PRESIDENT'S REPORT
In this issue, we sail with the people of the Juan Sebastian de Elcano in Operation Sail, in the Charles Cooper in her passage home to Boston over a hundred years ago, and with a mixed crew of boys and shellbacks during the bark Kaiulani's Christmas at sea in 1941, during the last voyage of an Americanbuilt square rigger under sail. Kaiulani's tale is a particularly interesting one. The National Society was originally formed in 1963 to save her. And the remains of the handsome bark, built in Bath, Maine, in 1899, are now slated to become part of a new West Coast National Maritime Museum in San Francisco (see "Seaport & Museum News"). That undertaking means much to historic ships and the cause of history. A long-held dream of Congressman Phillip Burton and others who cherish the voyaging heritage of that sea-haunted city, the new Museum confronts epochal challenge in drawing together the interests of the historic wat~rfront, in preserving the large fleet of wooden ships of the State Marine Park at the Hyde Street Pier, in integrating its work with the disciplines and rich lore of the distinguished private San Francisco Maritime Museum-and in adding to these things a sense of direction and of activist, people-involving program, which must be its own. A strong sense of learning and sailorly ways must be brought to that work, for a museum is more than a depot of relics or a show; it should be a place, we feel, where past and present meet in lively encounter, and the essential continuities of a way of life are expressed. Kaiulani, by more than a curious chance, continues to play her role in that. Three of the people most involved in the waterfront and ships of the new museum-the director of the private Maritime Museum, the director of the Port Authority, and the director of the ships at the Hyde Street Pier-all sailed before the mast in Kaiulani, and were aboard on the Christmas Day recorded in these pages.
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In this issue, also, we take a long look at the living act of restoration, the involvement of people and the ships that they care for, that has produced the renaissance of the last decade at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut.
The major thought we came away with is this: the act of building is itself important, the process on a par with the product. That finding seems to emerge strongly from the work at Mystic today, and it's one of deep implications for all centers of sea learning, one that may lead to continuing and growing change. As maritime museums confront the costs and difficulties-including the drying-up of hand skills-that afflict questions of work in our society today, it is encouraging to see that new courses can be sailed, new interests opened. A second finding is the importance of active work under sail. That, which finds strong expression at Mystic today, is also recognized increasingly at other centers. A recent discussion on the avenues it opens, held at Mystic lately under the auspices of the American Sail Training Association, is also reported in this issue of SH (see "Sail Training").
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The most splendid single achievement under sail this year, however, must be the sailing, after half a century's lapse, of the Star of India in San Diego. This old bark was saved by a sport fishing club on a kind of dare, after they had read of the false dawn of a movement to save the old Down Easter Benjamin F. Packard in New York, in the 1920s. Many problems ensued, as different kinds of "borrowed interest" were tried to keep the ship alive. Finally, at the end of World War II, her condition was considered so disgraceful that the city fathers moved to have her taken to sea and sunk. From there, the road back was Jong and difficult, but addressed to just one thing: getting the ship fully and authentically restored. From the beginning, her master's goal was to get her under sail again.
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Keeping in life the real ships with a real story to tell seems in many ways to lie at the roots of our work. Not every ship can be saved, and as the list of historic ships presented in this issue, and the varied projects discussed under "Ship Notes" makes clear, a strong sense of priorities is needed in the work. We would like to pose the thought that we are dealing here, not with a static universe that supports historic ships, but a series of interests that can be developed. The interest must be deep enough, and run true enough, to carry
the ship. In this spirit we salute those working particularly to save the Hudson River paddlewheeler Alexander Hamilton; where no resources could be found, they are finding resources at the last moment for this vessel, by making her important to the important Hudson city of Newburgh. We salute also the gallant Cape Verdean crew of the Ernestina exEffie M. Morrissey, Gloucester fishing schooner, Arctic exploration ship, and last immigrant packet ship to this country under sail. Their first attempt to bring the vessel home to the United States for Operation Sail failed, as she was dismasted in high seas at the outset of the voyage. But Michael Platzer's report in this issue makes clear that lively and determined interests are enrolled in her cause, and it is one that should not fail.
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Finally, let us suggest that causes shape their own priorities in some matters, and that when this happens, the whole ship preservation movement benefits. Such a case clearly exists, in our view, in the project to recover the Vicar of Bray, last surviving ship of the California Gold Rush of 1849, which made the United States a continental nation. A gift of English interests to the American people on the Bicentennial of the Republic, she can add a unique message to the new National Maritime Museum in San Francisco. Karl Kortum, Director of the San Francisco Maritime Museum, reported in our last issue on the vital role she can play in that city. "May I add my voice," says Melvin H. Jackson, Curator of Marine Transportation at the Smithsonian Institution, "to those who enthusiastically endorse your efforts on behalf of salvaging the hull of the former British ship Vicar of Bray and its installation as a memorial of the Gold Rush era in the old Haslett Warehouse in San Francisco." The tide of public interest and opinion sets fair for this most important project, and we must make sail to catch that tide and so complete the Vicar's most important voyage, her return to San Francisco after a century and a quarter'~ absence on other business in distant waters. Respectfully submitted: Peter Stanford
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