No. 43
NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY
SPRING 1987
RIVERS OF AMERICA
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ISSN 0146-93 12
No. 43
SEA HISTORY
OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE WORLD SHIP TRUST
SEA HISTORY is publi shed quarterl y by the National Maritime Histo rical Society, 132 Maple Street, Croto n-on-Hudson, NY 10520. Appli cati on to ma il at Second Class rates is pending at Croto n-on-Hudson , NY . POSTMASTER : Send address changes to Sea Hi story, 132 Mapl e St ., Croton, NY 10520. COPYR IG HT © 1987 by the Nat ional Maritime Hi storica l Soc iety. Tel. 9 14 27 1-2 177. MEMBERSHIP is in vited : Plankowner $ 10,000; Benefactor $5,000; Sponsor $ 1,000; Do nor $500; Sustaining Patro n $250 ; Patron $ I00; Contributor $50; Family $3 5; Regul ar $25; Student or Retired $ 12.50. All members o utside the USA pl ease add $5 fo r postage. SEA HI STORY is sent to all members. Indi vidual copi es cost $2.75. OFF ICERS & TR USTEES are Chairman: James P. McAllister; Vice Chairmen: Alan G _ Choate , James Ean; Presidenr and Treasurer: Peter Stanford ; Vice Preside/I/: Norma Stanford; Secrerary: John H_Reill y, Jr. ; Trustees: Henry H_Anderson, Jr. , Alan G _ Choate , Karl Kortum , J. Kevin Lally, Richardo Lopes , Robert J _ Lowen, James P_ McAllister, Schuyler M_ Meyer, Jr. , Nancy Pouch, John H_ Reill y, Jr., Spencer Smith , Peter Stanford ; Chairman Emerirus: Karl Kortum ; Preside/!/ Emerirus : Alan D. Hutchi son_ OVERSEERS: Townsend Hornor, Harris L. Kempner, George Lamb , Clifford D. Mallory , Schuyler M _ Meyer, Jr. , Richard L Morris, John G. Rogers, John Stobart_ ADV ISORS: Co-chairmen: Frank 0 . Braynard , David Brink ; Raymond Aker, George Bass, Franci s E. Bowker, Oswald L. Brett , George Campbell , Frank G . G_ Carr , William Main Doerflinger, Harry Dring, John Ewald , Joseph L. Farr, Timothy G. Foote, Richard Goold-Adams, Mel Hardi n, Robert G. Herbert , R. C. Jefferson , Irving M _ Johnson , John Kemble , Charles Lundgren , Conrad Mil ster , William G . Muller, George Nichol s , Capt. Dav id E. Perkins USCG (ret. ), Richard Rath , Nancy Richardson, George Salley, Melbourne Smith , Ralph L. Snow, John Stobart , Albert Swanson , Shannon Wall , Robert A. Weinste in , T homas Well s, AICH. Charles Wittholz_ American Ship Trusr, Secretary: Eri c J _ Berryman_ WORLD SH IP TR UST: Chairman: Frank G. G. Carr; Vice Preside111s: Henry H _ Anderson , Jr. , Vi scount Caldecote, Sir Rex Hunt , Hammond Innes, Rt. Hon . Lord Lew in , Sir Peter Scott , Rt. Hon. Lord Shackleton ; Hon_ Secrerary: J _ A. Forsythe; Hon. Treasurer: Ri chard Lee ; Mensun Bo und , Dr. Neil Cussuns , Mald win Drummond , Alan McGowan , Arthur Prothero, Peter Stanford_ Membership: £ 12 payable WST , c/o Ho n. Sec. , 129a North Street , Burwe ll , Cambs. CBS OBB , England . Reg_ Charity No _ 27775 I. SEA HISTORY STAFF: Editor: Peter Stanford; Mana ging Ediror: Norma Stanford; Associare Ediror: Lincoln P _ Paine; Assistant ro rhe Preside111: Barbara Ladd; Accounting: Alfred J _ Schwab; Advertising : Joseph Stanford ; Membership Secretary: Heidi Quas; Membership Assisra111: Patri cia Anstett ; Secretary: Susan Seren it Corresponding Secrerary: Marie Lore .
SPRING 1987
CONTENTS 4 6 8 11 13 14 18 20 22 24 27 28 33 36 38 39 41 42 48
EDITOR'S LOG , LETTERS , & QUERIES RIVERS OF AMERICA, Peter Stanford RIVERFRONT HERITAGE AND DEVELOPMENT, Jerome Enzler ON THE RIVERFRONTS , Ann Breen THE GREATEST RACE OF ALL , James V. Swift THE GREAT STEAMBOAT RACE OF 1981 , Frank 0 . Braynard FORTY YEARS A RIVERMAN , E. Clare Carpenter THE DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER , Lincoln Paine THE HUDSON RIVER SLOOP VICTORINE, Charles T. Keppel & Nathan A. Lyons MARINE ART: JULIAN 0 . DAVIDSON , Lynn S. Beman MARINE ART NEWS PREINDUSTRIAL NAVIGATION AT EXPO '86, Brent Leigh THE ST . BRENDAN PROJECT, Larry Otway SAIL TRAINING : THE POGORIA , Mary Biggs TOWARDS A GRAND ALLIANCE , Henry H. Anderson, Jr. SHIP NOTES , SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS OHIO RIVER MUSEUM , John B. Briley REVIEWS REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT FOR THE YEAR 1986
COVER : One hundred mil es north of St Lo ui s, over a thou sa nd mil es inland from the sea, the mig hty Mi ss iss ippi Ri ver becomes a m o re demure and o rdinary stream . Still , it is the s hining avenue that brings news, good s and refreshme nt to the s lee py rive r town of Hannibal , Mi ssouri , from w hic h M a rk Twain sa lli ed fo rth to world wide fa m e a nd fortune. From the pa inting by John Stobart .
The National Maritime Historical Society is saving America's seafaring heritage. Join us. We bring to li fe America's seafa ring past through researc h , archaeo logica l expeditio ns and ship preservati on e ffort s. We work wi th museums , hi sto ri ans and sa il training groups and report o n these activities in o ur quarterly journal Sea Histo ry. We are a lso the American a rm of the Wo rld Ship Trust , a n internati o na l group working worldwide to he lp save s hips o f hi stor ic impo rta nce_
Won ' t yo u join us to keep a li ve o ur natio n ' s seafaring legacy'> Membership in the Society costs only $25 a year. You' ll receive Sea History, a fasc in a ting magazine filled with a rti cles of seafaring and hi storical lo re. Yo u ' ll a lso be e li g ibl e fo r di sco unt s o n books , print s a nd o th e r items .He lp save o ur seafaring he ritage. Join the atio na l Ma ritime Hi sto rica l Society today 1
TO: National Maritime Historical Society, !32 Maple St. , Croton-on-Hudson , NY 10520
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I want to help_ I understand Jhat my contribution goes to fo rwa rd Jhc work of the Soc iety ' and that 1·11 be kept informed by receiving SEA HISTORY quarterly _ Enclosed is:
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SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
A spirit of hard work, enterprise & cooperation sailed the tall ships of yesterday & the Liberty Ships of World War IL.. and that's what makes things move today!
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EDITOR'S
Loo
Gleaming dully like old , dented pewter, the East River made a magic corridor through the city, turning as it swept around under the Brooklyn Bridge on its way to join the Hudson in the Upper Bay . I looked down on it from across Lower Manhattan , from high in the World Trade Center on the Hudson shore. I thought about this SEA HISTORY on the rivers of America. The old buildings of South Street, the moored ships and even the mighty bridge looked like models , as perhaps they are-models of how a great city came of age . Next day I happened to be in Essex , a pretty Connecticut River town that lost its grip on oceanic trade a century and a half ago (see SH36) . The River Museum at Steamboat Dock was having its annual classic boat regatta , and the river was alive with swooping sail, a center of attention again as it had been when the river traffic nearly equalled New York 's. The day after that I went on to join an outdoor conclave called ''A Sense of Place,' ' held across from the Hudson River Maritime Center in Kingston, New York. How the river ran like a binding thread through all the talk! Once the avenue that supplied the Hudson towns , it was still what held them together. A few weeks later I flew halfway across the continent to attend the National Trust' s conference in Kansas City. "Everything's up to date in Kansas City ,'' the song says; but I quit the upland blocks of office buildings and sleek hotels to go seek out the Missouri, a fast-running stream buried between steep, leafy banks. The unreconstructed waterfront abounded in brick buildings that had once served river traffics . New pioneers had moved in , and an open-air market was doing a thriving business. Down on the river, the paddlewheeler William S. Mitchell served as a center of river lore and river revival. We are interested in new development from old roots, and when Tex McCrary invited me to go by helicopter to look at Port Liberte , the new community rising from the New York Harbor's edge on the Jersey shore, I went. It was a cold January day and, as it happened, my sixtieth birthday . Tex took a photograph showing, beyond Lady Liberty , the towers of the World Trade Center and at right the Brooklyn Bridge and the East River, from where tall ships sallied forth to take on the ocean connecting our riverpenetrated country to the wider worldand where tall ships are being restored at South Street Seaport Museum today to encourage the next generation of dreamers. PETER STANFORD
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LETTERS Honored Shipmates Please be so kind as to enroll me in the National Maritime Historical Society. I went to sea with the United States Merchant Marine in 1937 and stayed in until 1958. I was Chief Steward in the SS Charles A . McAllister, Captain William A. Sleek, Master. I also performed the duties of first aid man and chaplain at no extra pay . During World War II, we in the merchant marine were the unsung, unmourned and underpaid volunteers who put their lives on the line for this country. Among other citations, I received the Merchant Marine Combat Bar on the Murmansk run , Convoy PQ 19 . I know I will receive SEA HISTORY with pleasure to myself and honor to my lost shipmates. JOSEPH DlMATTlNA Arlington , Virginia A Grand Old Lady We went on a 3 1/2-hour excursion on this grand old lady , the Earns/aw, on Lake Wakatipu on the South Island of New Zealand. She is still coal fired by hand-
two stokers-and has the same engine and boilers she was built With in 1912. She is smooth and steady as a rock. One can watch the whole plant operating and it is really like watching a symphony-a work of art! It reminds one of Kipling , Stevenson and Conrad. The poor old Nobska deserves a better fate . THOMAS HALE Mr. Hale.former Trustee ofthe Society is a mainstay of the Friends of the Nobska, who worked long and hard to get the old steamer back on the Woods HoleMartha' s Vineyard run . Now laid up in Baltimore, her future looks regrettably bleak.-Eo.
Never Give Up the Ship! Thank you for noting our project with the Mary D. Hume. The news you ran was up-to-date . We wish it were not so and that we could report some definite progress , but at the moment everything is quite as you report it in your article . We have not, however, given up , and
we feel that if we could really spur the people of the Hume's home port into action, we would make her a viable and on-going marine artifact in our own area. As it is, the people that should be most concerned with her preservation are the most apathetic. I, for one, as a member of the Curry County Historical Society, hope we never give up the ship! I promise that if there is some drastic change for the better in the fortunes of the Mary D. Hume we will let you know . JOEL P. BUFFINGTON, Chairman Mary D. Hume Committee Curry County Historical Society Brookings, Oregon
Sounding and Stately Names I was very interested in your comment in the latest issue of SEA HISTORY on John Masefield 's poem , "Ships " (see SH42, p29). I have been an admirer of Masefield 's for over sixty years. There is another writer of ships and those who sailed them whom I also hold in high esteem . She is Cynthia Fox Smith . I understand that her father was a square-rigger captain and took her with him on some of his voyages. From her book Sea Songs and Ballads 1917-1922, published in 1924, comes her poem "Devine's Hotel ," with these lines: "From London to the Heads and to and fro/went speech of ships that vanished long ago--/Mermerus, Sabraon, John O'Gaunt, Loch Soy,/ Salamis, Cimba , Torrens, Yalleroi-1 Sounding and stately names of clippers-land roaring mates and hardcase skippers. " I am now ninety-one years old. I went to sea out of Liverpool 1915-1925 . They were hard years-watch on watch , supplied your own eating utensils, slept on a burlap-wrapped straw bed known as a donkey 's breakfast. But the memories are still vivid! HUGH J . O'DONNELL Salem, Massachusetts The work of C. Fox Smith is well known to us . Among her other titles-all to be recommended-are Full Sail: Tales of the Clipper Ships, Return of the Cutty Sark , Ocean Racers, and A Book of Famous Ships.-Eo. Take Another Look Concerning the picture of the unidentified Liberty ship that the retoucher changed from an anchored vessel to one under way (see SH41, p13) , may I call your attention to the anchor ball-the black spot ahead of the foremast-which the artist left in the picture. A friend with whom I discussed this picture said that SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
she 's a naval vessel , not a merchantman. He has an Sin x 1Oin photograph of the picture and it shows " Baker" (International "B " )two-blocked , indicating that she 's carrying flammable or explosive cargo , and her numbers are being hoisted , the fust three being N-A-S-. During the war, the ships' numbers of naval craft started with "N" . Also in this issue , John Hamilton 's depiction of the Liberty ship on page 18 doesn ' t work . Neither a Liberty nor any other cargo steamer of those days could ever go fast enough to make a wave line like he shows this vessel doing . ROB ERT GASTON HERBERT II East Northport, New York The photo to which our advisor and friend Mr. Herbert refers is used a lot because it says so much, we think-that' s why it is used in the Bay Refactory ad and why we ran it again , unblushingly, in our main story.-Eo .
Down to the Sea It' s time I told you how much I enjoy SEA HISTORY, and particularly your lively and seamanlike writing style . I make connections with my own life in nearly every issue . In the autumn issue (SH41) , your appreciation for Sterling Hayden, mastheadman in Gertrude Thebaud, stirred a memory. In 1933 , I borrowed the family Model-A Ford and drove from Perth Amboy , New Jersey, to Gloucester to apply for a job as doryman aboard Gertrude Thebaud. With considerable trepidation, I went into Captain Ben Pine 's office and offered to sign on . He didn't figure this skinny tall boy could lift a codfish off the bottom and, in a kindly way, suggested I finish school and come back to see him then . Next year I was off to sea in a different fashion as a Naval Academy midshipman. Eight years later, having just finished submarine school , I was ordered to the submarine Barb in Scotland via a Liberty ship loading in New York. One day out of Ambrose channel, the chief engineer told the master that a torpedo had penetrated the deep tank in the midship hold but hadn't exploded . That seemed unlikely, but torpedos were my specialty SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
and I offered to disarm it, whatever it was. Something certainly had happened as she was taking water faster than she could pump it out, and the A-frame in the low pressure cylinder was cracked half through . We made it Nova Scotia at about 5 knots, very low in the water. I never found out what had happened , but I was greatly relieved to find another Liberty ship in Halifax for the rest of the trip . ROBERT MCNITT Rear Admiral , USN (ret) Annapolis , Maryland
Between the Martingales Since you call me an advisor, I have to scurry something up in the way of advice every now and again . In SEA HISTORY 42 (p28), the caption to Norma Stanford's great photo in the lower right-hand comer reads, in part: " Lady Liberty (seen between the bobstays) ... . " Well , I can ' t quite see Lady Liberty through the bobstays ; but I do see her between the martingale stays! MELBOURNE SMITH Baltimore, Maryland Our friend and advisor Melbourne Smith is, of course, correct . Bobstays run from the bowsprit to cutwater or above that on the stem. Martingale stays runfrom the jibboom to the martingale (or dolphin striker). Martingale guys split and run aft from the martingale on either side to the ship's bow .-ED.
Tall and Goodly Shippes Concerning the use of the expression " taJI ship ," reference can be made to Richard Hakluyt, who uses the expression several times in his Voyages and Documents . " Olde M . William Haukins of Plimouth . . . armed out a tall and goodly shippe of his owne . .. . '' Later in the same book , he records " A voyage with three tall ships, the Penelope Admirall, the Marchant Royall Viceadmiral and the Edward Bonaventure Rereadmirall . . . departed from Plimouth the 10 of April 1591. .. . " So " tall ship " is no new fangled term indeed! LARS GRONSTRAND Abo, Finland Mr . Gronstrand, who played a vital role in the search that brought the splendid bark Elissa to Light in the Mediterranean (the same that now sails, restored, out of Galveston) is very welcome stepping forth to save a good name from contumely . -ED.
Of Byzantium and Genoa In my review of Alex Hurst' s and Duncan Haws' superb Maritime History of the
World, (see SH39, Reviews), I seem to have suggested a stronger Byzantine influence on the growth of Genoa than was actually the case. Genoa was a very late developer among the Italian maritime cities , influenced more by other Italian cities than by Byzantium . Genoa only established its initial dominance in the Tyrrhenian Sea in 1284 when it defeated Pisa in a great naval battle at Meloria. Venice had by that time already been a great sea power for centuries, and it had taken control of most of the Byzantine Empire as a result of the Fourth Crusade eighty years earlier. So, though Genoa, birthplace of Columbus, etc ., was very important in Europe's maritime history, it cannot really be seen as Byzantine-influenced. GARYKETELS Munich, West Germany
QUERIES
& CORRECTIONS
Being a member of the United States Maritime Service during World War II, I would appreciate any available information on USMS insignias or organizations recognizing the forgotten service. GORDON J. FRAZER 406 Evans A venue Wyomissing , PA 19610
I am absolutely delighted with the way the Yavari article in SEA HISTORY 41 turned out. There are just three smaJI points which need clarification . The photo on page 6 was taken in 1985 . Yavari did not become the property of the Navy until the '70s , and was only then painted battleship gray . In the text and caption on page 7, the figure 2,766 represents the disassembled pieces of the two steamers Yavari and Yapura . And on page 6, my great uncle accompanied Scott on his journey of 1901-not 1911. The whole project is now being examined under a microscope by Vickers, the parent company of Cammell Laird , but before they make any commitment they want to send a survey team to Lake Titicaca, so until then there won ' t be much news. MERIEL LARKIN London, England In our Ship Note regarding the sailing coble Three Brothers, we neglected to mention that additional information about the project is available. Enquiries may be addressed to: C . Jefferson Bridlington Coble Preservation Society Harbour Offices Harbour Road Bridlington, North Humberside England YO 15 2NR
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RIVERS
of AMERICA
by Peter Stanford
" The river is within us, " said T .S . Eliot, " the sea is all about us. " The American poet was writing from ex ile in England about rock ledges in the ocean in his fam ous '' Dry Salvages '' but to get his true bearings he started with the river. Writing home to a correspondent in the river city of St. Louis, Missouri , he said : " I feel there is something in having passed one ' s childhood bes ide the big ri ver, which is incommunicable to those who have not . ... Missouri and the Mississippi have made a deeper impression on me than any other part of the world . ' ' It was the trade magazine Waterways Journal, customaril y concerned with dredgi ng and locks and the horsepower of the new tugs that propel huge cargoes up and down the rivers serving the American heartland , who made their own poetry
by stringing these thoughts of Eliot's together. T hey concluded with his remembering the Eads Bridge durin g a fl ood and ' ' the steamboats blow ing in New Year' s Day. " Poetry seizes the most practical Americans when they' re talking about the great ri vers of their country . Henry Shreve , who drove the first practical steamboats on the Ohio-Mi ss issippi ri ver system , observed toward the end of his days: ' ' When ~t reaches you from somewhere in the distance , a steamboat whi stle is the sweetest music in the world ." The idea of di stance , of things coming from fa r away , is vital to that thought ! In the loneliness of the great Western plains , and in the isolated fa rms of the ro lling Ohio or Kentucky countryside the steamboat whistle announced that there was an outside world , and people , books, news and fas hions came
At right are the principal rivers of the Mississippi system. Heavy lines indicate waters that are commercially navigable today, light lines are the higher reaches of the rivers, and lakes are shown in outline.
Arkansas River
1 Columbia/Willamette 2 Sacramento/San Joaquin 3 Missouri 4 Mississippi 5 Illinois 6 Ohio 7 Hudson/Erie C. 8 St. Lawrence
6 Gul f of M ex ico
At left, far from the clamor and surge of the ocean the citizens of Hannibal , Missouri pursue their rounds in sunlit quietude. At the foot of the street is a restless, smoky steamboat which makes the Mississippi here , just south of Iowa, a highway to the ocean world. Painting by John Stobart. At right, one thousand or so feet above sea level, near Pierre, South Dakota on the Upper Missouri , the workaday City of Fort Pierre shuttles between corn, wheat and sheep country on the north bank, and cattle country on the south. Workaday she may be, but she has a certain jauntiness , a native sophistication of her own river world of the 1890s. Courtesy, The Waterways Journal, St. Louis .
