No. 78
NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY
SUMMER 1996
THE ART, LITERATURE, ADVENTURE, LORE & LEARNING OF THE SEA
An Elizabethan Era Wreck The Cape Hom Road The American Merchant Marine Ed Bosley's Gloucester Research Models in Ivory
* The * licensed * * civilian * * men * *and *women * of* the*U.S.* mer* * chant marine-skilled, reliable, driven by history and tradition, ready to serve in routine trade in peacetime and in defense sealift in wartime. No one does it better.
American Maritime Officers
2 West Dixie Highway Dania, Florida 33004 (305) 921-2221
Michael R. McKay
Jerome E. Joseph
President
Executive Vice President
*****
*****
ISSN 0146-9312
No. 78
SEA HISTORY
SEA HISTORY is published quarterly by the National Maritime Historical Society, 5 John Walsh Boulevard, PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566. Second class postage paid at Peekskill NY l 0566 and additional mailing offices. COPYRIGHT © 1996 by the National Maritime Historical Society. Tel : 914 737-7878. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Sea History, 5 John Walsh Boulevard, PO Box 68, Peekski ll NY 10566. MEMBERSHIP is invited. Afterguard $10,000; Benefactor $5,000; Plankowner $2,500; Sponsor $ 1,000; Donor $500; Patron $250; Friend $ 100; Contributor $50; Family $40; Regular $30. All members outside the USA please add $ 10 for postage. SEA HISTORY is sent to all members. Individual copies cost $3.75 . OFFICERS & TRUSTEES : Chairman , Alan G. Choate; Vice Chairmen, Richardo Lopes, Richard W. Scheuing, Edward G. Zelinsky; President, Peter Stanford; Vice President, Norma Stanford; Treasurer, Bradford Smith; Secretary , Donald Derr; Trustees, Walter R. Brown, W. Grove Conrad, George Lowery, Jeanmarie Maher, Warren Marr, II, Brian A. McAllister, James J. Moore, Douglas Muster, Nancy Pouch, Craig A. C. Reynolds, Marshall Streibert, Louis Trapp, Jr. , Dav id B. Vietor, Harry E. Vinall, ill, Raymond E. Wallace, Jean Wort. Chairman Emeritus, Karl Kortum OVERSEERS : Chairman , Townsend Hornor; Charles F. Adams, Walter Cronkite, George Lamb, John Lehman, Schuyler M. Meyer, Jr. , J. William Middendorf, II, Graham H. Phillips, John Stobart, William G. Winterer ADVISORS : Co-Chairmen , Frank 0 . Braynard, Melbourne Smith; D.K. Abbass, Raymond Aker, George F. Bass, Francis E. Bo wker, Oswald L. Brett, David Brink, Norman J. Brouwer, William M. Doerflinge r, FrancisJ. Duffy.John S. Ewald, Joseph L. Farr, Timothy G. Foote, William Gilkerson, Thomas Gillmer, Walter J. Handelman, Charles E. Herdendorf, Steven A. Hyman , Hajo Knuttel , Conrad Milster, William G. Muller, Dav id E. Perkins, Richard Rath , Nancy Hughes Ri chardson , Timothy J. Runyan , George Salley, Ralph L. Snow, John Stobart, Shannon J. Wall , Thomas Wells AMERICAN SHIP TRUST: International Chairman. Karl Kortum; Chairman, Peter Stanford; Trustees, F. Briggs Dalzell, William G. Muller, Richard Rath , Melbourne Smith, Edward G. Zelinsky SEA HJSTORY STAFF: Editor, Peter Stanford; Executive Editor, Norma Stanford; Managing Editor, Justine Ahlstrom; Contributing Editor, Kevin Haydon; Accounting, Joseph Cacciola; Membership Development & Public Affairs, Burchenal Green; Membership Secretary, Patricia Anstett; Membership Assistant, Erika Kurtenbach ; Advertising Assistant, Carmen McCallum; Secretary to the President, Karen Ritell ADVERTISING: Telephone 800 22 1-NMHS.
SUMMER 1996
CONTENTS 2 DECK LOG & LETTERS 4 NMHS NEWS
6 THE AMERICAN FLAG AT SEA: A Shipper's Perspective by Rob Quartet 8 CAPE HORN ROAD, VIII: Columbus Opens the Americas to the World
by Peter Stanford 14 Primary Research at Its Height: The Monumental Work of Ed Bosley on Gloucester Fishing Schooners
by Nancy d' Estang 16 A Report from the Falkland Islands
by Dorothy Packer 19 An Elizabethan-Era Wreck in the Channel Islands
by Tim Dingemans 22 MODELMAKER'S CORNER: A History in Ivory
by Scottie Dayton 25 MARINE ART NEWS 26 SHIPNOTES, SEAPORT & M USEUM NEWS 28 AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE MUSEUM NEWS 29 REVIEWS 32 PATRONS
COVER: Who wouldn't sell afarm and go to sea ? A saucy ship lies waiting in a secluded cove to tempt us in this dreamlike summer scene by Montague Dawson. This painting can be seen at Quester Gallery in Stonington, Connecticut, in a show benefiting the Captain Nathaniel Brown Palmer Mansion. (See page 25.)
Join Us for a Voyage into History Our seafaring heritage comes alive in the pages of Sea History, from the ancient mariners of Greece, and Portu g uese navigators opening up the ocean world, to the heroic efforts of seamen in World War II. Each issue brings new insights and new discoveries.
If you love the sea and the legacy of those who sail in deep waters, if you Jove the rivers, lakes a nd bay s and their workaday craft, then you belong with us. Stay in touchjoin us today! Mail in the form below or phone
1-800-221-NMHS
Y e;,-1-;-antto join the Society and r~eive Sea History quarterly. My7c;ntribution* i;" enclosed. (*$15 of each contribution is for Sea History; any amount above that is tax-deductible.) D $30 Regular Member D $40 Family Member D $I 00 Friend
Mr./Ms._ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ __ _ __ _
~------------------ZIP~------
R eturn to National Maritime Historical Society, PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566
NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY
DECK LOG
LETTERS
Paper prices have shot up this year, and these added costs, in unholy alliance with increased postage costs, have driven quite a few magazines out of business. Not, I am glad to say, Sea History. This magazine will go on doing the work it does, as the journal of a cause in motion, just so long as the devoted membership of the National Maritime Historical Society believe in Sea History's mission and look to Sea History for news and informed viewpoints on the challenging seafaring heritage which lies at the heart of our national story and, indeed, the development of mankind. In the words of our founder Karl Kortum, "Sea History is how we all stay in touch." We, like everyone else, have to accommodate ourselves to economic reality, and therefore this issue of Sea History is smaller than usual. And as of September, we are increasing NMHS dues from $30 to $35. We are offering present members the opportunity to renew at the lower rate, as described on the wrapper of this copy of the magazine. And while we don't advertise it widely-for reasons that should be clear if you think about it!-we accept memberships from people who are students, retired or on limited income for any other reason, at half the regular rate$15 up to now, $17.50 in the future. The only place we publish this offer is on renewal forms going to enrolled members of NMHS. To Be a Friend At the other end of the spectrum of our economics, you should know that we have some 565 members-or nearly 4% of our total enrollment of 15,470-who are Friends of the Society. Friends contribute $100 or more each year to support the work your Society does for the heritage. This work ranges from matters like getting the Congress to act on sending a Liberty ship to Normandy on the 50th anniversary ofDDay in 1994, to building the membership to provide a firmer foundation for all we do. We'd be happy to tell you more about our Friends program! Just write or give us a call at 800221-NMHS. -PETER STANFORD
Building Our Membership On behalf of the California Maritime Academy, and most especially its student body, I want to extend sincere thanks to the members of the Sir Francis Roundtable of the National Maritime Historical Society. The presentations of gift memberships to our senior class were an important first event of this type on our campus. I have heard from a number of students who received Sea History . Its high quality and items of interest have impressed our entire community. The Academy looks forward to a continuing relationship with the Society as, together, we provide important support for our country ' s maritime interests. MARYE. LYONS, PhD, President The California Maritime Academy Vallejo, California See NMHS News (p. 4)for more on our campaign to enroll young people as active members of the Society.-ED.
NMHS needs Mac computers! Your gift of a Powerbook or Power PC will help us get to windward, and it entitles you to a tax deduction. Call Justine at
2
800-221-NMHS
Those Magnificent Clippers The caption under the illustration of the clipper ship Young America (SH77, p. 7) is technically correct but very misleading since it implies that the clipper ship was responsible for America's greatness in the sea trades. It was not the clipper ship but the packet ship, starting with the Black Ball Line of 1818, that ushered in the heyday of the American sailing merchant marine. Our merchant marine was already on the decline when the clippers appeared. The clipper ships were mostly built for the Gold Rush trade, 1849-1854, when the demand was for speed at all costs. After this time, they were generally not good money-makers. That is why ship design turned to vessels that carried a better payload. The magnificent clippers had great appeal to the American people for their beauty, for the many speed records they broke and the hope that they might meet the challenge of steam that was taking away the best of the business from American sailing ships. H. HOBART HOLLY Braintree, Massachusetts Remembering Senator Muskie The National Maritime Historical Society lost a loyal friend and supporter when Senator Edmund Muskie died. In 1963, when the Committee for the Preservation of the Kaiulani received word that the Government of the Philippines
was donating the "last American squarerigged merchant vessel" as a symbol of the friendship between the peoples of the US and of the Philippines, the Committee moved fast to incorporate as the National Maritime Historical Society and, since the Kaiulani was built in Bath, Maine, in 1899, they sought advice and assistance from Senator Ed Muskie of Maine. Senator Muskie was immediately taken with the idea of restoring the old bark and berthing her on the Washington DC waterfront. He was genuinely involved and deeply interested. Throughout the long and difficult trials of the Kaiulani, Senator Muskie was a true and loyal friend of the ship and of the Society. He was a gentleman and it was always a privilege and a pleasure to work with him. Ed Muskie will be missed, not only by the old friends of the Kaiulani, but by the nation. ALAND. HUTCHISON Reno, Nevada Mr. Hutchison served as president of NMHS, 1963-1970.-ED.
Smuggling in the Lowlands Walter Rybka is to be thanked for his attempt to explain the contradictions to be found in all versions of the song, "The Golden Vanity." There can be little quarrel with his deduction as to the practicalities of the holing of the enemy vessel, but his explanation of the presence of "Turks" in the Lowlands must be open to argument. I feel sure it could not have been common parlance to describe Spanish vessels as Turkish, or there would be numerous examples in the literature. He also does not differentiate between galleys and galleasses. The Mediterranean oared warship that was most used in northern waters was the galleass, which was more seaworthy than the galley. These rarely if ever used Turkish slaves to man the oars, which were more likely to be manned by the sailing crew, since there was not space for both sailors and oarsmen on a long voyage. I have little doubt that the song has its origins in some historical occurrence, but doubt whether it took place as described. Perhaps it is an allegory . A smuggling story might be the origin of the song. Those familiar with the history and mythology of British smuggling will recognize the resemblance of the ruthless captain to one of the "gentlemen." Indeed, his getting rid of the perSEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
son who carried out the sinking is the best way of ensuring that the only witness cannot talk to the authorities. Such elimination of witnesses is common in English smuggling stories. East Anglia or the Wirral have areas that can be described as lowlands, with deep creeks cut into the mud and sand by the flow of the tide. They are quite literally a navigational maze. The song could be an allegory, with the detested customs officers insultingly characterized as Turks. The ditty, completely comprehensible to contemporary listeners, would give the authorities no cause for action against any individual. Ballads of this type were common in English political life, and are the origins of many nursery rhymes. The facts behind the story will probably never be known, and it is to be hoped that the mystery will persist to fascinate future generations. Once again, thank you to Walter Rybka for a stimulating article on an intriguing subject. PAUL QUINN Stafford, England
That Haunting Lowlands Song "The Golden Vanity" lyrics Capt. Rybka gives are substantially the same as those found in Songs of the Sea and Sailor 's Chanteys: Selected and Arranged by Robert Frothingham, Houghton Mifflin, 1924. While the version that Capt. Rybka uses, from Stan Hugill ' s collection, contains all of Frothingham's verses and includes the hauling refrain, it is more ballad than chantey. As the number passed from worksong to barroom and parlor minstrelsy, elaboration has taken place. The added stanzas might be called performance stretch-out; in Frothingham the boy does not swim to starboard and then to larboard and does not call up to his mates. He does not "bare his breast," merely "takes an auger," and he does not say he's "weary with the tide." Frothingham' s captain does not say, ''I'll shoot you and I'll kill you," he says, "I'll kill you if you come on deck." Besides redundancies, certain substitutes do not improve the flavor. Instead of "they buried him in his hammock," Frothingham's end line is "we lifted him so tenderly and sewed him in a hide"; then, "we said a short prayer o'er him and dropped him in the tide." But then, "He' s sailing in the Lowlands low." JOHN WHORF Hingham, Massachusetts SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
American Seamen under Attack Thank you for opening up a discussion of the decline of America's merchant marine (SH77, "America's Orphan" by David O'Neil), a concern now redoubled by a current drive to overthrow the Jones Act. One recurring claim is that it costs too much to ship American, because American seamen are overpaid. American mariners are well paid, but let's look at why they are and let's look at correct numbers. Going to sea today means minimum manning with three section watches and port calls that average between eight and twelve hours of intense work preceded and followed by the rigors of docking and undocking. Then it's back to sea watch rotation . It's boring work punctuated by frenzied port calls. To get trained, responsible personnel requires pay scales that acknowledge the skill, responsibility and personal sacrifice of isolation from family and friends for long periods of time. Philippine seamen, trained at maritime schools and English-speaking, are in high demand. They earn the International Labor Organization rates of about $356permonthforaseaman. ButAmerican labor should be expected to work for wages that enable them to live in the American economy and that are comparable to pay for other skilled US labor. American seamen work long hours at sea for two good reasons: First, there is little to do with leisure time, so one may as well work. Second, it is to the advantage of the owner to pay overtime, rather than hire another sailor to do essential work, since the benefits package has already been paid for that sailor and needn't be paid again. In addition to regular duties, overtime is also spent on maintenance, thereby allowing our merchant ships to routinely operate 330 to 350 days a year and maximize the rate of return on the capital investment by the ship's owner. The object is to keep the ship working with as little interruption as possible. There have been exaggerated claims about the cost of operating American ships. But two years ago a study was done comparing the cost in pay and benefits of running a merchant vessel versus a US Coast Guard vessel with the same size crew. The results showed that the costs were virtually identical. It' s time to stop blaming America's professional mariners for not being willing to work for third world wages . EDWARD V. KELLY, Vice President American Maritime Officers Washington, DC
In Drake's Wake I read with interest your note in "Letters" in Sea History 76 dealing with Cape Hom. You are indeed right as to Drake' s landing on Cape Hom. I landed on the Horn in 1964 and wrote of this unforgettable experience for Sealiftmagazine (October 1964). There definitely is a landing place, wood and fresh water. As to Burnham Bank, aboard the scientific survey ship USNS Eltanin we spent the best part of a day looking for Elizabeth Island. We found only deep water and believe that had there once been an island there it had since been wiped away by an earthquake. WILLIAM J. HARDING New York, New York Tenacious Iberian Flavor in Africa Your article on Portuguese exploration ("The Cape Horn Road, Part VII'') in Sea History 77 helps recall much learning so delightfully accumulated but now pretty much lost except when revived by such an entertaining and interesting account! Portuguese presence on the West African coast is surprisingly tenacious. Even in my decade on the coast, the 1960s, much of it spent in Nigeria, one encountered unusual vestiges. You might have mentioned Lagos, principal city of Nigeria, named for the village in Portugal which Drake worked over at one point, I believe. The city of Elmina in Ghana (formerly Gold Coast) doesn' t refer to a mine, but Europeans invariably think it does. And other village names evoke Iberian flavor. There was aBrazilian Quarter in Lagos, just adjacent to our Texaco offices, long shown on maps, characterized by odd shapes-big wooden buildings with unusual projecting balconies. These had been built and rebuilt by European hands, not African. They were used as tenements from which owners hung over balconies and out windows calling to friends on the street or across the way. H.B . HUBBELL Rowayton, Connecticut ERRATA In Sea History 77, in our discussion of the film "Ghosts of Cape Horn" (p. 6), we overlooked the producer James R. Donaldson III of New York, to whom we owe great thanks. In his painting of Young America (cover and p. 7), William G. Muller depicted the clipper leaving New York in 1873, not in 1853; the vessel was built in 1853. And on page 17, the Portuguese city on the West Coast of Africa is Elmina, not Elmira. ,t
3
NMHSNEWS Membership Campaign Rolls On ...
From Coast to Coast!
