken at the calendar and bank account and a decision made to make the Atlantic crossing as a motor ship or stick it out a while longer and go on to rig her as a cut-down barkentine. With some thought we can design a rig that will not demand too much duplicate effort in the ultimate historic restoration. MICHAEL CREAMER Galveston Historical Foundation, Inc. Galveston, Texas The Truth about Australia To the Editor: I like your Mystic article (SH 5, pages 6-11) very much, putting a very personal touch on the ship restoration problem. The only omission one could point to is the lack of any information on what any of these specific restoration jobs has cost in cash and man hours. One nit (I love to pick 'em)-on page 6 you say the real identity of the Australia was cleared up only when they decided to dismantle her. Wrong. I researched this in the National Archives way back in 1951 and published it in both Log Chips and Motor Boating. JOHN LYMAN Chapel Hill, North Carolina ERRATA Captain Kenneth D. Reynard of the Star of India corrects the listing for the bark in "Historic Ships Preserved" (SH 5, page 28) from Douglas to Ramsey, Isle of Man.
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LETTERS
We asked for comment on the proposition that we'd better stop debasing history by demanding that it be "relevant" to our lives, and begin to find out, instead, how we can relate our lives to the challenge of history. Three sailors respond here. Stanley Gerr sailed in the full-rigged ship Tusitala; Karl Kortum in the bark Kaiulani; Pete Seeger sails in the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater today. We are delighted at omnibuses painted with more verve than we paint such things today, at the idea of our cultural inheritance in language as a functional item of our voyaging in time, at Pete Seeger's defiance of doomsayers, on behalf of the forecastle gang. Reader, we hope you share our delight. We'll never publish anything more important.-ED.
IN CLIO'S CAUSE:
George Street at Hunter, Sydney, Australia, in the 1880s. A photograph given to Karl Kortum by the marine artist Oswald L. Brett in March 1973.
Gerr, Kortum, Seeger Respond History the Key to Man's Work
Your concern about the decline in the study of history despite its immense importance provokes in me the following thought: The whole intellectual enterprise of man is, I believe, to correlate the two clearly recognizable aspects of reality: structure and function. He's constantly addressed to this task in all areas of his experience and of his intervention in the world-the physical universe, the social scheme of things, etc. In so far as society is concerned, only the past has structure (the future is unborn and the present too fleeting), so that we must study history if we are to realize how society functions (has functioned) in terms of its structure, and how the structure is and becomes ever more entwined with function: history must provide the key. The evolution of the language of command at sea, a thing much in my mind, is an example of this. This highly structured special language, cast from the crucible of experience, becomes an essential part of the functional equipment of the ship. It is as vital to her sailing as block and tackle, yards, sail. Without it the machine of the ship cannot function, not with the efficiency required to make the voyage. STANLEY GERR East Haddam, Conn.
At the Bottom of a Downswing, Hope from Man's Organic Inheritance
Os Brett's photograph, with its goodlooking omnibuses, comes to us from better times. Everything went slower; there was, consequently, more interaction between human beings. There was a warming feeling for the beasts that labored along with man. The buildings were still in relationship to the creatures that put them up; they were not machines for processing data forty stories high. Things were so inefficient that there was-above all-work. And out of work came self-respect. It was the breed at a happier point in time. Since then we have done a better job of abating pain, and there is now an electronic screen with entertainment for invalids and shut-ins. These two things are the only net gain that man has achieved. We have extended life but thrown the old people out of the house. We have instituted some measure of social security, but spoiled it with the movement to the cities. We have done some wondrous scientific thinking with the comparatively paltry net benefit mentioned above. The deficit side of our science (we were able to kill 40 million people in the second world war) we all know. The internal combustion engine and
the telephone, for instance, have contributed more to pain and death than they have to peace and civility. (Modern, efficient war would be lost without them.) We have to regretfully dismiss this pair as a minus. War, ultimate war. .. l don't even know how to think about that. But a creature on another planet in another puff of worlds in a galaxy on the other side of the sun may some day give the fact that it has happened a passing glance in his morning headlines. In addition to scientific thinking, we have done other kinds of thinking. But about half of this thinking thinks that we shouldn't think at all. Philosophy, which used to be the highest manifestation of this other kind of thinking, is in disrepute, which in itself says something. We have lightened the work load (and that probably should be added to my list of two achievements) but, characteristically, have let the lightening process run on until there is a whole stratum of society who can't
Clio, Greek goddess of history, is one of the nine Muses who preside over man's arts. The first museum, Plato's Academy, source of a discourse not ended in our time, was dedicated as a temple to the Muses.
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LETTERS
get any work at all. They frighten the rest of us-and they should. We have improved the nutritional level for a small part of the world's population, but almost half of the people on the planet don't get enough to eat. There have been some vestigial efforts by this nation to reach out to the Third World, but I imagine that a hundred dollars to one have gone into war preparation during this period. That part of the daily grist that gives a lift to life is increased at almost all levels in western society, ranging from the arts to TV to consumer goods. But this has taken a course somewhat like the lightening of work; it has gone on until there is too much and we are disoriented. The craftsman with a single skill and strong purpose to follow it is a contemporary hero.
"There is hope in the fact that we have knowledge of what is wrong... and methods to communicate that knowledge as never bejore. " My great-great-grandfather, who knew how to make snowshoes and made them from oxbows, and sent his daughters over Donner Pass on the snowshoes to get help for the stranded wagon train, meets the dictionary's definition of that presently popular word "organic"-he was "not secondary, or accidental." The affluent citizen, practicing his hobby today, would be in seventh heaven if his special knowledge could count that much~if he could count that much .
* * * * *
I read somewhere that hope is a kind of religion, and maybe that is so. Hope bubbles in some of us-the lucky ones. I am not ultimately discouraged or I wouldn't bother to save all this fine stuff around here or be a museum man . I just say that we are the bottom of a downswing . The massive structure of organized religion doesn't seem to make much difference, although I am sure we would be worse off without it. One thing is certain: only God's indulgence -up to now-lets this faulty crew stumble on. There is hope in the fact that we have knowledge of what is wrong as never before ... and methods to communicate that knowledge as never before. KARL KORTUM Director San Francisco Maritime Museum
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Out of a Common Past ... a Future for Man
I don't know for sure who Clio wa:,, but I know that the ingenious men and women, the daring and hardworking people who during the last ten thousand years developed the art and craft of sailing, deserve to be remembered. They live on in us, of course, but we'll do a better job of steering for the future if we knew better from where we came. The history of boats and ships show that good ideas have come from every corner of the world. It's well-known that the invention of the compass came to Europe from China. Less well-known is the fact that the idea for retractable keels-daggerboards and later centerboards, also came from the Orient. The idea of tacking against the wind came to Europe from North Africa. In the 15th Century Italian sailors with their square-sailed ships were amazed to see Arab ships literally sailing rings around them with their triangular lateen rigs. The first Italian admiral who tried such triangular sails was threatened with excommunication if he used them. "Only someone in league with the devil could sail against the wind." Obviously somewhere along the line the admiral must have persuaded the authorities that the triangular sail was just a good idea that ought to be swi ped . Our nautical language holds bits and pieces from every continent. "Catamaran" from Malaya; "starboard" from the Viking's "steerboard" where the steering oar was held. And in tools, ropes, and materials we draw upon dozens of ancient cultures, perhaps hundreds of cultures.
* * * * * Now some say that technology, having made it easier and easier for few and fewer people to do more and more damage, has doomed the Human Race to an early death . They may be right, but they may not be. Old-time sailors knew that some mighty heavy jobs could be done if enough people hauled in rhythm upon a rope. And we know that the strongest ropes are only made up of tiny fibers which are only strong because they are in close contact with each other. May our four billion humans get in ever closer contact with each other, knowing our common past. Then we, and history, will have a future. PETE SEEGER Beacon, New York
The most fabled ship in the world is making a fabled journey around it. Next January, the Kungsholm will sail westward on an unequalled 88-day journey around the world. And the wonders of the world can only be matched by the wonders of the M.S. Kungsholm. The Kungsholm offers you a warmth and ambiance that cannot be full y described in her brochures but must be experienced on her wide decks, spacio us staterooms with ample dressers and wardrobes, classic dining room, elegant boutiques and beautifully decorated salons with fres h flowers. Only the Kungsholm has so many private places for bridge play¡ ing, small cocktail parties or reading in the libraries. As you discover fa r-away, wondrous places like H ong Kong and the Suez Canal, with carefully arranged shore trips to special places, you will also discover a devotion to service from our staff who give you a feeling of belonging and camaraderie with your sailing companions. On a ship and voyage of this magnitude there's a sense of timelessness, excitement and also perfect contentment. And by the time your journey ends, you will h ave collected unforgettable memories and made life-long fri ends. Come, see the world as only the fabled Kungsholm can show it to you.
Around the world cruise (Westward) Embarkation ports. New York-January 21, 1978-88 days - 20 ports Port Everglades -January 23, 1978-84 days -19 ports La Guaira (Venezuela) -Ja nuary 26, 1978 - 8 1 days -18 ports Los Angeles -February 7, 1978-71 days - IS ports C o ntact your trave l agent about this a nd othe r fabled Kungsholm cruises.
M.S. Kungsholm Liberian Registry
This is what fab les are made of. Flagship Crui ses~
522 Fifth Avenue
New York . NY 10036 (212) 869-341 0
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WORKING SAIL:
Ten Vessels that Do Real Jobs Under Sail By Peter Stanford The waters around New York, like other seaport towns, were once crowded with sail. Brigs, schooners and sloops brought in the bricks and granite that built the city, and the harvest of farms and fisheries that fed it. On Sea Day Weekend, May 21-24, a fleet of ten sailing vessels will come into the East River, vessels of the same general kind that fished our shores and carried cargo round our waterways for the first 250 years of the city's life. They range from the modern sailing replica of the great Canadian fishing schooner Bluenose to a junk, the Mon Lei, built in Foochow about a hundred years ago. Each reflects hard-won sea learning in her hull and rig; each has her own mission she is sailing to today. They are working sailing craft, and their stories give an interesting picture of how such ships live. "Sleds," he calls them. Whether he's talking about the Stephen Taber, which sailed in the West Indies trade a hundred years ago, and sails with vacationers in Maine today, or his own beautiful Harvey Gamage, 95 feet of traditional schooner built to his order in 1973, they're "sleds" to Eben Whitcombworking vehicles meant to skid people and freight across the water. ''These ships should pay their way,'' he says. "They should be self-sufficient." The Harvey Gamage And that is how the handsome Gamage is sailed , cruising Maine waters in the summers, and the Virgin Islands in the winters, carrying passengers on the old trade routes where her predecessors carried cargoes. Eben lives with his wife Shirley in a house built shortly after the Revolution. a fitting kind of house for a shipowner in sail, overlooking one of the rivers that feed into Clinton Harbor in Connecticut. He talks quietly and with evident determination about what it takes to keep a Gamage sailing. He and Shirley began to think of building their big schooner in 1971. "We're both State of Mainers," he says. "That's where these old sleds were built. We used to see them coming in with logs from Nova Scotia for the paper mill in Bangor. Then, as that died out, the headboat trade came up to keep a few schooners busy. Its economics worked based on the cheapness of the old vessels." But what about building new-and
making it pay out? Of course you do it because you want to be in the business. And you see that other people have that instinct to sail. The need of people makes the economics of the boat.
Eben Whitcomb on the Harvey Gamage.
"Bob Douglas built the Shenandoah, and Joe Davis the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights looked good to us, so we asked Harvey Gamage to build our schooner to her design. Things went pretty fast once the decision was made. The keel was laid in September 1972. After a year's work by a crew of eight to ten men, she was finished. About halfway through I went to Harvey and told him: 'I've decided on her name.' 'What's that?' he said. He didn't waste many words, Harvey. 'Harvey Gamage,' I said. 'Oh,' he said." Obviously some feeling went into this project, and Gamage, who died last fall, must have taken some pleasure in seeing this great white schooner with his name on her transom. It's sure that Eben and Shirley do. And the Gamage does some special things. Last year in Operation Sail, she had a crew of 32 youngsters aboard, two from each of the sixteen counties of Maine. And increasingly she takes classes aboard for college semesters at sea, offered as a joint venture of Southampton College in Long Island, and Dirigo Cruises (the name of the Whitcomb's company). Some courses have been done in adult education as well. How does it work? Eben Whitcomb says that he can see his way now to building two more schooners the size of the Gamage, and keeping them busy.
Black Pearl with a capful of wind, alive from keel to truck. Photo, Peter Barlow.
The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater Pete Seeger, whose views on the value of history are expressed elsewhere in this issue (see "Letters"), would come by the one-room office of the South Street Seaport Museum ten years ago, to help out the citizens engaged in that project by singing with them, quite literally for their supper, in the street. And he'd talk about the rallying of purpose that would take place if we could build and sail on the Hudson River a great sloop like those which carried cargo and passengers on this inland arm of the sea, making it a highway of sail. The sloops were to be seen in the paintings of the Hudson River School, the great white mainsails standing out against the purple of a mountain in that breathless, shadowed calm before one of the thunderstorms the district is famous for broke upon them, or beating into the chop of the Upper Bay, mingling with shipping from the world's four corners, or lying at one of the hundreds of landing stages that lined the river's banks, picking up country produce and delivering passengers and the day's news from New York. (Commodore Perry of the famous voyage to Japan, who was nicknamed Old Bruin for his forthright ways, preferred to travel from his upriver home to the city this way, disdaining the noisy, smoky railroad that ran by his door.) Pete Seeger and his friends, united by a common concern for the life of the great river, went ahead and raised funds by donation to build their ship, and sail her in education program to save the Hudson. Last year the Hudson River Sloop Restoration, Inc., held its tenth annual meeting. The Clearwater had been rebuilt that spring (over the winter she went through some further work at the duPont Restoration Shipyard at Mystic Seaport). Early organizational problems had been overcome, not without trouble and turmoil. The sailing of the Clearwater is now supported by a membership of over 5,000 souls, with more than a dozen Sloop Clubs in three states active in her continuing educational program on the life and uses of the Hudson River. And in her turn, Clearwater has helped clean up the river, improve the waterfronts of river towns, and bring people back to the Hudson as a source of learning and recreation. Some of the principles all this works
11
WORKING SAIL
on were set forth recently by the executive director, John Mylod. "Through its staff, sloop branches and the active participation of its volunteers, Clearwater reaches easily into the community and responds realistically to the river's needs and the environmental concerns of those who live throughout its watershed," he says. The sloop herself, he notes, "is not an ordinary sailing vessel, but a beautiful replica of the sloops that plied the river a century ago. She is a symbol of environmental awareness and an education workboat. We conduct a formal education program each day and provide an outdoor learning experience for thousands of students and other individuals." Sailing in the Clearwater is not a vacation from work: "All sloop activities aboard require participation by all the crew." All hands turn to when the enormous mainsail is raised. And there are dozens of continuing jobs to be done. Some of the range of sloop tasks: "We need carpenters and shipwrights whose skilled hands can often do more than five times that of people unfamiliar with the work. We need people with a knowledge of Spanish. We need a song leader, someone who knows sea chanties and can get even a rain-soaked crowd to sing." And how does it work? "In spite of all the hard work and long hours, there are so many who want to crew each year that we have found it necessary to limit each volunteer strictly to one week." Perhaps this is because of the hard work and demanding program; perhaps people look for these things, and value them when they find them in Clearwater's sailing. South Street's Pioneer Launched in 1885 at Marcus Hook on the Delaware River, Pioneer began life as a cargo sloop. Soon she was converted to the easier-handling schooner rig. She lived on and on because of her stout iron hull-and because, when the old hull could be patched no more, in 1966. the ship was taken up and wholly rebuilt by the late Russell Grinnell, Jr. Grinnell ran a waterfront construction business in Gloucester, Mass. He restored the schooner to full sailing rig, and used her to shift timbers and pilings around to different jobs. She did this under sail; her small engine was called an "iron jib," good to help maneuver in harbor. Grinnel was making plans for a sailing cargo run to New York when he was tragically killed in a waterfront accident. His family gave Pioneer to the South Street Seaport Museum.