in from it---or you could go out to it-by steamboat. Henry Miller Shreve's career spanned the transition of the United States from the original Atlantic Coast colonies to a continental nation-and contributed to bringing about that transition. Born in New Jersey right after the Revolution in 1785 , he grew up in the frontier town of Brownsville in western Pennsylvania , where his father moved to try farming on new lands bought by his wartime commander George Washington. Washington proved lenient about the rents from a less-than-successful operation run by an old colonel of the Continental Army and the family struggled on until Shreve's father died in the same year as his protector, 1799. Young Henry took to the river, trading down the Monongahela and Ohio by flatboat. Flatboats were rough-built of local timber, and could be poled down the waterways all the way to New Orleans on the Gulf of Mexico , where their cargoes of produce and the timber they were built of were sold. The more sophisticated keelboats could go both ways, sweated upstream by men " half horse , half alligator. " The journey, 2,000 miles each way , took a month and a half downstream to New Orleans, four and a half months back upstream to Pittsburgh . With the rivers blocked by ice in winter, you could do one roundtrip a year. By 1807 , Shreve was able to build his own keelboat , which he took down the Ohio to Cairo, then on upstream on the Mississippi to St. Louis , where he picked up beaver pelts brought to town by boats coming in from the trappers working the virgin lands stretching to the west and far northwest along the Missouri. Then , instead of going down the Mississippi to the great seaport of New Orleans , he took his small-volume, high-value cargo back up the Ohio and transferred it to wagons which wound their way through mountain passes to Philadelphia, on the Atlantic seaboard. But the real traffic was to the Gulf of Mexico, and it is here that Shreve made his main contribution, getting steam navigation going to New Orleans , which President Jefferson had seen as the key to opening the middle reaches of the continent. His first steamer brought timely relief to Stonewall Jackson defending New Orleans in the last battle of the War of 1812 . Having delivered guns and ammunition from Pittsburgh, he went back to gather up three keelboats he had passed on the 2,000-mile trip and towed them in to the relief of the city in time to support its successful defense. The river towns were quick to recognize the value of the steamboat. Shreve 's dramatic voyage to the relief of New Orleans had been accomplished in just two weeks from Pittsburgh, instead of the customary month and a half. By 181 9 there were 100 steamboats in American waters, as against only 30 (a year later) in the heavily industrialized British Isles . The railroad cut into this burgeoning river traffic , and then the truck practically ended it-except for bulk cargoes poured into flotillas of barges pushed by powerful tugs. But , people are coming " back to the river, " as the people at Delta Queen Steamboat Company like to point out. There are a million reasons for this, perhaps all coming back to the idea of enjoying and getting nourishment out of one's passage through space and time-a changed idea from the idea of hustle and progress that gave the steamboat its initial edge, and the rivers their vital role as conduits for the goods and ideas which, with a little seasoning, make civilization . SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
It is certain that when civilization was young, it did not choose, but depended on the rivers. The trade in Italian wines reached Britain before Caesar did, current archaeological studies are telling us , through an amazing pattern of rivers, cutting through from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Biscay, then through the tough neck of Brittany, and so across the Channel to England, where the stuff was taken inland as far as Stonehenge and beyond by sleepy streams suitable for nothing more than dreaming over today. Well, dreams are a kind of traffic, too. Rivers change, and change radically with the seasons. Standing under a high-arched bridge in Verona in northern Italy on a hot summer day [ looked at the pools and exposed rocks of the riverbed of the Adige and wondered how this great city had grown up on the traffic of such a barren waterway. But the high arches of the bridge told the story . In its season this river comes to life, and there is a superabundance of water, dancing and surging along the city waterfront and bringing it life-life carried , in the old days, by lovely tall-masted river craft which passed above the hot bare rocks I looked out on. And rivers change from year to year. Take the year 1910-the palatial steamboat Virginia hadn ' t been able to leave Pittsburgh since the previous July , due to lack of spring meltwater a year earlier, and a hot dry summer followed by a hard winter freeze . But come March, the river rose, and the Virginia set out. There was so much water, in fact, that she had to splash in over Mr. J. W. Williamson 's flooded cornfield to put a solitary passenger ashore at Willow Grove, halfway to Cincinnati. But when it came time to back off, she wouldn't budge-even though she was able to keep her 600 tons of cargo and 54 passengers and 30 crew afloat in waist-deep water. The river was falling and continued to fall, and left the steamboat high and dry for the next six months. People came from miles around to see the great boat out of water, and they came not to mock but to admire. The story is told by the singer John Hartford in Steamboat in a Cornfield (reviewed on page 42 of this SEA HISTORY)-a poet not really of T.S. Eliot's stripe , but one he would have enjoyed hugely , one feels. Our reviewer was so impressed that she was inspired to make this entrancing sketch of the Virginia-a vessel so at home in the countryside she serves that she can rest awhile in the fields , a bit frumpy and disheveled but queen of all she surveys, before raising steam and, in the Lord's good time , paddling away to leave another river story behind her . . . . .t
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Riverfront Heritage and Development: The Case for Dubuque by Jerome A. Enzler
In the 1970s, there were many waterfront slums throughout the country in desperate need of infusions of capital for any use at all. But now arguments for " higher and better use" are being applied to waterfronts that are already commercially prosperous. In all too many instances, people are being forced off their property by activist developers bent on " cleaning up'' neighborhoods through which strong currents of tradition and culture still flow, linked to the past by a succession of father and son , mother and daughter businesses-generations of people who have plied their trades within the structure of a way of life that has integrity for them and the communities around them . Why should the chaotic sights and sounds of the workplace be relegated to period photographs and exemplary exhibits to make way for cleaner business , or even displaced by the commemoration of another business of the more distant past? As Dubuque plans the celebration of its bicentennial next year, we have begun to draw together all the people with a stake in our waterfront-river industries, the Coast Guard, the
rafts . From the Clyde, the first iron-hulled boat built for service on the Mississippi , to the Sprague , the world's largest steampowered towboat,' Dubuque Boat and Boiler was responsible for an array of purpose-built boats whose construction reflected the political and economic climate of the time. Their continuous production of towboats and barges was punctuated by the building of a torpedo boat for the Navy before the Spanish-American War , submarine chasers in World War I and a variety of small craft during World War II. In addition , they turned out many excursion boats (including one for the King of Siam in the late nineteenth century) , and in the twenty years before their close in 1972 , they were a leader in the construction of pleasure craft in the United States. When Dubuque Boat and Boiler closed , the buildings and machinery, much of which dated from 1912, when the company had been rebuilt after a fire , were sold at auction. Although there was a fair amount of historic preservation under way in Dubuque, it was centered almost exclusively on public buildings and monuments , not industry. The preservation and interpretation of industrial landmarks fueled by tourist dollars was not even proposed . Three years after the Dubuque Boat and Boiler Company was dismantled , the Dubuque County Historical Society developed plans for a River Museum . The thrust of the project was to awaken interest in the working waterfront upon which the fortunes of Dubuque had been built. The Museum ' s first acquisition was a railroad freighthouse building which was restored with the help of a $135 ,000 grant from the Maritime Division of the National Trust for Historic Preservation-the Division's largest grant to a project on the inland waterways. This money was used as leverage to gain an additional $2 million for the development of the Woodward Riverboat
In this picture of the Dubuque Ice Harbor , taken about 1910, is seen the railroad transfer boat V . F. Yoakum (left), one of four such vessels built by the Dubuque Boat and Boiler Works, which was then the largest inland shipyard in the United States.
tourist board, an excursion boat operator and the Dubuque County Historical Society-to determine the most equitable use of the limited, sheltered space available to us. The development of Dubuque ' s working waterfront encapsules the history of America's inland waters from the earliest use of the upper Mississippi by native Americans to the present. It is a history that has been carried out in dugouts and birchbark canoes, flatboats, keelboats and pirogues, steamboats, towboats and barges. The first European to settle Dubuque was Julien Dubuque, a French-Canadian from Trois Rivieres, Quebec, who acquired lead-mining rights from the Mesquakie Indians (also known as Fox Indians) in 1788 . He developed this industry over the course of the next two decades. But upon his death in 1810, the Mesquakie rejected other mining concessions until the Black Hawk Treaty of 1832. The next year, the Westward Expansion saw the reopening of Dubuque to settlers, and the city prospered as a transportation center for the region ' s extensive agricultural output. To accomodate Dubuque's increasing demand for water carriage , the Iowa Iron Works-later known as the Dubuque Boat and Boiler Company-was established in 1870 to build steamboats and rafters , towboats designed specifically to push log
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The Army Corps of Engineers dredge William M. Black is seen dredging a channel and discharging the spoil through a pipe laid across two pontoon barges.
Museum, the restoration of the historic Mathias Ham House2 and the establishment of a small endowment fund . More important, it allowed for the establishment of 10,000 square feet of exhibit space and the acquisition of the William M. Black, a 277ft sidewheel dredge built in 1934, together with two pipeline barges and the 43ft diesel towboat, Tavern, used to position the barges and as a messenger boat. At first, it was thought that these exhibit projects were too technological in their orientation , too forbidding for the average visitor. But the curators and exhibit planners worked to ensure 1. In 1917, the Sprague took a tow of 60 barges which covered an area of 6 1/2 acres . The largest tow ever recorded consisted of 72 barges covering an area of 12 1/2 acres. 2 . The Mathias Ham House was the original headquarters of the Dubuque County Historical Society , which has since moved into the Riverboat Museum . The tai l is indeed wagging the dog!
SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
A modern diesel towboat on the Upper Mississippi on an autumn day in the 1960s. Below, the dredge William M. Black is today one of the premier attractions in Dubuque's Ice Harbor, which Last year had 250,000 visitors.
Above, standing before the Woodward Riverboat Museum is the starboard wheel of the William M. Black. Measuring 25 1/2ft in diameter and weighing almost 32 tons, the immense steel and white oak paddlewheel seems to dwarf the Museum, housed in the freighthouse of the Chicago, Burlington and Northern Railroad and built in 1901.
The towboat C ity of Pittsburgh was built f or the Carnegie Steel Company at Ambers, Pennsylvania, in 1926 and ran on the Ohio and lower Mississippi. She was later sold to the Standard Oil Company ofLouisiana.
that the interpretation of the artifacts not be solely technical, that it provide a human element and that it articulate the values not only of the people who worked the ma'c hines, but of those who benefitted from that work. We found that the preservation of such large and significant artifacts provides a visible attraction for the museum . It also encourages an awareness of and participation in other less physically commanding aspects of river life. Havi ng drawn an audience into our midst, we can begin to deal with the history of the inland waterways through the story of the men and women who have shaped our past and motivate our present. And we can do this in a setting that befits our message , a shoreside facility that preserves not only things , but values. We have begun to develop a series of programs that introduce our visitors to the life of the rivers past and present. One example is the work of John Minehart , who builds birchbark canoes . In the 1880s, a Scotch trader learned the art of building birchbark canoes from the Chippewa Indians around Lake Itasca , the headwaters of the Mississippi , in northern Minnesota . In 1926, he passed on thi s learning to Jack Hafema who, in turn , taught Jack Minehart. We have received a grant to have Minehart build a birchbark canoe on the banks of the Mississippi with two apprentices . Visitors to the museum will be encouraged to have hands-on participation in the project while it is under way . Another forgotten trade of the upper Mississippi is the fisheries, which used to employ dozens of commercial fishermen who worked the rivers, mostly on an individual basis. Today, these fishermen, who fished the river for catfish , bullhead , sturgeon and clams, have been replaced by fish farms. The museum has acq uired a variety of old fis hing and clamming equipment and we hope to secure the services of a retired
commercial fisherman , Charlie Vandermillion , to explain thi s once integral, though small-scale, river industry to our visitors . Next year, we will be celebrating the bicentennial of Julien Dubuque's arrival here, and will have an array of exhibits depicting the life and activities of the town in that time , including fur-trapping and trading, lead mining, eighteenth-century agricultural techniques and of course transportation on the rivers. For this exhibit we hope to be working with the Province of Quebec , from which Dubuque came originally; with the Mesquak ie Indians, who have a settlement about 100 miles from Dubuque; as well as with the diverse industries with which we share the Ice Harbor. In implementing all these programs, we are trying to work in concert with the people who share our harbor and riverfront and who are represented on the Ice Harbor Development Committee. There is money to be made here by retailers and others catering to a tourist industry , that is true, but to no less an extent , there is a culture and a living history to be preserved as well. Both objectives can be accomplished. Many cities have not yet determined the objectives of waterfront development, much less determined whether these objectives should include historic preservation . In Dubuque , we feel that just as it is proper fo r a city to support libraries, parks, play ing field s and hi storic residences , it is proper to support waterfront revitalization that incorporates into its plans the existing fabric of the community. That is, to foster an economy that is bol stered by touri sm , but which has an inner character and its own assets . For these are positive values for the community, and they are values for the long term .
.t Mr. Enzler is Director of Museums, Dubuque County Historical Society, and Director of the National Rivers Hall ofFame.
The Anchor Line' s C ity of Monroe was one of the larger overnight packets on the lower Mississippi. Built in 1887 at the Howard Shipyards in Jeffersonvi lle, Indiana (now the Howard Riverboat Museum) , she was destroyed by a tornado at St. Louis in 1896.
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On the Riverfronts by Ann Breen Riverfront revival is alive and well in North America. Citizer.'s gro ups are working on river cleanup and communities are looking to their riverbanks as sites for economic revival and parks . Rivers cross the map of the continent like veins and they were, and remain, vital transportation links . Over the years, changing technologies have taken their toll and turned much of the nation 's riverbank acreage into wastelands. Railroads and later highways located along riversides blocking views and access . Convenient dumping grounds, the rivers also became increasingly polluted . SmaJI wonder people lost consciousness of their connection with the ri vers. But this situation is no longer true. Beg inning with the massive public investment in water cleanup in the early 1970s , renewed interest in historic structures and the phenomenal growth of waterfront redevelopment , the pace of riverfront continues unabated . For example, in Savannah , the redevelopment of old cotton warehouses as restaurants , shops and offices has spurred the creation of a riverfront park and promenade on once abandoned territory . On the Miami River condomini ums vye for space with old boat yards and commercial fishing operations. And in Rock Island , Illinois, space on a riverfront parking lot was given over to allow a small walkway, bandshell and seating so people could see and enjoy the Mississippi. The Waterfront Center is fully engaged in these efforts which it reports in its bi-monthly newsletter, Waterfront World. The Center also showcases projects at its annual conferences and promotes broader interest in the field through the publications of its Waterfront Press. In addition, the Center has first-hand experience of riverfront initiatives throu gh its consulting and assistance team efforts in communities throughout the country. If you ' re active on your riverfront, whether it 's park planning, economic development and tourism or citizen 's group, you should consider being part of a growing network of people across North America who are members of the Waterfront Center. For information and free sample newsletter contact: The Waterfront Center, 1536 44th St. NW Washington , DC 20007 ; 202 337-0356. Membership is $28.00 for individuals and $54.00 for organizations and includes newsletter and discounts on conferences and publications . SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
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SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
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Above left, the only known photograph of the Robt. E. Lee in the race against the Natchez, shown right. It is hard to tell how much the Lee was gutted or stripped for the race, though she seems relatively intact. Photos courtesy Ralph R. DuPae, Murphy Library, University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse.
The Greatest Race of All by James V. Swift, Contributing Editor, The Waterways Journal Steamboat racing was a fact of life in the days when the packets were the principal means of transportation on the western rivers of the United States. For the most part, they were not the roman tic type of encounter as told in most books . There were some grudge matches, to be sure, but most races were for profit and for recognition-a name well known among shippers . The boat that reached a landing first got the choice freight with the highest rate, and often all of it. A fast boat got the nod from the shippers the next time they had goods to move. Having said this , though , it should be stated that the most famous steamboat race of all was a grudge match , even though there was in the background the knowledge that the winner would be famous and her notoriety would pull in the freight after the contest was over . This was to be a race of considerable length, not just a trial of speed between two towns or landings. The contestants would cover over a thousand miles of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and St. Louis . In addition to simply winning the race, the captains also hoped to set time records between landings and cities. The principals in this match were Capt. John W. Cannon and Capt. Thomas P. Leathers, well known lower Mississippi steamboat owners and operators. They had been at it for many years . Since they ran in the same trade (or part of the river) there was a natural competition between them exacerbated by the different temperaments of the two men. It is said to have gotten so fierce that they actually came to blows, although the passing years have blurred the lines between legend and fact. Captain Cannon had built his Robt. E. Lee at New Albany, Indiana , on the Ohio River in 1866. She was a big boat, 285 by 46 by 9 feet. Three years later Captain Leathers constructed the Natchez at Cincinnati, and she too was large-301 by 42 .6 by 9.8 feet. Both held records for speed. But which was actually the faster? When both boats were advertised to leave New Orleans on the same day, and hour, the fact was not missed by those living and shipping along the river. They would find out now about the relative speeds of the Lee and Natchez. Sides were taken and bets placed. It is said that money was put down not only along the Mississippi but in the East and even in Europe. Both Cannon and Leathers played down the rumors of a race. Captain Leathers even put an ad in a New Orleans paper stating he did not intend to race any boat and that the Natchez was bound for St. Louis . Ads for the Lee indicated she was bound for Louisville. SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
But there were signs that a race was really in the wind. The Lee was stripped of doors and other wind-catchers, and even the hogchain braces were slackened to give her hull a better " working " in the water. The Natchez usually carried two big swinging stages on her head , and these were taken off. Then ori 30 June 1870, sailing day, neither boat was accepting freight--only passengers. That day , the Lee left a few minutes before 5 pm and the Natchez a few minutes after the hour. In spite of what the artists show in their pictures of the race , the boats did not run together at all , and most of the time they were out of sight of each other. But all along the Mississippi the boats were greeted by huge crowds gathered around bonfires at night. At Memphis there were fireworks , too. The morning of the Fourth of July the Robt. E. Lee was in St. Louis; she had traveled from New Orleans in three days, eighteen hours and fo urteen minutes. No commercial vessel has ever equaled this time since. The Natchez did not come in until six hours and thirty-three minutes later. But some kind words must be said for the loser. Actually, the running time of the Natchez was only twenty-eight minutes less than that of the Lee . She had made stops to discharge passengers at Vicksburg and Greenville, Mississippi, and Memphis , while the Lee did not land anywhere. The cold water pump on the Natchez went out and the boat had to land for repairs during which she lost another thirty-three minutes. Finally, above Cairo, fog came up, and the Natchez tied up for five hours and fifty-five minutes. Meanwhile the Lee, although also in the fog , kept running on a slow bell and did not go to the bank. St. Louis honored the captains and crews of both steamers at a big banquet in the Southern Hotel on 5 July 1870. Then the Lee went back to Mound City , Illinois, to have her hog chains tightened and to pick up things taken off her for the race. The Natchez re-entered her trade . The race of the Robt. E. Lee and Natchez had become a legend, and today , it is probably the event most often recalled when people think of Mississippi River history . J,
Mr. Swift, for decades managing editor of The Waterways Journal, is a resident of St. Louis. For more fascinating details of the race he recommends The Great Steamboat Race by Capt. Roy L. Barkhau, published in 1952 by The Picture Marine Publishing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio . 13
The Great Steamboat Race of 1981 by Frank 0. Braynard, Curator, American Merchant Marine Museum
Mention riverboat racing on the Mississippi and invariably the great contest between the Robert E. Lee and the Natchez comes to mind. But there is a series of present-day races which, though it does not attract the national and even international interest of that 1870 duel, nonetheless generates great excitement up and down the river. Here, Frank Braynard, celebrated as a marine artist and historian and as the organizer of Operation Sail 1976, offers his observations as a judge of the great race between the Delta Queen and Mississippi Queen back in '81. I have sailed on the Volga, the Thames, the Saguenay and many other rivers, but none are more varied or more beautiful to me than the "Father of Waters, " the Mississippi. In 198 1 I had the wonderful opportunity to sail between New Orleans and St. Louis aboard the Delta Queen. Even more thrilling, I was one of the five judges of the great contest between her and her newer and larger sister, the Mississippi Queen, together with chief judge Barney Oldfield and the actress Helen Hayes who sailed in the Mississippi Queen, and Walt Maher, a television commentator from Cincinnati and Weeta Colebank of Natchez who sailed with me in the Delta Queen . Unlike races in the last century, there were a variety of competitions between the crews and passengers from the two boats and three short races culminating in the grand finish at St. Louis. The winner of the 1039-mile race would be awarded the Golden Antlers, the traditional prize since the days of the Natchez and Robert E. Lee. The original antlers won by the latter hang in the museum at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Although we were all supposed to embark on our respective boats in downtown New Orleans, it was decided that some ninety late arrivals be picked up from the levee in Audubon Park some miles upstream. As we approached the landing site , our searchlight fingered the bushes and trees on shore. A charming young lady directed the life-jacketed deck hands maneuvering the landing stage into position. She was Kari Preston , and this was her first trip as mate . Over the loudspeaker came the Will Rogers-style voice of our doughty Captain Arthur McArthur, giving instructions to Preston . A veteran captain and river pilot descended from a long line of rivermen, if there was anyone who could keep the old Delta Queen in the race with her younger sister, it was he. Shortly he appeared below walking out to the end of the landing stage to test the mud on the shore end. It was evident that the late arrivals would have a muddy walk. We took sixteen aboard and watched as seventy-five or so climbed aboard the Mississippi Queen . One later said it was a thrill , that traditional, nighttime river landing in the mud . In the dining saloon I met two gentlemen who had sailed in the Delta Queen when she was an overnight boat on the Sacramento River. Today revered as the epitome of the Mississippi River steamboat , in truth the Delta Queen was built in Scotland in 1926 for service in California between San Francisco and Sacramento, in which service she was paired with her consort the Delta King . After war use as a dormitory ship she was bought by the Greene Line of Cincinnati, today known as the Delta Queen Steamboat Company. As the result of what amounted to a nationwide crusade, she is exempt from certain Coast Guard fire regulations which allows her to retain her original configuration . Her superb interior fittings give her a wonderful atmosphere. The next morning I made sketches of the Mississippi Queen steaming majestically ahead of us. Our first stop was at Houmas House, one of the oldest of the great Louisiana plantations. Our purser announced that she was ahead because we would 14
be tying up to the Mississippi Queen after she had landed and use her bow as our gangway. " That 's all she's good for, " he added. The race was on. Sitting on the lawn in front of Houmas House we waited for the start of "The Battle of the Bands, " the first of the several interboat competitions. Suddenly we were startled with the blast of a fire engine siren and some wild jazz. Somehow the Mississippi Queen band had gotten a local fire engine and were making music " to beat the band." What an entrance! And what music! "Catfish" Mallory was their master of ceremonies and a grand job he did encouraged by shouts, weaving dance steps and the furious clapping of a dozen pretty stewardesses. Led by talented Vic Tooker , a third-generation riverboat entertainer, the Delta Queen's band arrived . With them was Willie Humphries, clari netist from the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans. Vic scored with his wonderful spiel and his fine arrangements . His seventy-six-year-old mother was a member of hi s band and played the bass fiddle . What a performance it was, reminiscent of the days when the bands from different steamers came ashore to perform before the citizenry on the very same spot. The Delta Queen won this competition 33 to 17 . Going back to the steamer, Capt. McArthur told us something of the background of Mate Kari Preston . She had come up the hard way , serving as a deck hand and then as head deck hand before sitting for her mate 's license. After a brief schooling period at Memphis she had been picked as Mate for this trip by Capt. McArthur. The Captain pointed out the display of framed licenses hanging in the upper deck lounge.
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SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
The license of Captain Mary L. Greene was there , dated April 1912. It stated that she was " a skilled master of river steam vessels on western and southern rivers between Pittsburg, Pa. and Parkersburg , West Va. " Greene lived from 1868 to 1947 and a sepia-tint photo of her was hung next to those of several other Greenes. Also on di splay were prints of several river paintings by the noted marine artist , John Stobart. The Great Steamboat Race of 1981 was plugged each day on both boats. Aboard the Delta Queen a blackboard wi th the day 's score stood outside the beautiful old-fashioned window of the purser' s office. Vic Tooker made frequent references in his concerts and evening entertai nments and referred to the Mississippi Queen as " that big rusty thing following us." Similar comments were doubtless made about the fifty-fiveyear-old lady trying to beat the new fl agship which had already won two previous races in 1979 and 1980 . We tied up at St. Francisville , Louisiana , the following day where the Delta Queen was bested in two events, the crew relay race and a rollicking duel between the two steam calliopes. With Delta Queen behind in points, things were quite heated at dinner that evening. One woman of seventy years or more stopped at my table, glared down at me and demanded that the rules be changed! As my sympathies for the Delta Queen were aroused , I began to feel less and less the impartial judge. That night , preparations were made for the " floosy" competition to be held on the front porch of the Cock of the Walk Restaurant, owned by judge Weeta Colebank. This colorful eating place was located " under the hilJ " at Natchez. This was the part of town where brawling , vice and high living were the order of the day in the years following the Civil War. It was known especially for its floosies or prostitutes. Eight passengers from each boat had volunteered to don their finery and strut their stuff to the hoots, whistles and thunderous applause of their fellow passengers. Led by a seventeen-year-old beauty named Tammy Vredevelt who won the title " Miss Natchez Under the Hill ," the Delta Queen soundly beat her rival. At Vicksburg , there was a watermelon eating contest between passengers of the two boats and tug of war between the crews. The outcome of these saw Mississippi Queen once again ahead in points. Past Vicksburg we had two days of steaming to Memphis . A kite-flying contest-a tradition on the riverboats-was decided in a draw . Then came the first of the three real races, a competition of piloting skill on a course between Kangeroo Point and Helena Casting Field in Arkansas . This race was done at a set speed which the judges assured. Captain McArthur and his pilot Captain Lexie Palmore were in the pilot house. Although an attempt to take a short cut put us in a part of the ri ver with only two feet of water under our bottom , Captain McArthur ordered full reverse just in time and we took the longer way around . Nonetheless, there was a victory for Delta Queen , and there were smiles and cheers in the dining saloon that night. Later on, we had a chance to learn something about piloting from our staff pilot, Captain Palmore. She told us how after getting her master's degree in art she had fallen in love with steamboating and secured a job as maid on the Delta Queen and slowly worked her way through the ranks. Encouraged by the Delta Queen Steamboat Company she attended the National River Academy at Helena, Arkansas. She studied there for nearly two years before signing on as a deck hand . After two years of this she got her license as mate . To qualify fo r her pilot's license she had to memorize the ri ver and be able to draw it freehand indicating all the aids to navigation , all the bends, all the shifting sands and the shore points . At first her license was valid only between New Orleans SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
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DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR .
and Cairo, Illinois. In time she extended it to St. Louis and then on the Ohio Ri ver as far as Kentucky Lake . Her talk explai ned how the river constantl y changes : buoys shift from their position , storms alter sand banks and bars . These changes are constantly monitored and announced in bulletins issued by the Coast Guard. Only the night before, she had noticed a new " hump" in the river and reported it. Before morning she was notified that the Coast Guard had put a buoy there. Captain Palmore has also continued her art career doing sketches of steamers, places and ri ver people. She also did the splendid mural that adorns the Delta Queen's saloon . Pass ions continued to rise on both steamers. At Memphis there would be the second race , a side-by-side competition . The previous year one boat had cut off the other and it had been decided to make them race in lanes, even though everyone knew that the boat in the lane on the Arkansas side would be sure to win. Captain McArthur, being the senior skipper called heads as Mayor Chandler flipped a coin . Though it landed heads, it fell and the Mississippi Queen's Captain Gabe was quick to call for another toss. Like a gentleman , Captain McArthur agreed. This time it landed tails, and the Mississippi Queen won the favored position . Captain McArthur did his best to drag victory out of certain defeat. He ordered all passengers as far forward as possible during the race to raise the stem and make less drag for the paddle wheel. Captain McArthur managed to give Delta Queen a slight edge by starting from farther back and coming up to the line with steam on . Slowly, however, the currents counted and Mississippi Queen edged into the lead , her passengers shouting and waving, and her waiters dancing outside the dining saloon. Near the end , she briefly faltered and Delta Queen almost caught up . But the day was theirs, and a flare from a Coast Guard boat on the finish line signalled their victory . 15
Jazz at its best. Vic Tooker was seen oiling his trombone with vodka. After several liberal applications, he drank the rest. So intense did the effort become on the bridge that Captain McArthur asked the judges to leave the pilot house. He locked the door so that only Pilot Harold De Marrero would hear what he had to say to Chief Engineer Jones . Delta Queen won by two lengths before TV cameras and huge crowds, not to mention a bevy of small craft. And Captain McArthur hung on to that whistle pull for the longest time as we passed under the bridge near the Great Arch that marked the finish .