Members of the San Diego Maritime Museum met with NMHS members on 29 March aboard the museum's beautifully restored ferry Berkeley to see the film "Ghosts of Cape Horn" with commentary by Peter Stanford, president of NMHS. Development Director Joseph Ditler says the meeting was the biggest this active, growing organization has seen in recent years, auguring well for future cooperative activities between NMHS and regional maritime museums . Peter also met with Michael O'Bryan, president of the Maritime Museum Association of San Diego, and Director Ray Ashley to discuss plans for the presentation of the American Ship Trust and the World Ship Trust Awards to the museum's bark Star ofIndia (built in 1863 as Euterpe). Look for our feature on the vessel in the forthcoming Pacific World issue of Sea History. Meanwhile, Back East ... NMHS members in Boston thronged aboard the frigate Rose on the eve of her departure for European waters, to recognize CDR Michael C. Beck with the NMHS Distinguished Service Award for his innovative program opening USS Constitution to teachers and school groups in weekend cruises this summer. The NMHS Walter Cronkite A ward for Excellence in Maritime Education was presented to Rafe Parker, president of Sea Education Association (SEA), for the great work done aboard the sailing ships Westward and Corwith Cramer. Townsend Hornor , NMHS Overseer and former chairman of SEA, described SEA programs as "an amazing experience that rou- From left : CDR Michael Beck, Captain , tinely brings students USS Constitution; Rafe Parker, President, back to shore thinking SEA; NMHS OverseerTownsendHornor; Peter Stanford, President, NMHS; Capthey are ten feet tall." tain Richard Bailey, "HMS" Rose; Basil Annual Meeting Under Rafe's leader- Harrison, N MHS Reception Co-chairman. ship "SEA has gone People from as far away as Texas and as near as neighboring New York City gathered at the US Merchant Marine Academy from a seat-of-the-pants operation to a structured entity whose at Kings Point, New York, to hear reports and elect trustees at the credits are recognized by over 200 universities." Rafe's remarks upon accepting the award were enthusiastically ap33rd NMHS Annual Meeting. The morning 's Business Meeting included officers' and committee reports and the re-election of plauded, as he explored the power America's maritime experience can have today . (For the text of Rafe Parker ' s the following trustees: W. Grove Conrad, Karl Kortum, George presentation, printed in full in the May/June Sea History Lowery, Warren Marr, II, Craig A. C. Reynolds, Marshall Gazette, send $3 to NMHS, PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566.) Streibert, Louis Trapp, Jr. , and Edward Zelinsky. Harry Vinall, NMHS celebrated Maritime Day (22 May) aboard the bark co-chairman of the Charles Point Council, was newly elected Peking with Exy Johnson, wife and partner of Captain Irving to the board. Keynote speaker Henry Keatts gave a fascinating Johnson, the great sail-training skipper who rounded Cape illustrated talk on U-boat remains off our East Coast. Horn in the Peking. Exy 's News from the field included reports by David O ' Neil, memoir of Irving, in our new president of the American Merchant Marine Museum and of edition of his classic, The Seaworthy Systems, Inc. , on the dwindling American merchant marine, and by Col. Pat Garvey , planning chief of the Peking Battles Cape Horn, New York State Thruway Authority, on the proposal to build . reveals how their partnership worked (to order the book, a replica of the Hudson River sloop Experiment under the see ad, page 12). JA aegi s of NY State 's Maritime College and NMHS. The concept focuses on the cultural history of the river and its Exy Johnson aboard the Peking contribution to the wider world in international trade. Other with Peter Stanford (left),presireports were presented by Harry Vinall on the Charles Point dent of NMHS, and Peter Neill , Council, the Hon. James J. Moore on the New York Council, president of South Street Seaand Jack Leslie on plans to bring home USS New Jersey. port Museum .
Our campaign to enroll the graduating classes of maritime academies is proceeding apace, thanks to the generosity of members and trustees. The San Francisco Council of the National Maritime Historical Society, the Sir Francis Roundtable, raised funds to give NMHS memberAlan Choate presents Sea History to US ships to the graduating Naval Academy graduating class presi- class of the California dent Barton Philips. Maritime Academy, which Fred Hawkins and Peter Stanford presented on 2 April. And on 23 May, Chairman Alan Choate presented memberships to the 1996 graduating class at the US Naval Academya gift of John Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy and NMHS Overseer, and Thomas Pownall. "History is a part of all our lives and we carry it with us throughout our lives. The more we know about history the easier it is for us to deal with situations that will face us in the future," Alan Choate said to the thousand midshipmen assembled. In addition, NMHS memberships have been given to: the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, from our trustees Louis A. Trapp, Jr. and Walter R. Brown; the Great Lakes Maritime Academy, from Trustee Richard W. Scheuing; and to the directors of one hundred maritime museums across the country, thanks to the James A. Macdonald Foundation. To contribute to this campaign, earmark your donation for "The Scholarship Fund." For additional information, contact Burchenal Green, 914 737-7878.
4
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
Ye o Ide
R. Berkeley George proprietor
cannon Maker
Heroes in Dungarees by John Bunker
We offer a complete line of unique handcrafted Est. 1958 brass cannons. These cannons are scaled down versions of classic original designs featuring meticulous attention to details. All models are working I 0 gauge or black powder. Ideal for gifts, ceremonial or starting cannons and trophies. Make your next special occasion unforgettable- send for our free __.-::;:: catalog today.
-
The story of the American Merchant Marine in World War II Covering all theaters of operations: 1940-1945. Accounts of sub, air and surface actions told by men who took part. Epic voyages in life boats with a list of where and when over 500 American ships were lost by enemy action. 500 pp, illustrated
Heroes in Dunaarees THE STORY OF THE AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE IN WORLD WAR II
$32.95 Order from your book store or from: NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS
20 Amber Tr., Madison CT 06443 1-800-327-2193
2062 Generals Highway Annapolis MD 21401
Since 1910 Petroleum, Petrochemical and Vegetable Oil Barging 5,000 to 150,000 BBLS Dry Ca rgo Barging 4,000 to 8,000 OWT
Other Services and Eq uipment Deck barges - Steam and electric generator barge Tank cleaning - Full barge repair facil ity
Inland and Ocean TowingShi1>side Services 1,200 to 7,200 HP Bunkering - Potable water Vacuum barge - Oily water, Rapid Spill Response bilge and ballast removal in N.Y. Harbor Area
EKLOF MARINE CORP. A FULL SERVICE MARINE TRANSPORTATION COMPANY 3245 Richmond Terrace. P.O. Box 0303 16, Staten Island, New York. 10303-0003
(718) 720-7207
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
A spirit of hard work, enterprise & cooperation sailed the tall ships of yesterday & the Liberty Ships of World War II... and that's what makes things move today!
BAY REFRACTORY 164 Wolcott Street Brooklyn, NY 11231 Tel: 718-625-3844
5
THE AMERICAN FLAG AT SEA:
A Shipper's Perspective by Rob Quartel In this second in a series on the future of the US merchant marine presentingargumentsforandagainstproposedchanges to US maritime policy, we present a viewfor less regulation and more open competition. We remind readers that these are the views of the author and differing views will follow. For seven decades the maritime industry has argued that the only way to maintain a US flag merchant fleet is to provide government subsidies and preferences to US flag vessels, to help them survive competition from allegedly low cost, poorly manned and unregulated or heavily subsidized foreign carriers. It has been a firmly held belief that without government intervention, an American flag merchant marine simply couldn't compete. In response, Uncle Sam has been generous with taxpayer money, spending tens of billions of taxpayer dollars since the inception of these programs-some $20 billion in current dollars in operating subsidies since 1936, another $20 billion in higher government shipping costs in military and food aid cargo preferences, and perhaps as much as $200 billion in higher · domestic shipping costs due to the Jones Act. Another $2 to $3 billion annually in higher international shipping costs is taken from the economy by US government-backed shipping cartels: And with what result? At the end of World War II, America had the largest fleet in world history-more than 2000 vessels. Today no more than 310 active self-propelled vessels remain, no more than 70 ships in the oceangoing container fleet. While tonnage has remained constant since 1970, our share of our own foreign trade has declined from 24 to less than 4 percent. The labor picture is equally grim. Monthly average maritime employment has fallen some 80 percent or 45,000 billets since 1950 to under 8000 today. In part this reflects advances in shipping technology, but it is also the result of the decline in the fleet' s competitiveness. The average unlicensed sailor is over 50 years old, the average officer over 45. The average slot cost of these jobs-two sailors share each job--is now anywhere from $180,000 to $240,000 apiece, with roughly half of that going to direct salary and overtime, the remainder to benefits, pensions and union dues. A merchant marine captain, in fact, could earn as much as $380,000 in benefits and salary for six months work. American merchant mariners often like to say they have to compete against "low-cost foreign labor." More correctly, they're taking half their salaries out of the pockets of much lower paid Americans. Taxpayers whose per capita earnings in 1995 barely topped $20,000 annually, end up paying over $110,000 in direct subsidies for each of 2000 of those slots. Domestic shipping, governed by Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (the Jones Act) fares even worse. The law , religiously viewed as the savior of the domestic shipping industry, handcuffs American shippers-even Puerto Rico, Alaska, Guam and Hawaii, thousands of miles from the US mainland-to vessels built in the United States, flagged , owned, operated and manned by Americans. But the Jones Act, long wrapped in the cloak of defense and maritime lore, has far from noble origins. The sad fact is that the Act was passed without hearings or a debate in Congress, and signed by an ailing President Wilson. While Sen. Wesley Jones, its sponsor from Washington State, said that its purpose was "to drive foreign shipping from our shores," the law was really intended to preserve the colonial status of Alaska by driving competing Japanese and Canadian shipping from the West Coast in order to preserve a rail monopoly operating out of Seattle. Alaskans (except for their Washington delegation)
6
have long and ferociously opposed it, correctly noting its origins not in the First Congress, but in the punitive mercantile laws the British imposed on the American colonies and which eventually led to the American Revolution. Jones Act beneficiaries claim that the law provides" ... jobs, safety, environmental protection, efficiency and national security, all provided at no expense to the US taxpayer and without a dime of subsidy from the federal government" (the Maritime Cabotage Task Force). Privately, many are ambiguous, delighting in the barriers to global competition it places around American markets and customers but complaining at the same time about the high cost of American-built vessels, more costly wages, and employment and Coast Guard rules. Far from being safer and environmentally superior, our ships-aging because it costs too much to replace them in American shipyards--fare no better than average in the world's insurance tables on either score. The Exxon Valdez was a Jones Act ship. Domestic shipping markets may be protected from foreign competition, but other American businesses are not, even in their own backyard markets: • US shippers find it cheaper to move cargo out of the Great Lakes, across the Atlantic Ocean to Rotterdam and back to the East Coast than to ship the cargo directly. No cost-effective, US flag ships are available to carry the cargo directly. •Rates to ship grain from the Port of Tacoma to Hawaii are approximately four times higher on US flag vessels than in the international market. Thus the sole remaining flour mill in Hawaii buys only Canadian wheat. • It is cheaper to ship scrap steel-which could be used by American mini-mills-from Boston to eastern Asia on a foreign-flag vessel than to the Gulf of Mexico on a US ship. The cruise industry is similarly restricted by the Passenger Vessel Act. Today, only one 45-year-old, major Jones Act passenger vessel continues to operate, between Hawaii and the West Coast. Americans fly to Seattle, drive to Vancouver, Canada, and hop a foreign ship to Alaska, costing Seattle some $100 million annually in lost jobs, taxes and business. In economic terms, the Act performs as an infinite tariff and a supply constraint, creating an artificial shortage of ships and artificially high prices (a subsidy, for those who may be tempted to defend it as having no cost). And while the typical American manufacturer may both compete and source globally, she loses domestically when she finds herself wholly prohibited from access to the competitive deepwater transportation options to domestic US continental and non-contiguous points available to her foreign competitors. A 1991 analysis published by the US International Trade Commission asserted that the Jones Act may thus cost the American consumer and manufacturer as much as $10 billion a year in higher prices and lost economic activity. One recent Hawaiian analysis suggests that the Jones Act may cost that state as much as $800 million on a $330 billion economy. The independent US Government Accounting Office says that the Act may cost Alaska upwards of $600 million a year, or over $4000 per family per year in 1988 dollars. Guam asserts in court that it pays over $50 million extra a year, and Puerto Rico may pay perhaps as much as $500 million extra. Jones Act defenders on the one hand reject these studies, and on the other say it 's a small price to pay for the benefits they claim the Act provides. But does the Jones Act really help the maritime industry? SEA HISTORY 78 , SUMMER 1996
"The Jones Act hampers n:ot only American businesses, but the maritime industry itself, making the domestic flag industry far less competitive than it could be." The Jones Act hampers not only American businesses, but the maritime industry itself, making the domestic flag industry far less competitive than it could be. American-built ships cost more than comparable foreign-built ships and financing costs are higher, as bankers find it unpleasant to lend more money for a project than it is worth. And crews are larger, and unit labor costs are often multiples of the wages paid not only to foreign competition but to the average working American. Inflating the purported benefits of the Act has become an art form. The Jones Act is claimed to provide "direct employment for 124,000 Americans, including 80,000 vessel crewmembers," "$ 15 billion in benefits," a fleet of 44,000 vessels, "20,000 shipyard workers" and " 14,000 engaged in repair" (the Maritime Cabotage Task Force). The facts, however, are not so rosy. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Maritime Administration, no more than 2,400 shipbuilding jobs are in commercial shipbuilding activities, and none at all in a major Jones Act construction project. (There were no more than 9 orders for major Jones Act vessels since 1984.) Sixty shipyards have gone out of business and tens of thousands of shipyard workers have lost their jobs while the Jones Act "protected" them. As for the 80,000 crewing jobs, only 1700 active seafaring jobs remain in the Great Lakes, another 300 or so in deepwater passenger service, only another 3200 elsewhere on deepwater domestic ships. Another 54,800 are on brownwater barges, tugs and tows or in ancillary industries that would exist with or without the Jones Act. Union longshoremen have lost 60 percent of their jobs in the last decade alone. And of the 308 active privately held vessels over 1000 tons left in the fleet, no more than 128 serve any oceangoing domestic Jones Act markets whatsoever. All but 33 are tankers or tug-barge combinations carrying liquid bulk cargoes. Only one remains in deepwater passenger service and only one bulk carrier and 23 intermodal ships are left to sail our coasts at all. The Great Lakes fleet itself is down to no more than 52 active vessels, averaging over 38 years of age. Nearly 30,000 barges and thousands of tugs and dredges ply our inland waterways. But barges, tugs and dredges aren 't ships; nor are the seamen on them qualified to run deepwater vessels; nor are they threatened by competition under reform. Yet encouraging the use of ships and waterborne transportation is what the debate should be about: Marad data suggests that one small coastal freighter carrying I 00 containers would create 77 jobs onshore, put out a third less pollution and save $40,000 in road wear in the process of a single truck trip from Maine to Miami. Despite these facts, not a single coastal freighter over 1000 tons sails at all on the US East Coast. While the Jones Act fails to protect or create maritime jobs, high US flag shipping costs destroy thousands of American jobs in other sectors of the economy, resulting in their export overseas to lower wage countries. Americans who would otherwise work in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, in hotels and ports in the United States find their jobs sent to Canada, Venezuela, Mexico, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and more. The Jones Act's national security claims are even more questionable. During the Gulf War, the largest movement of war materials in the last forty years, only one Jones Act vessel actually made it into the war zone. The Act itself had to be suspended by the Bush administration as an impediment to the movement of petroleum products necessary to the war effort. Today, the Jones Act fleet-with the dwindling exception of liquid bulk SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
carriers-is at best irrelevant, at worst an impediment to the nation's security. To many other companies-those working on the docks, in shipyards and ship repair, as barge operators and others-the Jones Act is something else: it is the virtually unrestrained right to sue an employer for damages for injuries suffered on the job. What Can and Should Be Done The most important reform, from the standpoint of America's shippers, would be to apply maritime laws in a way that reflects actual market practices and laws in the rest of the US economy. Laws that disadvantage the US flag fleet should be eliminated, along with the US flag preference rules that harm shippers. Once the former are gone, US flag carriers are in a position to compete. Generic US flag documentation requirements need to be harmonized not only with international practices, but with regular US commercial law, eliminating not only US build but US ownership requirements. As in other business sectors, foreign owned or flagged vessels should be allowed to operate as long as they form a US corporation and hire US labor while in regular commerce inside the United States. All vessels, both US or foreign, in the coastal trades should be required to comply with recognized international safety, manning and marine construction standards, rather than anachronistic US rules. This would help the maritime industry, but it wouldn't address the economic and transportation problems of American shippers either of commodities, manufactured products, or of those living on highly competitive international trade lanes in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Alaska and Guam. Their problems require the elimination of restrictions on access to competitive ocean movements. Unpalatable as it may be to some, a limited numberof foreign flag vessels have to be allowed to operate as tramps or charters in US deepwater coastal trades, or in domestic coastal and intercoastal trades that are part of international shipping movements that pass by the non-contiguous states and territories. Domestic maritime employers should be allowed to choose the workman 's injury coverage that works best for their company-eitherthe Federal Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act or an authorized state workman's compensation program as an alternative to Jones Act (FELA) tort remedies. Finally, the Passenger Vessel Act and related statutes should be similarly revised to reflect changes in manning, construction, flag, ownership and other operating changes outlined above. Our goal should be the recovery of thousands of American jobs the Jones Act exports in American forestry, steel, coal, auto and other heavy manufacturing, and in agriculture. Tens of thousands of jobs can be created in American ports in ship repair, construction, coastal port services, longshoring, in the cruise industry and, not least of all, for American merchant mariners manning the new coastal trading fleet. Nothing will do more to create a cadre of trained, deepsea merchant mariners available in time of war than to lift the restrictions imposed on domestic waterborne commerce, while requiring that Americans hold a good percentage of those jobs; and nothing will more empower the industry than to empower its customers, who will demand the services of a competitive industry that fosters the maritime jobs, services and ship construction and repair opportunities that have disappeared in seventy-five years of commercial restrictions. J, Mr. Quartet, a former US Federal Maritime Commissioner, is president ofthe Jones Act Reform Coalition in Washing ton DC. 7
THE CAPE HORN ROAD, PART VIII:
Columbus Opens the Americas to the World by Peter Stanford
A
t first you could make out only dim flashes where the tall seas broke. But as the light grew toward daybreak the rearing crests following the Bloodhound gleamed white with Alpine splendor. We sat quiet in the cockpit, awed by the scene and breathing deep of the salt air, cool and crisp just before the dawn, as the hurrying yawl drove on, beating out her own frosty track across the sea. The waves move, but the water they're composed of stays still, so a ship leaves its track on the face of the water, while the waves roll by, traveling faster than any ship. One steers with an eye out for the breaking wave-where all at once the water itself gets into avalanching motion. Or as Joseph Conrad said of Singleton at the helm of the ship Narcissus in like case: "He steered with care." Judy Wyatt, our helmsman aboard the Bloodhound, was entranced with the frothing bubbles that raced by when a wave broke astern of us. "It's like sailing in champagne!" Then all at once a taller sea reared up among these steep moving hills of water, a black obsidian shape against the eastern sky. As it neared it grew taller and its top became a brilliant icy greenthe light was shining right through it. "Judy," I said, "hang on. This one's not going to miss." And then it was upon us, a sudden blackness, and roaring in one's ears, and a giddy weightlessness---one forgot where one was. One didn't seem to feel the wetness of the water; its total embrace knocked one's sensory systems out of kilter, and I found myself picturing the placid green fields of England which we had left only a few weeks before. We seemed to be dealing with ultimate things, and as light and breath returned, sprawled at an uncomfortable angle against a sheet winch, I found myself smiling: I believed, and believe today, I had found the answer to the scholarly question of why it was reported of the dying Falstaff that he "babbled of green fields." This was not such fun for Judy ' s mother, in the cabin just below us. The sea had roared down through the partly open cabin hatch and on down the companionway steps to flood the after cabin, where the vessel narrows toward the stem, so that Dot Wyatt jumped out of her bunk into sea water-surely the Bloodhound, with her daughter aboard, was on her way to the bottom of the ocean! The weight of the sea that climbed aboard had pressed down the yawl's stem so that all the water that went below sluiced around into the after cabin. There was no real danger; it was just a playful slap of the lion ' s paw. Columbus Went This Way The Genoese Christopher Columbus, taking his departure from the Canary Islands for his transAtlantic voyage of 1492, as we had for our voyage of 1952, encountered the same pileup of seas to leeward of the islands, where crosswinds and currents meet. The condensed version of his journal we have, made by Columbus's not uncritical friend Bartolome de las Casas, a bishop who became the first historian of the West Indies, records that Columbus ran into seas that came in over the bows of his ship Santa Maria , shortly after setting out from the Canaries on his epochal voyage. Evidently, the same toppling seas met by the Bloodhound pursued the plump Santa Maria, slapping her full stem and lifting it upward till her bows buried-that is, the bows of the ship's actual hull, not the lofty structure of the forecastle head. Once clear of this odd comer of the ocean world, the Santa
8
Maria and her consorts , the caravels Nifia and Pinta, began to stretch their legs running before the fair winds of the Northeast Trades. Trade Wind sailing is a glorious experience; aboard Bloodhound we breakfasted on flying fish that landed on deck in the night watches and enjoyed the company of dolphins frolicking about our forward-plunging hull, evidently a great attraction to these warmblooded creatures. We may safely imagine Columbus's little squadron, driven by swelling, fullcut sails, beating out a frothy track across the sunlit seas while argosies of Trade Wind cloud sail by overhead, outpacing the rolling wooden hulls in the race to the unknown far shore. ¡ "The savor of the mornings was a great delight," Columbus noted when he was ten days into the voyage, in midSeptember 1492. That particular day, Sunday, 16 September, particularly pleased him; he went on to say that "nothing was lacking but to hear the nightingales, and the weather was like that in April in Andalusia." Later that day the fleet encountered the edge of the Sargasso Sea, a floating prairie of marine vegetation. This caused no particular alarm, since it had been discovered years before by Portuguese sailors, but it did stir up thoughts of land, possibly one of the mythical islands that crowded everyone's charts of the Atlantic, on the far shores of which China was thought to lie. But Columbus was bent on reaching the mainland which, as he noted, lay "further ahead." On 25 September Columbus's restive second-in-command, Martin Alonso Pinzon on the Pinta, sighted land, which others saw also when he pointed it out. But what he saw, and made others see, turned out to be a chimera of his own mind projected on a cloud bank on the horizon. In a world where people lived much more in the open than we do today, what happened in the sky was full of special meai:iings, practical and mystical. This was more true, perhaps, for Columbus than for anyone in the fleet-a fact that did not affect his impeccable navigation, but rather his sense of mission, his sense that a river of purpose was bearing him onward. He continued to revel in the voyage and, on the day following Martin Alonso's mistaken landfall, Columbus wrote: "The sea was like a river, the breezes sweet and soft." There was some unrest among the ships' crews in the next two weeks of the voyage, in which Pinzon may have played either a mediating or a stormy petrel role-or perhaps a bit of each. The ships ' people were understandably alarmed at the almost continuous fair winds, which would be head winds if they tried to return home the way they'd come. Columbus himself had run out his time for reaching China, or at least Japan. His answer to both these problems-with the crews and with his own reckoning-was to crack on sail and press forward. In this he was aided by some strong favoring winds as the fleet closed in on land, which the people at last knew was close ahead when they saw branches with fresh vegetation in the water. On Tuesday night, 11 October, as the ships rushed along on a wild moonlit ride, Columbus thought he saw a light dancing across the water. And four hours later, at 2AM on 12 October, Rodrigo de Triana, lookout aboard the Pinta, spotted the beaches of an island gleaming before them. In the morning, having stood off and on through the night, the Europeans landed on the island. They received an awed and joyous welcome from the local Taino people. Taino beliefs told them that the gods lived as they themselves did, on islands-cloud islands in the sky. The Taino had never seen SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
A ship from 1450 survives! The 3 1/i - f oot Matar6 ship, built to hang in a church , includes complete interior framing built by a skilled shipwright. Carpaccio painted more developed threemasted ships (like the Santa Maria but a bit bigger) in 1495. Drawn from life , these ships show lively lines and strong cargocarrying and seakeeping abilities. They are the naos that bind Europe together by sea, and their successors will bind Europe to the Americas and the Far East in coming decades.
