Sea History 009 - Autumn 1977

No.9

. . NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

FALL 1977

The automobiles of Mercedes-Benz.

The legend continues.

Mercedes-Benz invented the automobile in 1886-and in 1895 produced the first car ever built on a production line. Over the generations, Mercedes-Benz has perfected one engineering advance after another.

Add to that an auto racing record of over 4,400 individual victories and you have an automotive heritage unmatched by any other car in the world. ow Mercedes-Benz offers eight separate and distinct models for sale in the United States. Each one is unique. Each one continues, in its own way, the Mercedes-Benz legend.

At left, you see almost 50 years in the life of a legend. Look closely.

See how nobly time touches these Mercedes-Benz automobiles. Their appeal is enduring. A characteristic that marks the truly legendary, and distinguishes it from the merely passing fancy.

A blend of future and past Here is disciplined grace, the product of thoughtful evolution in de-

N

l : 450SEL (1977) ; 2: 300SL Gullwing ( 1955) ; 3: 500K Special Roadster ( 1935) ; 4: Super-charged SSK (1929) ; 5: 540K Cabriolet B (1936); 6: 600 (1969) .

Mercedes-Benz Technical Specifications MODEL

ENGINE

DISPLACEMENT (CU. IN.)

WHEELBASE (IN.)

OVERALL LENGTH (IN.)

CURB WEIGHT (LBS.)

2400

4 cyl. ohc (fuel injected)

146.7

110.0

190.9

3210

3000

5 cyl. ohc (fuel injected)

183.4

110.0

190.9

3515

280E

6 cyl. dohc (fuel injected)

167.6

110.0

190.9

3530

280SE

6 cyl. dohc (fuel injected)

167.6

112.8

205.5

3905

450SEL

V-8 ohc (fuel injected)

275.8

116.7

209.4

4080

450SL

V-8 ohc (fuel injected)

275.8

96.9

182.3

3815

450SLC

V-8 ohc (fuel injected)

275.8

111 .0

196.4

3860

6.9

V-8 ohc (fuel injected)

417.1

116.5

210.0

4390

sign. When Mercedes-Benz engineers create a new car, their vision is wide. They look backwards to retain and improve on their worthiest earlier ideas. And forwards as well, to blend in their latest innovative technology.

Thoughtful evolution in design: a mark of Mercedes-Benz.

To the eye, the changes that have been wrought may be subtle.

Invariably, though, they are quietly beautiful-which shows how unerringly their "form follows function."

More importantly, the cars of Mercedes-Benz are designed to appeal strongly to your intelligence.

They are honest cars. The promises they make relate directly to their primary function: well-engineered, safe transportation.

One of the eight MercedesBenz models currently available in the United States is in the front rank, left: the 450SEL Sedan. Our full offering is described in the table, above. Each model represents a blending of patient craftsmanship with sophisticated technology.

Enduring value ... and enduring pleasure Many models of the elegant SOOK shown here (No. 3, Circa 1935) are appraised atover$50,000. The rare 540K Cabriolet B (No. 5, Circa 1936) is considered a genuine value at $75,000. And based on average official used car prices over the past five years alone, the contemporary Mercedes-Benz automobiles have held their value better than any other make of luxury car made in the United States.

The high retained value of Mercedes-Benz cars is a rational attraction. But they have an emotional raison d'etre, too. To experience it, arrange, through your Mercedes-Benz Dealer, to drive one. You'll experience an unrivaled automotive pleasure behind the wheel of this charismatic car from Mercedes-Benz. Truly, the legend continues.

(I\

Mercedes-Benz \CJ Engineered like no other car in the world.

An unbroken line of excellence. Since 1886, Mercedes-Benz has produced one classic automobile after another.

Each one a car engineered like no other car in the world.

ŠMen:edes-Benz. 1977

PRESIDENT'S REPORT The National Society was formed in 1963 to save the last American-built square rigger to carry sail, the Kaiulani.

In this issue of SEA HI STORY, fourteen years later, we begin our accounting of that trust.

As we go to press, the remains of the ship are being delivered from Seattle to San Francisco, with the help of many hands: Congressman Phillip Burton, Crowley Marine, Todd Shipyards, the Maritime Historic Park and the Port of San Francisco. As we conclude our report in future issues, we expect to present plant for Kaiulani's ultimate installation in a Hall of the American Down Easter in San Francisco .

A late child of a proud line of Mainebuilt ships, she had many eyes upon her from her birth to her last days: few ships are so thoroughly recorded, in journals, in still and movie film made as her sailing days ended.

People knew she mattered at the time.

I have mentioned elsewhere in this

issue, the intense pride I feel as a member serving in this Society, which never faltered or backed away from the long-drawn and hard-fought battle to save the ship we came into being to save.

My wife and I first signed on as members of the Society in response to a newspaper ad asking for volunteers to sail the ship home.

The Historic Ships Movement It became clear to your trustees and advisors, as I think to all our members, that a national movement was required to float the ships that carry our heritage in seafaring. The interest is there to do this! What that interest needs is focus, and above all support.

Money is not the only measure of what the National Society does. But as a matter of record this year we have so far raised over $350,000 for historic ships and sail training projects, and cleared authorizations for another $200,000-a total of some half-million dollars we have raised or cleared the way for. That

is not, perhaps, a bad record for a volunteer society, working without any startup funding of its own, and run by people in museum work around the country. But it is only a beginning.

We have our work to do-to show the values in our historic seafaring and invite more people into its living heritage.

We must show how historic ships can live, delivering social and straight economic values to the nation and the communities that bring them in.

We must above all bring support and attention to the work of those engaged actively in the field.

To make these things possible, we are asking help now to strengthen the work of the National Society from top to bottom, to make all its work more effective, and to be equal to the very great tasks and opportunity that lie before us in this work.

I hope we can bring you a good report of this vital effort in the next SEA HISTORY. Respectfully submitted:

~-S~b President

No. 9

SEA HISTORY is the journal of the National Maritime Historical Society, an educational, tax-exempt membership organization devoted to furthering the understanding of our maritime heritage.

OFFICES are at 2 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY 11201; at the San Francisco Maritime Museum, Foot of Polk Street, San Francisco, CA 94109; and Suite 643 , 1511 K Street, Washington, D.C. 20005.

FALL 1977

1 LETTERS 3 IN CLIO'S CAUSE: ON LOOKING BACK, by George Campbell 6 THE FIRST AND LAST VOYAGE OF THE ST. MARY,

by Sandford Hart Low and Peter Throckmorton 10 "QUITE A CURIOSITY:" THE EFFORT TO RECOVER THE U.S.S. MONITOR, by Robert E. Sheridan 13 THE NAVAL LYCEUM, by Ray Heitzmann

MEMBERSHIP is invited and should be sent to the Brooklyn office: Patron, $100; Regular, $ IO; Student or Retired, $5.

14 THE ALEXANDER HAMILTON

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, Edward J. Pierson, Walter F. Schlech, Jr., Howard Slotnick, Peter Stanford, John N. Thurman, Shannon Wall, Barclay H. Warburton, III, Charles Wittholz; President Emeritus: Alan D. Hutchinson.

16 SAIL TRAINING, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS

ADVISORY COUNCIL: Chairman: Frank 0. Braynard , New York Harbor Festival; George Campbell, American Museum of Natural History; Frank G. G. Carr, Cutty Sark Society; Harry Dring, San Francisco Maritime Historic Park; Richard GooldAdams, Great Britain R estoration; Robert G. Herbert ; Melvin H. Jackson, Smithsonian Institution; R. C. Jefferson; John Kemble, Pomona College; John Lyman; Rick Miller; Robert Murphy; John Noble, artist; Capt.

David E. Perkins, USCG (ret.); Kenneth D. Reynard, San Diego Maritime Museum; Ralph L. Snow, Bath Marine Museum; Albert Swanson, Commonwealth of Massachusetts; Peter Throckmorton; Alan Villiers, seaman author; Admiral John M . Will, USN (ret.); Alen York, Antique Boat & Yacht Club.

STAFF:A ssistant Curator, Ted Miles; Publications Director, David 0 . Durrell; Ships & Piers Manager, James Diaz; Coordinator, Jo Meisner; Membership, Marie Lore.

Copyright© 1977 by the National Maritime Historical Society.

15 SHIP NOTES

19 ALOHA KA/ULAN/ 20

PART I: THE WHITE PACKET, by E. Victoria Lolmaugh

23

PART II: DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION,

by Charles Wittholz

27 THE CAPE VERDE PACKET TRADE, PART II,

by Michael Platzer 32 MARINE ART: THE MARINE ARTISTS OF NEW YORK,

by A. J. Peluso, Jr. 39 BOOKS 46 THE HUNTING OF THE HAGGIS, by Guy Gilpatric

SEA HISTORY ADVISORY COMMITTEE Timothy G . Foote, Time, Inc., Oliver Jensen, American Heritage, Karl Kortum, San Francisco Maritime Museum; Clifford Lord, New Jersey Historical Society; John Lyman; J. Roy McKechnie, Ogilvy & Mather; Robert A. Weinstein.

SEA HISTORY STAFF Editor, Peter Stanford; Managing Editor, Norma Stanford; Associate Editors, Norman J. Brouwer, Francis J. Duffy, Ted Miles, Maryanne Murphy, Albert Swanson; Advertising Sales, David. 0. Durrell; Circulation, Jo Meisner.

COVER: Able to battle the winter gales that sweep down on the coast, or to sit out on drying shoals, these Dutch fishing craft are much at home in their wild world of sand and broken water, and each is home to her people. This trade under sail ended fifty years ago as powered vessels took over, but some botters still sail as yachts, and a Netherlands Maritime Trust has now been set up to keep such historic craft in life. Painting by Henry Ranger.

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEW YORK

WASHINGTON , D. C.

SAN FRANCISCO

soo

PACIFIC LINERS 1927-1972. Emmons, Frederick. Every ship engaged in tra n spaci fic passenger service during the past forty J ears, illustrated and describecf in a lavish an authoritative history of a vani shing fo rm of transport . LC 73 -86484; 250 illustrations; index; 7-1 14 " x 9-314"; 135 pages.

0~-03386-0 doth $8.95 NORTH ATLANTIC SEAWAY , VOLUME I. Bensor, N.R.P. The most comprehen sive account of the North Atlantic passenger service ever published- featuring 250 scale d rawi ngs of ships representative of the principal lines from 1883 to the present. LC 74-17422; over 200 photographs and drawings; bibliography; indexes; appendices; 7- 112" x 10··; 471 pages.

G-668-03679-6 doth $19.95 OiRONOLOGY OF THE WAR AT SEA, VOL. I, 1939-1942. Rohwer, J.; Hummelchen, G . A new edition of the two- volume classic work on the conduct of World War U at sea in all the oceans of the world- here are all the events of war at sea placed in their tactical context and arranged in chronological form . LC 73-78526; photographs, charts, diagrams; index; 6" x 9"; 256 pages.

G-668--03308-8 cloth $12.50 OiRONOLOGY OF THE WAR AT SEA, VOL. ll, 1943-1945. Rohwer, J.; Hummelchen, G . photographs , charts, diagrams; index; 6" x 9"; 256 pages.

0-668-03401-7 cloth $12.50 The set $25.00 THE SHIPS OF THE GERMAN FL EETS , 1848-1945. Hansen, Hans Jurgen . A richl y d etailed survey of the most important Germa n wdrships from the navy's earliest sailing vessel through the int roduction of U -boa ts durin g World War II- illustra ted with c;ver 250 superb reproduction s, more th an 40 of them in full color. LC 74-141 97; 260 illustra tions; 9-314" x 12"; 192 pages.

0-668-03648-6 cloth $25 .00 BRITISH WARSHIPS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR. Ravan, Alan; Roberts, John .

For modelmakers and naval enthu s ia s tsauthentic scale drawings and complete technical specifications for twelve British warships of World War II-presented in a lavish oversize format. LC 77- 186391; © 1972; twelve 29-114" x 10-114" triple fold-out scale drawings; 10-114" x 14-112"; 64 pages.

668-02607-3 cloth $14.95

from ARCO

JANE'S FIGHTING SHIPS, 1898. Jane, Fred T., editor. The first issue o f Jan e' s Fighting Ships-reproduced in a fully illustrated, technically complete facsimile edition . LC 69-14519; photographs, silhouettes and diagrams; 12-112" x 8-112"; 232 pages.

G-668-01957-3 cloth $14. 95

JANE'S FIGHTING SHIPS, 1906/07, Jane, Fred T. , editor. Here we see the steady growth that had been taking place in the world's navies, including that of the United States, as well as a dramatic closeup on actions in the RussianJapanese War. LC 69-14519; hundreds of illustrations; 12-112" x 8-112"; 484 pages.

0-668-02019-9 LR cloth $19.95 JANE'S FIGHTING SHIPS, 1914~ Jane, Fred T ., editor. A magnificent facsimile edition of the historic 1914 /ane's, complete with photograph s, schematic drawings and full technical details of every type and kind of ship in use at that time.

LC 69 -14519; 3,000 photographs, silhouettes and diagrams; 12-112" x-8-1 12"; 232 pages.

0-668-01873-9 cloth $19. 95 JANE'S FIGHTING SHIPS, 1924. Jane, Fred T., editor. A beautifully reproduced, thoroughly illustrated facsimile reprint of one of the rarest issues of /ane's Ships, c<>mplctc with photographs, schematic d rawings and full technical details of every type and kind of ship in use at that time . LC 69- 14519; hundreds of photovaph s, silhouettes and diagram s; 12- 112" x 8-112"; 224 pages .

0-668-03379-7 cloth $22.50 JANE'S FIGHTING SHIPS, 1931. Parkes, Oscar, editor. This historic issue of /an e's reveals the increasing sophistication and significant improvement in battle crui sers and destroyers under strict treaty condition s. Hundreds of photographs, silhouettes and diagram s; 12- 114 " x 8-118'·; 550 pages.

G-668--02899-8 LR cloth $25.00 JANE'S FIGHTING SHIPS, 1944145. McMurbie, Francis E., editor. This issue of Jane's shows the complete war losses of the world 's navies during World War U. LC 69- 145 19; hun drerls of photographs, silhouettes, and diagrams, 12-112 " x 8-112"; 784 pages.

G-668-02491-7 LR cloth $29.95 JANE'S FIGHTING SHIPS, 1950/51. Blackbum, Raymond V.B., editor. Thi s beautifully rep roduced facsimilie edition of Jane's gives an earl y indication of the pattern of develo pment of the world's navies foll owing World Wa r II. LC 6914519; hundreds of photographs, silhouettes and diagrams; 12-112" x 8-112"; 508 pages.

G-668-03691-5 LR cloth $40.00

-----------------------------, 15 % Discount to National Society Members

Arco Publishing Co., Dept. SH 219 Park Ave. So., New York, N.Y. "10003 Please send me the following books:

I enclose $ .......... .. (plus 75c for postage and shipping). deducted my 15 % discount from the listed prices.

have

Name~~~-'-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~­

Address~~~~~~~~~~~~~-~----~~~-

City/ State/ Zip _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

1HE HISTORY OF THE SAILING SHIP. Mulhall Cavendl.ah Editorial Board. From the Ancient World and the early development of the sailing ship in the Mediterranean to the sailing ship in the nineteenth century-here is the fascinating lore of ships, their crews, and the adventure of the high seas. LC 74-32633; rolor illustrations; glosS11ry; 8-la" x 11 - 112"; 152 pages.

0-668-03780-6 cloth $12. 95 AMERICA'S HISTORIC SHIPS : REPLICAS AND RESTORATIONS. Haas, Irvin . The 54 preserved and restored ships in thi s profu sely illu stra ted g u id e on ce p ro udl y ca rri e d th e American flag on the ocean s o f the world- now they thrill visitors by the mill ion s w ho want to see and touch the historic vesse ls th at mad e Maritime America a great voyagi ng a nd trading nation . LC 74-30893; © 1975; hundreds of photographs; 7- 112·· x JO"; 128 pages.

0-668--03768-7 cloth $8.95 llfE IRON SHIP. Corlett, Ewan. The story of Brunel's Great Britain-the first vessel to embody all the elements of modem ship design in one hull . LC 74-27498; 150 engravings, photographs, and drawings , 5 pages in color; appendices, bibliography, and index; 8-112" x 11"; 260 pages.

0-668-03767-9 cloth $29.95 ATLAS OF MARITIME HISTORY. Lloyd, Christopher. This history of maritime trade and sea battles from the time of the Phoenicians through the Korean War is an essential guide to understanding the progress of Western civilization , written by a renowned historian . LC 7432634; © 1975; 75 rolor maps and 180 black and white illustrations; 8-3 14" x 13"; 144 pages.

G-668-03779-2 cloth $35.00 THE WOODEN FIGHTING SHIP IN THE ROYAL NAVY, AD 897-1860 . Archibald, E.H.H. Covers the hi story of the w ooden battle fl eet-s h owing h ow d esign affected tactics while providing complete technica l information on dimensions, rating systems, hull decoration and appearance, steering, sheathing, signal systems, rigging and ~nn ery . LC 75-1 24422; © 1968; 71 illustrations; index; 9" x 12"; 174 pages.

0~-02369-4 cloth $19.95 SHIP MODELLING HINTS AND TIPS .

Craine, J.H. (Jason), Lt. Comm. Rather than attempt to describe the making of any single model, this book explores and explains the variou s aspects of the art of ship mod ellingeverything from choosing a subject to making the glass case fo r the finisn ed article-in chapter after chapter packed with clearl y diagrammed practical info rmation . LC 73-8 1385; ph otograph s and drawings; 5-112" x 8-112"; 11 7 pages.

G-668-03348-7 cloth $6.95 THE METAL FIGHTING SHIP IN THE ROYAL NAVY, 1860-1970. Archibald, E.H.H.; Woodward , Ray illustrator. H ere, in a ma sterful seque l to the monumental Th e Wooden Fighting Ship (Arco), is the author's continuing story of the development of the naval vessel, covering with precision and authority every category of service vessel, from the smallest corvette to th e gianr corvette carriers, with almost every single vessel built as a vessel shi£ for the Navy listed by name. LC 72-1 65210; \9 1971 ; 350 hoo-color illustratiun s; 20 pages in full color; index; 9" x 12-114"; 240 pages.

G-668-02509-3 cloth $19. 95

LETTERS The Alexander Hamilton To the Editor: I want to add my voice to those who support the preservation of the steamer Alexander Hamilton. Commercial steam navigation began on the Hudson River and the evolution of steamboat design reached its highest level on the Hudson, as exemplified by the beautiful sidewheelers of the Hudson River Day Line. The Alexander Hamilton is an excellent example of the Hudson River sidewheel steamboat and, more important, she is the last example!

There is little question in my mind that she could be an economic, as well as historical, assest to any area. The Hudson Valley is strangely lacking in waterfront attractions. The towns and cities along the river have not taken advantage of their situation on the river. Except for a few marinas or small park s, most waterfronts have fallen to decay.

The Alexander Hamilton, utili zed as a fine restaurant and museum, would certainly be a unique a.nd worthwhile addition to the city of Poughkeepsie. They would have something no other city in the world has: the last Hudson River and last North American coastal-type sidewheeler .

The Hudson Valley is the area the Hamilton served all her life and this is where she should remain.

WILLIAM H. EWEN, Jr. Providence, Rhode Island

What a Pleasure-John Noble!

To the Editor: What a pleasure to see an article on th e work of John Noble, and the work itself, in your Summer 1977 issue! Noble is a little-known genius who deserves grea ter recognition and support. No one has done more in lithography with North American schooners and in his case with such vivid display of his talent and maritime knowledge. Long may he continue!

ROBERT A. WEINSTEIN Los Angeles, California How They Bring People Together To the Editor: I grew up in Alameda and well remember the old sailing ships tied up at the Alaska Packers wharfs before th ey were sold to Japan, before World War II. The original "Treasure Island" with Freddie Bartholomew was filmed amo ng them. That is why it is such a thrill to have the fantastically well preserved Star of India here in San Diego. It was more thrill to us to watch her set sail on July 4, 1976, than to see all the tall ships in the

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

world . SEA HISTORY No . 5 was a beautiful tribute to her.

Captain James Gaby's "Salt Pork and Peasoup" (SH 7) was also very special to us. Captain Gaby sailed around the Horn in Poltal/ach, my grandfather's (Captain James Carl Eschen) ship . She is described in Captain Gaby's book Mate in Sail, which I understand you are seeking to import.

My daughter Donna found Captain Gaby quite by accident when she went to see Karl Kortum at the San Francisco Maritime Museum for information about my grandfather's ships. Captain Gaby had sent a letter requesting information also. She started corresponding and we had the pleasure of visiting him in April last year. It is amazing how many worldwide friend ships the sailing ships have formed, and how they continue to bring people together.

ELEANOR STANTON Coronado, California

Captain Gaby, indeed a good friend, has now given the National Society some copies of Mate in Sail, which will be sold to benefit our work with historic ships (see ad, page 43). You may interested also in the later career of Kaiulani, recounted in this issue, which as the Alaska Packers' Star of Finland was one of the ship you probably saw in Rotten Row in Alameda.-ED From a Nimrod of Schooners To the Editor: The Bowdoin is a small auxiliary twomasted schooner. In that redoubtable "ice-bucker," Mrs. Miriam MacMillan ventured with her husband far beyond the Artie Circle. Of late, the whitehulled, white-winged workship has served as a sailing school in Maine coastal waters. This year, the famed fore-andafter was used for a television remake of an immortal sea classic, "Captains Courageous." Aged 56 years, the fabled schooner is still quite active. Miriam MacMillan is ideally qualified to immortalize in book form the Bowdin's icy peregrinations northward in her early years. I have asked her to consider doing that very thing, and I hope fellow museologists will join me.

While time remains, in this line of work it is always "open season" as Nimrods say .

EDMUND FRANCIS MORAN New York, New York

Seafaring Ed Moran, offers here a suggestion we enthusiastically second and will support. -ED.

Ship Trust: One Direction to Go To the Editor: We now have a Netherlands Maritime Trust, thanks to Frank Carr, who warmed us up for it in a radiant address he held here in April 1976. A lot is being

Frank Carr in the Netherlands, April 1976.

done here by museums and other organizations. The eighteenth century dockyard is being restored to its old state, and the museum ship Buffet, a ram ship built in 1868, is now being restored by the municipal maritime museum in Rotterdam. These things go very slowly, always threatened by extinction.

Our job is clearly to help coordinate and bring new support to such projects .

Difficulties in the economy make our task more difficult, but perhaps more necessary. Our first funding effort, through a national puzzle contest, fell through when the sponsors decided to limit their charitable contribution to purely "humanitarian" projects. We know that a ship breeds humane values in her service, especially values like self respect: but we did not succeed in convincing the puzzle authorities that we qualified on these grounds, or any other.

Perhaps only we know what these values can mean! In that case our task is the more urgent, to inform others.

Our so-called staff is purely volunteer, it is hard to find space to work in or hours to do the work. But the work is needed, and it must be done . May I say that we wish all success to your endeavors in the United States.

H.J .E. VAN DER KOP Commodore (ret.) RNN The Hague, Netherlands

Mr. Carr's viewpoint on the World Ship Trust is given in SH 7, and his record in the field is summarized in the National Society's pamphlet, "Take Good Care of Her, Mister, " available from the Society for $1. 00. To us it seems there is only one direction to go in this work, if we are not to be shamed by our children, and that is forward. -ED.

Advertisement

IBM ReP-orts

Information: key to better service for you

as a consumer.

Shoppers in a supermarket near Baltimore now spend nearly 30 percent less time in the checkout I ine. Guests of an Atlanta hotel can register in just seconds after their arrival. And at a Nebraska savings and loan association, customers can make deposits and withdrawals 40 percent faster than before.

The reason that customers of the supermarket, the hotel and the savings and loan association enjoy better, faster service is the same: computer-based systems provide these businesses with the information they need when they need itcurrent information about food prices, about available rooms, about account balances.

Minimizing delays is only one of the ways in which modern information technology-from computers to office systems-can be used to benefit the consumer.

For example, with timely, accurate information businesses can reduce the number of out-of-stock items, promptly answer customer inquiries, provide more personalized service and plan better to meet future consumer needs. Information technology is IBM's business-providing the tools for recording, processing, communicating, storing and retrieving information.

Clearly, such information tools are increasingly important in serving the consumer today. They will become even more essential in the future as the economy continues to grow in size and complexity. For instance, today the average supermarket stocks 50 percent more products on its shelves than it did 20 years ago. And, counting various sizes and colors, a large department store now offers a choice of more than a quarter of a million items.

When consumer choices expand in this way, so do the problems of business management. Fortunately, advances over the years have made it more and more economical for businesses to improve customer service through the use of information technology. For example, the cost of computer processing has come down at the rate of about 18 percent compounded annually during the past 20 years .

We at IBM are committed to developing a wide range of innovative new products using information technology-products that help put information to work for people.

-------- ------------ --- ¡ --

IN CLIO'S CAUSE

.On L ook1ng Back

By George Campbell, A.M.R.l.N.A.

"Today much of what was wrought in these ships would be considered unnecessary and uneconomical, with our complete change in attitude toward life and the means of sustaining it. " When we look back to the era of the tea clippe·rs, it is usually their physical appearance that arouses our interest and admiration, from photographs, prints, paintings or graphic descriptions. Exceptional speed and sea-worthiness could be accomplished with less handsome and even ugy ships, arousing admiration of a different kind.

A handful of designers have had their names handed down to posterity, but for the most part the individual creators of such beauty are unknown although their shipyards are remembered.

Today much of what was wrought in these ships would be considered unnecessary and uneconomical, with our complete change in attitude toward life and the means of sustaining it. The everincreasi ng pace impels us towards goals which some would consider are not yet proved to be the right ones, and many values which were satisfying ends in themselves have been lost on the way.

The intense pride with which a seaman would sign on with the ship of his

r---

:

sT£1fN TIMB£RS----->-1-

-- -

-

Bark Strathmore in Canning Drydock, Liverpool, 1857.

choice, despite the discomforts he knew were inevitable, is seldom met today, although its basis is still felt. I have spoken to stewards and seasoned passengers who would forgo the benefits of superio r accommodation in a new ship for the sake of joining an older ship with a more handsome profile, whose photograph they would show with pride to their friends. A ship has to justify its existence economically, of course, but this is not the whole story. It is itself an important part of the grand spectacle of life, showing itself to many people in strange lands at regular intervals, unlike the static structure of domestic architecture or civil engineering which has to be visited or sought out by possible admirers. The lower hull and bottom, the most intriguing and satisfying parts of a ship to the eye, are unfortunately only seen in drydock by those intimately connected with their operation. The subtle and sensuous sweeps and bends which are also entirely functional defy those whose arguments would seem to blur the

CANT FNA,.,&s - - - -

difference between beauty and ugliness.

The delightful form of the hull of a tea clipper, gently twisting from a hollowed curve and flare at the bows to a slight inward inclination or tumblehome and then reversing the twist again into the grand sweep under the counter stern, all being moulded perfectly into the curves toward the keel, must surely rank as the most aesthetically perfect manmade shape. There is much to be learned about the purpose of life in looking back-as in our regard of the tea clipper.

George Campbell, naval architect, historian and artist, is familiar to many of our readers for his work on the restoration of the Cutty Sark in Greenwich, England and on the Wavertreefor the South Street Seaport Museum in New York. These drawings and reflections on "looking back" are reprinted, with permission, from his recent book China Tea Clippers (New York, David McKay Co., 1974).

-1 I

"/NOEP£/VDENT PIECE {CUTWATER)

LETTERS The Atlantic Tugs

Command in Sail

For Heritage and Traditions

To the Editor: I served for a while on one of the Atlantic steam tugs, the Richmond-a big green-hulled steam tug which used to tow three barges from Newport News up to Boston, perhaps dropping one or two at Providence or other Down East ports.

We used to come in through Sandy Hook and bridle two barges, with the third's towrope fast to them, to pass through Hell's Gate into Long Island Sound. Then we used to come out again at Martha's Vineyard into open ocean and on to Boston. The Richmond was a happy little craft. The Captain, a real smart ship handler, carried his wife with him, the Mate, a fine old Yankee, was his uncle. Just imagine how my eyebrows raised just after I joined her in Newport News when the skipper in conversation with the Mate asked, "What do you think the weather will be outside, Uncle?" The Cook, who was also steward, carried his young teenage son, and the Captain's wife always made a batch of candy each trip.

To the Editor: I read with great interest Stanley Gerr's article, "The Language of Command in Sail," in the July 1976 issue (SH 4, pages 44-47).

I think the proposal for this multinational project very worthwhile, and if you manage to have questionnaires compiled, we would be delighted to assist in the project and will be most interested to hear of any progress to date.

