Sea History 054 - Summer 1990

No. 54

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

SUMMER 1990

THE ART, LITERATURE, ADVENTURES, LORE & LEARNING OF THE SEA

COLUMBUS'S QUEST FOR SHIPS: His Caravel Was Developed Just in Time to Make the Voyage-and Get Safely Back!

USNS ZEUS (T-ARC 7)

SPECIAL SHIPS FOR SPECIAL MISSIONS Military Sealift Command (MSC) crews and operates a fleet of more than 40 ships that sail the globe to support U.S. Navy fleet operations and special missions worldwide.

One of our special mission ships USNS ZEUS (TARC 7) was the first cable ship to be designed and built by the Navy. ZEUS is 513 feet in length with diesel electric power and cruises at 15 knots. ZEUS maintains the Navy's capability for laying and repairing underwater cables and related hardware. She is equipped with state-of-the-art cable handling machinery, precision navigation equipment, twin screws, and side propulsion units to accommodate the exacting maneuvers needed for cable operations. In addition, the ship undertakes acoustic, hydrographic, oceanographic, and ocean engineering surveys.

Crewing requirements for ZEUS are unique; the ship's complement includes crewmembers whose

duties are dedicated to her cable mission. ZEUS has two Chief Officers, one of whom, the Chief Officer (Cable), is responsible for cable operations while the other performs traditional First Mate responsibilities. She also has two Boatswain Mates. The cable crew consists of a Boatswain Mate and nine Able Seamen (Cable) who stand two twelve hour watches during operations. Additionally, two Deck Engineer Machinists and two Unlicensed Jr. Engineers are responsible for operating and maintaining cable equipment. Crew accommodations include single staterooms, three lounges, a gymnasium, a recreation room, and a library.

Since USNS ZEUS was delivered to MSC in 1984, she has established an excellent reputation for service and reliability.

MSC has challenging shipboard opportunities and invites interested individuals to request application information.

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Positions are subject to requirements of the CIVMAR Drug Free Workplace Program which includes drug urinalysis screening

MSC IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

ISSN 0146-9312

No. 54

SEA HISTORY

OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE WORLD SHIP TRUST

SEA HISTORY is published quarterly by the National Maritime Hi storical Society, 132 Maple Street, Croton-on-Hudson NY I0520. Second class postage paid at Croton-on-Hudson, NY I0520, and C inc in nati , OH 45242. COPYRIG HT © 1990 by the Nati ona l Maritime Hi storica l Soc iety. Te l. 9 14 27 1-2 177.

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OFFI CE RS & TR US T EES a re C ha irman Schuyler M. Meyer, Jr.; Vice Chairmen , Henry H. Anderson, Jr., Alan G. Choate, James Ean; President, Peter Stanford; Vice Preside111, Norma Stanford ; Treasurer, Thomas Gochberg; Secretary, Rit h ardo Lopes; Trustees, Henry H. Anderson, Jr., Alan G. Choate, Thomas Gochberg, Norbert S. Hill , Jr. , Truda C. Jewett, Karl Kortum , George Lamb, Richardo Lopes, Robert J. Lowen, James P. Marenakos, Schuyler M. Meyer, Jr., Danie l More land, Nancy Pouch, Ludwig K. Rubinsky, Edmund S. Rum ow icz, Frank V. Snyder, Peter Stanford, Sam ue l T hompson, Willi am G. Winterer, Edward G. Zelinsky. Chairman Emeritus, Karl Kortum OV ERSEERS: Chairman, Henry H. Anderson, Jr. ; Charles F. Adams, Townsend Hornor, George Lamb, C lifford D. Mallory, Schuyler M. Meyer, Jr., J . Will iam Middendorf, II , John G. Rogers, John Stobart A DVISORS: Co-Chairmen, Frank 0 . Braynard , Me lbourne Smith ; Raymond Aker, Robert Amon , George F. Bass , Francis E. Bowker, Frank 0.

Braynard , Oswa ld L. Brett, Dav id Brin k, Frank G. G. Carr, W illiam M. Doerflinger, John S. Ewald, Joseph L. Farr, Timothy G. Foote, Ri chard GooldAdams , Walter J. Hande lman, Robert G. Herbert, Jr. , R. C. Jefferson, Irving M. Johnson, Conrad Milster, Edward D. Muhlfe ld , William G. Muller, David E. Perkins, Richard Rath , Nancy Hughes Richardson, Timothy J. Runyan , George Salley , Me lbourne Smith, Ralph L. Snow, John Stobart, Albert Swanson, Shannon J. Wall , Robert A. We in ste in , Thomas We ll s, Charl es Witthol z.

American Ship Trust, Hon. Secretary, Eric J. Berryman WORLD SHIP TR UST: Chairman, We nsley Haydon- Ba illi e; Vice Presidents, Henry H. Anderson, Jr., Viscount Caldecote, Sir Rex Hunt, Hammond Innes, Rt. Hon. Lord Lew in , Rt. Hon .

Lord Shackleton; Dep. Director, J. A. Forsythe; Hon. Treasurer, Michael C. MacSw iney; Trustees; Eric J. Berryman, Mensun Bound, Dr. Neil Cossons, Dav id Goddard , D.R. MacG regor, Alan McGowan , Michael Parker, Arthur Prothero, Michael Stammers, Jayne Tracy. Membership : £ 12 payable WST, l 29aNorth Street, Burwell , Cambs.

C BS OBB, England. Reg. Charity No . 277751 SEA HISTORY STAFF: Editor, Peter Stanford ; Managing Editor, Norma Stanford; Assista/1/ Editor, Kevin Haydon; Advertising, Miche lle Shuster; Production Asst., Joseph Stanfo rd; Accounting, Martha Rosva lly; Membership Sec'y, Patricia Anstett; Membership Assts ., Grace Zerell a, Teresa Russini; Assistant to the President, Sally Kurts

SUMMER 1990

CONTENTS 4 4 9 12 13 14 15 17 17 18 24 26 30 32 33 35 36 37 41 46

DECKLOG LETTERS AND QUERIES THE MISSION WORLD SHIP TRUST REPORT: THE FIRST TEN YEARS A SHIP TO SAIL NEW TRADE AND EDUCATION ROUTES , Jay Bolton OPERATION SAIL 1992: HAIL THE J UAN SEBASTIAN DE ELCANO , Frank 0 . Braynard THE FOUR SISTERS, William F. Wendler THE COLUMBUS QUINCENTENARY LETTER FROM THE KING OF SPAIN REDISCOVERING COLUMBUS, Peter Stanford MARINE ART: THE ROAD TO CHINA, Ray and Gayle Massey MARINE ART NEWS ON STATION, Kenneth Brierley AMBROSE WITH LOVE, Norma Stanford COAST GUARD BICENTENNIAL MODELMAKERS CORNER: SA YING TIME IN A BOTTLE, Anne Johnson SHIP NOTES , SEAPORT AND MUSEUM NEWS TRINCOMALEE RESTORATION, A.G. Broadwater REVIEWS DESSERT: LIFE ABOARD THE VIPER , Rita Chancellor

COVER: Nina , the caravel that accompanied Columbus on his voyage to the Americas in 1492- and brought him back safely through North Atlantic gales. Of the ships he secured for hi s voyage, she was hi s favorite. Painting by Richard Schlecht;© National Geographic Society, used with permission .

The National Maritime Historical Society is saving America's seafaring heritage. Join us.

We bring to life America ' s seafaring past through resea rch . a rc haeologica l expedi tions and s hip preserva tion efforts . We work with museums , historians and sail training groups and report on these activities in o ur quarterl y journal Sea History.

We are al so the Ame rican arm of the Wo rld Ship Tru st. a n internati o nal group wo rking worldwide to help save ships o f histo ric impo rtance .

Won "t you join us to keep alive our nation 's seafaring legacy?

Membership in the Society costs only $25 a year. You ' ll receive Sea History , a fascinating magazine filled with arti cles of seafaring and historical lore. You'll also be eligible for discounts on books, prints and other items .Help save o ur seafaring heritage . Join the National Maritime Historical Society today!

To: National Maritime Historical Society, PO Box 646, 132 Maple St, Croton NY 10520 I want to help . I understand that my contributi on goes to fo rward the work of the Society ' and that l"ll be kept informed by recei ving SEA HISTORY quarterl y. Enclosed is :

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54

What's rarely seen, barely understood but always used and needed by every one of us in the metropolitan region?

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Kendall developed the technique he calls " Sepia Pen & Ink Wash Drawings" while completing his masters project for San Francisco State College at the houseboat community in Sausalito, California . Sepia brown ink seemed to capture the warmth and feeling of the area.

Since 1980 Kendall has specialized in marine art and has a series of " Tall Ships" in print. An average of 200-250 hours each is spent on an original drawing. Other ships in the series include the " Eagle," " Sea Cloud ,'' " Guayas," " Dar Pomorza," " Gorch Fock II ," " Christian Radich ," " Balclutha ,'' & " Golden Hind II." All prints are hand signed by the artist .

Recently Kendall did commissions of private yachts along the " French Riviera" (using either sepia brown ink or watercolor).

Don't be surprised to see this muchtravelled marine artist in any port where beautiful boats gather.

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DECK LOG "WAITING BELOW UPPER BRIDGE SEVILLA," the skipper's telegram had

said, and there, in the heart of that splendid old city, surrounded by fields flooded in the April rains, we found the /olaire.

It was 1951 and Bobby Somerset's 46ft cutter had wintered there, after a season spent exploring the coasts of Spain.

We had visited many small ports, and I remember the ships's laundry being done by women who scrubbed it on flat rocks in streams, and the music of ox cart wheels squeaking and groaning as the carts came down from the hills to the markets in the towns. There were clipper-bowed schooners carrying cargo about, sometimes from as far away as the Caribbean, and we found a couple of new ones being built in Ibiza in the Balearics. An immemorial way of life was being pursued all about us, with gusto and pride.

Seville, after this experience of the outports, was-in a word-a revelation.

Moorish grace and Spanish grandeur mixed harmoniously in the city's architecture; Christian for 700 years, Seville had been a Moorish capital for 500 years before that. After Columbus's discovery of 1492, the city grew to worldwide importance, because it held the monopoly on trade to the Americas.

The sophistication one found in the streets of this stately city coexisted naturally with the strong primitive ways of life of the surrounding country. And along with the elaborate courtesy of the people, there was a familial feeling in the streets that must have existed in the medieval city Columbus knew; the avenues and alleyways were like hallways and corridors in a great house, not the no-man's land of most modern cities.

There will be a World's Fair in Seville in 1992, and that is the place to go to understand the society that gave Columbus the ships and the backing to open the Americas to the world.

* * * * *

A Gal I up pol I conducted last year for the National Endowment for the Humanities shows that in their final year of college, one quarter of American students could not hit the date of Columbus's voyage within half a century.

Surely, the past is not excess baggage to be cast off by the roadside like this. It is part of a continuing story, one that no one should be deprived of. So share with us in the rediscovery of Columbus as we take it up in this and future issues of Sea History.

PS

4

LETTERS Good News-More Members Congratulations on increasing the National Maritime Historical Society's membership by 13 percent during the past year! George Lamb reports that the Texaco grant has enabled NMHS to send out thousands of "invitational" copies of your fine magazine, Sea History. Hopefully , this mailing will bring in many additional new members.

I am glad to respond to your request for continued support toward the membership drive with the additional contribution enclosed. These next two years present a unique opportunity for the Society to increase its membership significantly, and every effort should be made to that end.

LAURANCE S. ROCKEFELLER New York, New York

No Hot Dogs Need Apply You're right-all-female crews (SH53 , p5) are definitely not a rarity or innovation. My sailing with women crew has ranged from experience in Young America and Westward to cruising in yachts (including passages to and from Bermuda and the Caribbean).

Although women may be inferior to men in upper-body strength, this is a disadvantage only in grinding winches on big racing yachts. I think women surpass men in the kind of endurance required to keep going in cold, miserable weather. As navigators, women seem to be particularly careful and meticulous.

Since they haven't had thejr heads messed up from childhood with notions that they have to be macho, women seem to be much less likely to engage in the kind of hot-dog heroics on the foredeck or aloft which may result in a man overboard.

PETER V ANADIA Philadelphia Marine Services, Inc. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Operation Sail 1992 Regarding the forthcoming 1992 visit of the tall ships of the world to New York (so well written up in your magazine), I would only like to ask two questions: How much of the money generated on previous occasions of OpSail found its way into supporting or assisting sail training ships or sail training generally?

What percentage of the enormous amount of money that wi II be generated

by Operation Sail 1992 will find its way back to sail training?

In answer to the question, "Will there be skysails in New York in 1992?" the answer is that there will certainly be one-aboard Alexander von Humboldt.

God willing, I shall be aboard too!

H.F. MORIN SCOTT, MBE, FNI Commodore, Square Rigger Club England

What's that Strange Craft?

There may be other readers who, like myself, are curious to know what is that strange-looking craft on the lower lefthand side of Mr. Smitheman 's painting "Dunkerque circa 1909" on page 28 of Sea History 52. Could it possibly be a submarine?

ROBERT FENTON Temple, Texas Yes, the craft is a submarine. From the Middle Ages up until the Second World War, Dunkerque had important military connections and for much of that time maintained a garrison.

Whilst at the beginning of our century the French Fleet was more to be seen in Cherbourg or Brest, the Marine Nationale was represented in Dunkerque by the Mobile Defense. This comprised a half dozen large anti-torpedo boats (up to 800 tons) and 18 torpedo boats of120 tons. Also in port were such innovative submarines as the Phoque, Naide, MeduseandLudion,all launched in 1901.

From contemporary photographs it seems it was almost impossible to view the inner harbor without seeing one or two ofthese craft pottering about. I have shown the Phoque making its way across to the Quai des Hollandaise. When I exhibited the painting in Dunkerque, two of its older citizens spoke to me of their recollections of this particular submarine.-S. F. SMITHEMAN

Lucky Christopher Your article on Columbus (Sea History 53) was very enjoyable, filling in details never encountered elsewhere. However, it is hard to believe he was so unaware of the earth's size. Eratosthenes computed the circumference around 200 BC. His data were poor so he was some 16% high, but his methods were valid. The Arabs determined the circumference around 800 AD and were only 3.6% high.

No one in history exceeded Columbus in luck and serendipity. The New World goes from Alaska to Cape Horn so he had to hit something. If it had not been there, he could never have sailed SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

the 12,000 miles to reach his declared goal in the Far East.

DAN NEHRER San Diego, California In the process of "Rediscovering Columbus" I'm surprised Peter Stanford made no mention of National Geographic's momentous discovery that Columbus didn't land on Watlings but rather on little Samana Cay. In fact it was the Norsemen who discovered this continent, their only deficiency being that they didn't maintain archives as did the Spaniards.

JERREMS c. HART Vero Beach, Florida The debate over Columbus's landing place continues, as will appear in our next. As to prior discovery by the Norse (and quite possibly by others), it may surely be said that Columbus's discovery was the one that "took."-Eo

Liberty Ship Identified I refer to the correspondence, some time ago, regarding the wartime photo of an anonymous Liberty ship in New York harbor which is used regularly in Bay Refractory advertisements in Sea History and was also used to illustrate the John W. Brown article inSeaHistory4 1.

The question has always been the identity of this Liberty ship. At the same time it has been agreed that the original photo had been retouched, with the anchor chain painted out and a bow wave added, but the anchor ball not touched-out from the forestay.

I recently purchased a number of ship photos: among them was an 8 by 10 unretouched print of this photo. The ship has her nameboard showing-high up on her bridgefront! Under a powerful glass, the name shows clearly as the Egbert Benson. In the Bay Refractory photo the ship's bridgefront nameboard has been censored-out, as well.

I understand that bridgefront nameboards were used on some ships involved with the D-Day Normandy landing operations in June 1944, and this could be borne out by the fact that the Egbert Benson disappears from many of the ship movement lists around the time ofD-Day-though she is regularly li sted before this and again, subsequently, when she moved to Mediterranean operations. Thus, withherbridgefrontname board, it could be assumed that the photograph of the Egbert Benson was taken around the time of April/May 1944.

SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

Furthermore, although I agree with your correspondent's remarks (Sea History 43) that the Egbert Benson is flying the "explosives" flag , I disagree with his comments that her International Signal letters "are being hoisted" and show three flags as N-A-S. In fact, her signal letters, K-F-D-J, would be hoisted together, not one at a time, whilst the three-flag signal she flies would be a shore signal, this confirmed when we remember that the ship was photographed at anchor.

LEN SA WYER Barnes, London Quite a Man aboard the Savage It is with considerable interest I read Mr. Saxe's comprehensive study of the battle of Valcour in the Spring issue of Sea History. Only one slight difference was discovered: my research shows that Arnold was aboard Royal Savage at the commencement of the battle and transferred to Congress when the former went ashore an Valcour's sloping rocks at the southwest comer of the island.

My interest was piqued early in 1934 when a friend and I dove on the Royal Savage using an early "diving hood" my friend had rented in New York City. The water was cold and we could stay below only about ten minutes at a time.

I brought up a few souvenirs despite the presence of Capt. Hagglund in a full diving suit with topside air pump; he was a member of a NYC corporation at the time, and we saw his take, a steamer trunk full of old rusty bayonets , guns, bullets, etc. from the wreck.

I kept a piece of a stout rib until 1976, when I constructed a model of Royal Savage from it. Thi s model is on exhibit at the Allen Knight Maritime Museum in Monterey with appropriate legends.

The English oak is in excellent condition despite its long submersion.

HORACE S. MAZET Carmel, California

Where is America's Tall Ship?

I am just an armchair sailor but have a big interest in ship restoration. I have a few questions for you: 1. What do you think about salvaging the lady Elizabeth?

2. Why does this country (the world 's greatest) have only the small ship Eagle to show, when other nations, even much poorer countries, have either larger or several "tall ships?"

3. Can we build one or two from scratch

or start a fund and in ten years buy the Sea Cloud which would be more fitting the grandeur of America?

It doesn ' t seem that anybody has really got "cranked up" to do anything.

Love all your articles in Sea History.

DON BERNTSEN San Diego, California let us respond to your questions in order: I . Lady Elizabeth. The World Ship Trust aspires to restore her as a museum ship in Port Stanley. She's a beautiful vessel, and a remarkable survival!