;
sailing ships before, which moved with billowing sails, traveling with the wind as the clouds did. From the outset it 's clear that they both feared these intruders from another world and wanted to know more about them. They called their island Guanahani, for the iguana, a creature now extinct in the islands. Columbus christened the island San Salvador, or "Holy Savior," for the Christ in whose service he sailed. What Sort of Man, What Kind of Voyage? Despite abundant testimony from court scribes, historians of the day, and men who sailed with him, including an affectionate biography by his son Fernando, there seem to be continuing confusions about just what sort of person Columbus was. Who, then, was this proud, mission-driven man who by the fact of his discovery assumed-as duly contracted with his sovereigns-the proudly unique title "Admiral of the Ocean Sea"? From the day of his landing on that small island in the Bahamas, some 300 miles east of the tip of Florida, with a company of people which included a Hebrew scholar (who was expected, somehow, to serve as translator in dealing with the Chinese), the history of all native peoples in the Americas was changed, as was the history of the Europeans and indeed the worldwide community of mankind. The importance of the voyage is not obscured by the generally recognized fact that someone, if not Columbus, was bound to come on the Americas in this era of European expansion. It 's true that contact had been made in the far north 500 years earlier, and while that Viking effort faded away, other efforts were opening up the African coast and the island clusters of the Atlantic. But it took an extraordinary effort for the Europeans to break out into the Dark Ocean-as the Atlantic had been known-against the dominating west winds which all too frequently, even in the comparatively mild summer seasons, turned into raging gales that tried ships and men to their limit. And it took an extraordinary person to lead that effort successfully, where, as the record shows, able captains before him had failed. No, Columbus did not become the first to master the wild ocean by accident. Looking at the record, we would conclude ratherthat it was by the man 's hard-earned seafaring skills, his assiduous pursuit of knowledge, and, above all, his overarching sense of mission that he became the discoverer of the Americas. He would say, I believe, it was his destiny. However you want to look at it, you need to scrape away encrusted layers of non-fact to get at the true metal of Columbus's achievement. Consider The New Yark Times reminding us all, in a Thanksgiving editorial on turkeys in 1992 (soon after the October anniversary of Columbus 's landing in the Americas), that Columbus did not know where he was when he stumbled on America. And, the editorialist added, he hadn ' t a clue where Turkey was either! The Times was kind enough to publish a letter I wrote them to correct these egregious misstatements. But Columbus as explorer should need no defense. As no other person of his time, he had achieved a full and wellfounded picture of the Atlantic world. By the time of his SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
voyage of 1492 he had come to know all the principal sea routes of awakening Europe-beginning with the Genoese traffic to their outpost in the island of Chios, which the conquering Ottomans had left open in the midst of their new empire of Turkey (ahem!) to encourage that valuable Italian connection. And on his third voyage to the Americas, toward the end of his seaborne career, Columbus announced that he had discovered "Another World," in the shape of a great new continent-the continent we call South America. He knew very well where it was, and what it was. That he also thought that the Caribbean islands were part of Japan, and that China lay somewhere just around the comer, was not because he was a geographic illiterate. His world picture corresponds closely with Martin Behaim ' s famous globe of 1492, which showed only one big, island-speckled ocean separating Europe from Asia, an ocean about as wide as the Atlantic. Behaim 's map embodied the best thinking of the time, with the world shown somewhat smaller than we now know it to be, and the extent of Asia vastly exaggerated. No one that we know of in the West had been to easternmost Asia by sea. The famous Venetian traveler Marco Polo, like traveling missionaries before his time, had crossed Asia by circuitous land routes which made impossible any accurate idea of the distance traversed, and the path of his return from China, part of the way by sea, did nothing to improve his picture. The all-too-fashionable case for Columbus's geographic boobery rests solely on his adopting the prevailing literate geographer's picture of the ocean world-a picture he departed from only to announce the real, and totally unsuspected, presence of the great continent of South America. Looking at world maps of the day does more to make all this clear than reams of paper argument. The prevailing picture in these contemporary maps continues to show China's Gobi Desert right next to Greenland, even after additional voyages besides Columbus 's four American voyages had been made, and indeed after his own earthly voyage ended in 1506. But 9
THE CAPE HORN ROAD: COLUMBUS OPENS THE AMERICAS TO THE WORLD these maps show the islands he discovered where he placed them- and where they are today-along with the shoulder of South America. On 25 March 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano, a sagacious navigator sailing the North American coast a generation after Columbus came on the Americas, looked across the Outer Banks-the long sandy isthmus which, with occasional gaps, connects Cape Hatteras to mainland North Carolina-and seeing the expansive reaches of Pamlico Sound glittering in the early spring sunshine, declared that this was the Pacific Ocean. He was quite unaware of the 3,000-odd miles of the land mass of the North American continent which stood between him and the Pacific at this point! And this, bear in mind, is the same continent Columbus is fashionably mocked for not having found and recognized in his trips far to the south. Magellan had crossed the Pacific by the time ofVerrazzano' s voyage, as Verrazzano knew; and one of Magellan 's ships had gone on right around the world. But still there was no clear picture of the Americas. The truth is that these early explorers took a long time to connect up the dots in the world they were opening to human comprehension and traffics. Viewed in the context of the age he sailed in and the developing picture of the world which was unfolding before people's eyes, Columbus stands clearly revealed as the most fully informed explorer of the ocean world of his time. How did he achieve this, and for what purpose--0r as people say today, where was he coming from? Born in Genoa in 1451, Columbus was part of that remarkable city's seaborne renaissance. His father Domenic worked as a weaver, and was connected with the wool trade with Flanders, in which the enterprising Genoese republic had been active for over 150 years by the time Columbus came along. Genoese traders and warriors had also sailed their ships in the Black Sea, the inland Caspian, and the Red Sea, for long an exclusively Moslem domain; and they had led in the Portuguese expeditions which opened the Canaries and the Madeira group off Africa to settlement and trade, as well as the Azores, over 500 miles to the seaward west of Portugal-as we've seen in previous chapters of our story. Columbus in his personal career practically tracked the expansion of Genoese seafaring, sailing first to Chios off Turkey, then to the Mahgreb in North Africa, and then out of the Mediterranean into the broad Atlantic. On one Atlantic trip, his ship, bound to Flanders on Europe's north coast, was sunk in a sea battle off Lagos in southern Portugal. Our story might well have ended right there, since Columbus was left swimming in the sea wounded, without a boat. He grabbed an oar, probably a big rowing sweep used aboard his ship, rather than a small boat oar. Using this to support himself, he swam ashore and made his way to Lisbon, a center of Atlantic trade. Sailing from that port, he went on to Bristol in western England, another great center of Atlantic seafaring. Possibly he went further on, to Ireland and Iceland. But I believe he picked up his stories of those places, outside the normal orbit of southern seafarers, on the waterfront in Bristol, a principal port of call for ships from those islands; that would explain where he got the extreme tides he reported from Iceland, which are a dominant feature of Bristol, not Iceland. This bit of his story comes to us from his admiring son Fernando, who may have elided facts gleaned from his father's notes by omitting the role of intermediate reporters. Bristol, in any event, was a splendid spot to gather informa10
tion about the Atlantic world. In this time the city was a hive of maritime activity, sending out swarms of ships carrying quantities of wool from sheep grown on the lush Cotswold hills in its hinterland, and importing wine from France, Spain and Portugal-that's why you can order Spanish sherry as "Bristol Cream" at your neighborhood pub today. Bristol also reached out northward to bring in dried codfish from Iceland, a product not much valued today, but then an invaluable staple of the European diet and an important form of wealth in the form of stored energy which people would always pay for. In Bristol, thus, one could learn a lot in waterfront taverns and in visiting friendly ship captains, perhaps with a bottle or two of Bristol Cream underone 's arm. People seeking to build up the Viking role and put down Columbus's achievement have suggested that here or in Iceland, if he got there, Columbus learned about America. I believe Columbus probably did learn of the northern Viking voyages; after all, the Pope in Rome had maintained a bishopric in Greenland through the 1400s, so the lay of the northern lands had to be known in the Mediterranean world. And Columbus, foolish in some things, was not the kind of fool to neglect any opportunity to learn more about the ocean world he sought to master. But the Viking achievement did nothing to get one to the Indies, which was Columbus's purpose and, indeed, the overriding purpose of all those who sought to get around Africa or cross the Western Ocean (the Atlantic) to get to the Far East. Columbus 's seafaring took him south as well, to the sea lanes where the Portuguese, with their Genoese admirals and sea venturers, as we've seen in earlier chapters of this tale, had been pushing south along the coast of Africa, and more important, planting colonies on the island groups that they came on in their extensive voyaging through what had been known to their Muslim predecessors as the "Dark Ocean," the still-uncrossed middle regions of the Atlantic. These colonies included settlements in the Azores, 800 miles to sea off Portugal, the Madeira group, 500 miles off the Strait of Gibraltar, and farther south, close to West Africa, the Canaries, where the Trade Wind belt begins. Portugal, locked in struggle with Spain, had given up the Canaries, however, as the price of a peace that preserved Portuguese independence, kept the other islands, and confirmed Portuguese monopoly of the African trade, from which Spanish ships were barred.
Lighting the Sea Lanes of the Dark Ocean Henry the Navigator, organizer of these seaward colonies, had given the fiefdom of Porto Santo, a small island in the Madeira group, to his loyal captain Bartolomeu Perestrello. The captain's daughter Dona Felipa de Perestrello e Moniz, according to an agreeable legend, caught young Columbus's eye in the church they both attended in Lisbon, capital city of Portugal's budding sea empire, where the Perestrellos presumably repaired from time to time to catch up on life at court and in the great world. And at age 28, Columbus, a shipmaster by this time, married this daughter of the minor nobility-a good step up for him, and a step deeper into the rich and burgeoning heritage of Portuguese seafaring. Columbus's father-in-law had died before Columbus joined the Perestrello family scene, but family legend has it that the captain's widow passed on to the young shipmaster her husband 's charts and writings, including rumors of lands to the westward. Nothing could very well come by sea from the westward, against prevailing winds and ocean currents, but it is possible that one of the ships on the long "Guinea tack," SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
"Columbus had wrested from the windswept Atlantic the great secret that its wind patterns form a tremendous circle . ... " sailing to the north and west, against head winds, from the Guinea coast of Africa, could have fallen off or been driven off to the westward far enough to fetch one of the islands in the Lesser Antilles chain which Columbus was to land on. Columbus went on to voyage to Guinea, where the Portuguese had established a major fortified post for their growing African trade, so he experienced the Guinea tack through the North East Trades. And he learned the trade in gold and slaves. These trades had existed long before the Portuguese came on the scene, with slavery flourishing as a black-on-black phenomenon. It was also a white-on-white phenomenon, with the Genoese dealing in Russian slaves captured or bought in their Black Sea trips to the south shore of Russia. The Portuguese incursion-not by armed invasion, but in mainly peaceful trade with the local African kingdoms-undoubtedly provided a powerful economic stimulus to the existing traffic in slaves. That traffic was to reach unparalleled volume in coming centuries as African slave labor was shipped first to the Caribbean islands, and later the American mainland, via the infamous "Middle Passage," in hideously overcrowded slave ships, under conditions of unspeakable brutality. Lighting the pathways of the Dark Ocean turned out, like most human achievements, to bring its own dark shadows in its train. Columbus's Achievement Challenges Us Today Columbus had been dreaming of the westward passage to the Far East, and in 1484 he presented his scheme to the able but ruthless King John II of Portugal. The court recorder noted him as Genoese-and that his scheme was fantastic. The Portuguese had sponsored at least seven voyages (that we know of) to the westward in the past. These had quite logically made their departure from the westernmost Azores, giving them a thousand-mile start on the crossing. None had succeeded in reaching the far shore, and at least one had gone missing altogether. Ships of the day were simply not up to driving dead to windward against prevailing west winds, which pretty frequently, even in summer, rose to gale ferocity. It was another century or two before ships began making that straight westward passage on a regular basis, and it will not have escaped the attentive reader that in this century, sailing the tough ocean-racing yawl Bloodhound, we went south by Columbus's Trade Wind route rather than bash our way westward through spring gales to our destination, New York. The point, which many historians seem to miss, is that Columbus, by immersing himself in all the available literature and in the Atlantic sea trades of the time, had wrested from the windswept Atlantic the great secret that its wind patterns form a tremendous circle, with northeast and easterly winds in the Trades above the equator, and then southerly and southwesterly winds up along the North American coast, followed by the shouting westerlies that give a fair wind to Europe from New England ports, with an erratic back-eddy in the far north, where the Vikings found seasonal winds that served their long ocean hops from Norway to Iceland and on to Greenland and North America. There is no doubt that Columbus found this pattern, and when in 1485 he quit Portugal to seek the sponsorship of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, which he secured after an epic campaign of seven years , this was greatly to his benefit since it gave him the Canary Islands as his jumping-off point, on the northern fringe of the Northeast Trades. On the return passage from the islands he'd explored, the SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
southern Bahamas and north coasts of Cuba and Haiti, he headed mostly north, making what easting he could, until he saw that the Pole Star was at the height it was at Cape St. Vincent, as he noted in his journal.Then, catching a westerly slant of wind, he bore off to the east. Driving before a savage succession of gales, he put in at Lisbon, where he refitted, after carefully going to pay his respects to King John. The fleet had lost its flagship Santa Maria on the north coast of Haiti, so it was in the Nina alone that Columbus returned to his original departure point in Palos, in southern Spain. The Pinta, which came in soon after, had parted company in the stormy return passage. Recognition of the importance of the voyage was almost instantaneous and universal, sped by the working of Europe's recently invented printing presses. But no recognition could have meant more to Columbus than his sovereigns ' , who summoned him to court to report on his voyage, saluting him by the title he had now surely earned, "Admiral of the Ocean Sea." Columbus's next three voyages brought heavy disappointments to him and his sponsors. The visionary and gifted navigator proved to be a poor administrator of the islands he was now to rule as governor; his problems were greatly magnified because he was recognizably Genoese, attempting to rule ambitious young Spanish gentry and landless nobility eager to make their names and fortunes in the New World. Slavery and the abuse of native peoples darkened the record, while European diseases killed off whole villages and demoralized the native survivors who felt their gods had turned against them. The whole burdensome story of European colonialism in the Americas was well underway before Columbus quit sailing. Columbus played his role in these evils, but he did not regard native Americans as no better than beasts. He made prized friendships among them, and when he found on his second voyage that the men he'd left behind to found a city had all been killed by the Indians, he listened to the Indian version of what had happened, and believed it. No Indian was punished for this killing, which Columbus understood the colonists had brought upon themselves by rape and looting. He retired a wealthy man, but disappointed thathe had been superseded as governor of the Indies (the West Indies, as they were soon called) and that he had not reached his goal, the East Indies, which had been reached by sea in the meantime by the Portuguese. Querulously he insisted that the true Indies were just around the corner. His admiring son and biographer Fernando shared his father ' s awe at Seneca's centuries-old prophecy, "An age will come after many years when the Ocean will loose the chains of things, and a huge land lie revealed .... " To this passage he added his own marginal comment: "This prophecy was fulfilled by my father the Admiral, in the year 1492."