E. STEPHENSON Hon. Curator Sydney Cove Maritime Museum Sydney, Australia STANELY GERR responds: I'm de-

To the Editor: Revisiting our Star of India yesterday, I picked up your issues 5 and 7. Are the others available? I'm enclosing a check for 1-4 and 6, along with my membership subscription.

I can't tell you how pleased 1 am to discover your organization, and outfit devoted to preserving our seagoing heritage and traditions. As a marine artist I specialize in painting square riggers and our older types of fishing vessels such as the hook-and-line clippers, etc.

Keep up the good work!

EDWARD M. RIES BMCM, US Navy (ret.)

San Diego, California

Richmond didn't have a towing winch and had a thundering manila hawser and her towing bitts were like gate posts with the two posts set athwartships with a firm connecting rail. I tell you, you had to be a smart cookie with that young Captain. When he started to stream the towrope, it would be looped over one post and when the order came to belay the towline, you picked it up from the coil and ran at the bitts to throw another loop over. Meanwhile the tug would be moving through the water to prevent the towline fouling the propeller. I was young, 19 at the time, and had been brought up in the right school so I think I fitted in. It was rather dicey though on the run back to Newport News, for we used to come straight down the coast and as the last barge was 1800 feet astern imagine how it felt to see a transAtlantic liner coming in at right angles from the east in the middle of the night.

I'll swear one, a big German, dragged his log-line across our bows one night.

Another Richmond memory is of coiling that big towline down from the icy cold Boston harbour.

Towards the end of my career, I was master of a big Sydney tug and one day I got so fed up with the deckhands that I told them they'd have been put ashore at the first port of call from an Atlantic tug.

CAPTAIN JAMES GABY Belgowlah, NSW Australia

4

lighted to know of your interest, and welcome it. The project, we've felt, is too globe-girdling and time-intensive to be mounted without a funded staff to handle al/ the work responsibly. We sha// indeed be back to you when there is any prof!,ress in this to report.

Much To Be Explored To the Editor: What I find new and interesting about SEA HISTORY is that it is a maritime newsletter, keeping th~ public aware of what museums and related organization (or individuals) are doing to preserve U.S. maritime history. No other publication with similar reading public gives the same information.

Your articles give a contemporary as well as an archeological perspective on maritime history, and that's good. And of course any narrative by Captain Klebingat (SH 6) adds a particular spice to our view of the last days of the tall ships.

But when people look through SEA HISTORY at our museum newsstand and replace it on the rack, I often wonder if it hasn't lived up to their expectations and is too specialized for them. If for example, they thought to find articles on sixteenth century navigational instruments, or on the British blockade of colonial American ports, or even on recent oceanographic or marine research, they have been disappointed.

Certaily SH has no obligation to keep everyone happy, but there is much to American maritime history that could be explored.

RICHARD A. MARTIN Archivist San Francisco Maritime Museum

We agree. And Mr. Martin has agreed to do some digging for us. We have the inordinate ambition to appeal to scholar and layman on our voyage, to have the gentleman haul with mariner, as Francis Drake put it. -ED.

SH 1-3 are available at $1.50, 4, 5, 7, and 8 at $2. 00 by mail from the National Society. SH 6, featuring our 1976 marine art show, is out of print, drat it.-ED. You Can't Get Away From the Sea To the Editor: I can remember walking from Mother Roper's Seaman's Church Institute on South Street across the Brooklyn Bridge with newspapers inside my shoes in the winter to try to shape up outside the Munson Line, Red D Line and Columbian Line piers in Brooklyn, where the Chief Mate comes out looking for seamen. If you had a "Poor" or "DC" (Decline to Comment) discharge, you didn't show it. If you could produce four or five continuous good discharges, you usually got a job. Shipping was tough fifty years ago.

Across from the New York City Fruit Piers was a gin mill, with cots upstairs.

If you wanted a fruit ship job you checked into this "hotel," paying $7 .00 a week in advance for a cot and a noontime meal each day. They'd try to ship you out fast, in two or three days, to make a profit on the $7 .00 advance, which they kept.

Once I came into Boston as Boatswain in the K.I. Luchenbach, a 32-boom dry cargo intercoastal ship. It was bitter cold, so when we docked at the Luckenbach Pier, which was next to the Fish Pier, I quit and paid off. I stopped by "Peg Leg John's" for a quick cup of coffee and to call a cab for the bus station. Peg Leg asked me what happened, and I told him I'd quit. He gave me a coffee mug with a shot in it and said: "It's on the house." The next thing I knew I woke up in a small forecastle with oilskins hanging all around me, the ship rolling and pitching like I'm back in a tin can. My head is splitting, it's cold as hell. I see an open hatch, and looking

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

aft I see a bridge and more damn boats nested together. A sailor shows up and takes me to the Captain. I ask him what am I doing here? What's going on? He says I asked him for a job last night and he gave me one. I am on a dory trawler, and we are going off the Banks. I am going to have a partner who will show me the ropes. I tell him I know damn well I'd never ship on a dory trawler in March and that when we get back Peg Leg will have another name-namely "One Eye." We stayed out there fishing on long lines for cod for three weeks. When we came in I paid off with $230, the best l 'd ever had. It was the Lenten season and the price¡ of fish was high. If you've never been in a dory hauling in five lines with 80 hooks on each line, fighting off the damn seagulls, not knowing where you were and wondering if the trawler would find you before dark with fog setting in, then you've never li ved. I still won't eat cod, and I gave up dory fishing for every Lent thereafter.

Today I'm 73, live in my own house and sail my own boat single-handed to the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, and Yucatan (when the fronts aren't rolling across the Gull). You can't get away from the sea. My father and both grandfathers were ex-Navy and merchant skippers. One grandfather sailed as master in the Black Ball Line. His name was Black Jack.

CAPTAIN PHILIP MOHUN Dunedin, Florida While the Getting's Good To the Editor: I feel concerned about the constant passing of the older generation of seafaring personnel; I feel a high degree of urgency in the task of recording what they have to tell us.

The mechanics of using a tape recorder in preserving a conversation is really the least of it. All you have to do is get inside the door, find a wall plug, get the machine going, and then forget it.

By and large, the subject himself will ignore the machine, no matter how suspicious he may appear to be at first, and only occasionally, thereafter, is any reference made to its presence.

The techniques of using a tape recorder certainly pose no great obstacles. But one has to th ink ahead to the job of transcribing a long-winded conversation, so some kind of order is reached in the conduct of an interview.

When the interviewee starts talking, some chronological record comes out usually. Or if the order of events is not

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

important then a general subject can be exhausted before some new topic is introduced. Editing a rambling tape is a hard job, even with an orderly dissertation.

No two people are alike. Some need priming like a dry pump. Some people can get going with one breath and never stop-they just need a little deft steering to get them on the course you desire.

Jogging a memory can be done by introducing photographs which will sometimes do wonders for stirring up an old scene, and the more the better. The machine frees the hands for displaying pictures. It allows a great informality in ordinary conversation, and preserves colorful accents and anecdotes, and worthwhile quotes and colloquialisms, which are many times desirable in transcribing a conversation to paper.

You'd be surprised how a person's personality can be described indirectly by transcribing his actual words, inflections, accents, grammar, and descriptions to paper, exactly the way it tumbles out of his mouth.

A very good example of this with a tape which Karl Kortum and I made about sixteen years ago in San Francisco. Eric Swanson, the eminent model builder, who lived for many years on East Street (the present Embarcadero) in the Harbor Hotel, came out to Karl's house on three successive evenings. He was always a bachelor, and probably never lived more than a block from the waterfront, when ashore. His artistic talents included the building of flawless ship models, still considered by some as peerless and without technical error-as well as painting. Racially simplified, he was a Swede, but a cosmopolitan sai lor from his early days of the World War I years, and before, having sailed in Limey, Scandinavian and who-knowswhat-all flag ships, till he came to the Pacific Coast. So his English was fo'c's'le English too, and his grammar left a lot to be desired as to polish.

Eric declined to put his store teeth in place during the interviews. So his heavy Swedish accented syllables, in abysmal grammar, were badly gummed over by the time he uttered them, all through a walrus mustache. Highly undecipherable, for the most part.

I transcribed one particular tale about a voyage he made in the British fullrigger WRAY CASTLE from New York to Australia and Chile in 1919. I did my best, and had to compromise even in the worst places, and it was a trial. But it was pure Swansonese, and to my way of thinking the purest of seafaring storytell-

ing. I suppose an editor would object to a manuscript of this sort of thing, but I would have to tell the editor to go to hell if he didn't like it.

A couple of years ago I wrote to an old sailorman in Indianapolis, whose name I had heard over a period of years.

I wrote to him, no reply. Wrote again, no reply. But finally here came a badly scrawled note, almost indecipherable, apologizing for his inability to reply in writing. He couldn't see the paper, but he was going to send me a cassette taped letter instead, and sure enough here came his reply in his own words on voice on a cassette tape. I ultimately received five or six, with more information on them than a bale of letters could have conveyed.

I don't really know how to emphasize the need to get out in the neighborhood and make tape recorded interviews. One simply has to feel compelled to want to do so, and then the drive will propel yo u out the door. What makes an historian do anything? The broad scope of subject matter to preserve is limitless. One can talk about the handcraft arts of boatbuilding, shipbuilding, sailmaking, ship management, stevedoring, seamanship, etc. We often contact o ld mill operators who were active in shipping lumber cargoes from the Norhtern California and Northwest mills to Southern California, and find that this closely meshes with the maritime industry, and shipping.

As for saving old ships, there aren't many old ships left. But various arts and crafts can be saved and exhibited and explained and displayed without an old ship, and here is an area where a working museum (like Mystic) shows up well.

The broad heritage of our seafaring industries and trade includes many things, and there certainly is room for the individual with specialized tastes and ability to come forth in his best light. I am a marine surveyor, and see a wide variety of old yachts, fishing vessels and tugs in my travels. Only last week I was on a thirty-year-old fishing vessel with proper mast shrouds, over bolsters with throat seizings, turnbuckles and old-style setting up. Never had seen it on a fishing vessel before, and it was indeed a pleasant surprise-but the owner had built the vessel in 1946 with his father, and his father had learnt the ski ll from his father, etc. So one hardly knows where old facets of maritime history will show up next.

CAPTAIN HAROLD D. HUYCKE Edmonds, Washington

.t

.t

.t 5

The First and Last Voyage of the St. Mary Part I

By Sandford Hart Low, Ph.D. and Peter Throckmorton

Kelp Lagoon is a lonely place. No one ever goes there except an occasional sheepherder. On the beach here, between Burnt and Elephant Islands, lies half of the midship section of what was once a great wooden ship, looking from the air like the skeleton of a giant fish. It is a landmark for the little float planes that maintain a connection between Port Stanley, the capital and only town in the Falkland Islands, and the bay of Goose Green, 100 miles to the west.

As one flies over, one notices the beach strewn for miles with wreckage.

Masts, yards, and great chunks of what once was a great hull.

One day in April 1976, a DeHaviland Beaver float plane, piloted by the late Ian Campbell, deposited three of us on the shore of Kelp Lagoon, a half mile from the wreck. As Campbell gunned the engine and spun the little float plane around into the wind to take off for Goose Green, we assembled in a place in the lee on the rocky beach, took off our waders and put on our shoes for the trudge through the salt sedge grass to the wreck.

The whole shore of the island was littered with wreckage: turned stanchions, deadeyes, planks, frames, parts of spars.

The constant wind howled and a thin rain pattered down as we trudged among the giant hunks of timber, wondering, measuring and photographing.

The biggest piece of wreckage was the whole starboard side of the ship, less bow and stern, lying flat on its side, from copper sheathed pin rail with belaying pins still in place, to just before the keel. Among the rocks of the beach were pathetic remnants of the cargo: toy locomotives, turned to lumps of rust.

The "!"in this story is Peter Throckmorton, archeologist for the expedition.

May 1890 (left), the spanking new St. Mary dries her sails at New York's Pier 19. She has come from Maine under tow and is awaiting cargo for her first voyage. Courtesy, Bath Marine Museum.

At right, a giant skeleton is a/I that remains of the St. Mary, on a desolate beach in the remote Falkland Islands. Photo by Peter Throckmorton.

The Falklanders said that every child in the islands had been overwhelmed with toys, in the summer of 1890, after the St. Mary was lost.

On the beach, two hundred yards away, lay the ship's main beam, the numbers almost illegible. I traced them out - 116317. All about the wind howled, the rain drizzled down and, across the water, sealions called, deep "eek, eeks" blowing faintly down the wind.

It seemed a long way from Phippsburg, Maine, where one of the great nineteeth-century shipbuilders had designed and built the St. Mary: U.S. No. 116317.

Late that afternoon we heard the comforting roar of the Beaver float plane as we tramped the final 100 yards to the agreed beach rendezvous. Ian Campbell was on time and so were we. We clambered aboard, strapped in, and Ian took off across the Lagoon, then circled around the grave of that mighty ship while we scrambled to take photographs.

That evening, shipwright Hilton Matthews and I babbled endlessly about what we had seen, while historian Norman Brouwer, sat silent, deep in thought. Without Norman, we would not have been there: It was he who had arranged for the National Endowment for the Humanities to finance our trip to the Falklands, in order to examine remnants of nineteenth-century American wooden ships (see SH 4 and 7). The wreck we had just visited was the latest and largest of the three vessels we were to survey. She was an example of the typical big wooden square riggers built "Down East" for the California trade.

The sheet massiveness of the timbers, and the sophisticated techniques used in building her got through to each one of

us. Although we could reel off St. Mary's dimensions: 242 feet long, beam 42 feet, depth 18, nothing had prepared us for the reality of the ship herself, considered as a wooden structure.

The wonder of wooden sailing ships has much to do with the achievement of the men who built them. Knowing that such ships were constructed almost entirely with hand labor, by individuals with a dream and the sure knowledge of a thousand years of artisan tradition, they become more wonderous still.

Who were these giants? One of them was Lauchlan McKay, the great Donald's brother. Lauchlan was a shipmaster as well, and a literate engineer: almost the only one of the great 19th century American master builders who described his craft in print. Another was C. V. Minott. Almost eleven months to the day after visiting the wreck of the St. Mary on that lonely beach, I was sitting in C. V. Minott's parlour, fondling his dog-eared copy of Lauchlan McKay's Practical Shipbuilder, and discussing the St. Mary with his grand-daughter, Mrs. Ida Minott Haggett.

Mrs. Haggett lives in the same house that Charles Minott moved into in 1853.

Minott's career in shipbuilding began at the age of 19 when he obtained work as carpenter in the Levi Houghton shipyard. Four years later he moved to Georgetown to work in the yard of General Joseph Berry. There he was promoted to master builder in 1850. But it was here in Phippsburg Center that he established his own yard where he labored until his death in 1903, launching a total of 34 ships in his very full lifetime.

An historian in her own right (she majored in history at the University of Maine), Mrs. Haggett immediately

Courtesy Ida Mino// Hagge//

understood our interest in the Minott archives. In an article in Down East she had quoted at length from correspondence between her father, C.V. Minott Jr., and her aunts, Abbie and Alice, in the Fall of 1890; from Captain Carver's correspondence with C. V. Minott before the ship was built, and Captain Carver's last letter to his wife.

But the Minott papers contained far more than the poignant story of the loss of the ship, so ably 'told by Mrs. Haggett. Here were the bills and receipts, a complete accounting of her stay in South Street-from the three dollars charged for running her mooring lines ashore, the money paid the pilot , to the items of clothing in the Captain's slop chest. As we shuffled through these papers, the St. Mary and Captain Carver came alive in our minds. What follows is a reconstruction of the short life of the St. Mary based on these documents.

The keel of the St. Mary, over 200 feet of solid white oak, was laid down in the Fall of 1889. The event was greeted with enthusiasm in both the counting houses and the homes of shipwrights as the shipbuilding business had languished in preceeding years. Competition from foreign-built steel ships worried the wooden shipbuilders on the Kennebec, and the rapid development of steam propulsion seemed to presage the early death of large wooden sailing vessels. In that very year, the first steam engine built in Maine was being bolted together at the new Bath Iron works, a few miles up the river. Charles Minott was taking a calculated risk in building such a large ship. Perhaps this led him to seek a master for her who would take part in that risk. Early correspondence between Minott and Captain Jesse T. Carver discussed Carver's financial involvement. He agreed to become Y4 owner, as well as master, and the deal was consummated when Carver sent a check for $12,000 in partial payment on January 13, 1890.

8

The St. Mary smoked down the ways on March 20, 1890, taking the gentle waters of the Kennebec River without mishap. "The launch was a beauty," declared a writer for the Bath Daily Times. Letters of congratulation flowed through the Phippsburg post office along with others soliciting insurance, berths on the ship , and the job of towing her to New York.

Captain Carver arrived in Phippsburg in the second week of April. He brought with him his steward, Mr. Clark, and began preparing the vessel for tow to New York . On April 24, Carver and Minott completed legal arrangements for financing the Captain's share in the ship . A mortgage bearing that date showsthat the Captain agreed to pay Minott $10,000 within eight months. He was apparently gambling his life savings against the earnings of the ship .

Other names on that mortgage give clues to the financing of large sailing ships. Minott took a l 9/64ths interest in the ship and gave his two daughters and his son I /64th each. Sister Alice seemed particularly attached to the St. Mary.

After her loss she was to write, " I feel terribly for I was proud of my small corner in that ship."

Next to Minott, Captain Carver was the largest shareholder with a quarter interest. The firm of James Elwell and Co., 47 South Street, bought into the ship with 8/ 64ths, and various members of the Sutton Family owned a total of 10/ 64ths. The firm of Sutton and Co., acted as broker for the St. Mary while she was in New York, and on May 16th a contingent of Suttons trooped aboard to examine their new ship. Capt. Carver wrote of this visit to Minott: "All the younger Suttons have been here to look at the ship. Even the one in far off California is here and all of them seem pleased with their investment." Other than the Minott family, the only other Maine owner was William Clifford of Bath with a l / 64th. Mr. Clifford, a

sailmaker, probably took part of his fee in shares in the ship as was the custom of the day.

The St. Mary left under tow for New York on April 28, arriving there after an uneventful voyage on May 3. The file folder containing the May documents bulges at its seams. Here are the letters from Carver to Minott, individual receipts bearing Carver's signature, telegrams, insurance policies and other of Minott's personal correspondence.

The sights, sounds and smells of South Street come alive while reading these faded pages. You can almost see the toing hawser stretch taut as the tug America Standard, one of the Dodge and Sons fleet, eases the big downeaster up the East River and into her mooring at pier 18 . A small boat puts out with the mooring lines and the ship is laid alongside the pier. Two day later Carver pays off the boatman, Thomas Bresnan .

The handwritten receipt for $3 is part of the Haggett collection.

These were busy days for Captain Carver and his skeleton crew. The ballast had to be offloaded, cargo assigned and stowed aboard, and the ship victualed and fitted out for her long voyage to San Francisco. Here is a bill for 50 pipes from D.E. Rose and Co., 18 Fulton Street. These will go into the Captain's slop chest to be sold to the sailors while at sea. Another bill from Bennet Coffee Mills for tea underlines the social distance between after cabin and foc'sle. Forty packets of crew tea cost $7.60, while 20 packets of cabin tea sold for $6.00. While these details were being attended to, probably by the steward, Captain Carver busied himself with supervising the loading, ordering the major chandlery items, and sounding the ship to determine how well her seams were closing. On May 10th, Carver makes his first report to Minott : "We have 500 tons of rails in and a few other things. Ballast not all out."

On May 14th, Carver checks the ac-

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

..,

' ,~

-

THE ST. MARY

At left, Phippsburg, Maine in the 1890s, with Mino/l's yard on the left.

Upper right, the St. Mary al Pier 19.

Perhaps the man in shirtsleeves is walking toward her gangway. Courtesy Bath Marine Museum.

Lower right, the /ug's bill for lowing the St. Mary downriver and to sea. Courtesy Ida Minott Haggett.

counting for major chandlery items shipped aboard by Baker and Carver, 29 South Street. The bill comes to $314.90 and it covers 68 items. This is a precious document. It details the complex logistics required to fit out a large sailing ship, and it outlines the years of experience that the captain draws upon to make out his shopping list. Fishline, matches, putty, nails, red lead, blueing, machine oil and folding chairs for sunny days on the quarter deck-all thes~ and more are checked off and signed for by Carver. Meanwhile the firm of James Elwell, which holds shares in the ship, is busy handling the ship's business as agents for Minott. A letter of May 15 reports: "St. Mary is progressing very well in getting in her heavy cargo." But the Captain is of another opinion, on the 16th he writes to Minott: "We had a bad day yesterday and only went down five inches. Now there is no more cargo to be seen anywhere. Later in the day there may be a change." That same day the wharf must have rattled with the sound of shod hoofs as dray horses, pulling Moquin and Offerman carts, drew up to the ship with six loads of coal. The receipts account for ten tons.

The ship is taking on water. Carver is disturbed. On the 20th he reports, ''we are taking some more water just this time as much as when we came in. Sometimes I wish we had an engine." This subject has long been on the Captain's mind. The first letter he wrote to Minott, dated October first, 1889, advises the builder to put aboard a modern pump.

But the Captain's mind is also occupied by personal matters, by the large debt that he has shouldered to finance his quarter share in the ship. As the loading goes on, he begins to hedge his bets by selling a l / 64th interest to J.G .

Levensaler, a personal and business friend in San Francisco. Two days later another I / 64th goes to his brother-inlaw, the Searsport Captain Daniel

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

_. :\ ew Y o rk.

'i...1 )lie'

/

~o ~neaIJ]eP to L- /

I ....

''

~~

'

ri,t'/ruu av

.;--.-u- /"/ , - ,{

.. /

.,.J

/7-.f<: 189

l\:\D 0 11¡:\ERS,

/UU l<'"'c

F o r T ow in (.( fro m

/J/051

-;{LL l

r,

and Owner$, ~r.

0

rrt-t

/lji:r~ Nichols of the famous Wandering Jew. Carver's wife is Nichols' half-sister. The Searsport Captains are a tight lot, their ties of kinship and friendship are interlaced with small business deals on the side. The documents speak to us not only of the technical details of running a big full-rigged ship, but of the personal relationships that tie the seafaring community together. They also show that Captain Carver realized a thirteen percent profit on the deal!

On the 23rd, Carver reports the ship down to 21.6 on her marks and estimates that onloading will be completed by the following Tuesday. But he is still concerned about water in the ship's bilges.

The following day he again advises Minott to purchase a new pump: " I can get an engine for 272 dollars", he writes, "and for fitting up it will cost $30 or more." But time is running out if this is to be done. "We can't wait if we are to do this," the Captain adds. Minott did not receive this letter as he was already on his way to New York to see his new ship off.

Now the departure day is drawing near and the tempo of activity on the wharfside picks up. The ship's chronometer, a gift of James Sutton, is brought aboard and rated. The bill for $3 from Michael Rupp and Co., rests in the Haggett archives. Fresh stores are brought aboard and stowed-beef, mut-

C1pt.\

ton, eggs, veal, milk, chicken-testifying to the reputation for good food earned by the Maine Downeasters. On the 29th the pier comes alive as the crew arrives. Loaded down with their heavy seabags, they cross the gangway and head for the foc'sle. Not far behind is T.F. Alexander with his bill for shipping the crew. It comes to over $1,000.

It is the 29th of May, nighttime. We can only wonder what thoughts occupy Carver's mind as he readies his new ship for sea. Did he have a foreboding of the disaster that was to occur on a calm, ¡moonlit night in waters far to the south?

We shall never know. The only hint that we have is a letter to Minott written nine days earlier. He is discussing the choice of a stevedoring firm in San Francisco: "I have just had a letter from Levensaler, the stevedore in San Francisco. He wishes to take a piece of St. Mary and in case I should die would like you to give him the work this year."

On May 30th the ship clears Pier 19 and takes to the stream. Minott is certainly on the pier, watching the big ship ease down river astern of the America Standard. The Elwells and the Suttons have probably taken time from their busy day to stand beside him.

Off Sandy Hook, the big ship slips her cable and Carver signs the chit as the tug lays alongside. It is the last document in the collection that bears his signature. w

9

''Quite a Curiosity',.

The Project to Recover the U .S.S. Monitor

By Robert E. Sheridan, President Monitor Research and Recovery Foundation

Early in the Civil War, Sergeant James Joseph McCauley, my wife's great grandfather, was aboard a troop ferry with the Pennsylvania Drafted Militia enroute to Virginia. The ferry passed Hampton Roads on December 9, 1862, and Sergeant McCauley noted in his diary: "Passed Hampton Roads a small town the Rebels had burned a short time previous . We passed the wreck of the Cumberland that the Rebel boat Merrimac had sunk a short time before.

Passed several large iron clad gunboats.

Also, the little Monitor. She is quite a curiosity."

Sergeant McClauley's remarks reflected the common view of this ironclad vessel, famous even then.

Perceived as "little," the 2-gun Monitor on March 9, 1862 had defeated the JO-gun Confederate "monster," C.S.S. Virginia (Merrimac), which had so fiercely threatened the North. Extreme pride in this achievement was felt by Northerners. To the people of that day, the Monitor was indeed "curious." So

10

Above, looking forward on the Monitor's deck, the open decklight covers can be seen just beyond the turret. Note the dents on the turret from shots fired by the C.S.S. Virginia (Merrimac). At right, the decklight cover taken from the wreck site.

unconventional in design, unlike all other war vessels before, and so modernin concept with the movable-battery turret, she proved to be the prototype for the modern battleship.

Even after the sinking of the Monitor on December 31, 1862 in a night gale south of Cape Hatteras, curiosity about the ship persisted. The exact location of the sinking was not known, and the wreck had never been discovered. Had the Monitor remained afloat after disappearing in the night darkness? Had she drifted far north in the Gulf Stream currents before sinking?

In the past, some erroneous "discoveries" of the wreck had been reported. In the early 1950s she was reported found north of Cape Hatteras, partially buried in the sand; another report in the 50s had her located near the point of her last sighting south of the Cape. The latter report was based on a sonar contact by the Navy. In 1973 the State of North Carolina and the U. S. Naval Academy conducted a search

close to shore north of Cape Hatteras based on the first erroneous discovery.

It was in that same year, 1973, that we finally launched a concerted effort to satisfy our curiosity about the Monitor by using modern oceanographic technology to search the offshore area south of Cape Hatteras.

We Find the Ship

I first "saw" the Monitor the afternoon of August 27, 1973 during our geophysical search for the wreck aboard R/ V Eastwood, Duke University's research vessel. Along with my coinvestigators, Dr. Harold Edgerton of M.I.T., John Newton then of Duke University, and Gordon Watts of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History, we had about eight days to search an area of 5 by 15 miles where we thought the wreck should be. We systematically profiled this area until some sonar or magnetic contact was made. Even with our sophisticated sidescan sensors and magnetometers, this

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

search had all the potential of looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack, especially with the time available. But we were committed to try our best.

On that August day, I was Watch Chief monitoring and interpreting the various recorders in the labs about the ship. Student watch standers, with little interpretive experience but great enthusiasm, stared at the geophysical recorders. Suddenly the late Fred Kelly, Duke's liason officer, called me to an adjacent lab where the side-looking search-sonar record was displaying an obscure black patch from a contact off the ship's beam. To the student watch stander this patch had gone unnoticed for a few minutes, but in passing, Fred recognized its significance. It was one of the best contacts we had seen on the cruise. Immediately I called Tom Stout, the mate on bridge watch, and gave him the wreck's location, ordering him to steer a reciprocal course 600 feet to starboard in hopes of passing directly over it. Tom's excellent navigation quickly returned us over the wreck, which vertical sonar then revealed to be just the right height for the Monitor. We anchored over the wreck. Within a few hours, we had lowered still and underwater TV cameras to photograph our find.

The resulting partial photographic coverage taken during the last few days of the cruise left much to be desired.

Grappling operations failed to recover any artifacts. We knew what we had found, but would the world recognize it after so many false "finds"? We knew then that more definitive data would be needed.

As the discovery cruise ended, we pulled our marker buoys leaving the wreck to be once again hidden in 220 feet of water. Fortunately, we had photographed the distinctive turret, 20 feet in diameter, which lay half exposed

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

under the port quarter of the overturned main deck of the vessel. The fact that the Monitor had capized upon sinking complicated the appearance of the wreck and caused some confusion, but measurements of the photos of the turret's dimensions and other key photographs eventually proved our discovery of the U.S.S. Monitor. We reported the discovery in January 1974.

Iron from the Deep To obtain .c omplete photographic coverage and to recover an artifact uniquely identifiable as part of the Monitor, a joint expedition with the Navy was arranged. A cruise aboard the unique search and recovery vessel Alcoa Seaprobe was made to the wreck site in April of 1974 under the command of Commander Colin Jones. A rigidly con-

trolled "pod" scanned the wreck and made hundred of still photos of small areas of the wreck. Several months would be needed to construct a photomosaic of these many ph.otographs, like piecing together of a giant jig-saw puzzle.