* * * * *
By this time the three of us judging from the Delta Queen had become completely partisan. We cheered and encouraged our boat like all the others-and I assume that judges Oldfield and Hayes did likewise on their boat. We were determined to win the next two events before the final speed race one way or another. One event was a barber shop quartet and the other a melodrama competition. In both, the high spirits of the Delta Queen competitors gave them a hands-down victory . We were ten points in the lead coming into the final day, the-most exciting of the great race. A real, old-fashioned steamboat race was scheduled as the last event. With Coast Guard escorts and fireboats at the finish and with a quarter of a million spectators expected to be waiting on the levee at St. Louis for the winning boat, the day promised to be a heart stopper . Again, Captain McArthur used all his many years experience. As before, he managed to hang back a bit and ordered Chief Engineer Edgar Jones of Baltimore to give her all she had so we could cross the start with a good head of steam up. For some reason , Mississippi Queen was barely making headway at the start and never caught up . Again, on Delta Queen all the passengers, the band and the piano were as far forward as possible, and everyone was yelling like mad. There were streamers and cheering and hand clapping and New Orleans
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The evening before the last event we stopped for supplies at Chester, Illinois, a lovely river town with mansions that had captains' walks and big , tall trees . Hundreds of people sat on the grassy banks and watched as supplies of all sorts were carried from trucks to the landing stage. One truck backed up with cases of champagne. Passengers inflated balloons and tossed them ashore. One little lad in a red shirt was there for the entire visit, passing balloons back to others and having a grand time . He could not take his eyes off the steamer, her crew and the happening . When we finally hoisted the landing stage he stood and watched us depart, waving. Keeping pace with our slow motion upstream, he jogged along the bank . He had been given a little American flag by one passenger and he waved it continually as he ran . He kept going on and on, waving and running. He passed behind some small broken down buildings along the levee and then was seen running up a small hill. The passengers who had been waving back turned to estimate how far he had run-at least a mile and always waving . Suddenly there was a burst of clapping from our foredeck . Our little red shirt had been spotted high up on a roof of a house. He was waving furiously, sitting atop the chimney. Everyone marveled and again there was more waving and cheering, although he was much too far away to hear us by then . Just a red spot high up on a house. Then moments later, he emerged again! It must have been his own home because he was now on a bike-still waving and moving faster , keeping up with our progress up river. Someone said he would never get home for supper, but he kept on peddling . Then he passed behind an idle freight train and as he would pass between two cars he would wave even more vigorously. One passenger said: " That boy deserves to sail on the Delta Queen ." I bet some day he will , and probably as her master. .i,
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Forty Years a Riverinan by Captain E. Clare Carpenter I was born and lived until I was sixteen years old near Ripley, West Virginia , about forty miles from Marietta. In 1924, my family moved to Meigs County, Ohio , which is the next county down from Marietta about forty-five or fifty miles . Until then I really didn ' t know much about the Ohio except what I'd read in the geography books. Close to our farm there was a little ferry boat that ran back and forth across the river. The fellow that owned the ferry had a couple of sons about my age with whom I got to loafing on the boat. And that was my introduction to the life of the river. After I got out of school, the Depression was starting, and I happened to stumble onto a job as a coal passer on a little towboat, the Leona, at Letart Falls , mile 234 on the Ohio , under charter to the Army Corps of Engineers. During the Depression there weren't a whole lot of jobs. I started to work in May of 1930, wheeling coal out of an old barge with a wheelbarrow and bringing it up to the firemen . I also worked actually firing the boilers. When I had gained enough experience, I was able to do what we called on these boats a watchman's job, which is actually a second mate's job. I transferred to the American Barge Line in 1932, and continued the same sort of work until 1936--six years-and then got my mate 's license . After that , I did the same jobs I had been doing, wheeling coal, doing deck work and standing the watch opposite the mate . Then in 1937, I finally got on to one of the ABL boats as what we called a steersman-in Mark Twain 's lingo , a cub pilot. During my time as steersman, I was on the Inland, which sank. I was in the pilot house when it happened . I wasn't at the wheel-the captain was. But when that happened , the company decided that things were falling off a little anyway and they weren't going to keep any steersmen for awhile. So I went back to doing whatever there was to do on the boat. In the fall of 1939 I decided it was time to get back into the pilothouse one way or another, so I switched boats. I was on the Arthur Hider just about two months when the boilers started leaking . The inspectors came aboard and crossed the boilers out, and she was laid up for six months for repairs. After she was back in service I went back on her as mate for six or seven months with a letter in my pocket that said that I could transfer to any boat as steersmen that the captain okayed. Well , the captain said , "I want you here , and you stay mate until I can find somebody.'' Six months went by and he never found anybody he liked. But in the meantime I did a lot of steering. Finally I said the heck with this racket and went for my pilot's license. This was in 1941 , eleven years from the time I started working on the river. After I had the license, I worked a few short hitches as pilot, but I was low man on the list. So in September of that year, I took what was supposed to be a three-day job for a company in Pittsburgh, Union Barge. The three days stretched out to more than thirty-two years before I finally retired .
To Be A Pilot To get your license, the law says that you shall have three years experience in or around the pilothouse, working as an observer and so on. Then you have to have one captain, one pilot and one engineer sign your application, which basically means that you know enough that they would be willing to work with you. Then , you have to take the Coast Guard-in my day it was the Steamboat Inspection Service of the Treasury Department-examination. You are certified for whatever part of the river you take your test for. The most important part of the exam is drawing a freehand map--a reasonable facsimile of a map--of the stretch of river you want to work on . You have to indicate all 18
the bends, the aids to navigation, the locks and dams , the bridges and so on. You can cover as little or as much as you want. A friend of mine took hi s original test from Marietta down to Memphis. I did mine from Pittsburgh to Huntington, West Virginia , about 300 miles . I later got licenses for the Monongahela, part of the Allegheny, the Kanawha River, which comes into the Ohio at Point Pleasant, and a short license on the Little Kanawha down around Parkersburg-and all of the Ohio. I don't have anythi ng on the Mississippi or the other big tributaries, but I wound up with 1205 miles all told. Back when I started on the rivers, the towboat business hadn't really developed into what it is today. At that time , nobody had any idea that you could push stuff up the river, against the current. When you got to where you were going, you off-loaded your cargo and brought the barges back empty. And that was a dead expense. Then the company I was working for, American Barge Line out of Louisville , got a contract for towing scrap iron from New Orleans and Natchez into the Pittsburgh area. Carnegie Steel had a couple of big boats they 'd built to tow their own products down to New Orleans-they were the first to handle really big tows after the locking system went in on the Ohio-so we went and chartered one of their boats. I have since heard that a lot of people scratched their heads and said, Well , that's the end of those people , because you can't ship cargo upstream and make a profit on it. But right now ABL is the biggest barge line in the whole inland water system, and of course everybody followed their lead . I would say that today 75 percent of the river cargo moves upstream. The industry really took off during World War II, when we ran into gasoline problems. You couldn't ship around the east coast on account of the submarines, so we brought it up here to the Pittsburgh area and then pipelined it over to the eastern ports. For about four or five years an enormous percentage of the cargos went upstream. Of course, the rivers-the Mississippi, especially--change constantly and when you've passed your pilot's test, it only means you know the river better than most people . I suppose one of the worst things that can happen is when the river floods, not so much during the flood-although that can be pretty bad, too-as what happens to the river afterwards . The currents change, sandbars build up and so on.
Winter Problems One time , I was on the Isthmian taking a barge up the Mississippi and we ran aground about eleven o'clock in the morning. The next morning, it was December-my birthday, to be exact-you could walk clear around the boat and not get your feet wet, except for a little puddle right under the wheel. We were there for ten days , and we had to walk out across the sandbar to where the dredge was-about 150 feet-to get water to wash with. It was cold-about 10 degrees. The captain and engineer decided they 'd pump water into the barge-it was a brand new barge-so we'd have water for our boilers and so on. Well , it got about half full and the thing broke in two . A brand new barge-the first trip it had made and it broke in two. Then they got afraid something would happen to the boat-maybe a broken steam line would scald somebody or something-so we cooled it all down. The only heat we had was from the cook stove (which happened to be coal fired), a pot-bellied stove in the pilothouse and a little four-burner type laundry stove. That was it. A major problem in winter used to be the ice . We haven't had any ice to stop traffic around here for probably ten years, SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
The American Barge Line' s towboat Inland , which sank while Captain Carpenter was serving on her as steersman. Here the Inland is shown as she was in 1935.
but there are reasons for that. First, the boats are different , with more power and bigger propellers. You couldn 't run the old paddlewheel boats in ice at all ; the ice would just chew them up. I was on a boat one time and we had been tied up in the ice when the captain got in a hurry to go. We got out in it and the ice tore up the wheel in about twenty-five miles . The company sent a truckload of lumber and four carpenters to build a new wheel; and twentyfour hours later they sent the same carpenters and another truckload of lumber back to build the second wheel. Now with bigger boats , you 've got a lot more power to break up the ice, and the ice doesn 't affect the propelJers as much. Another thing is the construction of the hull . A lot of the older boats were wooden-hulled , even in my day . The worst thing for them was real thin skim ice. Going through that was just like taking a knife along the hull. It would cut right through the planking. Floods and Other Problems But as I was saying, the real trouble piloting was the result of flooding. In thirty-two years of piloting , the last trip I made had to be the worst one I ever made. I got into Pittsburgh and it had been pouring down rain. As I went aboard , the office called and said, " We got flood stage here. The lock three miles down is going out of operation in an hour because of the high water." (The river was raising a foot an hour.) ''Can you get the boat out and get down through that lock?'' I said, " No , I can't do that. " "Why can't you?" I said, "Well, I only have half a crew. The groceries and stores haven ' t come aboard yet and everything ... " "Get going! We'll get the crew and the groceries to you some place , some time! Just get out of there!" We got through the locks okay and went down below the locks a couple of miles to where the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company's fleet was. We had taken two empty barges out of the landing with us and delivered them there , and we had to pick up a load or two . Their landing man called up and he said , "Hey, we need some help down here . We got some coal barges down here . The drift is piling up on them and they ' re going to sink. And we don 't have a boat around here ." We were having a three-way conversation on the radio--my office, the Jones and Laughlin man and I-and the office said , " How long do you think it'll take to do the work? " And I said , " Well, from what he ' s telling me, if everything goes right, it'll take two-and-a-half, three hours. " Well , you can't go off and leave a good customer in that kind of situation, so the office said, " Go do it." We started in at eleven o'clock in the morning and at ten o'clock that night we finally got through . By that time the river was clear up over the banks. And I've never seen current like that. We were lucky to find a big steel pier somebody had put in for a chemical dock and we tied up to that for the night. The next night, I changed from the Northern to the Western at Belleville Lock and headed north . I was in front of our house in Belpre, and at midnight I was supposed to change boats and go home . The pilot who was supposed to relieve me called the dispatcher and said that on account of the river being high-it was coming down from the night before-he didn ' t think it was safe to try to board . So I got stuck on that boat for another three days while we headed back up to Pittsburgh . That was my last trip as captain-pilot. .i,
The ABL' s Isthmian aground on a sandbar near Columbus, Kentucky, on the Mississippi in late December, 1935. "We were up therefor ten days, and we had to walk out across the sandbar to get water to wash with. It was down about ten degrees."
The towboats carried all manner of cargos . Here the Ohio Barge line's steam sternwheeler City of Pittsburgh is shown with a tow of eleven barges of finished steel products, two of coal and a lock gate (light gray structure in foreground) for the Panama Canal. Photo courtesy The Waterways Journal.
This article is based on an interview between Captain Carpenter and Lincoln Paine held in December 1986 in Marietta , Ohio .
SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
19
The Discovery of the Columbia River Recorded by Lincoln Paine Among the early voyages that took American enterprise beyond the confines of the Atlantic Ocean , those of Captain Robert Gray in the Columbia Rediviva to the Pacific Northwest, to China, and thence around -the world , stand out for their boldness , their commercial success, and for the discoveries which resulted from them . The first voyage, made in company with the Lady Washington, left Boston in 1787 for the Pacific Northwest, where furs were obtained for trade with the Chinese (among others), and returned to Boston in 1790. Only six weeks after the conclusion of this voyage, Gray sailed again . On this voyage he explored the mouth of the Columbia River, which he named for his ship, and got for the United States a claim to the Oregon Territories. This latter voyage is also significant because of a remarkable pictorial record made by one of the ship's company, George Davidson. From Charleston, South Carolina, the twenty-twoyear-old Davidson was listed in the ship's roll simply as painter. Although he certainly had other duties, he was probably expected to record the voyage with sketches and paintings, much as a photographer would today . Davidson produced a series of wash drawings depicting scenes from the voyage. Upon returning to Boston , Davidson completed several sets of paintings based on these drawings for friends , relatives and fellow crew. ' There is every indication that Davidson painted only six different views from the voyage. Although they vary somewhat in detail, they are essentially the same in composition and subject; and although Davidson 's style lacks sophistication, his work vividly and accurately portrays the achievements and vicissitudes of the nearly three-year voyage. With the exception of the dramatic ''Columbia in Distress,'' all of the specific events depicted are also described in the log of the ship's fifth officer, John Boit, Jr. Boit later achieved fame for his voyages to the Northwest and around the world in command-at the age of nineteen-of the Union. ' Perhaps the most valuable picture historically is "Winter Quarters at Adventure Cove and Fort Defiance,'' inhabited during the winter of 1791-92. It depicts the launching of the sloop Adventure, the knock-down frames and fittings for which had been brought out in the Columbia, in the spring of the latter year. The camp had been established in September of 1791 , and the crew apparently enjoyed good relations with the local population . In Boit's account, we can sense the optimism with which the company viewed the fitting out of their new vessel: March 4th (1792) This day the ship [Adventure] was completely rig'd, hold stowed, and in every respect in readiness for sea. She looked like a fidd le! March 22 Launched the sloop Adventure. She went off admirably, took a hawser and got her alongside the ship and soon had her rig'd. March 24th The sloop Adventure is ready for sea-I think she was one of the prettiest vessels I ever saw, of about 45 tons, with a handsome figurehead and false badges, and other ways touch 'd off in high stile. From Adventure Cove, Gray sailed along the Oregon coast and on 12 May discovered and entered the Columbia River. They stayed for eight days trading with the natives and investigating the mouth of the river. On 20 May , they sailed north for Chickleset Cove on Cape Cook, an anchorage from the Columbia's previous voyage. Although their relations with the I _ Several sets of paintings exist in various collections. In .addition to these, Davidson made numerous copies of his original drawings, some of which also survive. ¡ 2. See, Log of the Union: John Boil' s Remarkable Voyage to the Northwest Coast and Around the World, 1794-1796, ed. Edmund Hayes (Oregon Historical Society, Astoria, 1981).
20
Indians had been amicable during their earlier stay, and although, in Boit's words, the natives , "seem' d much pleased at our visiting them again," on the evening of the ships ' arrival, there was a violent incident , which Davidson captured in his painting " Surprised by the Natives of Chickleset." Although Bo it seems to have felt that the ships ' companies were in no immediate danger, many Indians were killed . May 28th [ 1792] .... At 10 in the evening a number of large canoes full of people , came into the Cove, they halted near some rocks-and there waited ten minutes-soon after a large canoe, with above 25 Indians, paddled off for the ship. We hail'd them , but they still persisted, and other canoes was seen following upon which Captain Gray ordered us to fire , which we did so effectively as to kill or wound every soul in the canoe ,-she drifted alongside , but we pushed her clear and she drove to the north side of the cove under the tree . 'Twas bright moonlight and the woods echoed with the dying groans of these unfortunate savages .... But I cannot think they had any intention of boarding the ship but were after a small anchor which they , in the course of the day, see placed on some rocks for to steady the ship . Davidson 's painting " Attacked at Juan de Fuca Straits" is incorrectly titled . It probably depicts an attack by Nootka Indians in the Queen Charlotte Straits at the northern end of Vancouver Island , near the present-day town of Port Hardy . Boit was leading a shore party gathering firewood when he and his men were rushed by 200 Indians: .. . I immediately rallied my people together and retreated slowly , at the same time fir' d a few muskets over their heads which kept them in check-they advanced so near as to throw their spears. We then discharg 'd our musketts and kill ' d several-Immediately , as we made our appearance, the ship cover'd us with cannon and the grape and round shot must have done considerable damage to our _ pursuers as they fell just into the brink of the wood, where the thickest of the Indians was ... . June 8th. Toward evening luffd into a small bend of the land and came too in 17 fathom close to the shore. A few canoes with Indians came off, who talk'd the Nootka language. June 9th. About noon 20 large war canoes hove in sight, with above 30 men in each and we soon discem'd with our glasses thate they was all arm'd with spears and arrows . We fir'd a cannon and some muskets over their heads . At this they moved off about 100 yards and again halted-A small canoe kept constantly plying between the ship and the main body of the canoes-[a chief] encouraged them to begin the attack . Captain Gray told him to come near the ship no more, but he still persisted and was shot dead for his temerity . Also the chief warrior of the canoe alongside was shot for throwing his spear into the ship . They then made a precipitate retreat. Captain Gray remained in the Northwest until September 1792, at which point he sold the sloop Adventure to Spanish traders for '' 72 prime otter skins worth 55 Dolars in Canton which is equal to $4960 . .. a good price," and sailed for China via Hawaii and Macao . At Whampoa, the 200 furs which had been collected were sold for $90 ,000 . The Columbia sailed for Boston 2 February 1793 , arriving there thirteen weeks later--4 May .
w This article borrows heavily from an unpublished survey of George Davidson' s paintings made in the 1930s by Edmund Hayes. SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
' 'Winter Quarters at Adventure Cove and Fort Defiance ," winter of 179 1-22.
I
" Surprised by the Natives of Chickleset, " May 28, 1792.
" Attacked at Juan de Fuca Straits" probably depicts an attack that actually occurred at Queen Charlotte Straits, June 8, 1792 .
The paintings reproduced here were loaned to the Oregon Historical Society by Mrs . Clarence W. DuBois , a descendant of Benjamin Popkins , the armorer of the Columbia Rediviva . SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
21
The Victorine: A Well Known Hudson River Sloop by Charles T. Keppel and Nathan A. Lyons Built in Piermont, New York in 1848, the Hudson River Sloop Victorine was soon acquired by the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring . For nearly fifty years she was used by the Foundry to bring in raw materials and to deliver the finished products for which it became famous: artillery , major parts for steam engines used by ships and locomotives and, particularly during the Civil War, Parrett guns for the Union Army. During most of her years with the Foundry , the Victorine was commanded by Captain David Lyons cf Cold Spring. During one of his trips from Cold Spring to New York, Capt. Lyons sai led the sloop south in three hours and forty minutes, a passage that gave Victorine her reputation as one of the fastest sloops on the Hudson. She cou ld even hold her own with some of the fast private sailing yachts whose wealthy proprietors chose to give her a race. However, before describing the Victorine further, it would be good to see where this type of river vessel came from, and how it became adapted for the particular needs of the Hudson River. When the Dutch first settled in what was then called New Amsterdam, they soon recognized that water transportation was the easiest and most economical for both people and heavy goods . They started by building one-masted cargo boats like the ones they had known in Holland, then called sloeps. They found, however, that these drew too much water for the smaller harbors along the rivers and bays, and the old moveable sideboards needed for sailing on the wind were not as useful as the built-in and adjustable center-boards already being developed elsewhere on the East Coast. Also, the varying wind conditions found in different parts of the Hudson called for more specialized sail patterns. As the plans of the Victorine show, many years of sloop building had refined the 70ft hull to a broad beam of 25ft and a depth of on ly 6ft, plus a built-in centerboard which when needed could be dropped another 6ft for sailing on the wind . The mast was stepped well forward. With its top mast , it rose to more than 90ft. This enabled it to carry a large mainsail, one big jib plus a topsail. As refined , the nineteenth-century sloop cou ld carry ample cargo, get in and out of shallow harbors and sail well in good winds. Victorine sail and rigging plan . Courtesy Model Ship Builder. Drawing by P . Takakjian.