* * * * *
In the age we are now living in, rather than work off our disappointments in the progress of humanity by denigrating the achievement of Columbus in opening the ocean gateway to the world, we might think a little more of what we have made of that great opportunity formankind which came with the loosening of the Ocean's chains-and what we ourselves are doing about that opportu.t nity in our own time.
A New Expanded Edition of a Classic of Deepwater Sail:
The Peking Battles Cape Horn by Irving Johnson This new edition has new photographs and a memoir of Irving by his wife and partner, Exy Johnson, in a new introduction to Irving's exciting tale of his voyage around Cape Hom. In a famous Afterword written half a century after the voyage, Capt. Johnson added what he felt he had learned from his experience, after sailing his two Yankees seven times around the world with young people in crew. Exy's testimony, added for this special edition, rounds out the picture of how the partnership of two very individual people worked-and why. Hardcover: $21.75 Soft: $11.75 Add $3 each for shipping (NMHS members receive a 10% discount.)
The Visolette Loupe is a unique combination of condenser and 2. 7X magnifier. Its ability to bundle ambient light makes the reading within the glass easier. T his 65mm (2.5 ") diameter lens is precision ground and polished, mounted in a solid brass r ing with anti-slip bottom and enclosed in a solid walnut case. It 111akes a stunning addition to any chart table or desk and a beautiful and useful gift for any flat piece collector. S69 .00 plus $3.00 shipping per order.
Order now from
SEA HISTORY PRESS
P.O.Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566 Or phone in your credit card order to 1-800-221-NMHS
ORIGINAL
WESTCHESTER TECHNOLOGIES, INC. 8 John Walsh Blvd. Peel<sl<ill, N Y 10566 914-73 6-1034 • Fax: 91 4-736 -1217
TO O RDER CALL
R. M.S. TITANIC
(800)242-8817
ANTIQUE MAPS & SEA CHARTS
2???~ ' "~~ ' ~
J\
g
-0??!? NORMANDIE
g-.,··-·.-:·:·~_m.....
U.S. & WORLDWIDE
1
~ S.S. UNITED STATES
'E
??::???s .. . " LUSITANIA
~
E- -
JM _ PJ - l\Hl --- -
bl -=--
.. ... ......___...,
-a QUEEN MARY
"ilr "ilr "ilr "ilr "ilr "ilr
N EW, 360·FT. CLIPP ER SH IPS O NLY I 70 FRE E SP IRITS OPE N SEAT ING D IN ING MO ST \'(IAT ER SPORT S FREE N AUTI CAL SA ILI NG CLASSES 7 ·DAY SA ILI NGS FR OM $ I 095 °P. P.
For reservations ca ll your travel agent or for a FREE broclJu1·e call 1-800-442-0556
~
I NTERNET,
~ http://www.globa lint.co m/martls tar.html
STAR CLIPPERS
Sail As Q,ziy Star Clippm Can.
*Rate based on dbl. occp., cruise o,i/y, st/eel Caribbean sailings Port chnrqes additional . Rtsrriction s a I
12
aG;:~; B~:~~,;~~;;:~~e~.
J?J.
Box 2488, RR5 Brunswick, ME 040 11 (207) 729-1 329
Call or write for listings of your specific areas of interest
ANTIQUE MAPS• PRINTS• CARTOGRAPHIC BOOKS
~
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Jiililitt@l.tk§ ·~ «·
' .. ,
....
"!'.'
·:..
. ·.
:fJ\~' - .- ;_ ...-.-
._ . ,
FULL COLOR • CLOISONNE ·ACTUAL SIZE LAPEL PIN - $8.00 each - 3 for $20.00 /NY. RES TIE BAR - $8.50 each - 3 for $21.50 / ADD TAX
Satisfaction Guaranteed • Quantity Discounts
NAUTICAL NOVELTIES
P.O. BOX 622 NO RT HPO RT, NY 11768
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
We are specialist suppliers for all aspects of the model boating scene . (Not cars, trains, planes .) We can start you off with basic kits or provide you with plans and materials . Our range also covers working or static models, and we carry an extensive selection of fittings for all types of ships and boats.
PERSONA! JZED
NAlITTCAL TABLES
Send for our newest Catalog
WAll HANGINGS MlDThAYS
' spOIlabIll:: ln5
The Dromedary
Uniquehand-OCJfi:ed from mahoganyorp1ized ptlycypress, \·1~tl1 hand-painted ltahan tiles designed by reno1\~1ed artistGale Bcxlie.Choose ajXlJtraitofyoum·1~1 boat, Lightl1ouse ' set oran action painting of Sailfish, Dolphin, or Madin too-eate a beautifi.1! piece of per:,onalizecl, sea-furingfurniture.
6324 Belton Drive El Paso, Texas 7991 2 (915) 584 -2445
Call for f ree color brochu re. 1-8@977-6768 • FAX 1-919237-5502 • PO Box 193 • Rocky Mount, NC 27802
$6 postpaid
$7 outside the U.S.
© 1996, SporTables, LLC.
The Sea Heritage Foundation
presents
'Tlie Jieritage of tlie Sea Art show November 16 to December 24, 1996 Works for sale by James E. Mitchell • James Buttersworth • William Muller • Don Demers • Richard Kaiser • Richard Loud • Richard Ochs • Keith Miller • Antonio Jacobsen • Anton Otto Fischer • Willard Bond • Peter Layne Arguimbau • Frank Handlen • Peter Rogers • Blaikie Hines • and others Opening day benefit to support the National Maritime Historical Society at the
(jeary (ja{{ery 576 Post Road Darien, Connecticut Do you own a Bard or Buttersworth? We would like to hang and sell it for you at this show! Call Tom Geary at 203-655-6633 or Bernie Klay at 718-343-9575
"Cruising" by Richard Ochs
Watercolor, 29 x 37
Primary Research at Its Height: The Monumental Work of Ed Bosley on Gloucester Fishing Schooners by Nancy d'Estang n our work to restore Mystic Seaport's great Gloucester fishing schooner L. A. Dunton, now celebrating her 75th birthday since her launch from Story's yard in Essex, Massachusetts, we have come to rely increasingly on the work of Edward S. Bosley, a remarkable man whose name is familiar to all who study the Gloucester fishing schooners. From the 1930s to the 1970s, Bosley was an indefatigable researcher on the Gloucester, Massachusetts, waterfront, meticulously recording details of schooner construction, ironwork and rigging for the model he planned to build of the fishing schooner Columbia. The schooner was commissioned by a group of fishermen and businessmen in 1923 and built at the A.D. Story yard in Essex. The planned model was never built, but Bosley's research on the waterfront and in the warehouses and dory sheds of Gloucester is a testament to the era of the fishing schooners. For many years, the staff in the Mystic Seaport Shipyard has referred to some sixty pages of faded photocopies of Bosley's sketches and notes. We have come across his distinctive pages when studying at the Essex Historical Society and the Peabody Essex Museum, and with Charlie Sayle, Dana Story and Erik Ronnberg, Jr. The General Foods Corporation letterhead he used makes his pages immediately recognizable! We have talked with Mr. Bosley on different occasions, going over the hundreds of pages of his notebook filled with sketches, dimensions, and precise historical notation. Indeed, many sketches were made on board the Dunton when there was no staff at Mystic to document her. This material was not available when the Dunton's schooner rig was restored at the museum in 1964, but now she can be accurately rigged using Bosley's detailed documentation. In December of 1994, Mr. Bosley gave the results of his 40 years of research to the Essex Shipbuilding Museum in Essex, Massachusetts. All of the material is catalogued there and available for research. The Essex Shipbuilding Museum copied for us one document of particular interest: Bosley' s notebook spanning all the years of his research consisting of over 500 pages of docu-
I
14
mentation. A typed transcription, cross references, and an index have been prepared by Mystic Seaport's Shipyard Research and Documentation staff. The detail, extent, accuracy and historical value of Bosley' s information is remarkable. For example, two pages with four renderings, dimensions and text describe the bowsprit band from the schooner J. J. Fallon. The text discusses, among other things: where the band was found on 19 July 1954 (3rd floor Plumbing Shop, Gorton Pew, Gloucester, Massachusetts); where it had been moved to by 14 May 1955 (to Dory Shed at Gorton Pew); a comparison of bowsprit dimensions with the Gertrude L. Thebaud's and Columbia's; the sources of those dimensions and related references (i.e. Underhill's Sailing Ship Rigs and Rigging); and a description of the methods for forging and rigging this band. On other pages one finds the name and profession of the man at Pew's who gave Bosley his information, with notes made years later to update this information. Bosley' s documentation does not simply reiterate previously available material. The details and dimensions he sought for Columbia were not recorded anywhere, or were tantalizingly unclear in historic photographs. There were no drawings of spars and ironwork forthese working schooners, for they were simply constructed to satisfy a vessel's owner, following traditional practice. Bosley' sis primary research at its height. As a kid, Bosley "got all steamed up" by Gloucester novelist and sailor James Connelly's books and spent all his spare time down on the wharves. Eventually, he "searched Gloucester from truck to keel." On holidays and most weekends, he drove from home andjobinScarsdale,New York, to Gloucester. Much of the iron he sought had L.A . Dunton
Edward S. Bosley
been sold for scrap, surely some to prepare Japan for war. "Everything was disappearing. It all went, I suppose, for a few cents a pound. And the same over at the foundry, where I found patterns and castings, and that stuff all went too. But I didn't have a place to store it." Attempting to stay one weekend ahead of trucks hauling history to the scrapyards, Bosley unearthed the treasures which were seen as trash by many owners of the dory sheds and warehouses in Gloucester and which were essential to his understanding of Columbia. With talents enhanced by training in the architecture and engineering departments of MIT, Bosley recorded his information on the rigging, spars and ironwork of these schooners with unusual professionalism. Bosley' s 17 April 1957 entry celebrates the 34th anniversary of Columbia's launching: "Oak grab or snatch hook to keep tack of stays'! stretched forward. The last item for fitting out a schooner which I had to find, but never could until today. I have looked for many days altogether, over the years, for one of these hooks. Have gone all over the dory shed from top to bottom with a flashlight but could not move all the stuff. Have searched every building on the Gloucester waterfront to no avail for years. This trip Dulong told me the Dory Shed was being tom down so I went there on the chance that such a hook would now be visible. Some of the lumber was piled up ready to be trucked away. There lay this hook and a windlass heaver (one of the pair I measured several years ago). Walt Davis said I could have the hook. When I went back there two hours later all the remaining lumber had been trucked away, and the hook SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
,
"Stay one weekend ahead of trucks hauling history to the scrapyard. ... " J,,..4
vetnYV' S.4
~ h.. ~ .0<>-Vj SJ.tJ..JJt..,,_.,, I Y' 19 n)
.Y. 6l~!.~
GENE RAL FO OD S cto RPORATIOff
"" ted1nU . S . A~,..,.,_,/'~
~
m ~. .
;
~.0.NO. _ _ _x_ _
WHITE PLAINS, N. Y. ENG INEER ING DEPARTMENT
,,
-
~
.
v
+
,-; :,
.{
~~-~ -.4-T-Bâ&#x20AC;˘tr.
- - -+1 ------=..,~:.l.,_.,.------t-------~..-n ," T ~-
â&#x20AC;˘
ovt
R --
This page from Bosley' s notebook, on his General Foods Corporation letterhead, documents the bowsprit band from the schooner J.J. Fallon. Bosley' s work is now in the collection of the Essex Shipbuilding Museum , at 28 & 66 Main Street in Essex; 66 Main Street was the site of the Story yard from 1813 until 1985, where fishing schooners such as L.A. Dunton (now at Mystic), Lettie G. Howard (now at the South Street Seaport Museum) and Columbia (the object ofBosley' s research) were built. (ESM, PO Box277, EssexMA 01929; 508 768-7541)
would have gone with the rest if I hadn't come along. I followed a truck to the dump in Magnolia, but all the previous load had been burned. This was the last fittingthatihadn'tbeenabletofind,and I found it 34 years to the day after the launching of the Columbia." His visits to the waterfront proved to beparticularlyrewardingoneearlymoming, when he found a tin shed left unlocked. In a recent conversation, Bosley describedthatdayasifitwereyesterday: "SoiwenttoGortonPew's,andtherewas a building there, and the door was open, and I went in, went upstairs, and I saw all this stuff. So I stayed there all day, afraid SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
if I left, someone would close and lock the door. Oh, it was hot up there. And all this rigging stuff up there, a whole gang of rigging. I was pooped. I made an awful lot of sketches there that day . I wanted to measure that gang of rigging; the spring stay was one thing I wanted in particular. Just the diameter and the length of it. It looks so big in photographs, but you really can't tell. When you think of the weight-that's holding the main, the boom, the gaff-the mains'!, the plunging of the vessel. I go round and round on some of these things and figure out the strain and the rest of it." It is to the credit of his late wife,
Edna, that she, too, tolerated the heat that day-while waiting in the car! Relentless in his quest for perfection, Bosley recently said to me, "I don't think I ever did get the correct length of the spring stay that day." Bosley outlines the many dimensions he found for Columbia, weighing the data, sometimes returning to the puzzle, indicating that the project was never far from his mind. When asked, "Why was the Columbia a particular passion?" Bosley explained, "I'd seen the Columbia, and she seemed the epitome of any vessel I'd seen. And I saw her and the Ford lying side by side just before the race on 12 October 1926 .... it was just daylight, and I spent the time there until they pulled her out. They looked wonderful, wonderful. The breeze whistling through the rigging, drunks crawling out from under the dories in the bows." The beautiful pages of Bosley' s manuscript-"my free hand, shades, shadows, perspective, history of architecture, and a year's work in design" -reflect his training at MIT. His search benefits all of us who model , study, restore, build or sail the schooners. We are most grateful for this work, which Dana Story described as "one of the most monumental pieces of reference work ever done on a single vessel." Thank you, Mr. Edward Sohier Bosley! !References: Bosley, Edward S. Collection of the Essex Historical Society and Shipbuilding Museum, 1994. _ _ . Interview by Gary Adair, Nancy d'Estang, Erik Ronnberg, Jr., Erik Ronnberg, Sr. (Mystic Seaport Museum Shipyard Archives, Mystic CT, 1986) _ _ .Telephone interview by Nancy d 'Estang (Mystic Seaport Museum Shipyard Archives, Mystic CT, 1995) Chapelle, Howard I. The American Fishing Schooners, 1825-1935 (yo/.W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York NY, 1973) Ronnberg , Erik A. R., Jr. Modeling Guide American Fishing Schooners Elsie and Benjamin W. Latham (Model Shipways Co., Inc., Bogota NJ, 1979) _ _ .Comments by Edward S. Bosley. "Letters of Lewis H. Story to John M. Minuse 1932-1947." Nautical Research Journal 29, 1983. Story, Dana. Hail Columbia! (Ten Pound Island Book Co., Gloucester MA, 1985)
Nancy d'Estang is Supervisor of Research and Documentation at Mystic Seaport Museum. She travels with her camera to record boats and builders in Asia, Europe and North America.