The controllable "gripper" of the Alcoa Seaprobe was to be lowered to recover a piece of iron. However, because of uncertainty that this wreck was indeed the Monitor, at least in the mind of Commander Jones, the recovery of artifacts was skipped and the remainder of the Seaprobe cruise was devoted to searching for other possible wrecks which the Navy though might just as well be the Monitor. Needless to say, this disappointed Newton, who represented the original discoverers on this cruise.

Drawings of the Monitor, designed by John Ericsson and built at New York in 1861.

Below, the photomosaic of the wreck taken by the Alcoa Seaprobe in April 1974.

11

MONITOR

Fortunately, I was using Eastward on a geophysical survey cruise off Delaware in May 1974. I coordinated plans over Eastward's radio with John Newton to attempt a single dredging station around the Monitor wreck during our return leg to Beaufort, North Carolina. Only about four hours of ship's time could be afforded for this project.

After about 25 minutes of dragging the dredge through the sand around the wreck, we recovered the dredge which held one circular piece of iron and several small spall-flake rust fragments.

These were thoroughly encrusted and clearly loose pieces buried in the sand and shell hash with which they were collected . After cleaning, the circular piece was found to be an intact decklight cover, identifiable as the Monitor's from original photographs and plans of the vessel. The covers, made of two-inch thick circular plates IO inches in diameter held together with four bolts, were used to fit over thick glass decklights in the ceilings of the staterooms.

The decklights provided reading light during the day, but the iron covers were used at night to prevent light from escaping and, of course, during battle.

When installed, the covers fit flush with the main deck to eliminate walking hazards.

The decklight cover is reasonably well preserved with only about half an inch of corrosion on the outer surface. Apparently the encrustation of CaC03 cemented sediments had sealed the piece and helped eliminate further corrosion.

If this process has occurred on the rest of the Monitor, the iron might be well enough preserved for a possible restoration.

The decklight cover, uniquely identifiable as part of the Monitor, together with the Navy photomosaic which became available in December 1974, gave us the "ironclad" proof we needed that the Monitor had at last been found .

The Foundation is Set Up On January 30, 1975, the U.S.S. Monitor wreck site was established as the United States' first Marine Sanctuary. Access to the site is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with advice from the Department of Parks, the U.S. Navy, the Smithsonian Institution, the Advisory Council on Preservation of Historic Places, and the North Carolina Division of Archives and History.

In 1975, John Newton, Harold Edgerton and I decided to continue our studies

12

of the wreck hoping to increase the scientific data base for future decisions about the Monitor. Early in that year, we proposed several projects to NOAA .

Generally the reaction of the government agencies involved ¡reflected their confusion. They could not approve our plans because they could not see how they fit into a long-range plan for the Monitor, but since no government agency had yet developed such a long-range plan, we were trapped in a "Catch 22" situation .

To overcome such problems and to strengthen our influence in such a confused situation, we decided to unite the efforts of the academic people interested in the Monitor. So the Monitor Research and Recovery Foundation was incorporated in October 1975 . This nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation is dedicated to education and research with its ultimate goal being the recovery o'f the Monitor, if possible. We were joined as founders by Dr. William Still, a noted Civil War maritime historian, and Carl Clausen of the American Institute of Nautical Archaeology. Thus our board of trustees, with John Newton as executive director, included specialists in history, archaeolgy, oceanography, and engineering, encompassing all the disciplines needed to work on this challenging project.

Only such a foundation could bring proper motives and expertise to bear on the problem, independent of the government bureaucracies. The Foundation provides a means for private and academic interests to express themselves, a means to stimulate lethargic government agencies, and a means to inform the American public about the possibilities of actually recovering this famous ship. As a foundation, we were then able, in January 1976, to present our own long-range Monitor plan to the government agencies involved, and to defend our proposals for research within this framework.

The long-range plan of the Monitor Research and Recovery Foundation involves a six-phased effort. Phase I, discovery and identification, is completed. Phase II, charting the site and environmental studies, is begun. Loose fittings and any other parts of the ship that may have broken loose as the Monitor capsized and sank must be located. Then the type of currents in the vicinity and the nature of the sediment on which the vessel is resting must be studied before determining the best type of recovery.

Phase III would be on-site testing of

the wreck for strength and extent of corrosion. Phase IV is the actual recovery, moving the wreck to a shoreside site.

Phase V is preservation and, if possible, viewing by the public. In Phase VI , reconstruction and display, a major national monument and museum would be developed .

As part of Phase II, my marine geophysics students and I carried out a magnetometer and accoustic sub-bottom profile survey of the Monitor site in June of 1976. This project aboard R/ V Eastward was the first research permitted at the site by NOAA since its sanctuary designation in 1975. This survey proved that most of the large iron fragments were within 300 feet of the main hulk, which sits on an erosional terrace underlain by older geological sediments.

On a more recent cruise aboard R/ V Cape Henlopen of the University of Delaware in April of 1977, we recovered a core of these older geological sediments, which engineering tests proved could be penetrated by excavations devices. Also, near-bottom current measurements revealed low velocities and conditions suitable for future diving projects as part of Phase II I. These environmental studies provide encouraging data. One plan submitted to the foundation by the Global Marine Development Corporation involves lifting the Monitor intact with the Glomar Explorer, the most sophisticated lifting vessel in the world . Global Marine designed and operated the Explorer for the late Howard Hughes in the recovery of a Russian submarine for the CIA .

Global Marine engineers believe it is feasible to lift from below the sea floor and the Monitor itself with a specially constructed vehicle whose doors will close beneath the wreck. Calculations of sediments and wreck weights and pullout forces indicate a lift of 5 to 8 million pounds, well within the 14 millionpound hoist capability of the Explorer.

The vehicle and enclosed Monitor will be raised to the flooded sea-well of the Explorer and kept in the water as protection against further corrosion . Then the Glomar Explorer will proceed to a nearshore site to deposit its prize within the vehicle. Upon dismantling from the top, the vehicle could become a semipermanent, shallow-water housing of the Monitor for Phase V. At this stage the Monitor would be a very visible historic artifact. Her preservation and eventual restoration would, we believe, enlist widespread public support. .t

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

THE NAVAL LYCEUM

By Wm. Ray Heitzmann

"A rifle ball from the field of Waterloo."

"A box of skins of birds from the Pacific."

"Two splendid collections of lavas, the one from Mount Vesuvius, the other from Mount Etna."

"A case of insects from Brazil. " "A portion of the water of Lake Erie used during the grand celebration on the day of the opening of Erie Canal."

Such were some of the unique objects collected and housed in the Naval Lyceum located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Born in 1833 of a desire "to elevate and adorn the character of our Navy", through "the zealous pursuit of knowledge," the organization did more than collect artifacts. It actively pursued its goals through widespread discussion and advocacy of reform.

Characterized by inactivity, the Navy of the 1830s was overdue for reform . It had become a backwater in a nation concerned with internal affairs and improvements . Out of these naval doldrums and the prevailing public apathy rose a group of naval officers, desiring self-improvement and reform within their profession; they founded the Naval Lyceum.

They patterned their effort on an existing national movement. Originated by the Connecticut Yankee Jo s iah Holbrook, the Lyceum movement began _in the 1820s with a commitment to the "universal diffusion of knowledge."

The specific purposes as stated in an article by Holbrook reflect the concerns of a society striving for self-improvement: /) The improvement of conversation. 2) Directing (of) amusements. 3) Saving of expense. 4) Calling into use neglected libraries, and giving occasion for establishing new ones. 5) Providing a seminary for teachers. 6) Increasing the advantages and raising the character of district schools. 7) Compiling of town histories. 8) Town maps. 9) Stale collection of minerals.

Tllf;

NAVAL MAG AZINE. J \;\l \ ll.,,

1 .. :rn.

\-0 1,. I.

NO. I .

The enthusiasm of Holbrook rubbed off on the American people. Hundreds of lyceums sprang up around the country. At the town, country, and state levels, groups affiliated with the movement, as well as special interest groups similar to the Naval Lyceum.

Holbrook's idea existed actively until the Civil War, when the concern with survival dissipated the energy of the movement. Even in New England, the hub of the lyceum , it existed as a shell of its former self-in most cases only on paper.

Optimism in Brooklyn

The small group of men who founded the Naval Lyceum quickly received the official endorsement of the Navy Department. Rooms in one of the public buildings at the Brooklyn Navy Yard were made availab le. With Commodore Charles G. Ridgely and Matthew Perry at the helm as the first president and vice-president, the group could proudly point to "a library of a most valuable and comprehensive character, including a liberal supply of books strictly professional." Fortified with a commitment to enlarge the "boundaries of nautical and geographic science" the group rapidly filled the museum with the rare and exotic.

The extension of honorary membership served to fill the ranks with prominent associate members . Authors of the caliber of Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper, presidents and former presidents, joined Nathaniel Bowditch, Prince Charles Bonaparte and Commodore David Porter in promoting the causes of the organization.

The Naval Magazine

The zeal of the founders resulted in the launching in January 1836 of a periodical entitled The Naval Magazine.

In the inaugural copy, Rev . C.S. Stewart, the editor, solicited articles "on all subjects, directly or collaterally, connected with the elucidation of nautical and general science, and general knowledge. '' The articles in the first and succeeding issues varied greatly. Topics ranged from the scientific-"Essay on Astronomy," "Mineral Wealth of the United States" -through travel-" Journal from Vienna to Belgrade," "Exploring Expedition to the South Seas"-to history-'' History of Navigation .''

"The Rambles of Christopher Grum" existed as a continuing fictiona lized serial.

In March 1936 an article of particular

significance and importance appeared.

Entitled "Naval Education," it argued for a naval college on the basis of economy, inconsistency of shipboard instruction, officer interest in education and public support for naval education.

The Naval Academy (founded in 1845) was one of the reforms the society successfully argued for in several issues of the magazine.

The publication called attention to the injustice within the service of slow and uncertain promotion, serving "to smother the hope and ambition" of junior officers. One essay stated "we have launched ships that would be a disgrace to the Chinese Navy" and proceeded to argue for ship standardization and improvement. Other articles encouraged the improvement of the quality of enlisted personnel in the study of meteorology .

The Naval Magazine ceased publication in November 1837, after just under two years, because of financial problems. However, the Lyceum carried on without its journal. As late as 1865, Stephen B. Luce, founder of the Naval War College, wrote "I will send also some oyster shell from the bottom of one of our blockaders" and "a full rigged (Confederate) torpedo which was picked up drifting out of Charleston ."

The Naval Lyceum made an important contribution to the in-service education of naval officers. It provided a forum, "both oral and written" for the discussion of issues and problems pertinent to Navy life, collected artifacts, maintained library facilities and successfully argued for reforms-abolition of the flogging system, founding of the Naval Academy, rationalization of ship design.

It remained for the Naval Institute, founded in 1873, to pick up the brilliant initatives launched so ambitiously by the Lyceum . The Naval Institute, headquartered at Annopolis, Md ., is dedicated to advancing "professional , literary and scientific knowledge in the Navy." Its famous Proceedings is a worthy successor to the Naval Magazine.

The surviving artifacts and manuscripts of the Naval Lyceum are housed nearby today in Annapolis, at the Naval Academy Museum. .t

DR. HEITZMAN of Villanova University contributes articles to nautical and education journals including the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, and is the author of two booklets for young people, "America's Maritime Heritage" and "Energy Education. " 13

SHIP NOTES

The Hamilton Is Refloated The 350-foot paddlewheel steam Alexander Hamilton was acquired this summer by Sulko Pier Enterprises. With the cooperation of the Steamer Alexander Hamilton Society and the National Society, they plan to install her as a mixed cultural and commercial center on the Poughkeepsie waterfront. Federal support for this undertaking has been approved at the Washington level , but there has been difficulty and delay in working out arrangements in Poughkeepsie . Meanwhile, the owners have pressed ahead with work to save the historical steamer. After fitting 17 steel patches in her hull , she was refloated o n a chilly September evening from the New Jersey sandbank where she had lain for the past few years. Below is Ted Miles's account of this moment.

The Steamer Alexander Hamilton is again a sea creature after lying on a sand bar in Atlantic Highlands , New Jersey . I arrived on the site at 5: 30 P. M. on September 15 . She was as I had last seen her, hard aground and li sting to port.

There were changes, however. Two oil trucks were parked on the wharf alongside. They had been used to contain the fuel and bilge water that had until recently been flowing around the bilges of this graceful old steamer.

Upon closer inspection new plates could be seen welded in place. And I was told there were many more underwater.

In fact, when she was afloat, there was no need for the bilge pump that was ready and waiting.

Now the long wait began. High tide was at 10 P.M. We waited and talked to the other people assembled to wish the Alexander Hamilton a safe journey.

There was considerable skepticism in some. This was the third try to get her free. Mr. Henry Gehlaus, former owner of a similar excursion steamer, the City of Keansburg, was on hand . He had faith in the strength in the old plates riveted together in 1923 . His former charge too is waiting a suitable home.

She at least is still afloat at City Island, New York.

As the tide was still risi ng, a 2000-h.p. tugboat tied on to the stern and took a strain. Her wake, it was hoped, would help break her loose from the sand. A small workboat tied on at the bow.

There was just enough water to float her. She had a crucial part to play.

14

Photos, William Wander

At 9:30 we went aboard. I hoped I would not leave by the same ga ngwa y an hour hence .

Most of the fifty or so people on shore were staying, even thou gh it was getting late and there was a chill in the air.

The boat seemed to bump a bit a few minutes before 10:00. The tug really started to pour on the steam and her smaller sister put out all her power. The bow started to slide to one side but still no movement toward deep water.

Among the people on board the tension was immense. The tide was high slack, the tug pulling, the workboat was pushing and still no movement toward deep water. Then-sh e moved a few feet, another few, and stopped again.

More fishtailing of the bow freed her again. This time she slowly eased on down the slip. After another 60 feet she hit another sand bar.

I figured we had had it now. Time was

slipping away and we were stuck again.

The slack time was almost over, soo n the tide would be on the way back out. I was aware of the tension among those on board. You could feel everyone lea ning toward deep water trying to help the ship win her freedom.

At last, at 10:15, with . more shoving from the small tug, and the large one at the stern swingi ng from side to side, she came free . As she did the last of the list disappeared and we slowly glided out into deep water. Another tug replaced the sma-ll one at the bow . Her name, the Last Chance, seemed to be most appropriate. We towed across the bay and tied up at a naval pier for the night.

Plans are still being formulated, but it ¡seems likely she will be going to a sh ipyard to have her bottom cleaned and painted. And after that, back up the Hudson River where she ran for so many years.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

The Forecastle Head

By Ted Miles Assistant Curator

The Wander Bird Revived The old German pilot schooner Wander Bird, launched in 1879 as the Wandervoge/, for service at the entrance to the River Elbe, has lain in a mud berth in Sauselito since she came home from her last ocean voyage under Warwick Tompkins in 1941. Tompkins roamed the world in her with young crews who paid for their passage, including one memorable rounding of Cape Horn recorded in his book Fifty South to Fifty South. Irving Johnson and Sterling Hayden served in her crew, Irving meeting his wife Elekta aboard . Now she is being rebuilt to sail again by a dedicated young craftsman, and his

family. Harold Sommer, skipper of a San Francisco Bay tugboat, says he bought her as "a low-cost house on the water." With much of the fundamental work of restoration now accomplished (with many old and new friends of the ship contributing time, money and materials) he adds: "It didn't turn out that way." Traditional gear has been procured from sources as remote as Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, where patterns for windlass castings were found. A marine art show by William Gilkerson was held aboard to benefit the ship in September, and some of his drawings of the vessel are reproduced here.

PS

The Ernestina/Morrissey Campaign The New York City Schoolship John W. Brown, (a Liberty ship moored at Morton Street in Lower Manhattan (SH 6, p.30) is the most recent to contribute to the campaign to return the Ernestina, ex-Effie M. Morrissey to the United States. A sextant has been contributed by the school. With sails from South Street's Peking, blocks from the U.S. Coast Guard Eagle, running rigging from schooners owned by Rick Miller, and other contributions from all over, the United States contribution to the ship has reached in excess of $40,000, including $20,000 from the Endowment for the Humanities. The Cape Verdean contribution may be reckoned at about $75,000, including the gift of the ship herself and extensive repairs to her hull.

Measurable contributions to this campaign thus total something near $120,000, with immeasurable contributions of time and talent by many volunteers working in her cause.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

TALL SAIL A SHIP

KDIBERLY

CRUISES. BOX 5086. ST. THO:.IAS. U.S.V. I. 00001

THE SHIPS FRAMER 113 West 77th Street New York, N. Y. 10024

212-799-5069

We have a new winner in the race to be the most numerous type of museum ship in the United States. Up to now the lightship has had top honors: we have sixteen of them on display around the county. The reason for this, of course, is that lightships became surplus as they were replaced by super buoys and manned towers during the 1960s. The same has now happened with World War II submarines: there are now seventeen on exhibition. The reason for the large number is again the availability of outmoded craft. Since there is so much interest in subs it is a shame that none of the early boats have survived. Rumor has it that there may still be an "S" boat in England somewhere . Anyone going that way?

Over on the other tack, one hears complaints from time to time that small craft are not getting their fair share of attention by the maritime preservation movement. But of some 120 maritime museums in this country, over 30 have small craft. These range from a single whaleboat to dozens of craft at some museums. And you can't just think of maritime museums when looking for small boats. The Adirondack Museum is not a maritime museum. They cover all aspects of life in upstate New York.

They have a fine collection of guide boats, steam and naptha launches, and various other small era ft.

Another point about small craft is that you do not need a museum to preserve them. Individuals can and do preserve small craft of all sizes and descriptions. The one-design racer, Lightning #/, is in private hands. She is still in use and beau ti fully cared for. In fact, few museums could give the boat the time and care it now gets .

Small craft are not everyone's cup of tea; the submarine afficianados like to polish their engines and are not interested in sawing out oak frames. I think the ship saving movement will be richer because we have both kinds of people along on our voyage through time.

Extensive line of OpSail prints & photos. Fine custom framing.

~IL ~

World's largest sailing magazine

Suoscription $10 .50 one yea r 38 Commercial Wharf , Boston , Mass. 02110

-

Maine and Virgin Island Cruises 95' Windjammer -_;!.iiii&...iililliii~~Harvey Gamage, (203) 669-7068

Box SH, 39 Waterside Lane, Clinton, Conn . 06413

15

SAIL TRAINING, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS A "Much Needed" Policy for Historic Preservation is Proposed

Are Sails "Educational Accoutrements"?

Sail training shipowners, meeting in Newport, Rhode Island on September 9, resolved to set up a Shipowners Council as part of the American Sail Training Association. Richard Page, director of the Philadelphia Maritime Museum, which sails the barkentine Gaze/a Primeiro, was elected chairman of the group, which also includes Clearwater, Regina Maris, Unicorn, Westward and other vessels. Problems of insurance, Coast Guard and other Federal regulations that bear hard on sail training operations will be tackled by the group.

Perhaps the most remarkable news brought before the meeting was that the traditionally rigged wooden brig Unicorn, which sports a very full rig including studdingsails, has been licensed by the Coast Guard to carry passengers.

For a moment or two, everyone took seriously the deadpan statement that she had satchel charges wired in to blow the topgallant masts away when the wind went over 30 knots. More serious problems were evident in regulations requiring excessive manning, structural requirements that are not well adapted to small sailing vessels, and onerous insurance rates .

While some concessions can be achieved by treating-and operatingthe vessels as powered vessels with carrying sails as "educational accoutrements," it was agreed that a more basic approach must be developed to get revised law, regulations and insurance rates that recognize that the weli-found sailing ship can be safely operated at sea.

NASOH: Where Sea Historians Gather The North American Society for Oceanic History is an organization of historians who recognize, and are concerned with, the learning of our seafaring. Clark G. Reynolds, SecretaryTreasurer, coordinates its work; William Avery Baker is President and he has this to say of the organization: "There should be ... room in NASOH for many degrees of interest in oceanic history ."

And indeed, those who wish to wade more than ankle deep in our concerns, whether a conference or oceanic history in Bulgaria held last spring, or a note of where you can get a report of underwater and on-land cultural resources in Port San Luis, California, should fork up another $10 to join NASOH. Applications for membership may be sent to Clark G. Reynolds, Humanities, US Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point , New York 11024.

16

The Sea Education Association's Westward took a party from the National Trust to watch in the first race in the defense of the America's Cup off Newport in September.

Photo: Norman Fortier.

National Trust Views Cup Race, Salutes Yacht Club The Executive Committee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, having met at Mystic Seaport on September 12, went on to Newport on the 13th to watch the first race in the 23rd America's Cup Series, accompanied by the Maritime Preservation Committee, spouses and guests.-At dinner ashore, a resolution was presented "heartily commending" the New York Yacht Club for its 126-year contribution to the preservation of the national maritime heritage through the successfu l defense of the Cup. Accepting for the Club, Vice Commodore Henry H . Anderson, Jr., noted: "During the lohg history of the America's Cup, New York Yacht Club members have played a variety of roles in the perpetuation of our maritime traditions, such as serving on the boards of maritime museums and developing sailing at our universities-especially at the service academies where the sport is a key discipline in molding character, instilling self-reliance and developing command responsibility . " In conclusion he pledged the Club's best efforts to see that the Cup stayed in New York-as in the event of course it did.

Congressman John M. Murphy of New York, who plays a leading role in maritime affairs, has introduced a new bill establishing a national historic preservation policy. This would be administered through the Council for Historic Preservation, set up as an executive agency (presently The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation) .

Grants to maritime preservation projects would be made directly by the Council, which would maintain a separate fund for the purpose. Most of the grants would be made directly by the Council or through state governments; 10 percent would be channeled through the National Trust.

"It is imperative," says Congressman Murphy, "that we in the Congress recognize the growing national movement and take the lead in establishing not only a much-needed national historic preservation policy but one that appreciates the value of our rich maritime heritage.''

Copies of the bill may be had from Sue Waldron at the Congressman's office, Suite 2187 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington D.C . 20515, and letters of interest to local congressmen would be welcome. The National Society would appreciate receiving copies of such letters.

MUSEUM NEWS Mystic Seaport. The little (IOI ') fullrigged ship Joseph Conrad, built in 1882 as the Danish sail training ship George Stage, has been unrigged and hauled out on the museum's lift dock. Sailed around the world with a young crew by Alan Villiers in the 1930s, a voyage to which he devoted all the profits of his early writings and a lucky price in grain delivered from Australia in a ship he had shares in, the Conrad is our most historic sai l training ship, and probably the last full-rigger to set studdingsails outside single topsails in the world.

She was the first major ship in Mystic's fleet to get the new treatment, based on the idea that old ships are not brought into museums to die through decay but to live through renewal (see SH 5, "The Living Act"). Ship Preservation Director Donald P . Robinson reports that the old girl needs further renewal, and as usual the results can't be determined until she is hauled and the problems examined. Spars and rigging will be again overhauled this winter, and five new yards will be made in the du-

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

Pont Restoration Shipyard.

Another development in Mystic is the inauguration of "Members' Day" a program of tight-knit tours and courses of exploration open to all members on October 8. A sailsetting demonstration is offered with this note: "You can participate (on deck)."

Long Island Sound. During the Revolution, patriots along the shores of the Sound sallied forth endlessly in fast pulling boats, occasionally armed with light cannon, to cut out coastal shipping, raid livestock, and capture supplies from British encampments. The Darien Historical Society in Connecticut has now built a whaleboat of this type, a 25-footer designed by William Avery Baker, which moves along in lively fashion with six 16-foot ash oars and a spritsail set on a 17-foot mast. Forty volunteers worked on the vessel during

the two years she was a-building: "it's been a people project all the way," says Society member Pat Wall. Huntington in Long Island, inspired by this effort, has built a similar boat, and this summer the two raced each other, Huntington winning the first series. All this has aroused considerable community interest and participation, and an active future is planned for both vessels. The Darien Historical Society, at 45 Old Kings Highway, Darien, Connecticut 06820, is glad to provide information to foment similar uprisings against the tyranny of the gas engine at other places along ¡the coast.

Hudson River. If the Day Line paddlewheel steamer Alexander Hamilton can be brought into Poughkeepsie, plans are to install on her main deck a Museum of Hudson River Navigation (see "Ship Notes'"). She is on the national register of historic places, hence eligible for Federal aid in restoration. So far, not one Federal dollar to our knowledge has flowed to restore an historic ship, and the National Society is working with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to see the channels opened to float this effort. Operating expenses would be met by commercial installations aboard the steamboat.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

The need and opportunity for the proposed museum is very great: in all the length of the Hudson, there is no center on the waterfront where people can come to enter into the river's rich heritage, and where active program could grow out of peoples' interest in that heritage . The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, headquartered in Poughkeepsie, with chapters up and down the river, is deeply interested in this proposal, and one can clearly project that active river program would grow up around the proposed center. It's notable that the museum ships in San Francisco support the sailing of the scow schooner A Ima, and paddle tug Epp!eton Hall (see below), South Street supports the sailing of the Pioneer, Brilliant sails out of Mystic, the Gaze/a out of Philadelphia.

We would expect to see steam launches, perhaps a tug, perhaps a ferry, operate out of the Hamilton center ultimately.

Philadelphia. A new gallery, "Waterway of History: the Bay and River Delaware," has been ope.ned by the Philadelphia Maritime Museum. Photographs up to 12 feet in size, a full-scale reproduction of an eighteenth-century merchant's offices showing items owned

by Stephen Girard, models and artifacts imported in the China trade are embodied in this unified presentation, which covers the sweep of local history from 1609 through the rebuilding of the port over the last thirty years.

The Museum is also an active seafaring organization, and continues to sail the Portguguese Grand Banks barkentine Gaze/a Primeiro of 1882 in regular cruises. This ship, gift of the late William Wicoff Smith, is the oldest as well as the most active of the impressive fleet gathered under various auspices on the Penn's Landing waterfront; an excellent account of her sailing is given in the Spring 1977 issue of Spindrift, available from the Museum at 321 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106.

Another active force on the Philadelphia waterfront is the remarkable Heritage Ship Guild. This volunteer organization is continuing its rebuilding of their oyster schooner Nellie and Mary, has ¡ steamed their lightship Barnegat again this summer (the only one of the

nation's sixteen museum lightships that to our knowledge puts to sea), and this summer accepted the Pilot Boat Baltimore (a 235 foot vessel of elegant

style, built in 1924 as the yacht Rene) as

\..e

"''"41~ y

Heritage Ship Guild

a gift of the Maryland Pilots Association.

The concerns of this dedicated band are reported with gusto, and with much practical discussion of shipbuilding and engine design and maintenance, in their engaging newsletter, the most recent issue of which runs to ten pages (available from Heritage Ship Guild / of the Port of Philadelphia, PO Box 791, Bryn Mawr, Pa. 19010).

Pensacola. The Gloucester fishing schooner Buccaneer sank this summer at her moorings, victim of shipworm around the rudderpost. She had been hauled for repairs, which will be done under the supervision of Maynard Bray of Brooklin, Maine, who now has a career not only in patching up old ships, but in setting up programs to keep them whole and sound.

Buccaneer, built in Essex, Massachusetts in 1909, is the last surviving example of the long-bowed knockabout schooner that represented the ultimate development of the Gloucester smack under sail. She is scheduled to become part of a new part and marine complex now planned for the Pensacola waterfront, which was home port to the last sailing fisheries in this country.

San Francisco. A rendezvous of three historic craft gathered in the river port of Petaluma on August 20-21, as the

..

Photo, Wm. E. Burgess, Jr.

scow schooner Alma, built in 1891, made her annual pilgrimage to the town she traded to in her days of carrying hay and chickens. Besides the Alma, which sails under a volunteer organization from the Maritime Historic Park at the Hyde Street Pier on the north waterfront

17

SAIL TRAINING, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS

Unlike any model boat building ' youveever done!

SLOOP

Much simpler than the traditional wood carving, yet more creatively satisfying to crafts people of all ages. Construction "-__,..__ __, method simulates the ferro-cement or fiberglass building techniques used in modern boatyards!

Replica! Seacraft kits come complete with '----~'--' all the safe and easy to use materials you need*:

of San Francisco, there were the Burma Queen, built in Hamburg, Germany in 1927 as the steam police launch F-iafenpo/izei, from the San Francisco Maritime Museum, and the tug Panama, built in San Francisco in 1911 . Used as a yacht in 1970-72, the Panama sank at her moorings in the latter year (her fifth sinking) and was bought for $1 for service as a working tug owned by the Slackwater Towboat Company. Thus the crews of the Federal Historic Park, the private Museum, and a working tugboat company came together, with mu ch celebration among themselves and the people who flocked to the old river port to join them.

