LETTERS Aloha, Kaiulani! To the Editor: What a great opportunity we missed to display one of America's last real sailing ships during the Bicentennial Operation Sail-76 in New York, a tribute to America's heritage. It is very sad that the Kaiulani is lost forever. In 1969-70 I sailed around the world in a Norwegian bark. And the reason I was interested in the bark Kaiulani is this: In Europe, I got the information, the Kaiulani will be rebuilt in the Philippines, and then sailing around Cape Horn to her last destination in Washington. I had no greater wish, than to be crew member on this historic voyage! Words of a poem come to my mind, written by Robert Louis Stevenson to the Hawaiian princess the bark was named for: "The islands here in southern sun shall mourn, their Kaiulani's gone ... '' To have a link to sailing ships and preservation of their remains, I would like to become a member of the Society. I enclose a money order for $10. I wish you good success in your works. JOACHIM BLIESE Agania, Guam As we go to press, we are informed that Kaiulani's remains will be installed in a new National Maritime Museum being formed in San Francisco (See "Seaport News"). The Editor and Managing Editor signed up for that famous voyage of Kaiulani that could not take place years ago, and became members of the Society by that route. We hope that her sail plan will never be replaced as symbol of the purposes of the Society. ED. God Save the Queen! What about the King? To the Editor: Who has information on the latest developments concerning the stern paddlewheeler Delta King, sistership to the Delta Queen, which navigates the Mississippi? It's now at Rio Vista near Antioch on the Sacramento River, but I don't know what its exact status is. The new captain of the Delta Queen, like myself, is much interested. JOEL BUFFINGTON Brookings, Oregon Restore a Few? To the Editor: The maritime historic preservation movement is in what can be described as a bad case of future shock. Those of us in the maritime field who are over forty
still remember the craftsmen and the seamen and the ships that existed when we were in our teens. It is difficult for us to accept that the world of ships has changed more in our lifetimes than it has since the sixteenth century. We have the luck to be in a unique period, where hundreds of years of the history of technology has passed in a couple of generations. Only a lifetime separates the men who built the Viking Lander from the last flowering of ingenuity by American craftsmen working in a tradition three thousand years old, building the Wiscasset schooners and their sisters. Captain Culler says "restore a few" ... and build little ones that keep the tradition alive . I wholeheartedly agree, except for one detail. We cannot "restore a few" 19th century Western Ocean packets, as only one exists, the Charles Cooper. We cannot "restore a few" extreme clipper ships: we have only a piece of one, the Snow Squall. We cannot "restore a few" California Gold Rush ships or Copper ore men of the 1840s, because only one exists, which luckily fits both categories, the Vicar of Bray. Houses, ships, furniture, automobiles and locomotives; the crafted products that shape men's lives, are by their nature, expendable. There is a period when what is old or obsolete is merely junk, to be thrown away and replaced qy the new. But eventually these things acquire a symbolic value, as representing something that should be remembered; they become, in short, antiquities. The Smithsonian institution has lovingly preserved and exhibited the Hart House, as an example of a whole period of American history. The exhibit shows, in a way no graphics ever can, the techniques of its construction and reconstruction over one hundred and fifty years, and gives a beautiful insight into the lives of the people who built and lived in that house. There are thousands of "Hart Houses" in New England. Ships, in the art of their construction, are many times more complicated than houses, and they are much more complicated to save. ls that an argument against saving them? PETER THROCKMORTON Curator-at-Large, NMHS Schooners at Sea To the Editor: I have sailed quite a few years in West Coast Lumber schooners, and I may say
that I consider these when lumberIoaded to be some of the best sea boats afloat. I have written tomes about my experiences in these vessels and copies of nearly all of it is on file with Mr. Karl Kortum, director of the San Francisco Maritime Museum. Parker wrote a fine book, The Great Coal Schooners of New England, but these are only a few of East Coast Schooners. He never got that far to write about those that traded south. East Coast Schooners had their troubles, but at least at times they could find anchorages, to weather out some gales. West Coast Schooners did not have any ports to go to, there was no wide shore shelf on which to anchor as some East Coast Schooners did at times. They had the gales of Hatteras and we here had Cape Flattery and breaking bars. I recall Captain Carl Flynn, a native of Machias, Maine, telling me that he rode out a hurricane off Charleston, South Carolina, in a four-masted schooner he commanded at that time, with both anchors down. The vessel dragged all over the shop, but she weathered the hurricane in good shape. The anchors were as bright as polished steel when hove up. Captain Flynn worked for years for Howard Hughes as his captain in charge of the Diesel Yacht Hilda and the Steam Yacht Southern Cross which was formerly Lord Inchcape's Rover. The last vessel that Hughes owned was the Oceania, a Diesel yacht. This was taken over by the US Navy when the country entered the war. Hughes did not have a boat after tli'!t, but he paid Captain Flynn's wages until he died. Back to the schooners . All wooden ships leaked some, I have been in some that were quite tight for many years, and gradually they loosened up. I am not a scientist as Mr. Gerr evidently is, I never notice that the gaffs put excessive strain on the hull. And of course you looked out, that you did not jibe the schooner over when running heavy with the wind on the quarter. You do not want to break gaffs and booms. I have written Karl Kortum many a time, what was done when it dropped calm. We did not have vangs, so we lowered sail. With good sails and gear and of course good pumps, I would not hesitate to go anywheres with a lumberloaded West Coast Schooner, the cargo well stowed and secured. CAPTAIN FRED K. KLEBINGAT San Francisco, California
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