I
Though the Victorine was used primarily to carry cargos for the prosperous West Point Foundary, many other sloops of its day, and for many years before , served as Hudson River ferries for people living all along the great ri ver. One such sloop of 1826 made regular trips between Ossining and New York City; it sailed south on Thursdays, and returned north on Mondays. One south-bound trip , on 18 March of that year, carried mostly farm products, listed on the sloop's records as: fifteen calves, two turkeys , six barrels of potatoes , one side of beef, ten bags of com , many chickens, sixty-three bushels of oats (New York had many horses to feed), two barrel s of vinegar and three of cider. The sloop captain, John Leacock, served as the shippers' agent, collecting payment for all this when it was delivered. On his return to Ossining , he brought back three passengers, two kegs of liquor, one chest of tea and a whole range of household items needed by local merchants for stock replenishment. The record shows that he collected freight charges of over twenty-four dollars for the north bound trip . Ossining was typical of many farming centers on both sides of the Hudson, and many sloops were engaged in trade similar to that described all along the river. For instance the harbor at New Hamburgh, south of Poughkeepsie was served by twenty-four sloops and seven schooners over a twenty-five year period. The captains along the river became recognized as valuable citizens both fo r their conduct of business affairs and the safe navigation of their vessels. Although sloops could often sail from New York City to Albany in twenty-four hours, owing to prevailing southerly winds the return trip could often take four days, and sometimes as long as a week. Naturally, times varied with the conditions. If wind and tide were particu larly adverse, the captains would lie at anchor until the tide turned. When Capt. Lyons made his record run from Cold Spring, in the Hudson Highl ands, he must have caught the ebb tide just right, and then been helped by a strong tail wind all the way south . He made the trip in a little more than half the time for just one tide of six- plus hours. Hi s average speed must have been better than ten knots through the water, plus the help of the tide. The Victorine had a carrying capacity of some 110 tons of cargo. All crew work aboard had to be done by hand . It was only later that small mechanical deck winches were installed . These were first powered by steam , and later by gasoline engines. These were especiall y important for the larger schooners used for ocean transport. The mechanical deck winches greatly reduced the size of crews needed, no longer calling for extra men for the old " hand haulers." Sloops of the size of the Victorine usually carried a crew of six , including the captain . Cargo handling, anchor raising and setting of the large sail s, all required hand work. Steering was by a tiller instead of a mechanical hand wheel. The large tiller was much better for the sometimes quick course changes made necessary by the various wind changes characteristic of the Hudson . Crew members also had to be ready to put reefs in the large sail s, sometimes needed for sailing before a strong tail wind . Usually, when under weigh, the men did all their work from the deck . Living quarters were in the bow and stem. Cooking was done on a stove located well away from the wood construction of the rest of the sloop . Not all trips for the Victorine were between Cold Spring and New York. Sometimes she had to deliver and pick up cargos in Albany or Troy . All progress was made by sail and Capt. Lyons had to know the peculiarities of the entire navigable length of the river. Captain Lyons not only had to steer clear of the shoals but also had to avoid being run into by the river steamers which, as they increased in number , became SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
Th e classic Hudson River sloop, Victorine, displays her saucy sheer and giant mainsail in a portrait shot just off the railroad tracks that are taking away her livelihood. She's stowed her jib and come to anchor at Cold Spring , while her crew pose in the rigging f or the camera. A giant American flag flaps lazily at the peak, completing this turn-of-th ecentury, uniquely American river scene. Courtesy Charles A. Keppel.
an increasing hazard to the sloops. During the nearly fifty years of the Victorine sailing for the West Point Foundry , the growing use of steam power cut into the need for sloop transport and reduced the need for many of the other sloops in the so-called Cold Spring Navy : Kitty Van Tassell, Wa ve, Mary Kemble, Putnam and Norma. Steamboats, faster and more comfortable than the old passenger carrying sailing vessels , soon claimed most of the business. In time, competition between steamboat companies became so great that some serious accidents occurred . Beyond some collisions with sailing craft and other vessels , there were also fires, boiler explosions and even shipwrecks on the shore . In the mid-nineteenth century , the cargo-carrying river steamers competed more and more with the sloops , and the building of new sloops disappeared entirely soon after the Civil War. Also railroad development on both sides of the Hudson River continued to cut seriously into the need for sloops. The changes brought on by steam technology created another, though less glamorous use of the old , well built sloops - conversion into lighters . Such was the fate of the Victorine shortly before 1900 when she was acquired by a shipping SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
company that used barges and sloops , sometimes in large groups, lashed together and towed behind a steam tug. Usually the former sloops ' rigging had to be removed to facilitate loading and to reduce the weight the hull had to carry. As a barge the Victorine was still in use for probably another ten years , between Albany and New York. Although there is some indication that she was used in New York Harbor to transport what was then called case oil (kerosene in large tin containers) from local refiners to larger ships used in transatlantic trade, no definite date has been found to indicate when the Victorine ceased to be used. But she must have come to the end of her days within a few years of the death of her long-time captain , David A. Lyons , who died September 1909 at the age of 86. Separately and together, both the sloop and the Captain left records to be remembered in Hudson River history .
.t Mr. Keppel has long been a student of the Hudson River and aided in the establishment of the Hudson River Maritime Center at Kingston, New York. Mr. Lyons is a grandson of the Victorine' s master, Capt. David Lyons. 23
Davidson captured the lovely scene of ships and boats on the Hudson River at Tappan Zee from the vantage of a boat in the stream. On the left are Hook Mountain and, in the distance, High Tor; to the right Westchester County. (Oil on canvas, 121/i'' x 15'') Courtesy the Hudson River Museum .
MARINE ART
Julian 0. Davidson (1853-1894): A Rediscovery by Lynn S. Beman In the fall of 1870, Julian learned that the Pacific Mail During the late nineteenth century , Julian 0 . Davidson was Company steamship Arizona was scheduled to depart from one of America's leading marine painters and illustrators. His work appeared regularly in the important illustrated periodicals New York City for the Orient, and resolved to travel aboard the old-fashioned sidewheeler. Whether he did so with his of the day, his paintings were shown in major exhibitions and were often reproduced as chromolithographs, which hung in parents' blessings is unclear, but later in life he wrote that he " quite literally ran away to sea." Yet recent research indicates homes and classrooms across the country. More than any other that Matthias Davidson was a friend of William Aspinwall, American artist of his day , Davidson specialized in painting owner of the Pacific Mail Company. It is therefore likely that historic naval battles. Yet, by the first decade of the twentieth Matthias Davidson assisted his son in arranging passage. Since century this artist and his paintings had passed into obscurity, the Arizona carried no passengers beyond Egypt, Julian signed despite the fact that many of his paintings are sti ll used to aboard as a crew member, undertaking a multitude of duties , illustrate texts on American naval history. including those of assistant to the engineer. . Born in Cumberland, Maryland, on 18 December 1853, Julian The Arizona departed New York Harbor on 22 December Oliver Davidson was educated at a military boarding school 1870 shortly after Davidson celebrated his seventeenth birthin Hamden , Connecticut. Matthias Davidson had raised his son with the hopes that he would follow in his footsteps as a day. After discharging the last of the paying passengers, the civil engineer. Julian spent two years working as an apprentice Arizona passed through the newly opened Suez Canal, the first in his father's New York City office, where he was assigned American vessel to do so. She then steamed through the Indian Ocean , to Singapore and then on to Hong Kong and Japan . tasks relating to surveying and drafting, yet he seems to have Davidson then sailed to San Francisco, crossed over the Isspent more time sketching naval vessels in action or the ships thmus of Panama and returned by ship to New York. in New York Harbor than working on construction drawings. The Battle of Lake Champlain was fought on 11 September 1814 in Plattsburgh Bay. The American commander, Thomas Macdonough , had anchored his fleet across the mouth of Plattsburgh Bay and as the British sailed into the bay, they came under heavy fire. The battle was a bloody encounter, but the day went to Macdonough and the Americans. This loss dashed British hopes for victory over their former colonies, and the peace talks were renewed . The Treaty of Ghent was
signed on Christmas Eve 1814. Davidson depicts the ships as closer together than they really were, some having been as much as half a mile apart . He also shows some architectural details that the ships did not possess. Nevertheless, this work is considered the best painting of this important American naval battle. (Oil on canvas, 36" x 9(J') Courtesy Key Bank, NA.
On 10 September 1813, the American fleet on Lake Erie attacked the British near the mouth of the Sandusky River. Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry led his fleet into battle aboard the Lawrence, flying a blue banner emblazoned with Captain James Lawrence's dying words " Don't Give Up the Ship ." For nearly two hours the British wrought havoc on the Americans and the Lawrence was virtually destroyed. Perry lowered one of the Lawrence' s boats with the remaining uninjured crew, rowed through fire f rom the British guns to the Niagara and ordered the blue flag run up her mast. Perry drove the brig directly into the British line. As she bore down on the Queen Charlotte and Detroit , the British ships collided and their decks were raked with broadsides from the Niagara's guns (see detail below) . After the battle, Perry sent his dispatch to his commander, General Harrison: ' 'We have met the enemy; and they are ours . Two ships, two Brigs, one Schooner, and one Sloop ." This victory also proved to be a turning point in the war, and Perry became a hero virtually overnight. (Oil on canvas, 36" x 84") Courtesy the American Yacht Club, Rye, NY .
SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
25
At left, "Fishing By Moonlight'' shows fishermen hauling the nets on the roiling waters of the Tappan Zee . Painted in gray and white, this was intended to be reproduced as an engraved 'illustration. (Oil on board, 16" x 12") Courtesy Historical Society of Rockland County. At right, Julian 0. Davidson at the height of his career. Courtesy the author.
He returned home with journals of his daily activities and sketchbooks filled with details of his trip and the scenes and ships that he encountered. His voyage had given him a thorough, first-hand knowledge of the oceans and the seas of the world . He would continue to draw upon this experience throughout his career. Some twenty years later, the exotic people and ports that he had seen became the substance for the adventure stories that he wrote and illustrated for the St. Nicholas Magazine for Children . Davidson spent the late summer of 1871 painting while living with his parents in Fordham , New York . The earliest of his known works date from this time and are views of the Hudson River at Nyack, painted in the serenely beautiful luminist manner of Francis Silva. A small community about twenty miles north of Manhattan , Nyack was known as the " Gem of the Hudson." Nestled in a broad cove on the west bank of the Tappan Zee and surrounded on three sides by the northern reaches of the majestic Palisades, Nyack was, at this time, a prosperous river village, known for its manufacturing and shipbuilding operations. Many of the nineteenth-century Hudson River sloops, yachts and steam-powered riverboats were launched from Nyack boatyards. Early in 1872, Davidson began studying with the noted marine artist Mauritz F. H . DeHaas. DeHaas, who until this time had declined to take any pupils, was so impressed with one of Davidson's works-a sketch of the Monitor on her way in convoy to Hampton Roads-that he immediately agreed to take the young artist into his New York studio for the next two years. DeHaas ' bold and vigorous painting style strongly appealed to Davidson , who adopted many of these techniques into his own work. Davidson' s paintings were soon included in the annual exhibitions of the Brooklyn Art Association and the prestigious National Academy of Design in New York City. Although never elected to the Academy , his marine paintings were included in nearly every annual Academy exhibit held between 1877 and 1894. In 1877 , Davidson married Comet ia Trimble Merritt of Nyack and settled in South Nyack. An active member of
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Nyack' s social and cultural community, he often volunteered his talents in designing and painting scenery for amateur theatrical productions. A champion amateur boxer, fencer and rower, he was also a founder and prime mover of the Nyack Rowi ng Association which was organized in 1881 . In 1884, the Century Company began their ambitious project entitled The Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, which was eventually published in four volumes. Davidson , who , as one critic pointed out, '' ... knew early American ships and shipping better than any other artist of the time,'' was commissioned to produce the majority of the naval scenes for this series. In 1885, Louis Prang , a competitor of Currier & Ives , commissioned him to produce a series of six paintings of Civil War naval battles for a major chromolithograph series. Prang also published at least two chromolithographs after Davidson 's pain tings of America's Cup races. Davidson began devoting serious attention to painting historical naval battle scenes and in 1884, two of his greatest naval paintings were selected for the National Academy's annual exhibition: " The Battle of Lake Champlain" and "The U.S. Frigate Constitution , ' Old Ironsides ', Escapi ng from the British Fleet. '' The fo llowing year he completed ''The Battle of Lake Erie--Commodore Perry Breaking the British Line of Battle." These three paintings are large oils and clearly demonstrate that by this poi nt in his career Davidson was a major artist, especially as a painter of historical marine pictures. Davidson's works are always thoughtfully composed and his attention. to detail is evident. Whenever possible, he contacted participants or eyewitnesses to verify facts regarding the events and the construction of the ships portrayed . In his naval scenes he nearly always chose to portray the turning point of the battle that led to the American victory. These works are, in reality , a patriotic celebration of American seapowcr. His use of such colors as cadmium yellow and orange, with all of their bright effect, and his bold brushstrokes became hallmarks of most of his later paintings . Davidson infused into his paintings the same vitality and patriotic spirit that he himself possessed . In the fall of 1893, Davidson contracted a respiratory infection which severely damaged his kidneys. He died , at the age of forty, at his South Nyack home on 30 April 1894, and was buried in the family plot in Woodlawn Cemetery in Fordham. w Lynn S. Beman is director of the Beman Galleries of Nyack. An art historian, Mrs. Beman specializes in researching and authenticating nineteenth- and twentieth-century American paintings and is the author of numerous articles on American art and artists . This article has been excerpted from the Historical Society of Rockland County's exhibition catalogue Julian 0. Davidson (1853-1894): American Marine Artist, available from Beman Galleries, 114 Main Street, Nyack, NY 10960, for $25.00 plus $2.50 postage & handling. .SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
MARINE ART NEWS Robert Sticker has recently completed a series entitled "Steam on the Rivers," a celebration of our riverboat heritage in renderings of the St. Louis, New Orleans and Pittsburgh riverfronts and "The Far West: Custer at the Rosebud ." The Far West carried General Alfred Terry 's punitive expedition against the Sioux and Cheyenne in 1876, and ascended the Yellowstone River to the junction of the Bighorn River-just eleven miles from where Custer's men were defeated at the Battle of Little Bighorn .
STEAM ON THE RIVERS
FAR WEST Marine art publishers of limited edition prints documenting the great riverboat era by Robert Sticker, F., A.S.M.A., the fast and able fishing schooners by Thomas Hoyne, F.A.S.M.A. and our contemporary coast by West Fraser A.S.M.A. Call our toll free number for information regarding these series of fine prints.
Mr. Sticker's work is on exhibit at the Portland Place Gallery in South Norwalk, Connecticut, which also carries the work of marine artists such as Thomas Hoyne , Roy Cross, Chris Scali, Christopher Blossom, Thomas Kincaid and John Stobart. (Portland Place Gallery, 25 South Main St., South Norwalk, CT 06854; 203 866-6013)
P.O. Box 2150, Hilton Head Island, SC. 29925 Tel: (803) 681-4242 Toll Free 1 (800) 992-8356
OSMUNDSEN
MEN OF THE J's -a new seriesLimited Edition Bronzes produced by the Lost Wax process. Bill Osmundsen is recreating the exciting action aboard the fabulous racing machines of the 1930's. " Men of the J's," shown above as a clay model, is part of his growing crew produced on site at the sculptors' exhibit now on view at the Sheraton-Stamford. Stop by, meet the Artist, and view his comprehensive collection of maritime scupltures. BRONZES FROM THE SEA at the SHERATON-STAMFORD HOTEL & TOWERS One First Stamford Place Stamford, CT 06902 / (203) 967-2222 For information or appointment: TEL (201) 327-9152
Overseas Co-editions , a company specializing in the production of quality nautical books, is collecting material for a volume of contemporary marine art entitled Ya cht Portraits. Artists interested in submitting their work for consideration should send slides of their paintings , catalogues, samples of art that has appeared in print and a brief biography to Karen Hoare , Overseas Co-editions, Via Moscova 44/1, 20121 Milan , Italy. Oswald Brett, an artist-seaman who finds beauty and high romance in the workaday world of seafaring, has painted the Australian steamship Sphene (18951941) towing the disabled French bark Bretagne (1901-1926) into Newcastle , NSW , where they safely arrived 21 May 1915 . The Bretagne's ballast had shifted in a blow off Cape Howe , on passage towards Newcastle from Adelaide. <t
Portsmouth
Merchant's Row, Overlooking New Hampshire's Piscataque River in 1828
THE>
JOHN ~TOBART GAL,LERY We cordially invite you to view these elegant , signed and numbered limited edition lithographs by the renowned marine artist, John Stobart , at our Gallery in Edgartown when we reopen in the spring . This dramatic scene of " Portsmouth in 1828" is among the 1987 releases and can be ordered by calling: (6 17) 645-3634 (winter phone number). Watercolors by Bert Wright R.S.M.A. and gouache by Roy Perry are also available .
31 No. Summer St., Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, MA 02539 â&#x20AC;˘ (617) 627-9066 A catalogue featuring all current and rare works is available for $6.50.
SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
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Above, the elaborate painting on this narathiwat (fishing boat) from southern Thailand reflects the importance of these craft to the families that build and fish them. Below, the perahujaring of the island of Madura in the Java Sea is used for fishing or bringing fish from boats off shore to market, and is rigged with a triangular sail spread by two booms and fixed on a short mast, a Polynesian rig of great antiquity.
Above, inset, the bow decoration of this Portugese bota, derives from the much simpler oculus painted on ships' bows the world over to guide the vessels through perilous seas.
Preindustrial Navigation at Expo '86 by Brent Leigh Last summer, while the tall ships of the world's sail training fleets stunned and awed their millions of spectators (and still more millions by TV) in the massed pageantry of Operation Sail in New York Harbor, and at the 800th anniversary of the Free and Hanseatic City of Bremen in Germany, quite a different fleet of vessels assembled on the western shore of North America-the greatest collection of preindustrial craft e11er seen in the Western Hemisphere. Brought together for Expo '86, whose theme was "Transportation and Communication," these vessels come to us from an age-our age-of wood and hemp, and ply their trades in odd corners of the ocean world without benefit of satnav or radar or depth sounders or, sometimes, even a compass. And it may be said that these vessels are properly the ancestors of the highly instrumented behemoths that travel the world's trade routes today. Such vessels are therefore of vital importance in understanding the whole history of mankind's venturing by sea. But museums, with one brilliant exception, have not collected them. Scholars, until very lately, do not study them. And they are a fragile, passing breed. The exceptional museum is the Exeter Maritime Museum, in England, whose remarkable collection was reported in SEA HISTORY 23. We are working with the rescuers of these ships and the maritime cultures they sail in, publishing and reporting the pioneering work of Terry Linehan, Philip Teuscher, Sanford Low, Neil Hollander and Harald Mertes, as well as Major David Goddard of Exeter. Here, the tale of what may be the last gathering of such vessels in the West is reported by one of the crew who put it together. The content of the Marine Plaza, one of three specialized pavilions which brought to life mankind 's achievements in sea, land and aeronautical technology , was not fully determined until September 1984, only eight months before Expo's opening . The vessels we were after had to represent a good crosssection of construction, rigs , sizes, purposes and history, and they had to be authentic . At this point, my own involvement in locating vessels had been limited to a trip to England while working on another pavilion. The pleasure of dealing one-on-one with the people who either crafted or cared for the artifacts in question was a refreshing change. In Birmingham, a major industrial and trans-shipping center in the Midlands-and said to have more miles of canals than Venice-I negotiated for the acquisition of a 40ft canal boat. From there , I traveled northwest to the city of Ironbridge, in Wales . There , at the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the Rogers family have been building coracles for five generations . (If elementary design , the coracle is a basket-like craft constructed 6f hides stretched over a wicker or wood frame. The earliest written reference to these versatile and remarkably seaworthy craft is found in Julius Caesar's first-century BC account of the invasion of Britain. Although the traditional coracles are ovoid in shape-" like half an Easter egg with a plank laid across it,' ' as Raymond Rees, another Welsh coracle builder, has described it-the Ironbridge coracles are round. In form, they resemble the quaffa, a reed boat of the eastern Mediterranean , and the bull boat and corita of North America . 1
* * with * *the multitude of nations For the sake of order in* dealing I. See Larry Otway's account of these versatile craft, p33 .
SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
we had contacted about displaying vessels at Expo, we decided to divide the world among members of the staff. The system worked quite well, and as we progressed , commitments for acquisitions, loans and gifts moved quickly . A campaign to gain sponsorship from steamship and freight-forwarding companies achieved remarkable success and shipping costs which had originally been estimated at 93 % of our budget were coaxed down to 35 % . Fortified by this progress, I set off on a whirl wind trip through the Western Pacific. My first stop was New Zealand , to see about securing the loan of a Maori war canoe. A proposal to have Maori craftsmen carve a canoe on site had been under discussion , but because New Zealand had declined to sponsor a national pavilion , the Commissioner General's suite had to insist that we not proceed. Australia ' s contribution included a full-scale replica of Australia II, the first America's Cup challenger to win the Cup. This was mounted on a pedestal outside the Australian Pavilion . Also from down under came a fleet of small one-design sloops which raced in VancouverovertheJuly 1 weekend. Interesting though this was, it was not quite what we were after. My first real success was in Papua New Guinea where I went in search of a multi-logged raft boat known as a lakatoi . Port Moresby, the clearinghouse for most of the commerce into and out of the country , happens to be near the Hari tribal village where, armed with a map of the world and a plan of the Expo site, I met with the better part of the population of Hanuabada village. Our gathering, which happened to take place as a typhoon was passing , was in a meeting house erected over the high water on stilts . Awaiting my arrival , forty dispassionate New Guineans sat cross-legged on the rough wooden floor. I pushed aside the chair that had been reserved for me and spread out the map of the world so that we could all get our cultural bearings. Some basic interpretation explained my objective, and it was agreed that the elders would consult the younger men-few of whom had ever seen a lakatoi-about the boat's construction. As we reached our agreement and shook hands all around , I sensed that there would be many late night phone calls to the ministry overseeing the completion of the lakatoi. We had been in close touch with the Indonesians from early on in the planning of Expo , and there seemed little reason for me to go there in person. However, the Indonesian contributions to the Marine Plaza were outstanding in every respect. From the island of Bali they sent ajukung , a one-man double outrigger canoe used for fishing . The rig of the Balinese jukung is of extremely early origin, and consists of a triangular sail spread by two booms joined at the bow and supported by a short mast. Also of early design was the perahu jaring, a fishing boat of Madura island in the Java Sea. Like jukung, perahu (also spelt prahu) is a generic word for boat, more specifically identified by its use . A perahu jaring is used for netting fish, a perahu ngadang for trading. The Banjarmasin tambangan is thought to have existed since the seventeenth century when it was used , as it is today, as a water-taxi , capable of carrying up to twenty passengers . Another unique vessel which the Indonesians loaned for the occasion was an Asamat canoe , from the Agats region of Irian Jaya, the western portion of the island of New Guinea . The Asamat canoe is an exotically carved dugout only one of which, according to ceremonial tradition, may be carved every five years. In addition to these vessels, the Indonesians also arranged for the construction of a 60ft Bugis pinisi at the boat-building shed in the Marine Plaza. Up until the late 1970s, the Bugis pinisis , which are built primarily in southwest Sulawesi
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Religious ritual plays a large part in the building of the Balinese jukung, left.from the felling of the tree to the blessing of the boat to assure its seaworthiness. Although jukung can refer to a wide array of different rigs, in East Java , Bali and Madura it means a double-outrigger canoe of traditional design. Below, a typical Bangladesh workboat, about 18ft long, is propelled by oars, pole or sails and serves its owners as a transport , home or fishing boat.