The Eppleton Hall, Tyneside paddletug of 1914, whose steaming by volunteer crew was reported in our last, completed an epic cruise into the Delta, a mystic maze of waterways where lotuseaters keep their houseboats, in July.

She also earned nearly half the cost of her next $5,000 haulout, making a television commercial. By actively engaging hundreds of volunteers, and by carrying a message of history throughout the Bay area, she, like the Alma, of course earns her keep many times over, building new constituencies for the work .

Harry Dring, doughty keeper of the historic Ships of the Federal Maritime Historic Park, reports that the steam sc hoon er Wapama will at last be hauled for interim repairs to her ageing wooden hull. She came to the Hyde Street Pier with 16 inches of hog in her; ultimately she must be rebuilt from keelson up. The National Park Service, with its declared

• Unique American Classic hull construction Detailed metal fittings • Sailmaking and rigging materials • Marine architect drawings • Complete, easy to follow, illustrated instructions (scale V2 ": 1 ' ) ·(glue and painting material s not inc luded)

~PiilC~~WT EACH KIT 19.95 plus postage and sa les tax Send Check or Money Order to : Replica Seacraft Division of American Thread SH1 High Ridge Park Stamford, Conn. 06905 SALES TAX (p lease add if app li cable): GA, KS , MO, SC - 3%; IN , Ml . NC , TX - 4%; TN - 4V2% ; MA, MS. NJ -5 %; CA- 6%;CT, NYS-7 %; NYC -8%.

Postage & Handling (Domestic): Orders up to $20.00 $2.50; $20.0 1·$40.00 - $3.00; Over $40.00 - $3.75.

18

objective of "honoring and carrying out the founding vision" that brought the ships to San Francisco, is deep in plans to set up the fundamental establishment needed for the ships, and needed to capitalize full on the deep learning and fundamental form of recreation that they bring to the city they serve, and indeed to the nation.

Falkland Islands Research Project Earthwatch announces an arc heological research project to gat her data and accurate measurements of historic ships at the "most incredible accessible ship graveya rd in the world." Two teams of vo lunteers will assist in actual on-s ite excavations and archeo logica l research in the Falkland Islands.

There, on these windswept, barren islands off the coast of so uthern Argen-

tina, sailing ships shattered by gales off Cape Horn put in for refuge, and the National Society has been involved in study of the hulk s of these ships, as reported in SH 4, 6, and 7, and in John Smith's booklet "Condemned at Stanley " (available from the National Society for $1.50 postpaid).

Earthwatch is signi ng up contributing vo lunteers to a ugment an expedition financed by the National Endowment for the Humanities, in two parties to go to the Falklands January 19-February 9, and February 19-March 2.

Persons interested in sign ing on for eith er of these two working parties are invited to app ly to Earthwa tch , 10 Juniper Road , Belmont, Massachusetts 02178. Each participant is expected to contribute $850 toward the expenses of the expedit ion and to work on measurement s, artifact recovery and cataloging under the supervision of Norman Brouwer, Ship Historian of South Stree t Seaport Museum, and Peter Throckmorton, marine archeo logist. .t

NAUTICAL CHART KITS in needlepoint 26 Authentic Charts Nantucket , San Francisco, Cape Cod , Bermuda, Miami , etc. $31.50 ppd.

canvas creations Box 84, Arnold, Md . 21012

"We Proudly Serve the people of the working waterfront." - Phil Rando, Prop.

*

Newly Re novated

*

Harborview Rest.

Fulton St. on East River

Brooklyn , N. Y.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

ALOHA KAIULANI

l The National Society was formed, in 1963, around the effort to save the steel bark Kaiulani. She was working at that time as a log barge in the Philippines.

On October 5, 1964, the hulk was presented to the people of the United States by President Macapagal as a gift of the Philippine people. President Johnson, accepting the gift, named the National Society to hold her in trust for the American people, and to see her restored as the last surviving American deepwaterman to carry passengers and freight under sail-the last of the square riggers that built the United States and made the Republic's flag famous at sea.

A bill authorizing $500,000 to accomplish this purpose was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law-but not acted upon by the Maritime Administration, to whom it was committed for execution. Some $100,000 was raised privately to start the work of restoration. That, and more, was spent, leaving the Society $70,000 in debt. The ship, meantime, deteriorated, sank, was raised, sank again and was seized as a menace to navigation and partially scrapped. Charles Wittholz, who writes on her design in the pages that follow, lived in a tent on the beach she lay on, to stop further scrapping until the ship was restored to the American flag.

I am proud to report that the National Society never backed away from this undertaking. Helping hands were found.

The remains of the ship were returned to the United States in 1975. The ship, her story, the records that have gathered round her have much to tell us.

Jn the pages that follow, we begin our accounting of our trusteeship of the sailing ship Kaiulanifor the American people. We begin with reports on her early years, and her uniquely American PS design.

-

~ ¡1

Kaiulani, early in her career as Hawaii packet. Photo: Bernice P. Bishop Museum.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

19

KAIULANI

Part I: The White Packet The origins of the three-masted steel bark Kaiulani are deeply rooted in the life of the Hawaiian princess whose name she bears. Princess Kaiulani died in 1899, the year the ship was launched; ironically, the ship named for the last of a line of Hawaiian kings became in her time the last square-rigged merchantman at sea. It is also ironic that the ship that has kept the name of Kaiulani alive should have been built to carry the commodity that cost her her throne. It was the larger vehicle of the potties of sugar trade that brought together the diverse character of Arthur Sewall, a strongwilled New England shipbuilder, and Princess Victoria Kaiulani, heir apparent to the Hawaiian throne.

The story begins half a century earlier, in 1849, when a German entrepreneur named A. Hackfield arrived in Hawaii.

He was to establish a trading route from Honolulu to San Francisco and Europe, eventually founding the "Hawaiian Line" of packets for which the Kaiulani was built. It was Hackfield who encouraged Europeans to invest money and labor in sugar plantations, causing trade to expand and opening up Hawaii for settlement by foreigners. One of these, an enterprising Scottsman named Archie Cleghorn, married a Hawaiian woman and brought her father, Kalakaua, to power as king of the islands .

Kaiulani-the name means "royal, sacred being" -was the daughter born to this off-islander. She was bright, charming, and willful, an ornament to the Hawaiian court and subject of verses

By E. Victoria Lomaugh

by Robert Louis Stevenson, who knew her well.

At the age of fourteen she left her beloved Hawaii for England to complete her education.

While Kaiulani was growing up, Arthur Sewall was building a kingdom of ships in Bath, Maine. He loved Maine as Kaiulani did Hawaii; he wrote a friend once, "this is the spot in the whole world to live and die in ... that inspires the best thoughts, so essential to carrying us through this journey of life successfully." A tall, imposing man, fond of strong cigars and fast horses, and whose "personal dignity did border on the aristocratic," Sewall was known to the shipbuilding world as the "maritime prince." Together with his brother Edward (who died in 1879) he brought new life to the American wooden squarerigger; his was also the yard that built eleven of the thirteen iron or steel square-riggers launched in America. The first was launched in 1894 and named, appropriately enough, Dirigo-" I lead" . The Kaiulani was the Sewall yard's first commissioned ship, built in 1899 for a . Hackfield & Co., whose agents were Williams, Dimond & Co. of San Francisco. Upon the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii to the United States in 1898, Hackfield had determined to build a vessel superior to any other for his Hawaiian Line of packets. The Sewall yard won the bid and the Kaiulani, a moderate-size vessel of 1570 gross tons, was the result. Considered to be one of the fastest ships of her day, she

was designed to exploit the favorable wind system between San Francisco and the islands . Ultimately, she became the last surviving American-built squarerigger to carry sail.

The year the Dirigo was launched SilW the establishment of the Republic of Hawaii. King Kalakaua had died in 1890, and his sister had taken over the throne. But early in 1893 she was deposed, the monarchy abrogated, and a provisional government created. Kaiulani issued a statement through the London press, which read in part: "I am coming to Washington to plead for my crown, my nation and my flag. Will not the great American people hear me?''

And go to Washington she did, meeting President and Mrs. Grover Cleveland and the cream of Washington society before returning to England to await news of her country's fate.

America was captivated by the tall, graceful, intelligent young woman who, though scarcely out of her teens, argued her cause so well. However, Hawaii's monarchy was doomed; in 1895, an unsuccessful attempt was made to overthrow the newly-formed Republic of Hawaii.

The rebels were captured, and only by relinquishing all claim to the throne was the former queen able to save her people from being put to death. It was an event that ensured the annexation of Hawaii to the United States three years later .

So in 1896 it was as plain Miss Cleghorn that Kaiulani returned quietly to Hawaii. And it was that same year With hats at playful angles in the low winter sun, passengers take their ease on Kaiulani's first voyage lo Hawaii from San Francisco, December, 1900. Below, a prelly passenger in nautical dress takes the Kaiulani 's brass bound, star studded wheel, which can be seen today al National Society headquarters in Brooklyn. Photos courtesy the San Francisco Maritime Museum.

20

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

PRINCESS KAIULANI From her land to mine she goes The island maid, the island rose, Light of heart and bright of face, The daughter of a double race.

Her islands here in southern sun Shall mourn their Kaiulani gone, And I, in her dear banyan shade Look vainly for my little maid.

But our Scots island far away Shall glitter with unwonted day, And cast for once their tempests by To smile in Kaiulani's eye.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

"Written in April," wrote Robert Louis Stevenson, conveying this verse to Kaiulani as she left for England in 1889, " in the April of her age, and at Waikiki wit hin easy wa lk of Kai ulani' s banyan.

When she comes to my land, a nd her father's, and the rain beats upon her window (as I fear it will), let her look at this page; it wi ll be like a weed gat hered and preserved at home; and she will remember her own islands, and the shadow of the mighty tree; and she will hear the peacocks screaming in the dark and the wind blowing in the palms; and she wi ll think of her father sitting there a lone."

Ships are always named for a reason: the reason for our ship' s naming is rendered by a master here.

21

.. .....,.....

..-~---¡

-~~

KAIULANI: THE WHITE PACKET

that Harold Sewall, Arthur's son, was appointed Special Agent of the United States and went to Hawaii. At the opening of the theater season in Waikiki, Kaiulani nodded greeting across the crowded Opera House to the Sewalls in their box. Harold Sewall was not one to forget the nod of a beautiful princess; nor, evidently, was his father, for when the graceful three-masted bark slipped from her supports into the cold Kennebec in 1899 it bore the name Kaiulani.

It was largely through Kaiulani's gracious acceptance of Hawaii's fate and her public attitude of quiet resignation that the transition of governments was accomplished as peacefully as it was . In 1898, the Hawaiian flag was lowered and the American one raised over the islands. The Spanish-American War being used as immediate pretext for the annexation under President McKinley, which the U.S. Congress under President Cleveland had twice refused.

Scarcely eight months later, in March of the same year that the ship named for her was launched, Kaiulani died at the age of twenty-four. While officially she died of inflammatory rheumatism contracted while riding too hard and long in the rain, unofficially, and probably more accurately, she died of a broken heart The Kaiulani carried on her career as a packet ship without incident, carrying general cargo (machinery, canned goods, dairy cows, grain) to Hawaii and returning to San Francisco with raw sugar. She was fitted to carry sixteen passengers at a fare of $40, whereas steamships of the day charged $75.

Records made of the Kaiulani during this halcyon time reveal a happy, well run ship in the american style, spick and span aloft and alow. Her captains, beginning with Captain Dabe!, succeeded by Captain Colly, tended to give the ship a personal touch-from Captain Dabel's hand-painted cabin and personally lettered invitations to tea to Captain Colly's imiginative and thoughtful care for the children who occasionally travelled aboard. the latter is best exemplified by the recollections of Miss Faith Shelhamer, who sailed from Honolulu to San Francisco in 1906 in the company of several other children. Captain Colly watched over their safety, making sure they stayed in the chartroom during rough weather. His crew shared in their care; the cook made cookies and candy, the ship carpenter enlisted them to paint the donkey engine, and the sailors entertained them and played tricks.

22

~

Arthur Sewall, the Maritime Prince, reacted to the American takeover of Hawaii by naming his ship built for the Hawaiian run for the Princess Kaiulani, heiress presumptive to the abolished Hawaiian throne. (Kaiulani never knew this, apparently; she died aged 24 in the the spring of 1899, and her namesake ship was launched in December.) Sewall, candidate for Vice-President of the United Stales on William Jennings Bryan's ticket, was not only a Democrat in rockribbed Republican Maine, he was an individual of strong convictions in many areas. His last four great wooden ships built in the family shipyard in Bath, the famous "river " class, were built after the building of such big wooden square riggers had been virtually abandoned. As he finished the last of them, he began building big steel ships, the first of which, Dirigo, was built with plates imported from England, where the technology was well developed. His graceful three-masted Kaiulani was Iii/le more than half the tonnage of these big four-masters, and her name sounds a wild, lyric note amid those of the Erskine M. Phelps, Arthur Sewall, and other great barks from his ways.

He also named a daughter Kaiulani, and there have been Kaiulanis in the family since: a young Miss Kaiulani Sewall Lee lives in New York today. Photo courtsey San Francisco Maritime Museum.

Occasionally, however, Kaiulani's name did make the news. One such occasion was during a run to Australia for coal (such runs were common for packets in the Hawaiian trade during the off-season when sugar was not harvested). She was the bettor's favorite in a race to San Francisco. Her captain-Colly at that time-firmly believed she could sail around anything afloat, although she ended up with a passage of 83 days, beaten by the big four-masted

bark Daylight, who was twice her size and accomplished the run in 60 days.

However, despite competitive prices, sailing ships couldn't long compete with steamships for speed, and by 1910 the Hawaiian packet ships were edged out of service by the more efficient, if less colorful, steamships. Kaiulani was sold to the Alaska Packers in 1910 to serve as the Star of Finland, so ending her career as America's last square-rigger to carry passengers on schedule under sail.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

KAIULANI

Part II: Design & Construction When one hears that Kaiulani was built

by Sewall's shipyard in Bath, Maine, he naturally assumes that the design and plans for building her were also developed by Sewall's. But when I became the custodian of the Kaiulani plans in I 968, I was surprised to discover that the drawings for her construction were prepared by a Naval Architect named J .A. Hargan, of Brooklyn , N.Y. Through the kindness of the Sewall family of Bath, Maine, and Karl Kortum of San Francisco, who sailed in the bark on her last voyage, we have been able to locate ten of the Kaiulani drawings made

by J .A . Hargan for Sewall. The quality of the drawings is good and are in accordance with good drafting and shipbuilding practice. While the specifictions for Kaiulani indicate that Deck Plan and Spar Plan were to be put aboard. In addition, there may have been other drawings developed which have not turned up as yet. This makes the list of plans as follows: Sheet No .

I 2 3 4 5

Title Midship Section Longitudinal Section Poop & Forecastle Decks Bulkheads Stern Post, Rudder & Rudder Details Line(s) Plan 6 7 Body Plan 8 Displacement Curve 9 Deck Houses & Hatches 10 (Assumed) (Arrangement of After Cabins) II Arrangement of Forward Quarters 12 (Assumed) (Sail Plan) 13 Table of Dimensions (Offsets) Schedule I Steel Shapes Schedule 2 Steel Plates It is not likely that detail drawings were made of individual parts of the rigging, ironwork or deck fittings, since the rigging was generally all done by yard blacksmiths and riggers from a sail plan, and deck fittings were off-the-shelf items from foundries and the yard itself.

In appraising the vessel as a Naval Architect, I will comment on her in terms of hull form, construction, arrangement and rig.

Hull Form: The word "moderation" comes to mind when the proportion of beam to length , draft, and displacement are compared with other vessels of her type and era. Her displacement and cubic capacity are fairly large for carrying a large pay

SEA HISTORY, FALL I977

By Charles Wittholz

load in either weight, or volume, or a combination of both . Freight rates were lower in Kaiulani's time than in the clipper ship era of the 1850s and the long hollow waterlines forward and fine sterns of the wooden clippers are absent from the steel vessels built by Sewall's for practical businessmen. So a vessel like Kaiulani can carry about 30 per cent more cargo than a clipper ship of the same length, beam, and draft. What is lost is the extraordinary speed of the clippers, which set records never broken under sail in all the world's oceans.

With a greater beam and shallower draft than most of her contemporaries, Kaiulani was designed for fast sailing in the fair winds she could expect running downhill to Hawaii and returning northabout to San Francisco.

Kaiulani was given a modest sheer and slight flare to the bow sections, and with her nicely rounded clipper-type stern is quite a handsome vessel.

Construction: The most unusual aspect of the construction, to our eyes today, is the absence of transverse watertight compartments. Today one must build a ship to withstand a specific loading and to be able to survive collision and water flooding the hull between any two bulkheads. This means that today's ship is designed not to exceed a specific draft, and is built with numerous watertight compartments. Not so when Kaiulani was built. There were almost no regula-

tions in existence for limiting draft. This was a matter of the Captain's judgment and local port regulations. Insurance agents and shipping personnel were becoming aware of the disappearance of ships that left port in an overloaded condition!

As for transverse watertight bulkheads; they cost money, made it difficult to load cargo, and weren't required. So if the ship got in a collision or sprung a bad leak, the whole ship could flood and go down like a stone!

Well Kaiulani lived anyway, and it is a tribute to the ability of her builders and the seamanship of her captains and crews that she never had a serious structural failure, collision or stranding.

Kaiulani is built of steel, with transverse framing. She has a IO' 'x 2 Y2 '' bar keel, 5"x 3 Yi" L frames with 4"x 3" L reverse frames on 24" centers. She has an open floor bottom, with floors 24 Yi" deep, covered with 2 Y2 " pitch pine ceiling. Hull plating is of the inand-out arrangement and varies from 7 / 16" to 5/ 8" thick at the heaviest part of the sheerstrake.

Her lower deck runs the full length, and consists of stringer plates and tie plates over IO"x 5 !/.t" T bulb beams on 4'-0" centers, with a 3 Y2 diameter solid bar stanchion under each at the centerline. This is covered with 3"x 8" wood decking.

The main deck is completely plated of Yi'' to 7I 16" thick steel of In-Out type

The Kaiulani puts lo sea. The Sewall's 99th sailing ship stands down the ice-filled Kennebec on her first trip to sea. She will put into New York for further outfilling and then, having carried away her lopgallanls in a gale, will put back to New York again before she finally makes her voyage round Cape Horn to the Pacific. There she will pursue her working life of 63 years, ending as a log barge in the Philippines.

KAIULANI: DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION

and covered with 3 \14" yellow pine planking. The beams are IO"x 5 \14" T bulbs on 4' -0" centers with a 2 \14" diameter stanchion under each beam at the center.

Main deck bulwarks are 5'-0" high of steel with two 3" half round bars at the top edge, and a 3 !12 "x 12" pin rail one foot below, which is swelled out to about 18" in way of the shrouds and belaying pins.

She was built to class *3.3.A. l .1. with Bureau Veritas (1899), which is the French equivalent of the American Bureau of Shipping.

Arrangements: In 1899, accommodations although greatly improved from the previous century, still left much to be desired from today's standpoint.

The men were housed in the forecastle house, in plain upper and lower berths with a wooden table and benches for dining in the middle of the cabin. A few steps forward under the forecastle, was one open urinal and the luxury of two enclosed toilets! No showers or baths for the crew in those days, but who needed it with the whole ocean and plenty of buckets at hand in good weather!

Luxuries were included for the captain, mates and passengers, who had one toilet and one bathtub for only 14 people! In addition, each cabin had a builtin washstand with a stoneware water jug.

In contrast to the meager plumbing facilities, these cabins had the look of luxury. They were built with elegant panelled joinerwork and fitted with polished mahogany furniture, curtains and rugs, and a few touches of polished brass hardware . Measured drawings made for the ship's service in the movie "Souls at Sea" give us full detail of these things.

A study of the plans will show that the cabins occupied precious little space, the below deck areas being devoted entirely to cargo storage, and being essentially a huge void divided by the lower deck.

As befitted a working vessel, the finish outside of the passengers and officers' cabin was quite plain. Painted wood and steel and galvanized iron fittings were the rule.

Rigging: The advantages of steel were obvious by the 1890s, and Kaiulani's rig had one piece steel lower and topmasts, and steel yards for courses and topsails. Only the topgallant masts and topgallant and royal yards were of wood. (These were carried away in a winter gale on her shakedown voyage from New York to

24

PARTICULARS L.O.A. L.B.P. L.W.L. Beam Mid. Depth Mid. Draft, Full Load Freeboard, L.W.L. to Focsle at Bow Free board L. W. L. to Poop at Stern Displacement, Full Load, S. W. L.C.B. Cp, Prism. Coeff.

Midship Sect. Coeff.

CB, Block Coeff.

Displ.-Length Ratio Tons Gross Tons Net Lower Hold Capacity 'Twee n Deck Capacity Rig Sail Area All Square and Fore and Afters Wetted Surface, Full Load S.A ./W.S. S.A ./ Disp 2/ 3 Water Capac ity Document (Original) Official No. Signal Letters (Original) Classifi cation

250'-0" 255'-7" 220' 42 ' -0" 21 '-6" 18' - 10" Fwd. I 19'-2" Aft. 16'-4!1. ..

13'-6 V2" 3,360 Tons 48°/ 0 L.W.L. aft of Stem 0.744 0.950 0.707 316 1,699 1,425 92,700 Cu. Ft. 49,800 Cu. Ft. 3 Mast Bark 25,000 Sq. Ft. 13.600 Sq. Ft. 1.84 1.11 5,200 Gals.

January 16, 1900 161,135 K.P.Q.C. Bureau Veritas (French) to Class *3.3.A.l.I. (1899)

Officers 3 Crew: 10 Seamen, Carpenter, Donkeyman, Cook and Mess Boy 14 Passengers IO

San Francisco, forcing her to return to New York and start again.)

She had double topsails and double topgallants, since the days of the big crews had gone, and smaller more easily handled sails were in order. The spanker was unusual, an Alaska Packers sketch showing her with a leg-o-mutton mizzen, over which was set a ring tail spanker, and a gaff topsail. Available photos show her at one time with leg-o-mutton mizzen set and the ringtail spanker furled but no gaff. At another time a photo shows her with a gaff, but all sail furled.

NOTE: Copies can be ordered, from the author, of thefollowing Kaiulani plans: I. Lines, body plan and construction section.

2. Construction plan, inboard profile and deck framing plan.

3. Arrange111ent of main deck and tops of houses.

4. Sail Plan.

5. Deckfirtings.

6. Boiler, donkey engine, anchor windlass.

7. Deckhouse, hatches, skylights and vents.

8. Construction ofspars.

9. Mast and Yard fittings.

Their cost is $5 each for single copies, $4 each for 5 or 111ore prints, and $3 each for JO or more prints. Write: Charles Wittholz, 315 Lexing1on Drive, Silver Spring, MD20901.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

h:

:,/ 1,\

\.Jl:-....=::::._:.'":..-.-::---_-:::-.-: ::':'- ------- --- -: - .-:-. ---===--·-.:·:.:-:::::.·.::.-.-::.---=-----= :::_-____ :. :.: - .:.· :.::.-:::.:.:.==-=-------==:.~-:;.:::::::.-.-----------=-·--:::.-.---------====:.:.--;.:.·-·-::::-:::::::::·

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

j

.)'

25

KAIULANI: DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION

..... - ...~. ~

~ ~·

.. - -

.....~::::.-

·•a-

~:.~~

.~ -----

l'-ll

-~;:~I .. :'{'?_. f:"4eo '2'-

-

-

'f'

·- -

--

c-

;_···

~

1r7v1-77 / , .... i I

"

I "'I

\

26

' "-... ._____ I'-<.. -----.__ ._____

- ""\-

........._

---.

·"'ti-"""---

"'ll...

v

/

"

v

.

·;;·;,~

/

F I'..

~

;

:::'"~

/

F

"

/

v /

L I II .. _

I

f

J'

I

'.i'

/

•

/

,(/ !. ····- · IJ' // ....

// ....

lO'

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

The lovely Coriolanus, moored at New Bedford immediately after losing her foretopmast en route from Cape Verdes in September 1930.

THE CAPE VERDE PACKET TRADE: PART II

By Michael Platzer Africa Branch, Office of Technical Cooperation, United Nations

This concludes Michael Platzer's record of the Cape Verde packets, last immigrant sailing ships to the United States. These old vessels were sailed by Cape Verdeans from their island homes to New England ports through the mid1960s. Mr. Platzer is volunteer director of the National Society's project to return the Ernestina, ex-Effie M . Morrissey, the last surviving ship in this trade, to the United States.

Teixeira and the Coriolanus Roy Teixeira, owner of the largest and finest Cape Verde packet, the graceful iron bark Coriolanus, came to the United States at age sixteen and worked at lowpaying jobs in the textile mills. After serving in the U .S. Army in France in World War I, Teixeira returned to America determined to save his money and make his mark. In 1920 he bought the schooner Romance for a pittance.

The schooner made three trips to the Cape Verde islands, bringing 40 to 50 cranberry pickers each April and in October returning them to the islands after the harvest. When the Romance was no longer seaworthy, she was junked . Teixeira's next ship was the Thomas Lawrence, soon to be traded for the three-masted schooner Fairhaven.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

In 1929 Teixeira joined with Abilio and Antonio Macedo in acquiring the 300-foot Coriolanus. She was a luxury ship in comparison with the other Cape Verde packets. She carried 200 passengers plus crew . The ship had a paid orchestra aboard as well as a newspaper listing the daily activities. There were constant celebrations; one was the christening of the crew's pet monkey.

Sometime later the monkey fell from a yard in a storm. On another trip two women from Santo Domingo were aboard to sing and entertain the passengers.

When Teixeira married in the United States, of course he decided to take his new bride to his homeland in the Coriolanus. What began as a pleasant voyage was, not without a few challenges. Several days out they ran into a storm during the night. The cargo shifted and the ship would not right itself. Captain Sena was afraid to jettison the trucks and crates on deck on his own authority, so they woke Teixeira who immediately ordered the vehicles and the load on the leeward side thrown over, slowly the ship began to stra ighten up and all were saved . Just a few days out of Sao Vicente, an old man who was going back to retire in the islands died.

A brief ceremony was held for him and he was buried at sea.

The return voyage passed without event. Teixeira had the Coriolanus for several more years. Toward the end, she made a record passage from New Bedford to Santo Antao in 17 Yi days in spite of being becalmed for three days in the doldrums . On the return trip she was struck by a squall which brought down .some of her upper rigging in a tangled heap on deck. Her crew fought to save her, cutting away the broken spars as raging seas swept across her rails. The beautiful ship was still seaworthy, and she limped to New Bedford under shortened canvas. When she anchored at the wharf on September 11th, 1930, her sailing days were over. Her last passage had taken 35 days from Fogo with eight passengers and a crew of 38 men.* Teixeira owned one other large sailing vessel, the Augusta Hilton, which carried lumber from Florida to the Canaries and Cape Verde. She was a four-masted schooner but carried only a few pas*In 1932 she was bought by a Boston shipping man, C. Nelson Rogers, to refi1 as a cruise ship. He failed in this effort, and in 1936 she was scrapped. Sixty years earlier, when she was new, she had won a gold medal for her design.

27

THE CAPE VERDE PACKET TRADE: PART II

sengers. In 1932 Teixeira took his entire family, including his young sons, to Cape Verde. Carlos, the younger son enjoyed the sea voyage and later became a seaman, carrying on the maritime tradition of the family today.

Although Roy Teixeira owned no other sailing vessels he was legal counsel to Henrique Mendes, John Pontes and most of the other Cape Verdean sea captains and shipowners. Whenever they had problems with immigration officials they called on lawyer Teixeira. Thus, for over half a centutry the Teixeira family has figured prominently in the life of Cape Verdean America.

The Mada/an John B. Pontes, a Boston Cape Verdean businessman, and his business associate Fortunato Gomes da Pina decided carrying cargo to Cape Verde could still be profitable, despite the problems of Costa and Teixeira. In November I 946, they bought for $35,000 the former luxury steel yacht lllyria, which had been used for Coast Guard service during World War II and was now consdered surplus. The Cape Verde Packet trade had never been such a fine vessel.

She had been built of steel and teak wood in 1928 in Italy to the specifications of a New York naval architect. She had four double cabins, three bathrooms with shower and tub, a library and sitting room, plus the captain's and crew's quarters; the deckhouse contained the galley and dining saloon. Ponted renamed her Mada/an, and had her rerigged and the partitions ripped out below decks for cargo space.

He hired Captain Oliveira Cruz, a Cape Verdean who had handled a six-masted schooner, to sail her.

The Mada/an left Providence on June 8, 1947 with 20 passengers, including one woman, personal articles, live geese and pigs. It was a calm crossing and it took 74 days before she arrived in Cape Verde. She had a new engine, but Pontes would not allow it to be used-it was too expensive to operate!