2. There are plans for a big sail training ship on the boards-see page 13.

3. Sea Cloud. You are not the first to think of her-the late Barclay Warburton, founder of the American Sail Training Association, very much wanted to set her up as a national ship. l et us add that bigger isn't necessarily better. The 1634-displacement ton USCGC Eagle, while not the size of Russia's 3545-gross ton Kruzenshtem, does a superlative job in deep-sea sail training. The 489-gross ton bark Elissa of Galveston, Texas , and the 324-gross ton Gazela of Philadelphia (both handsome historic vessels supported by private donations) do good work in sail training as well.-Eo

ERRATA "Rig the gratings for punishment," commands Mike Cohn of New York, having spotted that we cited the arrival of USS Edison to join the aircraft carrier Intrepid in New York last year (SH 53, page 11). We meant to say, of course, Edson. But we got it wrong.

The photograph on page 39 of Sea History 53 of the lovely Christeen in our last issue shows this historic oyster sloop at her berth in New London prior to her departure for exhibition and restoration at the Connecticut River Museum in Essex-not at Essex , as we had it.

The text beneath the photograph of the Statue of Liberty celebration, showing the Gaze/a of Philadelphia (formerly Gaze/a Primeiro) in Sea History 52 "is in error," remarks David H. Frantz, Jr. , of Massachusetts. Somehow we said she was built in Spain ... but, of course, we meant Portugal! Mr. Frantz goes on to report that a memo by the former owners has been uncovered describing Gaze/a as a "Brigantine with running bowsprit of 180 gross tons, built in Cacilhas by J. A. Sampaia in 1883. Obtained by Ben-

5

LETTERS Thanking all our hosts in New York City, Elizabeth, Stamford, Kingston, Albany, New Rochelle, Fairfield, Milford, and Fall River for a great summer of '89.

Now planning an exciting 1990 schedule.

The new Coast Guard Certified"HMS" Rose, largest operational wooden sailing ship in the world, embarks on educational voyages. Diverse programs range from grade school age through executive development workshops for business and industry.

For information write or call:

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In the "Review" section of Sea History 53 a staff review of three recent books on the Bounty mutiny incorrectly stated that the mission of the Bounty was to "take breadfruit trees from Tahiti to Australia as a new food source for the penal colony." In fact, the mission was to take the breadfruit plants not to Australia but to the West Indies as a cheap food source for the slaves working the sugar plantations. This obvious gaffe was brought to our attention by Arthur Munro Christian of the HMS Bounty Society, International, who adds that "a second voyage, also under the command of William Bligh, accomplished this mission. Ironically, the slaves refused to eat the breadfruit, not finding it to their liking."

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suade and Company, Lda. in 1886, ownership passing to Parceria Geral de Pescaria, Lda. in 1891. A small symbolic piece of keel was used when major rebuilding was agreed upon and undertaken in 1900 by the shipyard of Setubal, at which time the vessel was renamed Gaze/a Primeiro, of 325 tons." Frantz notes that "this explains the difficulty encountered in checking Lloyd's Register for 1886 and 1901, where the disparity in dimensions cast doubt on just when Gaze/a Primiero was built. . . because of that symbolic piece of keel, she could be called the same ship." We agree that it would be interesting to discover where in the ship that I 06year-old piece of wood is.

New York, New York 10036

212-536-3800

QUERIES In the Spring 1990 issue of the American Neptune (p69), the late A. Van Santvoord Olcott, Jr. , refers to the great wooden paddle steamers of the 1850s and 60s as "capable of going around Cape Horn."

To our best understanding this passage was always through the Straits of Magellan with these ships in this period. Can readers cite instances of paddle steamer passages round the Horn?

NMHS recently received an unusual request from a pair of French free-lance photographers and writers. In conjunction with the French nautical magazine Le Chasse-Maree , the pair are studying the relationship between dogs and sailors and are looking for any old texts, pictures and testimonies to assist their research. Contact Alan or Catherine Clech, Illustration-Reportage, 4 cite de I' Aulne, 29190 Pont Coblant, France; Tel. 98 73 36 50.

D SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

Gaze la U oder Sail

by ROBERT C. SEMLER

Member: Society of Illustrators American Society of Marine Artists

A limited edition print of the Gazela, former 1883 Portuguese square-rigged Barkentine, berthed at historic Penns Landing, Philadelphia, PA.

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First in a Series THE MEETING OF TWO ELEGANT LADIES: STATUE OF LIBERTY & TALL SHIP ELISSA Elissa (1877), the tall ship of Texas, now fully restored and moored at Pier 21 in Galveston Bay, is part of our great American tradition. As a fully operational sailing ship , Elissa periodically ventures out on the open seas. Her greatest voyage to date was the 'Statue of Liberty Bicentennial Parade of Sail 1986 '.

Elissa ' s triumphant entry into New York harbour on the Statue of Liberty's Bicentennial celebration is captured in thi s unique work of art. .. destined to become the new American classic.

This original work of art has what it takes to go up in va lue once the edition closes .. .enduring beauty, superb craftsmanship and the pride of the artisans who created them. No two pieces can be alike as each is the work of an individual artist.

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Heirloom Collectors Club of America asserts our pride in our maritime history in this limited first edition of the Elissa Straw Collage.

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SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

The Mission Some years ago a new member of the National Maritime Historical Society noted with surprise that we do more than publish this magazine. Well, yes, we do.

Sea History itself has been defined "the journal of a cause in motion."

But clearly more definition is needed, and our good friend the distinguished educator Cynthia Parsons has suggested that we publish a continuing statement of the Society's mission, reporting the mission as we've actually been developing it, by discussing goals, concerns, dreams and what we're doing about them-here and now.

An NMHS Marine Archaeology Seminar Sue Morrow Flanagan had been pursuing our marine archaeological campaign for improved safeguards for historic shipwrecks, and to bring this effort to a point she proposed a marine archaeology debate, which was duly held at the Explorers Club in New York this past February 26. On one side were Paul F. Johnston, Maritime Curatorof the Smithsonian Institution, whose strong views on barring salvors from wreck sites were published in Sea History 51, p6-7 , and National Park Service Historian James Delgado, wno has done pioneering work in locating and recording shipwrecks on the US littoral. Facing them were Christopher Hamilton, the archaeologist assigned to the Wydah wreck on Cape Cod by the State of Massachusetts, whose views have been made known in SH 51, p7 and 52, p8, and Barry Clifford, president of Maritime Explorations Inc. , excavators of the Wydah . Their confrontation produced a stunning surprise,

Antique U.S. Coast Survey maps from the 1800s

from whose shock wave it is to be hoped none of us are yet recovered.

From the outset, the impossibility of barring all recreational and commercial access to underwater wrecks was agreed.

The extreme desirability of reserving some wrecks purely for historic purposes was also agreed. The litany of problems was reviewed: that commercial sponsors have no interest in context (often more important than the recovered object), that untrained sports divers can spoil things for everyone, that seeking absolute protection for all wrecks can lead to effective protection for none.

But the reviewers began seeking workable solutions and to reconcile interests by each side learning what the other really has at stake-and how that stake can be honored.

At the end of the evening, we said let 's get a photograph-you people have never been together before, and probably never will be again in this lifetime.

Oh no, said all four, we think we've got something going. We plan to go on with this.

NMHS Advisor Peter Throckmorton, who helped found the modem science of marine archaeology, and who will be much missed by all of us (word of his death was received as this issue of Sea History went to press) was not at this meeting, but took a keen interest. He advocated the policy that we went on to adopt at the NMHS Annual Meeting in May: Henceforth we will seek agreed strategies with all participants in underwater exploration who agree to play by the rules-and let's get rules that really protect historic wrecks. To this Throcko

The foursome who me/ 10 do ha/lie and ended up seeking join! stralegies. From !he lefl, Paul Johns/on, Cura/or of Marilime History, Smilhsonian lnslilulion; James Delgado, Hislorian , Nalional Park Service; Chrislopher Hamil/on, Slale-assigned marine archaeologisl on !he Wydah projec/; Barry Clifford, President of Marilime Explorations Inc.; andNMHS hos/ Pe/er S!anford.

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added his own cogent twist: that treasure hunters lose money , and marine archaeology can actually make money! Citing experience in Mediterranean sites, he said: "When Caribbean countries barter away their historic shipwrecks in return for a percentage of an imaginary take they lose tourist attractions that could produce income for all foreseeable time."

Two months after the seminar, on April 2, Barry Clifford announced his proposal to keep the Wydah material together, in a museum that would serve as a tourist attraction on the Boston waterfront.

American Indian Revival We are fortunately in a position to know more about the native peoples' cultures overrun by the European incursion in the Americas than the invading Europeans themselves seem to have known at the time. The Europeans plainly arrived in the Americas with crusading zeal at best, and with murderous intentions of domination, conquest and exploitation at worst, which in the usual all-toohuman jumble of mixed motives and illconceived actions, resulted in virtual extirpation of Indian cultures and in some cases the people themselves, across, ultimately, the huge expanse of the New World.

But Indian cultures survived, at least in pockets here and there, and today these embers are being fanned into fresh life, in a revival of great reward to all Americans today . In the next issue of Sea History we'll take a look at these heartening undertakings. As we have mentioned earlier in these pages we mean to see the Indian story told in full , by PS Indians themselves.

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11

World Ship Trust Report: The First Ten Years

by Peter Elphick The World Ship Trust was ten years old on 29 December 1989, the anniversary date of the signing of the Trust Deed that gave it legal and charitable status.

The formation of the Trust, at the initiative of past Chairman and now Honorary Patron Frank Carr, had been mooted for some five years prior to the signing of the Deed. In 1974 Frank Carr visited the United States at the invitation of the National Maritime Historical Society to advocate the establishment of such a body.* He envisaged it as an instrument designed to raise interest in the world 's heritage of historic shipsto do on a worldwide basis what Britain's Maritime Trust had been established to do within the British Isles. In Frank Carr's own words, the first objective of the World Ship Trust should be "to promulgate the fact that ships and smaller craft, unlike shore-based structures built of long-lasting materials, are generally, and certainly until recently, constructed of perishable stuff I ike wood and hemp, which unless cared for and maintained, will quickly decay from the assault of the elements and eventually disintegrate and disappear. Once gone, perhaps beyond recovery, some unique part of the world 's maritime heritage will have been lost forever."

One decade on, it is possible to look back on a catalogue of major achievements. The Trust, through the connections of its Trustees and Vice-Presidents, has built up a worldwide reputation and created links with personages and organizations interested in ship preservation from all quarters of the globe, including some quite surprising ones.

(In this category are the Zanzibar State Barge presented to the Sultan by Queen Victoria, and the "golden barges" of Thailand.) Correspondence and news items are now received from museums, societies, and ship preservation organizations everywhere.

The Trust's Maritime Heritage Award is an honor that has grown in status over the years . To date, seven presentations have been made: 1980: Film "Ghosts of Cape Horn" 1982: Vasa of Sweden 1983: Mary Rose of England 1985: Jylland of Denmark 1987: USS Constitution 1988: Sir John Smith for his leadership in restoring HMS Warrior 1988: Polly Woodside of Australia Without doubt, the status of the awards 12

has been enhanced by the status of the dignitaries who presented the awards on behalf of the Trust, the award to the Mary Rose being presented, for example,

by Queen Elizabeth II, the award to USS Constitution by President Reagan.

Over the years of its existence, the Trust has sponsored, or given moral support to, or arranged expert advice for, several ship preservation and marine archaeological projects. It is not possible in the space available to list all

On March 15 , HRH Prin ce Philip , Duke of Edinburgh (at rig hi) presented the first maritime heritage award of !he Cutty Sark Maritime Trust to Frank G.G. Carr, founding chairman of the World Ship Trust. Mr. Carr, whose871h. birthday was celebrated on April 23 , was hailed as "savior of the Cutty Sark."

these, but they included the joint WSTOxford University-Palermo University expedition to the Mediterranean, which included work on an Etruscan ship of circa 600 BC; the Trust offered advice and arranged the gift of a large quantity of preservation material to the Cheops ship of Egypt; the Trust gave encouragement to the Government of South Korea and arranged a suitable itinerary for the Assistant Curator of their project to recover the wrecks of 13th century junks off the southwest coast of that country; in 1987, the Trust was one of the sponsors of the 5th International Reunion on the History of Navigation and Hydrography, at Sagres, Portugal; the Trust has an on-going interest in the Yavari project, the preservation of the Lake Titicaca steamship built in England in 1862.

To sum it up, through the activities of the Trustees and Vice-Presidents, and *This visit was commemorated in "Take Good Care of Her, Mister," published by NMHS in 1974 and available in Xerox from NMHS for $5.00.

the scouting activities of its ordinary members, the Trust has sought to coordinate ship preservation activities worldwide to the mutual benefit and advantage of all.

The highest profile project in which the WST has been involved to date was the publication in 1985 of Norman Brouwer' s International Register of Historic Ships. The book, with its 706 entries from around the world, filled a gap in the literature of the sea. It is now being updated with new material which has become available in the past five years.

It is hoped that the new edition can be produced in such a format that it can be updated frequently and expeditiously.

The World Ship Trust has carried out many of the tasks originally set out in the enabling Deed, but there is still much to be done. It is not enough , of course, just to generate interest in ship preservation; once generated , that interest must be nurtured and maintained. We can all recall instances where such projects once started, have fallen by the wayside-or to use a more appropriate metaphor, have been wrecked, sometimes on a maiden voyage. (This is not a new development in the field of ship preservation. Queen Elizabeth I of England ordered that Drake 's Golden Hind was to be preserved for posterity. That historic vessel stood for many years in its Thameside dock, but it was not maintained and gradually disintegrated. Except for some of its timbers which were made into a chair and a table, that ship now lies buried somewhere under the Deptford waterfront.)

The Trust now needs to build on the foundations that have been successfully laid over the past ten years. The proposed International Maritime Heritage Year in 1992 will help to do this. In addition, the Trust is now considering an outline plan for its second decade, one that will carry it successfully into the 21st century.

Captain Peter Elphick is volunteer public affairs officer for the World Ship Trust.

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SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

A Ship to Sail New Trade and Education Routes

By Jay Bolton Our heritage in American mant1me commerce is a monument of our nation's growth to a world power through ocean-borne commerce and export trade.

The time to preserve this legacy is now, on the threshold of the twenty-first century, as we enter upon the dramatic globalization of world trade. It is imperative that we seek "new trade and education routes" for our country.

How will future generations judge our performance in perpetuating America 's maritime commerce heritage in this critical era? As of today, the answers are not encouraging.

Since 1946, US flag ocean-borne commerce has steadily declined to a point where we now carry only four percent of all cargo to and from the United States. By the year 2000, this percentage is expected to diminish to a mere one percent (further exacerbating our trade deficit). Essentially, we will become totally dependent upon foreign carriers for our economic survival and ocean transportation requirements.

In the 1940s, America's shipyards outproduced the rest of the world combined. Now, for the first time in our history, they are without commercial contracts, unable to compete against foreign subsidized shipyards. If not revitalized soon, more American yards will close permanently and a vital national resource essential for our national security will be tragically lost.

Our US flag merchant fleet, once the world's largest, is now only one fifth the size of the Soviets, one fourth of the Japanese, and one third of the Chinese.

Recent spills have increased resistance to domestic oil exploration. That, with the depletion of Alaskan oil supplies, will lead to further reduction of the US flag tanker fleet-the last vestige of our US flag Jones Act trade. Oil imports, soon to exceed fifty percent of our requirements, are carried almost exclusively by foreign flag ships. In short, we are becoming totally dependent on foreign carriers for our survival.

The US merchant marine is considered to be a vital component of our national sealift capacity--our ability to transport troops and supplies. It has always been there in time of need. But now, as a result of the dangerous decline of our nation 's "Fourth Arm of Defense," it may not be there when the alarm bell sounds. In fact, many of our nation 's leaders consider the lack of available US flag ships, properly manned SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

"The Department of Commerce wholeheartedly supports the TS Liberty concept. The research, training, national pride and educational benefits of this proposal are immeasurable."

-ROBERT A. MOSBACHER Secretary of Commerce

by American citizens, to be the Achilles heel of our ability to respond to military threat in a still turbulent world.

Our nation 's sea service academies are the source of some of the world's most professional merchant mariners and our nation 's firiest naval, Coast Guard and NOAA officers. They also produce engineers, scientists, business executives and national leaders. Simply stated, if

the maritime schools are to provide this skilled workforce, they must obtain modern, effective training ships to replace the antiquated, World War II vintage vessels now in service.

Surely the time is now to make maritime history for future generations; to dedicate ourselves to our leaders of tomorrow; to form an American constituency for America as a world trading partner.

The United States Tall Ship Foundation , a not-for-profit organization devoted to maintaining the maritime commercial heritage of the United States, is addressing the critical needs of our sea service schools and our nation. Initially the Foundation will build a modern training ship to be dedicated to national educational service. Appropriately named Liberty, it will be a state-of-the-art tall ship, one of the world's largest, and will be the first US ship specifically built for training. Liberty will: • Create a new national maritime symbol for America.

• Generate a new national awareness and appreciation of the role the US merchant marine plays in our economic and military capability.

• Provide our sea service schools with a critically needed training ship and recruitment vehicle to attract our

nation 's finest youth.

• Provide American citizens and corporations with an opportunity to make a dramatic national/international statement of their commitment to our country's interest.

The TS Liberty will be a 3,000-gross ton, 350 foot, four-masted, bark rigged sail training ship with alternative 4,000 hp diesel power, accommodating approximately 160 cadets. TS Liberty will contain all of the modem engineering and navigation equipment used aboard larger ships, affording professional training, while providing the opportunities for personal and leadership development uniquely found aboard tall ships.

The Liberty project, sponsored by the private sector, provides an opportunity for all to create a new national asset to help America stand tall once again in its traditional role as innovatorand leader in the world's seaborne commerce.

The Foundation, guided by an advisory board comprised of nationally recognized individuals of achievement, including all of the sea service schools' presidents and superintendents, invites all who are concerned for the future of our heritage in maritime commerce to join us in building TS Liberty.

Inquiries should be directed to: The United States Tall Ship Foundation, c/o Burke & Parsons , 1114 A venue of the Americas, New York NY 10036; tel.