(Celebes) comprised one of the largest commercial sail fleets anywhere in the world . The traditional rounded hulls , with keels tapered to the stem and stem posts , carried a European gaff rig , modified over time and as conditions dictated . In the past decade , a concerted government effort to modernize Indonesia ' s extensive sail-powered fleet has virtually eliminated the pinisis from the scene. In his Sailing Ships of Indonesia, Adrian Horridge has described in graphic detail the demise of these proud ships. ''The hulls had been built with a rounded keel that had no provision for a protected engine ... [and] the hulls were shaken to bits by the vibration for which they were never designed . Between August 1982 and August 1983 , seventeen [motorized pinisis] valued at US$30 ,000-60,000 each, sank in the Java Sea. " The pinisi built at Expo was launched on Indonesia Day , 16 August, and lay at the International Wharf for the remainder of Expo. She was joined there by another 130ft pinisi which had been sailed from Indonesia-a demonstration of the seaworthiness of these hard-driven cargo ships. From the Philippines, we acquired two moro-vintas , fleet, carved outriggers used for transport in the inland lakes and coastal waters of the southern islands . I was happy to learn that the construction of the moro-vintas destined for Expo was proceeding on schedule. But, though I had no time to investigate further , I was left with the impression that these comprised only a fraction of the Philippines' maritime tradition . My next stop was in Hong Kong from where, with the help of some enthusiastic corporate sponsors, we acquired six dragon boats which were brought to Vancouver for racing. The dragon boats are used in the annual dragon boat festival , a Chinese celebration which dates to the fifth century BC and which commemorates the death of the poet Chu Yuan, a statesman of the Chou Dynasty who was forced from office and exiled by a corrupt government. In protest of this action , Chu Yuan jumped into the Mi Lo River and drowned. Local fishermen searched for him , while beating the water with their oars and sounding drums and gongs to scare off the dragons and fish that would prey on his remains. Rice dumplings wrapped in silk were thrown into the water as an offering to his spirit. Today the dragon boat races reenact the legendary search for Chu Yuan. Each boat has a crew of twenty-two , including the drummer. During the race, the dragon boats come alive, flying through the water in a flurry of spray amid a cacophony of drums and gongs. In Vancouver, we had a series of dragon boat races using non-professional crews. The overall winner of this event was sent to Hong Kong to compete in the international races in June. To everyone's surprise, the Canadian team placed second overall. The six boats brought to Vancouver were donated to the Chinese Community Center at the conclusion of Expo, and it has been proposed that Vancouver hold its own dragon boat races. From Hong Kong, I continued on to the People 's Republic 30
A gondola and, in background, a banjarmasin tambangan such as one might see taxiing passengers through the canals of Venice and Djakarta.
SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
The dhangi, shown above, is a double-ended, deep-sea dhow of the kind that trade in the Gulf of Kutch off northwest India and Pakistan , although this vessel was built for a Saudi sheik. Above right, the lithe bows of the traditional Hong Kong dragon boats . The success of the dragon boat races held last summer in Vancouver has led to the suggestion that the tradition be established there.
A 20ft-long moro-vinta, used for fishing .from the southern Philippines island of Mindanao. \
\ \
of China, where I discovered just how little I knew about dragon boats . While sharing tea with Wu Binghuang, President of the Jami Navigation Institute of Amoy (Xiamen), I mentioned the slender, canoe-shaped vessels being provided by the people of Hong Kong. But Mr. Wu 's canoes were not the streamlined , concave-bottomed boats of Hong Kong . They were stylized serpents, with heavy hulls adorned with decorative scales, elaborate figureheads and tails. At first , I attributed Mr. Wu' s description to national rivalry ; but it proved to be more than that. He showed me photographs of the races held in front of the lnstitute's sixteenth-century building . These boats, he said , were the traditional canoes. And the painful crouch of the paddlers proved this was not a heritage taken lightly. Although the Institute did not send any dragon boats, it was overseeing the construction of a split-bow fu-junk . Approximatel y l 9m long , it had three masts setting woven reed sails in the traditional manner. The hull and deck were constructed of fine China fir , caulked with a mixture of tung oil and chopped hemp or old fi shnets made according to a 2500-yearold formula. Junks have ex isted in some form for almost 5000 years, and the method of construction has not changed substantially in the last millenium . One thinks of junks as being mainly coastwise or riverine vessels , and indeed, today , they are usually of modest proportions. However, in the Sung (960-1279) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties , Chinese merchant and naval ships regularly traded throughout the Indian Ocean as far west as the Arabian penninsula. The fourteenth-century North African geographer Ibn Battuta describes a junk in Malabar as carrying 1,000 men : 600 sailors and 400 soldiers. However inflated these fi gures might be-and Ibn Battuta had been in China-his impression is an indelible one and strikes us with awe even today , six centuries later . My last stop in the East was Japan , where the primary interest in Expo seemed to center on the display of the prototype for a one-passenger car. I soon realized that their apparent lack of interest in the Marine Plaza---0dd for a country with one of the largest merchant fleets in the world-was merely out of politeness and minding their own business. After informing them of our plans, they offered to lend us a l 30ft-long Japanese junk2 known as a sengokubune. The sengokubune were cargo ships used for domestic trade during the Edo period ( 1600-1868). The word sengokubune consists of three elements: sen, meaning one thousand; goku, a cargo measurement equal to ten cubic feet; and bune, which means ship . The sengokubune which came to Expo was a single-masted , flush-decked ship of recent construction and nothing less than a national treasure, and its presence at Expo was as welcome as it had been unexpected .
* * * * *
By the end of 1985 , we could see the collection for the Marine Pl aza coming together in good order. Although I had less direct involvement in the ir acquisition , a list of some of the other vessels acquired demonstrates the extent of our efforts to assemble a truly international collection of watercraft. 2. English-speaking Japanese refer to these generically as " junks."
SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
31
From Europe, in addition to the canal boat and coracle I had seen in England, we secured a Portugese bota and a ceremonial gondola from the renowned Venetian workshop of Giuseppe Giuppone . An Imbatche reed boat was brought from Kenya , and the World Vision Organization, an international relief organization , helped bring a traditional workboat from the Ganges delta in Bangladesh . From Thailand we received a long-tail boat and an elaborately painted south coast fishing boat. In Pakistan , a Karachi shipyard yielded a dhow which had been built to order for a Saudi Sheik who failed to pick it up . A Viking replica longship was lent to us by the Camrose Lutheran College in Alberta. Tom Hammond ofVarig Airlines promised (and with dogged determination , delivered) two types of Peruvian reed boats, one typical of the craft found on the coast, known as cabillitos de totoro , or little horses of the reeds, and one from Lake Titicaca, known as a balsa de totoro. Closer to home , an agreement was made with the Northwest Territories pavilion for the construction of an authentic Inuit kayak in the early months of Expo, to be delivered to the Marine Plaza. This wood and sealskin kayak, complete with traditional fi shing gear, was displayed next to a modem version of fiberglass and chiconite. The Canadian master carver , Bill Reid , led a team of five Haida Indian carvers in the construction of a 50ft canoe , carved from a 750-year-old red cedar from the Queen Charlotte Islands. With a bow fini shed with a birdlike figurehead and painted in traditional Haida motifs , this is the first such canoe to have been built in half a century . Traditional methods were employed , the bow and stem being shaped to almost their final dimensions , and the hull sides worked to the desired thickness with hand-held tools. The hull was then filled with water into which white-hot rocks were plunged to create steam , allowing the hull to be spread open almost two feet. The Haida canoe was joined by a smaller West Coast whaling canoe carved by staff at the British Columbia Provi ncial Museum .
Vessels of the Modern Age Vessels representing the surviving traditions of preindustrial navigation were not the only object of our quest for the Marine Plaza. Alongside our 2000ft wharf in the International Harbour lay the 1962 steam launch , Antic, the Master (one of the few steam tugs designed by Arthur Moscrop still 'in operation) 3 , and various visiting ships. But we lacked a showpiece to ¡anchor the exhibit. The anchor I envisioned was a square-rigger which would not only round out the harbor but also acknowledge the great age of sail in the Western tradition . We had negotiated with the owners of the Golden Hinde, a replica of the Tudor-era ship in which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe and brought the first English-speaking people to the West Coast of North America. Because she was based in the Caribbean, we had hoped to have her towed to Vancouver, but in this we fa iled and so the Golden Hinde arrived two months after the opening ceremonies. Luckily , we had arranged for the Bounty replica-the one used in the more recent remake of the movie-to participate in the opening events. Through a bit of luck , we were able to persuade her to stay on station until she could be relieved by the Golden Hinde.
* *1986, * boats, * vehicles and planes As all this was going on *in early were arriving at Expo from all comers of the world. Plazas and pavilions were being finished in what seems-in retrospect, anyway--orderly fashion. 3. See William Hagelund, " Ivanhoe and Master: Two Towboats of British Columbia, " Sea History 40:22-23 . 32
I had agreed to stay on only through the first month of Expo , and during that time I had had several requests from the Bounty's captain to permit the ship to leave her berth for a shakedown sail with her new crew. Expo's management had denied my many requests, and they were becoming annoyed at my persistence . The evening of my last day at work, I was sitting with friends at a cafe overlooking the water. In the course of our conversation , someone remarked, " Look , what a beautiful ship passing under the bridge ." I turned around and saw the Bounty under full sail. Driven more by instinct than anything else, I leapt from the table and charged down to the seawall. I somehow managed to flag down a passing dragboat and convince her captain to give chase to the mutinous ship. Only as we were pulling alongside did I realize I had been had . Aboard were nearly all of the people I had worked with on the Marine Plaza over the previous year, ready and waiting for me, with laughter. I cheerfully dove for the ratlines amidships . We anchored in the summer sunset for our farewell party. The moon came up over the mountains rising from the sound , the night drew down around us. Looking out ¡ on the scene through the eighteenth-century rigging of the ship , I felt after the long haul to bring in the ships, I was in the right place, with the right people .
Mr. Leigh, a native of Vancouver, was Manager of Artifacts at Expo '86, and now works for Western Rim Industries . Ms. Clark is a free-lance photographer and lives in La Connei:, Washington. Selected Bibliography Goodenough, Ward H., and Thomas, Stephen D. " Traditional Navigation in the Western Pacific: A Search for Pattern," Expedition Magazi ne. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 30 (1986) . Hawkins, Clifford W. The Dhow: An Illustrated History of the Dhow and/ts World. Lymington , Hants., England: Nautical Publ. Co., 1977. Heyerdahl, Thor. The Kon-Tiki Expedition. New York: Doubleday, 1948; The Ra Expedition . New York: Doubleday, 1971 . Hollander, Neil, and Mertes, Harald. The Last Sailors: The Final Days of Working Sail. New York: St. Martin 's Press, 1984. Also, a movie of the same title is available from Avant Communications, New York, 1984; ''Sailing With the Last Sailors,'' Sea History 35:2224, 36:24-26 Horridge, Adrian. The Prahu: Traditional Sailing Boat of Indonesia . New York: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 1985; Sailing Craft of Indonesia . New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Linehan, Terry. ''The Tami Canoe Project,'' Sea History 25: 11 ; " The Canoe is Our Garden ," Sea History 30:38-39. Low , Sanford Hart. ''The Navigators: Filming the Story of the Polynesian Conquest of the Pacific Basin ,'' Sea History 29: 14-15 . Myers, Mark; Goddard , D.A.; Stanford , Peter. " The Sea People of Exeter," Sea History 33:10-14. Roberts, Kenneth G., and Shackleton , Philip. The Canoe: A History of the Craft from Panama to the Arctic. Camden, ME: International Marine Publications, 1983 . Sokoloff, Valentin A. Ships of China. V. A. Sokoloff, 773 Cypress Ave., San Bruno , CA, 1983. Teuscher, Philip T., "Karaphuna Canoes ," Sea History, 27:47; " Sailing Craft of the Caribbees ," Sea History 30:32-33; 31:46-48. Thomas , Stephen D., The Last Navigator. New York: Henry Holt, 1987. Villiers , Alan . Sons ofSinbad. London: Hodder and Stoughton , 1940. SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
custom flags; burgees, private signals
2540 shelter island drive son diego, calif. 92106 tel: 619 224-8118
At the 1977 Dingle Regatta, the Dublin team waits for the fourth oarsman of their Kerry naomhog [nave-awg].
r:Tm W~Ket.~c.
The St. Brendan Project
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by Larry Otway The Saint Brendan Project is devoted to preserving Irish maritime tradition and culture. We are one of the few organizations not affiliated with a college that affords New Yorkers an opportunity to row on New York City's rivers and bays. At present, we have the largest collection of Irish currachs owned by any organization outside of Ireland . These are kept in a boathouse located on the Hudson River at Dyckman Street. A currach is a small Celtic boat which does not admit of easy definition. It has been said it has no keel: the Tory and mainland Connemara currachs have keels. It has been said that the currach is a skin boat: the mainland Connemara currachs are planked. Currach in Gaelic means tippy, and there you have it. From the 26ft ocean canoes of County Kerry to the one man Welsh coracle , or inland currach, which can be carried on one's back , they are all feather-light on the water and can be tippy. Properly handled they are one of the finest small sea boats to have evolved anywhere. In six years of operation the St. Brendan Project has never had one capsize. We began in 1981 as a committee of the National Maritime Historical Society , and were formed to accept the gift of two very old Aran Island currachs given to us by the Irish Export Board. We then built a new Aran currach using traditional methods. We launched this boat at the Great Irish Fair in 1982. We next imported four racing currachs built in County Kerry by Monty O 'Leary, and arranged for Mr. O' Leary to build a boat for the newly formed Annapolis team . These boats were very kindly brought to the States by TransAmerica Lines. The next year we introduced Mr. O'Leary to the Pittsburgh club , for which he built two additional boats. At the outset of our project we began meeting regularly to race against a team in Boston. They used the wooden planked mainland Connemara currachs. We eventually purchased one of these boats SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
Welsh coracle-builder, Bernard Thomas , carrying one of his coracles.
and are now raising funds to build a new wooden racing currach in New York . Our rowing program, which includes both men's and women's teams, and experienced or novice rowers , begins at 6am, 17 March (St. Patricks Day) and runs through September. We meet Monday , Wednesday and Friday evenings and Sundays in the afternoon. We have approximately two races a month from May through September and have sent teams to races in Ireland . As well as our in-water program, we sponsor or are involved with a number of cultural activities such as Ceil is (Irish dances) and seasonal events, such as our St. Stephen's Day Wren (an Irish mummers parade). Although our organization is culturally Irish, our membership includes people of all nationalities and races. In addition to preserving currachs and artifacts related to their use in the fi sheries and trade, we are in the process of purchasing two Wel sh coracles, which were once the inland currachs oflreland. The future of the last commercial coracles is in grave danger. The Welsh Water Authority, turning a blind eye to thousands of sport and commercial fishermen, has chosen to blame the twenty-five surviving coracle men for the overfishing of salmon . The British government has now raised the annual license fee for the coracle men from £56 to £432. The Saint Brendan Project has formed a committee to work with the Celtic League's Wel sh chair to try and aid the preservation of the coracle, which pre-dates by some 2,000 years, at least, the government that seeks to destroy it.
w
Larry Otway, a resident of New York, is the founder/director of the Saint Brendan Project. Inquiries may be addressed to him at 80 St. Marks Place, New York , NY 10003 ; 212 228-5147.
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SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
Travel & Waterside Inns Listed below are SEA HISTORY advertisers who would be happy to help you with your travel plans. For more information , send in the coupon below , or contact the advertiser directly. Ads are on this spread unless otherwise noted . 1. Action Sail , P.O. Box 5507 , Sarasota, FL 34277 (8 13) 924-6789 2. American Canadian Line, P.O . Box 368 , Warren, RI 02885 (800) 556-7450 (See ad p. 11 ) 3. Circle Line, Foot of West 42nd St. , NY , NY 10036 (212) 563-3200 (p . 40) 4. Classic Sail Windja mmer Co. , Inc . (Sch. Richard Robbins) , P.O. Box 340 , River Edge , NJ 07661 (201) 265-9510 5. Coastal Cruises (Sch. Mary Day ) , P.O. Box 798 , Camden, ME 04843 (207) 236-2750 6. Danfords Inn , 25 E. Broadway , Port Jefferson , NY 11 777 (5 16) 928-5200 7. Delta Queen Steamboat Co., Dept. 4SH7 , #30 Robin St. Wharf, New Orleans, LA 70 130 (1-800) 543- 1949 (p . 12) 8. Depuy Canal House, Rt. 213, P.O . Box 96 , High Fall s, NY 12440 (914) 687-7700 9. Griswold Inn, Main Street, Essex , CT (203) 767-0991 (p. 47) 10. Captain Owen G. Keen Tours, Jewell ' s House , North St. , Wincanton Somerset, England BA9 9AX Tel : 01 1 44 0963-33060 11. Maine Windjammer Cruises, Box 617-H, Camden , ME 04843 (207) 2362938 12. Marietta Tourist & Convention Bureau , 316 Third St., Marietta, OH 45750 (6 14) 373-5178 13. Mid-Lakes Navigation Co., P.O . Box 61, Skaneateles , NY 13152 (315) 685-5722 14. Seaport Line, 19 Fulton St. , Ste . 307 , NY , NY 10038 (212) 406-3434 15. Thwaites Inn & Marina, 536 City Island Ave. , City Island , NY 10464 (212) 885-1023 (p. 11 ) 16. Schooner Timberwind , Box 247 SH, Rockport, ME 04856(207) 437-285 1 17. The Yankee Clipper , 170 John St. , NY , NY 10038 (2 12) 344-5959 (p. 40) TO: SEA HISTORYTravel, 132 Maple St. , Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520 Please send me information for the items circled:
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SAIL TRAINING
At Sea and Abroad in the Pogoria by Mary Biggs, Director, West Island College-Class Afloat Sailing around the world on a tall ship would be the learning experience of a lifetime in anyone's books . Forty young Canadians from every corner of the country embarked upon such a voyage in September of 1985. Conceived by Terry Davies , Director-General of West Island College, Class Afloat became a reality during International Youth Year. Renowned for his irrepressible flare for the unusual coupled with a commitment to excellence in innovative education, Davies and a dedicated team of teachers helped realize the International Youth Year's goals of participation, peace and development around the world. After an exhaustive search , Davies chartered the Polish tall ship, the S/Y Pogoria, a steel-hulled, 45m tall barquentine rigged with 1,000 square meters of sail and powered by a 3 IOhp diesel engine. Uniquely designed for educational voyages and sail training for youth , the Pogoria is equipped with a classroom and all the modern facilities and technological advances to accommodate students. Following an intensive training session covering such topics as seamanship, safety, group consolidation and cross-cultural orientation, students boarded the Progoria in Montreal , bid a tearful farewell to loved ones and set sail on an unforgettable ten-month journey. Armed with commitment, energy and boundless excitement, these young people gradually transformed before our eyes into competent sailors and extraordinary leaders , developing all the while a keen sense of social responsibility and global awareness. But life at sea is not simply a pleasure cruise, as they soon discovered. Standing
36
ered over the side, transporting students equipped with boots and knives into the dense undergrowth of the Brazilian jungle or to tiny villages built on stilts and accessible only by water. Having logged 30,000 nautical miles , we returned to a crowded port in Montreal on 6 June 1986. The most difficult task of the year still awaited us . Triumphant yet profoundly sad, staff and students alike said farewell to those with whom we had shared so many unforgettable memories. With Class Afloat '85-86 barely over, plans were already underway for a sequel with the Pacific Ocean as the educational target and a host of new ideas .
Class Afloat 1987-88
Mary Biggs, director of Class Afloat, and Jerzy Rakowicz , the Pogoria' s captain, on their return to Canada.
watch at the helm at 2am, climbing the 104ft mast to furl the royal during a storm, paying homage to Neptune over the lee rail and returning immediately afterwards to duty scrubbing toilets in the sweltering heat below deck, fighting to stay awake during the fifth class of the day-such was Class Afloat. In spite of the adversities, all but one student, a devoted hockey player, completed the itinerary; and all vowed upon their return that they would gladly do it again. Academic classes , often interrupted by sail maneuvers or alarms , were scheduled for up to six hours a day at sea. Students, while completing a rigorous senior high school curriculum preparatory to university studies, developed excellent timemanagement skills and work habits so vital to their success. Literature, biology, calculus and politics were not only formally taught but lived day to day, port to port and country to country. Land programs were thoroughly researched and planned two years in advance, so that activities were rich and varied. Local guides introduced us to the breathtaking scenery of the Azores , the sights and exotic smells of the Moroccan markets , the treasures of Michelangelo in Florence, the legends of the Greek gods at Olympia and Delphi , and the majestic pyramids in Egypt. Following a well deserved Christmas vacation, when students were flown home for the holidays from Nairobi , the wild-life safari in Kenya was widely acclaimed as the highlight of the entire voyage. Our unforgettable journey down the Amazon ranked a close second. When safety allowed , dinghys were low-
Following an intensive training session, in July of 1987 the first group of thirty-six students from across Canada, the United States and Asia will depart from Louisbourg, Nova Scotia for the Panama Canal. Experiencing the education previously limited to textbook learning, Class Afloat students will visit the Galapagos Islands, a mecca for naturalists following in Darwin 's wake. Marine biology courses will be complemented by an investigation of the marine community with its wealth of species. Historical and philosophical studies will be revitalized as the Pogoria traces the sea routes of the great explorers en route to magical Easter Island , Pitcairn Island, Tahiti, Tonga, New Caledonia, Bali and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, host of Operation Sail 1988 commemorating Australia's bicentennial. During land excursions students will see a wide spectrum of lifestyles and environments through participation in homestay programmes, work projects and international student meetings . Singapore is the last port of call before returning home for Christmas. The first group of students will spend the remainder of the school year
SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
Ray McGrath leads the student crew in bracing the yards.
completing their academic programme at West Island College, Ottawa. A second group of students will join the ship in January 1988, to experience the diverse cultures of the incomparable port cities of the Orient such as Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. The enduring traditions contrasted with the dynamic and newly adopted Western customs will afford Class Afloat students a novel perspective of world economics, politics and global issues . After crossing the North Pacific via the Midway Islands and Hawaii , re-entry into Canada through the Queen Charlotte Islands will provide an excellent opportunity to retrace the roots of Canadian hi story, through an in-depth study of the majestic totem poles of the Kwakiutt Indian s. The last leg of the journey will introduce students to the glamour of Vancouver, San Francisco and Puerta Vallarta, before returning to Louisbourg via the Panama Canal in June . Class Afloat represents a dynamic , innovative and comprehensive approach to education. ln short, it embraces the finest learning experience this country has ever generated. The ideals of Class Afloat are perhaps best expressed through Terry Davies' dedication to Class Afloat '85 and to all youth around the world . "We, the youth of the world, embrace a future of social justice, devoid of discrimination by race, color, ethnicity , religion and physical or mental infirmity. Moreover, we embrace dialogue with our international counterparts, human dignity and mutual assistance amongst all personkind . We embrace a future which shall bear the fruit of our promise- peace. "
On Safari in Kenya.
.v
For additional information about the program, write to Ms. Biggs at West Island College-Class Afloat, 1610-85 Albert Street , Ottawa, Ontario Kl P 6A5 , Canada; 613 233-7547.
Students from a local school visited the Pogoria in Anjouan in the Comoro I stands.
SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
37
Toward a Grand Alliance? by Henry H. Anderson, Jr., Chairman, American Sail Training Association The strength of most American maritime oriented foundations lies in the almost fanatical zeal of a core group focussing on a special interest in marine historysometimes curatorial in the sense of preserving the past and in other instances activist in the sense of hands-on perpetuation of traditional values and practices. The weakness of these endeavors often lies in the fiscal fragility of such foundations in the face of ever-changing tax laws , vicissitudes of the economy and the potential catastrophe created by the loss of one or more key protagonists from the core group . Is it congruous , therefore , to form an "alli ance" of maritime oriented foundations to accompli sh certain common objectives that lie beyond the capacity of any one organization to accomplish on its own? To be able to answer the question one must determine what commonality of interest exists among the maritime organizations and what aspects of their operations might be enhanced through joint action. If " the proof is in the pudding ," a typical pudding is the " rally" or weeklong port visits scheduled to take place the first week of September in Narragansett Bay and designated ' 'Ocean State Maritime Week." The rally incorporates the basic ingredients in one form or another of virtually every maritime oriented organization in the United States. Patterned in part after the rallies conducted by the Sail Training Association in northern Europe, OSMW is being launched as a prototype for similar activities to be sponsored by maritime organizations in ports nationwide . How does the OSMW pudding constitute a sea chest of our maritime organizations? For one , the presence of sailing vessels with trainees aboard immediately involves a half dozen or more maritime organizations such as the American Sail
38
Training Association (coordinator of the event) ; the National Maritime Historical Society-through vessels which are either restorations or replicas of historic ships; maritime museums such as Mystic Seaport, which conducts sail training at sea on the classic schooner Brilliant or dockside on the restored square-rigged Joseph Conrad; and the Museum of Yachting in Newport, where the ships assemble for the Museum's annual Classic Yacht Regatta . The above list of maritime oriented organizations is only a sample of those represented at OSMW since the activities at the ports directly or indirectly involve many others. For example, some of the ships will have been certified under the Sailing School Vessels Act requiring endorsement of their training programs by the Sailing School Vessels Council. Pulling boat races will be conducted in replicas of traditional lifeboats and in other boats built at one of several small craft projects in the USA with the skills and techniques of yore , and of which participants in OSMW will see additional examples at the Wooden Boat Show in Newport. Competitions to be held among the vessels in the arts of seamanship , man overboard drill, navigation and so on transpose the lore of museums into living history. Last but not least, the waterfronts of colonial ports of call during OSMW such as Warren, Wickford , Providence and Newport expose the participants to the restoration work of numerous maritime organizations . In all of this , of course, the American Society of Marine Artists has a keen interest through its members concern to join the past to the present. Can there be any doubt that there is a multi-faceted commonality of interest among all of our organizations? Whether curatorial or activist in form , our ultimate objectives are similar: the utilization of the traditions of history and the restorations
The author in his element .
of historical legacies as a means of inculcating in the individual, either through the medium of a living museum or a real-life vessel, a sense of values , personal accomplishment and a better understanding of our heritage of seafaring. In what ways, therefore, might an "alliance" of our organizations be of benefit to all, and what is the logical focal point for such an alliance? Certainly almost everyone of us directly or indirectly comes within the purview of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and deserves its support; yet few maritime organizations receive support comparable to that given other areas of historic preservation. We all need recognition on a broader scale than at present if we are to remain viable and visible enough to raise funds fo r operating expenses and effectively to have an impact on the public . Alliance would enable us to affi liate in order to gain broader public recognition; develop areas of mutual support; gain more clout through a unified voice with the National Trust and Federal and State authorities; spread the story of the functions each of us performs through a common publication with far wider distribution than can be achieved via our individual organs; reduce the cost of insurance coverage through mass marketing and effect simi lar economies; en large the base of fund raising, and so forth . Rather than create a new organization to spearhead the Alliance, which would entail considerable bureaucratic effort and a long period to build public recognition , shouldn ' t we put our efforts into an existing organ ization ? One organization among us which , perhaps to a greater degree than any other, constitutes the woof and warp of what we represent is the American Ship Trust, presently administered by the National Maritime Historical Society whose publication, SEA HISTORY , provides an effective medium for acquai nting the public with the work of our respective organizations. Hence we toss on the table this concept of alliance for action by all our maritime organizations, and in the spirit of one hand for the ship, and one for the maritime organization we each represent, we ask you to forward either direct to me or via SEA HISTORY your comments on how best to consummate the concept, what its aims should be and through what vehicle it should be accomplished . w SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS The Albion (Brouwer, p64) a 40-ton Norfolk wherry built of oak in 1898, is still sailing her home waters in Norfolk, England. A recent survey revealep that the main beam, which supports the tabernacle, and hence the mast (which has no shrouds), was suspect. The main beam is virtually the only transverse support in the hull , and its deterioration usually marked the end of a wherry' s life; so far as is known, no one in this century has ever attempted to replace the main beam. Oak of the right dimensions (lSft x I Sin x I Sin) was unobtainable , but a friendly lumber merchant of Beccles presented a beam of jarrah wood weighing over half a ton. Last winter, the old beam was removed, the new beam installed, and it is hoped that the Albion will be sailing in her home waters for at least another eighty years. The only trading wherry still afloat, the Albion provides sail-training and adventure holidays thus affordi ng the present generation with an insight into the lives of the waterways in the last century. (James Forsythe, President, Norfolk Wherry Trust, 39a North St. , Burwell , Cambridge, England CBS OBB)
on such topics as teaching maritime history , exhibits of river life and naval architecture, the center has plans for several maritime festivals . Two of note are Les Nuits de la Corderie , 10-13 July, and Les Fetes de la Charente, 14-1 S August. (Chri stine Lacaud, Centre International de la Mer, La Corderie Royale , BP 108 , 17303 Rochefort cedex , France) Built for the City of Baltimore in 1906 by the Skinner Shipyard and Drydock Company , the 89ft steam tug Baltimore (Brouwer, p208) is being faithfull y restored to her pre-World War I configuration by the Baltimore Museum of Industry . In her prime, the Baltimore served as a VIP boat for the Mayor of Baltimore, an icebreaker, and a light towboat and undertook miscellaneous duties for the police department. Although the wheel house and main engine have been restored to working condition , and the boat has been operating under Coast Guard certification since l 98S , much work remains to be done. The Museum asks all hands for contributions necessary to replace badly deteriorated portions of the
hull , frames , rivets, sill s, main deck and guards. (Stephen Heaver, Jr. , Baltimore Museum of Industry , 141S Key Hwy , Baltimore, MD 21230; 301 23S-6144) Despite the primacy generally accorded Robert Fulton in the development of steam navigation , the inventor James Rumsey launched an earlier steam-powered boat in 1787, on the Potomac River at Sheperdstown in what is today West Virginia . The Rumseian Society is commemorating the bicentennial of this event with the construction of a 24ft working replica of the vessel , The Rumseian Experiment, to be launched this spring . Rumsey 's invention was also displayed in London shortly after hi s death (which his doctor attributed to his " having thought too much"). It consisted of a steam-driven system which pumped a jet of water down the length of the keel , thus setting the boat in motion. The Rumseian Society invites supporters to share their work , either as contributors or volunteers. Supporters receive a newsletter. (Rumseian Society, PO Box 1787, Shepherdstown, WV 2S443 ; 304 876-6907)
The Maritime Trust (UK) have found it impossible to continue to maintain their historic fleet in St. Katharine's Dock, London. The RRS Discovery (Brouwer , p83) has been moved to Dundee, where she was built and where she is on public display . The schooner Kathleen and May (Brouwer, p99) has been moved to a new berth at St. Mary Overy Dock on the South Bank of the Thames . The remaining vessels have been moved to temporary berths in the South West India Dock in the Isle of Dogs, and it is possible they will be open to the public until more permanent arrangements are made . Built by order of Louis XIV in 1666 , the
Corderie Royale was the first industrial building constructed for the naval dockyard at Rochefort on the Bay of Biscay. Today , the 370m-long ropewalk" worthy of the grandeur and magnificence of the King " -is home to the Centre International de la Mer, an educational organization devoted to maritime culture , technology and history . Situated on the Charente River, the beautiful seventeenth-century building houses modern facilities including a documentation and research library , meeting rooms and a handsomely designed standing exhibit on making rope. Temporary exhibits illuminate such subjects as Victor Hugo ' s history of Channe l Islands fishermen, The Toilers of the Sea. In addition to sponsoring colloquia SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
Painting on Sea Chest: David Canright pinxit, Ellen Stivison f ecit .
The voyage of the historic bark Elissa from her homeport of Galveston , Texas, to take part in Operation Sail/Salute to Liberty last Jul y 4 was made possible by grants from the National Society and others, notably the Houston Endowment , Inc. , whose president J . Howard Creekmore played the leading ro le . The sea chest shown above was presented to,Mr. Creekmore in December by Project-Director David Brink and Elissa Captain Jay Bolton of Lyme , Connecticut, a town famous for far-ranging sailing ship skippers . David Canright painted the li vely ship 's portrait , which Ellen Stivison ren-
dered on the inside of the lid . Not all the passage could be accomplished under sail , and Amoco Oil stepped up with fuel for the entire journey , as a major donation to support this voyage which depended on the willing contribution of so many hands. " Without these contributions we cou ldn ' t have made the trip ," says Project Director David Brink. " In fact , the whole Elissa voyage would have been unthinkable ." This voyage benefited not just Elissa but the whole maritime heritage of the United States , and to the thanks of the Elissa' s people we subjoin our own . PS 39
Antique U.S. Coast Suivey maps from t he 1800s Sca rce, cen tury-old ori gina l li thographs for most Amc1i ca n coas tal wa ters. Fine re p roducti o ns of New Engla nd seaports, NYC, 100. $ I brings curre nt , futu re li sts o f both, with ill ustra ted exa mples. Unique
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Yankee Clipper's Wavertree Room The Yankee Clipper, one of South Street Seaport 's finest restaurants , recently dedicated an opulently refurbished room to honor the historic Wavertree , a tall ship now berthed just outside the restaurant's multipaned windows. The dedication of the Wavertree Room goes beyond its physical proximity to its namesake, however, for the room actually once served as the office of Baker, Carver & Morrell, general agents who represented the Wavertree in the
1800s. Seen left in the photo right is the President of the National Maritime Historic Society, Peter Stanford , presenting a commemorative print of the Wavertree which will serve as a focal point of the restaurant to Patrick Cooney, owner of the Yankee Clipper. Mr. Cooney, also a devotee of historic vessels , acquired the building as a gutted shell in 1982. Its interior has been entirely hand-fitted with solid oak panels, brass, leaded glass, antique fixtures and nautical embellishments throughout. The building was saved due to the National Maritime Historic Society's campaign to have it granted landmark status in 1972, as the only full-granite building of its genre remaining in lower Manhattan. Mr. Stanford indicated, "We regard it as a museum of its own." The room, according to Mr. Cooney, is intended not only to honor the Wavertree , but the scores of volunteers working tirelessly year-round to restore the ship and its many counterparts at the South Street Seaport. - VIA PORT OF NY-NJ, Marc h 1986
40
SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
The Ohio River Museum at Marietta, Ohio John B. Briley, Manager, Campus Martins and Ohio River Museum The three-masted ram schooner Victory Chimes (Brouwer, p283) has been sailed to Duluth , Minnesota, under new ownership. Formerly a familiar sight in the Down East passenger trade, the Victory Chimes was bought by a Duluth banker, Jerry Jubie, who sailed her to the Great Lakes for use as a passenger and sail-training boat on Lake Superior. Despite enthusiastic receptions in the Lakes ports, and especially Duluth itself, Mr. Jubie has put the boat up for sale. Two interested parties are the City of Duluth , who would like to use the boat as a magnet for its waterfront revival , and a consortium of Chesapeake Bay maritime museums. The shallow-draft ram schooners were built for trade on the Chesapeake, and the eighty-seven-yearold Victory Chimes is the last of about thirty such vessels ever built still under sail. (Jerry Jubie, First State Bank of Floodwood , Floodwood, MN 55736; 218 476-2281) A fleet of eleven square-riggers will sail from London to Sydney in an eight-month voyage commemorating the First Fleet to Australia. Departing London on 13 May, the ships will sail in company to Portsmouth, Tenerife, Rio de Janeiro , Cape Town, Mauritius and Fremantle, before arriving in Sydney on 26 January 1987-200 years after the first convictsettlers landed in Botany Bay. Berths for all legs of the voyage are available to people between the ages of 18 and 65. (The Adventure Center, 5540 College Ave, Oakland, CA 94618;415 654-1879) FOR THE DA YBOOK: March through May. " W. & A. Fletcher Company: Engineers of the Age of Steam,'' exhibit at South Street Seaport Museum, 207 Front St. , New York, NY 10038; 212 699-9400. 19-21 June, Chicago International Wooden Boat Festival and Sailboat Show at the Navy Pier. Tickets: $5, $3 for seniors, students or groups of 20 or more . Lakeside Group, 6000 N. McLurg Ct. #1302A, Chicago, IL 60611 ; 312 787-6858 .
As the steamboat era began to fade and a significant piece of our maritime heritage was in danger of being lost, concerned river people banded together to form the Sons and Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen (S&D) to ensure the preservation of our steamboat heritage. A small basement room in the Campus Martius Museum in Marietta, Ohio, was chosen to house the many artifacts collected by S&D members, and thus "The River Museum'' was born in May of 1941 . Thereafter, the River Museum expanded to fill most of the museum's basement and in 1960 expanded into the basement of a new wing. As the size of the collection grew, it needed better quarters, and in 1969 the state legislature appropriated funds to construct the Ohio River Museum, one block below the Campus Martius Museum on the banks of the Muskingum River. The buildings contain exhibits on the natural history of the Ohio and its tributaries; early discovery and exploration ; the golden era of the steamboat; and a multi-screen audiovisual presentation on the history and evolution of the Ohio River. The displays include paintings, photos, models and artifacts, including an eighteenth-century dugout canoe, an 1885 wooden rowboat, or yawl as it was called on the river, and on the grounds of the museum, the pilothouse from the steamer Tell City, built in 1889. Moored to the riverbank is the 1918 steam stemwheel towboat, W. P. Snyder Jr., the last of her type with practically all of her original equipment aboard. She arrived in Marietta under her own steam in 1955 , and remains as she was when her bells were last rung off and her fires extinguished. Although the W. P. Snyder Jr. incorporated the improvements of her day, a few of the characteristics of her nineteenth-century predecessors were retained . There are the hog chains, a system
The Museum is open March through November, 9:30-5PM. The Snyder opens mid-April, river level permitting, and closes for the season after the last weekend in October . Please call 614 373 -3717 for exact schedule.
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SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
of steel cables running over posts from stem to stem to keep the boat from hogging due to the heavy engines and stemwheel aft and the boilers and coal forward. There is a pilot-wheel, although it was used only as a back-up system in case the steam-powered steering failed . Finally, there is the nineteenth-century bellpull system used by the pilot to tell the engineer how fast and in what direction to run the engines-the same system used by Mark Twain. Her preservation is important as the only representative of her type left in the country. But with budget cuts have come staff layoffs and shortages of maintenance equipment and materials , all of which place her in danger, with rust eating away at her original steel. The museums of the inland waters no less than those on the coasts all face limited resources to deal with the massive needs of preservation . Deal with it we shall, for these maritime artifacts are far too valuable for us to allow them to disappear . .t
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REVIEWS The River's in My Blood: Riverboat Pilots Tell Their Stories, Jane Curry (University of Nebraska Press , Lincoln , 1985, 265pp, illus, $7.95pb). Long before America became a commercial and military power on the high seas in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, she was possessed of an extensive maritime history and culture. Although much of this was centered on the coasts, the story of America cannot be told without reference to the long and rich tradition on her lakes and rivers . Some of this history is revealed in Jane Curry 's The River's in My Blood. Although Curry makes extensive use of Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, this book is about, and to a large extent by , the men and women pilots who span the time between the close of the steamboat age and today's diesel towboats . The author uses the approach of the cultural anthropologist and lets the people she interviews tell their own stories, giving the reader a feel for the personalities and characters of the riverboat pilot. This approach is not without its drawbacks, however, especially in a book of this size. The focus on the people leaves little room for technical explanation. Phrases such as " making up the tow " are used often, but the reader is not given a clear idea of what is involved. Also lacking is a broad , consistent view of life on the river and how its people have shaped, or been shaped by , the river. Curry's use of secondary sources is worth noting , and the bibliography is a good introduction to the materials available for further study of this maritime tradition . But by itself, The River's In My Blood opens a window onto a maritime tradition as rich and as varied as any to be found, and in the tales recorded here , the reader will surely find enjoyment. KENNETH BUTLER Mr . Butler, quondam Navy quartermaster, statistician and ship restorer, is also a stalwart in the Society's New York Harbor Curatorship . Steamboat in a Cornfield, John Hartford (Crown Publishers , New York, 1986, illus , $10.95hb). In the inclement year of 1910 , neither hulls nor husks bore any fruit on Williamson's farm below Willow Grove in Worthbottom, West Virginia . Why? A steamboat ran aground in high water 600 feet from the Ohio River in a cornfield. The severe economic penalty to both farmer (who could grow no com in his field) and the steamboat company (who couldn't stay afloat) made front page news in papers all along the Ohio. 42
John Hartford , a country singer well known for his song " Gentle on my Mind ," has turned this piece of Americana into a children's verse called Steamboat in a Cornfield. The book is wry and amusing , with lines such as ''The cornfield rose and came up for air and when the water started back down, the Virginia was sitting high and dry, draped on the fertile ground." An outstanding hand-painted jacket photo and inside period photographs printed in a duotone sepia document the event. The pictures are an archival coup and include an abundance of maps , photographs , old tickets and the like. But one is reminded of a grade school yearbook. The graphic cacophony of unconventional techniques does not always contribute to the readability of the story. The verse writing is appropriate for the funn y lines , but it does not narrate as clearly as it might. One has to read the end-notes , the foreword and then the coda to truly follow the plot. Yet if the narrative of Steamboat in a Cornfield may not be as clear as it can be , the book is as much fun as visiting a cluttered antique store to rummage through old postcards and sit at the knee of a kindly old river bard. And it is well worth the FRANCES MIDDENDORF effort! Ms. Middendorf is a free-lance visual journalist on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Our Wherry in Wendish Lands, H.M . Doughty, fwd . John Leather (Ashford Press Publ., 1 Church Rd ., Shefield , Hants S03 2HN, 1985, 406pp, illus, ÂŁ14 .95hb). This fascinating Victorian travel book (with a modem introduction by John Leather, author of Barges and Spritsails and Lugsails) is a facsimile reprint of a book first published in 1891 which tells the adventures of an English family who spent their holidays for some two years cruising the waters of what is now East Germany . In 1890, Doughty and his family sailed their Norfolk wherry Gipsy by various canal routes into Germany via Emden and the River Ems. Having visited Bremen, a voyage of some fifty miles brought them to Bremerhaven and the River Elbe. Passing by Hamburg and Liineberg, they proceeded via the Neue Eide into the vast chain of lakes in Mecklenburg. From here, they continued southward via the River Havel to Spandau and Potsdam until they eventually rejoined the Elbe near Magdeburg. One can really appreciate the magnitude of their accomplishment, when it
is realized that the voyage was ac- . complished principally under sail-a tribute to the handiness and adaptability of the Norfolk wherry rig in its heyday. This is not to say that the whole journey was undertaken without assistance. Confronted by a strong current on the Elbe , they were obliged to be towed south by a chain steamer-a tug using a chain laid on the bed of the river between Hamburg and Bohemia. Regardless, when they arrived at Aussig-from which the party was able to visit Saxon Switzerland and parts of Bohemia by rail- Doughty could write with some satisfaction, "The Gipsy had now voyaged through the entire length of the German Empire. The Elbe flowed North from us nearly 500 miles to the German Ocean (North Sea), and only ten miles of its course were between us and the frontier of Austria.' ' Doughty writes throughout in a breezy entertaining style, with a fine eye for the country traversed, and he recounts many interesting episodes of local history and of places visited. It is unfortunate that it has not been possible to reproduce the maps included in the original , but this in no way detracts from the excellent and informative narrative. This is a typical Victorian travel story and well merits such an excellent reprint, since it casts great light on a happier and more peaceful Europe of I 00 years ago--an era very different from the hurly-burly of the preJAMES FORSYTHE sent day . Major Forsythe is President of the Norfolk Wherry Trust and Deputy Chairman of the World Ship Trust .