The return voyage to Providence was a good deal faster, taking only 39 days from Dakar to Providence, with 20 passengers and five barrels of rope tobacco, her only cargo. After staying in New England for Christmas and New Year, she attempted a winter crossing in January 1948. Five days out of port, the Mada/an ran into the start of a week of gales that drove her 130 miles a day with no sails. Apart from losing three kerosene drums and a barrel of beef which were washed overboard, she came through without damage.

28

The Mada/an was back in Providence on July 27, 1948 with 42 passengers after making a 48-day crossing from Dakar.

In order to have fresh meat during the voyage, a stock pen had been built under the forecastle for four hogs, four cows, and 37 sheep. Every year thereafter¡ the Mada/an returned in July and left in autumn after the cranberry harvest, when many Cape Verdean cranberry pickers would book passage home to visit family and friends. In 1951 the Mada/an carried 48 passengers and was crammed with baggage and cargo. The comfortable conditions aboard the Mada/an had made her a popular ship.

Second Mate John Baptiste, Jr. boasted: "She's the finest ship ever to sail in the trade."

During her 21-day run to Providence in 1953, a passenger and a supercargo died; they were buried at sea . On the trip back to Cape Verde in January 1954 the mate John Brites was washed overboard by a wave; the next wave washed him back aboard, unhurt!

Good fortune indeed smiled on the Mada/an until she was sold to Antonio Bento of Maio who neglected her. In 1955 she broke loose in the harbor of Praia and was driven against the rocks.

The Providence Journal reported in 1957: "Antonio Bento can't or won't spend money for necessary repairs on leaks in her steel hull and on her sprung mast." Sometime later, unattended, she developed a leak and sank.

Henrique Mendes and the Ernestina

The rival of the Mada/an was the Ernestina, a two-masted schooner, owned and operated by Henrique Mendes who had been involved in the Cape Verde trade longer than anyone else. At age 18, he ran away from his home in Fogo and sailed for New Bedford on the schooner Serpa Pinto, arriving on May 2, 1898. In Providence he shoveled coal at 26 cents an hour for several months then decided to ship out on a whaler.

Thirteen dollars for six months proved to be too little money for Mendes. He left whaling and alternately worked as a deckhand aboard coastal schooners, took odd jobs ashore, kept a store in Wareham, or picked cranberries. People thought "he lived to save his money."

After five years in the United States he made an agreement with a cranberry bog owner to bring forty contract workers from Cape Verde and was advanced the rest of the money needed to purchase his first vessel. Mendes would go on to own thirty different vessels in succession.

These ships were all old and

dilapidated. Several were lost in the Atlantic: the William a. Grosier, 1914; Ernest T. Lee, 1919; Charles L. Jeffrey, 1927; and the Frank Bernard, 1935.

Each time a vessel sunk Captain Mendes and his crew and passengers were rescued by passing steamers . Mendes would then go back to work ashore to save money for another vessel. He once bought the old barkentine Savoya for $8,000 in Baltimore and sold her a few years later for 15 ,000. While he had her, he said, "She carry plenty passengers, make plenty money."

World War II halted the Cape Verde packet trade. As soon as the war was over, Henrique bought the famous Arctic exploration ship Effie M. Morrissey, which had sunk in Flushing, New York, the old schooner was raised and sold to Henrique's daughter-in-law Louisa Mendes for $500. He had her repaired in New Bedford and rechristened her Ernestina. For the next twenty years she sailed regularly between Providence and Cape Verde. The seasonal arrival of the Mada/an and Ernestina, timed to coincide with the harvest of the cranberries, was a joyous occasion for the Cape Verdeans of New England.

Hundreds would come to the dock to greet the vessels, hear the news about friends living in the islands, celebrate aboard the ship drinking sugar cane "grog" and dancing to the mornas. The Ernestina would take on goods alt summer for shipment to relatives in the islands. In the fall the community would come to the docks to bid a tearful farewell to these two brave ships which for so long served as the living link between their homeland and their newly adopted country.

The Ernestina served as a faithful commuter packet until 1965. Mendes had said he would retire each year since 1955. He had made 53 crossings of the Atlantic but returned two more times in 1956 and 1957. He finally retired to his farm in Fogo. In 1968 he wrote to Peter Stanford, who was trying to acquire the vessel for the South Street Seaport Museum in New York: "I can not go to sea no more. I am 89 years of age. I have to stay home.'' He died at age 90, having spent most of his life at sea.

The Ernestina returned in 1964 and 1965 trying to revive the schooner trade with the islands without success. While a few of the old-timers preferred the leisurely trip aboard a sailing ship, steamer competition proved too stiff.

Although sailing schooners were still used in inter-island trade, the attempt to bring the former Cape Eagle, a Cana-

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

,......

Brava, in the Cape Verde Islands, shelters over a dozen sailing vessels in its port of Forna, in 1908.

\ The indomitable Down East schooner Lucy Alberto Lopes (at left) and his crew, on the eve of their 1976 voyage toward New York.

Dismasted they had to turn back: not the first sea casualty these sailormen lived through.

dian schooner which had not been used for five years, to Cape Verde was the last daring effort to sail across the Atlantic.

Battered by gales, the 100-foot vessel sank in rough seas 185 miles northwest of Bermuda; fortunately the crew and a 78-year old passenger were saved.

In 1976 tremendous efforts were undertaken to repair the Ernestina and have her participate in Operation Sail as a representative of the colorful and daring Cape Verde packet trade. She would have been one of the oldest ships in the bicentennial parade but unfortunately was dismasted in rough seas shortly after leaving Cape Verde. She has since been acquired by the Cape Verde Government for donation to the people of the United States, and her return to this country is the object of widespread efforts by the Cape Verdean community and others under the auspices of the National Mariti~e Historical Society.

The Maria Sony Several other former fishing schooners finished their careers in the Cape Verde packet trade. One of the most famous was the Dorothy Snow which had won the Newfoundland-Halifax races in 1912 and 1914 with Captain Ansel Snow. (At one time he had also owned the Effie M. Morrissey.) In 1939 she was bought by a Cape Verdean and was used for almost

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

Evelyn sailed two years in the Cape Verde

trade righ t after World War II, then was sold off in hopelessly leaking condition. Photo: John Costa.

twenty years in the inter-island trade and between Cape Verde and Dakar. In 1957 the vessel was bought by Cecilio Andrade who, after several mishaps with her, had her fitted out for a return voyage to the United States. He renamed her the Maria Sony and on June 17, 1959 set out for Providence. She was still a racing schooner and reached Bermuda in twelve days. A hurricane struck and she had to ride out the storm under bare poles. She finally reached Newport on July 25 and was towed to Providence by a tug. l':Jinety minutes after debarking, one of the passengers had a baby which was named after the vessel.

After the usual festivities which greeted all the packet ships from Cape Verde (the Ernestina did not come that year), the Maria Sony was towed to New Bedford for an overhaul and installation of a new engine. She then loaded cargo, sailed on November 7, 1959 for Cape Verde. Within a week the engine broke down, and on November 20 rough seas broke the steering gear. The Maria Sony drifted helpless in the gale. On November 24 a giant wave crashed over the deck and broke nine beams. They now feared for the structure of the vessel. Hove-to under a small trysail, they threw over barrels of fuel and other cargo to lighten the ship-and prayed .

For fifteen days she was buffeted about

by waves, her mechanical pump broken, she was slowly sinking. On December 11, a freighter spotted her and started towing the old schooner to Bermuda.

She was finally taken by the U.S. Coast Guard lo St. George's. There Cecilio Andrade's troubles only began . Penniless, with a derelict schooner and a crew which refused to continue. Andrade stayed for ten months living from the generousity of local groups. Money was collected from Cape Verdean groups in the United States and through the donated services and material in Bermuda, Andrade was able to put his boat back together again and sail for Cape Verde. On Novmber IO, 1960 the Maria Sony arrived in Cape Verde one year after her departure from New Bedford .

John Costa John Costa was another Cape Verdean mariner who followed in his father's footsteps. His father, Benjamin Costa, had owned and sailed many ships between the Cape Verde Islands and New England, including the Platina, the Mystic, the Valkyrie, the Frank Braynard, and the Yukon. When John was 14 years old, he joined his father on the Yukon.

When he was 18, he had already gotten his Mate's License and took the Yukon to the West Coast of Africa. The Yukon was a fast ship and remained his favorite.

In 1931, John Costa shipped out as

29

THE CAPE VERDE PACKET TRADE: PART II first mate on the John Manta with Captain Sena, but the Mania was a bad-luck snip. On the return voyage from Providence, they encountered a storm and Costa ordered the sails down. The Captain, however, came on deck and ordered the sails back up. They were hoisted and shredded immediately; it took a week to repair them. Arriving in the islands, they were late casting off from Brava for San Vincente. A docking line was not released in time, it snapped, cutting off John Costa's hand. They continued to San Vincente where they arrived 29 hours later. There, John Costa's arm was amputated. That same year, the Manta was lost at sea with its 13 passengers and a crew of 19.

John Costa did not give up his sea career; he joined the Burke/and that year as first mate, under Captain Julio Almada of San Nicolau. He quit the Burke/and after she returned to Cape Verde and took over his father's business. Meanwhile, his father had gone to get a new schooner for John. He bought the Frank Braynard, but she was lost at sea with children aboard. His father then bought the schooner Stranger and used her in inter-island trade, but his father got sick and died in Dakar on a voyage. The Stranger was later sold and lost on the rocks in Cape Verde.

In 1939, Costa brought the Corona, a beautiful Herres ho ff-designed steel sloop, to the United States, but he was held by immigration authorities because America was now preparing for war and would not allow U.S. citizens to ship out. In 1940, Costa took the Capitano, which had once retraced Christopher Columbus' route to America for Harvard University, to Cape Verde. It was the last ship to sail between Cape Verde and the United States during World War II. During the war, Costa worked on a WPA project in New Bedford, and was then sent to the C ape Verde Islands to buy tuna fish for the U.S. Government.

After the war, moved by the plight of his countrymen, he decided to buy a schooner and reactivate the Cape Verdean packet trade bringing needed supplies, food, and clothing to the islands.

He bought the Lucy Evelyn, the last commercially operated, three-masted schooner in New England, for $10,000, He and the co-owner, Augusta Teixeira, spent another $5,000 having her repaired in Boston.

He now had to set out to get cargo; this was difficult, for the Cape Verdeans were skeptical that the Lucy Evelyn could make the voyage. He had to set his

30

sails as if to prepare to leave and allow the Cape Verdeans to place their bundles aboard the ship themselves. But soon the ship was full with thirteen thousand feet of pine lumber and twenty tons of cement for a new Nazarene church in Praja, a piano, household goods for the pastor, 200 drums of kerosene, three automobiles, canned food, and bundles of clothing for relatives in Cape Verde.

Two paying passengers signed on including Mrs. Teresa Neves, age sixty, whose sister went down with the Manta, plus a crew of twelve. None of the crew had ever served on a sailing vessel, and, as no one would go aloft and the Captain had only one arm, the topsails could not be set. On May 9, 1946 the Evelyn was towed out of New Bedford harbor.

She arrived safely in Cape Verde 34 days later.

The return to the United States was a real test of Costa's ability and endurance. He left from Dakar on September 20 with 21 passengers, ten of them women and five children, a "crew" of 28, and 250 tons of salt. When she was in the middle of the Atlantic, a heavy gale smashed the rudder and carried away the mizzen boom. Costa feverishly worked to improvize an apparatus of wires to repair the crippled rudder. The Evelyn was only 280 miles from Block Island, Rhode Island, when a second storm struck on November 5 and drove her back to 250 miles east of Currituck, North Carolina. She was unable to hold a course, and the Coast Guard picked her up and towed her into Norfolk, Virginia on November 22, 63 days at sea since Dakar.

The Evelyn was repaired and on February 15, 1947 set out for New Bedford. On February 21, she was in sight of the Vineyard Sound Lightship . Captain Costa who had been on deck much of the time, turned in for a nap. Suddenly a blinding blizzard hit. Visibility dropped to zero in minutes. The howling northeast wind shredded the mainsail and the jib in rapid succession. Captain Costa ran for deep water under the foresail alone, and before the winter gale was over the Evelyn found herself off tht: Georges Banks. On February 27 the Coast Guard cutter Legare picked her up and started towing her back. Rough seas caused the towline to part several times.

On March 2 the Legare was relieved by the larger cutter Algonquin but as they approached Gay Head, another winter gale struck. In the early morning hours of March 3, four miles west of Cuttyhunk, the tow line broke again and the Algonquin lost the Evelyn in the bliz-

zard. On her own in raging seas before 60-mlle an hour winds, the Evelyn was drifting into shoal waters. Captain Costa ordered the anchor dropped, but the chain broke immediately. A second anchor held one half mile from the beach of Mattapoisett. The next morning after the storm ended, a tug towed her to the New Bedford city pier. In late June the Evelyn set out for Cape Verde again with ten passengers and a general cargo.

The elements were kind to Captain Costa on that voyage.

But the trip to the United States the next year proved disastrous. In March 1948 he left Praia for New Bedford, via Dakar with seven paying passengers and twenty inexperienced crew members.

Adverse winds made it impossible to get eastward to Dakar, so the passengers were discharged at the island of Fogo and the ship headed for America directly. Soon after leaving, a storm opened up a seam in her bow. There was no gas for the pump, so the crew pumped by hand the entire way across the Atlantic, to keep the ship afloat. A month out of Cape Verde, the flour ran out and by the time she reached New Bedford on April 12, 1948, most of the other food was also gone. Upon arrival, the crew sued for wages. Since the owners had had only misfortunes with the Evelyn, Costa and Teixeira were forced to sell the schooner for $I ,550.

Pedro Evora The Captain who skippered the Maria Sony on her last voyage and who brought the Ernestina for the last time to Providence was Pedro Evora. He had piloted other ships, including the Marion, Conrad, and Mada/an. He had made the trips in the Mada/an in 1949, 1950, and 1957 . He was the captain of the Ernestina in 1951 when her masts "were cut down as if with a saw" off Fogo, and he jury-rigged two poles with sails and made his way to Brava safely.He also had command of the Mada/an and Ernestina toward the end of their careers when they "had lost their spirit" for they were not being properly cared for, and no longer carried full cargos. But, he insists, the Ernestina is still a good ship. He is willing to help put her back in shape.

Many of these men of courage are still alive. Their daring and skill are remembered by the younger generation of Cape Verdean-Americans who owe their lives in the United States directly or indirectly to the successful voyage of someone in their family in one of the leaky old Brava packets. w

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

MARINE ARJ' authentic nauticals & unusual cargo

NAUTICALS FROM SHIPS AROUND THE WORLD CAN BE FOUND AT OUR SHOP ... AND AT REASONABLE PRICES!

Brass and Copper Lanterns, Teak Furniture, Navigational Instruments , Portholes. Flags, Art, Hatchcovers. Nameboards, Grates. Helms , Dinner Gongs, Boat Horns, Charts , Chron ometers, Life Rings , Cargo Nets, Teak Decking , Oars And So Much More!

IF YOU CANT VISIT OUR SHOP, WRITE TO US AND WE'LL SEE WHAT WE CAN DO TO HELP YOU .

SEND FOR OUR BROCHURE!

85 Whitfield St., on the green Dept NHS Guilford , Ct 06437 ~

liiiiiii ~~

Fleetwing Henrietta and Vesta "The Great Race" Dec. 11, 1866

by JAMES BUTTERSWORTH ( 181 7-1894 )• Oil on Canvas 12 x 16.

Mon-Sat 9 30-5 30 Sunday 11.:30-5:30 (203) 453-6881

VOSE

~

_ _ 1c1111.1W

•llil &.a1 i~

Sportsman's Edge, Ltd. A Gallery of Contemporary Marine, Sporting and Wildlife Art.

Marine Painting you can afford and will be proud to own!

Robert Salmon, Thomas Birch, Thomas Buttersworth, Duncan Mcfarlane may seem to be beyond your price range .. . but you may be surprised. We often have works by these artists and others in several widely divergent price ranges depending on size and subject. We also have fine works by less· well-known artists and watercolors, drawings and prints priced to give to a friend, a loved one, or yourself.

Send for our free Marine Painting Cata· Logu e and discover that our watchword is quality, and not high price. We hope always to be able to serve the beginning and advanced collector with equal care, knowledge and integrity .

CHILDS

"Glory of the Seas" by MARK GREENE

169 Newbury Street Boston, Massachusetts 02116 (61 7) 266-1108

Marine paintings and prints by Michael Beddows, Montague Dawson, Carl Evers, Mark Greene and

fin e American and European paintings and prints for over thirty-five years.

John Stobart.

Oil

20x24

"l~~ 1

136 EAST 74TH STREET, NEW YORK, N .Y. 10021 (212) 249-5010

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

Marine Artists of New York

By A. J. Peluso, Jr. In 1850, the banner, flag, house, ship, sign and steamboat painter John V. Cornell left New York for California on the steamer, Northerner. He hadn't gone for the kind of gold he could pan, but for the gold he could earn selling the fruits of his talents to the other immigrants from the East. The San Francisco directory advertised his "steamboat painting and decoration in a style of neatness and beauty of finish equal to the far famed steamers of the Hudson River". He assumed that his readers would know exactly what he meant. And it' s what we have come to know and cherish of the work of his artist brothers, the marine painters who lived in the New York City area and who prospered from the commerce of the Hudson River, Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean, and the patronage of its merchant princes.

By all accounts, the New York maritime industry had its rival or two, perhaps a peer, but certainly not a better, in producing the most ships both of sai l and steam, in importing and exporting the greater quantities of goods and people, and harboring a colony of art ists kept busy for one hundred years immortalizing a heritage of beauty. The leaders of this significant art movement can be said to have arrived with the first painting by the Bards, in 1827 and all but disappeared with the death of Frederick Cozzens, in 1928.

,1

f

1'11 0'1 \S eqLr ) 1: 1.i ~Jl

H -

3 \.

-

I

The Thomas Collyer, by James Bard. Courtesy Kennedy Galleries.

James and John Bard

Sovereign of the Seas, by James ÂŁ. Buttersworth. Courtesy The Seamen's Bank for Savings.

The grand master (or grand masters, depending upon when you look in on the career) is James Bard, who with his twin brother John, painted some 4000 portraits of steamboats, schooners and sloops. Their first, Be/Iona (a Cornelius Vanderbilt command) and the last Saugerties, in 1890, a Hudson River Day Line boat. John participated in the painting partnership before a falling out in 1850. (It is possible that he went West with Cornell, but we'll never know for sure). Thereafter, James worked alone, satisfying the demands of the steamboat gentry of the day : men like the patrician Alfred Van Santvoord, the owner of the Hudson River Day Line; and men like the "boss" for whom Bard painted the steam yacht William M. Tweed. Most of Bard's work was done in his Greenwich Village studio on Perry Street, from the primitive early work to the more meticulous and sophisticated work of his later solo years.

- ¡James Buttersworth While the Bards worked the Hudson River steamboat trade, a contemporary developed the following of those New Yorkers interested in sail. Jam es Buttersworth, English born son of Thomas Buttersworth, himself a marine painter, came to America in the 1840s. His first work was for Nathaniel Currier, for whom he produced the beautiful Flying Cloud and Great Republic. Gradually, Butterswort h turned more profitable at-

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

tention to the depicting of the many yachting scenes and races around New York's waters. Many were associated with members of the New York Yacht Club: the prints of the New York Yacht Club Regatta of June I, 1854 and the

Race of Vesta, Fleetwing and Henrietta are typical. His work, generally oil, is uniformly delicate. His forte was action paintings, showing yachts or sandbaggers with sails richly filled with wind, smoothly cutting through high but sympathetic waves. Most were done in modest scale: America and the steam yacht Armina, 8"x 12" and 14"x 22", respectively. Buttersworth spent his early years in Brooklyn, as a neighbor of other marine painters, James FultonPringle, and Joseph 8. Smith and Son. He worked in Manhattan, but spent his most productive years in West Hoboken New Jersey, just a short ferry ride across the Hudson. Antonio Jacobsen and Fred Pansing lived nearby.

The William H . Macy, by Antonio Jacobsen.

Courtesy The Seamen's Bank for Savings.

The America, by Antonio Jacobsen. Courtesy The Seamen's Bank for Savings.

Antonio Jacobsen

Jacobsen, an immigrant from Copenhagen, Denmark, came to America as a war resister. On his arrival the best use he could find for his natural artistic talent was painting safe doors. A kindly captain from the Old Dominion Line gave him his first steamboat portrait commission in 1875. He worked most diligently and profitably from then on.

He had a reputation of serving his pocketbook more often than his muse.

Legend has it that his family was called on to assist when business got too brisk, by producing background sky and water in mass production sessions under father's supervision. He would then add the vessel. Jacobsen would produce a

fine oil, usually for the captain or owner and then show it to mates and crew on delivery day. On the basis of this presentation piece he would obtain other orders-as many as the market and the family "background crew" would bear.

In spite of the quantity (some 2500 extant examples have been catalogued by Mariners Museum) he maintained a high standard of excellence. And in keeping with his penchant for profit, his work is probably the most far ranging of his contemporaries. He painted steamboats, ocean steamers, sailing ships, the famous naval battles, battleships, tugs, light-boats, yachts and an infrequent landscape.

f

Fred Pausing

Freshening Breeze, by James Gayle Tyler. Courtesy Kennedy Galleries.

James Gale Tyler James Gale Tyler painted his own version of this America's Cup race for L. Prang of Boston in the same year. Tyler began his career in New York city like the others, painting simple portraits of the work-a-day vessels of New York Harbor. He painted the tug Charm (fittingly) when he was only 17. Born in Oswego, New York in 1855, he remembered the "Old Ontario, puffing tugs in and out of the harbor, and fleets of all sorts of vessels that plied the lakes in those days of commercial interest-it

was an unending source of pleasure to me". The demands of school were an "imprisonment" to him and he came to New York to study briefly under A. Cary Smith, another New York marine artist. He received important commissions from James Gordon Bennett, Abandoning the Jeanette, and another from William Astor who saw one of his paintings in a framer's window. Tyler capitalized on the money to be made in magazines and contributed regularly to Harper's, Century, and Literary Digest.

The America, by James Gayle Tyler. Courtesy Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc.

Another immigrant, this one from Bremen, Germany, was Fred Pansing.

He came to America in 1865 at the age of 21, following five years at sea where he had whiled the spare hours away with his sketchbook. Initially, the world of art treated him unkindly and he was forced to make his living working in his brother's grocery store on Perry Street, just down the street from Bard. He then turned to sign painting and the painting of names on steamboat paddle boxes.

But he soon found his way with the American Lithographic Company with whom he spent many productive years, painting steamboats and steamers. The work was apparently quite popular.

Jacobsen had shunned the lithographic field and had, in effect, left it to an artist of Pansing's talent. Great technical strides had been made since the work of Nathaniel Currier for Buttersworth, so that Pansing's lithographs are distinguished for their fine line and luminous color. Pansing's work, including the relatively rare oils are very similar to the work of Jacobsen . However, when the occasion demanded it, he added his own dash of style and character; a dramatic three quarter, foreshortened look of an oncoming steamer or the whimsy of the little painting of the ice covered tugboat

Jack Frost.

Frederick Schiller Cozzens

Frederick Schiller Cozzens, son of a Manhattan wine merchant and sometime resident of New York City and Staten Island was to pursue a career as a naval architect and had completed his studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He chose marine art, instead, and specialized ¡ in the demanding water color medium, creating charming story pictures. Many were included in the Scribner's best sellers American Yachts (1884), Yachts & Yachting (1887) and Old Naval Prints (1894). His attention turned to all things marine whether an etching for a magazine showing ice yachting on the Hudson or his version of the International Yacht Race . . . Volun-

teer and Thistle.

Samuel Ward Stanton

A magazine was also important to the career of Samuel Ward Stanton. At 19 he joined the Marine Journal as a reporter. His interest in ships began at his father's successful ship building yards in Newburgh. In working his beat, Stanton met James Bard. He interviewed him and came to be his friend. As a consequence, Stanton embarked on two careers, one as an historian and another as an artist. He published his American Steam Vessels in 1895, acknowledging Bard's contribution. Stanton's best love was his art, however, which he pursued, in earnest, at the Art Student's League and the Jullienne Academy in Paris . He produced some of the most stunning of the work of the New York painters, such as the impressionistic renderings of New York and Mary Powell. He also developed a handsome trade as interior decorator of steamboats. After doing research on the Washington Irving in Spain, he became one of the ill-starred passengers aboard the Titanic.

As varied as are their backgrounds and sources of inspiration, the marine artists of New York had much in common.

Their compositions are classically simple and spatially balanced. They were exhuberant colorists. They forged new techniques for depicting motion, wind and the feel of the Hudson River, the Sound or New York Harbor. They each struggled successfully with the problem of juxtaposing the incongruous: how to incorporate the merchant steamer, the tug boat, the brick hauling schooner against the natural beauty of a seascape.

In so doing, they discovered harmonies between man and machine. Their work conveys, powerfully and directly, the pleasure they derived from an appreciation of man's inventive means of accom-

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

Yacht Race, by Frederick Schiller Cozzens. Courtesy Kennedy Galleries.

The Savannah, by Samuel Ward Stanton. Courtesy The Seamen's Bank for Savings.

/,

I-

' .r '

modating himself to the sea. They were, one and all, celebrants of those achievements.

One abiding concern which they all shared was a sense of accuracy; a sense of responsibility and fidelity to the patron and subject matter. Bard was said to have been so accurate that "shipbuilders ... could have laid down the plans of a boat from one of his pictures". Cozzens once said that "the wonderful record of some of our old ships if nothing else, should command a careful representation of their lines and rigging". An historian of Jacobsen described him as an "Audubon of steam vessels". Tyler stated, "at my easel I

keep up an incessant cnt1c1sm of my work-trying to measure it with truth".

But to describe the elements that they shared is to ignore their individual genius. Each one can be appreciated for the unique vision he brought to the subject they shared. .ii

Mr. Peluso was raised near the Hudson River and now makes his living on Madison A venue and his home in Yonkers, N. Y. with his wife and three children. He became interested in the work of the Bards about five years ago and began a search for information about them-a search he hopes to pursue indefinitely.

35

MARINE ART

NEWS & NOTES

Antoq Otto

PIS CHE!{ MARINE ARTIST

HIS LIFE AND WORK

by Katrina Sigsbee Fischer

Volunteers are needed to help man the National Society's exhibit at the New York Boat Show in January. Those int eres t e d in helping ma y ca ll 212-858-1348.

A Steering Committee has been formed by th e American Society of Marine Artists. Those serving are Os Brett, George Campbell, Mark Meyers, R.S.M.A., John Stobart, R. S. M.A., Bill Muller, Mark Greene, Carl Evers and Maryanne Murphy. By-laws have been drawn up and will be proposed to those interested in joining. We hope to see this incorporated by January 1978 .

Art galleries are invited to advise us of forthcoming marine art exhibitions, whic h we will endeavor to list in this section .

ALEX. A. HURST

He was not just an illustrator, but a marine artist of distinction - as a war artist for the U.S. Coast Guard, he produced North Atlantic and battle pictures which took the United Sta tes by storm .

The scope of his work was enormous: U.S. Coast Guard cutters in action, clip pers and other square riggers at sea and the life aboard and in harbors. The book includes many of these a nd other nautical paintings.

285 x 225 mm, with 288 pages and 236 illustrations, of which no less than 123 are in full colour: a complete text; fine gold-blocked covers with head and tail bands and a fullco lour jacket, this book is produced on high qual ity art paper with a good, clear fount.

Price $46.95 ($40.00 until 31st Jan . 78)

NEVESA PUBLICATIONS Ltd. , P.O. Box 86715 North Vancouver, B.C. V7L Special Offer to Sea History Readers: 15% discount if ordered through the Society's office at 2 Fulton St., Brooklyn, New York 11201.

Surface postage free in USA and Canada

36

Other shows of interest are: Chi ldren's Hospital Ant iques Show Civil Auditori um Jacksonville, Fla . Dec. 9-11 Memorial Building Framingham, Mass.

Feb. 24-26

Rhodes on the Patuxet Providence, R. I. Mar. 3-5 Memphis Antiques Show National Guard Armory Memphis, Tenn. Mar. 17- 19

in co ll aboration with

ANTON OTTO FISCHER'S name became a household word to millions of readers of the Saturday Evening Post and other magazines, as an illustrator of Tug Boat Annie, Mr .

Glencannon, Moby Dick and o ther stories.

