Sea History 060 - Winter 1991-1992

No. 60

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

WINTER 1991-92

SEA HISTORY. THE ART, LITERATURE, ADVENTURE, LORE & LEARNING OF THE SEA

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- - Co{{ector 'Eiition - -

THE GREAT AGE OF SAIL: A Remarkable Exhibition from Britain's National Maritime Museum

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Commemorate Columbus' Courageous Voyage of 1492 1992 marks the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbu s' bold journey to America . To commemorate this special time in our histo1y, Abordage, S.A. has been granted an exclusive license to manufacture the official Spain '92 wood model replicas of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Ma ria .

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The superbly skilled craftsmen of Ahordage use only the finest of materials in the construction of these masterpieces. The decks and hull are planked with well seasoned mahogany. Each is fully rigged with bronze cannons, copper fittings, hand-sewn sails and cast iron anchors. An Ahordage model is truly a work of art.

Eve1y Ahordagemodel comes with a Certificate of Authenticity stating the model's number in production limited to 1,992 models of each ship.

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No.60

SEA HISTORY

WINTER 1991-92

CONTENTS SEA HISTORY is published quarterly by the National Maritime Historical Society, Charles Point Marina, PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566.

Second class postage paid at Croton-on-Hudson NY I 0520 and additional mailing offices. COPYRIGHT © 1992 by the National Maritime Histori cal Society. Tel: 914 737-7878.

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EDITOR ' S LOG LETTERS

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KNIGHT ERRANT OF HISTORIC SHIPS: THE LIFE OF FRANK G. G. CARR, Ra lph Hammond Innes

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Sea History , Charles Point Marina, PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566.

9 YEAR OF THE SHIP-1992, Peter Stanford lO SEASONED AND WEA THERSTAINED:

MEMBERSHIP is invited. Plankowner $I 0 ,000; Benefactor $5,000; Sponsor $ 1,000; Donor $500; Patron $250; Friend$ I00; Contributor $50; Family $40; Regular $30; Student or Retired $ 15. All members outside the USA please add $I 0 for postage. SEA HISTORY is sent to all members.

Individual copies cost $3.75.

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OFFICERS & TRUSTEES : Acting Chairman, Alan G. Choate; Vice Chairmen, James Ean, Edward G. Zel insky; President, Peter Stanford; Vice President, Norma Stanford; Secretary/Treasurer, Richardo Lopes; Trustees, Karl Kortum , George Lamb, Brian A. McAlli ster, Nancy Pouch , Ludwig K. Rubinsky, Marshall Stre ibert, Samuel Thompson. Chairman Emeritus, Karl Kortum OVERSEERS: Charles F. Adams, Townsend Hornor, George Lamb, Clifford D. Mallory, J. William Middendorf, II, John G . Rogers, John Stobart ADVISORS : Co-Chairmen, Frank 0. Braynard, Me lbourne Smith; D.K. Abbass, Raymond Aker, Robert Amon, George F. Bass, Francis E. Bowker, Oswald L. Bren , David Brink, William M. Doerflinger, John S. Ewald, Joseph L. Farr, Timothy G. Foote, Thomas Gillmer, Richard Goold-Adams, Walter J. Handelman, RobertG. Herbert, Jr. , Steven A. Hyman , Conrad Milster, Edward D. Muhlfeld, William G. Muller, David E. Perkins, Richard Rath , Nancy Hughes Richardson, Timothy J. Runyan , George Salley, Ralph L. Snow, Edouard A. Stackpole, John Stobart, Albert Swanson, Shannon J. Wall , Raymond E. Wallace, Robert A. We instein, Thomas We lls, Charles Winholz AMERICAN SHIP TRUST: Chairman, Karl Kortum ; F. Briggs Dalzell, William G. Muller, Richard Rath , Peter Stanford, Edward G. Zelinsky SEA HISTORY STAFF: Editor, Peter Stanford; Managing Editor, Norma Stanford; Associate Editors, Kevin Haydon, Richard Rath; Production Assistants, Joseph Stanford, Maria Wenzel; Membership Secretary, Patricia Anstett; Membership Assistants, Bridget Hunt, Grace Zerella

THE CHARLES W. MORGAN AT AGE 150, Andrew German THE MIGHTY MOSHULU: A SHORT HISTORY, PART I, Karl Kortum 16

TAKING THE INITIATIVE: SIX YEARS OF GAINS IN THE CAUSE

OF MARITIME PRESERVATION, James P. Delgado 22 MARINE ART: "THE GREAT AGE OF SAIL" COMES TO AMERICA, Roger Quarm 32

MARINE ART NEWS

34 THE SEAPORT EXPERIENCE 36 ANOTHER LIBERTY LIVES: THE JOHN W. BROWN STEAMS DOWN THE BAY, Thomas Hale 37 SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS 40 REVIEWS 46 DESSERT: IRELAND'S LAST MERCHANT SAILING SHIP, Richard J. Scott COYER: "The Battle of the Texel," painted in 1687, just fourteen years after the encounter, is William van de Velde the Younger's view of the last great battle of the Anglo-Dutch wars. The Couden Leeuw (Golden Lion) fires in embattled fury in the successful attempt of the Dutch to stand off an Anglo-French fleet bent on an invasion of Holland. See pages 22-29.

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7 AM) and will debark Staten Island at 3PM. To: National Maritime Historical Society, PO Box 68, Peekskill, NY 10566 Yes, I will be with you on July Fourth. Pleae send me _ _ tickets at the pre-season price of $50 each. My check for$ _ _ _ made out to " NM HS-Ferry" is enclosed:

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SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

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EDITOR'S LOG It is the ship's people that give an historic ship her life and meaning, says Andy German in his remarkable appreciation of the life of the Charles W. Morgan, centerpiece of America's greatest maritime museum, Mystic Seaport Museum. He points out that it was not ever thus. In previous generations, while the instinct to save such ships from a vanished era ran strong among the faithful, they adduced reasons for ship saving which all too often seem to us now shallow and somehow less than adequate to the majesty, exultations and enduring challenge of mankind's endeavors at sea.

"Look how tough our forebears had it," was a message common in museums from the 1920s through the 1950s, the first generation of the Morgan's career as a museum ship and of ship preservation in the US. "Look at the way they had to live, be grateful for what you haveand so behave yourself!" might be a free translation of the message we were so evidently supposed to notice and carry away with us. History may well excite such thoughts from time to time, perhaps very appropriately; but to say that this is history's message both limits and trivializes it and mocks the realities of the men and women who lived the experience of traditional seafaring, giving it its shape and meanings.

Yes, meanings: it is an editorial viewpoint of Sea History that history has meaning, as the experience of life has meaning. And from this viewpoint the task of historians is to recover the experience of generations preceding their own; not just to mine it for messages, but to lead us to share in the experience of people before our time and enter into their lives and into some understanding of them. Definitely, it is not to dig up our forebears and put their bones in stiff finger-wagging poses to admonish us how to live our lives. No, the mission is infinitely more direct, lively and important than that; we ask of our forebears that they yield up no special formulas for living, but simply to testify to the truths of their lives, thus vastly expanding the base of information and values available to us in our own lives.

Howling Stone Throwers?

If you think you can live well without that, I invite you to think again. Remember that genetically we are undeveloped cave dwellers; everything that makes us more than howlers and stone-throwers is the product of that widened data base and that access to programmatic experi4

LETTERS ence which history opens to us.

In fact, you're learning from history anyway; the question is whether you're going to go for real data and real values or subsist somehow on the junk food served up all around us today in lieu of history. Think of our schools and our universities serving up their pre-packaged generalized "social studies" and other ideologically oriented "studies" which, if you absorb them, make you the victim, rather than the master, of the age you live in. We lose too much when we accept such concoctions in place of the healthy contradictions and endlessly nourishing dimensionality of the historic experience.

Not that any of us deliver that experience perfectly! Far from it. But it is good to see Andy German, a marvellously perceptive student of the seafaring experience, coming forward in this birthday article about the Charles W. Morgan to tel I us we should get to know, beyond the monumental ship, her people.

Andheisnotalone! InRogerQuarm's appreciation of the very monumental exhibition of classical marine art being brought to the United States from England 's National Maritime Museum, he concludes by pointing out something very basic about all the most memorable paintings in this exhibition-something that I, for one, had never noticed. It is a fact of the kind that the Catholic essayist and mystery story writer G. K. Chesterton delighted in: the fact that is so big it overfills a narrow perspective and so passes unnoticed.

That fact is that these paintings all have in common one informing element-they show, as Quarm puts it, "men at their work."

PS

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This issue of Sea History is dedicated to the memory of Frank G. G. Carr, Director of England's National Maritime Museum, 1947-66, and later International Chairman of the American Ship Trust and founding Chairman of the World Ship Trust. Frank shipped to sea in the rough trades ofthe Thames sailing barges as soon as he could escape his law studies at Cambridge. His interest in ships was shaped and enlivened by his knowledge of seafaring people and their ways, and by his true uncondescending feeling for them. An appreciation of his life appears on page 8 .

This Wild Guess Seems About Right D. B. Clement ("Letters," Sum mer 1991) states that the destroyers with four funnels, 50 of which were traded to the Royal Navy in 1940, during World War II, were, in Britain, always referred to as "four-stackers" rather than "four-pipers," as your editor terms them. Mr. Clements went on to say that he believed this was also the case.in the US Navy.

Of my thirty years in the Navy-the USN avy, that is-the destroyers in question were around for perhaps the first ten. As I recall, they were referred to in conversation and in informal writing as both four-pipers and four-stackers on, as a wild guess, about a 60-40 basis.

Since this class of destroyer was flushdecked but replaced a four-stack class with a raised forecastle and was in tum followed by forecastle classes, they were also referred to as flush-deckers. This term was the one usually used in more formal applications, such as in a listing of destroyer classes. The class continued to hang onto this label even after the appearance of the flush-deck Fletchers and Sumners, which were referred to, not by the fact that they, too, had flush decks, but by their prototype names.

ROBERT

K.

AWTREY

Commander, USN (ret.)

Fernandina Beach, Florida This discussion originated a year ago when your editor chastised the English writer Alec Hurst for calling these World War I vintage destroyers "four stackers'' rather than "four pipers," the term your editor knew them by. The English scholar David Clements intervened with examples of Americans calling them ' four stackers," and others weighed in with other examples on both sides of the question.

Commander Awtrey is the first to point out, interestingly, that they were also called "flush-deckers," even after the newflushdeck Fletcher and her sisters arrived on the scene in World War II, and his quantification of the "pipers" versus "stackers" usage seems about right to us--in the perspective of all the valued letters received on this subject.-ED. Ships in Stone Mr. Calvez-Normand asked for old gravestones with ship decorations. His interest would be richly rewarded by a visit to the North-Frisian islands of Amrum and Fohr. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries most of the male population of these islands left their SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

homes to earn their living aboard ship, leaving behind their families and the poor possibilities of those days for farming, sheepbreeding and fishing.

As outstandingly able sailors, many of them sailed as captains over the seven seas or commanded German and Dutch whalers in the North Atlantic, earning comparatively remarkable riches, which still can be seen in their houses and, last but not least, in their gravestones. The book RedendeSteine (Talking Stones) by Walter Lueden, published by Christians Verlag, Hamburgin 1984(ISBN3-7672-0847-4) has good photos of the gravestones.

The gravestones give a brief personal record of the buried person, such as name of wife/husband, date born and where, number of sons and daughters, etc. The decorations show representations from the Holy Bible, windmills, and many sailing vessels.

The islands of Amrum and Fohr are located in the North Sea, close to the Danish border, and are famous as summer resorts, not only for their nice, historic villages, but also for their scenic landscape and their white, wide beaches.

DIETER MELCHERT Kamen, Germany

Mountains Never Meet-But Men Do! Thank you for the Autumn edition of Sea History. Very well done. I am'enclosing a check to cover a year's subscription.

I was especially taken by a book you reviewed: Trapped at Pearl Harbor by Stephen Bower Young. In the 1950s I was a company commander at a USNR boot camp at Davisville RI. There was a Lieutenant Young there also, and the word was around that he had a like horrifying experience at Pearl Harbor. Since the surname is the same, I am writing to the Naval Institute forwarding a note of inquiry to the author. I feel sure that Lt. Young and the author must be one and the same.

NEWMAN L. HUBBARD, JR. South Hamilton, Massachusetts Your editors rejoice every time we can help bring people together, as so often happens through the letters turned up by the advancing cutwater of Sea History.

The other great joy is the sign-up of a new member, an act we feel must make the angels smile and provoke a chee1ful roar from old Triton. -ED.

A Twinkle in Irving's Eye ...

I read with interest Bruce McCloskey's letter in the Autumn issue. So once again the old chestnut arises: What was the SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

proper classification of Irving Johnson 's second Yankee? Was she a brigantine, as Irving claimed, or topsail schooner, or staysail schooner? Since Irving is now dead, I feel compelled once more to enter the fray. I say "once more," for I went through all this in September 1969 with Capt. Archie Horka, a respected deepwater man, and with Charlie Sayle, Nantucket modelmaker and former sailor. The Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror was the vehicle forour wrangle. Charlie and Archie felt as Mr. McCloskey does and they insisted that Yankee was a topsail schooner. I, as mate on the original schooner Yankee, stood up for my former skipper.

As Archie said at the end of the exchange, " It is unlikely that I have convinced you of anything and vice versa, for old habits are difficult to change. Anyway, we had a 'good workout,' didn 't we?"

Actually, Irving freely admitted that his vessel could fit any of the three classifications, for she had the characteristics of each but was not " pure" anything. He felt that she came closest to being a brigantine, and that was what he chose to call her. With hi s noted twinklein-the-eye, he said that calling Yankee a hermaphrodite brigantine or topsail schooner or staysail schooner was a bit of a mouthful , and I agree.

Time and space prohibit me from going into the technical data involved in this argument. I will just mention that I visited the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, England, where members of the staff became interested in the argument and led me to four models (early to middle 19th century) on display. They were rigged as Yankee had been and all were called brigantines!

GULLFORD TOBEY Marblehead, Massachusetts Mr. Tobey served as mate aboard the schooner Yankee from August 1939 to April 1941.

Preparing for Our Common Destiny It is encouraging to know that the Society is planning a major effort for 1992 with public interest focussed on the Columbus Quincentennial. I have been particularly impressed and pleased by your editorial comments and articles, which have given a balanced and informative perspective of the Columbus voyages and their place in the broader context of American discovery.

Presently, I am scheduled for trips to Mexico, Louisiana and Rhode Island for conferences dealing with the broadest

possible perspective of American discovery, including ancient voyages by East Asians, Africans, North Europeans and Mediterranean peoples.

While I support the importance of Columbus in the cavalcade of discovery, I think it important to realize that some groups are engaging in a negative campaign because the emphasis on Columbus has tended to exclude consideration of the accomplishments of others. Roman amphorae found in the seabeds off Honduras and Brazil, along with Latin inscriptions, are only part of the evidence of early Mediterranean contacts with the Americas.

Celtic inscriptions are not infrequent in the New England region, while European iron smelting and forging were practiced at Irish and Norse settlements along the East Coast prior to AD 1400. Chinese voyages are apparent from maps and other accounts over a long period of time. I believe recognition of these ancient voyagers would strengthen the Society's popular support, while giving Native Americans an opportunity to regard themselves as participants in the great cavalcade of discovery-rather than the passive recipients of European conquest.

The issue, of course, is not whether such voyages occurred, but how to focus public attention on our common history as a way of better preparing for our common destiny.

GUNNAR THOMPSON, PHD American Discovery Project Seattle, Washington

Query I am an adoptee trying to identify my natural father who was a ferryboat pilot working in New York Harbor in 1920.

He lived in Little Ferry/Moonachie, NJ, had a good singing voice, and a first or last name which sounded like Lawrence or Larry . Is there a union, historical association, club or other group which might have documents showing the home addresses of ferryboat pilots? (National Archives records do not!) Is there a man still alive who worked on the ferries in 1920?