212 354-3800. 0

Captain Bolton, a graduate of the State University of NY Maritime College at Fort Schuyler, New York, has served in the US merchant marine for 22 years, most recently as skipper of a 90,000 DWT super-tanker. He has commanded two historic square riggers, the Elissa of 1877, and the Gaze la of 1883, on voyages from Quebec to Texas. He now serves as President of the Tall Ships Foundation.

13

OPERATION SAIL 1992:

Hail the Juan Sebastian de Elcano

by Frank 0. Braynard

The Juan Sebastian de Elcano in the spring of 1986.

From now through 1992, each issue of Sea History will look at a sail training ship of a different nation, so that when the world's fleet of tall ships gathers in Operation Sail 1992, we may all know a little more about these ships and the real work they do in the world.

The frigate Esperanza was designated a sail training ship in 1862-thefirst in the Spanish Navy, which had hitherto trained its cadets in small groups dispersed among the ships of the sailing navy, which by the 1860s was on its way out.

Farsighted naval administrators realized even then that training under sail offered priceless character-building experience.

As NMHS Advisory Chairman Frank Braynard points out in his appreciation of the big topsail schooner, the traditions of sail cherished aboard the Elcano are not passive; they have been exercised in all weathers, infarcorners ofthe ocean in her worldwide sailing over the past 62 years.

The Juan Sebastian de Elcano has everything! She is one of the most beautiful of the world's major tall ships, she is close to the largest, one of the oldest, clearly one of if not the most famous, and probably the best used-sailing almost continuously, year round!

I have known her intimately for thirty years, sketched her many times, helped dock and "undock" her at New York aboard Moran tugs, and welcomed her to the three Operation Sail events in 1964, 1976 and 1986. We confidently believe she will be with us on July 4, 1992, for the Christopher Columbus Quincentennial now being prepared by our Op Sail 14

Board of Directors. What a wonderful ship-a ship that is almost a living creature, a personality, a star in her own right.

I fell in love with this tall ship before I ever saw her. As a neophyte in the shipping field, I saw a model of her in 1943, in the offices of Garcia & Diaz at 25 Broadway, New York.

This was the colorful agency in North America for the famed Spanish Line-Compania Trasatlantica Espanola-proud possessors of one of the most magnificent model collections I have ever seen. And there was this stunning model of the Juan Sebastian de Elcano , the highlight of the display. It was love at first sight, and it lasted.

One thing that sets this beautiful four-master apart from other tall ships is the year-round use that the Spanish Navy makes of her. This is the way to keep a tall ship young! And since her 1928 maiden voyage every officer in the Spanish Navy has trained aboard her. Would that our own Coast Guard ' s Eagle were better financed by the government so that she could be more fully used. But-no--0ur government prefers to spend our money on an insane policy of over-kill with mountains of worthless atomic bombs and extravagant experiments with chemical warfare and poison gas.

And then again, a breath of fresh air-look at the remarkable sail plan of the Juan Sebastian de Elcano. Built in 1927, she boasts her "old original" rig, according to that scholarly tome by Otmar Schauffelen entitled Great Sailing Ships (Frederick A. Praeger, New York and Washington, 1969). All gaffs must be hoisted by hand. They use mast hoops on all her sail luffs. She has twenty sails and an amazing 26,555 square foot sail area.

The tops of her four equally tall masts are 160 feet above the waterline. Each is made of hollow cast iron and the foremast doubles as smokestack, carrying sooty fumes from the galley stove. As the men who work aloft report, this is not hard to endure as the smoke often smells of food. As a schooner, she has fore-and-aft-sails on all four masts , but the foremast also has square sails. Her highly-steeved bowsprit is 63 feet in length. Her figurehead is an unidentified female figure with a crown on her head. The ornate scroll work forward would probably not be done today, as it would be too expensive. The Juan Sebastian de Elcano is named for Magellan's first mate, who completed the first circumnavigation of the world in 1526 after Magellan had been killed. Signs and plaques aboard display an orb which speaks to the ship: Tu Primus Circumdedisti Me-You were the first to round me." It is no mere coincidence that the Juan Sebastian de Elcano has made seven globe-circling voyages, more than any other major sailing ship in modem times. The last included a visit to Australia on the occasion of that country's bicentennial. On the sixth voyage, between December 1981 and July 1982, she was captained by Rear Admiral Christopher Columbus, a direct descendent of the great discoverer.

NMHS Advisor Tim Foote was impressed by the traditions observed during his onboard experience in Operation Sail 1976-traditions still alive and little changed from the days of Columbus. Each evening the crew gathers for sung prayers and, on occasion, as Foote writes in Sea History 5, "cadets and sailors face each other at attention across the deck, at salute for minutes at a time as the band plays, and they sing a deep, low, throbbing 'Salve Marinera.' Standing so, hands to forehead, feet as if nailed to the deck, the ranks of men list slowly forward and backward as the ship rolls."

Hail theJuanSebastian de Elcano-1ong may she sail! D SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

The Four Sisters

By William F. Wendler

Those who love the sea cannot use the word "sail" and "race" in the same sentence without recalling the famous clipper ships in full sail, each trying to establish the best time in their particular routes. Races , both formal and informal, friendly and unfriendly, were always taking place in the age of sail.

Famed writer and marine hi storian Frank 0. Braynard has envisioned a project to bring back the tall ship races of a bygone era-"The Four Sisters Project." The goal is to hold a race between two or more of four "sister ships," each a tallmasted training ship belonging to a Latin American country.

In 1968 the Astillieros Y Talleres shipyard in Spain delivered the Gloria to the Colombian Navy. This first sister measured 76m in length with a displacement of 1100 tons. She was followed almost a decade later by the Guayas, delivered by the same yard to the Ecuadorian Navy in 1977. The Guayas measured 80m in length with a displacement of 1100 tons. Three years later the Simon Bolivar, the third sister, was launched at the same yard for the Venezuelan Navy. She measured 82.4m and displacement was slightly larger at 1200 tons.

Soon thereafter, in 1982, the fourth sister was built, also at the Astillieros Y Talleres shipyard. She is the Cuauhtemoc, built for the Mexican Navy. Cuauhtemoc is the largest of the four, 90m long with a displacement of 1800 tons.

All four nations, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Venezuela, have been contacted by the Four Sisters Project Committee and presented with the suggestion that they initiate periodic international tall ship races by scheduling such a race between their own tall-masted training ships. A possible date for such a race may be sometime in 1992.

The Committee has had the good fortune of having noted sculptor Antorrio Fabbricante create a beautiful, hand hammered trophy which has been named the "Four Sisters Trophy." It will be given by the Committee to the winning nation to be held until the next scheduled race. Currently, negotiations are under way to display the trophy at various locations in the near future. The first such public display is tentatively scheduled in New London, Connecticut, as part of the celebration honoring the 200th anniversary of the United States Coast Guard. During their celebration, the Four Sisters Project Committee and Mr Fabbricante will present another scu lpture to the United States Coast Guard in honor of its bicentennial.

The Four Sisters Project Committee will continue to negotiate to bring about what it hopes will be the first of many periodic tall ship races . The Committee welcomes inquiries, contributions and volunteers. If you would like to participate in some way or can be of assistance, please contact the project's Executive Director, William F. Wendler, PO Bo:X R, East Quogue, New York 11942. D At right.from the top, Colombia' s Gloria, built 1968; Ecuador's Guayas, of 1977; Venezuela's Simon Bolivar of 1980; and Mexico's Cuauhtemoc of 1982-a/l built at Spain's Astillieros Y Talleres shipyard in Balboa. The "Four Sisters Trophy" has been created in their honor to encourage international races of the sail training ships. The US Coast Guard's Eagle also appears in thefirst and third of these pictures.

SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

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PALACIO DE LA ZARZUELA

31 de Mayo de 1990

En 1992, fecha del Quinto Centenario del Descubrimiento, tres carabelas espanolas, replicas de las que mandaron Cristobal Colon y los hermanos Pinzon, habran salido del puerto de Palos rumbo a America, en un viaje de reconocimiento del rico pasado que nos une, tanto en los momentos dificiles, ya vencidos, como en los felices y esperanzados, y de invitacion al redescubrimiento de las mejores capacidades que adornan al pueblo espanol y a los Americanos.

La publicacion de este numero extraordinario de " SEA HISTORY", dedicado a la figura del Almirante de mi antecesora Isabel I de Castilla y a su mundo, es motivo de reflexion sobre el valor que tienen la aventura y el riesgo, la invenci6n y la imaginaci6n.

Como miembro de una familia de vocacion y estirpe marinera quiero extender mi saludo a todos los que han contribuido a que estas paginas sean posibles y, en particular , a la "National Maritime Historical Society", editora de esta revista. Me siento muy complacido al pensar que, gracias al concurso de todos , en 1992 marinos de nuestro tiempo al servicio del mismo estandarte real haran posible que nuestras carabelas cumplan de nuevo el sueno de Colon.

LETTER FROM HIS ROYAL MAJESTY JUAN CARLOS

I,

KING OF SPAIN:

In 1992, the date of the Quincentennial of the Discovery, replicas of the three Spanish caravels sailed by Christopher Columbus and the Pinzon brothers will set sail from the port of Palos to America, on a voyage to reconnoiter the rich past that joins us. This voyage will recall difficult times overcome as well as jubilant and hopeful ones. This is an invitation to rediscover the best qualities of the Spanish and American peoples.

The publication of this extraordinary issue of Sea History, devoted to the Admiral of my ancestor Isabella of Castile and his world, gives us reason to reflect on the value of adventure and risk, invention and the imagination.

As a member of a family of sea lineage and vocation I want to extend my greetings to all those who have made these pages possible, and in particular, to the National Maritime Historical Society, publisher of this magazine. I feel very pleased with the thought that, thanks to everyone's efforts, in 1992 mariners of our era serving the same royal flag will enable our caravels to once again fulfill Columbus's dream.

JUAN CARLOS SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

R 17

Columbus Rediscovered: In Quest of Ships

by Peter Stanford It was mid-1485 . Columbus had slipped down the coast to the small port of Los Palos, just across the border of Portugal in Castile's province of Andalusia. He left quietly, leaving debts behind from his long campaign to convince King Joao II, head of the nation that led the way in oceanic exploration and discovery, to back his plans for the westward voyage. His arrival in the small port of Los Palos was quiet too. Relatives of his wife Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, who died the year before, lived in the area; presumably he sought shelter with them . But, we know little of how he sustained himself.

One very human scene survives, a scene recalled more than a quarter century later by a witness testifying in the litigation pursued by the heirs of Columbus to secure their full inheritance from the crown. He tells of Columbus arriving at the monastery of la Rabida, a mile or so downstream from Los Palos, and asking for water and bread for his son Diego, then about five years old.

He was given bread and water, and more-he found a willing audience for hi s project. Antonio de Marchena, a visiting Franciscan, who was an astronomer of some note, heard his tale and became interested in the great undertaking.

Marchena must have been fired up by Columbus's missionary zeal. For-make no mistake about it-here was a man with a mission. His argument that the voyage should be made to win souls for Christendom was no add-on to his case to gain support. It was integral to his purpose-a purpose embodying a search for the truth of things. His drive to expand Christendom seems structurally very close to a desire to expand human awareness; God in this rubric was the truth. And it was a duty of His servants to go out and discover the true shape of things in the world He had created.

This picture of Columbus's mission pull s many things together in his story-from his wide-ranging assembling of know ledge of the expanding experience of the great ocean to the westward (a compendious knowledge gleaned from a thousand sources and recorded in meticulous notes) to such things as the delight he took in a fair morning at sea and the evident joy he felt in rounding the next headland of the islands he came upon on the far side of that wide ocean.

Dusty Answers on the Roads of Spain Whatever Columbus told Marchena that August day, in that remote, sand-surrounded outpost of the faith, at la Rabida, it converted the Franciscan into a determined and ultimately effective supporter of the quest. Years later, Columbus reminded Isabella and Ferdinand that he was seven years in their country importuning them for the project, "and never in all this time did any pilot, mariner, philosopher or other scientist call my enterprise anything but false." He added: "I received help from no one but Friar Antonio de Marchena .... " Columbus was able to leave young Diego at La Rabida, thus freeing himself to pursue his campaign to get ships and backing for his voyage. Marchena got him an introduction to the powerful Duke of Medina Sidonia (ancestor of the unfortunate duke who led the Spanish Armada to destruction 100 years later). He seemed to strike pay dirt almost immediately, being referred to the Count of Medina Celi, a shipowner who pledged ships. But this proved to be fool's gold, for the Count was not about to sponsor such an expedition without approval from the Queen. One suspects an elaborately courteous putoff, though Samuel Eliot Morison and other biographers of Columbus seem to accept Medina Celi's offer at face value.

The more skeptical among us note that, despite the expedients 18

the crown was put to to provide ships and financing, Medina Celi played no part in the eventual expedition.

Columbu s pre ssed on to Cordova, inland up the Guadalquivir, where the King and Queen made their residence part of the year. The Catholic Sovereigns had departed when he arrived, in January 1486, and Columbus stayed on to await their return. There, in the Genoese colony in Cordova, he made friends with Diego Harana, at whose house he met Beatriz Enriquez, a twenty-year-old Harana cousin whose parents had died . Beatriz became his mistress, and in 1488 she bore him a second son, Ferdinand. Morison comments fairly on this liaison: "The Harana family were pleased with the connection; at least two of them later served under Columbus, and the friendship between them and his legitimate descendants continued for two or three generations."

Amid these familial scenes, Columbus finally got his audience with Queen Isabella on 1May 1486, after almost a year seeking this meeting. All we know of the meeting is its outcome: the Queen appointed her confessor, Hernando de Talavera, to examine Columbus on his project and make a recommendation. Strong tradition has it that there was an electric something between Isabella and Columbus. They were both tall and fair and in their mid-thirties. In both, courtly and careful manners masked a dedication to a kind of ideal vision of the world, and one feels in both a contempt for opportunistic maneuver. Perhaps all this added up to what Morison calls a "spark of understanding" between them.

The Talavera Commission recommended against Columbus' s Enterprise of the Indies, as Columbus named his project. Columbus had followed the court north to the University of Salamanca near Madrid, where his case was thoroughly looked into-but we do not know the arguments that were made against it. The outcome in any case is unsurprising. Here is this Genoese of no particular background, arguing with learned men as though he could tell them a thing or two. It was a bookish age, in which the authority of written precedent was sought for everything. Marco Polo 's discoveries in China were dismissed by learned people because there was no corroboration of some things he reported among the writings of Roman authorities of a thousand years earlier!

Columbus was self-taught. His wide reading, broadened and tempered by his extensive on-deck experience at sea, made him an excellent navigator and something of a poet. But we may be quite sure that these qualities did not endear him to his examiners, who considered him uneducated and presumptuous. Their review of his proposal probably took on something of the nature of an inquisition-that is, a searching-out of error and heresy, or deviation from divine truth as perceived by the authorities of the day.

The idea that these learned men were aware by superior knowledge that the world was larger than Columbus thought and that Asia was smaller (so that there had to be a huge space to be traversed before you reached the Far East) is probably not sound. It is not backed by anything written at the time, and no one came forth with such arguments when Columbus returned from his first voyage. Even after all Columbus's four voyages to the New World were completed, a new , otherwise authoritative map, Johann Ruysch 's Map of 1508 (see SH 53, p19), showed Columbus's discoveries just where Columbus thought they were, southeast of China, with Greenland in the north bordering on the Gobi Desert in Tibet.

The two authorities we have who report on the Salamanca SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

for the Voyage Isn't this a handsome creation ? She is an Andalusian caravel, and her sea-cleaving bows led the way in opening the ocean world to navigation. Under her nickname Nina, she became Columbus's favorite ship, and after bringing him home from his voyage of 1492, she accompanied him on two more voyages to the Americas. Nifia means "young girl"-but the nickname apparently stems from her owner' sfamily name, Nifio. Painting by Richard Schlecht; Š National Geographic Society, used with permission.

hearings and the report of the Talavera Commission, Las Casas and Columbus's son Ferdinand (by Beatriz), give miscellaneous, bookish reasons for the rejection of Columbus 's claim. Las Casas sums up the Commission report by saying that it found Columbus's project "not a proper object for their royal authority," and that the project appeared "uncertain and impossible to any educated person, however little learning he might have."

The report took four and a half precious years. The Queen had made intermittent payments to Columbus while the case was being determined, in order that he might be kept on hand for testimony or action in case of a favorable decision. Now , with the Commission report against him , Columbus was not dismissed but merely told that his case might be brought before the monarchs after the war with Granada, the last Moorish kingdom in Spain, had been concluded. The war, pursued with crusading zeal by the united kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, did indeed take up the main energies of the religious and political leadership of the emerging nation of Spain.

Columbus stayed on through the first half of 1491. As summer came on, it was six years since he had come ashore in Spain-a stay broken by a visit back to Lisbon, where he had, by his own account, been on hand to meet Bartolemeu Dias when the great Portuguese navigator came back from his rounding of the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa in February 1488. Dias 's exploit, capping the voyages set in motion by Henry the Navigator 70 years earlier, opened the sea route around Africa into the Indian Ocean, providing sea access to the Far East. So King Joao II, who seems to have found Columbus an interesting fellow, had no need to give serious consideration to Columbus's project of sailing west to the Far East; and in view of the failure of earlier Portuguese voyages westward from the Azores, one may wonder how seriously he had ever considered Columbus's scheme.

Columbus determined to take his case to France, where his brother Bartholemew had been advocating it to Charles VIII. He visited the monastery of La Rabida to remove his son Diego, now about ten, and place him with his deceased wife's sister in nearby Huelva. The prior, Father Juan Perez, begged him to reconsider, however. Perez got a message through to the Queen, in residence across country at Santa Fe, who then commanded Columbus to come to her, sending along some money to provide him with decent clothing and a mule. Of course he went. Of course, another learned committee was convened and, of course, Columbus was again turned down.

SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

This time, as Columbus's biographers (his son Ferdinand and Las Casas) both report, Columbus 's demands for honor and payment were too high. He adopted a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. His more recent biographer Morison justly observes, "He was under a sense of outrage and wrong over six wasted years in Spain."