East Side Settlement House Antiques Show 7t h Regi ment Armory Park Avenue & 67 Street New York, N. Y. Jan. 28 University Hospital Antiques Show 103rd Engineers Armory Lancaster Avenue & 33 Street Philadelphia, Pa . April 10-15

Newark Acade my Antiques Show Livingston, N .J . Apr. 28-30

GALLERIES & SHOWS

Lislings throug h !he cour1esy of A nliques Magazine, New York .

Galleries presen ting a large collection of high quality antique marine art are: THE ATLANTIC GALLERY 1055 Thomas Jefferson St., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20007 C HILDS GALLERY 169 Newbury St., Boston, Mass. 02116 KENNEDY GALLER IES 40 West 57 St., New York, N. Y. 10019 VOSE GALLERIES 238 Newbury St., Boston, Mass.

MARINE ARTS GALLERY 127 Essex St., Salem, Mass. 01970 INCU RABL E COLLECTOR 36 East 57 St., New York, N.Y. HIRSC HL & ADLER GALLERIES 21 East 67 St., New York, N. Y. M. KNOEDLER & COM PANY 21 East 70 St. New York, N.Y. WILLIAM BLAIR LTD. 4838 Del Ray Avenue Bethesda, Md. 200 14 NOY ES, VAN CLI NE & DAVENPORT 101 8 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. C hilds Gallery in Boston recommends the following a ntique shows for those int erested in marine a rt: Washington Antiques Show Mayflower Hotel Washington D.C. Jan. 11-15

J. & J. BARD PICTURE PAINTERS

By A.] . Peluso, Jr. The first comprehensive andfullylllustrated book on these most Important 19th~entury

American marine painters Includes a checklist of Bard paintings. a listing of known but lost Bards. and additional source reference material. 34 cclor plates. over 140 illustrations. hardbound $27.50.

Special pre-publication price . $25 .00 ppd ·until December 1~1h .

1 ~\)~sonR;"e,. ____ - - - - - _ -----; I HUDSON RIVER PRESS : Press 152 Second Ave .. New York. NY 10003 I ~ Send me _ _ copies of I J &J BARO PICTURE PAINTERS@

I I

I I I I I

I

I

pre-publication price of $25 00 (Ny residents plea se add applicable sales tax I My check for $_ _ _ is enclosed

I I

I

I ~ 1

I I

Name

I

Addre ss

I

City

I I

State - - /op _ _

r I

~---------- -- ----~j SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

MARINE ART

Brandy in the Milk To the Editor: I was very pleased to hear that you are going to make a regular feature of marine art. For what it is worth, however, I do think that such articles and comment on marine artists should have a lacing of brandy in the milk, and that fair criticism should find it s place in the praise. This is difficult, perhaps, where living artists are concerned, but by no means impossible.

There are, when all is said and done, very few absolutely first-class marine artists living at any one time-even now!

I very much favor a meed of internal ionalism brought into the subject, whether dealing with past or present artist s. For example, how many of your readers know the work of C. H. Friberg, in Sweden today? How many know the work of the Swedish admiral Jacob Hagg? What do they know of Johannes Holst of Hamburg? Yet all will know the prints of Montagu Dawson, who was capable of magnificent work, but who sold his soul to Frost and Reid, who promoted him marvellously and made his name a household word-with the provision that he paint what they wanted, mainly clipper ships under stunsails at absurd angles of heel and with such exaggerated roaches to their sailt that they looked like sputniks rather than ships .

Now many aspiring artists see this road as the road to success, and are imitating th is heresy.

Your Marine Artists Association is an excellent idea. Over here, the Royal Society of Marine Artists is by no means unsuccessful. I do sometimes find myself wondering a little when I go to RSMA shows over here just what some of them are trying to achieve. When it comes to square-rigged sailing ships, apart from the ubiquitous school ships, few have ever seen one under sail, and many are producing animated plans. They become "ship portraitists" rather than marine arti sts. Marine art, I submit, does not consist of mechanical drawing . I almost had a fit when I saw some of the pictures advertised in SEA HISTORY No. 6 ALEX A. HURST Teredo Books Brighton, Sussex England

Mr. Hurst, who missed signing on as a mate in Kaiulani at Capetown in 1941, toward the end of her last voyage, has been making up for that missed opportunity since by publishing works on square-rigged sailing ships.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

Sea, Sails and Ports

AN EXHIBITION

OF IMPORTANT MARINE PAINTINGS September 15 October 29

Montague Dawson, "The Battle of Trafalgar," oil on canvas, 40 x S 0 inches

An illustrated catalogue of the fine oil paintings by James Buttersworth, Thomas Birch, Fitz Hugh Lane, Robert Salmon, Andrew Melrose, John Stobart and others is available for $3.00.

40 West 57th Street, 5th Floor, New York 10019 (212) 541-9600 Open Tuesday-Saturday 9 :30-5 :30

Sea History Prints

A collection of important harbor and river views during the heyday of the merchant sailing ship by the renowned marine artist

JOHN STOBART ALEXANDRIA , CINCINNATI, DARIAN , GEORGETOWN, NANTUCKET, NEW ORLEANS , NEW YORK, SAN FRANCISCO , SANTA FE , SAVANNAH

Published as limited edition collector's prints. Prices are $200.00 signed and $400.00 remarqued, except for New York and Savannah which are rare prints with prices subject to the dictates of the collector's market. All prices are subject to continued availability and are liable to increase .

This offer is made through the generosity of the artist to benefit the work of the National Society. Orders and inquiries should be sent to:

The National Maritime Historical Society 2 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, New York 11201

37

Sll()l,~JIY~II1lII~ OLD NEWBURYPORT BRASS PASSAGEWAY LAMPS from Nautical Appointments Decorative and practical , these solid brass Passageway Lamps with scooped reflectors will gracefully light your hallway or fireplace wall.

12 " h.

Oil Lamp ..... $32.50 ea. plus 1. 75 post.

Electric Lamp .. $28.50 ea. plus 1. 75 post.

WHEELHOUSE DECK GRATING TABLE from Nautical Appointments Not reproductions. Authentic solid oak wheelhouse gratings. Limited supply of only 17 tables approx. 2' x 2' x 17" h., with handsome pedestal base . No two exactly alike - each top is unique. $139.00 Frt . chgs. collect

HAND CARVED MODEL SHIPS SEA GULL PENDANT ... Graceful as a gull in flight. Solid Pewter with antiqued elegance.

3114" wingspan - 18" chain. Original design by the Rings Island Grafters . $6.95 ppd.

I

B

from Piel Craftsmen Take pride and pleasµre from these meticulous wood models with patiently handcarved hulls A and finely detailed fittings . Both come carefully rigged and fully assembled.

(A) CLIPPER FLYING CLOUD, measures 24112'' overall by 17114 " h. Mahogany finished base ... $150.00 plus $5. post.

(B) MERCHANT BRIG TOPAZ, measures 18" overall by 14 " h. , stained maple base. . . ....... . $35.00 plus $2.50 post.

)

"THE FLYING CLOUD" Window Transparency This lyrical interpretation of the famous full-rigged Clipper is hand screened on 1/ 8" thick lucite.

Glows in tones of gold , blue and emerald green.

7" x 9". Hang , or apply directly to glass by adhesive pads (supplied) . Will not break! $6.95 ppd.

MAHOGANY CAMPAIGN CHEST from The Carpetbagger Handsome reproduction of an early 19th century gentleman Soldier 's chest.

Handmade heavy brass bindings and flush ring pulls . Carefully finished and polished. Stack 2 or use as end pairs .

23112' 'w. x 11 " d. x 24114 " h. $295. Frt . chgs. collect.

HANDWROUGHT STERLING SILVER BRACELETS from Did Newbury Crafters 2 impeccable creations. Classic beauty appropriate for men or women.

(A) Extra heavy clip-on style, highly polished , is lustrous in its unadorned simplicity .. . $75.00 ppd .

(B) Distinctive Anchor Chain design .

Chaste and elegant .......... ... ... . ......... $69.50 ppd .

'\

-

®:~4·' _ff,;}.

~

1977 .7g CATAlOG z~r

q\,/e.vburyp0rt

Gu ad

<:-~•~.-c.-;;..::;_......

-~

i:--1"

~

--

~-

.

GUILD CATALOG Send 50¢' fcr our 70 page catal~ - a reflectioo d the heritage d this fine dd New England seapcrt, a center fcr craftsmen fcr ooer 2 centuries .

PEN & INK PRINTS OF GREAT SHIPS from Caleb's Cargo 4 Celebrated Ships reproduced from magnificent original drawings by Richard Gibney. Beautifully matted in dk . blue, 12 " x 16 ", ready for framing. Series boasts 2 Clippers , Rainbow & Flying Cloud , the Whaler Chas.

W. Morgan & Old Ironsides. Extraordinary Value. Set of 4 $10,95 ppd .

Boxed Notes .. . same 4 subjects , 12 folded notes , matching envelopes per box. 3 boxes (36 notes) $5 .00 ppd .

Mass. res. add 5% tax Send check or money order:

>THE NEWBURYPORT GUILD Dept.SHI , 96 High St.,Newburyport, MA 01950 Tel. (617) 462-4473 / 4474 Master Charge and Visa accepted

BOOKS Beaufort of the Admiralty: The Life of Sir Francis Beaufort 1774-1857, by Alfred Friendly (New York, Random House, 1977. 362 pp., illus., $15.00).

This superb book merits an honored place in the long and rich literature of the sea. No serious collection of books about the sea and the men who have vainly tried to tame it would be complete without this elegant and fascinating biography of one of the genuinely great figures of naval and maritime history.

Sir Francis Beaufort is known to even the casual mariner as the inventor of the Beaufort Scale which standardized the recording of wind speeds. But useful as that was, it was only a minor contribution of this brave, cantankerous, selfpitying, self-righteous, generous and noble-minded man.

A bold and skilled naval officer in the Napoleonic Wars, with real-life adventures that rivalled the fictional exploits of Horatio Hornblower, Beaufort's career at sea, illustrious as it was, was merely a preparation for the historic contribution to the science of navigation while serving ashore as Hydrographer (head of the department of charts) of the Royal Navy .

After years of languishing ashore when the Navy was reduced after the final defeat of Napoleon, Beaufort finally got the prize tl:iat was due him long before. Every officer in the Navy, save the First Lord of the Admiralty who disliked him, knew that his extraordinary work in charting coasts the world over and his contributions to the study of the sea and weather made him, as foremost navigational scientist in the Empire, the obvious choice for the post.

Beaufort was a natural-born observer who trained himself-he finished school at 14-to make the most precise observations of everything pertaining to the sea: coastline, currents, tides, wind, weather, barometic pressure, even the shape of the earth.

His native and developed brillance as a natural scientist was happily married to great talents as artist and draughtsman and as a writer. Many of his marvelous pen and ink sketches of natural features and ancient ruins-he became an enthusiastic archaeologist while charting the coast of Turkey-are included and they are a delight. So superb were his charts of the Turkish coast that they were used by the British Navy until the I 970's.

Beaufort took these rare talents and a passion for knowledge about the sea to the office of the Hydrographer and transformed the science of the sea. Great

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

THE BOOK LOCKER

By David O.Durrell Publications Director

Resting on the muddy reaches of lonely estuaries and on far off shores bypassed by the comings and goings of contemporary man, our sailing ships lie where they came to rest, evoking little comment as they slowly return to the elements from whence they came. Some lie beneath populated beaches, appearing briefly, ghostlike in the wake of winter storms; others wait in lonely silence for the forces of their destruction on isolated shores. Their restless roamings are long done. A scattered few survive as museum ships; a few more may in time be rescued and restored for this purpose. The rest will continue the long process of dieing, marked in the end only briefly in the account of man's affa ir with the sea.

There is a feeling of loss that one experiences when reading of these ships.

They and those who sailed them wrote one of the most incredible chapters in man 's continuing story. A measure of the worth of books that tell of them is the degree to which they succeed in returning them to life in the hearts and minds of readers; the more successful an author is in this endeavor, the sadder it seems that this brave chapter is forever closed.

A classic work that measures up well to this task is New England & the Sea (Wesleyan University Press , for Mystic Seaport) newly reissued as a paperback at $5.95. The inevitable decline of an industry that was associated with the region's rock-bound shores throughout the world is superbly and movingly told .

It is welcome in its new lower-priced format.

Across the continent echoes of the past are also apparent. In Seattle a tugboat plies the Lake Union Locks.

Built in 1881, she was and is an important part of the story, and in her continued existence today carries the ghosts of several pasts. To see her iced in at Herschel Island during her incarnation as a steam whaling brigantine in Steam Whaling in the Western Artie, is to re-

NAUTICAL BOOKS, FILMS, MODELS, RECORDS ON OCEAN LINERS AND AIRSHIPS: Complete catalog of items: 50¢ in Coin or Stamps. Order from: 7 C'S PRESS, INC. P.O. BOX 57, DEPT. SH RIVERSIDE, CT. 06878 USA

joice that she is not numbered among the whitening bones. Her story alone would be worth a book . Schooner, brigantine whaler sent out for balleen with instructions to ignore oil, one of the first two ships to winter at Herschel, she spent seven years in the northern ocean before returning to more plebian occupations.

The growing use of illustrative material in the books that tell this story has revolutionized and vastly enhanced our understanding of the era now behind us . As a more integrated use of old photographs is developed, they begin in our eyes, to look less glamorous, and more like real-life things. Pictures begin to. show more workaday events and craft, bringing memories alive through fragile moments captured from the moving stream of time.

There is much to explore in these memories, much to seek out and savor.

For we too sail the same stream, and can be enriched by the flotsam snatched from voyagers of the past. The pieces add up to a rich cultural heritage that enriches our lives in many ways . Rosenbrock and Gillan's South Street gives us a glimpse of this with its lovely photographs of a waterfront shaped by the needs of the follower's of the sea.

Music, art, crafts and even contemporary economic patterns are vital parts of this tradition. Therefore, though the ships are gone, their echos remain with us . It is indeed fortunate that the history of this nautical world is as complete as it is, and that it is being recorded before it can slip downstream forever. Though we regret today the loss of these brave ships, such books as Paul Morris' Four

Masted Schooners of the East Coast, help keep their memory alive. We thrill to their accounts, sing the songs that once helped speed the work on their decks, marvel at their portraits that come from the hands of artists, and send forth new generations upon the decks of their sail training successors to learn again the discipline of the sea.

OU T - OF - PRINT

BOOKS OF THE SEA Our Specialty Send $ 1.00 for Ca talog â&#x20AC;˘ Book Search

e Coll ec ti ons Purchased CARAVAN-MARITIME BOOKS

Service

8706 - 168th Place. J ama ica, N.Y. 114 12

39

BOOKS improvements would necessarily have come about anyway but he was one of those uncommon men who accelerated the inevitable and left a lasting mark on maritime history.

This splendid book is plainly the product of love, for Alfred Friendly, former managing editor of the Washington Post, put into it the kind of effort that no amount of money can buy. It is magnificently researched and superbly written, not with journalistic terseness but with an elegant rolling prose suited to Beaufort and his time.

The publisher obviously shared Friendly's enthusiasm, for this volume is a fine example of the bookmaker's art, with a Beaufort chart on the endpapers, with many fine examples of his drawings and with a handsome cover. Even the dust jacket is exceptionally handsome.A book of enduring value that I will long treasure.

RICHARD J. WAL TON

Mr. Walton, who laments that he has spent much more time reading about the seven seas than sailing them, is the author of a number of books of history.

New

South Street: A Photographic Guide to New York City's Historic Seaport, text

by Ellen Fletcher Rosebrock, photographs by Edmond V. Gillon, Jr. (New York, Dover, 1977. 108 pp., illus., $4 .00).

Too often there is a tendency among compilers of photographic guidebooks to concentrate on the pretty, the picturesque, and the quaint subjects that abound in most restoration projects. It is refreshing to open the latest work on New York's South Street Seaport Museum and find that this trap has been avoided. Instead of a vapid collection of postcard views, Ms. Rosebrock and Mr. Gillon have treated us to an accurate, powerful essay on an historic area that shows the decay, the growth, and the promise that embodies South Street as it is today. The message is that though there is much yet to be done, there is an awareness of the treasure that this historic district really is. The ghosts of the past exist in the quiet streets, they are felt tangibly here in these pages.

The fascination of South Street lies in its past. The sea has always been the central economic factor in the neighbor-

from the

hood, as it still is today. Ships in various stages of restoration are the best-known attraction of South Street, and the Fulton Fish Market is still functioning there in its historic location. Though not the central focus of this book, both are treated realistically; both are shown in marked contrast against the modern temples of commerce that crowd the area's outer edge, thus underlining the changes that have swept through lower Manhattan continually since the early days of New York.

Some of the material is already dated.

The powerful Peking is nowhere to be seen, and the little tug Mathilda, alas, no longer floats as shown at pierside, to point out two examples. However, as change is a continuing fact of life in major restoration projects the timelessness of the photographs more than makes up for this. Rosebrock and Gillon have accurately portrayed South Street as a continuing way of life, rather than as a static and dusty exhibit in a museum case. As such, their book should prove a fine introduction for those not familiar with this ambitious museum, and a welcome companion for those who are.

DOD

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:

Book Order Dept.,

U.S. Naval Institute Annapolis, MD 21402

40

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

I

Steam Whaling in the Western Arctic,

by John Bockstoce (New Bedford, Old Dartmouth Historical Society, 1977. 127 pp., illus., $15.00).

During the latter part of the nineteenth century and on into the first decade of the twentieth, the American whaling industry, beset by falling demand for whale oil due to the increased avai lability of petroleum and vegetable oils, played out its last great chapter in the Arctic, There the bowhead with its important balleen was still plentiful, providing a tempting hunting ground for the beleagured fleets.

The entire industry changed to meet the demands· of this harsh, hazardous climate where ice constantly threatened and sometimes destroyed the stoutest ships. Among the innovations were the important advent of auxiliary steam to augment sails as power, and such devices as explosive cannon-fired harpoons previously shunned by the thrifty Yankees. Steam Whaling in the Western Arctic is the story of this final epoch.

With the general decline in whale oil profits many owners sold off their interests and invested in textiles. Those that remained sought to modernize in the struggle to continue operations in their traditional field. William Lewis of New Bedford was one of these. His ship Mwy and Helen was the first steam powered American whaler; she returned her investment to her owner in one voyage and thereby revolutionized the industry. San Franciscan entrepreneurs saw in this the possibilities for profit and entered the field they would later dominate through the establishment of the Pacific Whaling Company. Motivated by the innovative drive of Cape Cod born Captain Josiah Knowles, Pacific Whaling streamlined and smoothed out all phases of the western Arctic whaling operations. The establishment of the Artie Oil Works in San Francisco by the owners of Pacific Whaling completed the shift from New England of this traditionally Yankee enterprise.

Sailing ships still hunted in the Arctic, but being dependent on the wind to get out of the region before the ice froze over each winter, they were compelled to leave the fisheries far earlier than their steam powered companions.

In 1889, the first attempt to winter over was made. This led to the establishment of the famous Herschel Island station. Arctic winters, shipwrecks, desertions and the establishment of a four team baseball team are all part of this intriguing story.

By 1895 the bowheads were nearly

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

fished out, and the decline in the final phase of the American whaling story began. Gasoline-engine powered schooners were introduced, but could not forestall the end of this brutal industry, and within a very few years the last whaler had returned from her final voyage.

Lavishly illustrated with photographs, drawings, paintings and sail and hull plans and including a valuable chronology of commercial wintering voyages, 1850-19 IO, this fine compilation fills a major gap in the story of America's involvement with the sea.

DA YID 0. DURRELL Four Masted Schooners of the East Coast, by Paul C. Morris (Orleans, Mass., Lower Cape Publishing, 1975.

190 pp., illus., $19.95).

The great schooners that coursed back and forth along the East coast were principally carriers of bulk cargo. Huge yet capable of being handled with a fraction of the crews needed for comparably sized square riggers, their story coincides with the last years of commercial sail.

The most successful of the later types had four masts, of which a total of five hundred and twenty one were Eastern owned and American built, primarily along the Maine coast.

Cargoes included ice from the Kennebec, coal, lumber, phosphate and fertilizer; general cargo had been usurped by steamers. The schooners were designed for this bulk type of hauling, and they generally did it quite well. Their eventual decline was due more lo changing economic times rather than any failings on the part of the ships.

Four Masted Schooners of the East Coast provides an intimate glimpse into the world of these magnificent dinosaurs. More than 150 photographs along with drawings by the author show them in their glory at launchings and their bedraggled later years. In addition, the appendixes list the builders in the U.S. and Canada and the ships, their dimensions and historic data in detail.

An extensive erata has corrected much of the inaccuracy that drew criticism from scholarly circles when the book first came out.

DOD The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships, by C. Nepean Langridge; rev. E. Bowness, A.M.R.l.N.A. (London, Argus Books, Ltd., 1977. 283 pp., illus., £10.50 net U.K.).

A hefty volume with a misleading title since its main theme is a detailed account

"This book is a sheer delight" -ALFRED A. KNOPF "Wi ll charm and instruct the reader. rekindle

the desire to read more and more Morison, and make one mourn that there are not more books to come...

- PETER STANSKY. author of Churchill: A Profile and The Victorian Revolution

SAILOR HISTORIAN The Best of

Samuel Eliot Mo

Edited by Emily Morison Beck

0

]

0.

With a Foreword by Walter Muir Whitehill and Some Reflections on Sty le by David McCord

$15. now at your bookstore

~ Houghton Mifflin Company

MARITIME LAW AND TECHNICAL BOOKS FOR THE SHIPPING AND EXPORT INDUSTRY SEND FOR DUR FR££ CATALOG

24 BEAVER STREET, N.Y., N.Y. 10004 (212) 425-0123

SHIP MODELS From our own workshop: finest quality wood ship kits- clippers, schooners, frigates, tankers, freighters-30 in all. Beautiful fittings; no lead or plastic. Also plans, books, tools, materials, fittings and marine prints. At better dealers or send $1.00 (refundable) for big illustrated catalog.

'!iBil!lYc-1fH~lJsT 145·J Water St., So Norwalk, Ct. 06854

41

BOOKS

BEST 500 MARI N E BOOKS & PI C T U RES Boatbuilding, m a in te na nce , I N PRI N T nav iga ti o n , sea m a n s hip , etc. F or free s ubsc ripti o n to u p d a te d ca t a log w ri te: In te rn atio n a l M a rine Publi s hing, 2 1-H E lm St ..

Ca mde n , Ma ine 04843 .

The Mariner's Dictionary. By G . Bradford• 307 pages, 51 illus!.

Complete language of the sea ...

Vessels, Rig!j_ing, Craft, much more. $7.50 plus ~1.00postoge·handling

The QUARTERMASTERBox775 VASHON ISLAND, WASH. 98070

&""..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r1

§ §

FISHERMEN, DIVERS, HISTORIANS

§

World War II

8 ~

~ The Shipwrecks of ~ ~

S During World War II there were a S g great many wrecks sunk off the U.S. S S Coast. The Navy had top secret charts 8

8 showing

the name, exact location, date of sinking, depth of water, and other information.

In addition to their historical value, these charts can be invaluable to fishermen and divers interested in locating these wrecks.

All charts come with the list of corrections and additions issued after the war. These are reproductions of the actual wreck charts: D WC-1106 Bay of Fundy to Cape Cod. $10 D WC-1107 Georges Bank and Nantucket Shoals. $10 D WC-1207 Massachusetts Bay. $10 0 WC-1108 Approaches to New York, Nantucket Shoals to Five Fathom Bank. $10 0 WC-1109 Cape May to Cape Hatteras. $10 0 WC-1110 Cape Hatteras to Charleston Light. $10 0 WC-1111 Charleston Light to Cape Canaveral. $10 0 WC-1112 Cape Canaveral to Key West. $10 D WC-1007 Gulf of Mexico. $10 D WC-9928 South Atlantic and Caribbean, list of wrecks only (charts not available). Lists over 100 wrecks from Navy records.

8 tonnage,

ll ll

8 8

8 8 8 8 o

§ 88 §Sg S

8 ll 8 8 l)

8

S

§

80 8 8 8 S ~

Enclosed is my check for $

8 R S

g ~

~ tl

8 8 g ~~

S 8 S g

ll l)

8 g

n § S l)

g

S §R

8 8 g S

§

§ ~

§ Charts~§ §8 NewP.O. Box 2318, Dep't C20 Smyrna Beach, Florida 32069 S § ship to: 8 § §

IWreck

t.. . . . . . . . . .

.,,...,,....r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..r..rl

42

of the good doctor's building of a model of Nelson's Victory. The author devotes the whole of Chapter I to ship design and construction of the period . And interspersed throughout the rest of the 16 chapters, he does drop in bits and pieces on actual ship construction . But is mostly a well detailed set of instructions for building and rigging a V. inch scale model of the Victory. The model was started a couple of years before WWII by the author who was a retired physician. Work was stopped "for the duration" by his sea service, and the model, completed two or three years later, is now in the Science Museum in South Kensington, London .

Many of his ways of shaping various parts and his methods of construction are applicable to any ship-model job, and to that extent the book is a worthwhile adjunct to any serious modeller's library. It is a British book, put out for the "home. market," so any American without an understanding of the British language will occasionally hit a snag, as when the author uses a jenney caliper or an Archemedian drill. And how many of us know that a deal is a fir or pine plank of 3"x7"xl2' minimum dimension? To those of us familiar with American nautical terms, some of his words will be confusing or not understood . Being based in the same era, I had some fun comparing the author's old terminology with descriptions in my copy of Falconer's Marine Dictionary of 1780. One interesting section describes a home built "rope walk" machine. Unfortunately, though he gives the (British) make and sizes of thread to be used, he does not give the tooth ratios for the gear train.

The book is well illustrated with some 50 detail photographs of both the model and the actual vessel, 183 sketches and drawings of parts or jig~ for them and 12 fold-out, regular plans. The drawings and plans are clear line cuts from originals by George Campbefl, A.M.R.l.N.A., who had considerable to do with restoration of both Cutty Sark and Victory, and since then has migrated to our shores and is now, among other things, Marine Technical Consultant to South Street Seaport Museum and an Advisor to the National Maritime Historical Society. (See "Clio," This Issue, Page 3.-ED.) There are no indications of what revisions Mr. Bowness made to the book, but one useful bit would have been a footnote updating the author's statement about the probability of obtaining a small, modeller's wood-working machine that before the war, was made

in New Haven, Conn.

At the present rate of exchange, the U.S. price for the book will be in the 18-19 dollar range, and while the information between its covers is worth the cost, I believe its interest in this country will be limited. We are not so gung-ho marine-minded as the British .

ROBERT G. HERBERT, JR.

Mr. Herbert, Advisor to South Street Seaport Museum and the National Society, is a distinguished ship modeller and historian who has served in sail and steam.

The Salt Book, ed. Pamala Wood. (New York, Doubleday Anchor Press, 1977.

430 pp., illus., paper $5.95).

This book, a compilation of articles selected from Salt Magazine, covers a wide range of topics . The magazine is entirely the work of a group of mostly teenage students living in Northern New England and has developed into a respected periodiCal during the five years since it began.

While Pamela Wood and the staff of Salt acknowledges that Elliot Wigginton 's Foxfire books, done by high school students in Appalachia, served as an initial inspiration, Salt has its own unique character and point of view. The early chapters are devoted to people involved in the traditional New England fisheries, such as lobstering, dragging, and trawling. The viewpoint shifts from Willie and Elizabeth Amos and Stilly Griffen who have been lobstering since 1928, through Anne Pierter, one of the magazine staff who has been bait girl on a lobster boat for two seasons. In much the same manner the chapters cover "Sea Moss Pudding, Stone Walls, Rum Running, Maple Syrup, Snowshoes and other Yankee Doings," to quote the cover. There is, of course, much more, all written in a quiet matter-of-fact way that indicates considerable respect for botp the subjects of the book and the reader.

One is left with a sense of the development and continuity of Yankee culture from its beginnings to the present. When one realizes that New England was the center of manufacturing for the tools that made westward expansion possible, and Yankee peddlers the suppliers, the impact of this culture on the character of American life becomes apparent.

DON A . MEISNER Mr. Meisner, who does architectural and engineering work on waterfront projects, is currently designing a tug for South Street Seaport Museum.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

The Galley Guide-Updated, by Alex W. Moffat and C. Burnham Porter (New York, Dodd, Mead, 1977. 262 pp., $7 .95).

On a sailing weekend, who wants to end up in the galley? What do you take?

How can you fix it in anything resembling edible form? How do you manage in rough weather? And where do you store all that gear in a galley the size of a postage stamp?

These questions and many others are handled clearly and with zest in this revision of a classic by two yachtsmen, whose fame as cooks has spread far beyond the Down East waters they sail.

