FLY RAILS AND FLYING JIBS
Above: Theoline in Providence, August 1939
TOM GODDARD ’57 AND HIS DAUGHTER, CAROLINE ’01 WORKED TOGETHER, WITH TECHNICAL COLLABORATION FROM MOSES GODDARD ’64, TO WRITE FLY RAILS AND FLYING JIBS: COASTING SCHOONER PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROBERT H.I. GODDARD. THE BOOK SHARES 160 OF THE 500 IMAGES OF SCHOONERS TAKEN BY ROBERT ’21 BETWEEN 1926 AND 1947 ON THE EAST COAST FROM NEW BRUNSWICK TO FLORIDA. Why did you decide to put together this book?
Above: RHI Goddard with his father, also RHI Goddard, at Indian Rock in Narragansett in the 1920s, shortly after he was a student at Gordon Below: The Lucy Evelyn in Providence, May 16, 1941, unloading a cargo of granite from Maine
Tom Goddard ’57 and Caroline ’01 sailing aboard the Adventuress with their family
Was Robert a collector by nature?
Tom: My father had a lifelong interest in any-
Tom: I never thought of him as a collector, but
thing that floated and took extensive photographs
he did keep meticulous log books for every
of all manner of ships, yachts and other vessels.
facet of his life, from his gas mileage log to a
He was particularly drawn to coasting schooners
sheet where he recorded his wins and losses at
because he sensed that they were not going
solitaire. He also clipped shipping articles from
to survive and photographed them in their
the newspaper and carefully filed them into
declining years. His earliest images were taken
volumes of the Merchant Vessels of the United
when he was a teenager and so he became
States registry.
interested in pursuing this avocation early on. Caroline: As I was searching through my
Late in his life, my father would visit my office
grandparents’ house for material relevant to
bringing me catalogued lists of all his ship
the project, I discovered an entire file cabinet
photography files and images, explaining in-
drawer full of postage stamps. He saved letters
depth what they were, and asking me to take
too, only all their envelopes had big square
care of them and “do something with them.”
holes in them where he’d cut away their stamps.
Our goal as a family was to make my father’s
What was the process for writing the book?
collection permanent and accessible to sailing
Tom: In addition to the photos themselves,
historians and enthusiasts. We wanted this
we started with the articles that my father
book to contribute to a greater understanding
wrote about the ships he photographed, as
of and appreciation for these vessels, the sailors
well as contemporaneous records that he
who worked on them, and the commerce
saved. The entire process was a collaborative
that they were engaged in. There have been
effort. We worked with Captains Douglas
a number of books written on coastal sailing
and Linda Lee, who were close friends of my
schooners, but they all picture the schooners
father’s, to produce the interpretive captions
at sea. My father’s photographs, by contrast,
in Fly Rails. At the same time, Caroline and my
are primarily of the vessels in ports and focus
brother, Moses replicated and digitally restored
on the details of the deck and the rigging, the
the images in preparation for their publication.
crew at work, and their cargo. 8