GEORGE PETERSON Box 42, Millwood VA 22646 ERRATUM Reference is made, SH59, p37, to the "comely steel bark Princess Elizabeth" in Port Stanley. It is assumed you meant the Lady Elizabeth, which lies on a sand bank at Whalebone Cove, Stanley Harbour.

BRUCE B. MCCLOSKEY Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

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7

Knight Errant of Historic Ships: A Memorial Service Address in Celebration of the Life of Frank G. G. Carr

by Ralph Hammond Innes Frank would have been touched, as I know Ruth is, that so many of his friends and fellow ship-lovers have come here today, not only to remember him and to wish him Godspeed now that he has embarked on the greatest voyage of all, but also to give thanks for the privilege of having known such a man.

Wedo so in a very proper place, here in the heart of Greenwich, which was so much a part of his life.

Frank was a man possessed by the sea--obsessed by ships, particularly old ships, and very particularly old wooden ships.

"Never again," he vowed, hi s emotional Wel sh nature bringing tears to his eyes at the sight of Implacable, last of the Navy's line of battle two-deckers-seventy-four guns and captured at Trafalgar- being towed out to Spithead and deliberately sunk there for lack of fund s to maintain her. That warship had been important to him , for he had already worked out plans to bring her into the Thames and dock her there.

Frank was fifteen when he acquired his first boat in 1918, a skiff-dinghy called Maud. In it, then later in the St. Hilda, he explored the estuaries, broads and fens of East Anglia. By the time he was at Cambridge, he needed a boat which could safely poke its bows out into the North Sea. He bought the six-ton Lily and changed its name to Quickstep II. In 1926, his last year at Cambridge, he took on the Cariad, a Bristol Channel pilot cutter that is now in the Exeter ship museum. And then he met a girl who had never sailed a boat, but who was to prove a natural sailor, impervious to sickness and a born helmsman.

Frank and Ruth were married in 1932, boarded Cariad at Pin Mill on the Orwell, and sailed for Holland! They went on to sail thousands of miles together, and throughout their long married life they had a marvelously close relationship. Both ashore and afloat they were very much a team.

Peter Stanford wrote to me of Frank's first official visit to America in 1974: "He dazzled admirals, politicians and collectors of whaling memorabilia, speaking with great emotional intensity." And of Ruth he said , "She was terrific.

Behind the scenes she was invaluable in advising us and in helping Frank to adjust to a new kind of audience. Nothing fazed her." When he died , Ruth and he had been together for almost sixty years.

Frank's idea of heaven on earth was the cozy confines of a boat's cabin, lying to the tide after a day 's sailing, the warmth of the stove and the glow of the lamplight on wood panelling, a glass on the table and his pipe in his hand, and the company of like-minded fellows with whom to swap tales of the sea, ships and sailing companions.

Those early sailing days and the girl he married set the pattern of hi s career and achievements. His first book, Sailing Barges, is a minor class ic, the definitive work on the East Coast barges that are still match racing to this day.

Frank had studied law, and hi s first job was librarian at the House of Lords. Then war intervened. At the end of World War II, Frank returned from serv ice in the Navy as a Lieutenant Commander RNVR, and was invited to apply for the post of director of the National Maritime Museum .

Created in 1934, the Museum didn ' t actually open till 1937, and then it closed almost immediately for the War. Frank was faced with the monumental task of retrieving exhibits scattered around the country for safe-keeping and starti ng the museum all over again .

He was director for close to twenty years, and in that time

8

he laid the foundations of the world-renowned museum we know today. This was the platform from which he launched himself as a sort of knight errant of maritime heritage.

Frank gathered a few enemies on the way, of course. He fo ught the Treasury to extract the necessary funding. He was impatient of red tape and bureaucracy. But he also made a great number of friends and a fund of goodwill that reached into many countries and contributed to the growth of a worldwide consciousness that the age of commercial sail was over and that we should all look to our maritime heritage.

In this he had the backing of Prince Philip, a special relationship which gave him support after his museum days were over.

His departure from the Museum in 1966 was highly controversial. Frank was dismissed by the trustees two years before he was due to retire. They wanted a change of course. Earl Attlee, who had appointed him, pressed the matter with the Government of the day and there were protests in the House of Commons. It was a shabby return for years of dedicated service.

Fortunately, Frank's vitality and his abiding sense of humour carried him through and on to otherthings. In 1952, whilst still director of the Museum, he had become deeply involved in the move to save the Cutty Sark, then acting as a training ship downriver off Greenhithe. He had been campaigning for some time for the establishment of a National Maritime Trust. In thi s, again, he had the support of Prince Philip. By 1954 the Cutty Sark had been restored under the guidance of Frank and Alan Vi ll iers, the dry dock just outside the College gates here had been constructed, and the beautiful China clipper was floated into position.

Contrary to the widely-held bel ief that an old sailing ship couldn ' t possibly earn its keep, the Cutty Sark proved an incredible success. No less than twelve million visitors have now trod her decks. Frank was Chairman of the Cutty Sark Ship Management Committee from 1952 to I 972, in loco parentis to a whole raft of good nautical causes. He was awarded a CBE in 1954 and made a CB in 1967.

And in 1978 he still had the vision and the energy to found and direct a completely new organization, the World Ship Trust. This may yet become the most widely known monument to his enthusiasm for old ships and hi s urgent desire to preserve some of the world's priceless maritime heritage before it is too late. The book Cathedrals of the Sea is nearing completion. Through its title, taken from something Prince Philip wrote, Frank is underlining the need to preserve the fabric of the best of what is left to us. I'll finis h this tribute with a quotation from Masefield 's Dauber, in which he stressed the harmony of creations of both man and God: "Ships and the sea; there 's nothing finer made." D Following the above remarks by one ofFrank's close and dear ji¡iends, the people assembled to bid Frank Carr farewell went down from the Royal Naval War Co llege Chapel to the clipper Cutty Sark, the ship Frank saved for the nation and the world with the support of Prince Philip. Just inland lay the National Maritime Museum, brought up under Frank's direction from obscurity to its present standing as the world's great center of sea lore and learning-as the paintings celebrated in this very issue of Sea History attest.

Ed Zelinsky, our Vice Chairman and member of our American Ship Trust, was there to greet Ruth Carr on our behalf and to help mark the passing of an inspiring leader in our field . PS SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

1992-Year

of the Ship S!V Regina Maris

ThebarkentineReginaMaris, veteran of story that he was too old now to go to sea: Morgan's and Moshulu's cases are set the transatlantic trade from Europe to the "I can only send prayers with the tight forth in the following pages. And then Americas, and of Cape Horn sailing and, ship and her merry hearts."

Jim Delgado reports on the work of the latterl y, under the late Dr. George And, indeed, it is merry hearts, like US Government's Maritime Initiative, Nichols, the peaceful pursuit of which expresses the will of the the whale from Greenland to the American people that our hisWindward Islands fringing the toric ships be saved. Much has Caribbean, and from Mexico's been accomplished and much Sea of Cortez to Alaska's Bering more remains to be done. The Strait, is newly settled, as 1992 Regina, for instance, did not fit opens, in the old whaling town the parameters of the Maritime of Greenport, at theend of Long Initiative. The people who rallied to save her had to work Island, 100-odd miles east of New YorkCity.Shecomes from outside that framework. thefarreachesoftheocean world We are the Ship's People and from another age.

In 1974thelateFrankCarr(see During long anxious weeks memoir on facing page) came this summer, and on into early from England to the United autumn , it seemed theRegina's States to tour the country advoold wooden hull with its ancating an American Ship Trust. tique, tattered rig-a rig dePrince Philip, patron of Engrived from the rig of Portu- Frank Carr, second from right, grasps the Kaiulani ' s wheel during land's Maritime Trust, sent us guese caravels of 500 years his visit to the United States in 1974. He is surrounded by others best wishes on this venture, ago--would not make it. Then active in the cause ofship preservation, including Admiral Walter F. saying "I can think of no-one Hajo Knuttle of Windsor, Con- Schlech, Jr., at far left, and Admiral John M. Will,farthest right. so well qualified to help. " After exploring several difnecticut, bought the vessel and saved her from scuttling. Merion Wiggin those sailors singing aboard the dis- ferent formulations, it was decided to ofGreenport's East End Seaport and Bill masted Regina, who make the tight ship. form the AST under the aegis of the Claudio of Claudio's Restaurant weighed It was in this sailorly spirit that Cape National Maritime Historical Society. in, with the backing of Karl Kortum Horn was first rounded and the ocean The Regina is just the latest in a series of across the country in San Francisco. world opened to mankind in the decades historic ships that we stood to lose withChairman Emeritus of the NMHS and following Christopher Columbus's voy- out the American Ship Trust; the steamer stalwart of its American Ship Trust, Karl age of 1492. We need that spirit in the John W. Brown in Baltimore, the bark had last seen Regina in the Canaries in world today,and in cities like New York Elissa in Galveston , the schooner 1969, when he wasservingas mate in the and San Francisco; we need also to un- Ernestina in New Bedford, and the steam paddlewheel tug Eppleton Hall in her derstand what ships and shipping mean tug Mathilda in Kingston, New York, are famous voyage from England's River to the story of mankind. others in that series. But, that is a story for Tyne to San Francisco. The barkentine The National Maritime Hi storical a future issue of Sea History. had been dismasted in a traumatic inci- Society takes the full sweep of the ship's For now, let us invite all hands to join dent of her varied career, but the ship 's role in history as its concern; at the heart in the work before us. The world as we people were in good heart and kept the tug of that concern lie historic ships like know it was built on the traffics of ships. crew up singing sea songs into the night. Regina and her elder di stant cousin the They challenge our young people to ven150-year-old whale ship Charles W. Mor- ture forth in that world, and they challenge Her Merry Hearts A century and a half ago the British gan at Mystic Seaport Museum in Con- all Americans to uphold their nation 's role mariner John Nicol (a spiritual relation, necticut, and the great Cape Horner in the defense of freedom by sea, and the surely, of Regina's Dr. Nichols) told the Moshulu, now at risk in the Delaware peaceful commerce that today binds all PS literary person who transcribed hi s life River across from Philadelphia. The the nations of the world together.

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9

''Seasoned and Weather-stained'' How the Charles W. Morgan Lives at Age 150

by Andrew W. German, Editor, Mystic Seaport Museum Sailing vessels are wondrous things. Graceful curves, towering spars that dwarf the viewer, an intricate tracery of rigging, and taut clouds of sail epitomize them in our imagination.

There is harmony in them too, as they harness the wind and rely on natural patterns to make their way at sea.

Yet, anthropomorphize them as we may, seeing in them individual personalities and even calling them "she," ships are not living beings. Humans conceive them, build them, and sai l them. As aesthetically pleasing as they may be, they cannot be fully understood or appreciated except in their relation to human endeavor. This is the lesson the Charles W. Morgan has taught us at Mystic Seaport.

Built in 1841, the Charles W. Morgan is America's oldest surviving oceangoing commercial ship. Although she was built specifically as a whaleship, in size and design she represents hundreds of sailing merchantmen that floated America's commerce in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Her business, however, was whaling-stalking the leviathan throughout the world's oceans during voyages that might last four years or more. With our latter-day perceptions of our environment, we condemn the slaughter of whales, but through much of the nineteenth century whale products were essential for industry and consumer goods. Four years after Quaker shipbui lders Jethro and Zachariah Hillman launched the Morgan, the American whaling fleet peaked at 731 vessels, operated by nearly 20,000 mariners.

As with so many seaports, whose decline preserved their nineteenth-century character from twentieth-century replacement, so the whaling industry in its decline kept older vessel s in service far beyond their expected life spans. The Charles W. Morgan was finally retired at 80, only four years before the industry ended on the East Coast. Her home port of New Bedford, once the whaling capital of the world, had long since embraced the textile industry, so there was little interest in an old whaleship that, like Melville 's Pequod, was "long seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons and calms of all four oceans."

The one man with the vision to realize that she had significance for, future generations was marine artist Harry Neyland , who made the Morgan's survival his personal quest. When neither New Bedford nor Massachusetts could be persuaded to preserve her, Neyland enlisted millionaire Col. Edward H. R. Green, whose grandfather once owned the ship. Green built a wharf at his Round Hill estate, near New Bedford, and there the old whaler was entombed in a sand berth. Neyland 's group, Whaling Enshrined, with Green's financial support, exhibited the ship from 1925 until after Green's death in 1936. To the disappointment of the old seamen, artists, literary folk and tourists in search oflocal color who had come to know the ship in her retirement, Col. Green provided nothing for her in his will. Without adequate funds for proper upkeep, she began a downhill slide.

Enter Carl Cutler Harry Neyland's foresight saved the Morgan from public neglect, but Carl C. Cutler was the man who preserved her for the ages. Cutler had made an ocean voyage under sail as a young man, and throughout his legal career he looked back on that voyage as a formative experience. Distressed by America's maritime decline, he became a student of the country's nautical heritage. During research for his renowned history of 10

clipper ships, Greyhounds of the Sea, he discovered how little regard modem New Englanders had for their maritime past and the artifacts that represented it. In order to gather likeminded members and collect and preserve maritime artifacts, Cutler and two of his Mystic, Connecticut, neighbors established the Marine Historical Association on Christmas Day, 1929.

But from the beginning, Cutler had a larger plan in mind. He hoped not only to foster an interest in the past, but also to build a maritime commitment for the future. "Above all," Cutler wrote in the Association 's statement of purpose, "the youth of America must be imbued with the spirit of the sea and all for which it stands." Courage, sacrifice, the pioneer spirit of adventure, cooperation, loyalty, and high aspiration-all these, he reasoned, could be taught by the lessons of the past and could contribute to the rebirth of a powerful maritime civilization. So Cutler wanted a real ship as part of the growing complex at Mystic. The big down easter Benjamin F. Packard was desirable but impractical. The smaller Charles W. Morgan, damaged by the 1938 hurricane and in desperate need of a sponsor, was an ideal second choice.

Cutler obtained financial comm itments for her support at Mystic, then offered to take the Morgan with the assurance that she would be preserved. Neyland's Whaling Enshrined might have fought to keep their sh ip, but they loved her too much to see her disintegrate while they begged for money. In August 1941, Whaling Enshrined deeded her to the Marine Historical Association.

Arriving at Mystic only a month before the US entered World War II, the Morgan was again berthed in sand for convenience. For the next thirty years, the growing institution now named Mystic Seaport maintained her routinely, replacing her masts, much topside planking, and decking.

But maintenance is not necessarily preservation. By the mid-1960s it was clear that the Museum 's few shipwrights could not keep up with the Morgan's deterioration. Under the leadership of Director Waldo C. M. Johnston, the Seaport reviewed the possibilities. Simplest would be to sacrifice her bottom and maintain her topsides like a land structure. Or, she cou ld be moved indoors, away from the elements, and stabilized, like the Fram . Perhaps she could be put in drydock, like the Victory and the Cutty Sark (and later the Great Britain) for full visibi lity and maintenance. Or, she could be hauled from her sand berth and returned to her element like the USS Constitution. It all depended on the Museum's philosophy.

The Human Element After study, the Museum 's position was boldly enunciated by then-curator Edmund Lynch: "certainly our philosophy of conservation in the museum field is that the changes and additions to an item, whether it be a figurehead or a ship, are a true representative history of that object." Consequently, to continue to repair a vessel as if she were still in service, rather than embalming her as a dead artifact, would maintain the continuity of her existence. The Museum chose to refloat the Morgan, and, with the generous financial assistance of Henry B. duPont, constructed a complete shipyard to restore and maintain her and the rest of the Museum 's fleet.

Who would do the work? Here was an additional obligation that could be turned into a preservation opportunity. Like the ships themselves, wooden shipbuilding skills were fast dying, and only by training new generations of shipwrights could SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

-

.....

f

;t

Above. flying the house flags of New Bedford whaling merchants, the Charles W. Morgan is dedicated at Col. Green's Round Hill estate in 1925. Her sand and gravel filled berth was sealed offfrom Buzzards Bay by a cofferdam.

PhotobyAlbertCookChurch,courtesy Mystic Seaport Museum.

" ... our philosophy of conservation ... is that the changes and additions to an item ... are a true history of that object."