15
Report from the Falklands by Dorothy Packer
D
uring our bumpy 35mph ride from Port Stanley to Mt. Pleasant Royal Air Force Base for our return flight to England this February, we were asked by a Stanley Councilman why we had come to the Falklands. Ralph began to recount the tales of New England sea captains who had sailed these waters and who had touched his life growing up on the Vineyard. Perhaps it was to bring those tales to life that we had started the trip with two days in Bristol, England, to see the SS Great Britain being restored in the very dry dock where she had been built in 1843. After being damaged off Cape Horn in 1886, she was sold for a storage hulk and then in 1937 was abandoned in Sparrow Cove not far from Stanley Harbor. When you stand beneath her broad iron hull, you can appreciate what a task it was to refloat her and tow her back to Bristol in 1970. In Stanley we stayed at Emma's Guesthouse right on the water and just around the corner from the Globe Hotel, the town's gathering place. We hiked the Maritime History Trail to Whalebone Cove to see if we could find the Samson, the tug that brought the Wavertree into harbor on Christmas Eve 1910 after her dismasting trying to round Cape Horn. We found the Lady Elizabeth and, inshore, the small tug Plym, but it was not until we went out in a harbor launch that we saw the Samson, wreathed in a bed of giant kelp. Historically the Falklanders have provided the means to repair and refit vessels, and the work continues even as the vessels change. A foreign squid fleet licensed to fish the Falkland waters came and went in the harbor, while near town a freight boat was loading for a circuit of the islands, providing necessities for the settlements. Otherwise, travel between the islands is by a small nine-seat Islander 16
Above, Hope Harbor on West Point Istand lies amid the rocky and naturally treeless hills. The few windtwisted gorse and yew were introduced as windbreaks for the settlement and, perhaps , a reminder of gentler climes. At right, the Lady Elizabeth has lain in Whalebone Cove since 1936.Built of iron in England in 1879, the bark carried cargo until 1913 , when she arrived in Port Stanley with a damaged hull. Below, the Lady Elizabeth's elegant, turtleback stern. Photographs are by Ralph M. Packer, Jr .
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
Above, little remains of the tug Samson, which left port on Christmas Eve 1910 to bring in the dismasted iron square rigger Wavertree, now being restored at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York .
-
aircraft. Ashore, Land Rovers follow roads and tracks or make their own way to remote areas. In the stores the post card selections feature the penguins, seals and birds which abound there. Flying over East and West Falkland, we came to the West Point Island settlement of Roddie and Lily Napier and to the heart of the Falklands. On our walk to Cape Terrible on West Point Island we came to appreciate the wild weather and sea ~-::-"~- ~- ~--=~-~~--·~·' - :~~--~~ ~~ _:.'o:~-"~-;:-.::::; conditions that challenged generations of mariners in these wa" . _ ters. Sudden squalls would oblit. erate an island which just ...... --~ . .·moments before had been clearly ' . ,;1"i~'* • visible in bright sunlight. Hail In a matter of minutes, Gibraltar Rock in rustling through the tussock grass would Cape Terrible almost disappears in one of bounce on the rocky cliffs, then the sun the sudden squalls that are commonplace in would shine once more-and always the islands. there was the wind. In places, the surface of the water is pulled up into whirling cyclones called "woollies." Indeed, the channel on the east side of West Point Island is called Woolly Gut. Albatross use the wind currents to glide in search of food in the ~-
'
- -"-
The Charles Cooper lies under her protective metal roof Built as afull-riggedpacketship in 1856 in Black Rock, Connecticut, she is the lastofherkindandhas been in the Falklands since 1866. To port is the hulk ofthe Actreon, built in New Brunswick, Canada, in 1838.
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
boiling sea below. As we sat wind-plastered to a rock outcropping, we could only marvel at the courage of those sailors who ventured forth against these elements. There is mystery here as well. In The Voyage of the Huron and the Huntress (1955 , Mystic Seaport) author Edouard Stackpole tells of the New England sealers who found coves such as Hope Harbor on West Point Island where they could prepare themselves for a run to the south for a season of sealing. They were secretive about their whereabouts and their destinations, much as fishermen who boast of their catch but not where it was caught. When the squalls come and the woollies spin, you can almost imagine the ghosts of the sealing ships slipping past on their journeys. On our last day in the Falklands we found that we had only touched on the story. We drove past the pond with the black-headed swans to Darwin and Goose Green, which had been sites of battles during the Falklands War in 1982. Here we found hulks of vessels abandoned long ago, and at the end of the wharf at Goose Green we saw the remains of the Vicar of Bray, built as a brig in Whitehaven, England, in 1841. The hulk is held in trust by NMHS. Ralph was impressed with the use of iron for strengthening in the wooden hull. This remote cluster of islands has been a safe haven for mariners past and present and we found it to be so for us amidst these warm and interesting people who call the Falkland Islands home. t
Dorothy and Ralph Packer met Peter Stanford in March 1988 on a trip to Cape Horn and the Falkland Islands . The Packers live on the island ofMartha's Vineyard, where maritime history is woven into everyday life.
17
MAINE WINDJAMMING
&
Historic Landmark Schooner
LEWIS R. FRENCH Capt. Dan & Kathy Pease P.O. Box 992S H. Camden. Maine 04843
1-800-469-4635
3 and 6 day non-smoking crui ses
"The Chronometer Specialists'' Bought Sold Celebrate the lOOth anniversary of the 1st so lo circumna vigator,
Captain Joshua Slocum! The Joshua Slocum Society and Turnstone Galle ry presents a series of seven Lim..ited Edition prints.
Free color brochure. 1-800-461-6599
Antique Modern Marine Chronometers
J.P. Connor & Co. PO Box 305, Devon PA 19333 (near Philadelphia) tel: 610-644-1474 fax: 610-993-0760
Historic, antique U.S. Coast Survey maps from the 1800s
It Didn't Happen On My Watch
Nautical Insignia Anchor a nd wreath are 24 Karat Gold Plated . Eagle and s hield are nickel silver pl a ted . All components precision die struck from soli d brass, assemb led with min ia ture screws. Clutch backs. Made to industry 's highest standa rds. Ideal for blazers. caps, lad ies' jackets . Made in USA. Shipped in presentation hox:$50 . 1 ~ 1 Also ava il a ble as Necklace (22 Karat Gold Pl a ted brass rope chain-22") in presentation hox:$ 60.m plu s $3 shipping & ha ndling
T.T. Travis Corporation Stonvtown Road . PO Box 693 Plandome. NY I 1030
1- 800-203-9422 18
by George Murphy, retired United States Lines C hi ef E ng in ee r and Port Engineer. 50% autobiographi cal; 50% sea stories; 100% entertaining. Written from the unique down under perspective of the engine room . Spans over 40 years United States Lines history from WWII and its glory years to its slow decent into bankruptcy. Includes many fascinating, heroic and humorous sea stories and photos. "Any person who served in the merchant marine or military wi ll re late to II Didn 't Happen On My Watch. This book tells it bke it is! Sometimes serious, sometimes sad, but mostly humorous. Recommended reading for all veterans."
Most American seapo rts and coastal waters. Reprints, too . Unique framed, great as gifts $1 brrngs illustrated lists Specify area CHARTIFACTS, DSH , Box 8954 Richmond VA 23225. 804/272-7120
Harbour L~ts· COLLECTIBLE liGHTHO USES
©ach Lighthouse is individually. hand pai nted and hand numbered and comes with its own certificate o[ au thentici ty.
George Searle, National President Merchant Marine Veterans Hard cover, 360pp, photos $22.95 incl : s/h, NC res. add $1.20 ORDER VISA/MC:
1-800-941-0020
Or send check/mo to:
Triangle Publishing, PO Box 1223, Fuquay-Varina, NC 27526.
1000 NorLh Johnson, El Cajon, CA 92020 l-800-365-1219 • Fax 619-579-1911
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
An E[iza6etlian-Era Wreck. in the Cliarme[ Is [ands by Tim Dingemans
T
his was the first time the cannon and carriage had seen the sun in 400 years. To loud applause from a crowd of islanders and tourists, the gun was raised from a sling beneath the fishing boat which had carried it in from the site and winched into the arms of a waiting forklift on the quay. This was certainly the most spectacular of the many items that had been raised from the Elizabethan-era wreck. The vessel ' s remains are about half a mile off the north coast of Alderney, one of the smaller and lesser known islands in the Channel Archipelago between Britain and France. The wreck had been found in the early 1980s by local fisherman Bertie Cosheril when he recovered a concreted musket entangled in the lines of one of his crab pots. Bertie recorded the location of the wreck and returned soon after with members of the local subaqua club who found two cannon and a small number of iron concretions. The significance of these finds was not at first appreciated, and it was not until almost ten years later that the club resumed investigating the site, led by Dive Officer Fred Shaw. This time many items were raised, including a range of ceramic pieces which enabled Guernsey archaeologist Bob Bums, backed up with further research by local residents Trevor Davenport and Brian Bonnard, to identify the wreck as being from the Elizabethan era, or, more particularly, from the period immediately following the defeat of the Armada in 1588, which confirmed England as a maritime superpower. In 1993 a full-scale evaluation of the site was undertaken by Oxford University Marine Archaeological Research (MARE) and Bangor University. The project director was Mike Bowyer, a graduate of Bangor's maritime studies program. The archaeological director was Mensun Bound, the Triton Fellow in Maritime Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Visiting Fellow of Bangor University.
,
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
The strong currents for which the Channel Islands are notorious made working conditions quite demanding. Diving, which took place from open boats, had to be precisely timed so that everybody could make their descents and complete their tasks in the brief window of slack water that lasts only 40 minutes twice a day. The site, 27 to 30 meters deep, consists of a large, roughly triangular sandbank surrounded by outcrops of bedrock. Because of severe currents, the sand is in a constant state of flux, at times exposing, at times burying a wealth of material that ranges from the humble belongings of the crew to the heavy ordnance and timbers of the ship itself. The cannon mentioned above was raised in July 1984. Although its recovery was the cause of much controversy in archaeological circles, its importance has never been doubted; not because of the gun itself, but rather because part of the gun carriage was recovered with it. If the cannon is English, then this would be the oldest English naval gun carriage in existence. Mensun contacted conservators at the York Archaeological Trust whom he had known since Mary Rose days and arrangements were made for the cannon to be taken into their care for electrolysis. During preparation for conservation it was found that the gun was loaded. This has been taken by some as evidence that the vessel went down in a fire-fight situation but it must be said that during the Elizabethan period it was common practice for vessels to leave port with their guns loaded. Later this year, the gun, which has a length of 7 .5 feet and a bore of 3.75 inches (therefore most likely a 'minion'), will be returned to the Island to become the centerpiece of Alderney Museum's special wreck exhibit. Six or seven other cannon have been seen on the site but none of these have yet been raised. A number of cannonballs, however, have been recovered. These not only include the usual round shot, but also bar shot and much rarer star THE ALDERNEY WRECK shot. The latter were intended to cut a swathe through Oxford University M.AR.E. both rigging and people, and also at times to carry & Bangor University incendiary material. States of Alderney Personal Armament Alderney Sub-Aqua Club A number of muskets were raised and many more are still concreted together on the seabed. All the shoulder arms were of matchlock type, except for one which had a recess in the side of the stock to take the more advanced wheellock mechanism. One of the matchlocks, much heavier than the others, had the remains of a pintle on the underside of its stock. Clearly this musket was intended to slot into a hole in the ship's rail. Three sizes of lead firearm shot were also found. The larger were for muskets, the smallest for pistols. One of the musket barrels had partially disintegrated; inside could clearly be seen a piece of lead shot, categorical proof that the weapon had been loaded at the time of the vessel's loss. Again, this cannot be taken to mean that the vessel went down in battle, as personal firearms were frequently carried loaded. Charging a musket was a crucial operation. Too much powder could explode the breech; too little and the projectile would lose accuracy, power and range. The 19
At left, two of the cannon lie in situ on the seabed. Above right, Archaeological Director Mensun Bound, with a morion helmet, stands in front of the holding tank, which contained artifacts prior to conservation. Photographs illustrating this article by Paolo Scremin, John de Garis, Graham Wright, Mensun Bound and Tim Dingemans.
right amount was therefore critical. But in a fire-fight in which every second was at a premium, there was no time to measure out powder. To overcome this, musketeers carried pre-measured amounts in small conical containers which they hung from a bandoleer across their chests. Because there were usually 12 of them, they were popularly known as 'apostles.' Often they were made from wood and leather, but the Alderney examples, which numbered over twenty, were of copper alloy. Apostles have come from several other shipwrecks of the period; particularly close in size and design were examples excavated last year on the wreck of the Dutch East Indiaman Nassau which sank during the Battle of Cape Rachado in 1606 beside the Bambek Shoal in the Straits of Malacca. In addition to the apostles, two large, wooden, triangular powder flasks were found. These were usually slung over the right hip at the end of the bandoleer. There were also numerous bladed weapons on board. Although their grips and non-ferrous pommels were in relatively good condition, the blades survive only as voids between the wooden lathes of their scabbards, which were themselves encrusted in corrosion. Study of the voids showed that the blades included single and double-edged swords, rapiers and daggers. The vessel was also carrying body armor, which survived only in concreted form. The two breast plates-found packed
one within the other-were of the so-called peascod type. Only one back plate was recovered. Helmets were of the rounded ' morion' shape and the higher burgonet type with prominent central combs. Both had flaring rims. When x-rayed, one of the breast plates was found to contain a long bone within its concretion. Although the press has leapt on this as proof that some of the armor was being worn at the time the vessel sank (and therefore that the vessel was lost in combat), there is not yet any archaeological confirmation. The greater likelihood is that this bone is another of the great number of animal bones that litter the site. It is interesting to compare the armaments of this ship with those that were found on the Mary Rose which sank in 1545. The Mary Rose was full oflongbows, but so far none have been found on the Alderney wreck, which went down approximately fifty years later. It is illuminating to think that the weapon which had decided the great battles of Crecy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415 had been so quickly replaced by firearms . Ceramics and Other Finds The pottery found on the wreck is of northwest European origin. There are Dutch lead-glazed earthenwares, CologneFrechen salt-glazed stonewares, Beauvaisware saucer-dishes, albarelli, a green-glazed northwestern French chafing-dish, a Normandy stoneware storage jar and a Breton jug. Other finds of note include: a pewter flask with a galloping centaur on its touchmark; a trefoil-eared pottinger bowl with the name A de Pource (or A de Bource) scratched into its underside; pewter spoons; a pair of stirrups; a spur; several shoes; tobacco pipes; a razor; and a comb.
Diver Chris Fitton displays one of the wreck' s muskets. The photograph at thefar left shows two of the apostles (which are about 99-106mm high) used to hold premeasured amounts of gunpowder.
20
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
)
Although there are many visible fragmented timbers on the site and one small assemblage, no major sections of hull have been seen. Probing with a metal rod indicates the presence of further assemblages , but the shallowness of the sand covering those assemblages makes it unlikely that a major section of hull will be found. Date and Identity The pottery and tobacco pipes suggest a date for the wreck within the second halfof the 1500s or the early 1600s. Two disc weights bearing the crowned cypher of Elizabeth I narrow the chronological range significantly, as verification marks of this particular kind did not appear until after 1587-1588. Although the greater likelihood is that the vessel was English, this cannot yet be taken as certain. Against the evidence of the disc weights, there is the non-English name on the pottinger and, less compellingly, the continental origin of the pottery and the vessel's geographic proximity to France. Unfortunately much has appeared in the general press and, indeed, in more sober print, linking this wreck with the Makeshift, a vessel sometimes associated with Drake, which disappeared from the record in the last years of the 1500s. But this is just wishful thinking; there is no archaeological evidence whatsoever to support this identification. If archaeological proof can be found to confirm an English origin then there is good reason to assume that this is the same vessel that is known (from documents of the time in the Public Records Office, London) to have been lost off Alderney in 1592 while carrying dispatches to Sir John Norris, who at the time was commanding a British expeditionary force in France. Whatever her origin and identity, there can be no doubt that this is a wreck of major importance. Although much has already been raised, those of us who were there share the conviction that we have only scratched the surface and that !, the site still has much to offer. Further reading : Trevor Davenport and Robert Bums, 1995, "A sixteenth century wreck off the Island of Alderney," in The Archaeology of Ships of War , Mensun Bound, ed., Anthony Nelson Ltd. , pp30-40. Mensun Bound, 1995, "An Elizabethan shipwreck off Alderney," Minerva , Vol. 6 (2), ppll-14.
Tim Dingemans is on the staff of Oxford MARE and has worked on projects in Panarea, Zaky nthos, Gorgona , Gibraltar and Malaysia , often as chief diver.
From top: This is one of two disk weights showing the crowned cypher of Elizabeth/, which came into use after 1587 and help date the wreck. Other artifacts from the wreck include: pieces of Bellarmine jugs ; a peascod breastplate, shown here as it was found on the seabed with a piece of star shot; a pewter spoon and porringer bowl with the name A de Pource (or Bource) scratched on the bottom ; and an ivory comb.