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Of her rebuilding, Russell Grinnell had written: "It was no small project, and was far more expensive than I had hoped at first. However, it would have been worse to have had to drop it.'' And in that spirit she has since been sailed by the Museum, at first with a wholly volunteer crew, later with captain, cook and deckhand. Early on, she began taking former drug abusers to sea, where they found new horizons and made a favorable impression in the many ports they called at, from Gloucester to southern New Jersey. The Museum took great pride in her sailing, and the Vincent Astor Foundation and others, including many volunteers, supported it. "Pioneer, " said one, "is a beautiful necessity of life.'' In 1972 a Pioneer Marine School was set up in the old ferry Hart, as an integral, working part of the Museum. Pioneer's sailing has since been linked to the program of the school. Lately, to help with economics and to meet the objective of getting Museum visitors out on the water under sail, she has also carried passengers from the East River pierhead on harbor excursions, as she will do this summer. She began her sailing early in April this year, as her skipper Mike Smith took a group of students to Mystic Seaport-what a good way to go, in a working schooner! Pioneer Chairman Dick Rath has observed, of Pioneer's sailing today: "It could well be the most useful work a coasting schooner has ever done.'' The Trade Wind
Built to John Alden's designs for the 1926 Bermuda Race, the graceful schooner Trade Wind carries the learning of the Gloucester fishing schooners in her lines. A fast, able type, much prized by sailing people today. Withal a type much influenced by yacht design as the characteristic Gloucesterman hull took shape toward the end of the last century. Trade Wind was acquired by a nonprofit membership group, Schooner, Inc. in 1975, and after refit she completed her first season's sailing last year. Her purpose: "to encourage learning and interest in the ecology and maritime history of Long island Sound, its rivers and harbors." "The basis of the learning is the field experience," says Jane Griffith, executive director. A good deal of work is done with school groups, and college and graduate groups also make use of the program. A day's outing may begin with sampl-
ing of water and bottom in the harbor. "Out in the Sound an otter trawl might be set off the stern, and be hauled in to reveal squid, jelly fish, sea robbins, horseshoe crabs, sponges, conches, spider crabs, etc.," reports Mrs. Griffith. "This assortment is handled and examined, and discussed by the biologist leading the trip. The organisms are returned to the Sound. Then a visit to an island might be on the agenda, or a visit to a gull breeding ground." Late in 1976, 10th grade biology students from Bassick High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut, boarded Trade Wind on a cold and windy day. They had raised the $200 required for the trip themselves. They helped handle lines on deck, under the watchful eye of skipper Alan Burnett, and they chopped wood for the stove in the cabin where they could warm their hands. They collected specimens of marine life for their lab. "We've gone to a museum," said one student, "but this is really special." "It was a terrific trip in terms of experience," said their teacher. "I don't think it will ever be duplicated. All of us will never get a chance like this again.'' Let us hope you are wrong, Mrs. Yacovacci. Let us hope that the value of this learning will be recognized, and acted on. And that Trade Wind will go from strength to strength, supported by a growing membership in Schooner, Inc., who understand the rich resources of the Sound, and want all to share in them.
Bluenose II, Mon Lei, Mary E., Tehani Petrel Bluenose II, built as a private yacht, is now owned by the Province of Nova Scotia. This great ship is a replica of the Canadian fishing schooner that carried undying fame in the Fishermen's Races of the 1920s and 30s. That Bluenose ended her days in trade in the West Indies. The new Bluenose sails today to promote the Province where she was born, ranging as far afield as New Orleans. There is nothing like her under sail today, and her tall spars dominate the ports she calls at. During the summers, she takes visitors on harbor cruises in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Chinese junk Mon Lei was salvaged from a sunken condition and lovingly restored by Alen Sands York, Commodore of the Antique Boat & Yacht Club, which now makes its headquarters with the National Maritime Historical Society in Brooklyn. Owned by the Chesapeake Bay and China Sea Towing Company, Ltd., she is used extensively for receptions and promotions
WORKING SAIL
for Oriental products , and as committee boat and floating home for Commodore York in the various waterborne events he organizes. Her provenance is unclear, save that she was built in all probability to carry cargo, perhaps as early as the 1850s. She is built of teak, and sails well on her nearly flat bottom, taking the vagaries of her long career in stride. Mary E. was built in Bath, Maine, as a fishing smack, in 1906, and is today the last survivor of some 4,000 wooden sailing ships built in that center of the art. For the first thirty-eight years of her life she worked as fishing smack, freight carrier, and passenger and mail boat in Block Island Sound. In 1944 she was converted to a motorized dragger. Sunk in a hurricane in 1963, she was completely rebuilt, certified by the U.S. Coast Guard, and entered into the passenger charter service, sailing out of Camden, Maine. She is now owned by the Seven Seas Sailing Club, led by the redoubtable Captain Teddy Charles who has taken her up and down the coast, including a stint as youth training ship in New Jersey. This summer, she will sail from the National Society's Brooklyn pier, taking visitors out on the water. Tehani is an Alden schooner, like Trade Wind, but at 38 feet much smaller. She was built in Nova Scotia in 1939. Her owner, Commander Icarus Pyros of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at King's Point, Long Island, has entered her in the South Street Mu-
seum's Schooner Race for the Mayor's Cup since 1973. Sailing regularly with six midshipmen in crew, she is the only one of the Sea Day ships that works to train young people for careers at sea. The ocean-racing yawl Petrel designed by Olin Stephens is of the elegant windward-going type that won races in the 30s and 40s, as the Alden schooners had won them in the 20s. Today she takes people out on sailing tours from Battery Park under the aegis of Bring Sailing Back. The Black Pearl Romping with a fair wind in the photograph that leads off this report, Black Pearl expresses much that people look for in sailing. And she is sailed in a manner that expresses even more. Her owner, Barclay H . Warburton, III, is President of the American Sail Training Association, and deeply interested in history. He brought his little half-brig again and again to New York to support the work of the struggling South Street Museum. She looked at home in the old Street of Ships, as she should, on a waterfront once crowded with vessels of her type. Only slowly, as the nineteenth century wore on, were the square-rigged brigs and half-brigs replaced by schooners, which demanded less of their crews. Many were no bigger than the 51-foot Pearl, though 65 to 90 feet was a more usual range of size. Built with a hefty beam and draft, like her cargo-carrying predecessors, she sets 2, 100 square feet
of canvas in a towering rig, with a mainmast five feet longer than the ship. C. Lincoln Vaughan built her at his yard in Wickford, Rhode Island, launching her in 1948. He had thoughts of sailing her round the world, and felt the half brig (or hermaphrodite brig), square-rigged on the foremast, foreandaft on the main, to be the ideal rig for that kind of sailing. But he sailed her only from Long Island Sound to Maine waters, until he sold her to Barclay Warburton in 1959. Warburton sailed her further afield, from Nova Scotia to the West Indies. And in 1962, he began training young people aboard her. She took part in Operation Sail in 1964, and in 1972 Warburton took her to Europe to take part in the international sail training race from Cowes to the Skaw. After wintering in France, she was sailed home by Barclay's son Tim. Barclay Warburton, in the meantime, had set about organizing the American Sail Training Association, upon the invitation of the international Sail Training Association headquartered in London. Black Pearl will be the flagship of the flotilla that sails the Brooklyn waterfront on Sea Day Weekend. She is a familiar sight by now to people on both shores of the East River; many plans have been discussed upon her decks, many Yorkers have sailed in her. She goes on from this port to an active summer in the American Sail Training Association program, reported elsewhere in this issue . .t
Working Sail Returns to Brooklyn The shipowners and shipmasters of Brooklyn Heights looked across the river at their ships in South Street. They caught the ferry over in the mornings to do business on the commercial Manhattan shore of the East River, and returned at night to their homes which stand today on tree-shaded streets with names like Cranberry and Orange. Ships docked, of course, in Brooklyn, which today with modern piers and terminals completely outclasses Manhattan as a seaport city. Newtown Creek to the north on the East River was a last stronghold of coal and lumber schooners. The famous Annie C. Ross, last survivor of the multi-masted vessels in these trades, was in her latter days used as a houseboat in the Creek. Erie Basin, to the south, facing the Upper Bay of New York Harbor, provided docks for the international trade in square-rigged deepwaterman . The gradual restoration of the full-rigger Wavertree may be watched from Brooklyn Heights today; but in her last commercial voyage here, eighty-two years ago, she did not dock in South Street. She unloaded her cargo of Chilean nitrate at Beards Stores in Erie Basin-and thence proceeded to pick up a cargo of case-oil for Calcutta
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at Constable Hook in Bayonne, New Jersey. New York went without a major maritime museum until South Street Seaport Museum opened its doors in a fish-stall in Fulton Market, ten years ago this spring. From the beginning, Brooklyn was deeply involved in this grand undertaking. There today the tall bark Peking has joined the Wavertree
Th e Ferry Landing in 1718, looking across the East River to the seaport town of New York. This scene has changed considerably, but the peaked-roof firehouse that houses the National Society in Brooklyn today echoes th e Dutch houses that stood at the landing 250-odd years ago.
and other vessels, and from there the schooner Pioneer will sail in the National Society's Sea Day program.
The Ships of Sea Day-1977 Ships will sail up the Brooklyn shore in New York Harbor, from the Verrezzano Bridge to the Brooklyn Bridge, 10 AM12 noon Saturday, May 21. Mayor Beame will dedicate the National Society's pier and headquarters building and declare the Brooklyn waterfront open to
people, at noon . The ships will then take visitors to the pier, at the foot of Fulton Street, on harbor tours under sail. The four-day program, which includes festivals ashore, concludes with a sea parade under the Brooklyn Bridge at noon on Tuesday, May 24, as part of the cele-
~~ Mary £. , 53' schooner, built 1906. Seven Seas
Black Pearl, 51' hermaphrodite brig, built 1948. American Sail Training Association, Eisenhower House, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI 02840.
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Petrel, 70' yawl , built 1938 . Bring Sailing Back, Inc., Battery Park, NY 10004. Pioneer, 57' schooner, built 1885 . South Street Seaport Museum, 16 Fulton Street, New York, NY 10038.
Clearwater, 106' sloop, built 1969. Hudson River Sloop Restoration , Inc., 112 Market Street, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601. it.I~
4"
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Sailing Club, Box 36, City Island, NY 10464.
Mon Lei, 54' Chinese junk, built ca. 1850-80. Chesapeake Bay & China Sea Towing Co ., Ltd ., c/o Alen York, 1040 Avenue of the Americas, New York , NY 10018.
Bluenose II, 143' schooner, built 1963. Owner, Province of Nova Scotia. Bluenose II, P .0 . Box 130, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Harvey Gamage, 95' schooner, built 1973. Dirigo Cruises, 39 Waterside Lane, Clinton, CT 06413 .
bration of the 94th birthday of the Bridge. Sea Day is run in cooperation with the American Sail Training Association, Brooklyn Arts & Culture Council, New York Harbor Festival, South Street Seaport Museum and the City Department of Ports & Terminals.
Tehani, 38' schooner , built 1939. Commander Icarus Pyros, US Merchant Marine Academy, King' s Point, NY 11024. Trade Wind, 57' schooner , built 1926. Schooner , Inc., 234 Universal Drive, North Haven, CT 06473 .
NORTH
HEIGHTS~ MERCHANTS' ASSOCIATION
Aware of the rich maritime heritage of Brool<lyn, we welcome the ships and historic program of the National Maritime Historical Society, in its headquarters at Fulton Ferry Landing. Sailors, when you're ashore, walk our historic streets and visit our thriving neighborhood shops and restaurants. You '11 find a hearty welcome waiting.
All Security Locksmith
Nature's Lane Flowers & Plants
81 Pineapple Walk 624-8116
87 Pineapple Walk 855-4714
Clark Street Fruit Store
Parrish Pharmacy
51 Clark Street 855-4445
72 Henry Street MA4-1871
Heights Travel Service 51 Clark Street JA2-1400
Henry's End Restaurant/Gallery 44 Henry Street 834-1776
Hicks Brothers Delicatessen 47 Hicks Street MA4-5927
Jubilee Art Gallery 119 Henry Street 596-1499
Plymouth Deli 90 Henry Street MA4-0074
River Cafe 1 Water Street 522-5200
Sal's Meat Market 46 Henry Street UL5-4468
Sloane's Super Market 101 Clark Street 237-2120
Towne Liquor Store Marcolini Wines and Liquors 65 Hicks Street 875-0590
Corner Stone Of The Hotel St. George TR5-3667
Montague Carpentry
Vesna Cosmetics, Division of Samovar Coffee & Tea Co.
40 Henry Street 875-5762
17 Fulton Street 834-1992
15
Towards a World Ship Trust By Frank G.G. Carr
"I can think of no one so well qualified. " So Prince Philip, President of Great Britain's Maritime Trust, has hailed Frank Carr's work to establish a Ship Trust in the United States. Mr. Carr comes by this interest honestly, having sailed as a boy with his father, and first shipped to sea in a Thames Barge in 1928. Coming ashore after a year to take a job that paid more than the ÂŁ1 a week he earned aboard the barge, he became Assistant Librarian at the House of Lords. He wrote the classic Sailing Barges, and then a more general survey of England's heritage in sail, Vanishing Craft, and A Yachtsman's Log, which recorded the thousands of sea miles that he and his wife Ruth sailed in their cutter Cariad. Following naval service in World War II, he became director of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, a
In the Fall of 1949, the British Admiralty towed to sea the world's last surviving 74-gun two-decker line-of-battle ship, H.M.S . Implacable, and scuttled her off Spithead for the want of the ÂŁ500,000 that would have repaired, restored, re-rigged and preserved her in perpetuity in a specially constructed dry-dock where she could have been visited and enjoyed by countless generations of shiplovers in the years ahead. Tragic Losses I was there at the time, and never have I seen anything more beautiful than the sweet way in which that lovely hull, with all the dignity of her two rows of painted gunports, slid through the water, leaving scarcely a ripple in her wake as she was dragged relentlessly to her doom . Never again would human eyes see a line-of-battle ship under way. Sadly I wept as she sank, in the knowledge that I was witnessing a crime against posterity; a crime that I had been powerless to prevent. So passed the magnificent Implacable, built as the French Duguay Trouin in 1789, named after the famous corsair. In 1805 she fought against the British at Trafalgar and survived the battle, only to be captured three weeks later by Sir Richard Strachan's squadron. Thereafter she was incorporated into the Royal Navy and re-named H.M.S. Implacable; yet after 144 years
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quiet backwater which he trans!ormed into a thriving center generally recognized as the world's outstanding maritime museum. Retired against his will in 1966, he was saluted in one newspaper headline as "The Man Who Made the Maritime Museum. " In these two decades he also founded the society that saved the world's last clipper ship, Cutty Sark, and brought her into Greenwich. And with Prince Philip's support and encouragement, he led the campaign that established the National Maritime Trust. (These deeds and other interests of Frank Carr's are noted in a small publication, "Take Good Care of Her, Mister ... ," available from the National Society for $1.00.) Last fall, the Dutch established a National Ship Trust and paid tribute to Frank Carr, in doing so, as the man who made it happen.-ED.
of honourable service under the white ensign, she was deliberately thrown away as not worth the half-million pounds that would have saved her for posterity. Had some beautiful cathedral been razed to the ground to save a like sum needed to repair it, there would have been a public outcry, and the world would have thought those mad who sought to destroy it. But in all the world there was one, and only one, two-decker line-of-battle ship, a ship of French as well as of British history, and she was ruthlessly murdered. More recently, in 1964 the Philippine Government presented to the people of the United States, not be it noted to the United States Government, the last surviving American built deep water sailing ship, the Kaiulani. This unique relic from the glorious days of sail was for-
"Had some beautiful cathedral been razed to the ground to save a like sum needed to repair it, there would have been a public outcry, and the world would have thought those mad who sought to destroy it."
mally handed over at a ceremony in Manila, where she was officially accepted by President Johnson. Unhappily money was lacking to bring her home. Lying derelict, she was prey to scrap merchants who successively stripped her until, ten years later, so little of the ship was left that what remained was cut into seven pieces and brought back by the United States Navy. Gone for ever was the hope that one day an American boy might have stood upon her decks and revelled in the fact that his forebears had conceived, designed, built and sailed this magnificent creature over all the oceans of the world under the Stars and Stripes. An Ambulance Service These were tragedies that should not have been allowed to happen; and they would not have happened had world opinion been organized in such a way that it could protest and make its protest heard. To my way of thinking a historic ship or local type of craft in danger of being lost is like a person lying injured in the street after an accident. What is needed is an ambulance to get him to the hospital quickly, where there will be a chance of saving his life and restoring him to health. Left lying in the street, he is likely to die. I want to see an ambulance service for historic craft in peril. The ultimate aim should be, I believe, a World Ship
Trust, doing for ships what the World Wildlife Fund is already doing so effectively for living species in peril of extinction. No great sum of money would be needed to begin with; just enough to establish a small office-a room at the Headquarters of the National Maritime Historical Society would be ideal-with a Secretary and a modest fund from which advances could be made in the form of interest free loans to aid ship preservation projects to get under way. Its aims, however, should not be limited to the provision of financial assistance. I would like to see it build up, over the years, both a register of historic craft throughout the world that may be worthy of preservation, and an archive of expertise on ship restoration methods . This would contain records of failures as well as of successes, so that methods which had not worked satisfactorily could be avoided in future, while experience in well proven ways would be made available to all. In ship preservation, one cannot afford to make the same mistake twice. Three Questions
As I visualize it, the scheme would work in this way. Let it be supposed that information is received of some historic craft which may be anywhere in the world, that is in danger of being lost. The World Ship Trust would then advance a sufficient sum of money to secure a "stay of execution" long enough to enable three questions to be asked and answered. First, "Is the ship (or other craft) worth preserving? ' ' bearing in mind that there will never be enough money to preserve other than the most important maritime relics. If the answer is "Yes", Question Number Two is "How much will it cost?" When this is known, Question Number Three, inevitably the most difficult, will be "How is it going to be done, and by whom?" But until these questions have been put, the endangered vessel will not be left to perish by default. Some projects will doubtless fail; but some will succeed, as the Cutty Sark isdoing at Greenwich, England, where she not only earns her keep, but enough over and above that to pay for all the extensive repairs completed during the last few years and to build up a capital sum to take care of all foreseeable future contingencies. It is in the initial stages of ship preservation that money, or the lack of it, is crucial; and it is then that a loan from the World Ship Trust could make all the difference between failure and success.