An American Treasure: The Hudson River Valley, photos by Ted Spiegel, text by Jeffrey Simpson (Sleepy Hollow Press , Tarrytown, NY , 1986, 135pp, illus, $14.95pb) . From its opening spread-a scene beloved in your reviewer's eyes of the towered island of Manhattan rising from the waters that embrace it, north on one side to Tappan Zee and on the other to Hell Gate and the beginnings of Long Island Sound-to the last quiet photograph of the Hudson River's headwaters at Lake Tear-in-the-Clouds, this splendid volume incorporating 139 color photographs swoops and soars over the mighty Hudson like a presiding tutelary spirit. Between are meandering marshland creeks , Colonial estates, a vintage aircraft rally, and the people of the valley in their variety-mimers, sidewalk sweepers, trotting horse racers, Hudson River Sloop sailors, children dancing from rock to rock in the water at Croton SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
Point-all bound together in a sensitive descriptive text. " Our purpose ," says Richard Halverson, President of Sleepy Hollow Restorations , which publishes the book , ''is to inspire people to explore the valley firsthand ." PETER STANFORD The New York Harbor Book, Francis J. Duffy and William H. Miller (TBW Books, Falmouth , ME, 1986 , 208pp , illus, $17.95pb) . This thoroughly enjoyable book is an overview of the sprawling waterfront of New York Harbor and the innumerable communities of work and purpose that throng its shores in Brooklyn , Manhattan, the Jerseyside towns of the Hudson, and even the lesser known islands such as Hoffman and Swinburne islands and Execution Rock. Authors Duffy and Miller offer a pageant of the ships and people that built, and today sustain, New York Harbor as a gateway to the world. They examine the still active, though often overlooked, fisheries industry, the past grandeur of the ships that lined Luxury Liner Row, the conversion of piers to offices and apartments as part of the development of the Jersey waterfront , and the municipal waterborne services such as fireboats and policeboats. However, the book is not without its problems. Mr. Miller has contributed three chapters which treat the subject of ocean liners in more detail than is necessary to the immediate purpose of the book . The arrangement of the material is neither geographical, chronological nor by trade or industry . And there are no maps of the physical area describedeven for a seasoned harbor watcher it is hard to tell all the players written about here without a scorecard. LINCOLN PAINE Voyage: The First Galway Hooker to America, 1986, Paddy Barry (Gill and MacMillan, Goldenbridge , Dublin 8, 157pp , illus, ÂŁ6 .95pb). Voyage is an account of a crossing from Ireland to the US at the invitation of Operation Sail 1986. Reading Voyage leaves one with the impression that an evening has been spent facing Paddy Barry across a table in a Dublin Pub and hearing him spin a great yarn. A great yarn it is of ocean voyaging in a coastal vessel; a yarn about poteen, wet bunks and a wave that lay the vessel on her side and swept her hull, her mast and sails fully submerged. The vessel is the seventy-six-year-old Galway hooker, Saint Patrick. A stout little class of work boat that were the freighters of Ireland for the past few cenSEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
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tury 's , the hookers were built for the rough seas of western Ireland; yet they are not well suited for an ocean crossing . This makes the story one of six intrepid men coping with the shortcomings of a vessel pushed beyond its functional design. Like many accounts of ocean sailing there are broken spars, gear that fails or tangles in a gybe , fouled pumps and planks that the crew sometimes doubt will hold . More, though, there is the classic way in which a Dubliner finds a degree of humor in most situations. There is also a touch of the supernatural, that is, the natural view of nature in the west of Ireland. An entry in the log made by Colm , a crew member from Connemara reads: ' 'An bhfuil an bad si ag seoladh linn? [Is the ghost boat sailing with us ?]" This, it is explained to Paddy, refers to the St. Patrick's good luck through her many years. The story in Connemara was that a ghost ship sailed in her company and would be seen in times of trouble . Operation Sail seems anti-climatic after the crossing, but Paddy gives a good feel of the mayhem and break-down of organization for which that week has become famous . It was one of my great pleasures to become acquainted with Paddy Barry and I forgive him for misspelling my name in this great tale. I hope all who read SEA HISTORY become acquainted with Paddy and his mates through this book . LARRY OTWAY Mr. Otway is Director of the Saint Brendan Project in New York (see p34). The Sea Chain, John E. Duncan (Americana Review, Scotia, NY, 1986, 439pp, 180 illus , $ 14.95pb/ppd; order from NMHS, 132 Maple Street, Croton, NY 10520). The Duncan family story, beginning in Bath, Maine, early in the last century, spreads out across the seafaring world of the next hundred years. Fred Duncan, born in 1887 aboard the full-rigged ship Florence, said in his seafaring memoirs, Deepwater Family (published in 1969): " My father commanded the ship and my mother was an educated, vivacious, funloving lady who presided over the Captain ' s roving home for two years and would rule over it until the family left the sea in 1898. " That earlier book of warmly remembered scenes at sea aboard a Yankee deepwaterman, "the aristocrat of sail," is now bountifully augmented by another Duncan , a grandson of Fred's uncle, who provides a close-up reconstruction of his fami ly' s life in the palmy days of American sail . SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1987
And what a life that was! Members of the clan sailed with Mark Twain to Italy and the Holy Land and with Robert Louis Stevenson aboard the schooner Casco to Honolulu and Samoa, and sided with the Rev . Henry Ward Beecher in his famous adultery trial in Brooklyn-all the while raising children, comparing notes, and moving cargo around the oceans of the world in tall Yankee ships. John Duncan, author of this invaluable doorway into a richly various household-as it were--0f many mansions, came from a less venturous branch of the family. His grandfather Charles , brother of the captain of the Florence, had migrated to England with his parents when the family left Brooklyn to open a branch of their New York-based ship agency in Liverpool. After schooling in England and France and some seafaring as mate , he was captured by the Confederates during an action on a South Carolina River. Efforts after the Civil War to re-open the Liverpool agency, and then to drill for oil in Pennsylvania did not pan out, and he took up orangegrowing in rural Florida. Hi s grandson John has ventured greatly in imagination to restore the seafaring world he fell out of, with its family ways, its busi ness cus-
toms in the seaport cities of the day and the tall ships that bound that world together. In the early 1980s, fragments of the wreck of his great-uncle's ship the Florence were found on Vancouver Island and members of the family flew in to inspect them-last relics from a business in great waters that lives again, memorably, in the pages of John Duncan ' s book. PS The Grain Races: The Baltic Background, Basil Greenhill and John Hackman (Conway Maritime Press, London, 190pp , illus, £15.95hb) . The title of this book has very little to do with the basic thrust of the text. The book is concerned with ship-owning in the Aland Islands over the last century or so and, as such, is a good basic outline of that history . The "grain races" relates, however, to a brief, ten-year period within that history and describes a phenomenon which Mr. Greenhill almost seems to disparage as a gimmick dreamed up by Alan Villiers and the media . If that is so, they seem to have done a good job; and Mr. Greenhill has been quick to capitalize on it. For it would seem that the only reason for the use of the ''grain race'' buzzword here
BRING THE HERITAGE HOME
is to sell a not-very-impressive book .. Every so often there is a nod in the direction of the grain races as such , an attempt to marry up subject and title , but it seems rather a duty dance , a politeness to be observed. Mr. Greenhill's heart does not seem to be in it, and anyone who buys thi s book on the strength of the title will be disappointed. Oddly enough, the chapters which are the most interesting , the ship histories of the steel barks Ponape, Parma and Killoran and the wooden Ingrid and Southern Belle while under Aland ownership, only serve to underline the structural defect of this book: the almost complete lack of cohesion or direction . These chapters stand very much alone and, indeed , might have made excellent National Maritime Museum monographs . But Mr. Greenhill, formerly Director of that museum, should not have been content to simply butt together timbers which should have been scarfed. Of course, what Mr. Greenhill sorely needs is an editor or even a good copy editor. It would have spared him not only the above-mentioned problems, but also the avoidable sort of embarrassments that punctuate this book . They range from simple typos , to wrongly-captioned
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46
photos , to statements so questionable that one wonders how they ever crept into a book by an historian of Mr. Greenhill's stature. Perhaps it would be kindest to say that this book was rather quickly cobbled together at the request of the publisher. If Mr. Greenhill plans to continue to write in this manner, he had better learn to spell Mickey Mouse , which he managed to misspell in his introduction to this SIADHAL SWEENEY book. Mr. Sweeney lives in Ireland where he cultivates his life-long interest in maritime history .
Around Cape Horn, Irving Johnson (Mystic Seaport Museum , 1980, 37min , b&w , VHS or Beta, $34.95) . Mystic' s "Seafaring Series" of video cassettes makes available for home viewing some of the best footage from Mystic' s film archives. The classic Around Cape Horn was made by Irving Johnson in 1929 on the Peking' s ninety-three-day passage from Hamburg to Talcahuano , Chile. There are unforgettable sequences: the hurricane in the North Sea, where the three-ton anchor breaks loose; Captain Jurs giving haircuts to the crew; views of the ship and the sea from aloft taken on a serene day ; and, as climax, the fierce rounding of the Hom, where immense seas wash over the Peking' s main deck , obscuring everything, as if the vessel were not there . Viewers will have to stay alert to keep up with Captain Johnson ' s rapid fire, nononsense narrative , but the rewards make the effort well worth while. Captain Johnson speaks simply but eloquently of both the hardships and the spirit of the seamen. Watching a young man kick back his legs to empty his tall sea boots, we hear that he does this not to be dryer, but to reduce the weight of water. '' There is no way to dry anything ," says Johnson, adding that it is possible to dry some clothes by sleeping in them. This condition for these men in their first heavy weather of the passage lasted for seventeen days! Captain Johnson ' s telling of the story is straightforward. There is no handwringing about the harsh conditions, none of the misplaced pity for our forebears that has become so widespread today . Rather, we see and hear about a tough , able group of men and boys , scornful of discomforts and proud of their accomplishments. For those who are unfamiliar with this story , Around Cape Horn is an excellent introduction both to the world of the last deepwater square-riggers and to the life ,
work and adventures of a great man and sailor. And for anyone who has read Irving Johnson's account of this voyage, The Peking Battles Cape Horn (Sea History Press), this film will bring the reader's imagined scenes vividly and memorably to life . NORMA STANFORD The Golden Pastime: A New History of Yachting, John Rousmaniere (Nautical Quarterly/W.W . Norton , New York &London, 1986, 238pp, illus , $65hb). The interplay of ideas and personalities and events , and the esoterica of design theory and technology that goes into winning--or losing-an America's Cup Race have found their ideal interpreter and explicator in John Rousmaniere. And he minces no words in getting down to cases on this subject in this gloriously illustrated, authoritative history of the yachting game. In nine essays spanning three hundred years of the yachting experience, he looks at some of the remarkable personalities that have shaped the game, from England's Merry Monarch, Charles II, who had almost as many yachts as mistresses, to the American George Crowninshield, whose luxuriously outfitted Cleopatra's Barge astounded Americans and titillated Europeans in her transatlantic voyage soon after the War of 1812, to the Vanderbilts and Morgans who impressed their forceful characters on the Gilded Age, through to more modest , dedicated practitioners like Rod and Olin Stephens, whose achievements in designing and sailing the most notable yachts of the mid-twentieth century are justly described by Rousmaniere as an achievement of a kind of golden mean . Rousmaniere writes with authority on these subjects not just out of book learning (of which, be it noted, he has plenty), but out of having been there. He has crossed many leagues of salt water under sail. And he knows the leading yachtsmen of our day, and writes with sympathy and not uncritical analysis of their ways afloat and ashore. Glorious paintings accompany the narrative-probably the best , and surely most splendidly reproduced collection of yachting scenes ever put between covers. And of the latter days, there are photographs-magnificent ones of boats stretched to their limits in blowing weather, intimate ones of skippers and crews . The work is full of pageantry and outsize deeds, but Rousmaniere also pays attention to the quieter side of the experience, quoting one Roger North reflecting on a day on a river three hundred years ago: ''There was little remarkable in this SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
day 's voyage, only that I, with my friend Mr. Chute, sat before the mast in the hatchway with perspective and books . . . and no inconvenience to molest us, nor wants to trouble our thoughts, ... so that we came nearer to perfection of life than I was ever sensible of otherwise." Mr. Rousmaniere takes us only a little way down such enchanting byways, and one awaits eagerly another book which will prove those pleasures. PETER STANFORD Mr. Stanford, when younger, sailed in Fastnet and Bermuda races and across the intervening ocean, but likes best cruising with family and friends. Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy-A Chronicle in Words and Pictures, Charles A. Haas and John P. Eaton (W .W . Norton, New York, 3 l9pp, illus , $39 .95hb) . The Night Lives On: New Thoughts, Theories and Revelations About the Titanic, Walter Lord (Wm. Morrow & Co . , New York , 1986 , 272pp, illus , $15.95hb). On the 75th anniversary of her sinking , the Titanic's power as a symbol remains undiminished. To a world numbed by the death counts of massive atrocities , the loss of 1500 souls on an April night in 1912 has a relative intimacy that swells the imagination rather than defies it. Beyond that, her story is one of history 's great melodramas: the world ' s largest and most luxurious liner ... the " unsinkable" Titanic on her maiden voyage . . . carrying many celebrities of the day . . . the calm moonlit night . . . that grinding jar . . . the appalling realization . . . the final moments . . . and apotheosis. Two new books on the Titanic do credit to this great ship's mystery , as well as giving a historical context to the electrifying discovery of her remains off Newfoundland just two years ago . Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy, by John Eaton and Charles Haas, reports her story in exacting detail, from the formation of the White Star Line in 1867 to the myriad lawsuits and insurance claims still pending in 1915. The heart of the book is, as it should be, the account of the fateful voyage itself. In this lavishly illustrated volume, Eaton and Haas (President and Official Historian respectively of the Titanic Historical Association) have done a splendid job of capturing the mystique of the ship ' s brief life . Walter Lord ' s The Night Lives On: New Thoughts , Theories and Revelations About the Titanic , is less concerned with the story itself (so expertly told in his seminal work, A Night to Remember) than with the myths and mythic aspects SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
of the story. Lord explores anew some nagging questions: What actually gave rise to the widespread belief that the Titanic was unsinkable (it wasn ' t White Star Line advertising)? Why were there too few lifeboats? What was the true nature of the gash which doomed the ship? Were the traditions of the sea ("Women and chi ldren first") really observed? What did the band actually play on the listing deck? And , most perplexing of all , how could the steamer California, not twenty miles away, have ignored the Titanic's distress rockets? Lord does a commendable job of sorting through and demystifying the events of that famous evening so long ago , while at the same time paying genuine homage to the elements of the disaster which elevate it to true mythic stature. HAL FESSENDEN Mr. Fessenden is a frequent contributor to SEA HtSTORY and sits on the Publications Committee of the NMHS.
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Report of the President for the Year 1986 We pursued the Campaign fo r Sea Hi story th rough 1986 as an all -hands effort to establish the National Society in its work fo r the seafaring heritage. We compare thi s to getti ng ball ast in the boat, so she can stand up to her canvas and get to windward . This effort topped out as the year ended at $403 ,023-including extensive donated services-notably over the $350,000 goal set a year and a half before at the Annual Meeting held in June 1985. Alan Villiers said of his earl y voyaging: " Here in the battered bark , all men mattered"; each person and each contribution was vital to thi s bootstrap achievement, which had to be ac hieved among our own membership (another motto of thi s campaign of internal renewal and strengthening was: " No one will do it fo r us"). The effort was widely shared . In all , 1,734 members made smaller gifts of under $ 1,000 , and these totaled $71 , 183, or over 20 percent of the goal. That is an extraordinary ac hievement in anyo ne ' s book, and one that prov ides a broad base fo r funds we must ultimately rai se outside fo r the threatened heritage in shi ps , and to meet the opportunities of youth education and sail training . If the " ordinary" member was the hero of th is effort , he or she was nobly seconded , surely, by Commodore " Bus" Mosbacher, Chairman of Operation Sail , whose letters on our behalf reached over half a million people in the course of the campaign- bringing in 3,500 new members. Leading nautical magazines opened their hearts, their ad vertising columns and their subscri ber li sts, adding more new members. One is particul arl y mindful of a lead editorial in Yachting magazine supporting our efforts, and of Peter Spectre writing in Wooden Boat that the National Soc iety might be " our very last best hope" fo r the historic ships of the seafaring heritage. The res ul ts of thi s effort show in the year' s income and expense statement , shown below. Membershi p income rose from $ 135 ,000 in the pre-campaign year 1984 to $225,000 in 1986. We expect it will exceed $270 ,000 in 1987 , refl ecting a do ubled enro ll ment of active , current members. Those interested in budgets- as I hope we all are-might note two other acco mpanying fac ts:
•
Grants received (and expe nded) dropped off radically , from $ 148,000-principally for the Wavertree-in 1984, to $ 11 ,000 in 1985 , the first campaign year. You can ' t do everything and we knew we' d have to cut down on raising and administering fund s for other projects, as we turned to making a project of the Society itself. Grants turned up ward in 1986, as we fe lt confident enough to mount the Elissa and SCOW campaigns (of which more later). • Expenses did not go up much for staff, which limited what we could do ; every new doll ar raised was invested in membership growth . Promotion and administrative costs rose sharpl y, beyond extensive donated services, reflecting the needs of the Campaign for Sea Hi story . What else was going on? In 1986 we also: • Co-sponsored with the National Tru st for Historic Preservation the voyage of the bark Elissa of 1877 , to Operation Sail in New York and to other ports. Beefeater Gin , Laurance S. Rockefeller, Peter Manigault , Joan K. Davidson of the J.M . Kaplan Fund and others generousl y supported our part in thi s voyage , which promoted the whole historic ships movement. Elissa has been one of the most farfetched projects of the Society and of Society me mbers Karl Kortum and Peter Throckmorton since the earl y 1960s. • Co-sponsored with the New York State Museum a conference on New York State waterways, funded by the Edwin Gould Foundation fo r Children. This led to the founding in August of the State Conference on Waterways (SCOW), which I serve as Chairman and form er State Parks Commissioner Alexander P . Aldrich as the very able President. Startup fundin g was provided by the Jackson Hole Preserve . Trustees include our Trustee and Overseer Schuyler M . Meyer, Jr. , and such activists as Queene Hooper , editor of Waterway Guide. •
Op Ed meets Mobil Oil, as (from the right) Nick Spiloto of the United Federation of Teachers, Camille Freas, Director of Op Ed, Frank Massa , Op Ed instructor, Steve Cooney of Mobil Oil and our Vice Cha irman James Ean brave winter winds with Seward Park High School students at Port Mobil. Photo, Mobil Oil Corp.
•
Played a ro le in Annual Conference of the Waterfront Center, a citizen group in Washington , DC which publi shes reports on waterfront situations and intervenes , at the request of the local authorities, to improve them. They bring a marvellously integrated spectrum of concerns and experti se to this mission , and the National Society is now proud to be working with the Center on a series of waterfront opportunities fo r maritime cultural development . The Secretary of our American Ship Trust, Eric Berryman , and Honorary Trustee Dick Rath are particularly active in this . Sponsored a Seamen's Recognition program in New York Harbor with Project Liberty, which brought out a fleet of sixteen working harbor craft to salute the Statue of Liberty on her actual birthday, October 22 . The occasion lacked the showman ship of the July 4 celebrations, but for those afl oat with us and for thousands of schoolchildren on the Jersey shore , it was ~o m e thin g to see the harbor lighter Vernie S. (built 1897) steam through the red , white and blue fountain s of New York Fireboat No. I . At the helm was Anthony Rando (born 1898) , who was celebrating hi s own seventy-fifth anni versary of life in the United States . Showmanship did not build the nation ; people like Anthony Rando and vessels like the Vernie S. did . N OTE: The organizations in volved in these activities publish fa scinating newsletters, and invite membership . For sample newsletter and membership brochure of the National Tru st, SCOW, the Waterfront Center, or Proj ect Liberty, just write and ask us .
48
SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987
" Here in the battered bark, all men mattered.' '
The Impossible Dream achieved: Elissa sails by the Statue of Liberty, which is new on the scene since the bark last visited the harbor in September 1884. Photo, Galveston Historical Foundation.
II I'
E
Our New York Harbor C uratorship developed plans to get young people out on the waterways and to sea under sail , and Operation Education , led by Vice C ha irman Jim Ean and Op Ed Director Camille Freas continued its work with high school students opening opportunities for careers in the marine industry. Mobil Oil led the way, with the Edw in Gould Foundation for Children , Brooklyn Union Gas and others in support for this program. And special issues of SEA HISTORY reported in depth on the imperilled state of the historic sh ips in San Francisco , the need fo r legal protection for underwater wrecks, and the vital stake of the nation in seafaring. These have sparked campaigns, the results of which are sti ll unfo lding. Congressman Walter Jones , Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Oceanography, said the response he received on the Abandoned Shipwreck bill (HR 3558) was "a tribute to yo ur readers." The Course Ahead As the year drew to its close, we embarked on what should prove our most important undertak ing: the development of a plan fo r the future course of the Society. Yes , we've had pl ans before, but they ' ve perhaps necessarily been limited in scope and consultation, and based in any case on very thin resources. With the prov ision of a more stable financial base through the Campaign fo r Sea History, our Vice Chairman Alan G. Choate-a seventeen- year veteran of the Society and its sagatook in charge the initiation of a planning process that would answer the call for national leadership in the field, and also
President Emeritus Alan D. Hutchison has prepared plans to install the Kaiulani 's forefoot, which returned to San Francisco in 1978 from the bark's 194 1 voyage round Cape Hom, as a monument to the. voyaging experience in the vessel's home port of San Francisco. Design by Raymond Aker.
answer our internal needs for clear goals and rational use of resources to achieve them. The process Alan has launched owes much to Co-chairmen of Advisors Frank 0 . Braynard and David Brink , former d irector of the Elissa project, and to Henry H. Anderson, Jr. , Chai rman of the American Sail Training Association and Trustee of the National Society, who has led in developing a Grand Al liance to gather up and trul y represent the disparate interests of our fie ld , and to our friends at the National Trust who have developed a Maritime Initiative program in which we are playing a cooperati ve role as it develops . And . . . the plans we shall be reviewing at the Annual Meeting owe much , indeed , to unsun g heroes working on publications, the development of information services, and all the other devoted efforts which make our work go forward.