Granada had fallen while Columbus waited. It was now January 1492. Columbus packed hi s bags and left, unnoticed amid the general rejoicing. But , one person did notice-a most unlikely candidate, the keeper of King Ferdinand's privy purse. This man, Luis de Santangel, went to Queen Isabella on the very day Columbus left town, and persuaded her that the proposed voyage, which had evidently refused to leave her mind, should be undertaken after all. She agreed.

When she offered to pledge her jewels to fund the voyage, Santangel said that he would find funds for it!

Four miles out of town, Columbus was overtaken and brought back to court. A few more months passed in study and negotiation of details, and finally in April 1492, Columbus's contracts were signed, confirming him as Admiral of the Ocean Sea, a new title, fitting his deepwater outlook and ambitions. He was to get 10 percent of all treasure or merchandi se obtained in the new lands he discovers, tax free, and the right to invest up to one eighth the value of any future expeditions to these lands. He was also to be viceroy and governor of these lands, and these titles and rights were to pass on to his heirs forever. These agreements are generally called "the Capitulations." The principal meaning of the word in English, "surrender," certainly seems apt! Sovereigns have sovereign wills, however. Before Columbus died, he was deposed as governor of the islands he di scovered (justifiably, one feels; he proved a terrible administrator), and the income provisions were revised by the crown, leading to the famous lawsuits brought by his heirs.

The important thing for history, and for us today, is that from this arrangement he got the ships for his voyage.

Ships for the Long Course In sailing ship days, distinction was made between ships for the long course, or deepwatermen , and coasters. Before Columbus's day virtually all shipping was coastal. Bartolomeu Dias's daring offshore leg into the mid-South Atlantic to get a clear shot at rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1487 was an exception, as was the famed "Guinea tack" by which Portuguese caravels stood offshore from Africa, coming home from Guinea, close hauled against the prevailing northerlies , until 19

The wealth of the great Andalusian city of Seville, inland up the Guadalquivir from the Atlantic, is evident in this painting of about 1500. Prospering in the 1400s on the export of wool to Flanders, Seville became a world-class city in the next century. Through Seville poured the gold and silver from the Americas that founded Spain's claim to European hegemony and an oceanic empire ultimately reaching around the world. Here , at the outset ofthis era ofSpain's ascendency, Mediterranean galleys mingle with slender cara vels and stout Atlantic naos. The ships, of course, are gone, hut the seaport city with its glorious mix ofGothic and Moorish architecture survives today and will he the site of the World's Fair in 1992. Courtesy The Museum of the Americas, Madrid.

they fetched the prevai ling westerlies off the Azores, and rode these winds home to Lisbon, reaching in toward the end across the steady northerlies that blow along the Portuguese coast.

Ships for this sort of sai ling had to be able to sail across the wind-not just slide downhill with the wind at their backs or on the quarter-and preferably head even a little closer, so that the ship can actually make some way to windward. The Mediterranean mariners since ancient times had used prevailing westerlies and northerlies to get eastward, and had worked their way back westward using winds blowing perpendicular to whatever coast they were in by creeping in close to the beach and catching the local draft generated by the temperature differential between land and sea--or by getting out oars and rowing. Neither of these expedients worked in a deep-sea passage. There was no land to make a shore breeze, and vessels built low, long and light enough to be successfully rowed were notoriously at risk in deepwater work.

The Portuguese developed a special type of ocean-going vessel for these African voyages. This was the caravel, which evidently originated as a slender, lateen-rigged Arab fishing vessel sailing out of the Portuguese rivers emptying into the Atlantic-a small open craft some 16 to 20 feet in length. The caravels were fast and seaworthy, and able to sail pretty close to the wind with their fine lines and razor-like lateen sail, which functions effectively much closer on the wind than the traditional European square sail. During the decades of Arab dominance of the Mediterranean, in fact, the lateen sail had largely replaced square rig in Mediterranean trades. In the reduced sea traffics since the collapse of the Roman Empirewhich had been nourished by huge, slow-moving, squarerigged grain ships of up to 1,000 tons-small, light, speedy lateen-rigged vessels provided fast passage for passengers and limited valuable cargoes. Speed spelled safety in the ability to keep out of pirate clutches in the no-man's land the Mediterranean had become.

The Portuguese had steadily enlarged and improved upon the Arab caravel in their progressively longer voyages down the African coast. By the mid-1400s the Venetian Alvise da Cadamosta, sailing in this trade for Prince Henry, was calling his caravels " the best ships that sail the seas." Well, yes-but 20

within limits. The lateen sail works well in small scale. With the manhandling involved in dealing with a yard often one and one-half times the length of the boat, it grows very awkward, and, in fact, dangerous when you've got a 100-foot yard above a 65-foot hull. Remember, this is a yard that has to be swung around before the mast when you change tacks-and this was done by running off before the wind and letting yard and sail swing around in front of the mast. Tim Severin reported the frightening difficulties of performing this maneuver in the replica dhow he built, based on Arab Indian Ocean designs, to replicate the Arab feat in reaching Chinese ports in vessels of this design. And Alan Villiers, the great seaman-author of the first half of this century, reported the same difficulty in this fundamental maneuver in the Arab vessels he sailed in on the Indian Ocean in 1939. So, when you hear hosannas sung to the windward-going ability of this great sail, learn from the actual experience with it: It was grand for monsoon sailing (with a steady wind on the beam or a little forward), and OK for dodging about the Mediterranean in rather small vessels-but definitely not the rig of choice for the changeable, tough going of the North Atlantic.

The real gift of the lateen rig was a hidden one: even with its immensely long yard it provided markedly less sail area than a squaresail could provide on a mast of the same height.

So it encouraged the development of slender, fine-lined, easily driven hulls. The ultimate favor lateen rig did for men working to break out into the ocean world was todeliverto the West-in a time when people were not very alert to questions of efficiency or to questions involving time and speed-a sleek, easily driven hull. This modem-looking shape is what you see in the hulls of the caravels Nina and Pinta, local vessels built on the Rio Tinto and launched in the vicinity of Los Palos, where Columbus went to pick up the ships for his voyage.

Los Palos, by a coincidence that would seem crazy in a science-fiction yam, was where the Catholic Monarchs had a chip out that they could pick up for Columbus: the town was pledged to produce two caravels on demand, for some tax evasion or other offense committed in the past. Los Palosthe town Columbus had first come to in Spain, seven years SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

COLUMBUS REDISCOVERED ago! So to Los Palos, in the late spring of 1492, he returned.

The two caravels were Andalusian vessels, based on the Portuguese caravel design-lithe, speedy hulls designed to be driven by lateen rig. The Pinta had already been converted to square rig. Columbus converted the Nina (which turned out be his favorite ship) as soon as he got her to the Canary Islands , well to the south, off Africa, where he had planned from the beginning to make his westward departure.

Critics have caught the point that square rig worked better than lateen running before the wind, in the Northeast Trades that begin a little south of the Canaries. Few have commented on the slashing dangers of a JOO-foot yard aloft, hanging a sail that can't be reefed and can't be tacked except by running off to raise the huge yard vertical and swing it round before the mast. Unquestionably it was this seamanly matter that led Columbus to insist on square rig for all his ships.

The third ship he acquired was the nao (or "ship") Santa Maria, a robust representative of the European trader that had evolved from the marriage of the northern and southern streams of European ship development. Built in the northwestern province of Galicia and nicknamed La Gallega, she was capable of the outward voyage for sure. She was lost in the West Indies and so did not face the challenge of the stormy midwinter homeward passage. She carried about as much cargo as the other two ships combined. In keeping with the thinking of the age, she was made Columbus's flagship.

How did these ships perform on the voyage? We'll have a look at that in our next issuse, when we tell the story of the voyage and what happened on the far shore. It is enough, perhaps, to say that European ship design had just reached the point where such a voyage could be made with safe return. The fabulous yams of 'Phoenicians, Romans and others being "blown across" the ocean, to which Morison objected so strongly, may yet tum out to be true. But the point was not just to make the crossing. It was to make it and come back.

Here, perhaps, it is appropriate to remark that neither Phoenician craft, nor their Greek and Roman successors, were capable of that all-around ability to cope with brutal weather at sea that was needed to break into the ocean world-not from all we know of these vessels and how they were sai led. Viking ships, which enchant modem sailors with their elegant lines, were at risk whenever they put to sea and were absolutely unable to reach a contested point when the sea was up in arms.

It is unlikely, within any reasonable limits of probability, that any Viking ship could have survived what Nina and Pinta went through in their return passage of 1493.

Just What Sort of Ships Were These?

The caravel sailed at the cutting edge of the voyages of exploration that opened the ocean world. And Jose Maria Martinez-Hidalgo, former director of the Maritime Museum of Barcelona, recognized by the late Howard I. Chapelle as the leading authority on Columbus's ships, has pointed out a special quality of the Andalusian caravels that sailed from Los Palos. From an early date they were converted from lateen rig to square rig on the fore and main (the two principal masts), leaving only the small mizzen (and sometimes a diminutive fourth mast, or bonaventure mizzen) lateen-rigged. The Portuguese, who pioneered this offshore deepwater sailing, at first converted only the foremast to square rig, leaving the main and mizzen lateen. The Andalusians, borrowing from and improving upon the Portuguese experience, rigged two masts square. Ultimately the Andalusian model prevailed, and SEA HISTORY 54, SC' ¡rviER 1990

with thi s seaworthy rig eliminating what Martinez-Hidalgo quite properly calls "the dangerous behavior of the lateen sail and yard in strong winds," the caravel made a mainstream contribution to the seaworthy galleons that came to dominate the seaways one hundred years after Columbus's voyages.

The other main line of development in the ocean-going ship was represented in the Santa Maria. She was anao, a 100ton edition of the great 500-ton Venetian and Genoese carracks that had come to dominate the Mediterranean carrying trades in the 1400s. Like the carrack, the nao was a fusion of northern and Mediterranean seafaring traditions. Moorish, then Viking, then Norman and English ships in the Crusades had enriched the breed of Mediterranean shipping, and the lateen rig itself, which played such a dominant role in Medieval times, apparently derived from Arab Indian Ocean experience. An early (and now famo us) reference to northern ship design was made by Giovanni Villani of Florence, that center of Renaissance learning whence Columbus later was to get Toscanelli's picture of the globe and make it hi s own. In 1304 Villani commented on pirates from Gascony, on the Bay of Biscay, coming through the Straits of Gibralter in their ships called "cogs," and doing "great damage" among the slowmoving Mediterranean round ships. "Since then," he said, "Genoese, Venetians and Catalonians have adopted the cog and have abandoned the use oflarge ships in order to carry out voyages with more certainty and more economically." In other words, the northern ships, being handier and swifter, made faster passages with smaller crews. This passage has puzzled those who know the unwieldy, flat-bottomed German cog; this "cog" was a generic name for a northern ship of a different type, as has been cogently put forward by Lawrence V. Mott in The Mariner's Mirror , February 1990.

Martinez-Hidalgo approached the reconstruction of the Santa Maria on a traditional, rather than theoretical basiswhich is how the builders themselves approached their task.

"The traditions of the shipbuilders, formed to the music of the ship carpenters' tools, were the real guides, rather than theories," he points out in his study of these ships. And he neatly summarizes the place of the Santa Maria as a child of mixed Martinez-Hidalgo' s 77-ft Santa Maria, now undergoing sea trials in Spain , lacks the extraordinary grace and seagoing performance of a caravel like the 67-ft Nifia or the 69-ft Pinta--but she is a seaworthy beast of burden and represents a considerable advance on the Matar6 ship of only a generation earlier. Notice the divided ril(comprising 5 sails rather than the 1 112 the Matar6 ship carried-which allows modulated response to changing winds.

COLUMBUS REDISCOVERED ancestry and ancestor herself to the modem sailing ship: "By this time the characteristics of rig and construction of ships of Northern and Southern Europe were becoming rapidly similar and the nao that developed showed a trend toward the galleon and navio of the next century."

Some things were easy to see. (Though others had not always found them so!) First, that Santa Maria was a nao: Columbus in the journal of his 1492 voyage called her that 81 times, calling Nina and Pinta "caravel" 97 times and never once confusing the two terms. Basic sail plan also came straight from the source, since Columbus had noted on Wednesday, October 24, 1492 that he had set "all the sails of the nao: mainsail with two bonnets and the fore course, spritsail and mizzen, and a topsail. " Even the phraseology helps-the topsai I appearing as the afterthought it still was in this era.

Among artists of the day, Martinez-Hidalgo pays special tribute to Carpaccio (whose painting of Mediterranean carracks of Columbus's time adorned the cover of Sea History 53). He studied the Matar6 model of a Catalan ship of around 1450, and collaborated in building an exact replica model.

As Chapelle pointed out in his introduction to MartinezHidalgo ' s work, building models is an important step toward getting at the shape and characteristics of these ships. And the building of a full-size Santa Maria for the World ' s Fair of 1964 to plans by Martinez-Hidalgo "gave additional information and corrections which would not be possible had only a model been built." Chap visited that 1964 Santa Maria, built to the order of Lawrence Vineburgh, during its construction, as a consultant provided by the Smithsonian Institution. He noted that it, and the design of the caravels Nina and Pinta were "advances on previous efforts, in all respects."

This 1964 Santa Maria visited the NMHS pier at Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn, in the late 1970s. I remember walking her decks and tweaking on running rigging. She had the smell of a proper seagoing vessel-which is what she was.

I regret I never sailed in her before she was later lost to fire.

The good news today is that a new Santa Maria, and a Pinta and a Nina were built to Martinez-Hidalgo's designs and launched in Spain last autumn. They are now undergoing sea trials and will cruise in European waters before making the transatlantic passage in the spring of 1991-aossing a year early so that they can carry an educational message up and down the American coasts before 1992.

What will they have to tell us? They'll speak to us of the difficulties and splendors of Columbus's dream, and of the seafaring heritage that unites the Spanish people with the people of the Americas today, as King Juan Carlos V eloquently sets forth for us in the introduction to this article on page 17. They have to tell us, too, of the encounterofthe European and Indian peoples, an encounter whose full consequences Americans are perhaps only now beginning to take full account of-an accounting we shall be pursuing in these pages.

But at this moment to which our story has brought us in the spring of 1492, with Columbus preparing for sea, we can clearly see in his three ships a gathering up of the seafaring ideas, energies and abilities of the European world, drawn together by a dreamer with the will to bind them to his purpose.

.v .v .v Norn: A reading list, maps of the ocean world as it was seen in Columbus's time, and an account of his early life and the world he sailed in are to be found in the preceding Sea History 53, available from NMHS, PO Box 646 , Croton NY 10520.

22

The Matar6 Ship:

An Amazing Survivor from the Age of Discovery

Built over 500 years ago, probably around 1450, to hang in a church in San Matar6, Catalonia, in the northern part of Spain 's Mediterranean coast, the 3 1/2-foot model we know as the Matar6 ship was intended as a votive offering to God, to assure safe passage to the actual ships she was patterned on.

Clearly the work of a master shipwright, this little shipintended to sail into eternity-reflects the known shipbuilding practices of the day, with oddities hitherto unknown to us, such as a keelson laid on top of floor timbers that cross the keel. From her we learn also that ceiling (the second skin of planking inside the frames) had not yet come into use in Catalonia in this time-and probably not elsewhere, for Catalonia, facing out on the Mediterranean across from Genoa to the east, was one of the three or four most advanced Mediterranean seafaring states in this time.

These details and others have been recovered by master technicians at the Prins Hendrick Maritime Museum in Rotterdam, where the model is undergoing study and restoration

A ship ofColumbus' s era--or actually a little before-survives! This is the votive model of a Catalonian ship , called the Matar6 ship , which was hung from the roof of a church north ofBarcelona in about 1450. She is a little more primitive than Columbus's Santa Maria. Courtesy Prins Henrick Maritime Museum , Rotterdam.

today. Interior details have been viewed by means of a medical camera. These hidden details of construction are beautifully executed. To meet the rigors of seafaring, the parts had to fit snugly and strongly in the actual ship the model is patterned on-and this was not a job to be scamped when built for the creator of heaven and earth and the seas!

In all her external features, the model confirms shipbuilding styles and practices evident in such surviving visual evidence as the paintings of Renaissance artist Vittore Carpaccio. In the quest for historical truth, this kind of confirmation is just as important as demolishing old myths. Such vessels as this model and the actual recovered hull of a 1300s Bremen cog and the Swedish warship Vasa of 1627 show that modem artists, correcting what they thought to be the flights of fancy of contemporary ship portraitists, tend to represent these ships with too flat a sheer!

Jose Maria Martinez-Hidalgo, who studied the Matar6 ship closely, was able to extrapolate from this model the probable shape of the Santa Maria, a slightly larger nao of the same basic root built on the northwest Atlantic coast of Spain perhaps thirty to forty years later. D SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

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The Road to China

by Ray and Gayle Massey The Road to China is only a twenty-two hour flight out of New York these days.

Poring through reference books, over 17th-century charts, studying ships' logs from such as the Peabody and the China Trade Museum and the libraries of New York and Boston, should have been the end of my preparation for painting a series of pictures of the American China trade. My mental map was complete.

However, the more I perused this map, the more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle seemed to be missing. What color was the Pearl River? What was the lay of the land at Whampoa? How could I paint the entrance to Macau from a 17th-century map? My sketches for the paintings set in Chinese ports revealed an infuriating vagueness about the landscapes. Ship details were as accurate as possible, and ships' logs and newspapers had given me the times of day and weather conditions for when they set sail. But what did China look like?

On August 19, 1983 I asked Gayle if she'd like to go to China. Her answer was a vague "Yes." I probed her lack of

enthusiasm and she asked, "When do you want to go to China?" I answered, "Next week." She smiled indulgently.

"Be serious," she said. "No one can plan a trip to China and get tickets on four days notice!" And off she went to a fourday family reunion. When she returned, I handed her an envelope with our flight tickets and Hong Kong reservations. She packed.