Ajier moving to Mystic, the Morgan was again kept in a sand berth. Here a tug and backhoe strain to free the Morgan from the sand that held her for 32 years. The backhoe operator is just visible to the right ofthe hoe. She was finally refloated on 6 December 1973. Photo by Mary Anne Stets, courtesy Mystic Seaport Museum.

SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

11

" ... the ship is the classroom, and the arts that created her will keep her sound and alive for future generations." these skills be preserved. How better to preserve the skills than by creating a traditional shipyard crew to restore and maintain the Museum's vessels? As Curator Lynch declared, the ship "is the classroom, and the arts that created her wi ll keep her sound and alive for future generations." When theMorgan was pulled from her sand berth in 1973 and overhauled on the Museum's new shipyard lift dock, then returned to float at her new wharf six months later, it was a triumph of this philosophy.

True to its mission, the Museum did not stop there. It has continued to rebuild the Morgan as necessary, using appropriate techniques and materials. The shipyard crew, under the leadership of Dana Hewson, must remain ever alert for the shipbuilding timberneeded in future years.

The calamity of Hurricane Hugo, which felled so much live oak in South Carolina, proved to be a windfall for the Museum and a chance for those who had loved their ancient trees to contribute the wood for an enduring purpose. Looking two generations into the future, the Museum has also established a tree farm of shipbuilding woods that can be The Charles W. Morgan afloat at Chubb' s Whmf The New Bedford-style granite whmf was built for harvested 60 years or more hence. her in 1974 by the Chubb family in memory of Hendon Chubb. Photo by Claire White-Peterson , The Museum's shipyard has courtesy Mystic Seaport Museum. also done painstaking research to verify the accuracy of the Morgan restoration. In light of the available documentation, the Virginian, Scandinavian, West Indian, Cape Verdean, Afriship has been restored and outfitted as she was early in this can, Hawaiian, Samoan, Japanese, Philippine-who have century. No longer is she a "typical whaleship," she is the lived in the Morgan 's forecastle, stood at her wheel, and risked Morgan as she was at a specific time in her working career. their lives in her whaleboats. As stressed in the exhibit created The world applauds Mystic Seaport's success in preserving to celebrate the Morgan's 150th anniversary, this last message the Charles W. Morgan . Yet, it is not enough to have a is the most compelling of all.

This human element touches the Seaport shipwright who seaworthy ship afloat at her wharf and a crew of young shipwrights ski lled with auger and adze, and nimble riggers to has learned to handle his tools as did the men who built the keep her sound. "Our vessels provide a unique opportunity to Morgan 150 years ago; it touches the child who helps haul on learn about the people whose lives centered around them," the halyards to set topsails with the Museum 's demonstration squad; it touches the woman in the captain's cramped stateasserts Seaport Education Director Jane Keener.

The Morgan 's first career, as a whaleship, lasted 80 years. room, viewing the gimballed bed added by Captain Landers For the past 66 years she has been embarked on a second career for the comfort of his wife; and it touches the college student as a museum ship. The emphasis of her message has varied. At in the Williams College-Mystic Seaport undergraduate proCol. Green's, she served as a stage on which former whalemen gram, interpreting for her fellow students the hierarchy aboard could recount their stories. In the political climate of the 1950s, ship. Each of them brings away a different personal message, the Morgan was presented as a "cradle of democracy." In the yet each has been touched by a ship whose spirit still lives long 1960s, as the nation challenged space, it was the epic struggle after her seagoing days have ended. D of man and whale that captured the visitor's imagination.

Now , in view of the nation's ethnic diversity and search for Mr. German has been editor in Mystic Seaport's publishing roots, we look to the shipboard world of the mariner and the program since 1978. He is the author of the award-winning many peoples-Native American, New England Yankee, book Down on T Wharf.

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SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

The Mighty Moshulu: A Short History, Part I

by Karl Kortum "The mighty Moshulu," she was called in her glory days, when she led the pack in the last grain race of big square riggers coming back to European ports from Australia, by way of Cape Horn. She is the ultimate Cape Horn sailing ship, a big four-masted steel bark built in Glasgow 88 years ago; withal she wore her great size lightly, and her remarkably graceful lines caught sailors' eyes as this century began, and as they do now toward its ending.

Today Moshulu lies in the Delaware River across from Philadelphia,stillstrongandablebutbedraggled.KarlKortum ofSan Francisco, dean ofAmerican ship-savers, tells her story here with unique authority, having sailed in the Cape Horn trade himself.He challenges us with the open question of what lies ahead for this powerful and beautiful sea creature.

squaresail. The vessel proved to be everything desired by her designers, builders and owners . .. she made money for every owner whose flag she flew for the next half century and she was singularly free of accidents of any kind. " As the Kurt, the ship originally carried coal from Europe to the fuel-less ports of Chile via Cape Horn and returned to Hamburg with cargoes consisting of some 5,000 long tons of nitrate. This trade was followed by several voyages laden with coke and patent fuel for the vast French copper mines at Santa Rosalia on the equally fuel-less coast of Mexico. The Kurt, in ballast, would then sail down to Chile and return around the Horn after loading a full cargo of nitrate.

In between, the great ship carried Australian coal across the Pacific from Newcastle, New South Wales, to Chilean ports .

But she always returned to the work of bringing valuable This magnificent vessel is the four-masted bark now moored nitrate to Germany. Nitrate was used for both fertilizer and in the Delaware River opposite the city of Philadelphia. With explosives in this ominous period before the First World War. a length of hull of335 feet, Moshulu is the largest sailing ship In 1909, Moshulu had a run from Newcastle, NSW, to in the world.

Valparaiso, Chile, of31 days, a modern sailing ship record. An As it happens, Moshulu has no historic association with the account of the Kurt's last German voyage by Dr. George eastern seaboard and it is currently proposed that she be moved Lauritz, then an able seaman on board, was published in the to San Francisco, where she was owned for riearly two de- German magazine Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft in 1974: With the signing of articles at the Seamen' s Bureau in the cades, more years than anywhere else in her long life. Moshulu has hoisted four flags-German , American , Finnish and Swed- Admiralitaets, Hamburg , we dedicated ourselves to service on ish-in the course of her career. Of all the flags , the Stars and the four-masted bark Kurt of the G. J. H. Siemers & Co .Jar a journey to Santa Rosalia, Mexico, "beyond that and back." The Stripes flew the longest.

Moshulu was built by William Hamilton and Co.of Glasgow, date was February 14, 1914. German sailing ships were manScotland, in 1904 for the G. J. H. Siemers Co. of Hamburg, aged very economically by their owners. Adding to a small Germany, and her original name was Kurt. This state-of-the-art standby crew, which was on board during the ship's stay in port, sai ling ship was a culmination in design, fittings and gear of a the full new crew arrived (myself amongst them) shortly before long effort-more than 3,000 years- that saw man seeking to departure. None of us knew each other; we knew only-- in our harness the wind and efficiently carry cargo under sail. In talking back andforth that morninr some ofthe ships that some triumphant fas hion, she, and a handful of others launched after of us had sailed in. Our cabin boy was 15, hailedfrom Saxony, the tum of the century, brought to an end this long struggle. and the captain, 35 years old, was from the Isle ofFoe hr. With the exception of one 60-year-old sailor, none of us was of Moshulu is the ultimate deepwater sailing ship.

The fo rests of the British Isles were exhausted in the building voting age (21 ). Our more than3,000 gross tons Kurt, clean as of the " wooden walls," the sailing men-of-war that had held off a whistle from stem to stern, was flying the Blue Peter, ready to depart with a cargo of the French during the Napoleonic Wars, which culmi - A painting ofthe Moshulu owned and probably commissioned in Australia by briquettes and anthracite nated in the triumph of Lord the bark' s last American commander, Capt. P.A. McDonald. Artist unknown. coal for the copper mines of Santa Rosalia.

Nelson at Trafalgar. Britain In a ferryboat named Jolwas obliged to tum to her lenfuehrer, we were carried mines if she was going to out to the ship. Impressive continue building ships, and Kurt lay there revealing her the Kurt, like some 3,000 beautiful lines, telling us she iron and stee l deepwatermerhad the makings of a fast chant ships that preceded her, sailer.Her hull was black with was built of the new material . white imitation gunport stripShe has a steel hull , steel spars ing, and under that a section and steel rigging wire. painted white. Above all this In her early years, she was rose the more than 40-metercommanded by Captain highmastswith their precisely Chri stof Schlitt, " ... and a braced yards. We looked at tough nut he was ," in the her critically and then with words of the veteran Pacific joy. It might be said in perCoast sailing ship captain Fred Klebingat of Coos Bay, Oregon. Capt. Schlitt took her sonal terms we had signed "to gain or lose" and Kurt withstood four times around Cape Hom and twice across the Pacific from the challenge of our scrutiny.

Without any time allowed f or shore leave, we departed the Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia, to Chile.

In the words of J. Ferrell Colton in his book Windjammers next day. Our three hip-hip-hoorays at the Landingsbridges Significant (1954) devoted to Moshulu and her sister ship Hans: on Hamburg' s wate1front were heartily responded to by shore "So began a career almost without parallel in the annals of people who waved hats, canes and baby carriage covers as the SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

13

The ship leaned way over to one side and stayed there, the waves started to grow, and the first breakers came over the bulwarks. stately ship towed past. However, our accelerated gaiety on board was suddenly interrupted with the sharp sound of a whistle calling the crew on to the Liverpool deck for the setting of the watches and a short talk by the captain. He spoke with vigor about a fast voyage---and absolute obedience. His words put everybody in their place. There was no compromise. Any grievance could be settled by the sea courts after voyage's end and full pay-off. Only then would our own will count again. It all was clear and without question, given to us in brieffashion. Rough , but ... ?

Anyway, there was no laughing for a while.

Normal passage soon brought us into the seaman' s paradise, the northeast and south east "passat" (trade winds). Under the coast of Argentina's Patagonia , the gradually appearing west winds put the smell ofthe pampas into our noses-we knew that with this, cold and bad weather were not long to come. Even with sail set only up to the lower topgallants, Kurt showed what she could do , running at 16to18 knots. We pressed west as much as possible at the beginning of the passage into the Cape Horn region. The captain sailed the ship through the Strait ofLe Maire, very close to Tierra del Fuego , between this archipelago and Staten Island.

Then , out of the mist early one morning about 60 days out of Hamburg, a massive and high rock formation appeared. This was Cape Horn. To the west the land disappeared in a high rocky formation; to the east it flattened softly into the mist. The great rock's color was black and gray. Not a sign of any life. Even a few lost, early rays of sun did not create a more chee1ful scene.

It all looked very sober, indeed.

Up to now, we were carrying the upper topsails and steering a southern course. No captain in his right mind would try to round Cape Horn as close as we were ; we swung in a large circle toward the south to make a better traverse. I happened to have my turn at the wheel that morning. Captain T onissen, with a rare impulse, gave me some explanations ofthe course he was taking. We watched a long white water stripe in the comparatively calm sea, caused by two different currents

Captain W. Tonissen, seated third from left, and crew pose for their portrait. Photo, courtesy Dr. Jurgen Meyer.from his collection. striking each other. Suddenly, hasty black clouds came storming over the rocky landscape I have described, fell on them and erased the entire picture completely. With a shudder our sails filled and stiff ened out. We had got a little bit south from the shelter ofthe land. The westerly storm was now let loose upon us and it sang that old moaning melody through the rigging. The ship leaned way over to one side and stayed there, the waves started to grow, and the first breakers came over the bulwarks.

We had prepared f or this for several days and had stretched ropes on the Liverpool deck, rail to rail, and also down on deck from bow to stern for the sailors to hold on to when the waves boarded. All hatches were doubly covered, so as to be absolutely watertight, and long nets were stretched above the rail along each side of the decks to strain out the sailors in case they were washed off their feet and headed overboard. Our pigs and chickens could no longer remain on deck and the only otherfourlegger was the captain' s dog, but he, too, hardly left his belowdeck quarters.

The ship's port side was now completely under water and everything was covered with white ocean foam. Deeper and deeper Kurt dug her bow into the turbulent sea, with breakers now covering the entire forecastle. We were carrying too much canvas. Midday we went aloft and secured the mizzen sail as well as the upper topsails on mizzen and main masts, and finally the mainsail. By evening, we had taken in more sails yet.

Once again both watches had to go up and furl the fore upper topsail. We ate hastily . With the watch changing every four hours, there was little time to sleep. The music of the wind, when we were below, was not so harsh. But the sound of the ship working was continuous.

The foregoing voyage was to Santa Rosalia in the Gulf of California, halfway up the eastern shore of the long Baja peninsula.

A dozen large Gennan Cape Horn square riggers were in Santa Rosalia, discharging coke and patent fuel for the steam plants and locomotives of the French mining operation. Among them was what could be called her "brother ship" theHans; Hans and Kurt were the two sons of Edmund Siemers, then owner of the nearly century-old finn . The Kurt discharged her cargo, The Kurt, with a tug alongside, in Hamburg harbor in 1908. Photo courtesy Walter R. Kresse, Museum of Hamburg History.

14

SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

The ship's port side was now completely under water and everything was covered with white ocean foam. loaded copper slag for ballast, and got away for the Columbia River with the intention of loading her first grain cargo.

She sailed on the 4th of August; France had been invaded on the 2nd. Capt. Tonissen may have known the first World War had begun. In any case, he got his ship to sea while the rest of the German fleet, caught by the war, swung to an anchor in Santa Rosalia for half a dozen years.

Mexico was torn by bloody revolution during this period.

Capt. Harold Huycke describes the Kurt' s departure in his classic work To Santa Rosalia , Further and Back: Capt. Tonissen extended more than a little hospitality to a Senor Romano while in port, and upon taking his leave from Santa Rosalia, smuggled this Mexican out of the country. The morning after sailing, Romano came out on deck in all his military plumage, startling the crew but soon making himself comfortable for the passage to the Columbia River. Romano, erstwhile governor general of Baja California, had become unwelcome in his own land during the political changes and was given asylum on the Kurt.

Capt. Tonissen' s decison to proceed to the Columbia River to load wheat, as his charter provided, was not without some risk, since the Pacific Coast was to become, within a matter of a few days, a hunting ground for Canadian and British warships seeking out German merchant vesselsfor seizure or destruction.

But Kurt negotiated the passage safely and arrived off the Columbia River bar on 11 September after a passage of thirtyeight days. She was towed across the bar to Astoria and there she was moored in idleness for ... more than two and a half years.

However, with the entry of the United States into the war, Kurt was seized on April 16, 1917, by the US Navy, and Capt.

Tonissen , the last man on board, was sent to a prison camp in Georgia.

Renamed Dreadnought, then Moshulu (from the Seneca word meaning "fearless") by Mrs. Woodrow Wilson-she gave Indian names to seven seized German sailing ships-and now hoisting the Stars and Stripes, the refurbished vessel loaded 2,400,000 board feet of lumber in the Pacific Northwest for Melbourne, Australia. She returned with chrome ore and wool loaded in Sydney. Her commander, Capt. Richard Lancaster, was one of the most respected shipmasters on the Pacific Coast; in his day he had commanded the well-known clipper ship Dashing Wa ve (built in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1853). Capt. Lancaster found he had dissidents among the Moshulu 's crew; there was a stabbing, a theft of the steward's funds , and continual instances when the ship was found to be steered off course when the captain was not on deck. There was a likelihood that German sympathizers had signed on before the mast.

Capt. Lancaster's suspicions seemed to be verified when, in the neighborhood of the Line, a region usually beset by light and fickle winds, the smoke of a steamer was sighted. Could it be that the steamer was giving chase? The nervousness on board was not eased by a dissident's comment. According to an account in the San Francisco Examiner of 22 May 1918, one was heard to say: "That's a friend of ours coming to look us up and soon we will be aboard a real ship and among white men ." The newspaper reporter was told that if a fortunate strengthening of the wind had not occurred, there seemed little doubt that Moshulu would have become the victim of a German raider.

On arrival in San Francisco, the old clipper captain signalled the shore and five men--one American, one Norwegian SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

and three Russians-were taken off the ship by a party of Navy bluejackets on suspicion of being "Wobblies" (International Workmen of the World) , agents in the employ of Germany.