Above and right: the Implacable (1 789) 74 gun, two deck line-of-battle ship, built in France as the Duguay Trouin, lies in Portsmouth in 1949 alongside the 46-gun frigate Foud royant, ex-Trincomalee of 181 7 (which still survives as a schoolship).
Below, Dec. 2nd, 1949, the "actual moment of shame;" exploding the charges that sank th e 160 year-old Implacable. Photographs courtesy of the Greater London Council, England.
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TOW ARDS A WORLD SHIP TRUST
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"It might have been. " Carr's proposed installation of H.M.S. Implacable at Greenwich. Drawing by F.A. Evans, courtesy the Greater London Council.
When the restored ship is open to the public and making money, as most do, the sum advanced can be repaid to the Trust as it is earned, and will then go back into the central fund, where it will again be available for loan to other deserving projects. The second objective is to restore and exhibit as an addition to the Maritime Museum at Rotterdam the old Fleet Ram H. Nl .M.S. Buffel, built in the United Kingdom in 1868, which served for many years as a ship of the Royal Netherlands Navy. She represents an era of change in warship design and construction which she will be used to demonstrate. The plans include the provision of space on board where special exhibitions can be arranged illustrating the development of shipping and craft, not only in Holland, but throughout the world. It is my hope that one of these will be devoted to the work of the National Maritime Historical Society, from which the Dutch would gain both encouragement and inspiration. In these difficult days through which the world is passing, both would be invaluable. I know there is a school of thought that the preservation of historic craft might best be undertaken by the creation of Maritime Sections in existing National Trusts for the Preservation of Historic Buildings rather than by separate essentially Maritime Trusts. As a short term measure, there is probably
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much to be said for this, and so I welcome it, but only as a first stage. For the longer term, I view it with apprehension. It seems to me that with not enough money to go round, and there never is, with the maritime section in the minority, when it comes to a clash between a ship and a building, the building will always win. Again, maritime enthusiasts with financial resources from which they might contribute funds for ship preservation may be less likely to do so when the Trust to which their gifts are made can legitimately devote the sum given, or part of it, to other than exclusively maritime purposes . Of course, to build such an organization will take time, and like the oak tree, it must grow. As a first stage, I believe the most promising idea will be to encourage as many of the world' s seafaring nations as possible to form their own National Maritime Trusts, as Britain did in 1972, with H.R.H. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh as its President. More recently, in the Fall of last year, 1976, the Dutch have done likewise, following the dinner of the Netherlands Anchorites in the Scheepvaart museum, Amsterdam on the 23rd April, when I was invited to speak on the subject of Ship Preservation, and so to initiate the idea. Already the Netherlands Maritime Trust, under the Chairmanship of Commodore H .J.E . van der Kop, R.Na.N. (Retd.), has two major projects . First is the restoration of the old eighteenth century dockyard at Kromhout, in Amsterdam, to its original condition. It is, moreover, intended that this will not be a mere historic exhibit, but will serve also as an operational yard and workshop for the restoration of historic old craft and through this to preserve the ancient skills of the shipwrights and the various other traditional craftsmen in the allied trades .
continue to enjoy its national autonomy unchecked and unimpaired. This is what I know that Prince Philip, who takes a keen interest and is sympathetically inclined to the whole project, advises as the most promising way to proceed. I believe also, with equally firm conviction, that the pace at which progress can be made towards the desired end will depend more on the leadership that the United States may give than upon any other factor. The simple truth is that the maritime heritage of the United States is incomparably the greatest in the world. Writing as a Briton, I confess that I have, rightly as I think, real pride in my country's sea history, and in that my pride is second to none. But always I recognize that it is the maritime heritage of my own country alone . That of the United States is far wider, for it is an amalgam enriched by all the maritime traditions of all the seafaring peoples of the earth, whose forebears through the centuries crossed the ocean in ships to found that great free country in a new world that is the United States of America. Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Germans, Dutch, French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Greeks, English, Welsh, Scots and Irish, not forgetting the Finns, the Russians, the Japanese and the Chinese, name them, and you have them . In this, in the richness of its sea traditions, the American maritime heritage is unique. Only the United States has the right to represent us all. Only the United States has the power to do so. Who will respond to the challenge?
.t Frank Carr in his 73rd year clearing a fo uled halyard in his k etch Dawn , July 1976. An avid sailor since childhood on, he has held a Yachtmaster's Certificate sin ce 1927. Photo by Da vid Goddard.
The World Ship Trust So I remain unshaken in my view that with a World Ship Trust as the ultimate aim, the best way to achieve this will be by persuading as many as possible of those nations whose history has been bound up with the sea to form their own National Maritime Trusts. Then these working together could jointly form an International Association of Maritime Trusts in which all would participate. This, in the fullness of time, could become the World Ship Trust, contributed to by all to their mutual advantage, but imposed upon none, so that each would
I
National Maritime Union of America, AFL-CIO Shannon J. Wall, President Mel Barisic, Secretary-Treasurer
National Headquarters: 346 W. 17th St., New York, N.Y. 10011 Offices in major port cities on all coasts and overseas
The Voyages of the Ernestina, ex-Effie M. Morrissey By Michael Platzer Africa Branch, Office of Technical Cooperation, United Nations
Built in 1894 as the Gloucester fishing schooner Effie M. Morrissey, the Ernestina served as the last immigrant packet ship to the United States under sail. After a long career, under her original name, as an Arctic exploration and relief ship under Captain Robert Bartlett, she was picked up for the Brava Packet service from the Cape Verde Islands. Here Michael Platzer, project director for the National Society's campaign to return the old schooner to the United States, sets forth the saga of her service as packet ship. In a future article Mr. Platzer will trace the whole history of the Brava Packets.-ED. Charred from the fire which had sunk her in Flushing Bay, New York, the Effie M. Morrissey was not a pretty sight when Henrique Mendes first came upon her. But he noticed her hull, double-planked against Arctic ice, and appreciated her sturdy construction. He paid for the fifty-five year old schooner and brought her to New Bedford, where he had her repaired during the Spring of 1948. He renamed her Ernestina, after his daughter, and on August 18, 1948, sailed for Cape Verde with 50 tons of food and clothing and one passenger. Jose J. Perreira was her skipper. Upon reaching the islands, he registered the schooner in Cape Verde and used her for inter-island trade. The following spring, he organized a return trip and found five passengers anxious to go to the United States. John
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Baptista, Jr., was master on this voyage; the crew included Henrique's son Arnaldo and John Gomes. They left Brava on May 14, and stopped at Fogo and Praia before going to Dakar. During the transatlantic crossing, they encountered five days of rough weather which kept the crew so busy manning the pumps they dared not go to sleep. On August 6, the Ernestina arrived in Providence and anchored off the State Pier. Immigration officials ordered the passengers to remain aboard until their claims to U.S. citizenship were investigated. One man, Manuel Canto, insisted he was an American citizen, although he had left the United States thirty-three years before; another was returning to Cleveland, Ohio after a long visit to his native Fogo-he would have come back sooner had he been able to get earlier passage, he said. To prevent crew members from going ashore and finding marriage partners, thereby acquiring U.S. citizenship, they were ordered to remain aboard, otherwise the owner of the vessel would be heavily fined. But unmarried American women could visit the ship to see if a match could be made. Once one member of a family was given immigrant status, he could bring all his immediate family into the country. So, a seaman who came to America aboard Ernestina and found a wife or got ashore somehow, quite often brought others in his wake. Henrique Mendes lent money and negotiated a variety of fares with his
passengers, crew and prospective inlaws sending their children to New England. The Ernestina's second trip to the U.S. was made in 1950 with six women passengers, seven men, and fourteen crew members. She arrived on July 18 after a 38-day passage. It had been a pleasant trip. Henrique Mendes taught his passengers some basic English phrases and the pledge of allegiance. They had fresh vegetables, lobsters, live pigs, a lamb, goat, and cow aboard, and a good cook in Michael Rosario. They celebrated all the saints' days and everyone's birthday, the young sailors making cakes and serenading the women. A romance started between Henrique's son Arnaldo and his wife-to-be, Maria. Everyone was sorry when the voyage came to an end. It was three years before the Ernestina returned to the United States. Misfortune dogged her. In 1951 she took two American girls to Dakar for visas. Sailing between Praia and Fogo, she was dismasted by a storm. The falling spar nearly killed Henrique. A small boat was sent ten miles to Brava to obtain help. An S.O.S. was then telegraphed to other islands, and the Mada/an rushed to tow her safely to port. She was subsequently taken to the island of Saint Vincent where she was repaired. New masts and sails had to be obtained from Portugal. It took nine months before she was seaworthy again. Arnaldo and Maria had been writing to each other planning to be married that year when the Ernestina visited the United States; Maria broke down and cried when she heard the news. Nor did Cape Verde receive its "Christmas presents" from relatives in the United States since the Ernestina was not able to make its annual trip. In late 1952 the Ernestina, working again, took students from Fogo and Captain Henrique Mendes (left) and son-in/aw, Luis, 1957.
Brava to the high school in Praia and Mindelo; but it was too late to make a trip to the United States. In the meantime, Arnaldo obtained a master's license and served as second in command on the 1953 voyage. John Baptiste was the captain and his brother Jose Mendes was also aboard as well as Henrique Mendes. Twenty-one days out of Saint Vincent, about 300 miles north of Bermuda, a hurricane hit. After being tossed about for several days, they had 16 days of calm. Then a second hurricane, more furious than the first, struck them 72 miles south of the Brenton Reef Lightship. They reefed the sails, lashed the helm, battened the hatches, and went below to ride out storm. It took them another six days to recover the ground lost; they reached Providence on September 11. On November 7, 1953, Arnaldo Mendes married Maria. Shortly thereafter, the Ernestina returned to Cape Verde with Arnaldo.
In the fall of 1955 Capt. Arnaldo Mendes says good-bye to family and friends to return to Cape Verde before Christmas.
Arnaldo was the captain for the 1954 voyage. Leaving on July 6, 1954, with sixteen men and three passengers, they ran into rain and heavy winds several times during the crossing, but they took in sail and rode out the storms, completing a safe, otherwise uneventful trip"Thanks to the Almighty," as the skipper, Arnaldo Mendes, wrote in the log. The Ernestina was taken to New Bedford where a second-hand Diesel engine and radio receiver were installed. On the return voyage, they suffered from a lack of wind and used the engine frequently. They arrived ten days before Christmas so that the Cape Verdeans were able to receive their presents from friends and relatives in the States in plenty of time. The 1956 voyage was the last one for Arnaldo-his wife wanted him home more in Canton, Massachusetts. He ar-
rived in 28 days with eight passengers. Valentin Lucas, who was first mate, took the Ernestina back on November 8. She carried 200 tons of general cargo, a crew of 18 and two passengers, Maria Santos, 104 years old, and Ludeger Mendes Rose, 67 years old. They made it to the Azores rather quickly, but a hurricane pushed them back to Puerto Rico so that it took over 40 days to reach Mindelo. In 1957 the Ernestina was hauled and major repairs were undertaken. Twentyeight carpenters labored nearly a month, ripping out and replacing rotten planking below .the waterline. Henrique Mendes complained it cost him $7 ,000, but assured everyone, "she is in good shape now." Capt. Nonauto Brito Raimundo brought the Ernestina over in 1957 with four passengers in 27 days. He returned with one passenger, Mrs. Catarina Doloma Cruz, 82 years old, who insisted on going back on "Henrique's boat". But the Belgian Line was now providing seven-day service between New England and Cape Verde, which made finding cargo and willing passengers more difficult. The Ernestina came again in 1958 after a record 24-day trip from Cape Verde. She left Providence on November 15 carrying a two and a half ton truck lashed on the deck, a bell for the new St. Lawrence's Church in Praia, househqld goods and live chickens-but no passengers. The Ernestina made no more annual trips to Providence between 1959 and 1963, but on September 3, 1964 she reappeared off Point Judith. A pilot boat was dispatched to bring her to the Municipal Wharf in Providence. There were no passengers, and the only cargo was 215 pounds of tobacco and gifts of dried beans and grog. Hundreds of sightseers and Cape Verdean families rushed to the dock to welcome this strange apparition from an era gone by. U.S. custom officials sealed the gifts, for the group of over 50 welcomers overwhelmed the ship. For the next few weeks, the Ernestina was the site of a daily party. The people from Providence brought gifts for the crew, in memory of the islands. Stories were exchanged and spontaneous music emanated from the vessel. She returned once more in 1965, suffering clutch problems, and was taken again to New Bedford to be checked over. Capt. Alexander Fortes was the captain for these last two voyages to the United States. In 1967, Henrique Mendes sold the vessel to Albert Lopes who used her for
another half-dozen years in trade between the islands. Henrique Mendes had always hoped the vessel would return once more to the United States and retire with honor in the land of her birth. Approaches were made to acquire her for the South Street Seaport Museum in New York and later for Bartlett Exploration Association of Philadelphia. A Cape Verdean-American group in Providence wrote to the President of Cape Verde inquiring whether it would be possible to send the Ernestina to America for the Bicentennial. The President replied that he would ensure that everything possible would be done for the Ernestina to participate in Operation Sail 1976. The Ernestina was hauled; forty shipwrights, welders, mechanics and riggers worked on the vessel from seven a.m. to seven p.m. for two weeks; a man was sent to Lisbon for new sails; seamen who had sailed on her and two students from the Mindelo Navigation School were selected for her crew; and all that could be done to make her ready was undertaken. Only her masts (which had already caused concern to the surveyor) could not be replaced. On June 8 the Ernestina sailed for America once again. In rough seas twelve miles off the coast of Santo Antao, the masts and rigging came crashing down. Fortunately, no one was injured, but the attempt had to be abandoned. A new, broadly based movement has now taken shape to bring the ship home. New masts have been donated by the Seaboard Shipping Company of New Jersey and Canadian Transport, a radio by Communication Devices of Great Neck, Long Island, and fuel pump by a former crew member of the Morrissey and the United Nations Yacht Club. Fund-raising activities are presently underway to repay the Cape Verde Government and the present owner for the recent repair bills. The owner has agreed to donate the vessel to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, which will act as custodian of the vessel and make her available to communities connected with her past for community based programs. Arnaldo Mendes has stated that this is precisely what his father would have wished . .t
AS WE GO TO PRESS ... the Cape Verdean Government has bought the Ernestina and has informed Ambassador Wells of their intent to bring her to New York for the July 4th Harbor Festival, and thereafter to donate her to the people of the United States.
21
A Head of Steam By Frank 0. Braynard
This year is the 50th anniversary of the completion of the Maiolo, one of America's most famous liners. A last chapter in her fascinating career was almost added, but not quite. For some time she had been lying unused in Piraeus, and I was asked recently to find a ship for a new movie about the Titanic. Knowing her traditional lines, and her availability, I suggested her. The idea was accepted. I called Chandris Lines, her owners, and was told that she could be had. The plan was unfolding nicely, although she was really not big enough, had the wrong kind of lifeboat davits and, of course, had two instead of four smokestacks. Then a call came in from Chandris: "You are too late. The Queen Frederica (her present name) is being scrapped." Her stacks were already gone and some of her superstructure had come off, too. What a shame. But this sad ending to what might have been an interesting final experience for the gallant old lady in no way dims her story. Designed by William Francis Gibbs as his first major liner, she was a beauty. Gibbs was so demanding and ruled with such an iron hand that she broke her builders. The
FRANK 0. BRA YNARD, general manager of Operation Sail 1976, is now director of the New York Harbor Festival, famous Cramp yard on the Delaware went out of business after delivering this 582-footer. Gibbs had done the same thing, almost, to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. after their work restoring the Leviathan in 1922. He would again do much the same with the America in 1939. He wanted the perfect ship and his specifications were demanding. The Maiolo was built for service between San Francisco and Honolulu. Her American gross tonnage was 17 ,222 but
when measured the same way other major liners were she became 21,329 gross. She had her lifeboats on a lower deck and was quite a roller. With two perfectly proportioned stacks, a massivelooking superstructure and fine cruiser stern she was most handsome. Her main claim to fame, however, was her compartmentation and watertight bulkheads. She was far in advance of most liners from the safety standpoint, and her trial trip gave her a chance to prove it. She was hit by a Norwegian freighter and survived, on an even keel. The blow was described at the time as as severe as the blow that sank the Empress of Ireland, and the opening in her hull was said to be as huge as that which sank the Titanic, but she remained afloat. She deserves a book. She had a charmed life over the next 50 years. In 1937 she was renamed Matsonia and her lifeboats were raised to the boat deck level to improve her seagoing qualities. She did yeoman service in the war and was renamed Atlantic in 1949 when bought by Home Lines. Sold again to Chandris, she became Queen Frederica in 1955 and had another long and successful career. Her loss is a sad one. She was without question one of the most successful of all ocean liners.