We left New York August 23 on Korean Airlines flight 007. After an hour stopover at Anchorage, we arrived in Seoul, South Korea, switched planes and landed in Hong Kong. With no advance visas we headed directly from the airport to the travel bureau of the Peoples Republic of China, looking a bit red-eyed after forty hours in transit from Buffalo. We had only one week and getting to Canton and down the Pearl River was top priority. Unfortunately for us, it was a Chinese festival week, and every Hong Kong Chinese who could, was going to Canton to visit relatives and take gifts. There were no available seats on any mode of transportation

and certainly no accommodations for us in Canton. I felt doomed. To have come this far only to be frustrated at the doorway of China was unbearable. The travel agent sensed my desolation and told us to return in a half hour. When we returned, our stem Red Chinese travel agent told us he had tacked us on to a tour leaving the Kowloon territories the following day, which would get us across the border into the Peoples Republic at Shenzhen. From there we had the last seats available on the train to Canton.

They could not get any hotel accommodations for us and told us to inquire at the train station on arrival in Canton.

Our train at the border was modern

by Chinese standards-lace curtains and seats mounted on swivels circa 1950 Russia. Through our window we photographed the Chinese disembarking barefoot from the box-car train that had brought them to the free market of the border town, Shenzhen. They staggered under bamboo yokes, men and women alike, with loads that seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds. The three-hour train

"The Empress of China Arriving at Whampoa in 1784" oil on canvas , 50 x 36. The 104-foot Empress of China left New York on February 2, 1784 shortly after the British evacuated the city in December at the end of the American Revolution. The first vessel of the young republic to sail to China, she is escorted by two war junks and greeted by the salutes of British , Dutch , French, Swedish and Danish traders.

'

r'

'

ride into Canton revealed thousands of square miles of rice paddies, but no electric lines, no telephone lines, no machines more sophisticated than bicycles and a few crude three-wheeled tractors. The major farm equipment was the blue-black water buffalo, and for most of the ride we could have been looking at China a thousand years ago.

Canton was hot, humid and in several places it smelled like an open sewer.

Dust was everywhere. No buildings had been painted since the Revolution, except for the new hotels for foreign tourists. But thousands of bicycle bells chinged in the crowded streets and not one person wore a Mao jacket or hat. Blue jeans and T-shirts were standard attirethe shirts emblazoned with Mickey Mouse, Nike and any Western product, making us feel slightly welcome.

We had twenty-four hours before our hydrofoil would take us down the Pearl River and back to Hong Kong, and we were a surprise to the clerks at the accommodations desk at the Canton train station. They told us there were no rooms left at the tourist hotels, and we could see their dismay at having to give us a room at a Chinese hotel. On entering our hotel room, Gayle gave her first relaxed laugh since leaving New York, pointing to the "American Standard" stamped on tub, sink and toilet. (There had been no toilets at the train stations, only holes in the SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

"The Flying Cloud Entering Hong Kong in 1851" oil on canvas, 36 x 28. The immortal Flying Cloud, most famous of Donald McKay's clippers, built for the New York-to-San Francisco passage around Cape Horn, went on regularly from San Francisco to China. Here, she comes to anchor in Hong Kong after a fast passage from Frisco. The brig Porpoise, at left, is being refitted for service on the Pearl River to suppress piracy.

"The Challenge Leaving Hong Kong in 1861 " oil on canvas, 50x38. William Webb's 224-foot extreme clipper of1851 has seen some hard sailing after ten years in the China trade . Her single topsails have been cut into upper and lowers. The vessel on the right is the Royal Navy's former ship-of-the-line Princess Charlotte, used as a floating hospital, receiving ship and sheer hulk.

25

MARINE ART: The Road to China cement floors.) Four large thermoses of boiling water with assorted teas sat on the table of our small room. Strangely, none of the rooms in our hotel had locks, nor any drinkable tap water. In China, none of the water is purified. Born in England, hot tea on a hot day was no problem for me, but I could tell my American wife was longing for a cold Coke, which was nowhere to be found in our part of Canton.

The next morning we left the hotel early and headed for several museums for research, butthey were mostly empty.

However, the ancient buildings, the cobalt blue tile roof of the Sun-Yet Sen theater, the giant carp drain spouts, the haze of heat and humidity, the Buddhist pagoda and the dirt-floored shops were beginning to fill in the missing pieces.

Our hydrofoil left at 2PM. We had chosen this vessel, because the only regular river ferries between Canton and Hong Kong traveled at night. With cameras loaded, we boarded the craft, noting a bullet hole in the plexiglass window. None of the other passengers moved, spoke, laughed or left their seats.

I had come this far to photograph the Pearl River, so, pulling out photographs of two of my paintings, I struck up a conversation with our accompanying handsome Mongolian Red Guard. He spoke some English and granted me permission to photograph the graceful ancient Pearl River junks, but little geography.

Fortunately, I was able to line up junks, many of which have not changed perceptibly in design in two hundred years, against most of the terrain I wished to photograph near Whampoa south of Canton. Whampoa was the port of entry to China in 1784. No European or foreign ships were ever allowed into Canton, as the Chinese jealously protected their Celestial Empire from the "pollution" of foreigners. As we approached the Boca Tigris (Mouth of the Tiger), I felt the hand of our friendly Red Guard on my shoulder. He cautioned me not to photograph the Boca Tigris as it was a military installation and, though it was circa 1950, it was "top secret" to foreigners. Once past, I was able to resume shooting, and where I could not photograph, I resorted to quick sketches of the terrain. The river was yellow-brown, silted and muddy, the banks bordered with low-lying hills. More missing pieces of the puzzle. Lin Tin Island near the mouth of the Pearl appeared and I saw the definite possibilities for a convoy of

26

East Indiamen and theAnn & Hope from Provincetown, RI, departing from Lin Tin to face the pirate-infested South China Sea. Our Red Guard disembarked at the border island and the Hong Kong passengers shouted "Good-bye" to him in English. These were the first sounds we had heard them make. With the boat now in the jurisdiction of Hong Kong, all merriment broke out-singing, conversations, flirtations-as it would be aboard any typical cruise boat. Freedom is sweet.

As the northern tip of Hong Kong came into view, the late low afternoon sun cast an orange-yellow light on the island with purple-blue shadow to the east where Victoria, our port destination, lay. I envisioned the Flying Cloud, her sails backlit, brown-orange from the low light rounding the northern tip of the island and sailing into the purple-blue shadowed harbor as she arrived from San Francisco nearly 140 years ago.

Our hotel was in Kowloon on the mainland, facing the river and looking across into Victoria Harbor. The contrast between Canton and Hong Kong was as night from day. Even at night Hong Kong was alive, its lights equal to Manhattan, and it was far cleaner than Canton. Every conceivable water craft from sampan and junk to modem cargo and passenger vessels filled the teeming harbor. The next morning we saw that the haze had lifted. Victoria and the peak were in clear view, so we boarded the Star Ferry and photographed Victoria and the towering peak behind. Though now covered with shiny skyscrapers, I wanted this sunny harbor view for the setting of the largest American clipper, the Challenge, departing Hong Kong. A century and a half before, the same mixture of Chinese and foreign vessels had also cluttered the bustling port below the barren rock of Hong Kong's peak.

We realized clear weather might be rare, so this day we embarked for Macau.

I was rewarded with some excellent views of the harbor as we approached via passenger ferry . Carrying a l 7thcentury map of Macau, I was able to navigate from the back seat of a hired van, much to the confusion of our young driver. He could not understand why we were not interested in visiting any of the new gambling casinos so popular with most tourists. I showed him my map and photos of my paintings, explaining my purpose. Again I was richly rewarded

with the besttourforphotographic angles of the harbor that could be made by land.

We went to an ancient Chinese cemetery located on the steep coast opposite Macau's harbor. From this research I was able to portray Salem's first China trade ship, the Grand Turk, as she entered the waters of Portuguese Macau in 1787 before tacking up the Pearl to Whampoa.

The next day we checked into the Hong Kong Archives in Victoria, where the curator, Mr. Simon Chu, graciously assisted our treasure hunt, tracking down the name of a British first-rate ship-ofthe-line thathad been converted to floating hospital and receiving ship and had Jain at anchor for twenty-five years in Victoria Harbor. Although she appeared on some navigation charts as a permanent fixture and appeared in the background of some later port photographs, nowhere in the States could I locate her name. Digging through the records, our search revealed the name Princess Charlotte. We celebrated with a lunch atop the Regency Hotel. More pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place.

Gayle had bought pearls, but I had gathered pearls of my own. I was satisfied that I could now paint the Chinese ports with the detail they deserved. The on-site research had taught me much about the blending of color, light and humidity and the variety of atmospherics needed to depict China. As we left Hong Kong, we were told that we could board our return flight to Seoul, but that our Korean Airlines plane for the trip from Seoul to New York was "missing."

In Seoul, an old short-bodied 747 with faulty air conditioning was rolled out and 402 ofus were hurriedly packed into it. Not until we reached New York did we learn the fate of the KAL 007 flight that never met us in Seoul.

Last summer, as we watched the events unfold in Tianamen Square, we held our breath and sadly waited for what we felt was the inevitable. I asked Gayle if she would ever want to return to China. This time she answered with a definite "Yes." D

Born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, Raymond A. Massey has made his home in Buffalo, New York, since the age of fourteen. Mr. Massey is a self taught artist, a member of the Nautical Research Guild and a Fellow in the American Society of Marine Artists.

SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

MARINE ART NEWS "His stuff is really good, isn't it?" says the artist John Stobart, member of the NMHS Overseers Council. And don't you think so, too? He 's talking about the work of Don Demers, the young artist from Kittery, Maine, whose work is featured in an insert by the Mystic Maritime Gallery in this issue of Sea History.

We do really want to know what you think, because we want to steam on a slow bell in putting advertising inserts in Sea History. Our only other venture in this direction, again conducted with the Mystic Maritime Gallery, was an insert on the work of the late Tom Hoyne just over a year ago. Marine art is supported by commerce (we only wish it were supported more) and so is this magazine-but like most highly creative relationships, this is one where balance is essential. You may have noticed that junk does not spew out of Sea History as you open the magazine-we tum down all sorts of junky inserts. But, as noted above, Demers is not junk. Are we right in thinking the insert adds something to these pages?

While we ponder such matters, on with the discussion of marine art, a field

in which we find real people actually doing things in the dimensional world rather than baking their brains in intellectual forcing houses. "I could not put the river out of my mind ," writes artist/ river pilot Lexie Palmer Palmore in the latest ASMA News, journal of the American Society of Marine Artists, describing how she joined the Delta Queen in 1974 to begin hercareeron the river. She went on to train and sail aboard the square rigger Elissa in Galveston, and to other challenges, culminating in the great one of opening an art gallery in Jefferson, East Texas, where she is also curator of the River Museum. She's reachable at 214 665-7372.

Today' s leading portraitist of the Hudson River steamboats, marine artist Bill Muller, led a party of steamboat hi storians who dedicated a new memorial to the most famous of Hudson River steamboat portraitists, James Bard, who died in White Plains, New York, in 1919, and was buried in a pauper' s grave.

A new gravestone, shaped like the paddlebox of an old steamboat, was dedicated to hi s memory.

Another exploration in ASMA News is in the "splendid magic of the kiri-e

Raymond Massey

,

.

From the China Trade Series by historian-artist Raymond Massey, the first American ship to circumnavigate the earth is shown rounding Diamond Head, midway through a three-year passage begun in Boston in 1787.

One of four carefully researched, historically accurate images chronicling the lucrative China Trade that flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries, Columbia Rediviva is available separately or as a suite in a special personal-commission limited edition.

Commissions are being accepted for a 12-month period. To reserve yours, or to order our 16-page illustrated catalog for $5, please call toll-free, 1-800-367-8047, ext. 453.

Join us in Hawaii for

AVOYAGE TO CANTON: AMERICA'S CHINA TRADE December 28, 1990, Ship Store Gallery, Kapaa, Kauai.

Ship Store Gallery Kauai, Hawaii (808) 742-7123

world." Kiri-e, the art of continuous paper cut-outs, was traditionally used to print elaborate Japanese characters and designs on kimonos. As the art of cutting the paper itself as the finished artwork (all in one piece-not like a collage), it is discussed with compelling elan and elegance by Aki Sogabe, who teaches the art to children in Bellingham, Washington. Also explored (by Dimetrious Athas of Nahant) are the techniques of using gallons of paint instead of tubes, and other challenges of painting largescale murals . And there is a moving account by Don McMichael of going on a whale hunt with the Inunpiat people in Alaska. McMichael, who celebrated the cooperation of Soviet and American ships to liberate grey whales frozen in off Point Barrow two years ago, has made a print of his painting of the event, which has been presented to schoolchi ldren in Alaska and Siberia. Why does this grand journal have only 341 subscribers? Join up, and join the ASMA Annual Weekend, October 5-7 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Write ASMA, c/o Mrs. Nancy Stiles, 91 Pearsall Place, Bridgeport CT 06605.

Ray Massey has recently finished a

COlUM~IA RtDIVIVA

MARINE ART NEWS suite of four paintings, bringing to twenty-one the number in his series chronicling the China trade that flourished in the 18th and 19th century. The story of his travels is featured in this issue 's "Marine Art" section. To see his work, schedule a visit to "A Voyage to Canton: America 's China Trade" at the Shipstore Gallery, Kapaa, Kauai , Hawaii 96747 on December 28--or send $5 for a catalogue. Other exhibitions of interest are li sted below.

A LIMITED EDmoN B Y STEPHEN E.

M IRICH

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Marine Prints

Exhibitions June12-29, Marine Watercolors by Derek Gardner, RSMA, Polak Gallery, 21 King Street, St. James's, London SW1 Y 6QY England. Catalogue $25.

June 24-September 24, American Marine Artists-1990, featuring new work by selected members of the American Society of Marine Artists at the Mystic Maritime Gallery, Mystic, Connecticut 06355-0008.

September23-November 11 ,Eleventh Annual Mystic International, a juried show bringing together works by artists from around the world, at Mystic MariO time Gallery, Mystic, CT 06355.

Commission Your Favorite Ship S1il or

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28

Why settle for a print when you can have an ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING . The ship you really want for about half the Gallery cost . All ship portraits are on fine artist canvas, only the best oil paint is used BUY DIRECT FROM THE ARTIST AND SAVE THE DEALER COMMI ·

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SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

A¡m erican Indians and the Sea

Astronomy, Agriculture and Architecture are not the Only Areas of Ancient Indian Engineering Skill.

The dugout was created and adapted for the specific transportation needs of each tribe. The ingenious method of making the boat involved chopping out a burnt log and carving it into shape with shell, stone, or bone. These American Indian engineering innovations altered every aspect of life even before the history books. The heritage of engineering runs deep in the traditions of all North American tribes, using their unique skill s and creativity to adapt their homes and lifstyles to the environment. This inherent talent makes the American Indian an excellent prospect for modem engineering careers.

With this in mind, the American Indian Science & Engineering Society is dedicated to increasing the numberof American Indian scientists and engineers in America. Your help is needed to encourage and fund American lndian students to pursue careers in these sciences. Don 't let this talent go to waste.

Th e American Indian Science & Eng inee ring Soc iety. 1085 14t h St.. Suite 1506. Boulder, CO 80302 {303) 492-8658 The George Bird Grinnell American Indian Children' s Educa1ion Foundation. Box 47 1-1 . RD #1. Dover Plains. NY 12522

On Station

by Kenneth Brierley To the ocean-going ship captain, Cape Cod has not the bentarm shape so familiar to shore-bound New Englanders. Of more importance to the mariner is the underwater configuration of that Massachusetts promentory and in that respect the Cape has more the appearance of an anchor. Opposing the visible "forearm" is an "anchor fluke" that thrusts menacingly southward, past Nantucket Island and down toward the North Atlantic shipping lanes, posing a clear danger to vessels, both coastal as well as those on their way to and from New York.

The distance from land as well as the ocean bottom condition of these South Shoals ruled out the building of a lighthouse as a navigational marker.

The alternative-in an era long before anyone had thought about or learned to build an offshore platform-was a floating lighthouse. And so, in 1854, Nantucket New South Shoals lightship station was established. Its first vessel was a 320-ton wooden-hulled schooner. Atop her two masts were distinctive shapes ("daymarks") to more easily identify her in daylight when still hull-down to any approaching ship. At night, two oil-burning lanterns, one on each mast, cast their beams on a clear night a distance of twelve miles. In fog, the lightship could warn approaching vessels away from the shoals by ringing its thousand-pound bell.

The Nantucket New South Shoals station was not the first but it was the most exposed. Its initial position was twenty miles out into the Atlantic from Nantucket Island and in later years it was moved even further away as the shoals crept southward. By 1955, the station lightship was anchored more than sixty miles at sea.

The fog bell on the South Shoal lightship ca. 1870.

The first lightship had been stationed in Chesapeake Bay as early as 1820 and three years later the first "outside" vessel was placed off Sandy Hook to mark the entrance to New York.

By 1854, forty-three stations dotted the East Coast. All of these ships were sailing craft and life aboard them was a combination of dullness, discomfort and danger.

In those early years, when oil lamps were used, shipboard routine called for lowering the lights at sunrise and, after breakfast at 0630 the lamps (there were eight per lantern) would be removed, cleaned and refilled. This task would be completed by mid-morning and the crew would then tum to on ship clean-up. By noon, except for those standing watches, time would hang heavily on the crew 's hands. Hobbies were popular during such periods, and on the Nantucket lightship the most noted one was the weaving of baskets. Round in shape and nested in groups of five, these were later sold in the shops on the island providing added income for their makers.

One marvels at the thought of a craftsman performing any such tasks when his workplace, even though anchored, was always moving. A constant up and down motion would be wearing enough but one account describes a far more lively action: "the ship would stay on an even keel for a few moments and then, suddenly, roll to starboard or port dipping her scuppers in the sea!"

This description of rolling and pitching referred of course to good weather conditions. From them one can imagine how these ships behaved when struck by a northeaster. In December of 1895 the Boston Globe reported on a fierce northeast storm that had begun on a Tuesday. On successive days the continuance of the storm was reported and on Sunday, under the headline "NO LET UP, Mad Frolic of Wind and Sea Continue," the following item was included: "LIGHTSHIP IN POLLOCK RIP. It can't be seen but the men on it must be having an awful experience. Gale increasing."