Following this trip there were several successful voyages to Australia and the Philippines, outbound with steel, lumber and case oil (two five-gallon cans in a wooden box or case, a way of shipping kerosene and gasoline before the days of tankers), and returning with cargoes of hemp, sugar, copra and coconut oil. Her crew were largely Shipping Board cadets under experienced old-time mates and masters. After a short spell under the ownership of a firm hastily organized in San Francisco and styling itself the "Moshulu Navigation Co." (the head of the firm was in Government custody, having got into financial difficulty with the US Shipping Board), the Moshulu was acquired by the venerable San Francisco lumber firm, Charles Nelson Co., at that time the largest shipper of lumber in the world. Moshulu sailed from the company mill at Port Angeles on the Straits of Juan de Fuca around the Horn to South Africa. She carried a deckload as well as lumber in the hold. Similarly laden , she also made coastwise lumber voyages from the mill to San Pedro, California.

In 1927 the Moshulu joined the last great flotilla of sailing ships-both square-rigged and fore and aft-to cross the wide Pacific. The reason for this sudden colorful gatheri ng of wellknown West Coast windjammers was that the Australian tax on lumber imports was about to rise.

The numberofvessels assembling in the Pacific Northwest for the 1927 voyage put a strain on the supply of capable, oldtime sailing ship seamen. As Capt. P.A. McDonald described it: "My crew for the Australian voyage in the Moshulu had to be rounded up from almost everywhere by a shipping master (shanghaier) to whom I paid $20 per head for sai lors and soldiers alike. One half were soldiers." [Sailors ' common ly referred to loafers and laggards as "soldiers."]

On January 16, 1928 on the passage home, the log book showed that an able seaman "incited the crew to disobey orders." The author has an interesting account of this voyage taken down from Jack Dickerhoff, a participant. Its burden is that an able, high-spirited crew could not restrain themselves from roughing up a weak chief mate.

On arrival from this last lumber passage, the ship was laid up at Seattle for seven long colorless years at anchor. After three years, it was necessary to tow Moshulu,as well as Charles Nelson Co.'s Monongahela, out of Lake Union, lest the nearly completed George Washington Memorial Bridge imprison the tallmasted vessels.- Moshulu and Monongahela were towed across Puget Sound to Winslow on Bainbridge Island and moored with anchors ahead and stern lines run to fir trees.

Moshulu and the thinning ranks of deepwater sailing ships that remained on the Pacific Coast (their last American habitat) were victims of the inroads of the more economical steamship and the worldwide Depression.

A statement by P.A. McDonald, her last American master, who stayed by her all this time, sounds an elegiac note, one later found to be prophetic: "It is partly therig and beauty of these tall ships and partly the background, history and prestige of these selfsame ships and their forebears that stirs the imagination of men and officers alike, thus making it possible to man and sai l them." D Mr. Kortum, Chairman Emeritus of NMHS , is the founder of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.

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Taking the Initiative Six Years of Gains in the Cause of Maritime Preservation

by Jim Delgado

The past six years have seen tremendous gains in the cause of maritime preservation. Several hi storic ships in risk of being lost were saved for posterity , a federal shipwreck law was passed to encourage the preservation of endangered archaeological resources, and millions of dollars were allocated for the restoration and preservation of hi storic lighthouses. We also saw the establishment of a national inventory of historic ships, shipwrecks and lighthouses; the publication of National Trust guides to the lights and ships; the reestablishment of a federa l program to document hi storic vessels through photographs and measured drawings; and a substantial increase in the number of maritime-related properties either listed in the National Register of Historic Places or designated as National Historic landmarks.

Between late 1986 and April 1991 , I was privileged to work with the maritime preservation commun ity to achieve many of

these goals in my former posi tion as the head of the National Maritime Initiative. The Initi ative was created by the National Park Service from within its own ranks in 1986 in response to a Congressional request to address the obvious need for bureaucratic remedies to some of the pressing problems faced by maritime preservationists. The strength of the initiative lay with the number of people that pulled together to tackle the problems. It was a cooperative effort that brought together not only the various programs and professionals in the Park Service, but people in the various state historic preservation programs, maritime museums and elsewhere who shared a common goal.

On a personal note, it was a wonderfully fast, intense and educational period of my life. Although based in Washington DC, I was fortunate to escape the beltway and frequently work in the field. That meant constant interaction with people and the resource, be it diving on shipwrecks in Lake Michigan , climbing lighthouse towers, sailing or steam ing on a ship, or crawling the bilges of some laid-up vessel. It was an intensive education in the essence of maritime America, from coast to coast, to the lakes and inland rivers, and to the small communities whose very nature is inexorably linked to waterborne transportation, commerce

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Drive and determination typify restoration efforts throughout the country. Above, old meets new, a carpenter crafts a knee during the rebuilding of the 1882 Maine windjammer Grace Bailey, a 1991 National Historic Landmark nominee. At left, Pilot, one of two remaining historic pilot boats associated with the Port of Boston, under restoration at Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1989. On the right, USS Texas, the sole surviving American dreadnought, built in 1914, under restoration at Todd Shipyard in Galveston, Texas.

SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

One of the products of the Initiative was new Park Service standards for the preservation of historic vessels currently being field tested on the restoration of the schooner Lettie G. Howard at South Street Seaport, New York.

and recreation. It with the restoration and rebuilding of the schooner Lettie G. meant talking to Howard at South Street Seaport in New York. tugboat masters, Another important step was the study of more than a hundred boat builders, wind- historic ships for possible designation as National Historic jamming schooner Landmarks-only a handful of vessels had achieved this honor captains and scores prior to 1985. As the ultimate designation of historical and of men who had de- cultural significance in the United States, the status of a National fended their coun- Historic Landmark was clearly a crying need to many worthy 6 try during the Sec- ships. As of the end of 1991 , there are now one hundred NHL ships, including recently designated vessels such as Stephen ~ ond World Waron 2 the decks of battle- Taber, Ernestina, Elissa, Delta Queen, Lightship No. 83 "Re~ ships, carriers, de- lief," the presidential yacht Potomac, Lane Victory, the oyster ~ stroyers and mersloopChristeen,FallsofClyde,Bowdoin,therivertowboatLone fStar, the dredge Capt. Meriwether Lewis, the fireboat Deluge, ~ chant ships. I made and the Maine windjammers American Eagle, Lewis R. French, ~ many friends and learned much. It I.E. Riggin, Grace Bailey, Mercantile and Isaac H. Evans. We g: also left me with a were also able to include other properties, like the wrecks of the clear sense of how USS Arizona and USS Utah, Lowell's Boat Shop and the Point little I actually know about maritime history and preservation. Reyes Lifeboat Station, even though the emphasis was on ships.

The products of these years of work were many. In 1990, As a shipwreck archaeologist, I was perhaps happiest when the Initiative published the Inventory of Large Preserved diving historic shipwrecks. As part of the Initiative, the NPS Historic Vessels in the United States. This listing of the Submerged Cultural Resources Unit, headed by Daniel J. characteristics of each vessel, with a brief statement of signifi- Lenihan, mapped and explored shipwrecks throughout the US cance and a photograph, is being continually revised. It re- and abroad, demonstrating that history could be recovered sides, when not in print, in electronic form at the office of the from the bottom without disturbing or retrieving a single Maritime Initiative in Washington DC. Every change-be it a artifact from the seabed. Their work at various national parks, sinking or scrapping, the preservation and presentation to the and with the US Navy at Pearl Harbor, Palau, Guam, the. public of a newly saved ship, or a change in ownership--is Aleutians, Bikini Atoll, and in Mexico was matched by a recorded for the next edition. Backing up the inventory is a set of concerted effort to create a successful diplomatic initiative detailed files for each of the nearly 300 vessels. In addition, that linked the Navy, the NPS , NOAA, and the State Departseveral thousand negatives, most of them 35mm black and white ment to encourage international agreements to study and shots of each ship and its details, as well as a fairly comprehen- preserve significant shipwrecks. That effort has paid off with sive color slide library of the national "fleet," are on file at the work on the CSS Alabama in France and the US brig Somers Initiative office. The same sortofinventory exists for lighthouses in Mexico.

There are many things left to be done. The inventory of and a test set of several hundred shipwrecks, including all of lighthouses needs publication, and the shipwreck inventory those listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1987, we found that barely 42 percent of the seemingly needs to be expanded. The NHL study should continue to eligible ships had been been nomiPHOTO BY JAMES P. DELGADO nated to and listed in the National Register. Our first step was to publish a special bulletin that explained how to adapt the National Future NHL listings could include more properties Register process to ships and ship- other than vessels, but thefirst concernfor the Initiative wrecks. This was followed in 1990 is eligible ships. Two new listings are the Point Reyes with a special bulletin on nomi- Lifeboat Station in Michigan, at right, and Lowell's nating historic lighthouses. Other Boat Shop in Amesbury, Massachusetts, below.

NPS publications aimed at helping maritime preservation included guidelines for documenting historic vessels, a bibliography oflighthouse preservation, and theSecretaryofthe Interior' sStandards for Historic Preservation Projects, with Guidelines for Applying the Standards. The standards, written by Michael Naab of the National Trust, have been widely adopted and are being used on a number of projects. Most notably, they are being field tested

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SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

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Future Initiative efforts may result in an expanded national inventory of shipwrecks. Jim Delgado is pictured here diving on the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, sunk at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

study the 30-odd vessels as yet unassessed. That study should then be expanded to lighthouses, significant sites ashore, and shipwrecks. Technical manuals and guides for maritime preservation, perhaps a manual to follow up on the Secretary's Standards, are needed. While a number of historic vessels and lighthouses have been exhaustively documented as part of the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), that process, which has lagged from lack of community support, needs to

continue. Tax cr~dits and incentives similar to those in place for buildings, need to be expanded to ships. And the work to date needs to be reviewed and revised where needed in this sixth year of the program.

I left the Initiative in April 1991 to pursue a career at ·a maritime museum where I could focus on a small group of ships, a collection and an institution. A new head of the Maritime Initiative will be taking on the job in early 1992. That person, as well as the National Park Service, needs to hear from the maritime preservation community. As an interested, centrally located office, the National Maritime Initiative has served as an effective clearinghouse and coordinator of efforts and information in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Maritime Alliance.

Your thoughts, advice and criticism ensure that the job it does serves us all. D ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: So many people were involved in the National Maritime Initiative during my tenure that it would be impossible to acknowledge them all. However, I want to single out for thanks the two individuals who worked the longest and the hardest, Candy Clifford and Kevin Foster. Without their long hours and devotion to the cause, much of the work would not have been done.

Jim Delgado is now Director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum in British Columbia.He recently co-authored with Candace Clifford the new PreservationPressbookGreatAmerican Ships, drawn from records at the National Maritime offices.

British marine paintings?

C HAS. B ROOKING . J.W. CARMICHAEL. J oHN CLEVELEY . D AVID CoBB. GEORGE E ARL . W. J. H UGGINS . JoHN WARD. R OBERT WILLOUGHBY . W .

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BACKHUYZEN • BLAAUW • KOBELL • VANDER M EULEN • M OOY •Circle of Bonaventura P EETERS • SALM • SILO • Esaias VANDE VELDE• Pieter VAN DE VELDE • VERBEECK • Circle of H endrik C. VROOM • CC. van WIERINGEN • Adam WILLAERTS • H eerman WITMONT •

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enjoy "Last Departure" on board the clipper ship "Cutty Sark" opposite the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

Contact the Artist direct for d e tails of paintings, commissions, and prints .

Gordon Frickers, Lakeside Studio, 94 Radford Park Rd., Plymouth, Devon, PL9 9DX England Tel: (01144) 752-403344.

MARTIFACTS, INC. MARINE COLLECTIBLES from scrapped si'lips and SS. UNITED STATES. lamps. blocks. clocks. linen. etc Send $1 for brochure: MARTIFACTS, INC. P.O. Box 8604 Jacksonville. Fl 32239 Tel: 904-642-351 7

SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

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United States Brig Niagara

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The "United States Brig Niagara" print is a detail frow the 36" x 84", 1887 painting by the noted American Marine Artist, Julian Oliver Davidson, which is fully titled: "Commodore Perry In The United States Brig Niagara Breaking The British Line Of Battle, Lake Erie, September 10, 1813"

The "Old Ironsides" print is after the 60" x 36", 1884 painting

by Julian 0. Davidson, fully titled: "U.S.S. Constitution Escaping From The British - July 1812" and is reproduced under license from The U.5.5. Constitution Museum Foundation, Boston, MA.

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SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

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The painting catches Captain Nat in a moment of relaxation, totally in control yet totally at ease in his element. Sailing ROBIN from his family home nestled along th e Bristol village shoreline past the stern of his magnifice nt Cup Defender RESOLUTE, the crew is seen in unconscious salute in their attention.

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''The Great Age of Sail'' A Remarkable Sampling of the World's Great Marine Art from England's National Maritime Museum Will Come To America in 1992

by Roger Quarm, Curator of Paintings National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

"The Great Age of Sail," showing at San Diego, Norfolk and Salem, provides the opportunity to see the greatest maritime paintings in the collections of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich-pictures of the sea and ships and portraits of famous men connected with the sea, supported by ship models and decorative and navigational items. The exhibition uses the Museum 's collections to illustrate central themes, such as "Man 's Encounter with the Elements," "War at Sea," "Shipbuilding and Navigation," "Exploration," "Sailing," etc. But, implicit in all this, another un-named theme is evident, for the exhibition also examines the emergence and development of marine painting, first in the Netherlands and then in England, during a period spanning four hundred years. Although the National Maritime Museum opened comparatively recently in 1937, over the centuries Greenwich has provided a background strongly associated with the production of marine paintings, and it has also provided a magnificent setting for them to be displayed since the early years of the nineteenth century.

The star of the exhibition will undoubtedly be Turner's great set piece, "The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805," commissioned by King George IV in 1823 to hang in St. James's Palace, London. Turner's exploitation of the sea for dramatic and atmospheric effect in his paintings is almost legendary , but "Trafalgar" posed rather different problems; it had, to a considerable degree, to be factual, and nearly twenty years had passed since the battle. Turner tried hard to get things right, approaching the marine painter John Christian Schetky at Portsmouth for drawings of the Victory as she lay in the harbor. (Schetky's work is also represented in the exhibition.)

But Turner had not bargained for hi s audience and foremost among them was the King' s brother, the Duke of Clarence, lat~ r King William IV, a patron of Robert Cleveley and later of George Chambers. As Lord High Admiral, he was a naval officer and had served at sea for some years during the 1780s when he knew Nelson. He also shared the naval officer's attitude to marine painting that it should be correct in all its detail, from the rigging to the gun smoke, and Turner's picture was not, mainly because the Victory was shown standing too high out of the water, which is precisely how Schetky had seen her at Portsmouth.

Turner's "Trafalgar," it could be argued, is almost the antithesis of what the marine painter was expected to produce for this patron. In any case, only a few years later, in 1829, George IV decided to present the picture to the newly established gallery of marine pictures at Greenwich Hospital. In 1992 the picture will leave Greenwich for the first time.

Greenwich Hospital, founded by William and Mary in 1694 as a home for seamen-the naval counterpart of Chelsea Hospital for old soldiers-was built by Sir Christopher Wren and others on the site of the old Tudor royal palace of Placentia.

Its buildings, as completed in the middle of the 18th century, can be seen from across a busy River Thames in Canaletto 's "Greenwich Hospital from the North Bank of the Thames."

Wren's domes rise above the river where the shipping and activity are worthy of close inspection.

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Here, in 1795, Nelson's friend William Locker, Lieutenant-Governor of the hospital, suggested there should be "a National Gallery of Marine Paintings, to commemorate the eminent services of the Royal Navy of England." In the event, the idea was not realized unti I 1821, when a gallery was established in the Painted Hall-the great dining hall decorated with paintings by Sir James Thornhill-and in the ensuing years both King George IV and William IV gave pictures generously from the Royal Collection. The public were admitted to see the collection for the sum of threepence.

Additional paintings of worthy events were commissioned.