JAMES ELWELL & CO., INC. Founded in 1821
Ship owners and managers 1 World Trade Center New York, New York 10048
We salute the National Maritime Historical Society for their work to invite more Americans to enter into the learning of this nation's proud sea heritage.
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Operation Sail Passes Flag to National Trust Trust Chairman Hummelsine, at left, assisted by President Biddle, accepts flag from Operation Sail Chairman Emil Mosbacher, Jr.
Operation Sail 1976, Inc., the nonprofit corporation which organized the July 4 parade of tall ships in New York Harbor, has voted to transfer to the National Trust for Historic Preservation more than $300,000 in corporate assets. The transfer was announced at a dinner held in Washington on January 10. The funds will be used by the National Trust for development of its maritime preservation program. Assets include funds, the right to generate funds through the OpSail commemorative merchandising program, all rights to the copyrighted OpSail logo, and goodwill generated by OpSail 1976. Under the conditions of the transfer of assets one half of the funds, not to exceed $200,000, will be designated for support of the South Street Seaport Museum, New York, for programs agreed upon by the National Trust and the museum. In announcing the transfer, Emil J. Mosbacher, Jr., Chairman of Operation Sail, said: "The purpose of Operation Sail was more than the staging of the July 4 sail parade through New York Harbor, as grand as it was. We felt strongly that the values of this nation's maritime heritage and its contribution to world brotherhood should be preserved. This donation to the National Trust's program of maritime preservation and to the South Street Seaport is a definite step in that direction .''
Advisory Committee Meets At a meeting of the Operation Sail Subcommittee of the Trust's Maritime Preservat~on Committee held in New York on February 8, Director Harry C. Allendorfer reported that requests for aid totalling over $7 million had been received in a period of two months. Frank 0. Braynard, Managing Director of Operation Sail, was named chairman of the eleven-person committee. The Committee then met with the Maritime Preservation Committee in New York on March 24, to review priorities. After wide-ranging discussion it was agreed unanimously to proceed with a conference that would propose guidelines, help focus the work
going on around the country, and gather support. The conference will be held in Baltimore while the sail training ships are in port (see "Sail Training," this issue), on Friday, June 24. The National Society recommended such an ingathering of concerns in a national conference when the Trust's Maritime Division was in formation two years ago and we urge those interested in attending to get details from Captain Allendorfer at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, 740-748 Jackson Place, NW, Washington, DC 20006. A New National Maritime Preservation Program Proposed In the wake of Operation Sail, interest in maritime preservation is running high across America, notes the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. This is reflected in discussions taking place on Capitol Hill, as Senators Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island and Con-
gressman John M. Murphy of New York are meeting with maritime preservation interests. They have indicated a desire to take the lead in a new legislative initiative to establish-and fund-a national program in this area. The National Historic Preservation Policy Act of 1977 (HR 3602), introduced by Congressman John Seiberling of Ohio, may become the vehicle for this program. The bill in its present form does not deal specifically with maritime issues, but it does propose a major restructuring of the national historic program, and its sponsor has agreed that a maritime title might be added. At this time, the bill has some twentyfive co-sponsors including Congressmen Morris Udall of Arizona, Chairman of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, and Phillip Burton of California, Chairman of the Parks and Recreation subcommittee before which any hearings will be held. A similar bill has yet to be introduced in the Senate.
''We are dedicated... '' One of the greatest dividends of the Bicentennial year was the assembly, stately procession, friendship visits and historical significance of Operation Sail-the great Tall Ships that captured the hearts and imagination of millions around the world. No one who saw or even heard about this unique fleet failed to recall America's early maritime history, or the key role the sea, sailing ships, and hardy sailors played in founding and perpetuating our land. Of matching importance were the flags of many nations flown by nations whose own histories were reflected in the ships and their crews. Together the naval review symbolized international brotherhood as a touchstone of our 200th birthday commemoration. The Bicentennial year and America's long maritime history prompted the Board of Trustees of the National Trust for Historic Preservation to undertake
development of a National Maritime Preservation Program. With a deep sense of commitment, we have made a modest beginning consistent with the resources at hand. We are dedicated, however, to expansion of this program as rapidly as generation of additional resources permits. We are grateful for the major contribution and support we have received from the National Maritime Historical Society. With similar support from other organizations and individuals across the country, I am confident that in years to come the National Trust will be able to make a significant contribution to the preservation of America's Maritime Heritage. We intend to see that this happens. CARLISLE H. HUMELSINE Chairman Board of Trustees National Trust for Historic Preservation
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The Army Corps of Engineers' Role in Preserving Harbor Cultural Resources By Simeon M. Hook Ph.D. Chief, Environmental and Economics Branch New York District Corps of Engineers
A first report on marine archeologica/ survey work in New York harbor sponsored by the Army Corps was made in SH 4, p. 23. Here Simeon Hook gives an updated report which looks also to interesting future possibilities in New York and elsewhere-ED. It is not surprising to learn that of the more than 2,000 shipwrecks in the New York harbor the vestiges of a number of historically interesting vessels have been found . It is surprising to many, however, that the group responsible for sponsoring much of this research is the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps' involvement with New York Harbor stems from the legislative requirements for studying its cultural resources, and has led already to some interesting finds. The River and Harbor Act of 1915 , 1917 and 1930 makes it the responsibility of the Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers, to maintain the navigable waters of New York Harbor and its tributary waters free of obstructions and floating debris. Realizing a unique opportunity the New York District under the leadership of Colonel Thomas C. Hunter, Jr., began a systematic series of historical investigations. The first report was prepared in conjunction with the State of New Jersey by Larrabee and Kardas , Consulting Archeologists . This study was a reconnaissance for cultural resources for the first portion of the Liberty Park area to be developed. It was then decided that a more detailed investigation was necessary to evaluate the significance of a number of unidentified wrecks. At about this time the State of New Jersey began developing plans for a state park in Jersey City directly west of Liberty and Ellis Islands, a site that had been identified by the Corps of Engineers as a source of drift material. As an integral part of all the projects undertaken by the Corps of Engineers, detailed engineering, economic and environmental studies are prepared. Federal requirement for cultural resources studies are based on provisions contained in the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and Executive Order 11593 of 1971.
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The New York District secured the services of Norman Brouwer of the South Street Seaport Museum and Peter Throckmorton of National Maritime Historical Society. On the basis of a site visit the survey work was confined to three vessels: two barges and a wooden steamer suspected to be the Newton. Numerous additional visits to the site were made to photograph the wrecks and take measurements from which drawings were prepared. The two barges were identified as preCivil War lighters of a type previously unrecorded. These wooden doubleerided craft, approximately 80 feet in length, are popularly known as melon or watermelon scows. In addition to being double-ended, these barges were smaller and narrower in relative beam than an ordinary barge. These hulks appear to have been harbor craft which had carried freight on deck-the decks were supported by rows of timber stanchions which effectively broke up any space in the hold. The sides of the boat appear to have been of fairly light construction. Close inspection suggested that the barges had been rebuilt several times. The first construction appeared to have red oak frames which were "sistered" with pitch pine at a later date. Deadeyes, the lignum vitae fittings that attached the rigging of most pre-1900 sailing ships, were found in the area of the stern at least one of which was in virtually mint condition.
Unidentified cargo steamer.
The other vessel was originally identified as the wooden cargo steamer Newton. No identifying markings were in evidence. The official number on the major deck beam was obliterated. The dimensions, construction methods and
materials were similar, however, to those of the Ferris-type ship built during a crash-program in 1918-1919. Further investigation by Norman Brouwer, however, turned up photographs taken of the area by the War Department in 1924, which clearly show an uncompleted vessel of the Ferris type in the exact location of the vessel found. No construction was evident above the decks. But Newton is known to have been fully completed and used as a cargo vessel and training ship. The vessel although unidentified is seen to be similar to the standard wooden cargo steamer of a class designed by Theodore E. Ferris for the U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet for use as a general cargo vessel. This type of vessel was part of the last major wooden- hull construction program in this country. Our ship measured 267' x 46' x 23'. She was awash in tidal water, which at high tide reached to her main deck level. She was upright on an even keel. Although the vessel was determined to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, neither the Corps of Engineers nor the State of New Jersey was in a position to undertake any large scale preservation measures. A statement was then prepared and sent to the Advisory Council indicating the position of the Corps and the State, and the steps taken by these agenciesalthough to no avail-in trying to interest historical and archeological groups to undertake to salvage all or portions of the vessel. The statement also outlined the steps undertaken by the Corps in documenting this vessel by means of photographs and drawings. This procedure was acceptable to the Advisory Council and clearance was granted to proceed with removing the vessel along with all the other drift sources. So the ship was unavoidably lost. The Federal Government operates under constrai nts which preclude expenditure of funds without prior authorization and for purposes other than the expressed project purpose. This first project is prototypical of others to follow in other locations both in New York Harbor, and possibly the entire nation. At present two additional areas in New York being considered for this program are portions of the East River on the Manhattan side, and the northern shore of Staten Island. In addition, a similar study is contemplated for Boston Harbor, Massachusetts. .t
Ship Notes The City of Hamburg, in Germany, looking for a museum ship , is thinking of buying the Stratsraad Lehmkuhl, now maintained as sail training ship in Bergen, Norway . the North Side Shipyard of Rockland, Maine, has nearly completed the rebuilding of the former Delaware Bay oyster dredge J&E Rigin, to carry passengers on coastal cruises. This yard, under the direction of Doug Lee, has sought out and rebuilt several old boats now, putting them back to work as restored under sail. And the first new coasting schooner built in this country since 1938 is being completed at the Newbert and Wallace Shipyard in Thomaston, Maine. Her owner, Ned Ackerman, figures she can carry varied cargo-building stone, machiner, lumber, and a few passengerstaking on jobs that trucks do not want to tackle. As the Alexander Hamilton¡ struggles for life on a Jersey sandbar (see box notice), concern is being expressed about a quite different kind of steamer, the Marine Archeology in New York Harbor: A Class Offered Ships that once sailed into New York with passengers and goods from around the world and boats that plied the Hudson and built the fortune of Cornelius Vanderbilt, for one, now lie as hulks and wrecks in forgotten corners of the harbor. With the disappearance of every other example of their kind, some of these wrecks take on considerable importance, especially with the projected cleanup of the harbor by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Fortunately, some of the wrecks are close enough to shore to permit access with boots at low tide rather than a plunge into the murky depths . The class involves learning and actually doing a survey of a wreck on the shores of Staten Island, with the methodology usually employed in doing subsurface excavation with a grid, etc. Peter Throckmorton and Norman Brouwer will be available as consultants and guest lecturers . Any pieces of wrecks which are recovered will be acquired by the National Maritime Historical Society for their museum on Fulton Street in Brooklyn, or other use. The class will be offered by the New School for Social Research, New York, Saturdays, six sessions, fall and spring, in two sections: 9:00 A.M.-1 :00 P.M. & 1:30-5:30 P .M. Address inquiries to NMHS 2, Fulton Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201.
Chief Wawatam, a big rail ferry of 1911. Still in service in the Straits of Mackinack , she is attracting friends and is under consideration to be preserved in one of several Lakes museums, so she will not be destroyed when retired. The Lansdown, built as a sidewheel steamer in 1884, is in service today as a carfloat on the Detroit River, her engines idle. There is concern that she not be gutted as a barge, but kept for ultimate full restoration . Friends of the Cape Verde packet ship Ernestina, formerly the Gloucester fishing schooner and Arctic explorer Effie M. Morrissey, report plans moving to bring the ship to the United States this summer (see separate story), so completing her abortive voyage to take part in Operation Sail last year. The Ernestina-Morrissey Committee works under the aegis of the National Society pending safe return of the vessel and her installation in this country as sailing museum ship. The Society's Curator-at-Large Peter Throckmorton reports that a grant has now been received to from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund a second expedition to the Falkland Islands this fall to further survey the historic ship hulks there (see Falklands Stories, SH Nos . 4 and 6). The stabilization of the South Street packet Charles Cooper, the preservation of bow and keel sections of the last American clipper Snow Squall, the recovery of the artifacts from the wreckec Down Easter St. Mary, and above all the first stage in operations to return the last surviving Gold Rush ship Vicar of Bray to San Francisco are priority items in this expedition, which further support will be needed to accomplish. A distinguished committee is being assembled to see this effort through, under the auspices of the National Society.
w
Hamilton on Nat'l Register; Emergency Appeal Launched The side paddlewheeler A lexander Hamilton, holed and stranded on the beach at the Atlantic Highlands, inside Sandy Hook, New Jersey, has been named to the National Register of Historic Places as we go to press . An emergency appeal has been issued by the Steamer Alexander Hamilton Society for funds to pump and patch her. Several localities are showing new interest in having the ship on their waterfronts, including Albany and Jersey City. In Newburgh, Mayor George V. Shaw has said he would like to see the ship come in and would welcome the active program of the Society, based on the monumental presence of the Hamilton herself. Contributions to save this last white swan of the Hudson can be sent to the Society at P .0. Box 817, Times Square Station, New York, NY 10036.
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SAIL TRAINING
1977 and Beyond "Every two years," says the American Sail Training Association's President, Barclay H. Warburton, III, "in tribute to the great sailing ships of old , in remembrance of deeds past, in the knowledge that time at sea fits young people for life ... and in an awareness of the interdependency of all the peoples of the earth, the Sail Training Association brings the great sailing ships of the present together in friendly competition." In 1976 some six or seven million people came out to see the tall ships of Operation Sail-the greatest number, it is thought, who have ever assembled to see anything. Evidently there are people who care about this business of driving ships across wide oceans under sail. In 1977 , an off year for the gathering of the ships of different nations, a vigorous American program is under way under the auspices of the American Sail Training Association. The rules of participation in these sai ling events are si mple: at least half of each vessel' s crew must be young people (15 to 22 years old) in training either for professional careers at sea, or as part of their general education. Seaport cities are
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now very aware of the public interest in this, and festivals are planned in Norfolk, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Newport, where the sail training ships will call this summer. A Summer of Sail The program begins with a festival from June 17 to 20 in Norfolk, where the sailing ships gather to start the Chesapeake Bay Race on June 20. They'll sail 155 miles to Baltimore, where inshore regattas (a regular feature of the Tall Ships Races) will be held June 23 and 24. Bend to your oars, sailors! The visit of the sai l training ships provides occasion for rowing and sailing races in small craft wherever the ships come in. The Philadelphia Maritime Museum will receive the ships as they cruise on up the Delaware River to Philadelphia, where a Maritime Festival will be held at Penn's Landing from June 27 to 29. And hordes of small sailing craft, includi ng Sunfish, will turn out to greet them in New York Harbor from July 2 to 4. The ships will then, on July 7, start a Southern New England Race from Oy-
ster Bay on Long Island Sound to Newport, Rhode Island, a distance of about 110 miles through delightful if somewhat crowded waters . . . .and Summers to Come The summer of 1978 is an "on" year, with an international sail training race set for the North Sea and the Baltic in August, and a Hemispheric Race off the West Coast of North America in May. The big square riggers (Class A), will race from Gothenburg, Sweden, to Oslo, Norway, starting August 5. The lesser ships will race from an English East Coast port to Oslo at the same time. There will be a parade of all ships "The voyages grew longer, the ships grew larger, but always the ship had to move and live and make her way across the vastness of the lonely interface, with only the sea to support her and the wind to move her, " says Barclay Warburton. "A lways amenable to the thoughts and hands of man, the sailing ship made possible his voyages of discoverydiscovery of his world and of himself." (From the Introduction to "Man's First Wings" a photographic essay by John G. Bent, published by American Crest Enterprises, 48 The Arcade, Providence, RI 02903.) Photo: John G. Bent
SAIL TRAINING .
off Oslo on August 12, and the ships will remain in Oslo from August 13 to 17. South American and United States and Canadian ships will gather in Hawaii in May, to race to Vancouver in British Columbia, and thence cruise to San Francisco and other West Coast ports. In 1979, a sail training race from Annapolis to Newport has been suggested, to precede the Annapolis-Newport yacht race. This and other events have not yet been firmed up. In 1980, there may be a Transatlantic Feeder Race starting July 4 from an American East Coast port, to take part in an international race starting August 15 from Amsterdam to the Skaw. This might be followed by a race starting August 25, from Karskrone to Talinn, Esthonia, in conjunction with the 1980 Olympics. In 1981, a race from South America to Norfolk will commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of the Virginia Capes, which preceded and made possible the final defeat of a major British army in America at Yorktown, so ending serious military operations in the American Revolution. Dates and arrangements have yet to be set for this major event, but it is firmly committed and entered on the international calendar which governs the comings and goings of the Tall Ships that awaken and inspire people of all lands. the American role in these undertakings is governed by the American Sail Training Association, headquartered at Eisenhower House, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI 02840. The Tall Ships Races are only the most visible aspect of the Association's work, which is directed to getting more young people to sea to learn the disciplines of sail, and those who wish to play some part in this are invited to be in touch.