(Burnham Porter was cook for Samuel Eliot Morison on a 1930s voyage retracing Columbus's route across the Atlantic.) The book is divided into two sections: the first deals with the galley itself: how to organize it, what gear is needed, how to decide on the type of equipment to use. The second half is devoted to recipes-and a goodly assortment is presented, including a wide selection of vegetable dishes and breads. The book seems oriented primarily toward the owner of a well found yacht, but many of the recipes could be easily prepared over a primus burner.

Much new information has been added to this update of the original 1923 edition. Particularly useful is the checklist of what to take along for a weekend cruise, and a section on stowage of supplies afloat. There is even a brief chapter on 'Keeping Meals Hot'-when dinner is ready and the crew is not. This commonsense book makes a comforting, even inspiring manual for that aspect of voyaging upon which "success or failure largely depends."

E. VICTORIA LOLMAUGH

Ms. Lolmaugh, whose cooking enjoys its own reputation afloat and ashore, is a staff member of the National Society.

Oared Fighting Ships: From Classical Times to the Coming of Steam, by R.C. Anderson. (London, Argus Books, 1976. 99 pp., illus., ÂŁ3.50).

Another in the series that includes the Four Masted Barque and The Square Rigged Sailing Ship (SH 8), Oared Fighting Ships is a wide-ranging survey of a type that held a place in history for more than 2,500 years, from its origins in Homeric times to its elimination with the advent of steam. Photographs of old paintings and models are supplemented by line drawings to illustrate such questions as placement of rowers. The focus of the work is on the ships themselves.

Their role in naval history is sketched in

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

The National Maritime Historical Society proudly announces .

THE PEKING BATTLES CAPE HORN

By Captain Irving Johnson America's most renowned sailor writes of his first deep-sea voyage in square rig, aboard the great German bark Peking. Now on exhibition at South Street Seaport Museum in New York, Peking battled for her life in Johnson's voyage in her, in seas of such power they bent in her steel sides. Long out of print, this original narrative written at the time is now reissued with a new foreword on the author's life, and an afterword in which Captain Johnson looks again, from the perspective of a lifetime of seafaring, at the experiences which he says, "taught me to lean forward into life." 224 pages with 40 photographs. $5.95 paper cover, $11.95 hardbound.

OTHER TITLES BY SEA HISTORY PRESS The Ships that Brought Us So Far, by The Kaiulani, Last of the Yankee Peter Stanford. 54 pages, ill., paperback Square-riggers, by Peter Stanford, 13 52.00. A lively account of the ship pages, 18 illus., paperback $1.50. Picpreservation movement, written from torial history of the last American first-hand interviews and experience in square-rigger to make a commercial exciting ship saves. voyage (reprinted from U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings).

Condemned at Stanley, by John Smith, 33 pages, ill.. paperback 51.50. The SEA HISTORY back issues: historian of the Falklands describes the 1, 2, 3, each $1.50 4, 5, 7,8,each $2.00 wooden sailing ships hulked there.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE The Return of the Great Britain, by Richard Goold-Adams, 226 pages, illus., hardcover $12. 95. Thrilling account of the greatest ship save our time, written by the man who did it. A classic.

Mate in Sail, By Capt. James Gaby, 287 pages, illus., $25.00. Superb account of the last days of deepwater sail and sailors experienced first hand by Capt.

Gaby. Profusely illustrated with rare photographs and full color reproducShipwrecks and Archaeology: the Untions of paintings by Australia's finest harvested Sea, by Peter Throckmorton, marine artists.

270 pages. ill., hardcover 55.95. The beginnings of scientific marine archae"Take Good Care of Her Mister"by ology in the Mediterranean.

Peter Stanford, 12 pages, 5 ills.: $.75.

Zeb, a Celebrated Schooner Life, by An appreciation of the work of Frank Polly Burroughs, 160 pages, ill., hard- Carr, who saved the clipper ship Cutty cover $14. 95. Memorable Ii fe of Captain Sark, and who played an important role Zebulin Tilton of the Alice S. Went- in the creation of the British National worth, profusely illustrated with photos. Maritime Trust.

Nautical Museum Directory, 88 pages, illus., paperback 52.25. The best guide available. with up-to-date information on hours, admissions , collections.

Print "Ship lnvermark," by John Allcot. In heavy weather, men on the mainyard are taking in canvas. (21 '/,"x 17'/ ,") $10.00.

Songs of South Street, Street of Ships, "Kaiulani Sail Plan," from the original

by Eric Russell & Mark Lovewell. 66 builder's plans, on imitation sail cloth. pages. illus .. paperback 5:1.00. Engaging. ( l 4"x 20") $5 .00. hearty fare for singers of sea songs.

Sea Songs as Sung by the X Seamens Institute, 30 pages, paperback . 51.00.

Marvelously rambunctious renderings of sea chanties, ballads, ditties.

Heart of Oak! 33 RPM record of traditional sea songs by the X Seamens 1nstitute , 55.95. Full of sailors¡ joys and sorrows, and a sense of history besides.

Order from your bookstore, or by mail from

SEA HISTORY PRESS National Maritime Historical Society 2 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201 IO percent discount to National Society Members.

43

Boating A literate magazine for the serious boatman 1 Park Ave.

New York, N.Y. 10016

Subscription: one year, $-9

FOUR MASTED SCHOONERS OF THE EAST COAST. Illustrated with 150 photographs.

Tales of the vessels, their successes and tragedies. Appendi x has complete list of 562 American and Cana· dian vessels .9x12, $19.50 Ppd. Hardbound .

LOWER CAPE PUBLISHING

r·-·-·-·-· - . - . -·-·-·-, j South Street Reporter !

captain hool(s ~~

Box 901 H. Orleans MA. 02653

//~~ .

~· u.7~("'-

WORLD SHIP SOCIETY

~<li±±-· marine antiques & glass -· i-!

,~

Port of New York Branch Monthly meetings, field trips and quarterly publication for those interested in liners, ocean travel, and the latest news. Share your interest with others.

Details P.O. Box S.H. 2411 , New York City 10001 .

Join Us!

South Street Seapo{t Museum is where the tides of past and present meet in lively confrontation on the historic waterfront of lower Manhattan. The quarterly journal, the Reporter, carries features and news of South Street's challenging history and life today . Join us!

10 fulron srreer . new york n y 10038 (or sourh srreer seoporr l (212) 344·2262

complete line of seashells from around the world

i 16 Fulton Street

New York, N. Y. 10038

I j I

name - - - - - - - - - - - 1 address_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ city

state ____zip _ _

1

j

$10 Regular Member $15 Family

I

Your subscription is a Museum mem-j bership, and is tax deductible. .

~--·-·-·-·- · -·-·- ·- ·_J

3,000 hp Cabot passes Boston Customs House For 1he di sc riminating modeln: Jam es Bli ss & Co .. Inc .

.qualitv matPrial from

Shop our ne w Model Catalog for s hip and ca nn o n kit s, doll hou se furniture, co ns tru c tion material, motors. books. fittings and tool s. 96 pages, $1.00 postpaid.

~~LISS

& CO., INC.

Route 128, Exit 61 Dedham, Ma!ii!ii, 02026 I e nclo se $1.00 post paid for the 1978 Mod el Ca talog.

Name _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Address _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ City _ _ _ _ _ _ _ State _ _ _ _ _ Zip _ __

44

Boston still makes history.

We're proud to be part of it, serving New England and the world since 1857.

BOSTON TOWBOAT COMPANY 470 Atlantic Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02110 (617) 227-7721 SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

BOOKS just enough to explain how different types evolved. The author's scholarly equipment, which is formidable, is turned to the resolution of fine points in design, rather than to the crash of broadsides and the demands of deepwater voyaging, which ousted the rowing galley from its dominant place in naval warfare long before its ultimate demise.

PS The Book of Boats, William and John Atkin (Camden, Maine, International Marine Publishing, 1977. 220 pp ., illus., $8.95).

There are few times when the reissue of a "how to do" book on yachting is very valuable. The change from natural materials to synthetic ones has been going on for 30 years. For this reason many of the older books have gotten out of date. This is not the case with The Boat Book. The Atkins are responsible for a large number of them still in active use and the designs are still being built.

The most important aspect of this book is the art work. The drawings are superb. The Atkins, who specialize in putting "little boats" on paper have shown some very fine examples of their own work. They have also gathered designs from several other sources.

The book is full of information, it is a delight to l9ok at. It is priced below $10., which is rare in an illustrated maritime book these days .

DOD Ellerman's: A Wealth of Shipping, by James Taylor (London, Wilton House Gentry, 1976. 320 pp., illus., $12 .95).

This chronicle of a prestigious english shipping line and the family behind it, a work for the serious maritime scholar, is written by a man wllo spent some 30 years in the employ of the line. Every ship owned by Ellerman's is listed, with her ultimate disposition, and many are shown in fine photographs, some in color.

WILLIAM E. WANDER

Mr. Wander, who works at the National Society, is also a film-maker and publicist.

Weather for the Mariner, by Rear Admiral William J. Kotsch, USN (ret.)

(Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 1977.

272 pp., illus., $13.95).

Metric conversions and units are only one area in which welcomed additions and revisions appear in the second edition of Weather for the Mariner. Clear new photographs, 54 new or revised diagrams and five additional tables complement both original and new material that keep this basic work an up to date,

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

useful tool for everyone with more than a passing interest in the sea. Admiral Kotsch's authoritative work can be enjoyed by the armchair mariner as well as the serious student of marine meteorology.

DOD The Revolutionary War Memoir and Selected Correspondence of Philip Van Cortlandt, ed. Jacob Judd (Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow Restorations, 1976. 181 pp., illus. $12.00).

This invaluable memoir and letters by a scion of a famous Hudson River family was discussed in a joint review with Alan Keller's Life Along the Hudson in our last. Unhappily, while Life Along the Hudson was named at the head of the review, The Revolutionary War Memoir listing was accidentally dropped. Let us repeat here that Philip is a man worth knowing, and was at Yorktown and Washington's triumphal return to New York. His character shines in the pages of this notable work, first of a series on a family whose history is deeply imbedded in the history of New York.

The origina l bronze candlestick was sal· vaged from a sunken British man·o'·war.

We hand·cast this authentic reproduc· lion right here in a Mystic foundry. A he fty 2\12 pounds of solid bronze (or brass) 4 inches wide , with a felt base, the deep sides catch every drop of wax. It's both attractive and practical, at home or aboard. A distinctive piece of seafaring history. . and a most elegant gift. $37.50 Write Dept. 318 Specify Bronze or Brass Postpaid Send 50¢ for a 2-year subscription to our Museum Catalog, a compilation of unusual gifts of a nautical nature: Maritime prints, scrimshaw, jewelry, fabrics and much more.

mml{!:,

~sne ~SEUM SJ(9~S

-

_ ·..

Steeple Chase Pier

Mystic . Connecticut 06355

Coney Island Fishing, Crabbing, Refreshments Bait & Tackle -

Jim Roussos -

DEALERS WANTED 'WOOD-CARVED'

?ta~

SEND FOR FREE COLOR BROCHURE .A. I.... F"C::: <> - :N" - "Y" -

1220-SH BROOK AVE .. BRONX. N.Y.10456

128 pages, Wooden Kits, Fittings, Tools, Books, Plans, Wood, Acc.

$3.00.

SHIPS UNLIMITED Box 325, Morton Grove, Illinois 60053; U.S.A.

1-;.;:-S~mship H~~a~ocie~;-;:m~i;:.-1-:. 1 [ Please send me furthe r information.

IN ame _ _ 1

Addres.s

_

j C it v _ _

I

.

I

_ ·_ _ State _ _ Zip

45

1 LL U ¡.I TR JI TE D

B

r

JI NT 0 N

Chief Engineer Colin Glencannon showed a broad streak of humanity in his general rascality. The point is admirably shown in this chronicle of the generously imaginative and at times courageous spirit in which he undertook to brighten the lonely Christmas of his brother officers of the SS lnchcliffe Castle.

Glencannon, a mythic character wor1hy of the heritage of Ulysses, was born of the sea culture of his time at the hand of Guy Gilpatrick, a story-teller, ad man

APTAIN BALL smiled paternally as he watched his officers take their places at the supper table, but the smile was a trifle tremulous at the edges. In his throat-he ker-huffed, unresultfully - he could feel the same lump that was always there when he came down the lane to Kozey Kottage after. a long voyage and saw Missus B. standing in the doorway beneath the mail-order trumpet vine, which they loved just as much as though it hadn't turned out to be a peculiarly repulsive sort of warty climbing squash. Ten years, Captain Ball was thinking. Yes, tomorrow'll make the tenth Christmas this very same crowd of us has been together in the Inchclijf e Castle M'm-well, all of us is older now than we was then, but particularly me. Yes, most damned particularly me. He reminded himself that this was only because he'd had a head start of years on the rest of them, but there was scant consolation in the thought.

The steward brought in a covered di sh and placed it on the table before him. "Ker-hem!" Captain Ball recalled himself brusquely, "Good evening, gentlemen, good evening!" He shook the crumbs and fragments of the noontime curry from his napkin.

"Well, I spose we might as well learn the worst!" With the air of a coroner lifting a coffin lid at an overdue exhumation, he uncovered the dish and peered within. "Bwah !" he recoiled. "Curry! Again!" He sat back shuddering, and from the depths of his considerable paunch came murmurs and complaints, like the voices of a rebellious mob heard dimly in the distance. For some seconds he and the company hearkened to this ventriloquial tour df} force; then, when the

C

46

0 TT 0

F 1 .I CHE R

and stunt flyer (he set the U.S. world altitude record, 4,665 feet, al age 16), who was born in New York in 1896 and died in 1950. Anton Otto Fischer illustrated the Glencannon stories with suitable compassion and outrage. This story originally appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, January 14, 1939, and appears in "The Second Glencannon Omnibus"published by Dodd, Mead & Co. Š 1939, 1940, 1941 by Guy, Gilpatrick. Copyright reserved.

tumult and the shouting died, "Well, to celebrate it, our very constitutions there you are, and I won't say 'pardon is roaring riot and rebellion!" me'!" Captain Ball spread his hands.

"Yus !" agreed Mr. Montgomery, "You heard it, gentleman, you heard sourly. "And or! on account of the my innermost sentiments, and I'm not curry. Curry, curry, curry, day in, ashamed to state I stand behind my day out, and the narsty stuff is only sto mach exactly one hundred per a sort of low-grade dandruff they cent!" comb out of 'orses anyway! Welp, I "Bravvio !"applauded Mr. Glencan- wish a very curry Christmas to the non, the chief engineer. "Yere spirit rest of yer ! Myself, I'll eat my dinner o' solidarity does ye proud, sir-e'en ashore tomorrer or my name's not though I suspect ye're feeling as hol- Chauncey Montgomery!" low as the rest o' us." He dragged the "Eh? Ah, now, see here! You don't dish toward him, spooned out a heap- really mean that, do you?" demanded ing portion of curried rice and codfish, Captain Ball in dismay. "Oh, come, and fell to stowing it away in the come, Mr. Montgomery; surely you hatchlike orifice beneath his walrus wouldn't, you couldn't, break up our mustache. regular Christmas family party on "Hollow?" repeated Captain Ball. our tenth anniversary, will you? May" Indeed, Mr. Glencannon, my stom- be I'm silly, maybe I'm superstitious, ach's as hollow as a cargo of bass but it-it's so unusual for the same drums! But my heart-ah, my heart old crowd to stick together so long in is full to overflowing, both with joy one ship and always get along so free and with sadness!" He paused lamely from friction!" and smiled that same tremulous smile.

"Per'aps," grunted Mr. Montgom"Maybe you'll say I'm a sentimental ery. "Ori I know is that I've got barnold fool, gentlemen, but, you see, I acles on my stomach from the fodder, was just now figuring that this is the . and blisters on my soul from the friceve of our tenth Christmas together. tion." He glanced sidewise at Mr. Well, here we ought to be gloating Glencannon, who, from the shelter of over the bang-up dinner we ought to his napkin, thumbed his nose in return. be having tomorrow and singing car- "No, captain, I've choked down all the ols about good cheer and yew logs and curry and the hinsults I can stand ! what not and et cetera and so on- I'm going ashore tonight, I'm going instead of which-ker-huff-where are to arsk Shapiro, the ship chandler, we? Well"-he turned to the mate- for the name of the least worst 'otel "literally, of course, I spose such in Aden, and then I'm going to order sticklers for accuracy as you, Mr. a dinner for myself for tomorrer. I Montgomery, would say we was right know I won't get turkey, I 'ope I won't here in Aden harbor, anchored in five get potomaine poisoning, but damned fathoms and a little over, and the if I'll get curry!" chart would back you up. But what I "No, no, of course you won't!" really mean to say is-er-er-well, sighed Captain Ball. "I spose it was here it is the tenth anniversary of our really pretty selfish of me to try to happy family, as it were, but instead dissuade you. But-ha-ha !-there's no of looking forward to a fine old feed fool like an old fool, eh? H'm'm. Ten

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

years!" He essayed a forkful of the curry, but either it or the lump in his throat choked him, so he gave it up. "Well, let's change the subject and talk about something pleasant!

Turkey, you said?" The sounds from within him soared to the wild crescendo of hunger marchers chanting the International, then died on a gurgle of utter despair. "Ah, turkey! All roasted to a nice, rich tobacco-juice brown, with its abdomen stuffed with chestnuts and sausages and thyme and bread crumbs, like Missus B. always stuffs hers at home - though damme if I can ever remember whether the accent is on the 'ab' or the 'do.'

She also makes a lovely, thick gravy out of the giblets.''

"Lawks, 'ow delicious! The thought of it fair makes my teeth water!" declared Mr. Montgomery. "If we could only 'ave turkey with giblet gravy tomorrer, even watching Mr. Glencannon eat it couldn't spoil my happetite ! But look"-he pointed through the open doorway toward the black rock mountains which reared above the lights on Steamer Point-"look !

Why, blyme, yer'd find gold coins in the streets o' Glasgow before yer'd find a turkey in Aden!"

"A-wee!," said Mr. Glencannon, "oot o' respect for the captain's vurra evident distress at yere decision, I'll owerlook for the moment the crude pairsonal slurs ye've just noo cast at me. And naturally, I willna attempt to dispute the fact that the turkey is a vurra noble and palatable bird. But all the talk o' stoomachs has reminded

Glencannon watched in horror as they churned the water to foam a scant yard beneath his wincing coattails.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

THE HUNTING OF THE HAGGIS

me that for great ceremoonial occasions - birthday, bonquets, brawls and e'en such sacred, sentimental gatherings as Captain Ball was plonning for tomorrow - there's another dish fully as deleecious as the turkey.

I refair, o' coorse to the haggis. Noo, look ye, Muster Montgomery; I'll give ye a chonce to be decent for once in yere life, e'en though it sprains ye!

If I guarontee to cook up a nice, ploomp haggis for our little party, will ye no' accede to the captain's cherished wishes and eat yere Christmas meal with him and the rest o' us?"

"M'm, well, that depends," said Mr. Montgomery, loftily. "Just wot the 'ell's a 'aggis ?"

Mr. Glencannon gazed at him in astonishment mingled with pity. "The haggis," he explained with a spacious gesture, "the haggis, Muster Mate, is the fruit o' a romonce o' Jang, Jang ago, involving the humble pudding and the lordly sossage. It is the culinary triumph o' Scotland, which is to say, o' the entire world! Oh, surely, my pui1' fellow, e'en in all yere pewling ignorance, ye dinna mean to say ye've ne'er thrilled to the deathless

"Just wot the 'ell's a 'aggis?" lines o' Robert Burns in his Address second engineer - "what else wud ye say was needed for a haggis, Muster to a Haggis? ErMacQuayle ?" " Great chieftain o' the pudding race, "Pepper," said Mr. MacQuayle.

Aboon them a' ye tak your place!

"Ye must have plenty of pepper. Losh, His knife see rustic Labour dight I can see my auld Aunty Meg in KillAnd cut ye up wi' ready sleight, iecrankie making a haggis the noo !"

Trenching your gushing entrails "Oatmeal, onions and pepper - is bright Lik' any ditch. that orl there is to it?" sneered Mr. And then, Oh what a glorious sight, Montgomery.

Warm-reekin', rich!"

"Weel, proctically," said Mr. Glen"H'mph, it sounds ruddy nausyeat- cannon, placidly filling his pipe, ing to me," said Mr. Montgomery. "though in enumerating the ingre"Besides, leaving out the silly tup- dients, ye left oot the five-gallon peny poetry, you've only 'arf answer- bucket. But once ye've got those four ed the question I arsked yer in the succulent essentials ready at hond, first place - to wit, wot the 'ell's a yere haggis is as guid as made. All 'aggis ?" that remains to do, then, is slaughter "Yes, yes, tell him!" urged Captain an ox, cut his hoofs off, skin him, rip Ball, eagerly. "Explain him the full his insides oot and ..:_ .. modus operanda of how you prepare "Not an ox-a sheep!" Mr. Macthis - er - delicious Highland titbit, Quayle objected. "Ye commence by Mr. Glencannon !" chopping his head off. My Aunty Meg Mr. Glencannon squinted a fishy in Killiecrankie always did the job eye at the gnats which swarmed with an auld claymore whuch bearound the polished brass lamp above langed to my great-grandfather, the table. "Weel, making the haggis is Piper Jamie McTooth, o' Stronach-rideeculously sumple," he declared. lachar. He went oot to India with the "Ye merely need a certain amoont o' Argyll and Dumbartons in 1857 and oatmeal, some onions, and a five-gal- won a bronze medal for getting shot lon bucket. Er"- he turned to the in half at Lucknow.

They sped about the ship, the decks drumming to their footfalls and the night made hideous with the sounds of hue and cry.

Aunty Meg cud fetch a sheep's head off with that auld claymore in one lick-squirp !-till the rheumatism cromped her style. After that, she'd sneak up on him through the heather and bosh him ower the head with a rock. While the sheep would be laying there groggy, she'd sit hersel' astroddle o' him with a cross-cut saw and--" Mr. Glencannon frowned and raised a hand for silence. "Pairdon me, Muster MacQuayle," he said, "ox! Ye hong up yere ox and ye let his bluid drain into the five-gallon bucket. His stoomach, his liver, his heart and all his heavier machinery ye put carefully to one side where the collies canna snotch them. His other, or auxiliary, mechanism is vurra useful to mak' glue oot of, so ye mustna throw any o' it awa'. Ah, losh, gentlemen "-Mr. Glencannon smacked his lips-" as ye can readily judge for yersels, the haggis is a vurritable feast for the gods!"

Mr. Montgomery shook his fists toward heaven. "But now, see 'ere!" he fumed. "Never mind the collies and the glue-it's the 'aggis, the 'aggis I want to know about!"

"Haw, listen to him, captain!" chuckled Mr. Glencannon. "His eagerness betrays his oppetite, and I dinna blame him! Oh, he'll be here with us tomorrow with a fork in each hond, mark my wurrds ! " He struck a match, applied it to his pipe and puffed thoughtfully before continuing. "Ye tak' the heart o' yere ox - - " "Sheep," said Mr. MacQuayle.

"Ox! Great swith, Muster MacQuayle, if - - " "Oh, my eye!" snapped Mr. Montgomery." Get a'ead with it, can't yer?"

"Aye, glodly, if ye'll only stop interrupting! Ye tak' all the parts ye dinna plon to use for glue except the stoomach. Ye hash them up. Ye mix them with yere oatmeal, yere onions and yere pepper. Then ye throw the whole business into the five-gallon bucket, soshing it aroond with a broom hondle or a guid, stoot walking stick until it gives off a scupping sound, lik' when ye wade through the ooze in the bottom o' a dry dock. At this point, if ye care to, ye can add a sprig o' pursely and a few leaves o' rosemary, gently crushed betwixt the finger and the thumb, although discriminating haggis eaters o' the auld school maintain that this detrocts from the soobtile and deelicate flavor o' the whole."

"Ugh! Me, I'd add some disinfectant an 'eave the 'ole mess overboard!" declared Mr. Montgomery. "Yus, gorblyme, and I'd 'eave the bucket arfter it!"

Mr. Glencannon raised his eyebrows.

"Muster Montgomery," he said," pair-

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

mit me to obsairve that I think ye're vurra uncouth."

"Yes, shush, shush-softly, Mister Mate," Captain Ball admonished, pacifically. "So far, the haggis is raw, don't you see? . . . But-ker-hemI mean to say, how do you cook it, Mr. Glencannon?"

"Ye cook it to a turn, sir," said the engineer. "For that, incidentally, ye must use a fire. But feerst ye pick up the ox's stoomach in yere left bond, grosping it firmly aroond the waistline, as in the auld-fashioned Viennese waltz. Then, with yere richt, ye stoof it full o' the stoof ye fish oot o' the five-gallon bucket. . . . Do ye check wi' me, lVI uster MacQuayle?"

"Dom, no, by no means!" blurted Mr. MacQuayle. "Ye dinna stoof the stoofing into an ox's stoomach at all; ye stoof it into a sheep's liver! My auld Aunty Meg in Killiecrankie - - " "Foosh to yere auld Aunty Meg in Killiecrankie ! " Mr. G lencannon banged on the table and stamped on Mr. Montgomery's foot. "Come, mon, come; dinna let us bicker and quibble ower details! Instead, let us combine our talents in making a haggis for the captain's Christmas party and a treat for Muster Montgomery wuch I doot he'll have the guid taste to appreciate!"

"Now, never you mind about my taste!" said Mr. Montgomery, tartly.

"I don't think either of you two Scotch cannibals 'ave got the foggiest notion of 'ow to make yer 'orrid 'aggis, and I wouldn't eat it anyway. Besides that, where'll you get the ox, the sheep or wotever else you need to make it with?

The only animals I've seen in Aden is camels, and I could 'ardly see them for the ticks."

"Ticks dinna matter, but camels willna sairve," said Mr. MacQuayle, sullenly. "To mak' a proper haggis, ye must have a shee - - " "Oh, blosh and fuddles ticks!" shouted Mr. Glencannon, springing to his feet. "I'm at the end o' my patience! . . . Captain Ball, sir!" He turned to the shipmaster. "Here and noo I give ye my solemn promise to provide a Christmas dinner worthy o' our tenth anniversurra under your commond, and in spicht o' heel, I'll do it!"

With a farewell snort at Mr. Montgomery, he stalked from the room, went over the side to the dinghy and rowed away into the night.

When the sound of the oars had died away in the distance, "Welp!" the mate leered sardonically. "That settles that-wotever it was! Now I'll just nip back to my room, put on a fresh suit o' whites, 'ail a bumboat and go ashore myself. . . . Sure you wouldn't like to 'ave a proper 'otel meal with me

tomorrer, Captain Ball and the rest o' yer? Er"-he squirmed-"! mean, I don't suppose it could cost you more than about five bob apiece."

For a moment there was silence; then Captain Ball spoke for the crowd in a voice that quavered more than a little. "'Vhy, no," he said, "no, thank you!

I fancy we'd all rather eat together, here on the ship, like we've done for the past nine years, and-and as I was hoping you would, too, Mr. Montgomery! Tradition, sentiment, superstition-see what I mean? Damned silly of me, what? But-uh-well, anyway, m' boy, I really do hope you'll enjoy your Christmas dinner."

II

AS

MR. MONTGOMERY had ref-\_ marked, Aden and its environs are anything but pastoral; lowing herds, bleating flocks and all else bucolic and edible are there as scarce as in the more arid purlieus of Hades. Instead of heading for this sterile shore, Mr. Glencannon rowed down the inner harbor toward the oil-bunkering berths, where, near the terminal buoy of the pipe line, a great gray vessel lay pale in the moonlight. She was the refrigerator ship Northern Princess, on her regular run from Majunga, Madagascar, to Marseille with frozen meat. The still air around her throbbed to the muffled, monotonous pulsation of pumps, some of them handling the fuel oil, others driving through her complex metal arteries the chemicals which proofed her cargo against even such withering heat as there was that night in Aden.

"Losh!" murmured Mr. Glencannon, resting on his oars and measuring her bulk. "She's carrying enough dead oxen to mak' a haggis the size o' the Rock o' Gibraltar! N oo, if only Wee Wully Anstruther is still her engineer--" From somewhere aft came thuds, shouted oaths and peals of ribald laughter. A bottle whizzed through the moonlight and plunged into the water like a three-inch shell.

"Haw!" chuckled Mr. Glencannon, "Wee Wully Anstruther's still in her, beyant the shadow o' a doot ! I only hope he's not in one o' his tontrums, because I forgot to bring my bross knuckles."

He made fast the dinghy to the platform of the ladder, ascended to the deck and strode aft toward the sounds of disturbance. In the open doorway of the engineer's saloon he halted, ¡amazed at the strange rite in progress within. Around the table at the center of the smoke-filled room stood a number of lumpy, ruddy-faced gentlemen, as well as a number of others slightly

49

THE HUNTING OF THE HAGGIS

less lumpy and ruddy, but obviously equally tough. Mr. Glencannon identified the former as butchers and refrigeration engineers and the rest as the engine-room staff of the Northern Princess. All were shouting advice and encouragement to a diminutive fourstriped officer who, blindfolded and with his hands bound behind him , was kneeling on the table apparently endeavoring to drown himself in a dish of consomme.