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
21
MODELMAKER'S CORNER
Tl <History in q'Vory by Scottie Dayton
Queen Hatshepsut' s Punt ship ( l 500Bc) was completed in 1990. The 1/9" to the foot scale model is 10" long and 5.6" high. This was Egypt's oceangoing cargo ship from the New Kingdom era. Celuch Photo .
avid W arther' s studio is more than ' ] ) a shipmodeler's workshop-it is part of his new establishment, David Warther Carving, part workshop, part museum, with a 2, 100-foot display on the development of the ship, from Egypt's First Dynasty to the present day. It is open daily to visitors in Sugarcreek, Ohio. As a teenager, David spent his summer vacations helping his father care for his grandfather Mooney W arther' s collection of ivory steam locomotives he had carved over the years. Then during his senior high school year, David built a scale model of the USCG cutter Eagle in black walnut and trimmed it with ivory and ebony. In 1981 WartherjoinedTirnkenCompany in Canton, Ohio, as a full-time grinder machinist while attending Kent State University 70 miles away. He graduated cum laude in 1986 with a major in business administration. Despite his heavy schedule, he continued to carve. By his early twenties, Warther's ivory ships were on display at Smith Gallery in New York, Nantucket Museum Gallery, American Marine Model Gallery in Salem, and Mystic Seaport Gallery in Connecticut. Mystic 's directors rated his models as "museum quality AAA" adding that they "epitomize the highest level 22
Venicia (1270), a Venetian overseas trading vessel at 1112" to the foot scale. The merchant Marco Polo and his family used this type of ship. The model, completed in 1993, is 8.75" long and 7.5" high. Photo by S. Youngen .
of accomplishment in marine art. " Since his early teens, Warther's goal was to work full-time on his history-ofthe-ship project. Consequently, he produced more models for his collection than for sale. After nine years, he had a fleet of Egyptian royal boats and European cogs and it was time to quit his job, live on his investments and carve. He took the plunge in 1990. David W arther Carvings opened in 1993. Like his grandfather, David works in ivory and prefers elephant tusks. An average six-foot tall, seven-inch diameter tooth weighs 70 pounds and has enough ivory in it for 10 to 20 models. He averages two models a year. The ivory he uses was imported during the 1920s and 30s and conforms to today 's strict government regulations. Every hull begins as a solid block of ivory that Warther hollows out just enough to accept the deck. It is sanded, then polished to a high gloss. "Unpolished ivory attracts dust and dirt and soon disfigures, discolors and begins decaying," David explained. "Polished ivory remains in good condition for thousands of years." Because no adhesive will outlive ivory, Wartherrelies on miniature ivory pegs to hold his models
together and to guarantee longevity. Anchors are often the most challenging part of a model and each requires more than a day to complete. Ancient ones were three-pronged and resemble grappling hooks-a complex and challenging shape. Anchor rings are little thin ivory circles that must be polished inside and out. Before attaching them, Warther soaks the rings in distilled water overnight to soften them, then slits through one side with a razor blade. The ring is gently opened and snapped over the anchor stock. Ivory's resilience "remembers" its circular shape to such a degree that no cut mark is visible. Although ivory is hard, comparable in density to beef bone, it is so brittle that if a tusk were dropped, it would crack like an egg. However, the fibrous material becomes pliable when thin. That trait enables Warther to rig his models in ivory. He cuts long, square strips of it, then places a length in the appropriate groove cut into a block of mild tool steel. The steel block has progressively smaller grooves. As W arther files over the top of the ivory, he rotates it, rounding the piece. It is then placed into progressively smaller grooves. Half the rigging breaks before it is finished, butt Warther can produce a strip 0.007" (7 1thousandths of an inch) in diamSEA HIISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
-.
The "hulk" Danzig ( 1400) is a Hanseatic League cargo carrier. A hulk had a more rounded bow than a cog , but both had a stern rudder, instead of a steering oar. The 1112'' scale model is 8.75" long and 7.4 " high. Photo by S. Youngen .
eter, or twice the diameter of an average human hair. When ivory is reduced to a few long fibers, it will bend into a U without snapping. To achieve the gentle droop some rigging needs, Warther forces a polished ivory line into position by inserting its ends into pre-drilled holes. He fashions rigging blocks from five pieces of ivory. These are glued together, because everything is too small to pin. Bases and dramatic accents are fabricated in ebony, the second hardest wood known to man. W arthernever stains, paints or treats it. "Ebony is difficult to finish because, like any black, shiny object, it readily shows every imperfection. I rub it with finer and finer grades of steel wool to achieve that final beautiful luster." Warther completed Model #31 in December 1995. Captain James Cook's Endeavour joined a unique fleet that spans centuries and cultures to accurately portray the "History of the Ship." W arther is current! y building Columbus's Pinta and Nina. He is also looking for sponsorship to handle the museum display and assume its managerial responsibilities, so he will be free to complete what will surely be an unprecedented collection of ship models . -t SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
at
1
The New Bedford whaler Josephine (1877), to the f oot scale was completed in 1988. The model is 11 .9" long and 8 .1" high. Photo by Bob Lauriha.
116"
A view of Josephine's stage and tryworks. Th e deck has been lightly stained and individual planks are scrimshawed into it. Ebony gunwales accent the whaleboats. Photo by Bob Lauriha.
23
NAUTICAL RESEARCH Gu IL D The Guild's acclaimed quarterly NAUTICAL
RE SEARC H
f OURNAL
covers the technical history of ships and boats, their uses, and the lives they touch. Its forum links builders of the highest quality ship m odels, marine artists, writers, and nautical collectors . The international Guild supports annual Conferences and provides special services for members including ship model analysis and model building assistance by experts. US$30.00. NR)-0, 19
PLEASANT STREET
EVERETT,
J, J,
MA 02149
MILITARY J, HISTORY J, BIOGRAPHY STRATEGY & TACTICS J, REFERENCE
BOOKS SHIP MODELS SIN CE 1975
Offering an ext ensive selection of full y documented, one of a kind ship models, by the wo rld 's fin est marine model arti sts. Also: restorations, appraisals, display cases, lighting and custom built m odels.
m ·1\·•1111111111111•111 ·-······••11111 MARINE M 0 DE l
Member: International Society of Fine An Appraisers. International Congress of Maritime Museums. U.S. Nautical Research Guild
Society for Historical Archeology
~1€11
GALLERY
~ppo int ment
p refe rred. Illu str ated Catalog $10 o r free co lor brochure. 12SH DERBY SQ. SALEM, MA 01970, USA• FAX 508-745-5778 • 508-745-5777
llfilB lil ll!Bi•i ! rltl >• lll
1
11~-1£•,1+m·. vi~l"m~a;.11i:11q-~1~1&1
•?
_,_.il'lfl4' P!Y!~!!~9§!rHWH§eN"!&N !§§~!! ~g~§W.-pg~'-P!i§M.f!HK ~OO:P/MR§~$#!1ijijllii@.ru~#.J~t«i9tulV~~m# < @i#P¢~~Y$$:
24
t
CALL FOR A FREE CATALOG
800-233-8764
Customer Service (7662) 2062 Generals Hwy., Annapolis, MD 21401
SEA SONGS sung by America's favorite, sophisticated bawdy sea song singer-Oscar Brand. These songs are spicy, easy to listen to, and godd for grown-up sing-along. Money refunded if you are not 100% satisfied.
Sea Heritage Foundation
1-800·247·3262 SEA hlISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
MARINE ART NEWS
, "Schooner Sappho Rounding Sandy Hook Lightship, 1871 ," by William Bishop, at Quester Gallery.
Summer Exhibition to Benefit Historic House Renovations Quester Gallery, in the historic maritime town of Stonington, Connecticut, has just opened their annual summer show, "Recent Acquisitions." The exhibition celebrates the works of many leading American and European marine painters and sculptors of the 19th and 20th centuries. The artists featured include Alfred T. Bricher, James Buttersworth, Montague Dawson, Antonio Jacobsen, Robert Salmon, John Stobart, Samuel Walters and William H. Yorke. The images of seascapes, yacht racing and ship portraits capture the excitement, beauty and rich history of our maritime world. The show, which runs through August, benefits the Stonington Historical Society's renovation of the Captain Nathaniel Brown Palmer Mansion in Stonington, Connecticut. See page 31 for a review of the Historical Society's biography of the captain. (Quester Gallery, On the Green, PO Box 446, Stonington CT 06378;860 535-3860. Open Monday-Saturday, lOAM-5PM)
Art Notes Next year, the 1997 centennial of ship portraitist James Bard 's death will herald a traveling exhibition of his work. Tony Peluso, Bard specialist, journalist and marine art and antiques connoisseur, is guest curator of the show, which will feature approximately 35 paintings, drawings and watercolors from the collections of The Mariners' Museum, as well as public and private collections. Mr. Peluso is also writing a biography of James Bard and an examination of his works; the book, published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., is scheduled to appear in May 1997. The exhibition can be seen at the following institutions (call to verify dates): National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, 202 357-2504 (l 7 May-28 September 1997); South Street Seaport Museum, New York NY, 212 748-8600 (25 SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
October 1997-1 February 1998); The Mariners' Museum, Newport News VA, 804 596-2222 (28 February-17 May 1998); New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown NY, 607 5472533 (13 June-20September1998). For further information, contact The Mariners' Museum, 100 Museum Drive, Newport News VA 23606-3759; 804 596-2222. JA
CORPORATE or INDIVIDUAL Sponsorship Sought for Major Marine Art Project For more information write to : David Warther II 2561 Crestview Dr. NW Dover Ohio 44622
CRUISE THE MAINE COAST A BOARD THE WI N DJAMMER
ANGELIQUE 3 & 6 DAY VACATIONS $360 to $69; . Free Brochure. Write: Capt. Mike McHenrv Box 736-S Camden , ME 0484.1
Call 1 800 282-9989
Exhibitions • through Summer 1996, Maritime Works by Gordon Miller (Vancouver Maritime Museum, 1905 Ogden Ave., Vancouver BC, Canada V6J 1A3; 604 257-8300) • 3 April-15 October, River Sounding (Independence Seaport Museum, 211 South Columbus Boulevard, Philadelphia PA 19106-3199; 215 925-5439) • 16 April-8 September, Antonio Jacobsen' s Painted Ships on Painted Oceans (Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; 202 357-1853) •from 20 April , "America and the Sea" (Mystic Maritime Gallery, Mystic CT 06355-0008; 203 572-5388) • 14 May- 31 August, "New England on the Waves" (American Marine Model Gallery, 12 Derby Square, Salem MA 01970; 508 745 ~ 5777) • 20 May-22 September, "Across the Western Ocean: American Ships by Liverpool Artists" (South Street Seaport Museum, 207 Front Street, New York NY 10038; 212 748-8600) • 1 July-31 December, Ship Models: Under Oars, Sails, & Steam (Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum, PO Box 25, Cold Spring Harbor NY 11724; 516 3673418) • 9 August-22 September, Picture This: Toronto Harbour in Art (Marine Museum of Upper Canada, Stanley Barracks, Exhibition Place, Toronto, ONTM6K 3C3; 416 392-1765) • 15 August-17 November, Marine Art from the Collections (The Mariners' Museum, 100 Museum Drive, Newport News VA 23606-3759; 804 596-2222) •from 28 September, 17th Annual International Marine Art Exhibition (Mystic Maritime Gallery, Mystic CT 06355-0008) • 19 October 1996-16 March 1997, Figureheads and Carvings (The Mariners' Museum, 100 Museum Drive, Newport News VA 23606-3759; 804-596-2222) • 2 November-February 1997, "Across the Western Ocean: American Ships by Liverpool Artists" (Independence Seaport Museum (see address in item 2))
Ship Models ~
ITT~
Great selection of finely detailed historic ship models at great prices. Restora!Ions & custom ·build mg.
Richard MacDuffie 2 Browns Rd. , Grafton MA 01519 508-839-4939
Stob~;(;n•w Call Commodore Bernie Klay
800 247-3262
SUPER DETAILED SHIP MODELS UNBELIEVABLY DETAILED METAL WATERLINE MODELS FROM EUROPE. SCALE - 1 :1250 (1"=104.2") FULLY ASSEMBLED AND PAINTED WWII warships and great ocean liners in stock. Hundred of other ships , including freighters , tankers, ferries and tugs. WWII naval aircraft. We purchase or consign collections. Send $4 for catalogue . Visa & Mastercard accepted.
Vintage Limited USA 29761 Weatherwood Laguna Niguel , CA 92677 Phone (714) 249-8687 FAX (714) 249-3662 E-mail: vi n tag e It d@ . co m
25
SHIPNOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM EMBARKS UPON A NEW MISSION Over the last 67 years, Mystic Seaport Museum has evolved from a small association of local individuals dedicated to collecting maritime artifacts to an internationally renowned institution that preserves and interprets a broad spectrum of America's maritime heritage. A new mission statement defines this evolution: 'The mission of Mystic Seaport is to create a broad, public understanding of the relationship of America and the Sea." Director J. Revell Carr articulated this vision in the Spring 1996 Log of Mystic Seaport: "As [we] looked at our strengths and weaknesses, .. . we searched for the unique role and focus that would make a significant contribution in the future and fill a void. We saw that no other institution was bringing the whole American maritime story together, and we recognized that Mystic Seaport was well prepared to assume that role. We cannot collect in depth in all aspects of the nation's maritime history, but we can refine and develop our collections to better fulfill our mission, and at the same time establish links with other institutions that can share in the telling of the stories. We must both honor heroic deeds and recognize grim realities as we try to understand the significance of this nation's enduring relationship with the sea." The museum's first goal is to meet a 31 July deadline to match a $500,000 National Endowment for the Humanities challenge grant. Mystic is raising an additional $2,000,000 to establish the America and the Sea Endowment, which will fund a staff team responsible for integrating America and the Sea themes into current and future programs. To make a gift to the Endowment, write Mystic Seaport at PO Box 6000, Mystic CT 06355-0990; 860 572-0711. KH
Discover 011e ofAmerica's hest kept maritime secrets... If,,.
LAKE CHAMPLAIN MARITIME MUSEUM
~~!. .!.~~~~{ ~!..!!.~!!:.'~!?.~~ ...V.! . ...... . •Historical Exhibits •
•
•· ' ~•Nautical Archaeology •Replica Philadelphia II
Open May 4-0ct 20•10am-5pm Daily from 22A at Vergennes to Basin Harbor (802) 475-2022
Own a Piece of Nautical History Unique nautical giftware made from th e propell ers of R.M.S. Queen Mary and the original foremast of the Cutty Sark. These fine crafted items
importe~nf~~u~e~ngland
~ -
Spun Yarn The steam tug Catawissa of 1897 (see SH77) has been placed on the New York State Historic Landmarks list ... . The Soviet Tarantul I-class missile corvette Hiddensee was transferred from Germany to the US Navy for technical review in 1992 and is now available from the Navy as a museum ship (contact Officer Campbell, 410 3262860) . ... The steam ferry Nobska of 1925 has just entered historic Dry-Dock #I-recently vacated by USS Constitution-at the Charlestown Navy Yard, for a long-awaited refit, funded by the first $1 million of an appropriated $3 million in ISTEA funding (New Eng-
• A superb limited ed ition of 1000 models of the Queen Mary cast from the sh ip's propellers. • Antiqued keychains, coaster sets, tiepins and more. All with certificate of authenticity Call toll free now for your FREE brochure
1-800-871-4957 or fax (708) 442-4370
Fella International • PO Box 247 Riverside, IL 60546
Nobska at Charlestown Navy Yard
I Send for your FREE Copy Cubberley & Shaw Maritime Museum News PO Box 607 NM Groton MA 01450-0607
ei
~
:i:
~
3
~==========~ ~ 26
land Steamship Foundation, PO Box 3202, New Bedford MA 02741; 508 999-1925) .... The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum has completed cataloging and databasing its collection of 920 line drawings of Chesapeake Bay boats (CBMM, PO Box 636, St. Michaels MD 21663; 410 745-2916) .... The US Navy has approved the USS Constellation Foundation's repair plan for the 142-year-old sloop-of-war berthed in Baltimore (CF, 301 E. Pratt St., Pier 1, Baltimore MD 21202-3134; 410 5391797) . . . . The new nonprofit Schooner Harvey Gamage Foundation has taken over operation of the 95-foot, gaff topsail schooner built in 1973, from SAIL, Inc., and will maintain the vessel's educational programs, says Foundation President Alix Thome (SHGF, PO Box 60, Francestown NH 03043) .... The Cox & Stevens commuter yachtKalmia of 1909 has been rescued from the scrap heap by William Kenney, who is looking for a nonprofit organization interested in restoring the vessel (PO Box 82, South Norwalk CT 06856; 203 8389214) . ... The Glencannon Press has announced the publication of Mr. Glencannon Ignores the War ($35hc), the first in a projected eight-volume set comprising all the stories about Colin Glencannon, the blustering Scots chief engineerofthe SS Inchcliffe Castle (GP, Order & Shipping Dept., PO Box 633, Benicia CA 94510; 707 745-3933) .... (Continued on page 28.)
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
NEWS CALENDAR Festivals, Events, Lectures, Etc. • 10 & 18 August, Star of India sails (San Diego Maritime Museum, 1306 N. Harbor Drive, San Diego CA 92101 ; 619 234-9153) • 15-18 August, Old Boats, Old Friends in Racine, Traditional Watercraft and Model Show (OBOF, PO Box 081400, Racine WI 53408-1400; 414 634-2351) • 6-8 September, 20th Annual Wooden Boat Festival (Wooden Boat Foundation, 380 Jefferson Street, Port Townsend WA 98368; 360 385-3628) • 12-15 September, Newport International Boat Show (Newport Yachting Center, PO Box 550, Newport RI 02840; 401 846-1600) • 14 September, 8th Biennial Auction (Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, Mill Street, PO Box 636, St. Michaels MD 21663; 410 745-2916) • 14-15 September, 1996 Festival of the Sea (National Maritime Museum Association, PO Box 470310, San Francisco CA 94147-0310; 415 929-0202) Conferences • 7-11 September,1996MeetingoftheEscort Carrier Sailors and Airmen Association, Inc., in Charleston SC (Elton Powers, 818 Willage Drive, Lynchburg VA 24502) • 11-15 October, International Meeting for Ship Photographers and Enthusiasts in San Francisco (Norman J. Freitag, President, Northern California Maritime Society, 866 Linnea Ave., San Lorenzo CA94580-l 137) Exhibitions • from31 March, "Facing the New World: Immigrant Experiences "in Galveston" (Texas Seaport Museum, 2016 Strand, Galveston TX 77550; 409 763-1877) • 4April-March 1997, Pirates! (Vancouver Maritime Museum, 1905 Ogden Avenue, Vancouver BC V6J 1A3; 604 290-9098) • 19 April-3 November, "Friendship in Japan: A Shipmaster's Travels in 19thCentury Japan" (Maine Maritime Museum, 243 Washington Street, Bath ME 04530; 207 443-1316) • from 27 April, "Exploradores! Spanish Adventurers on the Northwest Coast" (Columbia River Maritime Museum, 1792 Marine Dr., Astoria OR 97103; 503 325-2323) • 1 May-20 October, "Immigration in the Age of Sail, 1820-1880" (South Street Seaport Museum, 207 Front Street, New York NY 10038; 212 748-8600) •from 4 May, "Fire and Ice": Brick and Ice-Cutting (Hudson River Maritime Museum, One RondoutLanding, Kingston NY 12401 ; 914 338-0071) • from 23 May, "Harvesting the Sea" aboard the ferryboat Berkeley (San Diego Maritime Museum, 1306 North Harbor Dr., San Diego CA 92101; 691 234-9153) • 18 July-19 October, Oyster Industry of the North Fork (East End Seaport, 1 BootlegAlley,PO Box624, GreenportNY 11944)
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
CLASSIFIED ADS The Nautical Seaway Trail CHARTBOOK
& WATERFRONT GUIDE
Ship Paintings Restored. Museum quality restoration of old paintings. Damaged old ship paintings purchased. Peter Williams, 30 Ipswich St., Boston MA 02215. By appointment: 617-536-4092 Compass and Binnacle restoration, repairs and adjusting. J. K. & E. Enterprises, Inc., 7075 12 l stWayNorth,Seminole FL 34642. 813-398-5132.