When Will the Nations? A few years back, the U.S. Coast Guard's Eagle went to Germany on three weeks' notice, because West German Chancellor Brandt had asked President Nixon to "send the Eagle" -a ship born, incidentally, in Germany. In the White House, no one knew she existed. The Eagle was not reckoned to be "cost-effective" in terms of training Coast Guard cadets, and her continuance had been continually threatened. But she has survived, and she is today the only major American sailing ship in continuous use for sail training. Nowadays no one questions her usefulness. She is off to England in May, to take part in the Queen's Fleet Review. A new sense of what is costly and what is effective may be creeping into the economics that keep her sailing. There is now an awareness that she carries a message that goes beyond the few hundred young people who sail in her each year. We wonder when the governors of the nations will begin to count the cost of military and economic wars, and when the societies of the different nations will begin to respond to the questions of citizens about the effectiveness of technologically victimized ways of life. Western man, having over the past few centuries discovered how to multiply and feed itself, may begin in the next few to think of what it's all about, and may in a new self-awareness (a thing Speer called for, after his years of reflection in Spandau) look to such ships as the Eagle to symbolize and to a degree embody the hard learning we must do in our voyaging through time. Cost-effective? Look at the trifling burden on an economy that does not quite know what it should produce, or what for-and look at the challenge to be accepted, the learning to be gained in sailing an Eagle. She is flag bearer for the voyage of discovery we must make. w
~IL
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Menhaden Men By Michael Cohn Photographs H. David Hartman
The Tideland, a 572-ton "bunker boat" is one of the modern successors to the 19th century whalers. Like the catch of the whalers, menhaden or "bunkers" are used for oil and other industrial purposes instead of for food. Like crewmen of the whalers, the menhaden men are sometimes downrated as sailors because their catch "smells." Finally, like many whaling men of the 19th century, most menhaden men are blacks. Wednesday night the Tideland left Pt. Monmouth, N.J. Aboard were its 17man crew and we two observers. By early dawn we were off Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, looking for large schools of menhaden. These fish, an oily relative of the herring, account for almost half of the total landing of fish in the United States. They usually are found within a few miles of the shore along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts in summer. If they are swimming near the surface, they can be spotted by the change of color of the water or by the "splashing" of their fins. Light aircraft Seine boats lea ving the Tideland getting ready to set the net around a school of menhaden.
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help in the spotting of schools. Even before breakfast of ham, grits and eggs had been finished or the spotter plane had gotten off the ground, the dawn light showed a school in range. The strident klaxon summoned the crew to the boats and within three minutes, both boats were in the water. Smoking diesels have replaced the back-breaking oars used in the boats until the 1930s, but the thrill of the chase remains the same. Captain Edwards, a descendant of old-time whalers of Long Island, signalled the boats to circle the school, dragging the heavy seine net behind them. As soon as the circle was complete, the dropping of the 700 lb . "tom" weight closed the bottom of the purse seine. Like whales the menhaden sometimes "sound" or dive through the bottom of the circle before the "tom" can be dropped and then the boats have a "water haul." This time all went well: 50,000 menhaden and a few sharks that feed on them were trapped in the narrowing net. Now the job was to bring this load back to the mother-ship, com-
ing up under the command of the "pilot" or ship handler. The two seine boats and the ship formed a triangle with the net in the middle. A large hose was lowered into the net from the mother-ship and sucked up the squirming fish, depositing them, via a conveyor belt, into the refrigerated hold. Nine times that day the boats went out, netting some 700,000 fish or about one-third of the two million fish capacity of the Tideland. Between hauls the net was repaired where large sharks or sharp edges had made holes through which the menhaden could escape. Menhaden fishing is a relative newcomer among the world's fisheries. Not until the 1840s did the invention of steam cookers and pressers change the menhaden from "trash fish" to a valuable resource for oil and poultry feed. In 1867 the menhaden suddenly disappeared from the Gulf of Maine, probably because of a change in water temperature. They did not show up again off Massachusetts until 100 years later. The menhaden fleets changed their base from the Massachusetts coast to Reedsville, Virginia, on the Chesapeake. Due to this change of base Virginia Blacks, ex-slaves and freedmen, replaced the Yankee fishermen on the menhaden steamers . .Boat handling and physical strength were needed to handle the oars and the nets and the blacks had both the physical stamina and the experience. Many of them had been oystermen and fishermen on the bay for generations, while some blacks had served as crewmen or pilots on coastal steamers. Since, like in whaling, the prestige and pay of menhaden fishing was low, the blacks had little competition in their new trade. Soon son followed father, nephew joined uncle, until the dialect of the Virginia shore was the lingua franca of the menhaden boats. Gradually blacks also replaced whites as engineers, oilers and mates until only the captain and the pilot were not members of the Afro-American communities of Mathews County, Virginia. When diesels replaced both the steam engines of the
Introducing
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& The North Heights Real Estate & Management Co., Ltd. Bights in the seine nets still have to be stretched out by muscle power. In the old days the whole net was tightened like this.
mother-ships and the oars of the seine boats, the black crews were retained. The menhaden season is usually from May to October, provided the fish run that long. Twice a week the "bunker boats" come into the ports where the factories have replaced the tryworks on the decks of the whalers. These factories are surrounded by the sleeping quarters of the factory workers and the smell of fish oil. Though some modern skills have been added for the crews, many of the old traditional skills are carried on. Small boat handling still requires the same judgment, and attaching the nets to the bulwark of the mother-ship requires the sure-footed movement of the old topsmen. The old style netting needle is used to repair the nets and the old style apprenticeship trains the new generation of fishermen. A special tradition of the menhaden men is the excellence of their food. As early as 1879, Goode's monumental report on U.S. fisheries noted: "The menhaden .men live probably the most extravagantly of any class of fishermen and in some cases go to foolish expenditure for the table." Raymond Curry, the cook on the Tideland, fed us extremely well although there were no foolish expenditures. Homegrown vegetables, breaded porkchops, fried chicken and superb pumpkin pies made the chow memorable. Perhaps the fact that the fishermen pay for their own food and hire the cook prevented menhaden boats from ever serving the "slops" that made the whalers notorious .
Today, the bunker boats like the Tideland are under double pressure. When Hansen Trust, a British conglomerate, bought out the Seacoast Corporation, which owned the Tideland, the state of Virginia brought suit to prevent the menhaden fishing because the ships were "foreign." At the same time sports fishermen are trying to force the "bunker boats" out of business, claiming that the setting of nets interferes with their lines and that the fishing of menhaden deprives the bluefish of food. So far, however, the green-painted menhaden ships still ply our coasts, trying to allow their crews to make their living from the sea. w
MICHAEL COHN is a senior instructor at the Brooklyn Children's Museum. As an anthropologist he is more interested in seamen than in ships, in fishermen more than fish. For the last few years he and free-lance photographer David Hartman have been hitch-hiking clamming boats, trawlers and party boats as well as a coast guard cutter on fishery patrol, taking notes and pictures of the Atlantic coast fisheries. Besides teaching, Mike is at the moment co-authoring a book on Black Seamen scheduled for publication in Spring 1978.
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Come Aboard! ~f>SGJicttJ~cttJ The Moshulu was purchased in 1968 by Specialty Restaurants Corporation and was towed to her present site at Penn's Landing on the Delaware River in 1976. Today, after two years and almost $1.5 million in repairs and refurbishments, the Moshulu' s towering masts dominate the river view at the foot of Chestnut Street She is the largest all-steel sailing ship afloat, and the finest of her genre to survive. THE MOSHULU MARITIME EXHIBIT The immense main deck of the Moshulu is being prepared as a major maritime exhibit You'll walk beneath the towering masts and vard arms which once carried more than an acre of sail. Foliow the voyages of the Moshulu as they are charted on a huge map of the world. Hear the crew singing sea chanties. Enjoy a fascinating ten minute film presentation dramatizing a crew member's experience on the Moshulu in her heyday. Observe the deck hands canying out the never ending maintenance and restoration of the crew quarters and captains stateroom. Follow the progress of the Moshulu's restoration and rerigging as shown by a continuous narrated color slide presentation. Enjoy the countless artifacts on display.
RESTAURANT HOURS: Mon. - Thurs., 11 a.m. - 11 p.m. Fri. - Sat , 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Sunday Brunch, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Sunday Dinner, 3 p.m. - 10 p.m.
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The Seaport Experience Here we undertake reflections on what happens where sea trails meet the land in harbors. Reflections that invite you to walk in history's paths, the ones that lead to the water. To make a beginning, we simply decided to follow the spring northward from the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore and Philadelphia, New York and the Connecticut shore. Spring comes early to the Yorktown peninsula. If you go there, explore the extensive collections of the Mariners Museum-one of the few first-rank artifactual and record-keeping marine museums in America, which takes the whole of man's experience at sea as its province-and visit also Colonial Williamsburg, where you will see people making staves for barrels, and smell young flowers (only those that grew here in Colonial times) and old brick in a spring rain, and hear oxcarts creak out their slow music, and talk with the blacksmith who makes hot iron leap swiftly into useful shapes. And we ask you please to board the replicas of the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery maintained afloat at the Jamestown Festival Park. They are well designed, though crudely finished and not kept in totally seamanlike manner; but they sail, and going aboard them tells you important things about how men sailed before our time. In Baltimore, at the head of the Bay, a 240-acre Inner Harbor renewal project predicated on ''the return of the shoreline to public use" is coming to flower under the leadership of Mayor William D. Schaefer. The sloop of war Constellation is there, successor ship to the immortal frigate of 1797, Captain Don Stewart's Sea School runs a training program from the port, and the Five Fathom Lightship, submarine Torsk, and handsome Cape Cod steamer Nobska, in service as a restaurant, round out a major fleet. Ashore, the Baltimore Historical Society on West Monument Street houses the Radcliffe Maritime Museum. This spring, the ships of Baltimore were joined by the 90-foot Baltimore clipper Pride of Baltimore, built for the city by Melbourne Smith, to designs by Tom Gillmer. Original materials were used, no faking, all done on public view, with fittings forged by Jerry Tro-
bridge, who built and sailed his own boat round the world with his wife. With steeply rising floors, the Pride packs 60 tons of ballast, making up half her 121-ton weight, and floats with only 2'6" amidships. A fast and rakish ship! Visiting ships come in, and you can hire a rowboat or go on a harbor tour (including a visit to Ford McHenry at the harbor mouth) or catch a motorship to Annapolis and the quiet purlieus of the St. Michael's on the Eastern Shore. Annapolis has the brilliant collection and fine old buildings of the Naval Academy Museum (see American Naval Prints review in "Books") and old taverns like Middleton's on the market square, which have recaptured the verve and vitality they had in history, and streets ending in the water everywhere. The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum has traditional Bay craft assembled in an old shipbuilding center, with a working restoration shipyard, and museum exhibits on Bay life and history salted into old buildings that stand with quiet dignity close to the water. Do not hurry through such places! Philadelphia, next north, boasts the mighty Moshulu at the Penn's Landing waterfront, the beautiful four-masted bark (in some opinions the loveliest ever built) that David Tallichet of Specialty Restaurants recovered from Finland, and after many vagaries opened as a restaurant ship: "a place to fall in love," the papers call her. We fell rather in love with the careful work of restoration being done abovedecks by Andre Armbruster of Penn's Landing, we admitted that we enjoyed looking out of the windows cut in her tweendecks, and we lost our last reserve in walking through the excellent museum display shaping up in the Liverpool House. Ashore, the Philadelphia Maritime Museum maintains a splendid building housing displays on seaport history, and the life of man on and under the sea. They also sail the Grand Banks barkentine Gaze/a Primeiro of 1883, and think now to join forces with the Heritage Ship Guild to run a boatbuilding shop on the Penn's Landing waterfront. The protected cruiser Olympia, a lightship and submarine, the Guild's schooner Nellie and the wreck of a dragger called Quest, which we lately learn is to our sorrow to be removed, and other ships
are on this waterfront, and amid this gathering of maritime culture, we remember the lonely efforts of our Vice President Karl Kortum to get Philadelphia to take one ship a little over a decade ago ... What more? We went lately to enjoy the pleasures of Smith Street Society jazz aboard the ferry Binghamton on the New Jersey shore overlooking Manhattan from just south of the George Washington Bridge, and rejoiced in the preservation and sympathetic adaptation of the interior of this magnificent Lackawanna ferry. We thought that people should go to seaport hinterlands to seek out the life these centers supported through time. In New York one should go from the commercial buildings of the South Street Museum to the houses of Sleepy Hollow Restorations, scattered at easy railroad stops from the city along the mighty Hudson River, to pick up the restored strands of this life amid original buildings and furnishings, with the crafts of miller and farmer being practiced. We looked at the grand fleet of ships locked in the ice at Mystic-ships there for care they could get best at that center-and regretted that we did not speak of winter visiting in our last issue: in winter much work goes on, slow work in a quiet ¡ world. We're proud to publish Mystic's summer schedule, a remarkable, very real program built up over decades, in this issue. And we resolved to get more West Coast news in our next, and more Gulf, Great Lakes and river news into "Seaport & Museum News" and "Ship Notes," which follow. w Needed for the Moshulu Photos, memories, mementos of the Moshulu-including the original plans, still not brought to light-are sought to aid in the further restoration of the ship and in the development of the shipboard museum. Write Moshu/u, Chestnut Mall at Penn's Landing, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Attention: Ms. Deborah Schafer. Philadelphia, at the junction of the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, was the grandest of the Colonial seaport towns. New Life burgeons on this old waterfront today. Courtesy, E. Moore, Wynnewood, Pa.
SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS The Bath Marine Museum in Maine is finishing the rebuilding of the launching ways at the Percy & Small Shipyard. The tugboat Seguin, now in the Museum's capable hands, has been drydocked for emergency bottom work and survey prior to rebuilding in the yard , where the Museum looks forward to building a new schooner one day. The Whaling Museum in New Bedford , Massachusetts, reports no damage beyond lost glass in its fine building on the downtown waterfront, after a series of gas explosions ravaged the neighborhood . Generations of children learned the sails and gear of whaling ships from the 60-foot model of the bark Lagoda housed there, and the Museum opened this spring a new exhibit, "Steam Whaling in the Arctic," which records, as Director Richard C. Kugler explains, the last hurrah of the Yankee whalers. At Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, the big fishin g schooner L.A . Dunton is moving back to her original dock after a two-year rebuilding, during which she was kept open to the public throughout. The next major building project is the planned replica of the coaster Alice S. Wentworth. (The original was lost in 1973 despite efforts by the National Society to save her.) Among new things to
see ashore are the newly restored cabins salvaged from the Down East full-rigger Ben). F. Packard of 1883 , a marvel of Yankee craftsmanship at its height. A Providence River catboat, Button Swan, has been added to the extensive small craft collection.
\ The Long Island oyster sloop Modesty.