Notable among these was "The Bombardment of Algiers, 27 August 1816," which George Chambers was asked to paint in 1836. Like Turner, the ri sing young marine painter went to great pains to get the detail right, travelling more than two hundred miles to Plymouth to make studies of men of war, but, like Turner, Chambers did not entirely manage to please the naval fraternity at Greenwich.

The Greenwich Hospital Collection now forms the core of the picture collection of the National Maritime Museum, which has been augmented to represent the full range of marine painting, both English and Dutch . Bridging these two, major works by Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611-93) and Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633- 1707) have been acq uired. These artists, having worked for the Dutch government depicting shipping and sea battles, "changed sides," coming to England during the winter of 1672/3 to work for Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York (later James II), who was then Lord High Admiral.

Living and working at Greenwich , probably in the Queen 's House, which in Canaletto 's picture can be seen right in the center in the distance, and which is now part of the Museum, the Van de Veldes undertook a wide range of work which is reflected in "The Great Age of Sail." This included ship portraits such as the Younger's picture of the Royal Escape, a vessel particularly close to the heart of Charles II, since it was in her, then a collier, that he escaped to France in 1651. He renamed and adopted her as a yacht as a reminder of this adventure at the Restoration in 1660. Royal events also provided subjects. "The Departure of William of Orange and Princess Mary for Holland, 19 November 1677," a beautiful, luminous scene set in the Thames estuary, portrays the moment when Charles II and the Duke of York have just taken their leave of the Duke's daughter, Princess Mary, following her marriage.

It is a "calm sunny day." Thecoupleareaboard the central vessel, the yacht Mary, but so too is the Elder Van de Velde, who sai led with them to Holland making drawings on the way. The picture is almost an allegory of the now peaceful relations between England and Holland reflected in the marriage.

By complete contrast, nothing could be more warlike than the Younger's piece de resistance, the great "Battle of the Texel, 11 August 1673," the last battle of the third AngloDutch war, fought between the Dutch on one side and the English and French on the other. Painted entirely by the Younger in 1687 and therefore a retrospective depiction of the SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

Like his father, Van de Velde the Younger went to sea to experience what he painted.

The difference is that the Younger infused his own passion into his scenes of storm and battle.

"The Battle of the Texel, 11 August1673," oil on canvas , 59 x 118 inches, by Willem van de Ve/de the Younger ( 1633-1707) . ltwouldnot be an exaggeration to describe this picture as the masterpiece of the Younger Van de Ve/de. It is considered to be entirely by his own hand, without studio assistance. The dramaticf ocus is on Tromp' s flagship, the Gouden Leeuw.

"Worthy of closer inspection," says Roger Quarm of the incredibly varied river life that flows through Canaletto's "Greenwich Hospital," an urbanist's vision of the Thames as London's great thoroughfare.

Centerfo ld: "GreenwichHospitalfromthe NorthBank ofthe Thames," oil on can vas, 77 x 42 inches, by Antonio Canal, called Canaletto ( 1697-1768). Dating from around 1750, Canaletto's view shows, in the distance between the domes, the Queen' s House where the Van de Ve/des are thought to have had their studio. The Painted Hall, lying beneath the dome on the right.from 1823 housed the galle1y of naval pictures, which from 1829 was to include Turner' s "Trafalgar." At right, a detail from the right f oreground of the painting.

SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 199 1-92

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SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

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SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

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"The Yacht Royal Caroline," oil on canvas,3 Jl/2 x 35 1/2 inches, by John Cleveley the Elder (ca. 17121777). Shown at sea in the year fo llowing her launch in the mid-1700s at Deptford dockyard, this portrait of the Royal Caroline reveals a f eel f or f resh air and salt spray.

battle, the disposition of the ships with the Couden Leeuw in the center firing guns to port and starboard, telJs us that it was painted for a Dutchman, most likely for Lieutenant Admiral Comelis Tromp, whose flagship she was. In this large canvas, obviously intended to hang in a prominent position to glorify the actions of its owner, the steel grey sea emphas izes the pure white of the gun smoke and the gilded carving on the stem galleries of the Couden Leeuw, while the six-striped "double prince" flag fl ying high from the main dominates the action.

The Van de Velde studio dominated marine painting in England well into the 18th century, with English painters imitating the set pieces, such as the calms or storms, fo r which they had become famous. But when English marine painters began to emerge in their own right in the l 740s and 1750s, their lives were often closely related to the Thames and the Thames estuary. Greenwich, where the Royal yachts were based , and the nearby Royal dockyard at Deptford provide the background to the lives of a number of marine artists, in particular the Cleveley famil y and Charles Brooking. Brooking ' s father may well have worked as a painter and decorator in the very buildings we see in Canaletto 's view of Greenwich Hospital and there is a suggestion that his son was brought up in Deptford dockyard.

John Cleveley the Elder (ca. 171 2-1777) was a shipwright and worked in Deptford dockyard. His paintings of ships being 26

built at Deptford, therefore, come straight out of the ex periences of his trade. As such, they have, not surprisingly, a certain stiffness-the ships sometimes look like ship models-but the pictures are full of real life and detail. "The Royal George at Deptford, Showing the Launch of the Cambridge" is full of such detail, not onl y relating to ship construction.

Look out fo r the musicians, the pu nch bow ls being passed! Of Cleveley' s paintings, very few depict the open sea, but his painting of the yacht Royal Caroline is a superb example, fu ll of wind , spray and fresh air. One feels that he must surely have been looking at paintings by Brooking. The vessel, of course, built at Deptford, he would have known well , and his picture, dated 1750, must surely commemorate her launch in 1749.

Charles Brooking 's "Ships in a Light Breeze," although it, too, may be a ship portrait, shows how, for Brooking, the shipping is an integral part of the whole; the ships are placed in the context of sea and sky, and the prevailing effects of wind , weather and light. In other words, despite the very specific shipping types, this pictu re is close to landscape. The transparent greeny yeIJow of the little waves suggests the muddy waters of the Thames estuary.

The ship portrait might be painted for a wide range of patrons, from the King to a modest ship owner. The nineteenth century saw the rise of the mercantile ship portrait in which a ship owner might boast of the success of his business, just as SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

"Ships in a Light Breeze," oil on canvas, 27 x 27 inches

by Charles Brooking (1723-1759).

Brooking's well-armed ships breathe the surety and elegant poise of England's emergent status as the world's leading sea powerwith a happy appreciation of their physicality and the working of their gear.

SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

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Turner gives us Nelson's Victory looming huge, ineffably terrible at Trafalgar, a battle that had already passed into mythology when Turner painted his tremendous picture. The Victory, Nelson 's monument and sepulcher, has become the apotheosis of sea power.

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"The BattleofTrafalgar,21October1805 ," oil on canvas , 103x 145 inches, by Joseph Ma/lord William Turner (1 775-1851 ). This is Turner's only royal commission and the largest picture he ever painted. The low viewpoint is intended to emphasize the dramatic element of the composition, with the Victory towering above the figures in the foreground. Despite early criticism of the picture and an uneasiness which still persists , the picture has great overall impact and is worthy of close inspection for passages containing a wealth of dramatic incident, not to mention the handling of the paint.

Roger Quarm graduated in 1971 from Reading University and has worked since then at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England, currently as Curator of Paintings. He and John Wyllie coauthored W. L. Wyllie, Marine Artist, 1851-1931 , London 1981and1988.

SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

"Storm and Sunshine; A Battle with the Elements ," oil on canvas , 42 x 72 inches, by William Lionel Wyllie (1851-1931).

A gallant veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, reduced to a storage hulk, surges at her mooring cables like a tethered steed, as a squall lashes her weathered timbers. For a moment she is alive again, illumined in a fugitive light recalling past glories-an intensely evocative salute to the passing of the Great Age of Sail. previously the naval officer might have wished to show off his exploits. Samuel Walter's portrait of the Euphrates, showing the Liverpool ship arriving at Capetown on a voyage to India, is the epitome of this kind of picture on a grand scale. On the other hand, John Lynn 's little picture of a Bermuda schooner was presumably painted for a similar purpose-to please the vessel's owner, although we do not know his name, nor that of the schooner.

For William Lionel Wyllie, working in the late nineteenth century, the River Thames from the Pool of London, down past Greenwich Reach as far as the River Medway and Thames estuary, were all-important and provided the subjects which helped to make his name. Rather like the Van de Ve Ides, he drew almost obsessively all he saw around him, sometimes working from his own barge, keeping the drawing for future reference. He saw and drew the great wooden fighting ships which then lay as hulks abandoned to other uses in the Thames-a subject exploited by his hero Turner in "The FightingTemeralre." Turner's lesson for Wyllie was in the rendering of atmosphere for dramatic effect, and this we can see in his 1885 "Storm and SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

Sunshine; a Battle with the Elements."

Wyllie experienced the scene at first hand, and in doing so brings to mind Turner being lashed to the mast. The picture could almost be described as a ship portrait. An old wooden hulk (she is actually the Leonidas of 1807) is being used for the storage of gun cotton, which is being loaded. A sudden squall has come down while the men work. A writer who saw the picture when it was exhibited described the effect: "a passing ray of sunlight on a ship's side, while the rest of the hull and surrounding water is lashed by wind and rain." If the dramatic effect achieved by Wyllie was inspired by Turner, we might also remember that in depicting a ship's hull with men at work, he is doing exactly the same as Brooking, John Cleveley or the Van de Veldes. Or, for that matter, Canaletto, who, in his view of Greenwich Hospital, includes in the right hand foreground a ship being careened. O This exhibition is scheduled to open in the US at the San Diego Museum ofArt in March, 1992. lt will then go to the Chrysler Museum , N01folk, Virginia, and early in 1993 will show at the Peabody Museum, Salem, Massachusetts.

29

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MARINE ART NEWS At the close of business on April 18, Seaport exhibitions "Hemm' d Thick with very well attended. Successful exhibi1990, New York's Seamen's Bank for Sailships: 19th Century Views of New tions were also held at the American Savings was taken over by Federal regu- York Harbor," "Herman Melville's Pic- MerchantMarineMuseumatKingsPoint lators. The next day, the bank's thirteen tureGallery" and"' ... a mariner's fancy': NY, and the Scott Kennedy Gallery in branches reopened under the manage- The Whaleman 's Art of Scrimshaw." Newport Beach CA. ment of Chase Manhattan. A 161-year- (South Street Seaport Museum, 207 Front "It's not just membership, however, old institution, born in service to New Street, New York NY 10038) but the scope of the work itself that has York's bustling 19th century marigrown," reports Beaumont. For some time trade, had foundered in the shaky years now the range of work has mortgage market of the late 1980s. moved away from what he describes After paper assets changed hands, the as "j ust square riggers and clipper most visible expression of the bank 's ships" to an acceptance of more dimaritime legacy remained intact but verse subjects and the mediums of without a home-a remarkable colgraphics and sc ulpture. Thi s will be lection of maritime artwork relating evident in the upcoming 10th ASMA to New York Harbor.

National Exhibition of Marine Art. Happily, this one-of-a-kind assortOver 100 pieces, including paintings, ment of art and artifacts will not be drawings, graphics and sculpture wi ll broken up and sold or even hidden be featured in the exhibition opening from public view. Following an un- Marine oils "Pilot Boat# 17" by Conrad Freitag , May 22 and showing through Sepsuccessful legal challenge from a pri- above, and James E. Buttersworth' s "The Brig Sun tember 21 at the R. J. Schaefer Galvate collector disputing the decision offCastle Garden," below.from the Seamen's Bank lery of Mystic Seaport Museum in by the Federal Deposit Insurance Cor- Collection at South Street Seaport Museum .

KH Connecticut. poration to sell the failed bank 's collection to South Street Seaport MuExhibitions seum, the collection's future is now • Showing through March 15, Thoassured. Indeed, it comes as a major mas Eakins: Reflections on the birthday present for the museum , Water , featuring marine oils and wawhich celebrates its 25th anniversary tercolors by the great American Realthis year. Peter Aron, Museum Chairist Thomas Eakins (1844-1916). man, describes the Seaport as a home Philadelphia Maritime Museum, 321 for the collection: "For two decades Chestnut Street, Philadelphia PA the museum has acquired and restored 19106; 215 925-5439. a magnificent collection of historic •Showing through March 31, "Porships and 19th century buildings. traits of Steel," at the Navy MuNow, it can also display fine works of seum, featuring the work of US Navy art which complete the picture of New artist Arthur Beaumont (1890-1978).

York's maritime heritage. A tremendous The Navy Museum , Building 76, Wash* * * * * cultural resource has been saved."

Gathering interest in marine art, regional ington Navy Yard, WashingtonDC20374.

The Seamen's fine art collection be- organizing, and just good old grassroots •April 25-July 19, "The Great Age of gan as a way of promoting the bank's enthusiasm has lifted membership in the Sail: Treasures from the National maritime identity. Oil paintings of 19th American Society of Marine Artists in Maritime Museum" at the San Diego century sailing vessels covered the walls recent years. Membership in the thirteen- Museum of Art, marks the first time that of the Bank's offices; bone and wooden year-old organization now spans 40 states the National Maritime Museum in Greenship models and scrimshaw designed by and includes 550 artist members and regu- wich has sent forth a travelling collecseafaring artisans were displayed in its lar members, split roughly half and half. tion of its most important works of art. lobbies; pictures of the collection were Denis Beaumont, ASMA President for Some eighty paintings, including works the last two years, has noted that more by Canaletto, Turner, Van de Velde the featured in its advertisements.

Atacostof$3.4 million for more than young artists and more female artists are Younger, Hogarth and Copley (see "Marine Art" section, pp 22-29), are accom2,000 items, the museum has not only being attracted to the marine art field.

Spirited local organizing has led to panied by ship models and navigational kept an important collection intact, but gained with one stroke a curator's dream increased opportunities for ASMA mem- instruments. San Diego Museum of Art, of potential exhibits. The inventory in- bers. Many artist members are conduct- 1450 El Prado, Balboa Park, San Diego cludes a good number of vintage oil ing presentations and giving talks on CA 92101. paintings, watercolors and drawings from marine painting with notes on technique, • April 26-September 20, 3rd Annual the early- to mid-19th century, as well as and the Society is also responding to Mystic 100, an invitational exhibition of ship models, prints, advertisements, post- more inquiries from maritime museums 100 of the country's top artists. Mystic ers, rare books, pamphlets, manuscripts, and art asso~iations about setting up Maritime Gallery, Mystic CT 06355. marine fittings and examples of nautical invitational exhibitions, says Beaumont. • May 22-September 21, 10th ASMA design, scrimshaw, clipper cards and Last year's ASMA Northwest Regional National Exhibition of Marine Art, at antique toys. Paintings and prints from Exhibition at the Columbia River Mari- the R. J. Schaefer Gallery, Mystic Seathe collection are already on view in the time Museum at Astoria, Oregon, was port Museum, Mystic CT 06355.

D 32

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THE SEAPORT EXPERIENCE: Of Whaleships and Taverns If the interesting thing about hi sthe Venetian ambassador (those tory is people, as we have made always-informed Venetians!) to bold to assert elsewhere in this be amoldering wreck only a little Sea History-people with their ove1 a generation after she had swirling feelings about things, been planted in the Thameside quick flashes of brilliance, deepmud. running allegiances and murky The Regina Lies at Claudio's inscrutabilities-then winter is the pier on the Greenport waterfront. time to get out and about, to places Claudio's has been a town fixture likeMysticSeaportMuseum. The since 1870. Our honorary trustee cooper fitting staves to make a Briggs Dalzell lives in that part of barrel has a good deal more to say the world, and he remembers with about his job, the wood he works considerable joy riding the ferries with, and how (or why) he or she across from the sleepy precinct of got into thi s line of work than he Shelter Island (the island that lies has amid the hurrying, onwardlike an apple caught in the open pressing crowds of summer. So jaws of eastern Long Island) to ¡ k-ed-in_fi_o_r_t~he the more animated pleasures of does the figurehead carver, the T~h-e_w_o-od_e_n_w_h-al-e-sh_i_p_C_h_a_r_le_s_W_._M_o_r-ga-n-tu-cship smith working bright, glow- winter at Mystic Seaport Museum. Photo by Mary Anne Stets. the former whalermen 's home of ing iron at his forge, or the guides Greenport-family trips that alaboard the world-travelled whaleship to the wider distribution of Sea History. ways ended with ice cream at Claudio's.