A TERRIFIC GIFT TO GIVE OR GET! "Boater's Atlas" to NYS' Lake Erie, Niagara River, Lake Ontario & St. Lawrence Riv er; 52 NOAA charts, 600+ waterfront services listings: marinas, repairs, camping, Loran C, fi shing, 120 pgs, 70+ photos, 17" x 11" spiral-bound in plasti c bag. $32.95 + $4.43 postage (NYS add $2.62 tax) to: NYS Seaway Trail, Inc, 109 Barracks Dr, Sackets Harbor, NY 13685 Visa/MC: 1·800·SEAWAY-T "' SEAWAYTRAILLIGHTHOUSES .A. Guidebook to 20+ historic beacons on I' YS' Seaway Trail Scenic Byway. Pen & ink illus., 46 p, $2.95 + $I postage 1 (NYS add $.28 tax) to: Seaway Trail ~~ 109 Barracks Dr, Sackets HarbortNY o..· ....i.L 13685, Visa/MC 1-800-SEAWAY·
i
1
MARINE SURVEYS Appraisals on commercial wood & steel vessels. New England area. Contact
Paul Henry Dunn Associates 617-696-1083
Visit ~DISCOVERY HARBOUR
1817-1856
ONTARIO'S PREMIER MARINE HERITAGE SITE PENETANCU/SHENE, ONTA RIO, CANADA
"Hands-On" Historic Sailing Programs Guided Tours of Historic Properties
~ie!!il~~ -
--
H.M.S . Tecumseth
Restaurant, Professional Theatre, & Gift Shop
SAILING AND PROGRAM INFORMATION: (705) 549-8064
Master Padlocks. Brass/steel. Any lock. Any key. Any quantity. Free info. Quick ship. Visa/MC. Lockmasters. 1-800-4610620. Fax 904-235-7658 Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria, signed & numbered ship portraits hand crafted of silk fabric and rice straw. Size 5"x7" suitable for framing. Price $15 + $2 shipping. Moneyback guarantee. Ray Koshy, 1214 Church St., Galveston TX 77550. Also available, tall ship Elissa & others. 409-762-5621. Historical oil paintings/pencil drawing prints, aircraft, marine, WWII. Free brochure. Don O'Brien, ISMP, PO Box 802, S. Dennis MA 02660. Shipping or maritime links with South Africa? We will investigate your enquiry: Port & Starboard, SA Maritime Historical Research, PO Box 50892, Waterfront 8002, South Africa. Fax 021 754 907.
26yearsofSeaC/assics. Vol.1,No.1 (1968) through Vol.28, No.10 (1995). Twenty binders indexed and dated. Edward W. Wolcott, 7336 Shirland Ave., Norfolk VA 23505, 804-423-2213 . Ship's Wheel , Burma teak circa 1900s. 70" brass hub, $1,400. Reilly, Greenland NH 603-436-6286.
45' Gaff-rigged schooner ONE DAY is being offered for sale at $68,000. Catt for flyer describing this beautiful example of Canada's schooner heritage. 207-633-2503 . Read Steamboating, the annual how-to journal for steamboat owners, builders and dreamers. $25/year. Satisfaction guaranteed. Bill Mueller , Route 1, Box 262-H, Middlebourne WV 26149. Wanted: Deck range finder binoculars. Steve Rowland 508-790-6172. The Howard Blackburn, a clipper fishing schooner circa 1870 is being restored for an unrivaled American adventure commencing I 997. A rare opportunity for you to sail and fish as the Gloucestermen did and relive history. For a prospectus, send $5 to: The Gloucestermen Company, Ltd, PO Box 796, Gloucester MA 01931-0796.
ToplaceanadphoneCarmenat914-737-7878. Needed: Video camera to record seminars and other events. Ideally, a Sony VXlOOO or TR101 or similar with manual override, shotgun microphone and Bogen fluid head tripod. Help us document history . If you can help, call Burchie Green at 1-800-221-NMHS. 27
Marinas I Boatyards on Chesapeake Bay Buy or Sell
SHIPNOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS
*
AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE MUSEUM NEWS
· )J
call Wilford Land Company
PO Box 953, Easton MD 21601 Tel : 410-822-4586
Fax: 410-226-5205
Captain's Clock of solid oak, cherry and mahogany. 3-year guar. on quartz movement. $45, ship'g incl. Also: Oldfashioned handmade dolls . Photos on request. Keeler & Olson Clocks 125 Hill St. , PO Box 6, Whitinsville Tel: 508-234-5081 MA 01588
Fine Fresh Food Three Meals a Day Seven Days a Week On the Harbor in Vineyard Haven
.
WRECKERS' MUSEUM Oldest House in South Florida tells of Key West wrecking history. 322 Du;al St. Key West FL 33040
*
*
*
MAINE WINDJAMMERS AMERICAN EAGLE • ISAAC H. EVANS HERITAGE Sail the Maine Coast
*
*
Great food , fun & friends $335 . - $675. Brochures North End Shipyard Schooners, Box 482T Rockland, ME 04841 1_800_648 _4544 Fax 207-594-80 15
*
*
MARTIFACTS, INC. MARINE COLLECTIBLES from scrapped ships and SS. UNITED STATES. Lamps, blocks, clocks, linen, etc. ~ Send $1 for brochure:
~ :z;~~;r:~3:=~~=~· Phone/Fax : (904) 645-0150
SAIL THE MAINE COAST The Classic Windjamme,- V acarion SCHOONER MARY DAY Outstanding Sailing Good Friends. Great Food Snug Harbors Every Night Wild Islands. Whales. Eagles Cape. Sieve & Chris Cobb Box 79BA. Camden . ME 04843 800-992-ZZ I B • (ZOl) 236-Zl.IO
CRUISE BY FREIGHTER Europe, South America, Africa, Australia , New Zealand, etc. Comfortable accommodations for just 12 passengers. Reasonable prices.
Cruise & Freighter Travel Association Box 580-218H6, Flushing, NY 11358 • 800-872-8584
28
Homer L. Ferguson and the SS Minnesota are the 1996 inductees into the National Maritime Hall of Fame. The announcement was made by Curator Frank Braynard at a reception of members of the World Ship Society and the Steamboat Historical Society at the American Merchant Marine Museum in June. Mr. Ferguson, one of our nation's greatest shipbuilders, was president or chairman of the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company for 38 years. During his tenure, the shipyard never experienced major labor strikes or work stoppages while building such famous liners as the President Hoover, President Coolidge, America and United States. Mr. Ferguson also helped found the renowned Mariners' Museum in Virginia and served as its first president. The steamship Minnesota was built in 1903 by railroad magnate James J. Hill. The motive for Hill's foray into shipbuilding echoes the modem concept of iniermodalism. One of the largest vessels in the world at the time, the Minnesota was designed to carry passengers and cargo from the Orient across the Pacific to America's West Coast, where the ship would be met by Hill's Great N orthem Railroad trains to complete the journey across the US. The far. sighted venture ultimately failed since the SS Minnesota Minnesota's cargo capacity was so enormous that it proved impossible to fill its holds. Each year a national committee selects one person and one ship to be inducted into the National Maritime Hall of Fame-a 15-year-old program of the American Merchant Marine Museum, spotlighting the great people and vessels of America's seafaring heritage.
*
*
*
*
The prestigious American Society of Marine Artists will open an exhibit at the Museum on Saturday, 28 September 1996, to run through November. The 25 paintings will be chosen by an ASMA committee from submissions by their members from the northeast. There will be a pre-opening reception for Museum members to meet the artists on Friday evening, 27 September. The Society's last show at the Museum, some five years ago, was a great success and we are looking forward to their exhibit this fall. Other Museum events coming up in the next few months include the Annual Members' Picnic on Sunday, 22 September, and a reception at the famous India House in New York City on Thursday, 14 November. For information on these and other activities, contact AMMM, USMMA, Kings Point NY 11024; 516 773-5515 . CAPTAIN CHARLES M. RENICK, Executive Director The Vasa Museum in Stockholm is looking for shipmodels of the Vasa for an exhibit opening next year (Ms. Lindenstrand, Vasa Museum, Box 27131, S-102 52 Stockholm, Sweden) .... After five months in drydock undergoing extensive hull restoration at nearby Jeftboat, the steamer Belle of Louisville returned to her berth in Louisville KY to begin her 1996 season on 14 April (BotL, 401 West River Road, Louisville KY 40404; 502 574-2992) .... The replica of Captain Robert Gray's 1788 Northwest exploration ship Lady Washington will be operating out of Seattle's Pier 54 (1 800 200-LADY) .... The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project 's plans for 1996 include working to establish Rhode Island's first state-sponsored shipwreck preserve, continuing site mapping of Revolutionary War ships and
completing a management plan for naval shipwrecks in local waters (RIMAP, Box 1137, Newport RI02840) .... The replica of the US Brig Niagara has recently taken on board six new 32pounder carronades, which are sure to be crowd-pleasers when fired from her gundeck (Flagship Niagara League, PO Box 862, Erie PA 16512) .... From their classrooms, students will be able to follow the voyage of an international crew of high school students sailing the world aboard the tall ship Concordia via satellite (Ocean Challenge, Inc ., 20 Park Plaza, Ste424, Boston MA 02116; 800 890-3049). Additional information about these and other stories can befound in our bimonthly Sea History Gazette. For copies of the April and May/June Gazette, send $6 to NMHS, PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566. SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
REVIEWS The Gunboat Philadelphia and the Defense of Lake Champlain in 1776, by Philip K. Lundeberg (Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, RR #3 Box 4092, Basin Harbor VT, 1995, 102pp, illus, biblio, ISBN 0-9641856-1-X; $ l 4.95pb) George Washington's Schooners: The First American Navy, by Chester G. Hearn (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD, 1995, 304pp, illus, appen, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 1-55750-358-3; $36.95hc) Together, these two books offer fascinating insights into the tumultuous gestation of the United States Navy. Philip Lundeberg uses the gunboat Philadelphia-sunk at the 1776 Battle ofValcour Island, then raised in 1935as the focal point for his depiction of naval activity on Lake Champlain in 1775-76. "Her plainly built, battlescarred hull, remarkably well preserved, gives form and substance to the memory of that tiny American fleet" which sallied forth at a time crucial to the outcome of the American Revolution. Here is the well told story of the Green Mountain Boys and raw recruits who, under the command of the charismatic, enigmatic Benedict Arnold, captured two British vessels to gain control of Lake Champlain in 1775. They proceeded to build a tiny naval fleet from raw, standing timber at Skenesborough (now Whitehall), New York , and maintained American control of Lake Champlain in 177 6, stalling the vaunted Royal Navy in Canada. The crucial action on the lake was the Battle of Valcour Island, 11-13 October 1776. No naval engagement during the Revolution involved as many vessels nor had the long-range implications of Valcour. Although the Americans' meager flotilla was overwhelmed, "the little American navy," by its very existence, forced the British to assemble a navy for the lake campaign. The ensuing delay gave the Continental Army time to prepare for the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777 and to defeat the British under General John Burgoyne, resulting in French intervention on America' s side and, ultimately, American independence. "The little American navy on Lake Champlain was wiped out," wrote navy historian Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan , "but never had any force , big or small, lived to better purpose or died more gloriously." The volume is doubly enjoyable for its lavish illustrations and photographs, and for the description of how the origiSEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
nal Philadelphia was raised and brought to the Smithsonian Institution, where it is on display today . It also details the construction of Philadelphia II, a replica now sailed by volunteer crew at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. While Arnold's fleet challenged the British on Lake Champlain, George Washington commissioned a flotilla of eight fast, lightly-armed ships to harass British supply lines along the New England coast. Their story is told in Washington's Schooners, which reads like a swashbuckling adventure tale, but recounts, in fact, the little-known history of this earliest organized blue-water naval activity in the American Revolution. Heam brings to life an unlikely cast of captains, sailors, marines and naval agents-heroes and rogues-who contributed to the successes and developmental pains of our young navy. The successes of Washington 's light flotilla were substantive and indisputable: 55 prizes captured, the British decision to evacuate Boston accelerated, and the British army deprived of essential supplies which were diverted to Washington's desperately needy troops . Heam weaves a fascinating tale of ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances. He also presents George Washington's understanding of the importance of sea power. "He not only fathered the country . .. he gave birth to the American Navy." Since this activity occurred months before the Congress financed the first Continental fleet, much of America's early naval policy had its foundations "in Washington's instructions to his captains." HERBERT K. SAXE Croton-on-Hudson, New York The Shipbuilders of Essex: A Chronicle of Yankee Endeavor, by Dana Story (Ten Pound Island Book Co., Gloucester MA, 1995, 368pp, illus, appen, index, ISBN 0-938459-0900; $39.95hc) It is truly gratifying when a subject thought to have been consigned to the purview of the academic can be addressed by someone with firsthand experience and a depth of understanding born of a lifelong association. Such is the case with Dana Story's latest and most ambitious work. Mr. Story's own history, and that of his family , is inextricably tied to the town of Essex and its shipbuilding industry, from the arrival of his distant ancestor William Story from England in 1637, to the operation of one of its last
J:A~ MARITIME
BOOKS 1806 Laurel Crest Madison, Wisconsin 53705 (608) 238-SAIL
Out-of-Print and Rare Books about the Sea, Ship & Sailor Catalogue Upon Request
Old&Rare Maritime Boo~ at reasonable prices Send for free catalogues
We are also eager wpurchase old books of all kinds, especially maritime. Please can OT write.
ten pound island book company 76 Langsford Street., Gloucester, MA 0193-0 (508) 283-5299
W'INDJAMMER
MYSTIC WHAIER Sail for 1,2,3, or 5 Days! Comfortable aeeon>modatlon8, fabulou8 meal8, and the e:xperlenee of a lifetime, all for one low prlee!
MAIUTKMJE HKSTORY CRUXยงJEยง! Call today for free brochure:
1-800-697-8420 Mystic Whaler Cruises PO bo< 189 Mystic, CT 06355
29
REVIEWS OUT-OF-PRINT
MARITIME BOOKS FREE CATALOG
W. WIEGAND & CO. BOX 563, GLASTONBURY, CT 06033
Columbia Trading Company NAUTICAL BOOKS Ne,.., Used II< Out-of-Print
llifll ISi
Fne Cata!oc Sublcription
(508) 778-2929 FAX (508) 778-2922
Major Credit Cards
I Bam.sl2ble Rd, Hyannis, MA 02601 U.S.A.
TALL SHIPS BOOKS Historical fiction from the age of fighting sail to WWI, WWII and modern times. Hardcover and paperback books, new and used. $3 for catalog, refundabl e with first order. Tall Ships Books, PO Box 80278 Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52408-8027
GIBBS & COX 1r-.:c NA VAL ARCHITECTS & MARINE ENGINEERS 50 West 23rd St.• New York NY 10010
(212) 366-3900
Egregious Steamboat Journal Bi·monthly magazine fea turing photo essay, history, t ech nical arti cles & current eve nt.&. US $20, Canada $24, F oreign $40 Single Issue $5.00
1996 Steamboat Calendar 13 Steamboat Pbotos $9.00
Steamboat Store Catalogue Books, Videos, Model Plans, & Gift Itema $4.00 (free witb subscription)
11
Steamboat Masters
I _,iU- :::;;,
:... ~
, · i=::•wlii"V.a.L
G~ ~
P. 0. Box 3046-SH Louisville, KY 40201 FAX (502) 776-9006 VISA-MasterCard
Conference - June 20-23, 1996
Nautical Decor and Antiques SEAFARER, LTD. Route 9, Oceanville, NJ 08231 ). --",I\ Visit our 3 ,000 if:t 1 :%1-1 ,/ sq. ft. store or ,.I) ~ send $3 1/~ for brochure
609-652-9491 30
shipyards by the author himself. Most of us will recall Essex, Massachusetts, as the principal source of the fast and able schooners that powered the fisheries of Gloucester during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Yet shipbuilding in Essex had been going on for well over two hundred years before reaching this "belle epoque" and its eventual cessation in 1949. In recounting this history, Story draws on his own extensive notes, as well as the ship lists compiled by Lewis Story (a distant cousin) and shipyard records of his father and half-brother, A.D. and Jacob Story. Although he quotes Howard I~ Chapelle extensively, he lets us know that Chapelle' s principal source was, in fact, Lewis Story. Through a narrative abundant with anecdotes, Story traces a lengthy procession of shipbuilders, with names such as Burnham and Story appearing again and again (the latter spanning nine generations). Their trade required intense labor and skill and offered few amenities. What passed for a shipyard was often a bare bones affair, little more than a piece of land along the creek where blocking could be set up. Men initially went into the woods to fell trees and "beat out" frames with broad ax and adz; even after the introduction of the steam-powered band saw in 1884, most of the work was done by hand. Along with the procession of builders came a steady evolution of vessel types, many of which remain uniquely associated with Essex. Most were fishing schooners, though we learn that Essex also built numerous cargo schooners, steamers and yachts. Mr. Story's narrative comes forth in an easy and unassuming sty le. This is not to say that he is without opinions; he attributes the great loss of vessels and men during the era of the clipper schooners (1860s-80s) to the lack of "sufficient initial stability" inherent in that model when a more likely contributing factor was their lack of secondary or ultimate stability. Readers should find this book a fascinating account of a significant chapter in maritime history told by a person of unique authority to tell it. DON BIRKHOLZ, JR.