The Modesty, a late sailing oyster sloop of the 1920s, is hauled up in a shed at the Suffolk Maritime Museum in Sayville, Long Island, undergoing restoration which will add a new dimension of interest to the work at this small center. Her older sister Priscilla-built 1888-will be sailed on a regular basis
by the Museum this summer, to carry the museum's message out on the water. The South Street Seaport Museum in New York is co_mpleting the poopdeck of the British iron ship Wavertree, which came in under tow from Buenos Aires in 1970, and has been undergoing careful restoration since (two years ago the main lower mast was stepped, to replace that lost off Cape Horn in 1910). She has two of her boats aboard now, one recovered from the Falkland Islands where she left it after her dismasting, one built new by traditional methods in the Apprenticeshop at the Bath Museum. Deck replanking accompanies the installation of a new display aboard the Ambrose lightship, and the ferryboat Hart, which houses the Pioneer Marine School, is to be hauled for needed bottom work. The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is rebuilding their Edna E. Lockwood, a log bugeye of 1889. There is talk also of building a replica of a pungy schooner, a type once common but now extinct, in the restoration facility that now flourishes ashore. New maritime museums continue to swim into being. The Toms River Seaport Society seeks a location for a longdiscussed maritime historical project in
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New Jersey, and the Humboldt Bay Maritime Museum has recently been organized in Eureka, California-both projects needed to make the seafaring experience accessible to local populations, both with vital stories to present. The North Light on Block Island, twenty miles seaward of Newport, Rhode Island , is proposed as a museum; contributions can be sent to North Light Commission , New Shoreham, RI 02807. The list of ship replicas continues to grow. Baltimore will be sailing its Pride of Baltimore on a mission to promote the city this summer, Seaport 76 in Newport, Rhode Island, will sail the replica of the British frigate HMS Rose, and the new replica of John Paul Jones's Providence; both towns, with active sailing programs, will receive visits of
sail training fleets this year (see schedule in "Sail Training"). And now the Kings Landing Historical Settlement in New Brunswick, Canada, has launched the Brunswick Lion, a 38' replica of a St. Johns River wood boat. The last survivor of the type was broken up in 1936. In Memoriam. The museum world notes with sorrow the passing of Admiral George Dufek, for many years director of the Mariner's Museum in Virginia. Arctic explorer, and salty raconteur, he reached out with care and understanding to all interested in the sea, and raised friendship to an art. We record also the untimely loss of David Freeman, general director of Plimoth Plantation in Massachusetts, a remarkable project that owed much to his vis-
ion and more besides to his spirited leadership and dedication to public involvement in the work. A Use of Riches. Here note is made from time to time, of new and rewarding uses of our waterways. One such was the Floating Foundation of Photography, showing the work of prison inmates, which traveled New York Harbor waters aboard a small houseboat discovered and fitted out by Maggie Sherwood-until, late last year, it sank , with resulting havoc to all installations. The Floating Foundation brought people close to their harbor's waters, and close to each other. Over $10,000 has been raised to set the Foundation sailing again. Contributions to advance its restoration may be sent care of the National Society.
UPCOMING EVENTS 1977 MYSTIC SEAPORT MAY Early Art Gallery: A showing of May paintings, photographs, models and other artifacts connected with America's Cup Races opens. R. J. Schaefer Building. Early Fishing Schooner L. A. DunMay ton, her recent restoration work completed, returns to her traditional exhibit wharf. To mark her return, several special fisheries-related demonstrations and programs will go on. 6 Training Schooner Brilliant begins 1977 training cruises for young people. By advance registration. Contact Education Department. 6 Friday Night Film Series. Showing of full-length feature film at 7 and 9:15 p.m., Meeting House. Admission: $1.50; Members $1. 13 Steamboat Sabino begins weekend runs on the Mystic River. Half-hour runs during the day and an hour-and-ahalf run at 6 p.m. 13 Friday Night Film Series. Showing of full-length feature film at 7 and 9: 15 p.m. Meeting House. Admission: $1.50; Members $1. 14-15 Pilots Weekend. A working weekend for Mystic Seaport Pilots, a special group of museum members. 20 Friday Night Film Series. Showing of full- length feature film at 7 and 9:15 p.m. , Meeting House. Admission: $1.50; Members $1 . 23 Women's and Youngsters' Sailing Classes, spring session ends. 27 Steamboat Sabino begins daily runs on the Mystic River. 28 Evening Hours begin. Mystic Seaport grounds open, 6-8
p.m. Adults $1, Children 50c. (Evening admission is deducted from next day's admission, for visitors who return the following day .) 28,29 Memorial Day Weekend30 Special activities are planned for the holiday weekend. 29 Luncheon on the Terrace begins, Seamen's Inne.
JUNE 4-5 Small Craft Weekend. Small craft enthusiasts meet to discuss traditional small craft and exhibit, sai l and row examples from their own collections. By advance registration. Contact Curator ial Department. 12 Joseph Conrad Training Program for young people begins. Training in small craft sailing seamanship. By advance registration. Contact Education Department. 16 Planetarium Course, "Basic Practical Celestial Navigation," begins, 7:30 p.m. , Planetarium. By advance registration. Contact Planetarium.
JULY 2,3, July Fourth Weekend4 Special activities are planned for the holiday weekend. 4 Summer Band Concert Series begins. Norwich Concert Band performs, 2 p.m., South Green Bandstand. Frank C. Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies classes begin, G. W. Blunt White Library. University of Connecticut accredited courses for teachers and graduate students in American maritime history. By advance registration. Contact Education Department. 30-31 Antique and Classic Boat
Rendezvous-Second annual rendezvou s of privately owned classic wooden cruisers and sailboats at Mystic Seaport, North Dock.
AUGUST Early Coast Guard Day. Mystic Aug. Seaport welcomes the entering class of United States Coast Guard Academy cadets. 2 Evening Band Concert by the Norwich Concert Band, 7:30 p.m., South Green Bandstand. Seaport grounds and selected exhibits open to the public at no charge, 5 to 8:30 p.m. 9 Evening Band Concert by the Norwich Concert Band, 7:30 p.m., South Green Bandstand . Seaport grounds and selected exhibits open to the public at no charge, 5 to 8:30 p.m. 12 Munson Institute of Maritime Studies ends. 13-14 Mystic Outdoor Art Festival. An event on Main Street, Mystic, sponsored by the Mystic Chamber of Commerce. 16 Evening Band Concert by the Norwich Concert Band, 7:30 p.m., South Green Bandstand. Seaport grounds and selected exhibits open to the public at no charge, 5 to 8:30 p.m. 23 Evening Band Concert by the Norwich Concert Band, 7:30 p.m., South Green Bandstand. Seaport grounds and selected exhibits open to the public at no charge, 5 to 8:30 p.m.
SEPTEMBER Early In-School Lectures on the Sept. subjects of 19th-century whaling, fishing, domestic
Early Sept. 2 7
7
7
12
18 Late Sept.
arts, li fe at sea and shipbuilding available to schools (grades K-12), SeptemberMay . Contact Education Department. Mystic Seaport Museum Store Catalogue for 1977 issued. Joseph Conrad Training Program ends. Planetarium Course, "Sea, Stars and Air," begins, 7:30 p.m., Planetarium. By advance registration. Contact Planetarium. Williams College-Mystic¡ Seaport Program in American Maritime Studies fall semester classes begin. Williams College accredited undergraduate courses in American maritime history, art, literature, marine biology and oceanography. For qualified undergraduates from certain colleges and universities. By advance admission only. Contact Director , Williams College-Mystic Seaport Program in Maritime Studies. Stillman Building first floor closed for installation of new exhibit. Second floor exhibits wi ll remain open. Women's and Youngsters' Sailing Classes, 1977-78 session, begin. By advance registration. Contact Education Department. Evening Hours end. Tenth Annual Mystic Seaport Schooner Race, 9 a.m., Long Island Sound. Awards dinner, 7 p.m., River Room, Seamen's Inne.
Due to the far-in-advance scheduling of this year's events, all dates cited here are tentative. Please consult the daily and weekend events listings available at the north and south en-, trance gates or call 203-536-2631.
33
MARINE ART
Great Encouragement to Artists In response to the enthusiasm which greeted the "Marine Art Lives!" exhibition sponsored by the National Society at the National Boat Show in New York in January, we are beginning a Marine Art Section in SEA HISTORY. We dare borrow from John Paul Jones's thundering recruitment poster ("Great Encouragement to Seamen!") to announce this, for it is planned as a thing by and for marine artists-in which the rest of us may share. SEA HISTORY now becomes the only journal presenting this important aspect of our maritime heritage on a continuing basis. We are sensible of the considerable responsibility entailed in this, and we look to all hands to help out. The Marine Art section will focus on works of artists past and present, and also encompass the fine arts of modelmaking, scrimshaw, ships-in-bottles, as well as, we hope, some of the illuminating children's art that we see flowing from school and family visits to seaports and museums. We begin with an appreciation of the importance of hull form and the behavior of the sea by George Campbell, who is an historical naval architect as well as a marine artist.
Marine Art Association Proposed A number of marine artists are getting together to form an American Association of Marine Art, on similar lines to the Royal Academy of Marine Art in England. This movement began in response to the widespread interest generated by the "Marine Art Lives!" exhibition. Artists interested in this proposal are invited to send in their thoughts and comments with a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Maryanne Murphy at the National Society. MARYANNE MURPHY
34
A Sublime Satisfaction By George Campbell, M.R.I.N.A.
Architect of the restorations of the Cutty Sark in Greenwich, England, and the Wavertree at South Street in New York, George Campbell serves as member of the Advisory Council of the National Society. He works as exhibition designer at the American Museum of Natural History and lives with his wife Peggy in Brooklyn, overlooking the shipping of the East River-portal to this side of the Western Ocean as the River Mersey, on which he grew up, is portal to the other side.-ED. In these days, when apparently anything goes, a multitude of sins may be covered under the term "marine painting." What is one to make of a prize-winning painting that shows a grey fence with a greyish patch of sky above, and a face peering towards the viewer through a hole in the fence? It's entitled: "Head Against the Sea." That makes it a marine painting, judged the best in the National Academy. To this one is irresistibly impelled to propose the next step, to eliminate the picture entirely, as has been indeed accomplished by certain artful artists in other fields. But those of us who love or are interested in ships and the sea demand something rational to materialize our thoughts or desires. We are not easily fooled and would not lightly take liberties with the sea, or its ships, or boats. My earliest recollection of seeing ships dates back towards the end of the First World War, with the return of two gallant ferryboats to the Mersey from the blockading of Zeebruge. my viewpoint was the window of my family home which had an elevated grandstand view directly on to the anchorage where Cunarders and other liners would await a berth at Liverpool landing stage, or a rising tide to enter dock. These big liners would swing around slowly with the turn of tide and present a magnificent sight, changing to an end-on view and back to the opposite broadside revealing the beauty of their lines and counter sterns. Each vessel had its individuality of shape, which many of our townsfolk could identify readily even at a good distance, and the subtleties which imparted this individuality impressed me with their importance as I competed with fellow spectators at the river front in identifying a vessel entering the river. It was also fascinating to notice how a large outwardbound ship would create first a series of small regular waves along her
waterline, say six or seven, and then to watch them dissolve imperceptibly to five, four, three or less as maximum power was reached. Creating Ships It seemed only natural that in later
years, as giant cranes further up the river bank constantly swung and beckoned, I should enter the shipyard and partake in the great thrill of creating ships. It was an enthralling experience to join an army of men all sharing their brains and brawn in a common cause. Anyone who has witnessed the extraordinary care and love with which a hull is created, combining strict utility and economy with aesthetic beauty, could never knowingly betray it. The expres-¡ sion on the face of a senior designer as he sweeps in a waterline along the edge of a ship curve, stands back, eyes it, and then completes the run, is something to behold. It may be an everyday job of work, but one can see a sublime satisfaction revealing itself, and one itches to do the same oneself. This emphasis on the physical character of ships has remained with me always, and my hackles rise when it is blithely ignored in a painting. One can pick up hooks in which there are reproductions of famous sailing vessels, any one of which, although a pleasing artistic rendering in itself, bears little resemblance to the vessel named apart from the correct number of masts and sails. Their various titles could well be transposed without causing confusion. It was during my early years in a shipyard that I first began to take a serious and critical interest in marine paintings. An exhibition was staged in Liverpool of Jack Spurling's original paintings prepared. for the covers of the Blue Peter magazine. Their fresh coloring and overall size gave them quite a different feeling from the repeated reproductions one sees today where many predominating colors have become exaggerated. My knowledge of the technical aspects of these paintings was insufficient at the time to detract from an overall pleasure in these spirited and original compositions, a pleasure I still retain. Another artist whose works were available for viewing in the Liverpool area was Thomas Somerscales, who to me is still the marine artist "par excellence." His seascape studies in which the sea, the sky and the ship all had balanced emphasis, were a delight. The ship was rarely a named portrait, but the composition would be entitled for a mood, such as "Man Overboard" or "Off Valparaiso." An old friend of
'
mine used to visit him in his studio, where he had ship models of various types suspended in different attitudes to show their shapes and shadows. The Merseyside dockland areas where I was raised abounded in semi-primitive types of ship paintings. One could see them hanging in the lobbies of small terraced houses down any side street where the owner was usually a tugboatman, lighterman, steward, able seaman, shipyard worker or was a descendant of such men. Not for them the subtleties and nuances of artistic expression. They demanded the recognizable portrayal of the rivets they had punched, the funnel they had painted, and the block and tackle that had torn their muscles. This type of painting will today fetch a high price. Sentiment Will Prevail Despite one's judgment, sentiment will still prevail, as it does with me in respect to a certain painting. As a boy I used to pay regular Sunday visits to the graves of my grandparents. The site was high on a hill overlooking the Mersey estuary, and I was fascinated by some of the surrounding graves on which there were anchors, coral, and carved pieces of nautical objects. Two graves in particular have remained in my mind. One was engraved "To the Memory of Lucas B. Blydenburgh of New York, mate of the packet ship Pennsylvania, who was drowned near Leasowe Castle after leaving the wreck during the memorable gale of January 8th, 1839, aged 40 years." The other was to the memory of a passenger, a citizen of New York, William Douglas, born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and from the same ship. Close by was another grave, to the memory of the heroic coxswain of the lifeboat which rescued many survivors. It read: "Thomas Evans, Magazines Lifeboat, August 30, 1875, Aged 70 years. He took part in the assistance of nearly 100 vessels and in the rescue of over 1,000 lives, being engaged during the Great Storm of 1839." My own forebears took part in this rescue, which was in the days before the creation of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, when the rescue boats were manned by local pilots and fishermen. Many years after I had ceased to visit the old cemetery, I came across a reproduction of a painting in Basil Luebock's Western Ocean Packets. It was rather crudely painted, with fantastic waves and a number of sailing vessels scattered about in various stages of disarray. I read the title idly. "Hurricane off Liverpool, January 7th and 8th, 1839" it
Illustrations for this article are from George Campbell's China Tea Clippers (New York, David McKay, 1974. $12.95), a lovingly detailed exploration of the design, construction and histories of these ships and of "values which were satisfying ends in themselves."
"Anyone who has witnessed the extraordinary love and care with which a hull is created... could never knowingly betray it. ''
The triumph of the American clipper Oriental' s arrival in London's West India Dock in December 1850 is dramatically expressed in this superbly detailed portrait of the ship. Below, the shape of the Oriental' s bow.
, '¡. " '-,~."Ofl.JENTAL" NEW YO/l.K 1849
The anger of the sea, the defiance of the ship and steadfastness of her men: The Sir Lancelot dismasted in the Channel.
MARINE ART
Ship "Daniel I. Tenney" 1881 by WILLIAM G. YORKE (active Brooklyn, N.Y., late 19th Century) Oil on canvas, 26x38 inches. The ship was built in Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1875.
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said, followed by "Loss of Pennsylvania, St. Andrews and Victoria packet ships and Lockwoods emigrant ship, painted by Samuel Walters." The picture is mediocre, really-but if ever I should see a print of it for sale, I would grab it. Incidentally , a preponderance of paintings of packet ships and clippers have, minutely depicted in the corner, a lighthouse and squat fortress . These are the Perch Rock Battery completed in 1829 and the New Brighton Lighthouse of 1830-useful identification markers for old prints. This area is close by the graveyard I mention, and apparently the old marine artists took up a vantage point on the Liverpool side to depict the new Yankee ships entering the Mersey, with a background of either the Cheshire coastline or the more distant Welsh promontaries. I never fail to fall in love with these pictures. And so how does one assess the worth of a marine painting? It may be a seascape devoid of-or inclusive of-ships, an individual portrait, a busy or placid coastal or harbor scene, or incidents aboard a ship or boat. True marine artists have a demanding field of research to study and can spend a lifetime doing so, becoming more conscious of their shortcomings in the process. Usually the sincerity of an artist comes through, and can be accepted for its worth, but mistakes are inevitably made. I would certainly not exclude myself in this respect-as I am reminded when I look with embarrassment oncertain things I have perpetrated in the past. My hope is that the field of marine painting will keep within the bounds of reason to satisfy us all, as it has done in the past for the most part, and will not be required to include, for instance, a series of white triangles labeled-let's see- "Regatta"? w ~~-A5:::~ - ~::~~~ -¡
NOTES & QUERIES
THE FIRE QUEEN I 9th-Centur y Chinese School, oil on canvas, size 13 Yi x 18 ins. In I 9th-Century ca rved Chinese fr a me.