Charles W. Morgan.

Excellent viands are served up by a Bill Claudio is a jovial host to young and Besides, the tempo of life in general spirited staff and the walls are adorned old, and is a mainstay of the Regina restois slower and, perhaps, a bit more in- with one of the finest collections of steam- ration. drawn and reflective than in summer boat prints in North America. Patrons of Story telling is a winter's pursuit and with its dreamy distractions. No, winter the bar are generally boating people and it is much followed around the open is the time for museums by day and include bold individuals like my friend hearth in Middleton 's Tavern in Anstory telling by night.

Clark Thompson, who at a dinner meet- napolis,Maryland,agreatgatheringplace Get to Mystic in the snow, if you can, ing last summer, rose to dance away for historians, sailors, and people like or failing that, the worst available winter across the barroom floor with the lead themastershipbuilderMelboumeSmith, weather. It is helpful to one's inner un- vocalist of a quite good folk music group who lives nearby. When we have meetderstanding of things to close a door that was singing there that night. ings in that part of the world, we meet behind you, shutting out howling winds But you'll find your own adventures there, where the flame of hospitality and icy sleet, and positively rejoice in there, particularly in winter when the bums clear and bright, and the memories the heat of a log fire. All at once you darkness closes down early, the ice groans soaked into the walls of the place go understand why the word "hearth" has on the nearby riverfront, and the singing back over three centuries. Again, excelsuch resonating value in the language we and story telling go on and on. Guests lent food is served by a high-spiri ted speak; it 's not just the physical warmth are no longer segregated by sex, and in staff, and the sure touch of the owner, (though surelythatmatters!) butthesense place of the barrack rooms of old, there Jerry Hardesty, is felt everywhere. of communion, or at least community, are a series of small apartments, each *** * with those others gathered around, though with different furnishings-guest rooms Well, I could * go on, but I've used up my they be wayfaring strangers like your- in a friendly house. space, and likely your patience, talking self-perhaps, in a way, better if they Down the Connecticut River and just of these seaport taverns and pubs that are, since mankind is surely doomed if it across Long Island Sound from the keep the flame burning against the long can't feel community in common cause Griswold Inn at Essex, is Claudio's Res- winter nights and gathering cold. Years with strangers, even ifthe cause is just to taurant at Greenport, Long Island. ago Norma Stanford, Joe Cantalupo and get in out of the cold.

Greenport! Home of whaling ships and I founded the Pub Preservation Society, Seaport inns come to life in winter whalermen, and today of the Regina whose purpose was to explore odd cortoo. Just twenty miles west of Mystic, Maris, the great wooden barkentine ners of the seaport world where you Bill and Vicki Winterer carry on the which the late George Nichols rode to could find the real thing and the story warm-hearted traditions of Frank Ladd glory in the 1970s and early 80s, when telling that defies the chill silent depths in running the Griswold Inn of 1776 in with young people in the crew, he sailed of long winter nights-nights when one Essex , Connecticut. I knew the inn in the Regina to the far reaches of the Atlantic feels the force of Pascal 's confession: mid-1930s when Frank ran it. Families and Pacific, studying the far-ranging "The silence of these infinite spaces split up when they went to bed, women ways of whales, while the ship's com- scares me." Perhaps if this sort of thing in one room (which, of course, I never pany made their own voyages of discov- is of interest to readers, I could give saw inside), men in the other. That was a ery of themselves and what they could do some accounting of that noble society, chi lly room with painted iron bedsteads in life. Such a man deserves remembering half of whose members have left the lined up in a row as in an army barracks. forever, and the ship he rode should, like earth ly shore, half of whom still walk the I have had frequent occasion to visit Francis Drake's Golden Hind, be en- streets and tell tall tales in seaport tavthere since on matters ranging from the shrined-with longer life than Drake 's erns, when indeed one feels that the preservation of the oyster sloop Christeen, ship, we may hope, which was reported by whole gang is sti ll together.

PS

34

SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

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by Thomas Hale Saturday, September 21, was indeed a memorable day for me and for almost 600 others when we steamed down Chesapeake Bay on the "matron voyage" of the John W. Brown. It' s wonderful to be part of a successful project after so many years of frustration and disappointments in the field of maritime preservation.

I have never enjoyed anything so much or savored satisfaction so greatly as having been part of what had become a national effort to preserve and restore a ship of such genuine importance as this Liberty ship when, with a full-throated roar of her steam whistle, she inched away from her pier in Baltimore with a Moran tug assisting her and one first felt the faint throb of her screw. Suddenly I and the hundreds of others on board were transported back almost 50 years. For a moment all I could seem to see were the gray cresting seas of the North Atlantic with scores of ships of every description, many if not most of them Libertys, from horizon to horizon, interspersed with destroyers and other escorts.

Now it was a bright sunny Saturday and just ahead lay Fort McHenry and the Bethlehem Fairfield Shipyards where the first Liberty ship Patrick Henry was launched 50 years ago and where the John W. Brown herself was built one year later. Over the ship 's loud speaker system we heard a recording of President Roosevelt's Liberty Fleet Day address announcing the launching ofthePatrickHenry. It was very moving to hear Roosevelt's words during those dark days of so long ago, and when the ship 's band played the national anthem there was scarcely a dry eye on board.

The band members, incidentally, were all dressed in uniforms of a US Army band of the 1940s and the band leader himself was wearing one of Glen Miller's jackets! They were seated atop #2 hatch and as we steamed down the bay played all the tunes that many of us remembered so well during the war years, starting out with "String of Pearls," Glen Miller's theme song. Just below the Annapolis Eastern Shore Bridge the ship turned and stopped and a brief but moving memorial service was held for those members of the crews and the Armed Guard who lost their lives when over 200 of our ship 's sisters were lost to enemy action. Remembered also were the thousands of men and women who helped to build them, all 36

2700 of these remarkable ships. A bugler played taps and there were four long blasts on the ship 's whistle.

Hardly was the service over when, with a roar, four World War II AT6 trainers screeched by overhead not more than 100 feet up. Climbing and circling around they peeled off and dove at us singly as if attacking. It sent shivers up my spine. My friend and next-door neighbor in Vineyard Haven, Sam Parks, had been an oiler on a Liberty during the war and we spent a good half hour in the engine room watching the ponderously magnificent connecting rods rhythmically and seemingly effortlessly sliding up and down, up and down. The ghosts of Kipling, Stevenson, and Conrad were all around us.

For me, the high point was standing at the ship 's wheel on the flying bridge as we approached Baltimore. I had asked if I might have a trick at the wheel and when the captain demurred I hastily stated that I had a Coast Guard license which suddenly made everything possible. I didn ' t tell him the license had expired ten years ago! It was up this very channel in September 1944 that I came home from Europe as a member of a contingent of troops aboard another Liberty ship whose name I have long forgotten.

The restoration of the John W . Brown represents an enormous achievement on the part of hundreds of volunteers who gave unstintingly of their time and enthusiasm and also is a vindication of the loyalty of thousands of others who, although like me were unable to work on the vessel herself, still dug deeply into their pocketbooks to make this day possible. Many people have said that the Liberty ship and the Jeep wereexcept of course for our soldiers, sailors and airmen-America's greatest contribution to the winning of World War IL I choose to think this is right and it is appropriate that the Jeremiah 0 ' Brien in San Francisco and theJohn W. Brown in Baltimore have been and will be preserved as monuments not only to the ships themselves but to those who made their launchings possible and those who sailed them to victory. D Tom Hale, Honorary Trustee of NMHS , lives on the island of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, where he owned and ran the Vineyard Haven Shipyard, now operated by his son Philip. Before that he was Assistant Curator at Mystic Seaport Museum.

SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

SHIP NOTES , SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS Bridge Hits Lady Washington Returning from a 300-mile trip up the Columbia River on October 17, the brig Lady Washington was struck by a descending Union Pacific Railroad drawbridge just out of Pascoe.

Grays Harbor Historical Seaport executive director Les Bolton described the 105-ftreplicaofCapt. Robert Gray' s Lady Washington as at a distance of less than 150-ft from the bridge when it began its slow descent without the required use of warning devices, which include a 7-ft flashing downward arrow and radio beacon sounding for 10-15 minutes prior

A damaged Lady Washington returns to Aberdeen, Washington, after her accident.

to descent. The drawbridge first struck the fore topmast. The topgallant masts had already been removed for the passage. The vessel went into a 40-degree roll and water began to wash over the decks as she was pushed down. When she popped free of the bridge, some 3040 seconds later, wood splinters littered the deck. Miraculously, none of the 35 people on board were injured.

In the final count, the Lady lost her main topmast, main topsail yard, mainmast, main gaff boom, backstays and shrouds on the starboard side as well as a fair amount of running rigging. The immediate hardship was a $10,000 insurance deductible and the further loss of 45 days of sailing time, including charter income. If the Coast Guard makes a determination in the Seaport's favor, damages will be sought from the railroad. Repairs are now underway at the Seaport's boatbuilding shop. (GHHS, 813 E. Heron Street, PO Box 2019, Aberdeen WA 98520; 206 532-8611)

The Howard Restoration Just short of her centennial, the second sailing vessel acquired by the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City is undergoing her long awaited rebuild.

Restoration of the 7 5-ft Essex-built 1893 fishing schooner Lettie G. Haward, which arrived at the Seaport in 1968, was begun this past April.

By mid-October, a crew of ten shipwrights were busy renewing the major structural elements of the vessel. To date, the stem, sections of the keel and false keel , the stem post and transom framing, the keelson, the bilge stringers and nearly all of the condemned frame futtocks have been renewed. By the end of January, 40% of the bulwark stanchions and most of the deck beams will be cut and in place. It is estimated that about 15% of the original frames, a long section of keel, the deadwood, and some of the planking will remain .

Due to the vessel's advanced degree of deterioration, it was possible to jack up the bow and stem, thereby removing approximately 3" of hog in the keel. The basic strategy is to work from the inside out: keeping the old framing and planking in place while replacing frames a few at a time so that the vessel will keep her shape.

The vessel is hauled out on a barge moored between Wavertree and Peking. Volunteers of all skill levels are welcome to participate in the work and donations are being sought Current plans call for her to be sailing in 1992. (South Street Seaport Museum at 207 Front Street, New York NY 10038; 212 669-9400).

STEVE HOPKINS

century Dutch merchant vessels, the "Oostindievaarder," or East Indiamen.

Construction began in 1987 and has attracted the interest of hundreds of volunteers committed to shipbuilding by traditional methods. This commitment includes building a rope walk and spinning

their own rope for the rigging. The design is based on contemporary plans, models and the data obtained from the wreck of the original vessel. The Batavia ran aground on a reef and sank June 3, 1629, off the coast of Australia, after mutineers had seized control of the vessel off the Cape of Good Hope. Launching of the new vessel is scheduled for the summer of 1992.

The wooden ship replica to beat all others, both in size and in traditional construction technique, is making steady progress in Leystad, Netherlands. The 140-ft long, 40-ft beam Batavia is a replica of the most famous of the 17th

Its All a Matter of Cubits The English group planning to construct a replica of a Greek trireme, the spectacular 5th century BC ship-of-war with three levels of oarsmen, has settled on a design for the new vessel. The Trireme Trust says it will be built on the basis of the larger and recently authenticated cubit of 0.490m and incorporate modifications arising from the trials in Olympias, the only existing replica of a trireme.

0 lympias, operated by the Hellenic Navy, is widely believed to have been built to the wrong cubit measure, causing difficulties for the three tiers of oarsmen

SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

37

Batavia

SHIP NOTES Brest '92 Festival One of the biggest European maritime events next year will be the Brittany festival, Brest '92. For four days, July 10-14, the quays and naval port of Brest and the seaport ofDouamenez will be crowded with sea lovers, there to see an expected 1,500 boats and ships from all over Europe. In addition, some 50 foreign associations and museums are expected to participate.

Robert Simper, editor of the British magazine Sea Breezes comments that "The last ten years have seen an astonishing interest in traditional sail vessels in northern France." He attributes most of this to the Brittany-based magazine ChasseMaree and the biennial sail festival it organizes in Douamenez which this year occupies the last two days of Brest '92. One French newspaper claims that there are 60 replicas being built to take part in the 1992 sail parade. Nantes is building the I ean-Francois de Nantes, a brig-schooner, St. Malo has launched the privateer schooner Le Renard and Brest is building the 80-ft war schooner La Recouvrance.

As part of the revival, the Musee du Bateau is being established at Douamenez and has been collecting craft from all over Europe, including the 1910 Whitstable smack Blue Bell, the Breton tunnyman Biche, and the Norwegian square-sail ketchAnnaRosa. (le Chasse-Maree, B.P. 159, 29171 Douamenez cedex. France)

as they joined in concerted effort to operate the vessel at the speed and handling of the ancients. Construction of the trireme could be the first shipbuilding project of a proposed center at Milford Haven for the building and operation of traditional and historical ships and oared craft. The current schedule for fundraising and building might produce the ship by 1994 or 95. (TT, Pyrton Halt House, Watlington, Oxford OX9 SAN) San Diego to Build CabriIJo's Ship The vessel used by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo to enter San Diego Bay in 1542, was, like all ships of its era, built without ship plans as the modern naval architect knows them. As a result, Melbourne Smith, ship designer for the replica of Cabrillo' s largest ship, the San Salvador (La Capitana), concedes that any recreation must rest on conjecture. But leading experts in Spain have been consulted, including Don Jose Martinez Hildago y Teran, former director of the renowned Barcelona Museum, and every reliable and attainable sixteenth century source has been explored. The conclusion is that San Salvador was I ikely a galleon of about 200 "toneladas," running a little over 100-ft in length, and 38

drawing about 9-ft.

The project was initiated by San Diego Port authorities and has the interest of the Portuguese Historical Society and the Cabrillo Festival Committee. When built, the vessel will be made part of the San Diego Maritime Museum. Construction is to be completed by September28, 1992, the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Cabrillo's landing. (San Diego Maritime Museum, 1306 N. Harbor Drive, San Diego CA 92101) Chesapeake Maritime Culture , Chosen For Genoa Expo '92 The maritime culture of the Chesapeake Bay region will be featured in the United States pavilion at Genoa Expo '92. The Expo, held in the city widely accepted to have been the birthplace of Columbus, is the principal event in the Italian commemoration of the Quin centennial. The Chesapeake Bay region was selected as the focus of the 5,000-square-foot United States exhibit because it most closely adhered to the overal I theme of the Genoa Expo, "Christopher Columbus, the Ship and the Sea," which will be held from May 15 to August 15, 1992. (Maryland 1992, 217 E. Redwood Street, 9th Floor, Baltimore MD 21202)

Getting Around the Ships The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and the Flagship Niagara League, keepers of the newly restored revolutionary war brig Niagara in Erie PA, are planning a 115day East Coast tour in 1992-her first departure from the Great Lakes since her launching in 1990. (FNL, PO Box 862, Erie PA 16512; 814 452-BRIG) In October, the Gaze/a of Philadelphia entered Ft. McHenry Drydock #5 in Baltimore for repairs to her stem and stem. The work is the culmination of five years of planning and fundraising led by Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild. Pride II and Lady Washington veteran Peter Boudreau is the master shipwright in charge of the drydock. All that 's needed now to complete restoration of the 1883 wooden barkentine are safety equipment, a new set of sails, and a new deck. (PSPG, Comer of Delaware and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia PA 19106; 215 923-9030) Efforts to save the 1930s Boston tugboats Venus and Luna have failed.

NMHS member Tom Sullivan reports that the Boston Metropolitan District Commission will comply with a Coast Guard order to remove the tugs from the Charles River near the Museum of Science. Contact MDC Public Information; 617 727-5215.