Meals, which might at first be thought welcome breaks in the long day, took on a monotony of their own with frequent servings of "scouse," a mixture of salt beef, potatoes, onions and sea biscuit; and "duff," dumplings with a sauce of melted brown sugar. The latter might, for variety, be upgraded to "plum duff," by the addition of raisins or "Nantucket raisins" (dried apples). Lack of refrigeration restricted the larder to salted or dried comestibles.

In the early years, these aggregate discomforts must have seemed endless since a tour of duty lasted four months! At its completion, one received two months on shore, then returned to the ship for another four months out on station.

Later on, monotony and discomfort, though not disappearing, eased somewhat as sail gave way to steam or diesel engines, ships got bigger, food got better, bunks wider and duty periods became shorter (three weeks on; one week off).

What did not change was the constant presence of danger.

First there was the sea itself. When whipped to fury by gales or, even worse, hurricanes , lightships took tremendous punishment. Boarding seas could and did sweep decks clear of boats, deckhouses and fittings while heaving waves might spring a once-tight hull.

While the early vessels , having only sails, could not keep way on to prevent anchors from dragging, even the later steam powered vessels sometimes fared little better. In September of 1928 a hurricane had raged for two days off the North Carolina coast. Out on Diamond Shoals station, Light Vessel 105 had her engine running full ahead to fight the wind and sea and still SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

They heard a ship's whistle ... followed by the hiss of a bow wave. her anchors would not hold. Before the ship had slipped the five miles into the breakers of Diamond Shoals, off North Carolina's outer banks, her boats, ventilators and antennas had been tom away and water in the bilges had crept above the fire room floor plates. Then a shift in the wind carried the vessel off the shoals and sixty miles out to sea. Finally, with the winds abating, the ship was able to set and hold a course for Portsmouth, Virginia for repairs.

In the fifty years between 1864 and 1911 seven lightships were lost to the rages of the sea. Four of these were schooner rigged, the rest steam powered. When it struck, the sea gave little preference to the type or age of its victim.

A further hazard at sea was ice, either floe or sheet. In 1918, Light Vessel 6, caught in moving ice, was reported as being dragged eastward from its Cross Rip station. Other vessels were dispatched to search for the stricken vessel, but no trace of her was ever found.

The sea however was not the only enemy or the most feared. A greater threat was collision. Dead in the water and representing a known navigational position, the lightship was a target for the very ships it was designed to save: ships steering for the center of a safe channel. The early oil-lamp lanterns had a calculated range of twelve miles but in heavy seas, that distance could be halved before a lookout might see that light. Add mist or fog and even that maneuvering room could be losL Write into the scenario the presence of a raging storm and an approaching vessel under sail, and therefore not readily maneuverable, and all the conditions for a collision would be present.

From the time that lightvessels were designated by number (a practice that began in 1867), fifty-five were sailing vessels and among this group of ships, a total of 129 collisions occurred in the early years, in part reflecting the heavier maritime traffic of the period. Light Vessel number 5 for example, that spent most of its years on Cross Rip station, Massachusetts, the victim of twenty-two collisions, reported in the year 1883 that 20,000 vessels had passed that station!

Gradually, improvements were made to ship's lights, but more important, entirely new devices were added to their equipment to increase their warning range. First came the submarine bell whose signal could be heard by ships fifteen miles away irrespective of atmospheric conditions. Still later the submarine oscillator extended their warning range to sixty miles. Then, by combining distance measurements obtained from these devices with radio beacon readings, an oncoming vessel could plot range and bearing to the lightship.

Still, there were collisions. In May 1934, the 47,000-ton British liner Olympic had crossed the Atlantic under overcast skies, making it impossible for her officers to get a navigational fix during the entire voyage. On the 15th of the month, now in a dense fog that reduced visibility to half the ship's length, the huge vessel was feeling its way to the outer end of the sea lanes to New York: the two five-mile-wide paths marked for east- and west-bound traffic. Between these two lanes was a separation zone two miles wide and in this "neutral" territory Light Vessel 117 was anchored on Nantucket station and fairly alive with signals announcing her presence. Her diaphone fog signal was blasting out every thirty seconds, the submarine oscillator sounding every ninety seconds and her radio beacon was in operation.

On board the Olympic, the lightship's radio beacon signals had been picked up and, with bearings taken on the vessel's SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

wireless transmissions, the liner, with its speed reduced to three knots, homed in on its sea-lane target. Suddenly, cries from the lookouts on the bow of the Olympic announced the lightship's presence and despite orders for full speed astern, the knife-like bow struck the Nantucket amidships, cutting the small vessel in two. The time was 11 :30 AM. On the lightship, the warnings of the impending collision were equally brief. Some crewmen heard a ship's whistle, then silence followed by the hiss of a bow wave. Then the six-storyhigh hull broke out of the fog before them. An instant later it plowed into the port side amidships exploding the Nantucket's boilers as it sheared through the small ship. Four men, trapped below, lost their lives as the two halves of the vessel went down in thirty fathoms of water. Of the rest of the crew, who were thrown or jumped into the water, seven were recovered but only four lived.

Why, when the Olympic was fully aware of the lightship's presence and position, aided as it was by up-to-date signalling devices, did such a collision occur? The only conclusion that could be reached was that the Olympic, following what seemed to be common practice, had used the Nantucket 's position as a target, expecting to pass clear after a visual sighting had been made.

Understandably, fog was a majorfearoflightship crews on exposed stations, but it was not always a factor in collisions.

In December 1935, theBritishfreighterSevenSeas Spray was outward bound from Boston to Balbao, Spain with a cargo of scrap iron. It was 9.30 AM, the sea was calm and visibility was five miles. Suddenly, just as the freighter had dropped the harbor pilot and was passing Boston lightship, it lost steering control, veered sharply to starboard and crashed into Light Vessel 54 amidships. The alertness of the Seven Seas skipper, to keep some way on and hold the bow of his ship in the hole in the side of its victim, enabled crewmen to plug the gash that extended two feet below the waterline with bags of coal and thus keep the lightship from sinking.

While some 150 major collisions are a matter of record, an untold number of minor bumps or near misses attest to the potential for disaster. Ambrose lightship, in the middle of the mere 2,000-yard wide channel into New York harbor, was probably the most-bumped vessel in the world, averaging, it was claimed, three bumpings each week. Near-misses were equally startling, as for example the time that the US carrier May 15 , 1934 , 11 :30 am, the Olympic sinks the Nantucket Ii htshi with the loss o seven lives.

ON STATION

Ambrose With Love

by Norma Stanford

Enterprise steamed between a channel bouy and the lightship. "Like being passed by the Empire State Building!" said one crewman.

The replacement of ships-begun with the early versions of lighted horn and whistle bouys-accelerated with the entry of the so-called "Texas Towers" and, still later, the Large Navigational Bouys (LNBs).

"Texas Towers," taking their name from the offshore oil drilling platforms that first appeared in the gulf, replaced seven ships in the early nineteen-sixties, and provided a far different life for their crew (lightkeepers). To begin with, the platform, fully 120 feet above sea level, was stable! Although it might shake a bit in a gale, at other times the pool table in the crew's lounge was rock solid. The platform was also big enough to provide a landing for helicopters to bring mail and groceries and fly the lightkeepers in and out on duty rotation, now two weeks at sea and two ashore. Below the main deck, a service platform provided an ideal jogging track!

But the Texas Tower did not mark the last page of lightship history. The early 1970s saw the development of the "Large Navigational Bouy," an unmanned floating platform forty feet in diameter with a 40-foot light tower, fully automated to provide the light signal, a radar ranging device (RACON), radio beacon signals and a fog horn.

The last lightship replacement was Nantucket. GivingovertoaLNB in December 1983, Light Vessel 613 was the twelfth and last vessel to serve on that station over its eventful 120-year history. Only three other stations had been maintained longer: Ambrose off Sandy Hook, Cross Rip in Tuckemuck Shoal, off Nantucket, and Five Fathoms Bank off Cape May. For the final eight years, Nantucket was the only vessel on the Light List. Her last sister vessels, Portland and Boston, had given way to LNBs in 1975.

A final footnote to the lightship era took place in 1987 when the Texas Tower that had replaced Ambrose lightship was placed on full computer control, its crew permanently removed. The last vestige of a lonely life on a navigational station at sea was gone. D Mr. Brierley has written on maritime subjects for a number of publications.

His interest originated in naval service in the South Pacific in World War II. 32

She wasn't in the plan at all. When we built our first project model of the South Street Seaport Museum, we had models of other vessels at the piers: the squarerigged Down Easter Kaiulani; the Gloucesterman Effie M. Morrissey (now .

Ernestina); the dragger Lady of Good Voyage of about 1940. All were vessels of the kind one might have encountered along the South Street waterfront. No, a lightship wasn't in our plan.

But when the fledgling museum received a call from the Coast Guard offering us Lightship #87, the first lightship to serve on Ambrose station, from 1907 to 1931 , the offer seemed too significant to tum down without giving it at least some consideration.

At that time, in the spring of 1968 the decrepit piers were empty, except for the occasional dragger or adventuresome cruising sailor who might tie up overnight. We certainly needed to bring life and interest to the area and to secure our claim to piers 15 and 16, which were scheduled for demolition by the city. So, Peter and I drove down to Curtis Bay, Maryland , where the Coast Guard had several lightships in storage. Made obsolete by the introduction of Texas Tower stations or automatic buoys, they were awaiting disposition or, ultimately , scrapping.

As our guide led us through #87 , we were encouraged by what we saw. Of course there was a patina of grime from her years of disuse. And the mint green paint that covered the oak woodwork in the wardroom would have to come off.

And oddly missing were the pipe-andcanvas bunks and the lockers for the crew 's quarters-no doubt they had been needed on another ship. But, here was a working vessel, complete with all the essential equipment. Officers' quarters were intact with bunks, lockers, toilets; the enormous galley stove was functional; the wheelhouse was largely intact. The engine room was virtually untouched and boasted two large generators, pumps, and a heating plant. The lightship was better equipped than our drafty barren museum office at 16 Fulton Street!

The lightship was formally accepted by the Museum , and on August 5, 1968, she arrived in New York and took up her new station at Pier 16, where she has been in service to the public ever since.

Thus this structure--designed to sustain life at sea-became a center fornew life on New York 's rotting waterfront.

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S d . d h A b ptu ent artists an t e m rose on 1er 16 .

***** For the volunteers who sustained the museum in those early days, it was love at first sight. The Ambrose was cleaned, scraped, varnished and painted. An engineroom gang restocked her tool locker and got the generators running.

The galley served hot coffee and chowder to work teams.

The public loved her. Kids swarmed aboard, attracted by her bright red hull.

Most visitors had never seen a lightship in their lives and marvelled at what they learned about the Lighthouse Service and the Coast Guard. Coast Guardsmen, active and retired, came by to look her over, lend advice, and delight us with anecdotes, mostlyhumorous,aboutlightship duty.

Ambrose soon became the heart of Pier 16. Her tweendecks held a display of photographs made of South Street around 1900. Her wardroom hosted board meetings, and the captain's office became the office for the entire pier operation as it grew to include the full South Street fleet. And when David Rockefeller came to South Street for a first-hand look, he met the people of the South Street project-volunteers, staff and trustees-aboard the Ambrose.

*****

There are now thirteen lightships in American museums , and it has been argued that we have saved too many-a number disproportionate to their historic significance.

I once might have agreed with that position-but not since the Ambrose came into South Street. Because Lightship #87 didn 't detract from the rather legendary ship-saving efforts of the South Street crew; she helped them immeasurably. D SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

Coast Guard Bicentennial

The CGR812 was one of the privately owned vessels conscripted during World War II as coastal patrol boats.

When we celebrate the US Coast Guard's bicentennial this year, we look back on a venerable and vital history . It goes back to a time, well described in Irving King's new book The Coast Guard Under Sail, when America's independence was troubled-the government was threatening to come apart; Britain and Spain still occupied American territory; the army was small; the navy nonexistent; and---0f perhaps greatest significance-the treasury empty. The new nation desperately needed the tariffs and duties paid on imported goods but had no means of collecting them. To this end, President Washington, in office only a ·few months, appointed Alexander Hamilton, and on the 4th of August, 1890, Congress passed Hamilton's bill calling for the building and manning of ten boats to collect revenue. The bill established the US Revenue Cutter Service, the 18th-century ancestorof today 's US Coast Guard. The mission of the Service was so vital to the young nation that Washington himselfinterviewed and selected many of the first masters.

The Coast Guard has seen many changes during its 200 years. In 1915, the Revenue Cutter Service and the Lifesaving Service (founded in 1848) were

combined as the United States Coast Guard. In 1939 it took on the role of the US Lighthouse Service, which had operated independently since 1789; and in 1942 it assumed the duties of the Bureau of Navigation and Steamboat Inspection Service.

The Coast Guard has preserved the imperative of its early days, however, and remains responsive to the nation's needs. "Semper Paratus"-always ready -in peacetime it serves within the Department of Transportation, in wartime, the Navy Department. Some will remember its dogged resistance to the World War II German U-boat offensive "Operation Drum Roll" along the Atlantic coast. During 1942-43, the Coast Guard's Coastal Picket Patrol of auxiliary sailboats and motorboats, often commanded by their volunteer owners and crews, grew to 550 vessels on the East Coast. Thi s cooperation between civilian volunteers and the Coast Guard continues today . Indeed, with a reserve force of 12,000 and a volunteer force near 32,000, the Coast Guard Auxiliary is greater in numberto the Coast Guard's 38,000 military members, a ratio that underscores the Coast Guard's unique place in the public esteem.

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NAUTICAL GIFTS

MAJ\INE ANTIQUES

Below, the last lightship to serve on Ambrose station bids farewell in 1987.

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The Yankee Clipper, one of South Street Seaport's finest restaurants, recently dedicated an opulently refurbished room to honor the historic Waverlree, 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 Waverlree in the 1800s. -VIA PORT OF NY-NJ, March 1986 . ,:,,f' .'J.. ~~t~ by Jerry Rosen, courtesy Port Authority of NY & NJ.

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smA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

MODELMAKER'S CORNER:

Saving TiITie in a Bottle

by Anne Johnson Donald Pearson once asked Alan Villiers, the sailor and author of many fine books on deepwater sailing, what was the best way to keep up the tradition of modelmaking. Alan Villiers' reply was this directive: study the ship well, know every detail-how she worked, how she was constructed, and then make the model to the best of your ability.

Good advice, and a demanding standard for every modelmaker. But to the ship-in-a-bottle modeller working under the limitations of space-masts collapsed, everything must fit through the small mouth of a glass bottle-it is a true challenge.

Don Pearson, who is now working on his model number 210, has developed numerous techniques and tools of his own to create the kind of authenticity Villiers spoke of. Near the work area in his shop in Deephaven, Minnesota, looking much like a jeweller's bench, lie precise rows of hundreds of small tools at the ready, and surrounding shelves carry glass bottles custom made in Colorado and neat stacks of wood drying for future models ; hardwoods such as holly and apple for the hull , boxwood and lemon for the spars. Sails are made of various papers ranging from watermarked rag bond to thin rice paper.

Donald's chief inspiration for modelmaking was his seafaring grandfather,

Erick Michael Johnson, a retired sea captain with seven trips around the Hom, two on the bark Parma of the famous P Line. This old salt knew how to keep a young boy ' s hands busy during the summer months when Donald visited his East Hampton, Connecticut, farm. He started Donald on ship models, carving, fancy ropework and net making while telling him sea stories. Donald made his first ship-in-a-bottle at age eleven.

In later years, Don sailed to Nova Scotia with his grandfather in an old yawl and also raced Internationals and Lightnings on Long Island Sound. All this added to his first-hand knowledge of ships and the sea. As a reflection of this, Donald's current project is a model of the 60-ft Duracell, a gift for Mike Plant, a Deephaven neighbor who is solo sailing the sloop in the Globe Challenge representing the United States.

A further inspiration to Don is the late marine artist Gordon Grant. Donald came to know him as an artist and friend and acknowledges that some of Grant's techniques may be seen in his own work.

Although modelmaking is still a hobby for Don, it might turn into a full time business due to the demand. His current backlog is almost one year and growing! Asked why he chose ship-inbottle modelling ratherthan regular ship modelling, Donald replied that to him, " it's more of a challenge and more unusual. Mostmodellingclubs I've been in have had no other ship-in-bottle modellers." On a practical note he adds, "and they take up less space!"

D At left, at a scale of .072 '= 1 ", this model of the 46.5-ft ketch Moonbeam is representative of many of Don' s commissions. Below, Don's model of the Cutty Sark, displayed at Miniature Marine, his Deephaven store. Constructed at a scale of .029" =l ', it required 231 yards ofmaterial and has 267 points that had to be pulled, glued and cut off

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SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM HARRY BRIDGES (1901-1990) Flags flew at half mast in San Francisco thi s spring to honor Harry Bridges, following hi s death at age 88 on March 30.

A labor leader who made history on the San Francisco waterfront from the 1930s through the 1960s, Alfred Renton Bryant Bridges came to the United States from Australia aboard the barkentine Ysabel in 1920. He soon found himself leading protests against the oppressive condi tions seamen and dockworkers then labored under. In 1933 he led in forming a local of the International Longshoremen 's Association (ILA) in San Francisco which called a strike, in the following year, that went down in the annals of American labor. Violence between strikers and strike breakers, police and the militia led to "Bloody Thursday" and the death of two workers. The walkout led to a general strike-the who le city shut down.

In 1937, finding the American Federation of Labor (AFL) too accommodationist, he reorganized his local as the International Longshoreman 's and Warehousemen' s Union (ILWU), which affiliated with the militant Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) led by the fiery coal miner John L. Lewis.

Threatened with deportation as an " undesirable alien" because of Communi st associations in the 1940s, Bridges ultimately was recognized as a genuinely independent American radical.

In the 1960s, he worked with management on a modernization program that accepted containerization, c ut labor costs and improved productivity on the docks, leading to accusations by a rising generation of militants that he had become a " partner of the bosses." In truth, his positions changed after he had won the battles which revolutionized conditions on the waterfront. Mayor ArtAgnos said: " He was a legendary figure whose courage and devotion to principle will never be forgotten. " PS

declining revenues forced the company into bankruptcy and Van to tum to other fields of endeavor. But his love for the steamers and the river never left him, and in his later years he found himself again involved with a cherished vessel from his youth .