36
Glory of the Seas was a magnificent ship, and Carl Evers' cover on SEA HISTORY No. 6 is a masterful piece of workBut who ever heard of reef points on a lower topsail? JOHN LYMAN
BOOKS
Airborne: A Sentimental Journey, by William F. Buckley, Jr. (New York, Macmillan, 1976. 252 pp., illus. , $12.95). "If he comes through this thing alive," Pat Buckley told a friend, "I ' ll kill him." "This thing," of course, is Mr. Buckley's rightly famous crossing of the Atlantic in his schooner Cyrano two years ago, and if you read it, you'll find it becomes "our thing," a cosa nostra of plot and sublot, complot and counterplot, a heroic, humorous, despairing struggle with too much (in this reviewer's opinion) machinery that does not function at sea, from a TV set primed to run a sequence of "Upstairs, Downstairs" featuring the loss of Lady Bellamy in the unsinkable Titanic, to, more seriously, nonworking Loran. But never mind! A one-hour poker session replaces the TV hour, and Captain Buckley is not ill-pleased to exercise what he calls his "hecticity" of mind in careful celestial navigation-the mysteries of which he sets forth in Chapter 9 in what must be the best brief how-to-do ever written on this subject. A voyage, any voyage, is an undertaking that picks up many strands, and binds them for a time to common purpose and shared experience. In this often exasperating, always seductive book, Buckley takes these things that make a voyage (or unmake it) and undertakes to make them, in the word of his title, airborne. No one's life is like Mr. Buckley's, trading insults with his friend and political arch-foe John Keneth Galbraith (whose son was aboard for this voyage), bribing his way through impossible arrangements with oodles of charm and acts of real kindness, ruling his crew (except for his sister-in-law, also named Bill, who seems to rule and take the rubs out of everything, like a benevolent Admiral who never criticizes and always encourages her Flag Captain and his ship's company) with a rod of iron made slightly malleable by afterthought and even-God save the mark!-selfdoubt , appreciating, and describing in engaging detail the look and feel of things he enjoys (or, on occasion, does not enjoy). There was never a voyage
like this. And that, maybe, is a point: there never is. There are no two voyages, no two people's lives alike enough to be subsumed under any formulation of man. The ship herself is protagonist in all this, deeply reliable, but capable of unexpected deeds. Alone among the vessels mentioned, her name is never italicized. "Everyone suddenly realized what Cyrano would do for us," writes the Captain after a bad squall, "and we were sorely proud." Buckley's alar (a word from the crossword puzzles) voyaging is sustained by a constant awareness that his ship is five miles above the ocean floor, about the height jetliners fly, and by wonder that holds his centrifugal and contrapuntal (some would say paradoxical) thoughts together: that makes his voyaging profoundly worth sharing. One moment on the foredeck with a friend justifies the voyage: "And the sails, snugged in and powerful, working in overdrive, leaving the boat almost erect as it tore through the ocean, and the stars began to assert themselves, while a bottle of wine, secured by the boom vang between us, emptied slowly as we paid mute tribute to Cyrano, her builder and her designer, and the architect of the whole grand situation." PS Voyages, by Alfred T. Hill (New York, David McKay and South Street Museum, 1977, 160 pp., illus ., $9.95 .). Throughout much of the nineteenth century, an amazing family from Saco, Maine created a legacy now been brought to light with the publication of Voyages. Through the journals, letters and logs kept by Capt. Tristram Jordan, his son Frederick, his nephew Capt. Franklin Jordon and his son-in-law, Capt. Alfred Patterson, emerges a remarkable history of a maritime dynasty of the last days of American sail. In thought, attitude and experience all four men were alike, unified by the character so often found in New England ships. However, each was notably different from the others in matters of style, sensitivity, sense of humor and philosophy. Tristram, the most dour as well as the patriarch of the clan, did not have an easy life. His saga encompasses most of the trials and tribulations that can beset a sailor. Shipwreck, mutiny, disease and the hostile (to his eyes) environments of most of the ports he visited over his forty years at sea are borne as the lot he was assigned in life, and related sometimes with pain and sometimes even
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with a touch of irony, always overshadowed by his deep concern for his farm and family in Maine. He crossed the Atlantic sixty-eight times when at age fifty-eight he set out on his last voyage, planning to retire at its completion. His loss at sea at the height of a severe gale was reported painfully by his mate Henry Twambly of Kennebunkport. Tristram's son Frederick sailed with his father aboard the ship Pepperell in December 1854. An outgoing eighte~n year-old, he stands in sharp contrast to his father in his youthful enthusiasm on his first voyage. Lying on deck one night he speculates prophetically about an afterlife, while determining in his own mind that the life of a seaman was not for him; a ship was a fine place to think in fine weather, but.... He was dead of typhus within two months, outward bound on this, his maiden voyage. Franklin Jordan next takes up the narrative from the deck of the ill-fated Pepperell, from which both his cousin Frederick and his uncle Tristram were lost. In brilliant narrative style, he recounts a voyage to India . The ship and her world come alive under his touch-he writes, in the Indian Ocean: The sea in latitude 40 south was ii-
from the
luminated by phosphorescent light; it seemed as if the heavens were inverted and we were sailing among the stars. The ship drove before her bows two billows of liquid flame and in her wake was followed by a milky train . As far as eye reached the crest of every wave was bright, and the sky above the horizon was illuminated from the reflected glare of the lurid flames.
Parts of this journal were printed in Sea History Nos. 4 and 5, including its lively account of near shipwreck in the infamous Hoogly River, and Jordan's appreciation of the horrors of Calcutta and the delights of Ceylon, which stands out in vivid relief to his uncle's soured outlook. This joint venture by museum and publisher brings us an authentic statement of the lives of these old sailors, invaluable to those who would. understand them. DOD The Story of the Leviathan: "World's Greatest Ship," Vol. III, by Frank 0. Braynard (New York, South Street Museum, 1976. 400 pp., illus., $25.00). Conceived before World War I in the mind of the strange genius Albert Ballin, who died heartbroken just before the end of the war that had wrecked his dreams, the Leviathan was born as the
Naval Institute Press
THE MEDLEY OF MAST AND SAIL: A CAMERA RECORD Presented in the form of a photograph album with commentaries, this book portrays the extent and multiplicity of the great, but vanished, era of merchant sailing operations. The content is broadly based, depicting all manner of different types and craft, and covering a very wide variety of rigs ranging from proas, junks, various fishermen · and barges, through coasters, small traders and big square-riggers. 1977. 330 pages. 407 photographs. List price: $21.95 WORLD WARSHIPS IN REVIEW, 1860-1906 By John Leather This volume captures the technical and popular history of the steam warship's most experimental era, from the first screw-driven ironclad to the Dreadnought. 134 hitherto unpublished photographs are accompanied by comprehensive statistics for each vessel. The ships presented are from the navies of Britain, America, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Russia, Japan, Norway , Denmark, and many others. 1977. 264 pages. 134 photos . List Price : $12.50 Send all orders to :
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world's largest liner. Named Valer/and at her launch in 1913, she reflected German pride as well as Ballin's vision of universal peace and concord. In her twenty-four year life span, she represented other things as well, lifting divisions of soldiers to Europe to fight the Kaiser (after she was seized and put under the American flag) and bringing them home again when the war had been won with the surge of American energies in its last two years. She became a symbol of Anglo-American rivalry after the war, and a central item in the debates that raged over the future of the American merchant marine. She was other things to many other people; seasick doughboys bound on what proved for some a one-way voyage to lands their ancestors had come from but which they had never seen, international socialites, European royalty, and even the estimated 600-700 cats who made their homes aboard her at any one given time. And she was, of course, a tremendous physical structure, from her giant driving machinery (which gave some trouble) to her richly appointed cabins and ballrooms: nearly a thousand feet long, taller than the tallest skyscraper if stood on end (which her illustrators regularly did), her smokestacks wider than the tubes of the new Holland Tunnel under the Hudson River. To William Francis Gibbs, who undertook the garantuan task of redesigning and rebuilding her for American passenger liner service without benefit of German plans, and who then operated her under unique and bitterly contested management arrangements for the U.S . Government, she was the challenge and love of his life-a love affair from which his own America and United States (perhaps the ultimate superliner of all time, and still afloat) were later born. To Frank Braynard, who made his first recorded drawing of the Leviathan at age seven, in 1923 , the yea r this volume of his projected five-volume biography of the ship opens, she is a world in herself, an embodiment of the sweep of history in her time. Correspondence and interviews running to thousands of people have gone to this Forsyte Saga narrative-over 3,000 people subscribe to the Leviathan newsletter he began to 18th & 19th Century
MARINE INSURANCE AND SHIP DOCUMENTS, AUTOGRAPHS Americana catalogue 15 ¢ .
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get out for a few interested readers as this work got under way. The work is not easily susceptible of description; you have to immerse yourself in it. This volume takes in the glory years of the Leviathan's career, making her 24-knot, 5 1/i-day crossings with revised turbines and new systems throughout, under the driving force of Gibbs 's management. Mr. Braynard reports that he is now well along on the next volume (each is bigger and more profusely illustrated than the last), and reports with some glee that he has 300 photographs assembled for the month of July 1927. That works out to nearly one per daylight hour for the month, something like a motion picture of the life of the liner which meant so much to so many people, and expressed so much of the changi ng eras she lived through. PS Alice's World, The Life and Photography of an American Original: Alice Austen, 1866-1952, by Ann Novotny (Old Greenwich, Chatham Press, 1976. 222 pp ., illus, $22.95). A marvelously intimate, vivid and moving glimpse into just what the title says (fo.r a change!): "Alice's World." How , after reading Oliver Jensen' s preface, which suggests the indomitable genius of this pioneer photographer, whose work he saved and whose last years in a poorhouse he made easier, and after reading Ann Novotny's carefully documented (through living memories) biography of Miss Austen-how does one end up feeling the book does not do her justice? Perhaps because it does not share Alice's blazing determination to get at the truth of things through her camera (but perhaps no writing could). Perhaps because the ships she loved and the working waterfronts she photographed are hardly shown in this collection of beautiful and touching examples of her work. The photographs, of course, do speak for themselves-and are reproduced with a fidelity worthy of her art. It' s a good book to own, to read, to reflect upon . But where Alice transcended class, from the very difficult position of genteel and increasi ng poverty, the book is obsessed with class: "Oh look," it says to us, "look at her sexual and so-
SONGS OF SOUTH STREET -STREET OF SHIPS~ 25 Sea Chanteys ~ W .J Each wilh Explanatory Tex t ~ C HANT EYMAN PRESS $3 . plus 50c shipping and handling from N.M.H.S., 2 Fullen St. Brooklyn , NY 11201
BOOKS cial adjustment , look at her gallantry in pursuing her own art, her own life. " A good book, but not a great book, not as Alice was great. She never said, in her work, "Oh look!" She went ahead and made you see. PS Archeology of the Boat, by Basil Greenhill (Middleton, Conn. , Wesleyan University Press . 1976. $16.95 .). Marine archeology has undergone a major revolution in the past ten years. As appreciation of the importance of this field has grown and it has ceased to be regarded as a sort of backwater, new evidence has all but rendered valueless much of the learning that has been acquired to date . Basil Greenhill, director of the National Maritime Museum in Great Britain, has written a book that presents and reevaluates the changing field both for the layman and the expert. DOD American Naval Prints: from the Beverley R . Robinson Collection , U.S. Naval Academy Museum, Annapolis, Maryland , introduction by Roger B. Stein (International Exhibitions Foundation , 1729 H. Street, NW- Suite 310, Washington, DC, 1976. 128 pp ., illus., $7 .00. paper, by mail). A superb sampling of 65 prints covering 120 years from the capture of Louisbourg, Nova Scotia to the close of the Civil War-years in which, as Professor Stein points out in an illuminating introduction, "the Anglo-American audience seeing these prints had a much more direct relation to ships and shipping than we do." Valour Fore & Aft: Being the Adventures of the Sloop Providence, 17751779, Formerly Flagship Katy of Rhode Island's Navy, by Hope S. Rider (Annapolis, Md. , Naval Institute Press , 1977. 210pp., illus., $10.00). A detailed history of the Providence, an ordinary merchant vessel that had an extraordinary career as an armed sloop in the Rhode Island and Continental Navies. It is illustrated with maps, photographs and drawings, and the publishers have wisely put a full color painting of the vessel inside on the title page where it will last. Reading abou t the exploits of this small vessel (60', 10 guns) and the disproportionate amount of trouble she gave the British , one can understand the enthusiasm that went into the building of her replica, recently launched at NS Newport.
A little-known side of American sea history is revealed in the private journals and letters of three Maine square-rigger captains
VOYAGES By Alfred T. Hill G rea t-grandson of Captain Tustram Jordan PUBLISH ED IN COOPERATION WITH THE SOUTH STREET SEAPORT MUSEUM
acce pte d- and w ritte n ab out in detail-as a n atural part of the job that kept the ca ptain of a squarerigger away from h ome and fa mil y for the best part of hi s life.
Pepperell 1854-1864
hree men from Saco, Maine, w h o saile d the oceans of th e w orld as masters of Am erican merchantmen during the 1800s reveal them selves and their sea exp eriences in the pages of this remarkable book.
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To them, hurricanes , dis mas ting, collisions, mutinous crews, capture, shipw reck, death at sea, even the exotic ports of the Far East were not "a d ve nture ." Ra th er th ey we re
The three captains are: Tris tram Jord an, w ho made his firs t voyage in 1816 and was lost in his 69 th transocean voyage in 1856, swept from the d eck of the Pepperell in a hurricane; Alfred Pa tterson, rris tram 's son-in-law, w ho we nt to sea in 1851; and Fra n klin Jord a n , Tri s tra m 's ne phew, w ho first went to sea in 1858 at the age of sixteen . Th eir letters and journals, collected and e dite d by th eir d esce nd a nt Alfred T. Hill, p rovide what may well be one of the bes t firsthand accounts oflife at sea w hen the world 's cargoes we re all carried in squareriggers . Tha t is wh y you will wa nt to own a copy of Voyages .
r-------------------, Please send me a t o nce a copy of VOYAGES by A lfred T. Hill (Price $9 .95). N.Y. a nd Calif. res ide n ts p lease add sa les ta x. I e nclose $ _ _ 0 C hl'ck D Mo ney O rde r or C harge m y o rd er to: D Ban kAmerica rd D Mas te r Charge D Ame rica n Express Acct.# _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ MC Interbank _ _ _ _ Exp. d a te _ _ __
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Peking loafs through a quartering breeze. Below, hands stow that lofty fore royal, and at right, the main royal, seventeen stories above the sea.
Peking Battles Cape Horn By Captain Irving Johnson Captain Irving Johnson wrote memorably of his experience in two Cape Horn rip snorters in the four-masted bark Peking, in a book published more than forty years ago. The National Society is now re-publishing that book by kind gift of Captain Johnson, to benefit Peking, now at South Street Seaport Museum, and other historic ships everywhere. The new book sells for $5.95 in paperback, $11.95 hardbound, on order to the Society. It includes an afterword, "Forty-eight Years Later," which in our opinion is one of the finest pieces of writing on square-rig sailing ever penned. Here we invite you to share the awe and hard joys of a young man, who had "a hankering to make a voyage in one of the old-time square riggers. " And did.-ED . Cape Horn winds continued pretty tame in the first two days after we crossed the boundary, but I told the captain and Charlie at dinner that I wasn't going to give up wishing for a real ripsnorter before we got around. The water we were sailing through next day looked as black as ink, although perfectly clear and clean. Rain squalls hovered around, and there was much pulling and hauling, and taking in and setting of sails because of the changeable winds. One riotous squall caught us with every stitch of canvas set. Six men heaved at the steering wheel to luff her before she should go over bottom side up. Sails and yards came down on the run, but the scud soon passed.