* * * * *
This year, 1987 , we are preparing a fu ller report than we have offered in the past. This report will g ive an accounting of these myri ad staff and volunteer activities which constitute the stuff which the planning process gives shape to. It will be ava il able, along with the full , audited financia l report, by mail , or at the Annual Meeting at Mystic Seaport on April 25, where Chairman McAllister, the officers and trustees, and I look forward to meeting as many of you, the membership , as can be present. If you cannot attend , please let us hear yo ur views. And please know our pride in counting you among our ship 's company. Respectfull y submitted: PETER STANFORD, President
PRELIMINARY FINANCIAL REPORT 1986 1986 Income Contribution Grants Membership Dues Sea History & Publications Other TOTAL INCOME:
1985
1984
$184,9 18 62,807 224,798 162,787 36,044 $671 ,354
$ 142,760 10,681 163 ,709 122,477 5,493 $445 ,120
$124,468 148 ,370 134,969 103 , 130 12, 174 $523,111
176,193 50,026 158,867
166,26 1 6,500 97,666
164,165 133 ,760 133 ,775
266,072 $65 1,578
200,037 $470,464
106,027 $537,727
$ 19,776
($25,344)
($14,616)
Expenses Salaries Grants Sea History & Publications Membership Promotion & Administration TOT AL EXPENSES: Net Income (Deficit)
49
NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY SPONSORS
AMER ICAN CONSERVATION A SSOCIATION APEX M ACHINE CORPORATION ARON CHARITABLE TRUST VINCENT ASTOR FOUNDATION R. B ARNETI H ARRY B ARON B EEFEATER FOUNDATION A LLEN G. B ERRIEN B OWNE & Co .â&#x20AC;¢ I NC. BROOKL YN UNION GAS COMPANY EDWARD & DoROTHY CARLTON EDNA M cCONNELL CLARK FOUNDATION M ELVIN CONANT R EBEKAH T . D ALLAS LoIS D ARLING PONCET D AVIS, JR . M ORRIS L. FEDER R OBERT E. GAMBEE EVA GEBHARD-GOURGAUD F OUNDATION JAMES W . GLANVILLE W . R . GRACE FOUNDATION MR & MRS. THOMAS HALE W . J. HENTSCHEL MRS. D . H . H OARD ELISABETH S. H OOPER FOUNDATION CECIL HOWARD CHARITABLE TRUST ALAN H UTCHISON I NTERNATIONAL LoNGS HOREMEN LCDR. ROBERT I RVING USN ( R ET.) JAMES P . McALLISTER R. JEFFERSON BARBARA JOHNSON IR VING JOHNSON J. M. KAPLAN FUND. INC H ARRIS KEMPNER A. ATWATER KENT. JR. D AV ID H . K OLLOCK J . K EVIN L ALLY H . THOMAS & EVELYN LANGERT JAMES A. M ACOONALD FOUNDATION CLIFFORD D . MALLORY . JR . M ARINE SOCIETY. PORT OF NY W ARREN K OCH. PC M ARITIM E O VERSEAS CORPORATION MRS. ELLICE M CDoNALD. JR . SCHUYLER M EYER. JR . MILFORD B OAT W ORKS. I NC. MOBIL OIL CORP. M OORE-M CCORMACK RESOURCES MR. & MRS. SPENCER L. M URFEY, JR . N EW Y ORK C OUNCIL, NAVY LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES RICHARD K . PAGE MRS. A. T . POUCH. JR. MR. & MRS. ALBERT PRATT LA URANCE S. R OCKEFELLER JOHN G. R OGERS B ARBARA SCHLECH A. M ACY SMITH JEAN S . SMITH SETH SPRAGUE F OUNDATION N ORMA & PETER STANFORD EDMUND A. STANLEY. JR . JOHN STOBART SHANNON W ALL, N .M .U . H ENRY PENN W ENGER MR. & MRS. WIL LIAM T . WHITE JOHN WILEY AND SONS. I NC. W ooDENBOAT Y ACHTI NG Y ANKEE CLIPPER
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DONORS W . H . B AUER CAPT. R OBERT O . BRAUN CHARLES A. B ENORE P. S. DEBEAUMONT MRS. JOHN W. DIXON JAMES P. FARLEY HARR Y F. GREINER L EONARD JAQUES LEATEX CHEMICAL Co. LoBSTER INN. INC. N. MILLER D AVID M . MILTON TRUST HARRY L. NELSON MARY PEABODY E . A . PoSUNIAK QUICK HAVEN R OOSEVELT H OWARD SLOTNICK Swiss AMERICAN SECURmES EDMUND B . THORNTON SKIP & R OGER TOLLEFSEN JOHN VOLK EDWARD ZELINSKY
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JACKSON H OLE PRESERVE REILLY PETER ROBINSON
SUSTAINING PATRONS D AVID M . BAKER R ONALD B ANCROFT B ENJAMIN B AXTER ALICE DAOOURJAN W ILLIAM H . DARTNELL STAN D ASHEW PAUL DEMPSTER H IRAM DEXTER, JR . DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP. TH E EDSON CORP. R OLAND GRIMM CAPT. WILLIAM H . H AMILTON THOMAS HENRY H OWARD HIGHT TOWNSEND H ORNOR Russ KNEELAND ELIOT S. KNOWLES AARON L EV INE W . P . LIND H ENRY FAIRLEY T . L AWRENCE L UCAS CLYTIE M EAD E DWARD MUHLFELD R AY M USTAFA DoNALD W . PETIT THEOOORE PRATT PETER R OBINSON CHARLES W . SHAMBAUGH MELBOURNE SM ITH JACK B . SPRINGER MR. & MRS. GEORGE TOLLEFSEN JAMES D . TURNER J. D . VAN !TALLIE THOMAS W ATSON ELDREDGE WELTON JOHN F. W ING THOMAS J. WI NG GLENN E. WYATT
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WILLIAM K . ABELES E. DoUGLAS ADAMS H ENRY ADAMS RAYMOND AKER THOMAS AKIN JIM ALDERMAN P . M . ALDRICH ROBERT & RHODA AMON H ENRY H . ANDERSON, JR . MR . & MRS. W ALTER ANDERSON CAPT. $. ANDERT E. P . ANDREWS RICHARD ANGLES PETER ANSOFF ANDRE M. ARMBRUSTER LAURENCE H . ARMOUR. JR . R. STUART ARMSTRONG JACK ARON PETER ARON ASSOCIATION OF M ARYLAND PILOTS R OBERT H . ATHEARN BILL AUBRY H ARRY K . B AILEY J AMES S. B AILEY B ENJAM IN B . B AKER JOHN E. BAKK EN JOHN B . B ALCH H ERB B ALL R OBERT B ALY CHARLES P . B ARKER NORMAN B ARKER PETER B ARTOK J . H . B ASCOM JOHN H . B ATTS R AYMOND B AZURTO EDWARD L. BEACH B . A. B ALDWIN, JR. JOHN C. B ECKER E. M ARK B ECKM AN G. A. B ECNEL JANE R . B EDSSEM JEROME BELSON MR . & M RS. ALAN B ENDELIUS MR. AND MRS. JAMES A . BERGONZI JAN BJORN-HANSEN CARROLL N. BJ URNSON ARTHUR B LACKETT BI LL BLEYER PAUL M . B LOOM JACK BOYD ERNEST S. BREED MR. & MRS . M AURICE J. BRETZFIELD FREDER ICK BREWSTER L AWRENCE BREWSTER L UTHER N BRI DGMAN K . L. BRI EL DR . C HARLES M . BRIGGS PETER L. BROSNAN JAMES H . BROUSSAND DAVID F. BROWN R AYMOND G . BROWN R AY BROWN MD THOMAS D. BROWN FREDER ICK BRUENNER JOHNS . B ULL PETER A . B URCKMYER R OBERT J . B URKE CRAIG B URT. JR . JAY G. B URWELL STEVEN BUTTERWORTH DR . G EORG E C. BUZBY , JR . G EORGE F. BYARD DoNN BYRNE JOHN H . BYR NE THOMAS P . BYR NES ) AMES R . CADY B OYD W . CAFFEY R A LPH A. CALDWELL MR . & MRS. STEELE C. CAMERON ER IK C. CANABOU MR. & MRS. R. E. CASSIDY CENTRAL G ULF LINES JON H . CHAFE R OGER CHAMPAGNE A. CHAPIN J AMES E. CHAPMAN R OBERT CHAPMAN TERRY CHAPMAN D AV ID CARNAHAN CHARLESTON N EUROSU RGICAL Assoc. RICHARD D . CHASTAIN JOHN C HICHESTER ALAN G. CHOATE ERBERT CICENIA ALBERT CIZAUSKAS, JR . MR. & MRS. THOS. CLAGETT , JR . R OBERT B . CLARKE H ERBERT A. CLASS GEORGE F. CLEMENTS J . E. COBERLY JOHN COEN JOHN L. COLE JOHN J . COLLINS C HARLES E. COLLOPY J. F ERR ELL COLTON JACK A. CLARK COMMONWEALTH OF M ASSACHUSETTS CDR . & MRS. R. E. CONRADY TREVOR CONSTABLE DoNALD G. COOK JAMES C . COOK LARRY L. COOPER LCDR . MICHAEL CORDASCO RICHARD C . CORRELL CHUCK COSTA H AROLD R . COTTLE MD JOHN C. CoucH D ANIEL COWAN DR . RAY W. COYE WILLIAM P. Cozzo J. W. CRAWFORD R . M YRON CRESSY WALTER CRONKITE CHESTER & ANN CROSBY B OWOOIN B . CROWNINSHIELD S. H . CUMM INGS BRIGGS CUNNINGHAM ALTON F. CURRY ALBERT L. CUS ICK CUTTY SARK SCOTS WHISK Y H . D AVID D ALQU IST PETER T. D AMON WILLI AM H. D ARTNELL JAMES K . D AVIDSON JOAN D AVIDSON F. K ELSO D AVIS KRI S H . C. DAV IS JOHN N. D AYTON DENNIS DEAN DOUGLAS H . DEAN M ORGAN DALY JOHN P . DEBONIS R OBB D EGNON A NNE D EIK E DEBORAH D EMPSEY JOSEPH D E P AUL & SONS CAPT. JOHN F . D ERR BR ENT DIBNER MALCOLM DICK MICHAEL DICK JAMES DICKMAN ANTHONY DIMAGG IO DANIEL PAUL DI XON W . R . DoAK D AV ID L. DoDGE WILLIAM M A IN D OERFLI NGER DoLPHIN B OOK CLUB N. DONALDSON DR . ) AMES M. DONLEY W ILLIAM DoNNELLY BILL DoUGHERTY JOSEPH DoYLE R . L. DoxSEE CAPT. R OBERT DREW JER EM IAH T . DR ISCOLL R OBERT R. D UFF R EYNOLD DuPONT JOHN DUSENBURY WILLIAM A. DYER , JR . D AV ID B . EATON FRANK EBERHART H OWARD H . EDDY DoNNA EDGEMAN MR. & MRS. F LETCHER EGGERT, JR . MR . & MRS. ALBERT EHINGER STUART EHRENREICH R AY EISENBERG ) AMES EAN CARL EKLOF P AUL EKLOF CAPT. RICHARD 0. ELSENSOHN GEORGE F. EMERY FRED EMMERICH ENERGY TRANSPORTATION CORP. D AMON L. ENGLE MR . & MRS. R . S. ERSKINE, JR . CDR . L. F . ESTEs WI LLIAM EVERDELL JERRY EVERMAN JOHN & CAROL EWALD JOHN H ENRY F ALK G EORGE FEIWELL G ERALD FELDMAN LYNN S. F ELPS MR. & MRS . STEPH EN M. FENTON III H A ROLD B . F ESSENDEN J AMES D . F EURTAOO DoUGLAS FI FE JOHNS. FI SCHER DI ELLE FLEISCHMANN ELLEN FLETCHER ARLINE FLOOD MR. & MRS. BENJAM IN F OGLER J AMES FOLEY DR . & MRS. BRENT FOLLWEILER TIMOTHY FOOTE F. S. FORD, JR. CAPTA IN R OBERT I. F ox W . W .FRAZIER CAPT. WILLIAM FR ANK DR . & MRS. Lou rs FREEMAN FRED FREEMAN C HARLES M . FREY J. E. FRICKEi\ N ORMAN FRI EDLANDER DR . H ARRY FR IEDMAN DAVID FULLER R EGINALD H . FULLERTON, JR . GLENN G AECKLE R ICHARD GALLANT JOSE GARCIA-RAMIS R OBERT G ATES B ERNA RD M . G EIGER EDWARD G ELTSTHORPE GEORGE ENGINE COMPANY WILLI AM GILKERSON L CDR . B . A. GILMORE HENRY GLICK JAMES E. G OLDEN PRODUcnONs D AVID GOOCH H ENRY G ORNEY PETER J . G OU LANDRIS PHILIP GRAF J AMES GRAFT ARTHUR S. G RAH AM MR . & MRS. TERRY w. GRANIER M AYOR & MRS. ROBERT H . GRASMERE JIM GRA Y PETER L. GRAY C. WI LLIAM GREEN II R OBERT H . GR EGORY H EN RY F . GREINER PETER GUARDINO CHARLES GULDEN R . H. GULLAGE DR . JAMES GUTHRI E H ADLEY EXHIBITS, I NC. MR . & MRS. F . H AGGETT M ORTIM ER H ALL G EORGE B. H AM ILTON JOHN R . H AM ILTON R OBERT K . HANSEN BRUCE E . F . H ANSON A . B . HARDING, JR . R OBERT D . H ARRINGTON, JR. R USSELL W . H ARR IS FRED H A RTMANN CLIFFORD HASLAM M ARSHALL D E L. H AYWOOD CA PT. JAM ES E. H EG H AROLD HERB l".R W . R. HERVEY JAMES D . H ERWARD H ERBERT H EWITT R OBERT J. H EWITT CARL W . H EXAMER DR . ALBERT E. HICKEY CHARLES HILL ETHAN A. HITCHCOCK G EORGE H OFFMAN K ARENINA M ONTHEI X HOFFMAN W ALTER W . H OFFM AN R OBERT W . H OFFMANN H ELENE. H OLCOMB L ARRY H OLCOMB, I NC. PETER H OLLENBECK EDWARD P. H OLLIS CDR . ALFRED E. H OR KA Au x T . HORNBLOWER CAPT. M . F . H ORVATH B. J . H OWARD THOMAS H OYNE III H ARRY H . HRYNYK R OBERT W . H UBNER PER H UFFELDT D UDLEY C. H UMPHREYS WILLI AM J. H URLEY CAPT. FRANCIS H URSKA R OBERT H UTTON JAMES M . H UTTON III H YLAND GRANBY ANTIQUES JOHN I ACIOFANO STUART I NGERSOLL JAM ES B . IGLEHEART SEYMOU R I NG RAHAM ALBERT L. I NGRAM L EROY HUTT BRAD I VES G EORGE I VEY RICHARD JACOBS J . S . J ACOX T OBY JAFFE C APT . G EORGE W. J AHN PETER E. JAQU ITH INTERNATIONAL ORGAN IZATION OF M ASTERS, M ATES & PILOTS COL. G EORGE M. JAMES PAUL JAMISON R OBERT P . ) ER RED CAPT. F . B . JERRELL B OYD JEWETT AR NOLD l ONASSE JON JOHNSON D OUGLAS JOH NSTON ALAN JONES C HARLES M . JONES ELIZABETH FISCHER JONES D ENN IS JORDAN W . J . JOVAN W . H ADOON JUDSON B EAN K AHN NORMAN K AMERMANN ARNET K ASER N EIL K EATING K ELLY H UNTER & Co ., I NC . CAROL J. KELLY J . K ELLY PATRICK K ENNEDY JOHN K ENNEY R . E. KENYON III BR EENE M . K ERR KIDDER, PEABODY & CO. DAV ID K ILLA RY ROBERT J. KIMTIS GERALD KING JOHN KI NNEY RICHARD W . KI XMILLER N ORMAN KI ELDSEN ELLIOTT J . KNOWLTON H ARRY K NOX LESTER A . KOCHER KARL K ORTU M R ICHARD W . KOSTER MR . & MRS. FRANK K OTTMEIER WWILLI AM H . KR AMER C. J AM ES KR AUS ANDREW KR AV IC K AI KRISTENSEN KI ELt: K RISTI ANSEN K ENNETH KROEHLER GEORGE P . KROH FREDER ICK N . LANG R OBERT L ARSEN CAPTAIN R OBERT E. L ARSON W . D . LAURIE EDWARD C. L EE CHARLES L EHMAN RICHARD & M ARY L EIGH PHILIP LEONARD H OWARD LICHTERMAN S ALLY LI NDSAY ARTHURS. Liss L. D . L LOYD CAPT. L. M . LOGAN RICHAROO LoPES CALEB LoRING JEAN L UCY CHARLES L UNDGREN JOHN J . LY NCH, JR. K ENNETH LY NCH & SONS RA DM . H ARVEY LYON MICHAEL J . M ACAR IO GEORGE MACDoNOUGH R oss M ACD UFFIE CAPT. W ILLIAM H . M ACFADEN M . D . M ACPH ERSON JOSEPH B . MADISON L AWRENCE M ALLAY M ANALAPAN YACHT CLUB PETER M AN IGAULT JOSEPH A. M ANLEY R AY M ARTIN DR. & MRS. R ICHARD MARTI N R ICHARD W . MARTIN THOM AS F. M ASON WILLIAM M ATHERS STANLEY M ATTHEWS WILLI AM M ATHEWS, JR . PHILIP M ATTINGLY PETER M AX JOH N MAY BRI AN M c ALLI STER G . P . M cCARTHY JEROME McGLYNN PAUL McGON IGLE H ow ARD McGREGOR. JR . MR . & MRS. G EORGE A. M c L AUG HLIN JAMES M c NAMARA JOHN L. M CSHANE H AROLD J . McCORMICK MR. & MRS. JOHN M CSHERR Y PETERS . M ERRILL HON. J , W . MI DDENOORF JOHN MI LL ER STUART MILLER MI CHA EL MILLS R. K ENT MITCHELL CHESTER MIZE CAPT. Lours M OCK RICHARD MONSEES MD K ENNETH M ORAN M ORGAN MR. & MRS. DA NIEL M ORGENSTERN D AN IEL M ORONEY R OBERT E . MORRIS, JR . SAMUEL MORRIS J. R . M ORRISSEY ANGUS C. M ORRISON MR. & MRS. EMIL M OSBACHER, JR. WILLIAM M UCHN IC JAM ES W . M ULLEN II K EN M ULLER JOHN C . M URDOCK MICHAEL M URRO CAPT. G. M . M USICK CAPT. W ALTER K . N AOOLNY , JR. M . J. NAGY N ANTUCKET SH IPYARD, I NC . H ARRY L. NELSON, JR . SCOTT NEWHALL M ORRIS W . NEWMAN REV . E AR LE N EWMAN N EWSDAY W. R . NIBLOCK WILLIAM L. NICHOLAS R OBERT NICHOLS JEREM IAH NI XON R OBERT J. N OLAN MILTON G. N OTTINGHAM M ACEY N OYES CAPT. CARLI SS R . N UGENT 0cEAN IC N AVIGATION R ESEA RCH SOCIETY T . M ORGAN O ' H ORA B . J . O'NEILL D AVID O ESTREICH JAMES F. O LSEN CHARLES J. O WEN R OBERT B . OWEN R OBERTS OWEN PACIFIC-G ULF M ARINE, I NC. CLIFFORD B . O ' H ARA LI NCOLN & ALLISON PAINE L AI RD PARK, JR . D AV ID J. PARKS S. T. P ARKS W ILLIAM H . PA RKS RICHARD H . PARSON R OBERTS. PASKULOVICH PASTA T OW ING CO. LTD . GIULIO C. PATI ES JAM ES A . PATTEN JOHN J . PATTERSON, JR. JOHN N. PEARSON JAM ES W . PECK EARL PEDERSEN MRS. G. L. PELISSERO A. A. PENDLETON WI L LI AM E. P ER RELL TIMOTHY L. PERRY, JR . MI LES & NANCY PETERLE DA VID w . PETERSON PETERSON B UILDERS, I NC DoNALD PErm H EN RY PETRON IS STEPHEN PFOUTS MR . & MRS. NICHOLAS PHILLIPS F. N. PIASECKI MR . & MRS. W ILLI AM T . POPE PORT AN NAPOLI S MARINA H ENRY POWELL H EINO H . PRAHL FRANCIS C. PRATT JOHN D. PRATT DR . R . L. PREHN A URA- L EE PITTENGER IRVING PRESTON ALBERTQUINTRALL CAPT. JOHN W . R AND RICHARD RATH AR VI E. R ATY WILLI AM R AY COL. ALFRED) . R EESE JOHN R EILLY R AY R EMICK FREDER ICK R EMINGTON P . R . J . REYNOLDS MR. & MRS. DoNA LD R ICE MR & MRS. F . B . RICE W . MARK RIGG LE EDWARD RITTEN HOUSE CAPT. JOSE RIV ERA E. D. ROBBINS, MD R EED R OBERTSON A . E . R ENNER JAMES L . R OBERTSON CHARLES R . R OBINSON RICHARD L. R OBI NSON GEORGE J . R OEWE, JR. H UG H D . R OLF D AVIO R OSEN L ESTER R OSENB LATT PETER R oss PHILIP R oss JAMES W. ROYLE. JR . EDMUND R UMOWICZ DAVID R . R YAN M . J . R YAN WILLIAM R . R YAN W ALTER P. R YBKA R . 0. RYDER C HAR LES IRA SACHS JOHN F. SALISBURY JAMES M . S ALTER m S AN DIEGO YACHT CLUB A. H ERBERT S ANDWEN ARTHUR J . S ANTRY E. W . SASYBOLT & Co., I NC H . R . SAUNDERS.JR . JOSEPH S AWTELLE CARL H . SCHAEFFER H . K . SCHAEFFER JOHN D . SCHATVEL D AVID & B ARBARA SCHELL RICHARD J . SCHEUER STEPHEN SCHOFF H ELEN M . SHOLZ DENNIS A. SCHULD W . B . H . S AWYER R OBERT SELLE WILLIAM R . SEYBOLD H UGH R . SHARP M ICHAEL T . SH EEHAN R OBERT P . SHEEHY ROB ERT V . SHEEN, JR. KENNETH W . SH EETS, JR . ROBERT C. SEAMANS, JR. SHIPS OF THE SEA M USEUM Q . ANTHONY SIEMER S IGNAL COMPANIES I NC. FRANK SIM PSON GEORGE SIM PSON FRANCIS D. SK ELLEY EASTON C. SKINNER STEPHEN SLOAN L EE W . SHINABARGER MR. & MRS. EDGAR F . SM ITH H OWARD SMITH MR. & MRS. LARRY D. SMITH L YMAN H . SMITH THOM AS SM ITH MR. & MRS. EDWA RD W. SNOWOORF MR. E. P. SNYDER M AX SOLMSSEN JOSEPH SONNABEND CONWAY B . SONNE DR . JUDSON SPEER W ILLIAM SPEERS THOM AS R . SPENCER PHILIP STENGER SUS IE STENHOUSE R ODER ICK STEPHENS FITZ H . STEVENS, JR . CDR . V ICTOR B . STEVENS, JR . W. T. STEVENS WILLI AM S TEWA RT J . T . STILLMAN R OBERT A . STRANGE DANIEL R . SUKIS W ALTER J. SULLIVAN CAPT. JOHN 0 . S VENSSON RICHARD SWAN LCDR . THOMAS L. SWIFT EUGENE SYDNOR J. C. SYNNOTT H ENRY TALBERT ALEX F. T AYLOR D AV IS T AYLOR PETER G . THEOOORE C. PETER THEUT B ARRY D . THOMAS JOHN W . THOMAS CLARK THOM PSON JOHN B . THOMSON, JR . JOHN TH URMAN GERALD A. TIBB ETS R OBERT TICE MR. & MRS. ALLEN W . L . T OPPING N OA H TOTTEN ANTHONY TRALLA ALFRED TYLER II CAPT. H . N . TwEEDLE A NDREW H. UNDERHILL U N IVERSAL M A RITIME SERVICES CORPORATION JOSEPH URBANSKI R ENAUD VALENTIN CAPT. R OBERT 0 . VALENTINE T ED V ALPEY P ETER VANADIA MR. & MRS. HENRY V ANDERSIP EDSEL A . V ENUS HARRY D. V ERHOOG DALE R . V ONDERAU FRANZ V ON ZIEGESAR BRI AN D . W AKE RAYMONDE. W ALLACE THOMAS H . W ALSH T ERRY W ALTON BRUCE E. WARE A LEXANDER W ATSON EDWARDR. WEBER MR . & MRS. TIMOTHY F . W EBER ELIZABETH B . W EEOON K ENNETH W EEKS RAYNER W EIR WILLIAM W EIR H OWARD A. WEISS RANDY WESTON CRAIG W . WHITE SIR G OROON WHITE KBE JOHN R OBERT WHITE RAYMOND D . WHITE G EORGE WHITESIDE G. G. WHITNEY. JR . FR. JAMES WHlrrEMORE L AURENCE WH ITTEMORE WILLIAM A. A. W ICHERT J . S . WILFORD LAURENCE WILLARD STEPHEN J . WILLIG PERCIVAL WILSON ROBERT WILSON JO>HN F. WING JOE B . WISE W ILLIAM F . WISEMAN W ALTER G. WOHLEK ING EDWARD W OLLENBERG W OMEN'S PROPELLER CLUB. PORT OF B OSTON W OMEN"S PROPELLER CLUB, PORT OF NEW Y ORK R ICK WOOD W ILLIAM H . P. WITHERS DORAN R . WRIGHT T . H . WRIGHT , JR. WILLI AM C. WYGANT JAMES H . Y OCUM JOHN Y OUELL H ENRY A. Y OIUMANS KIRK YOUNGMAN D ONALD ZUBROD
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MODEL SUCCESS STORY' "The Maritime Prepositioning Ship program is a model success story, and I couldn 't be more pleased . MPS is on schedule and proving to be an extremely valuable strategic asset." - General PX. Kelley Commandant U.S Marine Corps
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DISTRICT 2 MARINE ENGINEERS BENEFICIAL ASSOCIATION -ASSOCIATED MARITIME OFFICERS
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AFFILIATED WITH THE AFL-CIO MARITIME TRADES DEPARTMENT 650 FOURTH AVENUE BROOKLYN, N.Y 11232 (718) 965-6700
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RAYMOND T. McKAY PRESIDENT
JOHN F. BRADY EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
This Is MM&P Country We salute the AMERICAN NEW YORK on her maiden voyage leaving Hong Kong, with additional Ports Of Call at Pusan Korea; Kaohsiung Taiwan; Kobe and Yokohama Japan; Savannah and New York, U.S.A. The AMERICAN NEW YORK, is the first of twelve United States Lines Econo Liners manned with MM&P Officers. The AMERICAN NEW YORK carries 2241 40-foot containers, with a cruising range of 30,000 nautical miles at 18 knots. The AMERICAN NEW YORK is 950 feet long and 106 feet wide. The successful operation of this ship has been entrusted to MM&P deck officers, whose skills are regularly sharpened by the Maritime Advancement, Training, Education, and Safety (MATES) program. MM&P ship officers make a practice of returning to the Maritime Institute Of Technology and Graduate Studies (MITAGS) at Linthicum Heights, MD, to sharpen their skills and learn new ones with the aid of the most modem teaching equipment available.
LLOYD M. MARTIN
ROBERT J. LOWEN
International Secretary-Treasurer
International President
International Organization of
Masters, Mates & Pilots 700 Maritime Boulevard, Linthicum Heights, MD 21090 • Tel: (301) 850-8700 • Cable: BRIDGEDECK, Washington, DC• Telex: 750831