When the famous old steamer Alexander Hamilton was retired by her owners in 1971, VanOlcott spearheaded an intensive drive to save this historic sidewheeler, which had been built for Van's grandfather back in 1923. The Steamer Alexander Hamilton Society was formed in 1973 and it was with great pleasure that I worked with Van on the board of this organization.

Although the Hamilton was tragically sunk during an untimely coastal gale, Van's energies continued in helping to form the Hudson River Maritime Center museum at Roundout, New York, and largely as a result of his constant vigil, that museum stands today to provide present and future generations with the story of the development of transportation and commerce on the Hudson River, which Van Olcott so loved.

WILLIAM G. M ULLER LOIS DARLING (1917-1989) A first-class small boat sailor, Lois was National Women's Sailing Champion

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Van Olcott 's unabashed passion for Hudson River steamboating lore was a natural inheritance of similar enth usiasm possessed by his father and grandfather, both prominent figures in Hudson River steamboating.

Van , as a young man home from naval service after the war, was just started on what might have become a career with his father's Day Line, when 36

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in 1941. She collaborated with her husband Louis on many books on natural history and wrote and illustrated a children's book Nessie, presenting the Loch Ness monster as a surviving dinosaur. In 1983 she did a classic study of Darwin's Beagle, which appeared in SH 31.

Told in May 1989 that she had leukemia and only weeks to live, she stretched

this to six months, managing to finish the lovely model she is seen with here, of Ratty and Mole, from The Wind in the Willows. The model maybe viewed today at Mystic Seaport Museum.

E.

c. TALBOT-BOOTH

Sea Breezes magazine reports the death at age 85 of Lieutenant Commander Booth, RNR (ret), author of Merchant Ships ( 1936) and numerous other works on ships and the sea.

JOHN HASKELL KEMBLE (1912-1990) ARCHIBALD Ross LEWIS (1914-1990) PETER THROCKMORTON (1928-1990)

We have lost two distinguished hi storians, Professor Lewis, editor of The American Neptune, and Jack Kemble, NMHS Advisor and author of The Panama Route. And as we go to press, we learn of the death of Peter Throckmorton, NMHS Advisor and pioneer marine archaeologist. Appreciations of their lives and work will appear in a forthcoming Sea History.

New Look at Old Sights John H. Gilchrist, an engineer, has published findings drastically revising currently accepted notions of the accuracy of latitude sights in the 1500s and early 1600s. Up to now, most historians have assumed errors in determining latitude in this period of 1/2° and often 1° or more (30-60+ nautical miles). One reason for this was that the astrolobe or cross staff in general use in the 1500s showed I in a space ofO. I inches. John Davis's backstaff came into use in the 1600s, which showed 1° in a minimun space of 1.75 inches-making it possible to measure subdivisions of a degree, even down to 5' (5 miles).

In The American Neptune for Winter 1990, Gilchrist, plotting the errorof early navigators from Magellan to Gosnold (1519-1602) in locating known landmarks, finds a 95% chance of sights by these navigators being accurate to within about 50 miles . The four English navigators' sights (mostly using the backstaff) had a 95 % probability of being accurate to within 10 miles. For the English navigators working on the New England coast, Gilchrist points out, these findings rule out several current identifications, predicated on a much larger possibility ofnavigational error, than actually obtained when these navigators' sights are analytically checked against known locations.

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SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

NEWS "Delighted at the Privilege, Awed at the Task" The 1927 fishing schooner Evelina M. Goulart, raised in Fairhaven Harbor, Massachusetts, last June, will finally make her way to her birthplace in Essex, Massachusetts, in early November. Captain Robert Douglas of the Coastwise Packet Company, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, which sails the famous topsail schooner Shenandoah, raised the sunken vessel last summer and has since sought to return her to Essex. His inspired plan to establish the last of the fleet as an onshore shipbuilding exhibit has now broken through local bureaucratic obstructions. The project has won the enthusiasm of the ship preservation community led by Karl Kortum, Chief Curator of the San Francisco Maritime National Hi storic Park. In a recent letter of encouragement to Essex Shipbuilding Museum director Diana Stockton, Kortum sought to allay fears that the vessel might become a financial burden on the fledgling museum with the observation: "It is museums that have difficulty in making money . A ship properly set up as a museum will outdraw a museum ten to one at the ticket counter."

The Shipbuilding Museum has prevailed over a broadside of doubts and objections to the project. It is no small project to move a 160-ton, 93-ft overall, 23-ft broad, deteriorated vessel to new quarters. But with fears about her seaworthiness for tow and the possible import of contaminants from Fairhaven Harbor to the clam beds of Essex now dismissed by experts , the Town Board has approved the temporary lease of a portion of land (land first deeded by the Crown for shipbuilding in 1668) to haul out and store the vessel. The land is adjacent to the vessel ' s construction site.

Diana Stockton described the museum as "delighted at the privilege" of using the land though "awed at the task. " The task involves the completion of a marine railway , a frame to haul her out, and a plan and impact analysis of the onshore exhibit prior to her planned towing from Fairhaven on the high tides of November 2 and 3. The final result will be a shipbuilding exhibit-the badly wormed starboard side cut away to show her massive framing and the port side in sea-ready condition. Just where else can she go but to Essex? The Goulart wi II be the only fishing schooner to return to the town that built some 6,000 vessels in a 300-year period.

KH SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

PHOTO, TEESSIDE DEVELOPMENT CORPORA TION

Trincomalee Restoration The fri gate Trincomalee, formerly the training ship Foudroyant, is at the start of a major restoration program in Hartlepool, on the northeast coast of England.

Built for the Royal Navy in 1817 at the Bombay Shipyard (atacostÂŁ23 ,642!) to the Leda class, a heavy class designed to match the American frigates of the Constitution class, she was constructed of Malabar teak , one of the reasons for Trincomalee' s remarkable survival. The original plans for her construction were lost in the way to India in the sinking of HMS Java in 1812. The vessel which sunk Java was USS Constitution.

Trincomalee was put into ordinary (laid up) in Portsmouth on her return to England in 1819, during the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, and was not recommissioned until 1847 , when she was sent to the North American and West Indies station, mainly being involved in anti-slavery duties. She returned to England in 1850 for refit. In 1852 Trincomalee once again set sail for North America, this time to the Pacific, where she was based at Esquimalt.

She reached England for the last time in 1857 to become a RN training ship for nearly 20 years. R~scued from the shipbreakers in 1897 by the Victorian philanthropist G.Wheatley Cobb, whose boys' training vessel Foudroyant (Nelson's old flagship) had recently been

wrecked, she was renamed Foudroyant and served as a youth training ship for the next 90 years. In 1986 however, the Foudroyant Trust, which had managed the ship since 1959, decided it could no longer continue the increasingly expensive training in a deteriorating historic ship. She was taken by barge in 1987 to Hartlepool, the site of the Warrior's recent restoration.

After a year-long study, the Trust resolved on December 1, 1989, that Trincomalee should be restored here in Hartlepool, as the centerpiece of the ambitious revival programme for the Hartlepool and Teesside area. A new dry dock is to be constructed in Hartlepool Docks for what are likely to be major hull repairs. The Trust's long-term objective is the complete repair and restoration of the ship to her 1817 state.

Unlike many historic ships, Trincomalee has never been seriously altered or repaired, and the interior and structure is estimated to be 90% original timber, although how much of this is sound remains to be seen (there is no point in being optimistic!).

For more details, contact the Foudroyant Trust at Jackson Dock, Hartlepool, Cleveland UK; 0429 223193.

A.G. BROADWATER, Director Trincomalee Restoration

The Little Ships of 1788 In 1788 , as each state ratified the Constitution, the principal American cities staged enormous and elaborate parades to celebrate. For a centerpiece in these parades, the rage at the time was miniature warships, mostly built at quarter size. The New Hampshire ship paraded through Portsmouth was a 20gun frigate called Union and it was

probably a miniature of John Paul Jones' s Ranger. In Boston there were two ships.

One was called the Federal Constitution and was large enough to accommodate a captain and 17 crew and required 13 horses to drag her. Research by Heritage Square-Rigged Ships of Williamsburg, Virginia, has uncovered no fewer than l 6 of these ships from 1788 and hopes to 37

SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS SAIL THE MAINE COAST The Classic Windjammer Vacarion SCHOONER MARY DAY Good F='t1~!a;~:a Wild Islands, Snug Harbon Seals , Eagles, Whale s, Puffins Capt. Steve & Chris Cobb Box 798A , Comden, ME 04843 800-992-22 18 . (207) 236-2750

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The SLOCUM SOCIETY est. 1955 The Spray Journal The Sailing Club ''The days passed happily wherever my ship carried me."

-- capt. Joshua Slocum Sailing Alone Around The World The 1990s mark the lOOth anniversary of the patron saint of all smallboat voyagers. Come aboard our company of armchair adventurers and celebrate with us.

Don Holm, Commodore P.O. Box76 Port Townsend, WA 98368 38

build all 16 of them over again (each about 45 feet long on deck) for a sail training program. This is the most costeffective way to provide square-rig experience, contends John F. Millar, spokesperson for the non-profit group.

Total cost of construction and fitting out: less than $3.25 million for all 16 ships. (Heritage Square-Rigged Ships, 710 South Henry Street, Williamsburg VA 23185)

Progress on the Snow Squall The Snow Squall Project, the plan to recover the last surviving American clipper, took shape in the wake of World Ship Trust/NMHS expeditions to the Falklands in the 1970s, and it was launched in 1982 with a survey trip to Port Stanley led by project director Fred Yalouri s. The 157-foot Sno w Squall, built in 1851 , was condemned and beached in Port Stanley in 1864 after running aground near Cape Hom. In 1987, as reported in Sea History 46, a 35-foot section of the bow was wrestled from the mud in Port Stanley and shipped home to her building place, the Spring Point Museum in South Portland, Maine, for research and restoration.

Since that time, reports project information officer Nicholas Dean, conservation work on the bow and research towards reconstructing the vessel ' s main deck has continued. Plans are now underway at Spring Point for the construction of a new wing as a permanent home for the Snow Squall, with fundraising scheduled to begin shortl y.

(Spring Point Museum, Southern Maine Technical College, Fort Road, South Portland ME 04106; 207 799-6337) "Anchor, Hardy, Do You Anchor!"

The National Maritime Historical Society is looking for an historic anchor in connection with a presentation to be made in Spain later this year. Ideally, said anchor would be from a Spanish ship, or have some vital connection to the role of Spain in opening the Americas to the world. Understanding that this is a rather tall order, we are willing to entertain news of other interesting anchors that might be out there. The anchor is the symbol of hope in the Christian iconography, and we may further remark that if Thomas Masterman Hardy, Nelson 's flag captain at Trafalgar, had followed Nel son 's order as given above, losses from the great gale that followed upon the battle of October 21 , 1805,

would have been significantly reduced.

This is only one of many anchoring stories, of course-there were the anchors thrown out from the stem of St. Paul 's ship, which saved her while her people prayed for the coming of the day (as who has not done at least once, when all depended on an anchor?), and so on.

We will accept anchoring stories from those who can ' t find a real anchor for us, but we do hope that there' s an actual anchor out there, just waiting for the purpose we propose. Call Michelle, 914 271-2177, or write NMHS , PO Box 646, Croton NY 10520.

Sundowner Returns to Dunkirk As thi s issue of Sea History comes to you, a restored Sundowner will have

lately returned from her commemorative voyage to the beach of Dunkirk fifty years after her then owner, Captain Herbert Lightoller, a veteran of the Titanic di saster, took her there between May 26-29, 1940. She joined the swarm of small vessels helping the Royal Navy evacuate 350,000 stranded Allied troops.

The 60-ft motor yacht, built in 1912, was launched in mid-May, after years of restoration work by the East Kent Maritime Trust, just in time to meet the flotilla of 60-70 other veteran craft making the 50th Anniversary Commemorative Journey. After a royal inspection by HRH Prince Phillip in Doveron May23, the Dunkirk Little Ships were escorted

by HMS Alacrity, two vessels of the Royal Naval Reserve, HMS Puncher and Trumpeter, RN lifeboat Duke of Atholl and three modem yachts representing the three military services. On May 28, the flotilla participated in a Remembrance Service, forming a large circle as a helicopter laid a wreath in the water. Sundowner was skippered by Lightoller's grandson, Commander Timothy Lightoller, accompanied by Gerald Ashcroft from the original crew and Lt. Commander Charles Jerram, an original evacuee brought back on the Sundowner.

SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

They Conquered the Sea ...

They were ten percent of all the deepwater shipmasters in America - and they brought the world back to Searsport.

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Californian Spearheads Coastal Awareness After the Californian's recent voyage to Hawaii and Canada, the crew felt uneasy about something-they reported that environmental concerns were raised everywhere they went. In response, the board of directors for the Nautical Heritage Society in San Diego, owners of Californian, thought the vessel should address some of these issues and thus gave life to "Coast-Link 90--the Year of Ocean Literacy."

A joint venture with Pepsi, which is currently promoting recycling efforts along the California Coast, the new initiative is a departure for Californian , a

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full-scale reproduction of the 1849 California Coast revenue cutter Lawrence, built in 1984 for sail training by NMHS Advisory Committee Chairman Melbourne Smith. She has performed that role admirably by providing one to eleven-day sail training opportunities for youths and an innovative Sea Chest Program which brings 5th and 6th grade students and teachers on board for atdock activities. But the thrust of " CoastLink 90" is, as Society Chairman Steve Christman puts it, to address "the need that threatens parts of the coast and to promote concerns for the environment."

The first stop of the 4,000-mile, 22port itinerary was Marina del Rey on April 6-a curtain rai ser scheduled around "Wetlands Preservation 90."

Bringing the Californian into port now provides a podium for environmental awareness groups. Patricia McPherson, director of "Wetlands Preservation ," made use of the opportunity to remind us that an alarming 95 % of western coastal wetlands have already disappeared. Californian 's young captain, Bill Burke, aptly summed up the vessel ' s dual role:" ... before the action comes awareness, and SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

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Briefly Noted Sea History Gazette , the NMHS bimonthly newsletter of maritime events, has been following the long struggle over the Nantucket Lightship 112, the US 's largest lightship, built by the British government as reparation for Nantucket Lightship 117, rammed and sunk by the ocean liner Olympic in 1934 (see p31). The vessel has now been returned to its "adoptive parents," Lightship Nantucket Inc., a Portland, Maine-based group of licensed captains, mates, engineers and volunteers. (LNI, Suite M, 465 Congress Street, Portland ME 04101 ; 207 775-1181)

Soundings magazine recently reported Mystic Seaport Museum 's windfall of live oak downed by Hurricane Hugo.

Soundings staff writer Patty Koller recounted the use of live oak in shipbuilding (the wood of choice for early American shipbuilders and the secret of USS Constitution's tough hide) and the museum's delight to find "a new supply of prime wood that has not been available for years." The museum hauled some 130 tons north to the Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut.

The 1894 blue water schooner Ernestina, from New Bedford, Massachusets, breaks into a new ocean when she begins an 8-month, 14,000-mile expedition to the South Pacific departing October 28. A crew is being sought to share the expense of a trip that follows the route of many New England vessels of yesteryear to the Galapagos and down the lonely Southeast Trades to Pitcairn Island, Tahiti and the Marquesas. Contact: Joseph Cardozo, Schooner Ernestina Commission, 30 Union Street, New Bedford MA 02740; 508 990-1493.

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REVIEWS Built on Honor, Sailed with Skill ; The American Coasting Schooner, Frederick F. Kaiser (Sarah Jennings Press , Ann Arbor MI, 1989, 309pp, illus, $48 hb) Fred Kaiser was born and grew up in the Brooklyn, New York area at a time when the last of the large coasting schooners still earned their way in the bulk transport of cargoes to and from ports along the East Coast of the United States, from Canada to South America. During the 1920s and 1930s they found their livelihood carrying softwood south from Maine and Canada, and hardwood north from the Southern states. There was coal to be carried to ports where discharging facilities were too slow forthe big steamships or barges , or the loading was apt to be delayed. And there were other cargoes; salt from Turk ' s Island, molasses from Barbados or Cuba, logwood from Jamaica or Haiti , goat manure from Venezuela and fi sh scrap from Promised Land, Long Island.

The age of sail was rapidly coming to an end by the time Fred Kaiser began to haunt the wharves where schooners could still be found, some laid up in lonely backwaters and others loading or discharging. The active vessels sometimes needed hands to sail them and young men could find a berth, for the wages were low and conditions much worse than in steamships. These old schooners often sailed short handed. Many a young fellow was smitten by the urge to sail in one of these tall-masted, graceful relics of the past and armed with cameras and

,.

sometimes a diary, they would make a summer trip and get home in time for college. Fred Kaiser made his ship the four-masted schooner Annie C. Ross and he made several voyages in her, as did the marine artist John Noble. Captain Joseph Zuljevic was happy to have these young men aboard. I made a voyage as acting mate of the Annie C. Ross in the early part of 1940. Fred Kaiser was probably in college at the time, but John Noble was one of the crew and a very useful hand.

After World War II, Fred Kaiser began writing articles about the old schooners he had known, and about their adventures or eccentricities. These articles are not only about ships he knew , but about record problems of construction, maintenance and manning. He goes into detail about such problems as the hogging of big schooners, and relates his own adventures with a small schooner he brought from Nova Scotia to the Chesapeake. In this book he has brought together the last days of commercial sail on the East Coast in a most interesting, well illustrated fashion.

As one who sailed in a number of those old schooners, I have nothing but praise for Built on Honor, Sailed with Skill.

FRANCIS E. BOWKER Mystic Seaport Museum Mystic, Connecticut When God Was an Atheist Sailor; Memories of a Childhood at Sea, 1902-1910, Burgess Cogill (W.W. Norton & Co, New York, 1990, 190pp, illus, $17.95hb) Initiation into a love of the sea or the seafaring life can take many forms, for some a passage to adventure, for others an escape. For 87-year-old Burgess Cogill, however, her baptism was the first eight years of her life aboard one of

the last working tall ships, the fivemasted schooner Snow & Burgess. Her memoir is an evocation of two lost eras: the brief but thrilling reign of the great commercial coasting schooner, and the author ' s own years as darling daughter of the ship's captain.