New York, New York Shipbuilding on Prince Edward Island: Enterprise in a Maritime Setting, 1787-1920, by Nicolas J. de Jong and Marven E. Moore (Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull QUE, 1994,
411 pp, illus, appen, biblio, index, ISBN 0-660-14021-7; $34.95pb) This work is the result of extensive research by the authors on shipbuilding on Prince Edward Island and the economic forces that drove it from afar. An industry that originated in response to a local need for vessels soon became a thriving export market, with the product going principally to Great Britain and, to a lesser extent, Newfoundland. The financial success of the industry became inseparable from the demand for tonnage in these markets. The book first traces the island 's shipbuilding industry from the late 1700s to a peak of activity in the mid 1800s and its extended death rattle in the late 1800s and the early years of this century. Drawing primarily on shipping registers , the authors analyze the production and export of vessels by type and target market. The remainder of the book focuses on the 22communities thatengaged in shipbuilding. The text is supplemented with tables, graphs, maps and photographs. Although occasionally a bit dry, this book should stand as the definitive work on shipbuilding on the island and the economic and political environment in which it thrived and ultimately collapsed. DON BIRKHOLZ, JR.
New York, New York Tidecraft: The Boats of South Carolina, Georgia and Northeastern Florida, 1550-1950, 2nd edition, by William C. Fleetwood, Jr. (WBG Press, Tybee Island GA, 1995, 364pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 0-964-2519-0-6; $47.50hc) The maritime culture of the Southeast thrives with a dynamic nature that, like the shifting dunes along the beaches, has often left little trace of its history. William C. "Rusty" Fleetwood has gathered and organized enough of the historical traces to examine the maritime culture and watercraft of South Carolina, Georgia and northeastern Florida from 1550-1950. The new edition is a significantly improved version of the first, 1982 edition, with a subjective-chronological analysis based on combinations of important boat types, industries , and historical periods. With the addition of updated archival and archaeological research, it provides important insight into the watercraft used in the southeastern US. Fleetwood 's text is supplemented by appendices on mid-18th-century coastal sailing vessels, South Carolina SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
Sing along with the X on CD
flat-bottomed oyster sloops, rice flats, dugouts and bateaux. The author demonstrates the integral part played by working watercraft in the economy of southern coastal areas and provides a close-up view of the boats and people of the region. He shows that most of the maritime activity in the last 400 years has taken place in small craft of a riverine and coastwise nature, and how these vessels reflected the economic and social changes affecting maritime-related business and agriculture. By placing the region's working watercraft into an historical context, Fleetwood creates a benchmark work upon which other historians, anthropologists, and writers can build. DA YID R. BAUMER Virginia Beach, Virginia NEW & NOTED Hiroshima in History and Memor y, edited by Michael J. Hogan (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK and New York NY, 1996, 254pp, illus, index, ISBN 0-521-56206-6; $54.95hc, $17.95pb) Fifty years after the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those events stirred powerful emotions on both sides of the Pacific. Politicians, veterans and historians were center stage in the effort to understand and communicate the reasons for and effects of the destruction of the two Japanese cities. In this volume, historians examine the question from a variety of directions, focusing particularly on the connection and conflict between history and memory, and how Americans and Japanese are coming to recognize their roles in the devastation of WWII. JA
Captain Nathaniel Brown Palmer: An Old-Time Sailor of the Sea, by John R. Spears (Stonington Historical Society, Inc.,PO Box 103, Stonington CT06378, orig 1922, repr 1996, 288pp, illus, index; $15.95pb) This biography, written in 1922, vividly conveys the adventuresome spirit of 19th-century maritime America. It recounts, from ships' logs, personal communications and other sources, the remarkable life of Captain Palmer, who discovered Antarctica and became a leading designer, builder and captain of some of the world's fastest and largest sailing ships. The Stonington Historical Society has done a great service to the field by bringing this book back into the public eye. JA J,
J,
Right fro m go you can sing the hearty choruses of the songs sung by old tars on the old shi ps of the saili ng ship era. Ere long you' ll be singing all the verses & leading your own crew and you can throw away the CD
Also availble new on CD
THE X SEAMEN SING AT SOUTH STREET Where am I to go, John Kanakanaka, 1llC Alabama, Coast of Peru, Sam's Gone Away, All for me Grog, Lady Franklins Lament, Macintyre, Three White Gulls ,Cape Anne, & It Was Pleasant & Dcli ghlful
$15 each bothfor$25
For your tape recorders they are also availble on cassette. On Cassette you may also order Sea Song Favorites, Sea Songs Scanlc, Si ng Songs Newport, Bawdy Sea Ballads with Oscar Brand, Songs of the Sea with Alan Mills, The Sea Song Sampler, Rollicki ng Rousers and Moby Dick.
$10 each, 3 for $25, all 8 for $55
(800)247-3262 (718)343-9575 Profi ts from these sales will be used to prol'ide a set of all 5 X Seamen CD albums to all the World's Sea Museums.
Established in 1935
Capt. Ray & Ann Williamson
KEEP THE TRADITION A LIVE ENJOY W EEKLONG, 4-DAY OR WEEKEND CRUISES Na tional Landmark Vessels departing Monday & Friday.
Rates from $295 - $675 • Group rates available June & September For info: Box 617-SH, Camden, Maine 04843 • (207) 236-2938 • 1 800-736-7981
mSea
"""';"==' ~-1
r '1 ans
a
Tru l y Unique shop of e CoA llectibles, Memo rab ilia
SS
and Nau t ical Gifts.
LAMPS• HARPOONS• SHIPS WHEELS• FURNITURE
for ordering information and a aztalog contact Tnangle Sea Sales (Ships Store) 36 South Street PO Box 314
Greenport NY 11944 Telephone (516) 477·1773
)
Come join the
n. as the 97th Band gs of the en.!
Regime,~a:!~:r!D.g
brings b old A -ROVIN' SHENANDOAH DRUNKEN SAILOR LEAVE HER, JOHNNY••
•• OLD MAUI CONGO RIVER THE MERMAID ALL FOR ME GROG
19 Songs
I
•
Compact Disc ... $15 Cassette tape ...$10 Includes postage. ~ VISA/MasterCard accepted . Phone: 1- 813 -391 - 4565 or write: 97th, 8045 Cottonwoode Drive #23, Largo, Florida 34643 -2903. Allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.
J,
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
31
NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY SPONSORS
THE ACORN FOUNDATION CHARLES F. ADAMS COMMO. HENRY H. ANDERSON, JR. HOPE P. ANNAN J. ARON CHARITABLE FOUNDATION PETER A. ARON THE VINCENT ASTOR FOUNDATION R. BARNETI WILLIAMS. BARRACK, JR. ALLEN G. BERRJEN BOATING ON THE HUDSON J AMES H . BROUSSARD WALTER R . BROWN ALAN G . CHOATE MARC S. COHN MELVIN A. CONANT JoHN C. COUCH WALTER CRONKITE HARLAN CROW PoNCET DAVIS, JR. JoHN H. DEANE HENRY L. & GRACE DOHERTY CHARITABLE FOUNDATION JAMES EAN MoRRJS L. FEDER ROBERT E. GAMBEE THOMAS GOCHBERG PETER J. GOULANDRIS THE GRACE FOUNDATION THOMAS HALE WALTER J. HANDELMAN CAPT. PAUL R . HENRY DR. CHARLES E. HERDENDORF CHARLES HINTZ ADRIAN S. H OOPER ELIZABETH S. HOOPER FOUNDATION MR. & MRS. A. D. HULINGS INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN's ASSOCIATION LCDR ROBERT IRVING USN (RET.) MRs. R . C. JEFFERSON TRUDA CLEEVES J EWETT MRS. IRv1NG M . JoHNSON STEPHEN JoHNSON LTCoL WALTER E. JoRGENSEN THE J. M. K APLAN FUND KARTA CONTAINER & RECYCLING HARRJS KEMPNER, ESQ. CHRISTOS N. KRJTIKOS ART KUDNER GERHARD E. KURZ GEORGE R. L AM B JOHN LEHMAN H. R. LoGAN RICHARDO R. LOPES J AMES A. MACDONALD FOUNDATION CLAY MAITLAND PETER MANIGAULT JAMES P . MARENAKOS MARJN TUG & BARGE M AR INE SOCIETY OF NEW YORK WARREN MARR, IJ ANTHONY 0. MARSHALL MATCH FILM I NC. BRIAN A. McALLISTER DONALD C. McGRAW , JR. SCHUYLER M. MEYER, JR. MR. & MRS. J. WILLIAM MIDDENDORF, II MILFORD BOAT WORK S MOBIL OIL CORPORATION HON. JAMES J.MOORE MORMAC MARINE TRANSPORT, INC. RICHARD I. MORRI S, JR . D AVID M. MILTON TRUST MR . & MRs. SPENCER L. MuRFEY, JR. DOUGLAS MUSTER THE NAVY LEAGUE, NEW YORK COUNCIL NY POWER AUTHORITY NORTON L ILLY INTERNATIONAL BRYAN OLIPHANT RALPH M. & DOROTHY P ACKER, JR. PACKER MARINE WALTER H. PAGE WILLIAM A. PALM MRS. A. T. POUCH, JR. THOMAS POWNALL MR. & MRS. ALBERT PRATI JoHN PuREMAN LESLIE C. QUICK, JR. CRAJG A . C. REYNOLDS WILLIAM RICH, III LAURANCE S. ROCKEFELLER EDMUNDS . R UMOW ICZ MARY A.H. R UMSEY FOUNDATION MR. & MRS. JoHN RUPLEY JoHN F. SALISBURY MRS. ARTHUR J. SANTRY, JR. S. H. & HELEN R. SCHEUER FAMILY FOUNDATION RI CHARD SCHEUING DER ScuTI MICHAEL D . SHEA ROBERT A. SINCERBEAUX HOWARD SLOTNICK BAILEY & Posy SMITH NORMA & P ETER STANFORD STATE COUNCIL ON WATERWAYS JoHN STOBART STOLT-NIELSEN, S.A. TEXACO I NC. DAVID B. VIETOR HARRY & CAROL VINALL, III BRJAN D. WAKE SHANNON WALL HENRY PENN WENGER D AN & Aux THORNE ANNA GLEN VIETOR WESTCHESTER R ESCO JoHN WILEY AND SONS, INC. WILLIAM G. WINTERER JEAN WORT YANKEE CLIPPER EDWARD G. ZELINSKY
w.
DONORS
GEORGE R. ATIERBURY M . RHODES BLISH, JR. FRANK 0. BRAYNARD WILLIAM J. CANAVAN DONALD B. & CAROL J. D ERR BRENT FoLLWEILER HARRY GARSCHAGEN J ERRY Gum DR & MRS. DAVID HAYES CARL W. HEXAMER, II INTREPID MUSEUM FOUNDATION ROBERT W . JACKSON J ACK JoHNSON, l Nc. WILLIAM J. JoNES PETER MAX MR. & MRs. ELLICE McDoNALD, JR. MEARL CORPORATION DAVID A. O'NEIL DONALD W. PETIT HAVEN C. ROOSEVELT SAFE H ARBOUR CHARTERING A. HERBERT SANDWEN PETER H . SHARP C. HAMILTON SLOAN MELBOURNE SMITH BENGT STROMQUIST D AVIS TAYLOR LOUIS A. TRAPP, JR. DONALD R. YEARWOOD
w.
PATRONS
J AMES D. ABELES WILLIAM K. ABELES MAE & CRAJG B AHRS MICHAELE. BAJLEY ROBERT M. BALY PETER BARTOK BENJAMIN D. BAXTER B EARDEN STEPHANIE BEGLEY CAPT. J ESSE M. BoNTECou CAPT. J. HOLLIS BOWER, JR. RICHARD H. BRANNON STEPHEN J. BRECKLEY THE BRESSLER FOUNDATION BROOKLYN UNION GAS CAPT. J. S. BURROWS CRAJG BURT, JR. JoHN M. BUTLER NORMAN CARATHANASIS THOMAS S. CARLES! GEORGE W. CARMANY, III LEVIN H. CAMPBELL MR. & MRs. NED CHALKER DAVID D. CHOMEAU CHARLES D. CLARK GEORGE F. CLEMENTS, JR. COLTON & COMPANY KAREN CRANSTON ALICE DADOURJAN Lucy & FRANK DARDEN STAN DASHEW DoMINlC A. DELAURENTIS, MD MALCOLM DICK BERNARD DoNNELLY JoAN E. DONOVAN REYNOLDS D uPONT, JR. R.H. DUPREE HOWARD H . EDDY NEIL A. EHRENREICH MR. & MRS . STUART EHRENREICH EKLOF MARlNE CORPORATION MICHAEL K. EMERY CDR. LELAND F. EsTES EUROPAEUS JAMES P. FARLEY JOHN FIRNSTAHL MRS. D. L. FLEISCHMANN CAPT. A. FoREL J .E. FrucKER, JR. PATRJCK H. FULMER GEIS N1ssAN, lNc THOMAS C. GILLMER LCDR B. A. GILMORE, USN (RET) BRAD GLAZER BRUCE GODLEY ROLAND GRJMM R OBERTS. HAGGE, JR. CAPT. WILLIAM H . HAMILTON PHILIP M. HAMPTON FREDERICH. HARWOOD BENJAMIN C. HAVEMAN RICHARD H . HAWKINS CAPT. FRANK T. HAYDEN H . DALE HEMMERDING ER ROBERT J . HEwm HOWARD E. HIGHT JoHN B. HIGHTOWER HOWARD E. HIGHT MR. & MRS. CHARLES HILL Roy HOLLY TOWNSEND HORNOR H UDSON ALLEY BANK WILLIAM H. H ULICK, III JACK E. HUNGER J AKOB l SBRANDTSEN GEORGE M. IVEY , JR. COL. GEORGE M . JAMES (RET) CAPT. PAUL J . JARVIS P. J AYSON MRS. B ERNICE B. JOHNSTON NEILE. JoNES STEVEN KALIL WILLIAM D. KENNER, MD DR. ALTER KLEINDIENST PETER KNlFFIN ELIOT S . KNOWLES CAPT. LEO KRASZESKJ CAPT. PETER LAHTI FRANK LAKE MR. & MRS. T. E. LEONARD ARTHURS. Liss DoNNA LITILE CALEB LoRJNG, JR. LEO A. LouBERE M . D. MACPHERSON JEANMARIE MAHER CLIFFORD D. M ALLORY MARI NE SOCIETY OF BOSTON MARlTIME H ERJTAGE PRINTS HARRY MARSHALL RICHARD MAURER R OBERT McCULLOUGH RICHARD D. M cN ISH JoHN MECRAY J ACQUES MEGROZ I. A. MORRIS R OBERT E. MoRRJS, JR. ANGUS C. MORRISON CAPT. G . M. M USICK JoYCE & H AR RY NELSON, JR. ROBERT B. O'BRJEN, JR . D AVID A. OESTREICH CLIFFORD B. O'HARA R ONALD L. OSWALD P ARCEL TANKERS SERVICES MRS. GODWIN J. PELISSERO CAPT. D . E. P ERKINS PAUL F. PERKINS JoRGEN PETERSEN CAPT. CLAUDE D. PHI LLIPS H UGH M. PIERCE AURA-LEE E. PITIENGER, PHO PETER BIERRE POULSEN THEODORE PRATI ERNESTA G. PRocoPE MARCOS J OHN PSARROS R AY R EMICK CAPT. JosE RI VERA MARVIN A. ROSENBERG R OGER A. R UB IEN RICHARD M . SALTZMAN SANDY H ooK PILOTS, NY &NJ ROBERT C. SEAMANS, JR. GEORGE E. SHAW, JR. LELAN F. SILLIN KIMBALL SMITH MR. & MRS. EDWARD W. SNOWDON CDR VICTOR B . STEVEN, JR. R OBERT G. STONE, JR. D ANIEL R. SUKIS BRUCE SWEDIEN CARL W . TIMPSON, JR. WILLIAM R. TOWER, II TRANSMAR BROKERAGE, l NC. R OBERT J. TYD ALFRED TYLER, II CHARLIE J. VADALA H ERBERT VON KLUGE R AYMONDE. WALLACE MRS. TERRY WALTON A. D. W ARD R AYNER W EIR WILLIAM H. WHITE CDR. E. ANDREWS WILDE, JR. CAPT. RICHARD G. WILEY T ED WILLIAMS DR . MICHAEL WILSON THOMAS H . WYSMULLER ROBERTS. YOUNG
ALAN
v
w
w.
w.
BILL BLACK AGENCY GROUP INC. independent ship agents specializing in dry and liquid bulk cargoes, parcel shipments, and LPG/LNG
BBA USA Division: covering all U.S. port s
BBA OVERSEAS Division: Canada . Caribbean - Mexico Poland . Philippines . Singapore for further information: BBA Group Marketing phone 508 540 6899 telex 413701 fax 508 540 4956
... yours to count on
32
SEA HISTORY 78, SUMMER 1996
300 Years of Service "Your staunch pilot boats are always ready in storm and fog, and it takes skill, courage and long years of experience to carry on this important and hazardous work so necessary to our commerce. I congratulate you on your remarkable record..."
Franklin D. Roosevelt
201 EDGEWATER ST., STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. 10305 â&#x20AC;˘ 718-448-3900
Come Sail With Us! ,--'
Sail the United Kingdom and Europe this summer, or make a blue water passage this fall.
L
The only Class A size sailing vessel under the US flag upon which the public may embark-all who sail aboard her participate to the best of their ability. Come alone or with family or friends-sign on for a few days or a few weeks. No prior experience is necessary, nor is extraordinary fitness required. Reasonable rates. To receive a schedule, rates and additional information, write or call:
"HMS" ROSE Foundation, 1 Bostwick Ave., Bridgeport CT 06605 'B' (203) 335-1433
'B' (203) 335-0932
Fax: (203) 335-6793
ROSE is a US documented vessel, inspected and certified by the US Coast Guard. Safety standards for Sailing School Vessels differ from those of passenger vessels on a comparable route, because persons aboard training ships are not passengers but participants who share in the ship's operation. ROSE meets or exceeds all safety requirements for a vessel of her size and class.