The Matthew Turner Foundation, San Francisco, is making progress in its efforts to build a barkentine to the design of Matthew Turner's 1881 sugar ship W. H. Dimond. Foundation Director Thomas J. Le Yell reports that it has been offered a building site in cooperation with the Port of Oakland on the Oakland Estuary. The proposed reconstruction has as its aims honoring one of the nation's most prolific sailing shipbuilders and establishing a revival of square-rigged sail training on the WestCoast. Asailplanofthe 190-ft W.H. Dimond can be found in Howard Chapelle' s classic work The History ofAmerican Sailing Ships. (MTF, China Basin Building, 185 Berry Street, Suite 159, San Francisco CA 94107; 415 512-8393) While the Dimond project is barely off the drawing board, an East Coast effort to build an American tall ship is one step closer. The Detroit Diesel Corporation (DDC) of Michigan has become the largest in-kind sponsor of the 215-ft tall ship Discovery by donating a 12V-149 TI diesel engine. Members of local United Auto Workers Shop 163 will also donate their time to prepare the SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

SHIP NOTES engine. Discovery is a project of Sail Adventures In Learning directed by ASTA co-chair and former Elissa project director David Brink. Discovery will be built on a site adjacent to the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine, the first full-rigged ship to be built in the US since 1899. (SAIL, 229 Washington Street, Bath ME 04530; 207 43-6222) The New Zealand-built Bounty replica auctioned in Sydney in July will stay in Australia. The American corporation, Monte Cristo Inc., bid $800,000 for her, but did not take delivery, forfeiting an $80,000 deposit. She was then bought for A$1 million by Bruce Reid, a Sydney businessman and philanthropist, reports theBritishjournal Windjammer. She was built for the Bounty movie starring Mel Gibson and is considered the most accurate and seaworthy of the many Bounty replicas.

An earlier Bounty rep 1ica used for the film featuring Marlon Brando is now on the market in the US. Currently owned by media giant Ted Turner, it is berthed in Savannah GA. Sources have reported her to be in poorer condition than her younger Australian sister.

Brought Back From the Brink The 118-year-old Block Island Southeast Lighthouse, which was placed on the National Trust's "Eleven Most Endangered List" in 1990 and 1991 (see

Sea History, Fall 1991), will be moved back from Mohegan Bluff, where it stands just55-ftfrom the edge. An anonymous last minute gift of $80,000 from a private foundation allowed the Southeast Lighthouse Foundation to raise its share of the $1.94 million estimated cost of moving the lighthouse and attached Victorian house to their new position by the Fourth of July, 1992. (Lisa Nolan, SLF, Block Island RI 12807) SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

Ports Added to Caravel Schedule Corpus Christi, Galveston, New Orleans, Tampa, Annapolis, Atlantic City and New London have been added to the 1992 Tour of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria replicas, reports tour organizers for the Spain '92 Founaation.The schedule first reported in the Fall 1991 Sea History is amended as follows: Miami FL 2/14-3/1 Corpus Christi TX 3/13-3/22 Galveston/Houston TX 3/25-3/29 New Orleans LA 4/3-4/5 Tampa FL 4/10-4/19 St. Augustine FL 4/23-4/26 Charleston SC 5/1-5/3 Norfolk VA 5/8-5/10 Baltimore MD 5/15-5/25 Annapolis MD 5/27-5/29 Philadelphia PA 6/5-6/14 Wilmington DE 6/16-6/17 Atlantic City NJ 6/19-6/21 New York NY 6/26-7/19 New London/Mystic CT 7/24-7/26 Boston MA 7/31-8/16 San Francisco CA 10/2-10/25 San Luis Obispo CA 10/30-11/1 Los Angeles CA 11/6-11/29 San Juan de Capistrano CA 12/4-12/6 San Diego CA 12/11-12/20 (Spain '92 Foundation, 1821 Jefferson Place NW, Washington DC 20036) British Preservation News The World Ship Trust recently reported these items: a 700-year old Norman harbor, thought to be the oldest in the Irish Republic, has been discovered 25 feet underground near the River Liffey; the Mary Rose Trust has found evidence of at least one "supergun" over 5m long having been aboard the Mary Rose when she sank; and Ryde Queen, one of the last sidewheel steam ferries in the British Isles (Int. Reg. of Hist. Ship's p. 122), is lying derelict on the River Medina, Isle of Wight, reportedly acquired by a scrap merchant.

Underwater News Recently reported in The Nor' Easter, Canadian government archaeologist Peter Engelbert explored the wreck of the composite-built steamer Acadia with a team of SOS Sault Ste Marie divers June 10-14 near Michipicaten , Ontario.

Wrecked on the rugged North Shore in 1896, the ship was the first in North America to have iron frames and a wooden hull. The ship 's remains were discovered last fall, reviving stories of the crew's terrible suffering during a 12-

day wait for rescue in the snowy Ontario woods.

What could it be on the seafloor about 100 miles off the coast of Texas, about 230-ft long with a high stem and high bow, and showing no metal signature?

Marine survey and recovery operator David Morreau discovered the wreck in November and is mounting an operation to explore the vessel further. He has not located any report of the vessel's sinking but speculates it could be the wreck of a packet or British man-of-war.

The government of Spain has created a Quincentennial Naval Archaeology Program to survey, document and recover artifacts from wrecks of the estimated thousand ships Spain lost on the route to the Americas between 1550 and 1650. The program will also offer courses in conservation of artifacts, naval history and architecture as well as submarine technology in archaeology.

(Sociedad Estatal Quinto Centenario, Calle Arravaca 22, 28040 Madrid, Spain)

Arabia Museum Opens A 171-ft full-scale replica of the steamboat Arabia's deck, complete with the vessel's original boiler's engines, anchor and paddle wheel hub, greets visitors to the impressive new Arabia Steamboat Museum. Opened November 12, the 30,000 sq-ft museum is the end result of a salvage effort started three years ago

by Kansas City-based River Salvage, Inc. , on the sidewheel steamer Arabia, lost in 1856 on a snag in the Missouri River below Parkville MO. (ASM, 400 Grand A venue, Kansas City MO 64106) BRIEFLY NOTED

In a strong show of support for maritime training, the Maine Maritime Academy's 50th anniversary capital campaign, launched in 1989, ended in November with a record-breaking $10.75 million raised. (MMA, Castine ME 04420) Over one hundred yachts from 16 countries have now confirmed their participation in the AMERICA 500 Rally, which starts from Palos, Spain, on August 3, 1992. Not to be confused with the Grand Regatta '92, made up of traditional sail training vessels which departs Palos on April 29, AMERICA 500 is a cruise for pleasure boats. For information contact World Cruising, PO Box 165, London WClB 5LA England; 071 405-9905. D 39

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"Recognizing Their Talent and Worth"

to get home to Germany. Instead, he was back to sea with an aili ng ship, overYarns ofa Cyprus Pilot, by George V. worked pumps, a hard-bitten and parsiClark (Pentland Press, Ltd., Pentland Dis- monious master, and no hope of seeing tribution, 3 Regal Lane, Soham, Cambs, his homeland again for the near future.

CB7 SBA UK, 1991, l 92pp, illus, photos The months that followed were a strange & author's sketches, no index, ÂŁ14.50) mixture of most of the hardships found When the reader of maritime history on any ocean-going tramp, not the least thinks that he has just about read all there of which were invalid articles of engageis available on the long-vanished subject ment and hostility on the part of port of sailing ships and old seafaring, along officials in South America. Strassburger comes a surprise which rousts all beliefs eventually made it home nearly nine out of line. Such a book is Capt. George years after leaving, but returned to sailV. Clark' s recent book on sail and steam ing ships when the conditions of postpowered working-class freighters. From war Germany and its worthless money the distinctive and advantageous posi- drove him away again.

Fully a quarter of the book is devoted tion of harbor pilot in the port of Famagusta, Cyprus, Captain Clark came to the extraordinary odyssey and career of into daily contact with many shipmasters Captain Strassburger, who survived World whose long traditions in sail and old War II and had resumed a career in steamsteamers is only lightly documented. ers trading in the Eastern Mediterranean Clark met and talked with Greeks, Ger- when he encountered Captain Clark. mans, Italians and Danes whose lives in Subsequent biographical sketches and the hard-bitten sailing ships of the Medi- narratives are centered in the Indian Ocean, terranean, Indian Ocean and Cape Horn with geographic descriptions of the istrades are all woven into this very cos- lands, archipelagoes and seamen of that mopolitan fabric of the seaman's life. region. The author, himself a seaman of The flag hanging on the stem of any given some fifty years experience, is more than ship is clearly a symbol only of ownership a little familiar with the Middle East and and registry. The mixture of men in the Indian Ocean waters, and he picks his forecastle, engine room and on the bridge captains and biographies with skill and deck is truly Captain Clark's world. sympathetic understanding of what those As he piloted their ships, he got around waters and those obscure ships were like.

A rusty wreck with no name was seen to asking about the personal histories of the captains. For example, there is Cap- and visited by Clark during his wartime tain Theodore Strassburger, born in the call in 1942 to a remote East African Kaiser' s Germany in the late 1890s and harbor called Manza Bay. There, amongst descended from the Strassburger Circus the mangroves and isolation of the coast, families. At the age of sixteen, Strass- lay an old steamship hulk with no reburger went to sea in the big four-masted maining identification. The ship had bark Edmund, a ship which was mostly apparently been deteriorating there for confined to the bulk tramping trades in many years , shoved up on the beach and those years just before World War I. Be- nearly overgrown by the forest. After fore he was eighteen, Strassburger had crawling through the remains, his curirounded the Hom at least twice. But this osity was not satisfied, so Clark pursued voyaging came to an abrupt end in lquique, her history when the war ended. He when the sudden outbreak of the war learned the old steamer was the forced the Edmund into idleness. Adven- Kronberg , a supply ship for the German tures in the Andes finally brought the cruiser Koenigsberg which had been German sailor to Callao after the armi- harassing British shipping along the Afstice and into a leaky old wooden Ameri- rican coast for the first few weeks of can-built barkentine, the Stella, which was World War I. To keep the cruiser supsent around Cape Horn, pumping and plied and going, the German Admiralty creaking the whole way, to the Plate river had outfitted the Kronberg and sent her with a cargo of sugar. From there, the to join the Koenigsberg. Though the Stella sailed to Britain, offering young Kronberg had reached the environs of Strassburger the chance to get home to the cruiser's operations, she was lost by grounding and enemy cannon fire. The Germany after nearly five years.

A stone wall of hatred, left over from shell-wracked ship remained in this rethe bitter war just ended, did not allow mote mangrove-covered harbor. Caphim and other Germans in the crew from tain Clark's incessant search for her hislanding and crossing the island kingdom tory brought him into contact with the SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

son of the Kronberg's captain, from whom he learned, and passes on to us, the details of the ship's loss.

The author's pen-and-ink sketches supplement only a few photos as illustrations.

Capt. Clark's profession of seaman and ship master, spanning a half-century, is mixed with his obvious intense love of the history of the shipping world.

This is not a story by a British captain about British ships and British seamen only-it is a cosmopolitan elixir of an industry which hardly recognizes the national boundaries of race or flag. Nor is this a warmed-over collection of stories gleaned from the efforts of others.

Yarns ofa Cyprus Pilot is original and its long-lasting value lies in the simple fact that these vignettes and glimpses of the men and ships were seen through the eyes of a deepwater sailor with a talent for recognizing their value and worth.

For a further expansion of Capt.

Clark's preceding efforts to save this kind of history, one must find the three volumes of Capt. Clark's home-grown publication, The Seafarer, which was a mimeographed periodical which began in June 1963, and eventually became The South Spainer and continued in existence until financial problems brought it to an end in August 1966. This collection of real but otherwise obscure biographies of ordinary, and extraordinary, seamen and their many varied ships is but a prelude to this latest published book by Capt. George V. Clark of Whitley Bay on the Tyne River.

This is not a romance. It is good history by a seaman for seamen.

HARoLoD.HuYCKE Captain Clark died on 31August1991 , the date his book was published.

Wooden Ship: The Art, History, and Revival of Wooden Boatbuilding, by Peter H. Spectre and David Larkin (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston MA, 1991, 272pp, color photos, $45) Here is a book to enjoy. The color photographs reproduced in Wooden Ship are some of the best to be found. And they are enhanced by book designer David Larkin 's creative handling and elegant format.

It is not an encyclopaedia of the art, history, or revival of wooden boat building. Rather it presents the incredible beauty to be found in the construction of a few selected vessels. This is done through the deft use of actual construction details and scale models to illustrate SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

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THE CHRISTMAS TREE SHIP

The loss of the Rouse Sinunons also known as ''The Christmas Tree Ship,'' is one of the most endwing tales in Lake Michigan maritime history.

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REVIEWS the complexity and intricateassemblyof both large and small craft. The photographs do not dwell on the common or everyday- timeworn wood and peeling paint are not the subject matter of thi s book.

Wooden Ship zeros in on the furniture-like detail s of new construction for the best-possible examples of the shipwri ghts' and model makers' abilities.

Only the finest examples of present-day skills are found on these pages. Mr. Larkin 's technique of masking and silhouetting photographs elucidates the elaborate fo rmations to be found in a redi scovery of hi storic ships.

But more than the eye is pleased. Over 200 co Ior photographs are augmented with captions and text that describe the necessary disciplines. Author Peter Spectre, well-versed in the practice of wooden boatbuilding, wastes no words on flowery descriptions that would embarrass a sailor or shipwright. Rather, the phrases are pleasing because they precisely describe the construction details and add interesting points from history. A few well chosen quotations add color to the text.

So, there is a double pleasure in Wooden Ship. First, the adroit use of photographs; then, an enjoyable and informative text. The book will be treasured by those who appreciate the simple, natural beauty of wood, and those who love traditional sailing craft.

The work will do much to promote an understanding of the boatbuilders ' and modelmak:ers' crafts. The replica Susan Constant of 1605, recently built by Allen Rawl in Jamestown, Virginia, is featured in superb detail, and the Batavia (1627) and Amsterdam (1748) replicas are also noted, au with splendid photographs.

Criticisms of the book are few. Unfortunately , credits of locations for the models are not provided except for their photo source. In a reference to the Mary Rose that sank in 1545 , she is dubbed, "The pride of the Royal Navy," although the English fleet was not known as such in those days. The USS Constitution is claimed to have won several battles against larger British ships, but history tells us that it was she that was the larger and delivered the heavier broadside.

There are other minor errors, but these few lapses may be overlooked in this glowing study. Wooden Ship is one of those books that I would suggest inscribing with your name in large script before leawing it on your coffee table.

MELBOURNE SMJTH

SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

ORIGINAL The Herzogin Cecilie-The Life and Times of a Four-Masted Barque, by Basil Greenhill and John Hackman (Conway Maritime Press, London 1991, 224pp, 125 photos, line plans, append, index, £25hb) Co-authored by the former director of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, England, and an authority on the social and economic life of the Finnish archipelagoes, thi s new book is the story of a beautiful four-masted bark launched in Bremerhaven, Germany, in 1902. It is based on material which had been long-stored in archives in the Aland Islands in Finland, ever since Herzogin Cecilie's mysterious loss on the rocks of the southern coast of England in 1936.

At 3,242 tons and 310 feet in length , longer than a football field, Herzogin Cecilie was a large sailing vessel but by no means the largest. Designed not only as a training-cadet ship but as a cargo carrier as well, she was very heavily rigged, capable of carrying sail in the fou lest weather, built and fitted to the highest standards.

The book carefully follows the life of the ship, her travels, her cargoes, her life story, her adventures. In 1914 she arrived in Coquimbo, Chile, 74 days out from the English Channel, with a cargo of coke taken aboard in Nordenham, Germany. As World War I had started, the Herzogin remained at anchor for the next four years in Chilean waters. In the fall of 1920, she went back to work again, loading 3,900 tons of nitrate. She was 82 days on the road to Falmouth for orders, good going considering the growth on her bottom; it had been scraped somewhat, but she had not been in dry dock.

After discharging her cargo at Ostend, the French government took her over as part of the German reparation payment.

A few months later, by the end of 1921, she was purchased by the famou s shipowner Gustaf Erikson of the Aland Islands in the Baltic, the man who owned the last sizable fleet of deepwater windjammers.