Born in 1902 at 10' N, 117' W, a point close to Clipperton Island in the Pacific, and living aboard until finally disembarking to school in San Francisco in 1910, her ken of the sea seems as natural and unforced as a Brooklyn schoolboy ' s love of city parks, theaters and street amusements, or a Midwestern farmboy's yen for the plains and fresh cut hay. Cogill lived in a dual world, a cosy, coddled family life in the well appointed Victorian captain's quarters set in the midst of the rigorous routines of seamen out on deck. For the author and her younger sister it was a life of exploration and adventure stolen from the workaday world of seamen. They romped above decks and below, scarcely heeding the rubric of ship life, indulged by their father, cooks and carpenters alike. They revelled in the captain's prescribed social rounds at the most frequented ports of call, like Puget Sound and San Francisco, but at the same time were awed by luminous moments, watching sea and sky and the unfettered wildlife of the sea.

Cogill recreates her early world from indelible memories. She offers an innocent unromanticized view of the sailor's life, a solitary, almost monkish existence that is given great humanity through a child's eyes. She portrays the free-wheeling bustle of the port of San Francisco, and the pristine wilderness of Puget Sound, where her father ' s ship took on lumber on many occasions, both ably enhanced by many period photographs (furnished in part by the Mari-

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Terrifying storms, sinking ships, daring rescues Tales of tragedy and triumph from past to present in America's maritime history

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time National Park, San Francisco).

And then there is the story of a remarkable ship and captain. Snow & Burgess was launched in 1878 from Thomastown , Maine, as a 228-ft full-rigged ship and converted in 1901 in Oakland to a five-masted schooner. Cogill gives us an intimate picture of the Doric discipline with which Captain A.H. Sorensen managed his ship. His attentiveness to every creak of the ship ' s timbers and his unshakeable ideals of seamanship. He broke so many records that Snow & Burgess' s time at sea became a matter of betting on the floor of the Merchant' s Exchange.

When God Was an Atheist Sailor is light and uplifting reading, an example of where biography works so wellwhen an author captures the flavor of a distinct era. At the time of reading this book I had the pleasure of touring the Wavertree restoration project at South Street Seaport, New York, and to my surprise found myself peopling this similar vessel with Cogill 's characters, so lucidly memorable they seemed. KH Fireboats: A Complete History of the Development of Fireboats in America, Paul Ditzel (Fire Buff House, New Albany IN, 1989, 160pp, illus, biblio, index, $24.95hb) Paul Ditzel writes books about firefighting, just as Fire Buff House publishes them, but in this oversize volume he has become a maritime historian. The format is reminiscent of the several volumes of Gordon Newall (Pacific Tugboats) or Jim Gibbs (Pacific Square Riggers) ; detailed, well-researched text to accompany an extensive black-andwhite photograph collection. And it is an interesting story of nearly two hundred fireboats active in American ports since the first was commissioned in 1866.

Their work has hardly been unimportant, but it has not really captured much historical attention; only one fireboat, for example, is in an American maritime vessel collection (Tacoma, Washington).

The reader of this volume will learn a good deal about the technical side, including problems of design. City fathers, for example, realizing that fireboats most of the time do nothing but cost money , have been known to insist that they be tugboats as well-usually not a happy compromise. Similarly, the means of propulsion was an issue (gasoline, in particular always seemed a dangerous fuel for a vessel the purpose of

which was to go as close as possible to fires), or the very size: larger boats might be more stable and have more pumping capacity, but were likely to be considerably less maneuverable working among piers or in narrow waters. The most persistent controversy of all was the acquisition of fireboats. The common practice has been to buy protection only after a disastrous port fire. Just how major such a fire can be, can be seen in the Los Angeles fire of 1988, which required the services of five fireboats, 21 engines, five aerial ladders, and SCUBA-equipped firefighters to go under the fire to place equipment.

A substantial appendix lists all American fireboats entering service from 1866 to 1989 along with a useful bibliography and comprehensive index. For any comprehensive collection of vessel types, this would appear to be an essential volume, but it is also a worthwhile volume for the average reader interested in some of the less-explored comers of maritime history.

BRITON

c. BUSCH

Colgate University Hamilton, N Y (This review is reprinted with permission from the newsletter of the North Atlantic Society for Oceanic History.)

Tall Ships of Newburyport; The Montana; The Whittier; The Nearchus, George W. Goodwin, ed.

Freda Morrill Abrams (Freewind Press, PO Box 527, Yellow Springs OH 45387, 63pp, illus, $14.95pb) From Captain George Goodwin's reminiscences, written after he retired from seafaring in 1909, Freda Morrill Abrams has selected accounts of his passages in three ships of Newburyport, Massachusetts, wrapping the straightforward narratives around with her own descriptions of the owners, builders, officers , and seamen of these Yankee square riggers. The editor's painstaking research provides entree into vanished ways of life ashore and at sea.

PS Ocean Traders; From the Portuguese Discoveries to the Present Day, Michael W. Marshall (Facts on File, New York, 1990, 192pp, illus, biblio, index, $24.95hb) This richly illustrated overview of the development of merchant shipping from the 1400s to the present provides a lively introduction to the period ofocean commerce that did so much to shape the SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

MARITIME VIDEOS world as we know it. A former merchant seamen and ocean navigator in a yacht of his own building, Marshall brings a refreshing sureness of touch to questions of ship building and ship handling and, to a lesser extent, of ship design .

His sense of history is scattered and episodic, however, showing limited grasp of epochal events, and little feeling for the beliefs and ways of life of men and nations in this period of innovation, upset and change. The select bibliography reflects this narrow focus. PS The Coast Guard Under Sail; The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, 17891865, Irving H. King (Naval Institute, Annapolis MD, 1989, 233pp, illus, biblio, index, $29.95hb) A comprehensive account of the Coast Guard's origins as the Revenue Cutter Service established by Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury in 1790. This lively history recounts the challenge of restrainin-g smuggling in a seafaring nation that had virtually lived on evading the King's cruisers and customs agents, and the challenge of abolishing the slave trade in a nation in which slavery played an important economic role. These difficult tasks were carried out by a small number of sailpowered vessels, a chapter that ended with the Civil War. Well illustrated, full PS notes and bibliography.

>

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The National Maritime MuseumAntwerp, Alex de Vos, 1989, 128pp, illus, pb (BFr. 595 to postal account No. 000-0456814-41 , Friends of the National Maritime Museum, Steenplein 1, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium. Indicate desired language-Dutch, French, Engli sh).

This beautifully illustrated book, in the series "Musea Nostra," is dedicated to the National Maritime Mu seum, Antwerp, and written by its Curator, Alex de Vos. Founded in 1952, after the passing of the era of sail, it reflects the Belgian people ' s determination to preserve their heritage and provide future generations with an insight into the heroic days of sail. The book gives an historical outline of the creation and growth of the Museum and its superb collection (which has assimilated a number of earlier collections), emphasizing the role of the Friends of the Museum, who celebrated their 50th Anniversary in 1989.

JAMES FORSYTH E

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THE BooK Karl Kortum reads very deliberately.

With him, a book really has to be worth living with if he's going to crack its covers at all. Such a book, he told us the other day, is the Norton Book of the Sea, edited by Captain John 0. Coote (W. W. Norton & Co., New York & London, 1989, 406pp, index, $22.50hb ).

Good reading! Here you'll find Mr. Midshipman Easy jostling elbows with Forester's Midshipman Hornblower, and a very real Nelson penning a prayer for his beloved Emma and Horatia on hi s journey to Portsmouth to board HMS Victory en route to Trafalgar. This varied compendium includes work by Conrad and Masefield, on deepwater adventures, and by W. W. Jacobs , the Homer of the coastal seas, and sage words on how to pick an ocean racing crew by William Snaith, and on how to deal with hostile winds and killer seas by the late, great Adlard Coles, and ...

Well , get hold of a copy and you ' II see why the Society 's founder recommends it. The quoted passages are bound together with the author's own knowledgeable commentary, so you can actually read this treasury; but it also has a first-class index in case you are looking for some particular nugget in thi s treasury of seafaring.

To explore a colorful, critically important, and to our eyes at least, most attractive period in the seafaring experience, get hold of Brain Lavery 's marvelously comprehensive Nelson's Navy; The Ships, Men and Organization, 1793-1815 (Conway Maritime Press, London UK and Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD, 1989, 352pp, illus, appendixes, source notes, index, $44.95hb).

In this large format, beautifully produced volume you will find the jobs of coopers and armorers described, and the realities of officer promotion discussed, along with the difficulties of manning the lower decks . Brian Lavery has worked hi s way through the great ships of the Royal Navy, their design and handling, in his notable works the Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War, 1600-1815 , and the classic two-volume study Ships of the Line. Nelson's era marked the height of the British sai ling navy which held the seas against European militarism to establish the Pax Britannica, and in this fascinating, highly particular walk though the ships, the men , the ethos and modus operandi of the institution of the Royal Navy itself, Lavery has done history and history's SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

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The United States Navy , the Dutch and the other contemporary services are briefly reviewed, with the same attention to the telling fact shown in all Lavery's work. The book is illuminated by contemporary illustrations which get the reader properly into the feel of the period, its outlook and humor. The last illustration is an aerial view of HMS Victory in Portsmouth Dockyard. The great wooden ship with her leonine head looms larger than the buildings around her, and larger than the modem craft in the photograph-reminding us that these great sailing ships were no toys, their wars no games.

People write and call us constantly seeking basic information on the functioning of traditional square-rigged sailing vessels. They want to know the names of things aboard-and those names of course, at one time in common use in seaport towns, are heard in use only on the lips of the few hundred people in the world who build, sail or supply these ships. And beyond that antiquarian interest, people want to know how things work aboard a square rigger. Well, all these things and more are found in clear, well illustrated form in Eagle Seamanship; A Manual for Square-Rigger Sailing, revised by Lt. Edwin H. Daniels, Jr., USCG (Naval Institute Press , 1990, 216pp, 46 diagrams, glossary, index, $13.95pb).

A "how to" book of great merit has just been published on another subjectThe Intricate Art of Living Afloat, by Clare Allcard (W.W. Norton & Co., New York & London, 1990, 303pp, photos, appendixes, index, $27 .95hb) .

How to get along with the children's education, dolphins and other things met at sea, foreign languages and other problems of the shore are dealt with in masterly fashion in this truly useful volume.

Clare has spent the better part of the last twenty years cruising the world with her famous sailor husband Edward , latterly in a big Danish trading ketch. From this marvellous work it is clear how much she brings to the sailing of that venturesome family .

Old Montauk Receding "We this morn weighed anchor in Gardners bay and proceeded on a whaling voyage to South Atlantic, Indian or Pacific oceans as the occasion may require.

At about 4PM old Montock receeded fromourview.BearingNW . . . ." Coming upon these words written aboard the

bark Washington of Greenport, Long Island, on Wednesday, July 19, 1843, sends a shiver through the timbers of anyone who sails those waters today!

Here is a quiet corner of the world, the pleasantly dowdy fishing town of Greenport, Long Island, with Gardner's Island standing away on the horizon to the eastward and beyond that the long, sandy arm of Montauk reaching out to fence off these waters from the Atlantic surge. Here, in these same waters a century and a half ago, Edwin Peter Brown, still shy of hi s 30th birthday, is taking the whaleship out to any cornerof the ocean world "as the occasion may require." A different kind of voyage, in a wider world, than that of the weekend sailors who now frequent these waters!

This was Brown 's second voyage as captain, and is one of three of his worldembracing voyages, recorded in In the Wake of Whales; The Whaling Journals of Captain Edwin Peter Brown, 1841-47, ed. Constance J. Terry (Old Orient Press, PO Box 243 , Orient, Long Island NY , 1988, 408pp, illus, biblio, index, $57.50hb or $150 deluxe ed.).

This large 8 t/2 by 11-inch volume, beautifully produced, should be ordered direct from the publisher while supplies last. It includes over 500 of Brown 's sketches, grand old photographs, and a marvellously illuminating introduction on Captain Brown and his home port by Richard H. Bliss.

Captain Brown's voyages took him to the bottom of the world, and into the North Pacific to Kamchatka. The best was this voyage of the Washington whose commencement is noted above. He set out round the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean and on to New Zealand where he caught enough whales to fill the ship with 1500 barrels of oil, and romped on past Cape Horn and home.

He later noted: "On the 17th of July 1844, I anchored off Greenport wharf two days less than a year. I circumnavigated the globe without dropping anchor and paid the owners the best percentage ever paid by any ship out of this Port."

Like the ancient Greeks sailing their narrower sea, his dearest ambition was to become a landed gentleman ashore, an ambition he achieved. His big house stands in Greenport today, one of the landmarks watched over by the Oysterponds Historical Society, the motive force behind the publication of this excellent volume.

PS J,

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Sea Sports Pu6[ications (203) PO Box 647, Belden Sta 866-5376 Nonvalk, CT 06852-0647

w 45

Life Aboard the Viper

by Rita Chancellor

John Chancellor, whose grand sea paintings have appeared in these pages before-to accompany Michael Badham's article on Thames barges in Sea History 34, and Lois Darling's Beagle study in SH 31-came back to England after five years service at sea in World War II and another couple of years in inter-island boats in the West Indies.

He planned to carve out a career as an artist, continuing his footloo se, unattached lifestyle. Two days after coming ashore in England he metRitaPhilcox, age 16, and that was that. " We had absolutely no money," Rita was to write later, "and very f ew prospects. In fact, the only things we did have for real were the desire to be together always and the determination to make this possible."

So they got engaged, and then, naturally, they bought an 84-ft wooden Thames barge, built in I 898 for the trade across the North Sea to the Rhine for German beer. Her name was Viper.

John, naturally, was determined to keep the vessel sailing, and incredibly for eleven years the couple, greatly assisted by volunteers led by Rita's mother, did keep the old barge going. In that time their four children were born and brought up on the barge's 22-ft wide decks, and on the decks of the neighboring square rigger Peking (then named Arethusa).

John Chancellor died unexpectedly in the spring of 1984, while reviewing proofs of his first book, The Maritime Paintings of John Chancellor. Last year a second book ofhis paintings was published in England, and from Rita's preface to that book we have this account, supplemented with photographs from the family album, of life afloat and on the mud, with an artist husband and a growing family.

The need for more money was pressing, so the possibility of commercial art was worth considering, if only for a short term. This proved to be quite a successful venture; work came in for the designing of book jackets, yacht magazine illustrations and some advertising. The latter included a brochure for a firm involved in converting Thames spritsai l sailing barges into beautiful homes. To prepare the drawings for thi s John and I had to visit the firm concerned. As usual, I went with him, and it was then that we fell in love with these craft and decided on the spot that a floating home was

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exactly what would suit us. The only problem in our case was that we would have to raise the money to buy a barge and convert it in a do-it-yourself fashion. It was an enormous undertaking but we were determined-with a loan from John 's parents and a lot of help and encouragement from fe llow barge owners and friends , we finally managed to acquire a suitable vessel called SB Viper, still trading and quite seaworthy, but being sold in a very run down condition as no longer economically viable. So with no problems that tons of enthusiasm and a lot of time and patience couldn ' t put right, we finally converted her into a really lovely spacious home.

We moved into her three years later, married at last!

For eleven happy years we lived on board, bringing up our family of four, three girls and one boy. They all benefitted in many ways from our unconventional home life and the wealth of experiences we had, sailing our mobile home around the east coast with the babies wearing tiny life-jackets and safety harnesses.

When the chi ldren were of school age we would sometimes row ashore for their amusement at the weekends--one entry in the log written by John reports that we "spent afternoon in an amusement park, with roundabouts and swings, entire ships company ashore, including the cat!"

We were always a source of great curiosity to passers-by and villagers alike; consequently we had an endless stream of visitors of all descriptions .

The experience was a real reward for all those hours of hard work we had put in earlier. For the children's school friends, there was always fierce competition to be invited to birthday parties and other John 's painting of the Viper getting a "washing-down" as the mate brails the main.

It' s grand to have a barge (see photo at right)as your home-here' sa newfront yard to play in! Far right, the Viper on a visit away from Upno r, ties up to put the crewashore.

They carry their own shore transport--note pram and tricycle at left. Below decks, the barge is a spacious apartment; above decks she's a working barge.

such events, as among the other more obvious attractions rumor had it that I made lopsided jellies and birthday cakes, which was often quite true. If Viper settled down at low tide on her mud berth at an awkward angle, not onl y did she have a severe li st but so too did my cu linary efforts!

Our mooring was situated on the Medway, on the property of the Shaftesbury Homes, where the beautiful training ship Arethusa lay. Naturally we got to know many of the boys who lived on board training for a naval career, and on several occasions we were given a hand by them fo r various nautical chores. The most popular of these was to provide extra crew for us when we entered for the Annual Sailing Barge Race. This event was always greatly enjoyed by everyone, although I must admit that actually crossi ng the starting-line in company with the other craft was just about all we saw of them, except perhaps to wave to them on their way back, while we were sti ll on our outward journey!

Viper was no greyhound, and it was easy to see why commercially she was not economic.

We did, of course, get to know the Captai n oftheArethusa and his wife and daughter well , and most of the officers; indeed, my eldest daughter became the godchild of the Captain and hi s wife.

The two girls would play for hours on deck, quite oblivious to all the naval traditions going on around them, accepting it as a perfectly normal part of li ving.

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Above, a crew of Arethusa boys joins the Viper for the Barge Race. Waiting for a breeze, the artist skipper looks aloft and a pensive Rita studies the water, while the half brailed-in mainsail hangs idle. N ote raised leeboard in the foreground, which is lowered to provide lateral resistance going to windward-when there is a wind!

To the right, Karen Chancellor watches as Petra Le Mark pours for a dolls ' tea party on the spacious main deck ofthe Arethusa, both oblivious to the drill going on behind them. Miss La Mark is the daughter of the Arethusa ' s captain, and Miss Chancellor is the captain' s god-daughter.

Unable to keep up with maintenance on the Viper during John' s trips away at sea to meet expenses, the family finally moved ashore. John acquired the Therese, a trawler he used f or commercial fishing out of Brixham. Here Rita is caulking "every single seam of her 49-foot hull," attended by two of her children, while John works on deck.

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SEA HISTORY 54, SUMMER 1990

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