"He looks lik' Wee Wully," muttered Mr. Glencannon. "He is Wee Wully. But what in the world is he doing?"

Moving closer, he perceived that the diminutive one was lapping up the consomme with the thirst of the worn hart that panteth after the water brooks. At length, strangling but triumphant, he straightened up, a silver coin between his teeth.

"Four minutes, thirteen seconds!" announced somebody.

Amidst hoarse cheers, bonds and blindfold were stripped from the hero and h e was assisted to the floor. Swaying slightly, h e acknowledged the plaudi ts of the multitude and wrung out his sodden necktie.

"Anstruther!" exclaimed Mr. Glencannon, hurrying forward and shaking his hand. "How are ye, Wee Wulliam, how are ye?"

The little man blinked up at him uncertainly; then, "Colin Colcollin ! " he proclaimed, raspingly. "Merry Chrishmash, Crolin, Mrerry Chrishmash! . . . Come, fill up the plate again, ladsh, and let my auld friend Grencrarron have a gro at it!"

"Oh, thonk ye, Wully; ye're really too kind!" Mr. Glencannon demurred.

"I'd dearly love to tak' part in yere innocent little game, espeecially as I obsairve that the prize is a half crown.

But to tell ye the honest truth, Wully, I sumply canna drink clear soup."

"Who osked ye to drink clear soup?" demanded Mr. Anstruther, truculently. ""Who osked ye to drink thick soup?

Who osked ye to drink green-turtle soup, pink-turtle soup, purtle-turtle soup or moeking-turt.le soup? Thash no' soup in yon plate, ye gowk; it's whushky ! " "Eh?" Mr. Glencannon vaulted to the table, knelt before the dish and sniffed a magical aroma. "Why, it's Duggan's Dew o' Kirkintilloch!" he cried. "Come, blindfold me, gentlemen ! Tie my honds ! . . . There, noo !

Ready, timekeeper? Go!" He found the pastime distinctly to his taste, especially as his walrus mustache, acting like a sponge, augmented his natural prowess. So rapidly did he

50

lower the level of the plate's contents that Mr. Anstruther, fearing for his own record, approached on tiptoe and restored it from a frt::sh bottle. Sensing despite his blindfold that he was the victim of sharp practice, Mr. ¡Glencannon redoubled his efforts, emptied the plate and retrieved the half crown in the phenomenal time of four minutes flat.

The plaudits which acclaimed his exploit were perfunctory, and in them he sensed a vaguely hostile note. Moreover, his teeth were so firmly embedded in the half crown that he suspected it was lead.

"Dom!" rasped Mr. Anstruther, making a wry face. "Why, ye've qualified for the finals with yere vurra feerst try! But then , Glencannon, ye auld snake, ye always were a dangerous mon at parlor games and parties!"

"True," admitted Mr. Glencannon, disengaging the coin from his lower incisors and tossing it through the porthole. "As a matter o' fact," he raised his voice to make himself heard above the considerable din-"as a matter o' fact, Wully, it's precisely because o' a party that I've come aboord to consult ye. Ye see, I've promised to mak' a Christmas haggis."

"A haggis?" repeated Mr. Anstrutber.

"Ye mean a guid, auld, steaming, peppery, juicy, Heeland haggis? Weel, weel, weel, let's drink a drink'to it! The only trooble is, where are ye going to get the billy goat's bl odder?"

"A-weel," said Mr. Glencannon, "if I hoppened to want a billy goat's blodder, one o' the feerst places I'd look for it wud be in the neighborhood o' a billy goat. But why shud I want it?"

"Because, dom it, ye canna mix it, stoof it, cook it, have it or eat it withoot it!" asserted Mr. Anstruther. "I can't, eh? Who says I can't?" He arose, bit a crescent-shaped fragment out of the visor of his cap and sat down again.

"Yes, yes, precisely! I've followed ye to a T, so noo ye can follow me to a whusky."

"Glodly !" said Mr. Glencannon.

"However, vVully, I fear we dinna quite understond each other. I cudna use a billy goat's blodder, because I dinna want to mak' a fut ball, a bagpipe or a hot-water bottle. What I told ye I wanted to mak' was a haggis."

"A haggis?" Mr. Anstrutlier repeated again. "Ye mean a guid, auld, steaming, peppery, juicy, Heeland haggis? W eel, weel, weel, let's drink a drink to it! The only trooble is-erer - - Trooble ? Ho! If it's trooble ye're looking for, ye ugly brute, ye've only to--" "Noo, wait, Wee Wulliam!" Mr.

Glencannon restrained him. "You and I are auld friends and ye're Eura Misteri Sahib o' the Northern Princess, the wbuch is a vurritable Noah's Ark full o' frozen cattle. Wee!, I was thinking that if ye cud see yere way clear to lending me the loan o' a nice, tender dead ox oot o' yere cargo, I - - " Mr. Anstruther yawned, removed his trousers, pulled them over his head as though they were a night.shirt, thrust his arms through the legs and buttoned the fly snugly around his neck. Then he stared down at his bare, gnarled knees . . . ,,.hy, look!" be bawled.

"Look! There's somebody aroond here, there's some skulking thief aroond here, that has stole the vurra troosies off my breech!" He lurched forward and leveled an accusing finger at Mr. Glencannon. "There he is, lads!" he shouted. "Let's heave the scoondrel owerboord ! " With a menacing growl they made for him. Mr. Glencannon snatched up a full whisky bottle from the sideboard and, wielding it clubwise, fought his way to the door. He fled along the deck toward the ladder, the pack at his heels, but so hotly were they pressing him when he reached it that he dared not attempt to descend to his dinghy.

Through alleyways. up and down companions, round and about the ship they sped, the decks drumming to their footfalls and the night made hideous with the sounds of hue and cry.

Turning a corner and momentarily out of sight of his pursuers, Mr. Glencannon slid halfway down a steep iron ladder and fell the remainder of the distance. Thanks to his presence of mind in clutching the bottle to his breast, there were only personal casualties. He found himself in a narrow, dimly lit passage at one end of which was a door marked KEEP OuT; THIS MEANS You! "Aye, but it doesna mean me!" he gasped, turning the knob. It was not, as he had surmised, a collision door, for despite its considerable thickness it was surprisingly light in weight.

He stepped over the high sill, slammed the portal after him, and was in Stygian darkness. Instantly, miraculously, the sounds of pursuit were stilled; in fact, as he stood there straining his eyel! and ears, he felt that the blackness was palpable, that it, was packed in around him under pressure and that it shut him off from all the world. Here, at last, was sanctuary!

He lit his pocket flash. Its beam licked an ebonite panel upon which were varioms switches and instruments and a brasss plate, engraved HANDLING CHAMBER. No. 3 HOLD. "'Let there be licht ! '" hte quoted, closing several

SIEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

"Ye mean a guid, auld, steaming, peppery, juicy Heeland haggis?" switches at once. Suddenly dazzled, he saw that he was ih a spacious, whiteenameled room. There were banks of pipes on the bulkheads, and from the deckhead above, chain hoists hung on curving steel tracks. The tracks ran from doors in the port and starboard sides of the vessel, converging amidships at the entrance to the hold.

"H'm, wee! it's all vurra tranquil and commendably saniturra," he remarked. "I'll mak' mysel' comfortable till yon murderers get tired o' sairching for me, and then I'll sneak oot. Whoosheroo, it's a job to mak' a haggis!" He sat with his back against the pipes and broached his bottle. The silence was broken by a liquid, gurgling sound.

This was natural enough in the circumstances, but when he had recorked the bottle, the gurgling continued.

"Strange!" he mused. "Uncanny!

Wee!, they're peculiar craft, these great floating ice chests! Noo, evidently this so-called Handling Chamber is insulated, so that frozen meat can be unloaded through it withoot opening the hatches and raising the temperature in the hold proper. They sum ply open yon door amidships, hook their oxen on the chain hoists and drog them ower to the door on whichever side they hoppen to be discharging from. I wonder- noo, I wonder-if a mon cud steal an ox oot o' here singlehanded? O' coorse, if Wee Wully Anstruther and his butchers and his bondits shud catch him at it-brhh!"

The very thought made his blood run cold, so he fortified himself with a few thermal units from the bottle. Feeling no reaction, he consumed a few more.

As he did so, the neck of the bottle rattled dismally against his teeth, and vice versa. "Why, guid losh, mon , yere hond is treembling lik' a leaf!

Ye're- ye're treembling all ower ! Can it be ye're in for a bout o' fever?" He felt a dull ache across his shoulder blades and another farther down. "Spinal meningitis!" he gasped, endeavoring to rise. "But, heavens! I canna stond up! Paralysis! Help!" he bawled.

"Austruther ! Somebody! Help!"

He realized with a surge of horror that no voice, no human sound, could penetrate those insulated walls.

"Aloss ! " he moaned. "They'll unload my puir cadaver at Marseels with the rest o' the meat! Christmas Eveah, what a nicht to die!"

Resignedly, he bowed his head and buried his face in his hands. Soon he was conscious of a painful constriction in his armpits and across the chest. His first diagnosis was pleurisy; then he discovered that he was leaning forward into the slack of his jacket like a pa-

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

poose in a blanket, and that the back and shoulders, crusted with hoarfrost, were firmly frozen to the pipes.

"Ah, come!" he growled, his breath turning to steam in the icy air. "What silly horseplay is this?" He undid the buttons and squirmed out of the garment, which hung rigid as a knightly panoply on the wall. "Ho, I see it all, noo ! Anstruther has turned on the freezing system-that explains the gurgling! He intends to freeze me to death alive!" With difficulty he unstuck his jacket from the brine pipes, stamped upon it until it regained some measure of flexibility, and donned it.

Skidding across the frosty floor, he made for the instrument panel. A dial, marked FAHRENHEIT TEMPERATURE, HANDLING CHAMBER, registered 26 degrees. Even as he scanned it, the needle dropped to 24, then to 22, and so continued downward. "Och, horrors!" croaked Mr. Glencannon, holding his bottle to the light, gauging its contents and taking a mammoth sowp of them.

"If I'm no' rescued soon, I'll have to put mysel' on half rations! Where are the Soviet ice-breakers? Where are the Y onkee planes? Where are the Alaskan dog teams, the Canadian Quintriplets and the doughty Odmiral Byrd? Am I to be abandoned here to freeze?"

Very cautiously he unlatched the door by which he had entered and pressed his ear to the crack. "N oo, two o' ye wait richt here," he heard Mr. Anstruther's rasping voice. "If he comes down this way, clout him ower the head and - - " Mr. Glencannon let the latch click back into place. He crossed to the door of the hold and swung it open. From the shadowy spaces beyond came a gust like the polar breath of Antarctica.

"Ah, foosh ! "he cringed, fumblingly uncorking the bottle. "Grim death confronts me where' er I turn! I'd better drink up this whusky before it freezes solid, for my teeth are chottering so I cudna hope to chew it!"

He was about to close the door when he disce,rned within the hold a level expanse of beef carcasses so vast that its limits were lost in the gloom. It was the top layer of the cargo; the legs of the beasts, hewn off to stumps in precise conformity to market specifications, jutted up in ranks as orderly and rigid as the Grenadier Guards on parade. Here, dead, frozen and far from their lush native pastures, was a whole Malagasy herd! Here was meat to feed a multitude! Here, to a quester ;lfter haggis, was El Dorado!

For a moment, Mr. Glencannon stood gnawing at the frozen fringe of his mustache and expelling the brittle

fragments. Then he dragged the fall of one of the chain hoists into the hold, fixed the hook in the nearest carcass and hoisted it clear. Pulling, hauling and butting it with his shoulders, he slid it along the overhead conveyor rail to the starboard side. He swung open the insulating panel which covered the loading door in the hull and unscrewed the dozen iron dogs which secured the clamps.

"Nao, then!" he panted. "All I've got to do is open it, let my ox <loon into the water and climb <loon the chain mysel'. It'll¡ be a short swim forward to the dinghy; I'll row it back, tak' my ox in tow and return in triumph to the Inchcliffe Castle. But I'd best turn oot the lichts, lest Anstruther and his thugs shud spot me."

One by one he flipped the switches; the lights went out and simultaneously the liquid gurgling ceased. "Shishshish ! " he simpered, blushing in the darkness. "Wee!, wud ye believe it?

It must have been I, mysel', that turned on all the winter weather in the feerst place!"

Slowly, soundlessly, he swung back the hull door and stood gratefully in the flood of tropic air which wafted through the opening. But though the heat was as a benison to his body, it had a strange effect upon his brain.

"Whoa!" He swayed dizzily. "Hold hard, Glencannon, hold hard! Y e've had only a little ower a bottle and a half o' whusky, but anybody'd think ye'd had a drap too much!"

Not without difficulty he slung the carcass clear of the side and lowered it until the slack in the chain indicated that it was afloat. It lay on its back with its stump legs in the air. He clambered down the chain and, still grasping it, stood on the buoyant beef while he took stock of the situation. He could see his dinghy bobbing at the ladder foot with Wee Willy Anstruther drowsing in the stern of it. Due to the manner in which he was wearing his trousers, Mr. Anstruther had a sinister, hunchbacked look about him. Even more sinister, however, was the twelveinch Stillson wrench which lay ready to his hand on the thwart.

"Ho, deary me!" groaned Mr. Glencannon. "What's to be done the noo?"

He moved a trifle aft along the beef and sat down to lower its metacenter and increase its stability. This brought its neck out of water like a clipper's bow, but caused the after portion to float almost awash. To avoid wetting his feet, Mr. Glencannon stepped down into the vent in the belly as though it were a cockpit and seated himself in the stern sheets. "Haw, vurra snoog,"

51

''If it only had a bit more sheer... it would be the most seaworthy ox in the Gulf'' he murmured, conning the little craft with an appreciative eye. "Vurra tidy and vurra shipshape. If only it had a bit more sheer and another strake o' freeboard, it wud be the most seaworthy ox in all the Gulf o' Aden.

What more cud an auld sailor osk?"

He squinted across the harbor and distinguished the lights of the Inchcliffe Castle. "Foosh to the dinghy, they'll bring it back when they've sobered up.

I'll novigate hame in my ain' haggis!"

He unhooked the chain hoist and, paddling with his hands, made off into the night.

"Ah, but it's grond to be at sea again." He sniffed the breezes gratefully. "Although come to think o' it, I havena been ashore since we left Mombasa." He raised his voice in a rollicking blue-water chantey. He was putting his whole soul into the chorus of "yo heave ho's!" when he r( alized that his lingual mechanism was actually giving off the words and music of a sentimental ballad that he recalled as Sweet Mary of Argyll.

W eel, ?peel, let it have its ain way; he thought, tolerantly. After all, Sweet Mary is a beautiful auld song. Listen.

But be listened vainly, for now, despite himself, he was reciting Burns' Address to a Haggis.

"Ab, swith ! " he growled, when the poem ended. " 'Tis all vurra oggravating ! I suspect there must have been a certain amoont o' alcohol in Wee Wully's wbusky ! " Whether or not the suspicion was justified, he found it increasingly difficult to hold to his course or even to remember where the course lay. From time to time he paused in his splashing to take a star sight, but the stars were swooping and dipping in the celestial vault, playing tag with the lights on shore and generally behaving in a scandalous manner.

"Peerplexing ! " he said, lifting his hands out of the water and raising them smartly on high in the Toss Oars position prescribed in the Royal Navy. "I almost wish I had Montgomery aboord to novigate this craft for me. But, no, on second thocht, no! Though I'm forced to associate with him on the Inchcliffe Castle, domned if I'd tolerate him on my ain private yacht! But where, oh, where is the Inchcliffe Castle?" He strained his eyes into the night and descried Djebel Ishan arid its brood of lesser peaks looming black against the sky. His view of them was somewhat obstructed by a row of tree trunks rising out of the water in the near foreground. "Tut, tut!" he objected. "There's no forest in the middle o' Aden harbor, and therefore I <loot if I see one. There's some sort of a 52

swundle, here, or pairhops it's a mirage.

But"-hereachedoutand touched the nearest trunk-" but no; it's solid!"

There was a soft swish, a gleam of phosphorescence on the starboard beam. Something struck his frail craft amidships, causing it to tremble from brisket to rump. The sea gushed onto his lap through a gaping puncture just below the water line.

"Torpedoed!" he cried. "We're holed in the tenderloin! All honds abandon ship!"

He scrambled to his feet. The beef rolled gunwales-under. To prevent it capsizing, Mr. Glencannon threw his arms around the tree trunk. There was a second shock, a ripping, rending sound and lo, the carcass was dragged from under him by an eight-foot shark!

Clinging to the tree with everything but his eyelashes, he saw the great fish tearing at the meat, saw it joined by another and another, and watched in horror as they churned the water to foam a scant yard beneath his wincing coattails.

"Quick!" he urged himself. "Get higher, mon, get higher! Pull yersel' up onto a limb!"

He groped overhead and grasped a heavy, square-hewn timber. He realized, then, that he was not on a tree at all, but on one of the supporting piles of a wharf. He hoisted himself to the moon-bathed planking and sank down in a state of collapse.

"Wburra ! "be panted. "'Tis a sorra, tbonkless tosk to mak' a haggis! Why, noo that I come to think o' it, e'en yon ox bad all o' his machinery removed and so was useless anyway! If it wasna for my promise to guid auld Captain Ball and my loathing for that snipe o' a Montgomery, I'd say foosh to the whole domned party! But noo, let's see, let's see!"

III

ESSRS. Raoul and Cyril Shapiro (Shapiro Brothers, Ltd., ShipM ping Suppliers to H. M. Navy, Contractors to Leading Mail, Passenger and Freight S. S. Lines, General Chandlers, Furnishers and Direct Importers of Fresh Provisions. Shapiros' Prices Please and Shapiros' Service Satisfies) were just about to close up the office in their premises on the Aden Crescent when they were visited by Mr. Montgomery.

"Good evening, gempmen," said the mate. " I'm orff the Inchcliffe Castle, that C. & C. ship that's laying out there by the Fairway buoy. You'll remember us, of course; our steward got drunk and bought a 'undredweight of curry powder off yer on the voyage out.

That's why I've just stopped in to arsk

yer if yer could direct me to a 'arfway decent 'otel in this 'ere town where a chap could eat 'is Christmas dinner tomorrer without choking on it."

"Well," said Mr. Raoul Shapiro, "if I may express myself candidly, siralthough, for obvious reasons, I must beg of you not to quote me-the hotels of Aden are uniformly of a distinctly inferior order."

"They are, indeed, lousy," agreed Mr. Cyril Shapiro. "But, why, sir, if I may venture to ask, are you thinking of eating your Christmas repast in Aden when such a magnificent meal will be served aboard your own ship?"

"Eh?"saidMr. Montgomery. "Magnificent meal? On the ruddy Inchcliffe Castle? 'Ere, now, don't make me weep!"

"Yes, yes, on the Inchcliffe Castle," affirmed the other, referring to a ledger on the table. "The gentleman, our valued cli ent, said he was giving a party for his colleagues and insisted on everything being of the very best. Er-two tinned Gold Seal Royal Banquet Roasting Turkeys, three tinned The Chef of Windsor Castle's Own Recipe Plum Puddings, five tins of Extra Selected Imported French Asparagus, four boxes of The London Jockey Club's Private Brand Havana Cigars, three cases of-er-yes, pepper, four cases of Duggan's Dew of Kirkintilloch Whisky--" "Duggan's Dew? Four cases?

Law ks!" gasped Mr. Montgomery.

"Why, it must 'ave been the chief hengineer ! And you say he bought all that stuff for-for the party 'e's giving tomorrer? Think of it! Well, I always did say 'e was a decent sort, bless 'is dear old soul! " "Yes, quite," said Mr. Shapiro. "He came in here a trifle-er-under the weather, if I may say so, sir. Gave us to understand that he was looking for an ox's-er-stomach. But when he saw the vast assortment of fancy highgrade delicacies on our shelves, he favored us with his most valued order." ''Turkey! Sparrowgrass ! Plum pudding!" Mr. Montgomery was rolling his eyes. "Of course I know 'e can afford it; but orl the same, I must say it's right down jolly noble of 'iin ! Wot a meal! Wot a Christmas! And-yus, wot a pal!"

When he had gone, "Phooey ! " said Mr. Raoul Shapiro. "Am I glad to hear what he said about that Scotchman being able to afford it? After all, you know, he only signed a personal chit for it, so I was worrying maybe we was stuck. What; was his name again?"

Mr. Cyril Shapiro consulted the sprawling signature in the chit book.

"Chauncey Montgomery," he read. '1> SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977

PATRONS

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY ABRAHAM & STRAUS Brooklyn, New York AMERICAN BUREAU OF SHIPPING New York, New York WALTER H. ANNENB ERG Radnor, Pennsylvania JACK R. ARON J. Aron Charitable Foundation New York, New York PETER B. BAKER New York, New York JOHN B. BALCH Annapolis, Maryland BANKERS TRUST Co. Brooklyn, New York RUSSELL BANKS Grow Chemical Corp.

New York, New York BARBA NEGRA A. SEIDL - G. SCHWISOW New London, Connecticut FRANCIS J. BARRY Circle Line New York, New York FREDERICK W. HEINECKE, II New York, New York ALLEN G. BERRIEN Milford Boat Works Milford , Connecticut STEVEN W. BRUMMEL Santa Cruz, California WM. F. BUCKLEY, JR. New York, New York ALAN BURROUGH, CBE London, England JOSEPH CANTALUPO Cantalupo Carting Company New York, New York MEL CARLIN Scarsdale, New York CHEMICAL BANK New York, New York 0. CAREY New York Railway Brooklyn, New York GEORGE F. CLEMENTS Greenwich, Connecticut J. FERRELL COLTON Tahiti Polynesie Francaise CoN EDISON Brooklyn, New York ALICE DADOURIAN New York, New York F. BRIGGS DALZELL New York, New York VIRGINIA DARE EXTRACT Co. Brooklyn, New York DIME SAVINGS BANK Brooklyn, New York THOMAS P . DOWD N. Y. Marine Fuel Co. New York, New York JEREMIAH 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

D AVID DURRELL New York, New York WILLIAM W . DURRELL Barnstable, Massachusetts EAST NEW YORK SAVINGS BANK Hrooklyn, New York DAMON L. ENGLE Union Carbide Co. Texas City, Texas FARRELL LINES New York, New York CAPTAIN JAMES GABY Balgowlah, NSW Australia MR. &. MRS. CHARLES GALLAGHER Oceamcs School New York, New York ROBERT G. GAMBEE Investment Banker New York, New York EVA GEBHARD-GOURGAUD FOUNDATION New York, New York J. T. GILBRIDE Todd Shipyards New York, New York ROGER GILMAN Port Authority of New York & New Jersey MARK GREENE Artist New Rochelle, New York GYDNIA AMERICA LINE New York, New York MRS. MARGARET S. HECTOR Fargo, North Dakota E. J. HEINE United States Lines New York, New York HELLENIC LINES New York, New York TOWNSEND HORNOR Osterville, Massachusetts ROBERT W. HUBNER IBM Corp.

Armonk, New York GEORGE IVEY Charlotte, North Carolina R. c. JEFFERSON Wayzata, Minnesota BARBARA JOHNSON Princeton, New Jersey IRVING JOHNSON Hadley, Massachusetts NEILS W . JOHNSON Central Gulf Lines, Inc. New York, New York J. M. KAPLAN FUND New York, New York ERY W. KEHAYA New York, New York JAMES c . KELLOGG, III Spear, Leeds & Kellogg New York, New York PROF. JOHN HASKELL KEMBLE Pomona College Claremont, California A. ATWATER KENT, JR. Wilmington, Delaware NORMAN KJELDSEN Cardwell Condenser Corp.

Long Island, New York

KOBRAND CORPORATION New York, New York LINCOLN SAVINGS BANK Brooklyn, New York JAMES MACDONALD FOUNDATION New York, New York THOMAS J. MAGUIRE Ventura, California PETER MANIGAULT Charleston, South Carolina MANUFACTURERS HANOVER TRUST New York, New York MRS. WALTER MAYNARD New York, New York CAPTAIN J. McGOVERN Sandy Hook Pilots Assoc.

New York, New York J. RUSSELL Morn Transway International Corp.

New York, New York MONTAN TRANSPORT (USA) INC. New York, New York MR. & MRS. EMIL MosBACHER, JR. New York, New York ROBERT G. MURPHY Spear Leeds & Kellogg New York, New York OGILVY & MATHER New York, New York JAMES O'KEEFE Wallington, 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 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania CAPTAIN W. R. PETERSON Sandy Hook Pilots Assoc.

New York, New York CAPTAIN E. J. PIERSON Moore-McCormack Lines New York, New York PINKERTON'S New York, New York RICHARDSON PRATT, JR. Pratt Institute Brooklyn, New York RICHARD RATH Boating Magazine New York, New York HON. FRED RICHMOND. Congressman Brooklyn, New York MR. & MRS. RODMAN ROCKEFELLER New York, New York DANIEL ROSE Rose Associates New York, New York ALLEN S. RUPLEY W. R. Grace Foundation New York, New York WILLIAM SA WYER Buffalo, New York R. J. SCHAEFER Larchmont, New York REAR ADMIRAL WALTER F. SCHLECH, JR., USN (RET.) Annapolis, Maryland

MR. & MRS. PETER SEEGER Beacon, New York SEAMEN'S CHURCH INSTITUTE New York, New York MRS. AVICE M. SEWALL Redlands, California SHIPS OF THE SEA MUSEUM Savannah, Georgia JAMES R. SHEPLEY Time Inc. New York, New York ROBERT F. SHERMAN Savannah Machine & Shipyard Co. Savannah, Georgia HOWARD SLOTNICK Gotham Auto Lease New Rochelle, New York A. MACY SMITH Houston, Texas THOMAS SOULES The Port of San Francisco PETER STANFORD National Maritime Historical Society EDMUND A. STANLEY, JR. Bowne & Co., Inc. New York, New York EDNA & ISAAC STERN FDTN. Brooklyn, New York JOHN STOBART Artist Potomac, Maryland MR. & MRS. MARSHALL STREIBERT The Fund For Yale New York, New York HUMPHREY SULLIVAN Lever Bros.

New York, New York ROBERT TACHER Brooklyn, New York JOHN THURMAN W. R. Grace & Co. Washington, D.C. GILBERT VERNEY Bennington, New Hampshire SHANNON WALL National Maritime Union New York, New York SWISS AMERICAN SECURITIES INC. New York, New York MRS. ELIZABETH WEEDON Charlottesville, Virginia WESTLAND FOUNDATION Portland, Oregon ADMIRAL JOHN M. WILL, USN (RET.) Arthur Tickle Engineering Brooklyn, New York CAPT. & MRS. JOHN M. WILL, JR. USN USS Canopus LOUIS WINSTON The Print Shop New York, New York CHARLES WITTHOLZ Naval Architect Silver Springs, Maryland T. H. WRIGHT, JR. Wilmington, North Carolina YOUNG & RUBICAM New York, New York

From left to right: Rear Admiral Walter F. Schlech, Jr., USN (ret.), Chairman, NMHS; Joseph Farr, Marine Engineers Beneficial Association; Congressman John M. Murphy, New York; Barbara Johnson, President, Museum of American Folk Art; Frank G. G. C<irr, Cutty Sark Society; Emil Mosbacher, Jr., Chairman, Operation Sail; Admiral John M. Will, USN (ret.); in front: Peter Stanford, President, NMHS; Mel Barisic, Treasurer, National Maritime Union.

President Johnson accepts the gift of the Kaiulani from President Macapagal.

Gathered round the wheel of Kaiulani, last American squarerigger under sail, these people are pledged to save the ships of our voyaging heritage. They met in 1974. In the following year with the help of the US Navy they brought back to this country the remains of the Kaiulani, a ship that had been given to the American people by the Philippine people a decade earlier.

In the hard-fought ten-year battle to save the ship, there was nowhere to turn for help. We could find $4 million to house an Egyptian temple in America; we could not find a quarter that sum to save and restore Kaiulani. So it is clear we must do more.

We must deliver the priceless cargo our historic ships carry, the heritage of an age when men sang at their work and encompassed the world's oceans in tall ships leaning on the wind. Join us in this work, as Member ($10), Patron ($100) or Life Member ($1,000). Your support is urgently needed. Our ships need us today to make their voyage into history.

It's up to us to deliver the Kaiulani-S cargo.

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY 2 Fulton Street

â&#x20AC;˘

Fulton Ferry Landing

â&#x20AC;˘

Brooklyn, New York 11201