Although sai led with only a third of the crew of her German days, the fourmaster continued to be exceptionally fast when cond itions were to her liking.

During her Finnish days, she had two exceptional masters. The first, Captain Reuben de Cloux , took her over in 1921.

The authors describe him as "a sh ipmaster who became internationally famous in the 1920s and early 30s as the commander of some of the finest remaining SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

merchant sailing vessels left afloat ... a highly competent shipmaster and a man of considerable character and independence of mind." In 1929 he passed on the command to the young Sven Eriksson who, the year before, had become chief mate. Eriksson had first gone to sea in 1919; when he took over the Herzogin, he had ten years experience, but she was his first command.

This reviewer had the opportunity to serve aboard the lf erzogin under Sven Eriksson, who belonged to the old school of seamen , tough and rugged. He was not a large man, but he was fully in command. He had quite a reputation in the fleet as a driver, a no-nonsense individual. His was a job of high responsibility for the ship, the crew, and the cargo.

He was expected to make good, fast passages, and it was up to him to find the needed winds. Several times when I was aboard, we made a good 300 miles a day, the best being 341 miles.

On her last passage, the bark sailed from Port Lincoln, South Australia, on January 27, 1936, with 4,295 tons of wheat, arriving at Falmouth, England, for orders on April 23, just 86 days out, her fastest passage ever. On April 24, with orders to proceed to Ipswich, the Herzog in got underway from Falmouth heading to the eastward, up-channel. An evening mist thickened into a light fog, and then got thicker. The ship sailed on, steady, even quiet. It was at 3:50 AM that Chief Mate Elis Karlsson observed a dark mass off the port bow. Seconds later the great bark was ashore on the rocks of Sewer Mill Cove (the book calls it Soar Mill Cove) near Bolt Head, Devon. Why she was there no one knew.

There is no logical explanation to put the four-master so far off course.

The authors have done a splendid piece of research covering the last hours of the ship. There are statements made by the master and chief mate and members of the crew. There is a copy of the letter written to Gustaf Erikson by Pamela Eriksson, wife of Sven; she had been aboard the ship during the world voyage.

The answer as to why the Herzogin was ~recked is left up to the readers. All the fac ts are laid out and it is a matter of choice. One day in the middle of World War II, abo ut eight years after the loss, I made my way down to Salcombe, the little village near Bolt Head, and chatted with those who remembered the accident. Some felt that there had been too much "drink" celebrating the 86-day

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passage from Australia.

For those who remember the great windjammers of yesteryear, this is a grand book, a brief glimpse again of the days gone by, names of people and ships and ports, stories of fair weather and foul.

For those who came too late, born after the ships were gone, the book gives a good picture of how it was .

G1LES M. S. Too This review is abridged from the full review published in the American Neptune (Peabody Museum, Salem MA), Summer 1991 .

The Eyes of the F leet: A Popular Histor y of Frigates and Frigate Captains 1793-1815, by Anthony Price (Hutchinson , London, 1990, 298pp, 17 B& W illus, index, $29.95) Anthony Price's sub-title, A Popular History of Frigates and Frigate Captains 1793-1815, with strong emphasis on "Popular" and "Frigate Captains," best defines his objective in writing this book. His method is somewhat unusual in that he has chosen five real-life frigatemen: Edward Pellew, Hugh Pi got, Thomas Lord Cochrane, William Hoste, Philip B. V. Broke, and a fictional one: Horatio Hornblower, to illustrate the thesis. The common threads to his story are the era, "The Age of Nelson," and the vessels, frigates. The questionable inclusion of Pigot and his Hermione, the "Black Ship" (with my nod of appreciation to Dudley Pope), allows this sentence to introduce the author's primary writing quirk-the parenthetical expression.

By rough count Mr. Price averages four parenthetical phrases per page. Ignoring the digressions in the first three chapters, in which the author develops his topical background, throughout our "AgeofNelson" narrative we are treated to an eclectic array of his opinions on as diverse a group of subjects as offered in any single volume: the Graf Spee vs.

Exeter, Achilles and Ajax in 1939 (p 54 ); the Battle of Jutland (pp 64-65); Malta 1943 (p 65); Sennacherib's Assyrian army of Biblical times (p 74); the sharpshooting Boers of South Africa (p 74); Admiral Anson in the Pacific (p 74); the pre-DDTeraofWWll (p 74); the Royal Navy as a defender of the Monroe Doctrine (p 82); German intelligence during the French army mutinies of 1917, followed by the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and Hitler and the Battle of Britain in 1940 (p 89); the Hindenburg

Line of 1918 (p 95); Orde Wingate in Burma, the Long Range Desert Group commander in Libya, or Guy Gibson and Leonard Cheshir of the RAF (p 96); Quebec 1759, Normandy 1944, the Munich Agreement of 1938 (p 107); Oran 1940 (p 123); all of which leave the reader's head spinning, with two-thirds of the book to go. And even when Mr. Price remains within his supposedly chosen time frame of 1793-1815, he is rambling and digressive.

After turning the last page of Chapter 7, 'The Hermione Mutiny," one cannot help but wonder just what has been said.

Being familiar with Dudley Pope's extensive work on the topic, plus my examination of some of the original documents for a few odd snippets I've written about that heinous mutiny, one cannot but ask-what has been added to the information available on the subject?

The Eyes of the Fleet is a book without an ending. Yes, one does wander through nineteen chapters, an author' s note and an index before running out of pages, but one also hesitates to close the covers. Is this it? What have I learned?

Mr. Price does offer one worthy distinction when he compares Cochrane, as the greatest frigate captain of them all to Nelson as the greatest fighting admiral.

Other than that, The Eyes of the Fleet might best bedefined as an encyclopedic exposure of Price's opinions on warfare through the ages. The most penetrating sections come straight from the pages of Michael Lewis, Christopher Lloyd , Dudley Pope, Alfred Thayer Mahan, C. S. Forester, C. Northcote Parkinson, Donald Thomas, Douglas Reeman (AKA Alexander Kent), Richard Woodman, and a host of others. But to give credit where it is due, Anthony Price honestly and unabashedly sums up his own work with the statement, " this book owes everything to other books."

DR. W. M. P. DUNNE Sea Education Association Woods Hole, Massachusetts South: the Story of Shackleton 's Last Expedition, 1914-17, ed. Peter King (Century, London UK, 1991 and Trafalgar Square, North Pomfret VT, 1992, 208pp, photos , $29.95hb) "For scientific discovery give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel give m.e Amundsen," said Sir Edmund Hiilaf)Y , first person to climb Everest, "but wlhen disaster strikes and all hope is gone, ~get down on your knees and pray SEA H-IISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

P ARTICIP A TI ON SAILING ADVENTURES for Shackleton." Shackleton 's famed grit and determination are recorded in his own account of the terrible Antarctic expedition in which he lost his ship Endurance, sy mpath etically but not uncritically annotated by Peter King for this new edition. Very clear photographs record in harrowing detail the destruction of the ship in the ice, and the living conditions of the stranded men.

PS Unraveling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony, by David C. Woodman (McGill-Qu ee n's Un iv ersity Press, Montreal, Canada, 1991, 390pp, maps, biblio, index, $29.95 hb) The search for Sir John Franklin and his party in HMS Erebus and Terror after they went missing in the 1840s in an attempt to traverse the Northwest Passage through Arctic America became a major effort of English and other explorers, and the subject of a haunting song sailors still sing today . The search for what really happened to the ships and men continues, only whetted by the discovery in our time of expedition corpses and journals preserved in the icy wastes.

Starting with the intelligent proposition that "all Inuit stories concerning white men should have a discoverable basis," the oceanographic seaman David Woodman develops hi s own search for truth with a fine appreciation for the different cultures involved during the expedition 's march to its doom after abandoning its ships.

PS Boarders Away, With Steel: The Edged Weapons and Polearms of the Classical Age of Fighting Sail, 16261826, written and illustrated by William Gilkerson (Andrew Mowbray, Lincoln RI, 1991, 160pp, illus, biblio, index, large size, $48) A gruesome subject becomes fascinating and even achieves a certain charm at the hands of the noted marine artist and scholar Bill Gilkerson, whose artistic vision and passionate concern with accuracy in detail has illumined subjects ranging from scrimshaw to Arctic whaling-always, always with accuracy and verve. He points out that an immense literature exists on small arms ashore; thi s is the first systematic examination of boarding weapons at sea. It will be fol lowed by a similar volume taking up firearms, next year.

PS

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Ireland's Last Merchant Sailing Ship

by Richard

In the summer of 1985, the arrival on the US East Coast of the new training brigantine Asgard If, built in 1981, was noted with special interest. She was the first Irish sailing vesselother than small yachts-to make the transatlantic voyage since before World War I. Significantly, she was designed and built at Arklow, the small Irish east coast harbor which operated the last auxiliary trading schooners in home waters.

A fleet of fifteen Irish schooners was still in commission in 1939 and worked throughout World War II ferrying essential cargoes, such as coal, from Britain. Two of these ventured further afield to Lisbon, Portugal-a very dangerous trade for such slow moving, unescorted craft in wartime, even though Eire was neutral. Indeed, the three-masted iron auxiliary schooner Cymric went missing in February 1944 whilst on the Lisbon run.

All but one of this fleet had auxiliary engines. That one was the three-masted topsail schooner Brooklands, owned by a great character, the late Captain John Creenan of Callinacurra, County Cork. Older hands along Dublin's waterfront still recall with a smile how modem commerce had to make way for the arrival of this lively old schooner. Indeed, many a local tramcar provided front seat viewing as she warped through the bridge into the inner canal basin with another load of Ballinacurra malt for the Guinness warehouse. Captain John and his son Christy were widely known in the coasting trade of the twenties, thirties and forties and, with a crew of only two or three hands, sailed their 225-ton vessel with a skill that today would be considered exceptional.

Launched in 1859 as the Susan Vittery of Brixham, England, Brooklands was built in 1859 for the fruit trade from the Azores to Britain. In this business, speed was essential to ensure fresh delivery of the cargoes, mainly oranges, and the new schooner lived up to expectations, running up to two cargoes in six weeks. She was built as a two-master carrying a huge gaff mainsail and a crew of six. By coaster standards, she might have been considered a trifle narrow, deep and wet, but she could sail, and if her performances in old age are any indication, she must have been a flyer in her youth.

As steamers moved in on the fruit trade, she went further afield in the seventies, across the Atlantic to Newfoundland with salt and returning with cargoes of salt cod. This was a life that bred marlinspike seamen of a high calibre. In conditions unknown in today's merchant marine, these men took on the North Atlantic driving small two- and three-masted schooners westwards for an exhausting six weeks or more. The eastward passage to Spain or Portugal was often made in less than half that time with favourable winds. What a tough breed of men and ships they were! Little record remains and few details survive of this life, because these schoonermen took it all in their stride as their ordinary daily work.

By the tum of the century, the Susan Vittery went into the home trade, under new ownership in Newquay, Cornwall. In 1903 the schooner was rerigged as a three-master to break up the area of her big mainsail and make for easier handling in restricted waters. Towards the end of the First World War, she went aground on the southeast coast of England and was severely damaged. But the 58-year-old vessel was given a major refit at Whitstable. It was then that she became an Irish ship under the ownership of John Creenan. He renamed her Brooklands, and together they embarked on the best-known part of her long career.

46

J. Scott

During the twenties and thirties, most of the dwindling fleet of sailing coasters-those which could still find work-were rigged down and fitted with oil engines. But Captain John refused motor power and, with his son Christy as mate, went about his business in the traditional manner, using God 's free wind. On one occasion in Dublin, he got orders to vacate his berth in Alexandra Basin. He had only the cook on board at the time, but with no other help he raised a few eyebrows by sailing his 99-foot schooner out of the basin and upstream to the South Wall. By 1941 Brooklands was the very last schooner in Britain or Ireland still trading solely under sail , an anachronism in the mid-twentieth century. When old Captain John retired, Christy continued as skipper and could still make the Poolbeg Light (Dublin Bay) from Roches Point (Cork) in twenty-two hours with a fair wind in 1945. This, indeed, was a notable performance for an 86-year-old wooden vessel and compares favorably with some powered coasters of the day.

In September 1946, she left Callinacurra for the last time with a cargo of silica clay for Weston Point in the Mersey.

There, she was laid up for nearly a year until chartered and refitted for service in the West Indies, quite an extraordinary development at this advanced stage of her life. But it was not to be. She left Birkenhead late in September 1947 bound for Jamaica and soon ran into a gale, which forced her to run back for the Mersey damaged and minus three sails. Legal complications arose following the death of her charterer, A. A. Harris, in the tragic loss of the schooner I sallt on the Wexford coast in December. Old Brooklands was laid up once more at Wallasey opposite Liverpool with her future uncertain.

In June 1948, she was purchased by Captain Ashworth of Courtown, County Wexford, who had her brought back to Arklow for refitting. In deference to seafaring tradition that it is bad luck to change a ship' s name, her new owner reverted to her original title, Susan Vittery. But from then on, all luck seemed to desert the 90-year-old lady. With tier topmasts and square yards removed and two auxiliary engines installed, she left Arklow for Garson in August 1949 to load her first cargo in three years. She went aground in the Mersey but was refloated. On the return passage, she ran into a southeast gale and with her engines giving trouble, she lost her mainsail before making anchorage at Rosslare. Her crew were taken off

by Rosslare lifeboat but returned later to complete the passage to Y oughal, County Cork.

After that, the old schooner was laid up at Wicklow for over two years and, indeed, it looked as if there she would end her days. But in 1952 she started yet another, and what proved to be the final , chapter of her long and adventurous career. She was purchased by a Dublin group who refitted her with two large diesel engines and cut down her rigging still further to just three steadying sails.

The almost unrecognizable veteran then loaded phosphate at Dublin and sailed for Dungarvan, County Waterford, where she went aground near the quay . The Local council pumped her out and , after discharging her cargo, the Susan Vittery sailed on her last passage. Near the Saltee Islands, she sprang a serious leak and, despite continuous pumping, the water gained steadily. Within three miles of the shelter ofRosslare, at dawn on Easter Monday 1953, the famous old schooner gave up the ghost to end a lifespan of 94 years. Her crew got clear in the boat and were saved.

In retrospect, it almost seems that after passing from SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92

The three-masted topsail schooner Brooklands, ex-Susan Yittery, was Ireland's last pure sailing merchantman. This photo of her was taken about 1933 in Galway Bay. The author sailed on her for a month during her last year as a trader. Photo courtesy the author.

I

-.

At left , the handsome steel motor schooner De Wadden outlasted the Brook lands , trading out ofArk/ow under the ownership ofVictor Hall until 1961 , when she was sold to new owners in Scotland. This photo was taken by the author in Dublin in 1948.

Lower left, the three-masted wooden schooner Kathleen & May was charging along off the south coast of Wales in the Bristol Channel, when the author scrambled out on the bowsprit to take this photo in 1958. The vessel was owned in Youghal, County Cork.from 1908 till 1931. She is now under the care of Britain' s Maritime Trust and can be visited at her berth in London.

Creenan ownership the schooner missed her old master and his son, and perhaps her natural affinity for wind and sails. Within six months of John Creenan 's death in 1952, his beloved Brooklands was also gone.

What was left of the Arklow fleet of auxiliary schooners steadily went out of trade, some wrecked, others broken up.

The very last to carry cargo was the 330-ton steel three-masted De Wadden, which traded until 1961 before her sale to Scotland. By good fortune, she is now in the skillful care of the Merseyside Maritime Museum at Liverpool , where she is being restored to her original three-masted fore and aft rig.

Another connection with Irish merchant sail can still be seen on the Thames at London. There the Maritime Trust has preserved the last British wooden three-masted schooner Kathleen & May , which was owned in Youghal, County Cork, from 1908to1931 and was the second last sailing trader from that port. D Mr. Scott has had a lively interest in ships and ship photography since childhood. He made several trips on the last of the sailing traders from 1945through1960, including the Kathleen & May and the Brooklands in her last year of trading. Today he enjoys sailing on Ireland's West Coast and is the author of The Galway Hookers.

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