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In one calm spell the waves made a great slapping and plopping noise by jumping up two or three feet in points like pyramids . It gave me a queer feeling with other things so quiet, even though I knew perfectly well that it was caused simply by the meeting of opposing currents. Thursday, about sixty miles east of Staten Island, the captain and mate got together and made a delicate winddirection indicator of a feather, so they could tell where the wind was coming from. What a queer occupation off Cape Horn, the reputed home of all sorts of violent storms! It was colder now than at any time in the North Sea. We started eating the Christmas fruit cake, and treasured every crumb. That morning we had what the captain called "American hash." He said:
"I think dot I viii not eat any this time." Charlie and I asked him, "Why not?" And he replied, "There is too much of fresh meat in dot hash." We wondered what he meant. Here we were two months at sea and he was talking about fresh meat, but anyhow we liked it and ate two helpings . When we finished, the captain said, "Vas dot good?" Just then the cook came in and asked him to -dress his finger again, and we learned that while grinding the hash meat, the end of one finger had been taken off by the grinder. The captain had known this all the time. "You two fellers vas cannibals," he said, and he laughed at us for the next two weeks. A killer whale, half black and half white, played around the ship for an
hour or so Friday. It is a small sort of whale, but the most ferocious of all the tribe, and it kills whales ten times its size. Charlie and the captain were sore at me because I wished for a rip-snorter storm. But there was no sign yet of anything of that kind. I finished "The Outline of History" and had learned a lot from it. Another book I read was Dana's "Vacation Voyage to Cuba." It didn't suit me nearly as well as his "Two Years Before the Mast." He seemed to have tried to write a book without having enough to say. February 8th came with nice cold weather and a moderate breeze, and I couldn't help thinking how awfully disappointed I would be if we got around the Horn without at least a gale. The last two or three years vessels had seen plenty of ice where we were-even as many as a hundred bergs at the same time . I hoped we would go far enough south to get a look at some, but of course it is dangerous sailing anywhere near them. Sunday, the 9th, the wish that I first made at the Giants Causeway came true. A real storm got started that morning and gathered headway all day. The log book showed a number twelve hurricane, long before the worst came. A tremendous sea had worked up that gave a show worth the whole trip. We were hove to and shortened down to the lower tops'ls and two stays'ls. The blowing spray and flying spume turned the surface of the ocean white, except for faint grayish streaks, and the water around the ship and as far away
"A real storm got started that morning and gathered headway all day. "
as I could see had the appearance of being blanketed with snow. Meanwhile the wind was roaring and screeching through the rigging with sounds as if a lot of savage beasts were fighting, threatening, and clawing up there. I always had wanted to see a big, heavy sail blow away in a hurricane, and now came my chance. The steel wire three quarters of an inch in diameter around the edge of the main lower tops'! broke with a noise that made me think some one had shot off a cannon. The canvas was the very heaviest made, and brand new, so it didn't all go at once, but banged and snapped making a racket like a machine gun. When the wire broke and the sail began to go, I was on deck. "Here's a great chance for moving pictures," I thought. So I got the camera in a hurry and buzzed away at the shredding sail, while a lone sailor went out to the end of the yard to let go the preventer sheet. If that banging sail had hit him once, it would have killed him. But he succeeded in letting go the sheet. Then a score of
other sailors climbed up and joined him, and they furled what was left of the sail. The third mate was on the leeward end of the yard where a narrow strip of canvas streamed out beyond reach. He had been taught to save every scrap of material, and he let himself hang down from a heavy wire by one hand and a leg, while he reached for the fragment of sail. The captain down below yelled and blew his whistle as loud as he could trying to stop him, but even those on deck within ten feet of the captain could hardly hear his voice above the screeching and howling of the storm . So the strip of canvas was saved. At times water blew along the surface of the sea like a fog, and the wind was so fierce it couldn't be faced . While the captain and I were eating dinner there was a jarring crash that felt and sounded like hitting a rock. The captain jumped up exclaiming, "Mine Gott! 1st der mast gone?" On deck we found that a terrific wave had struck the port side of the ship, and
43
PEKING BATTLES CAPE HORN the captain ordered the carpenter to sound the wells to see if she were leaking. In ten or fifteen minutes the carpenter returned and reported, "No water in the wells." However, further inspection revealed that a whole section of the side of the ship, twenty feet across, was bent in, steel plates, frames, and all. Yet the only places that water was coming through the sides was where the sea had broken the glass in some portholes. The skipper said he never had heard of a wave bending in the side of such a ship before. I thought I would go up to the main royal yard to see if I could hold on under such conditions. After waiting until the captain went below , so he wouldn't stop me, I started. But just then the second mate, who had charge of the watch, called out, "You can't go up there!" "I have to go," I told him. "This is what I've come to Cape Horn for." "No," he insisted. "You'll get blown off or shaken off." I didn't agree with him, and he finally said, "Well, you go on your own responsibility. I'm not to blame, whatever happens to you." "All right," I said and went on up . When I had gone about to the height of the upper top's! yard, a sea smashed against the windward side of the ship and sent spray over my head . It takes some force to shoot water up that high against such a gale. Meanwhile the sun occasionally shone down on all the confusion and violence and made dainty rainbows in the flying scud . As I neared the top of the mast I would stop whenever the ship rolled to windward, because I had such difficulty in pulling my feet back against the wind and getting them up to the next ratline. The air rushed past me at about one hundred and fifty miles an hour, making a horrible screeching howl such as I never had heard before. The top of the mast swung in an arc fully three hundred feet at some of the rolls, and these rolls of forty-five degrees often were made in eleven seconds. On at least twenty of the ship's rolls to windward I tried the experiment of hollering just as loud as I could. Yet it was impossible to hear myself. Not the least whisper reached me of the loud noise I must have made. I wouldn't have thought that possible. Once I tried to holler to windward, but nearly a barrelful of the hurricane was driven down my throat, and I gave up that sort of experimenting .
44
It was necessary to be very careful of my lips and hold them tight or the wind would take charge of them. Yet they had to be parted enough to let in some air, as one's nose is useless for breathing purposes in a hurricane. A light shower caught me at the top of the mast, and some scattered drops that struck the back of my neck felt like so many birdshot. I had demonstrated to myself that it was possible to hold on, and I went down, got my movie camera, and returned to the mast-top. After tangling my arms and legs up in the ratlines to keep from blowing away, I took movies of the Cape Horn gray backs that went sweeping across the deck of the ship a hundred and seventy-five feet below me. That downlook onto the churning sea as it battered the old Peking and kept filling her decks with its writhing waters, was the grandest sight I ever had looked on. The water got into the ship everywhere, except the cargo hold, and a dozen boys were kept busy bailing out. Most of the sailors slept on the spare sails in the sail locker because their foc'sle was so filled with water. Such big seas came aboard that they couldn't open the foc'sle door, and the only way they could enter was by the skylight. To go into a foc'sle half full of water during such a storm, with sea chests, bunk boards, and suit cases banging and crashing at each roll, was just looking for death . Down below deck the ship creaked as if she might break up at any minute. In the night the steering cable that led to the midships wheel broke. The after wheel was stuck, and the spanker had to be set to keep the vessel up into the wind until the cable was fixed. At noon on Monday we had been driven back eighty-four miles since the previous noon. We took down what was left of the lower tops'! that blew out and set another in its place. I got a piece of the torn sail and started to make a sea bag of it. That was something I would need if we ever got to port. Nearly every sailing-ship seaman has a sea bag . He keeps his clothes in it, and usually has made it himself. One thing we lost in the storm was our shark's tail at the tip of the jib boom. "That was our fair weather charm," I said to Charlie, "and it's gone.'' "Small loss," was his response. "Mighty little good it's done us on this trip."
Salt Pork By Captain James Gaby
Born in New Zealand, Captain Gaby trained in sail aboard the steam auxiliary Amokura, starting in 1910. He then sailed in the barkentine Alexa of 286 tons, trading in the Tasman Sea, leaving her to join the big four-masted bark Potalloch of 2600 tons. After a stint in steam, he returned to sail in the handsome 3-masted bark Dartford. His adventures in six years in sailing ships ranged from bellowing out the choruses to "Shenandoah" to support a shipmate singing on a stage in a music hall, to burying an admired captain at sea aboard the Dartford. Author of the books Mate in Sail and Restless Waterfront, works favorably noticed throughout the seafaring community, he lives in retirement in Australia today, and is Patron of the Cape Homers (Australia).-ED. Picture the scene: A big four masted barque enveloped in a rising gale. Mounting beam seas smash up ::igainst her topsides to thunder over the t'gallant rail with a viciousness that meant peril to the mortal having the misfortune to be caught in the onslaught. The sound of the midday eight bells had been blown away by the wind. A tired, disgruntled, oilskin-clad forenoon watch filed into a dismal flooded fo'c'sle. They had just furled the last of the six t'gallants'ls and that had left them with a hunger that would have made short work of a side of beef. It was pea soup and salt pork day and the mess-kids had been brought into the fo'c'sle by the peggy of the watch. Half throwing them onto the small table, he told the seven hungry men "There y'are. Get that inter yuh and don't tell me there's not a Jonah in this watch. Six t'gallants'ls! Time that port watch did a bit too." Untieing the chin fastening of his sou'wester, he told all and sundry, "Just take a sniff at that salt pork. That's what there is of it.'' His suggestion was quickly acted upon. "By Hell!" exclaimed the first sniffer, "The bloody stuff stinks to high heaven! Damn stuff's rotten! Fancy expecting a man to tackle that." Another had shaken up the pea soup
and Peasoup. kid. "Have a look at this," he called, "the hide to call this pea soup! It's watery as the Pacific." Over his shoulder a looker-on added his bit: "Cook must have taken the peas aloft and dropped them down into the boiler from the upper tops'! yard." Another added his spoke: "And a bloody bad shot he was too. Couldn't have drawn the full ration.'' One who had not bothered about the inspection of the kids but was jumping mad to find that the deckhead had leaked above his bunk and soaked his blankets, called across to the group at the table, "Well, whatya goin' to do about it? Leaky deck head. Flooded fo'c'sle and now stinking pork and watery pea soup. What more does a bloody man have to put up with?" That was the match to the tinder. "Let's all go aft to the Old Man. Tell him he can't expect men to work on grub like this." The suggestion fitted the moods. "C'mon the lot of you," said the man with the flooded bunk. "Grab those kids and let's get aft and show the old skinflint." The whole of the starboard watch resolutely set out along a flooded lee deck, dodging a drenching on the way, the pea soup getting as cold as the sea overside. The big, squarely built old Scottish captain saw them coming. Oil-skinned and sea-booted, he met them at the top of the lee poop ladder. "Wee!, wha's aw this a boot?" The bearers of the kids were first up the ladder, but the man with the flooded bunk answered the Scot: "Smell this pork, Captain. Look at this watery pea soup. Not fit for pigs!" The Captain's chin came up. His eyes narrowed as if an insult had been hurled. "Wha's wrang wi' it?" He disdained to examine the kids but surveyed the watch with the utmost contumely. "Everythings 's wrong with it, Captain. Anyway what about a bit more of it even if it does stink?'' The Scot's ire was mounting. Here was a sea lawyer who had to be slapped down. He had moved over to the weather jigger shrouds as the eighth and
last man came up onto the poop. Grasping the swifter shroud, he stared each and every one and when his eyes had encompassed them all: "Thot's the same as is on oor table in the saloon the noo." "Maybe, Captain, but you get more of it and I'll bet it's out of another cask," said the spokesman for the watch. But the Old Man like a rock, was immovable. "Ye'll get yair whack! Ye'll get nae mair. Gang awa' for'd the lot o' ye." And as a second thought, "An' tak a pu ' on the lee fore brace on yair way." And with a dismissing wave of a hand, "Awa' the lot o' ye." Disdainfully, he turned and walked aft to look at the log clock. All the fire had gone from the men. Pausing in a frustrated bunch with all eyes on the retreating Captain and feeling that any more said would make no difference, they turned and filed down the ladder carrying the cold pea soup and high smelling salted pork to the fo'c'sle to make the best of it. Then it was that those who were the quiet and timid ones aft, spoke up the loudest. The paper on which this is written would burn if the reporting of the various opinions of the Captain and his hungry ship were essayed, Rather let them be the introduction to those old deepwater lines so often quoted or sung in every fo'c'sle over which flew a red ensign.
Come all you fo'c'sle lawyers That always take delight By brooding o'er your troubles To set all matters right. Well versed in every paragraph In every word and fact Of the law which often makes you swear, The Merchant Shipping Act. Then what's the use of growling When you know you get your whack Of lime juice and vinegar According to the Act. Then Hooray boys, Hurrah When you know you get your whack Exactly what you signed for In the Merchant Shipping Act.
Drawing by Anton Otto Fischer, for the Saturday Evening Post, Feb. 4, 1939. Courtesy the Saturday Evening Post.
NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY
AMERICAN BUR EAU OF SHIPP! G
BARBARA JOHNSON
CAPTA IN E . J. PIERSON
New York, New York
Princeton, New Jersey
JACK R. ARON
IRVING JOHNSON
Moore-McCormack Lines New York, New York
J. Aron Charitable Foundation New York, New York
Hadley, Massachusetts NEILS W. JOHNSON
Annapolis, Maryland
Central Gulf Lines, Inc. New York, New York
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J . M . KAPLAN FUND
Circle Line New York, New York
JAMES C. KELLOGG, III
JOHN B. BALCH
JOSEPH CANTALUPO
Cantalupo Carting Company New York, New York
New York, New York Spear, Leeds & Kellogg New York, New York PROF. JOHN HASKELL K E MBLE
New York, New York
Pomona College Claremont, California
F. BRIGGS DALZELL
A. ATWATER KENT, JR .
ALICE DADOURIAN
New York, New York THOMAS P . D OWD
N. Y. Marine Fuel Co. New York, New York J EREM IAH T. DRISCOLL N . Y. Marine Fuel Co. New York, New York R. J. DUNPHY
Dick Dunphy Advertising Specialties New York, New York REYNOLDS DUPONT
Wilmington, Delaware WILLIAM W. DURRELL
Barnstable, Massachusetts
ROBERT G. GAMBEE
EVA GEBHARD-GOURGAUD FOUNDATION
New York, New York T. GILBRIDE Todd Shipyards New York, New York
J.
MARK GREENE
Artist New Rochelle, New York
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Buffalo, New York MR.
& MRS. P ETER SEEGER
Beacon, New York MRS. AVICE M. SEWALL
Redlands, California SHIPS OF THE SEA MUSEUM
Cardwell Condenser Corp. Long Isla nd, New York KOBRAND CORPORATION
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J . McGOVERN
Sandy Hook Pilots Assoc. New York, New York MR. & MRS . EMIL MOSBACHER, JR. ROBERT G. MURPHY
Investment Banker New York, New York
ALLEN S . RUPLEY
W. R. Grace Foundation New York, New York
Savannah, Georgia
New York, New York
& MRS. CHARLES GALLAGHER
& MRS. RODMAN ROCKEFELLER
Wilmington, Delaware
New York, New York MR.
MR.
New York, New York
NORMAN KJELDSE N
FARRELL LINES
Oceanics School New York, New York
HON . FRED RICHMOND
Congressman Brooklyn, New York
Spear Leeds & Kellogg New York, New York JAMES O'KEEFE
Wa llington, New Jersey WALTER H. PAGE Morgan Guaranty Trust New York, New York D . K. PATTON
The Real Estate Board of New York New York, New York PHILADELPHIA MARITIME MUSEUM
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New York, New York JAMES R. SHEPLEY
Time Inc. New York, New York H OWARD SLOTNICK
Gotham Auto Lease New Rochelle, New York A. MACY SMITH
Houston, Texas P ETER STANFORD
National Maritime Historical Society EDMUND A. STANLEY, JR .
Bowne & Co., Inc. New York, New York JOHN STOBART
Artist Potomac, Maryland MR. & MRS. MARSHALL STRE IBERT
The Fund For Yale New York, New York JOHN TH URMAN
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GYDNIA AMERICA LIN E
Charlottesville, Virginia
New York, New York
WESTLAND FOUNDATION
MRS. MARGARET S . H ECTOR
Portland, Oregon
Fargo, North Dakota
ADMIRAL J OHN M . WILL, USN (RET.)
TOWNS END HORNOR
Arthur Tickle Engineering l:lrooklyn, New York
Osterville, Massachusetts ROBERT W. HUBNER
IBM Corp. Armonk , New York GEORGE IVEY
Charlotte, North Carolina
LOUIS WINSTON
The Print Shop New York, New York CHARLES WITTHOLZ
Nava l Architect Silver Springs, Maryland
No other port stacks up to NV/NJ. A full 20% of all the ship traffic in the entire U.S.A. That's over 14,000 arrivals and departures for the NY /NJ Port last year alone. It represents 115 different lines, carrying over 53,000,000 tons of cargo. Containerships. Conventional freighters. Bulk carriers. Tankers. Heavy-lift and other special-purpose vessels. No other port stacks up to NY /NJ in terms of volume because no other port offers so much: Availability of vessel service and shore-based facilities for every conceivable kind of cargo. And-an unbeatable combination of pier personnel and mechanized equipment. We've converted ship turnaround time to a matter of hours instead of days. We expedite imports and exports to their destinations days in advance of timetables that were in effect only a few years ago. Yes, the NY/NJ Port is first because we put shippers and their deliveries first. That's the main reason why no other Port stacks up to us. Remember that. We never forget it. When you can't reach the manager of our local offi ce ... call us direct for customer service. (800) 221 -5236 Toll Free .
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The legend continues ...
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