LETTERS "If a man knew his work ... "
carry out the daily tasks and to come up with special circumstances designed to keep all things maritime in the general public's eye. S. MARSHALL CONLEY Public Relations Director The Mariners Museum Newport News, Virginia To the Editor: A seaman' s huzzah for the outstanding fall issue of Sea History. As one associated in one way or another with work on Moshulu, the Olympia and Becuna, and on the Maritime Museum's own Gaze/a Primeiro, I know I can speak for many who appreciated the reporting on activities in Philadelphia. But what moved this late Gloucesterman so deeply was news of great things in and around Cape Ann: Ted Miles' nifty article on surviving Gloucester schooners, Mr. Garland 's report about the Great Republic, and welcomed news of the new Shipbuilding Museum in Essex. And I have heard of things brewing in my own beloved Rockport. An "angel," a quarry stone sloop and the late Olaf Norling's lobsterboat would be a grand beginning there. With so many wonderful things going and on tap on the historical end of our maritime heritage, how ironic to note in a conference held locally last yea r that little was underway . Beware the landsmen, tinkers and invaders in our domain! A. W. SA VILLE Curator Philadelphia Maritime Museum Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Ernestina, Ernestina! To the Editor: The Wareham Board of Selectmen is very pleased to learn that the Ernestina would be using the Massachusetts Maritime Academy as a home port. If the Town of Wareham can be of any assistance in helping the Ernestina, please feel free to contact us. EDGAR C. GADBOIS Executive Secretary Board of Selectmen Wareham, Massachusetts
Letters expressing similar interest in the success of the project to return the Ernestina ex-Effie M. Morrissey to the United States have been received from Mayor Beame of New York, Mayor Markey of New Bedford, Mayor Cianci of Providence. See Morrissey article, this issue.-ED .
Floreat Great Britain! To the Editor: In the Great Britain restoration this year, much will depend on a vital fundraising drive . To date, we've had nearly a million visitors to Isambard Kingdom Brunel 's great iron ship, now undergoing restoration in the dock from which Prince Albert launched her in 1853. Our four lines of attack are: (1) getting the bridge on the ship (we have it in sections on the dockside) ; (2) putting in the mainmast (at Iast!)-it is promised for this summer; (3) starting (at last) on the main weatherdeck; and (4) pushing forward with detailed design drawings for the engines, so that a special subcommittee, now formed, can obtain gifts of various component parts from commercial engineering firms. Sixty-four companies have so far helped us with materials or services, and private citizens have followed the lead of Jack Hayward in contributing funds, for which we now have major matching funds in prospect. The best of good wishes to the Society and its works! RICHARD GOOLD-ADAMS Chairman S.S. Great Britain Project Bristol, England The steam clipper Great Britain extended reliable fast railway service across the Atlantic, using the nascent Victorian technology of steam and iron. Her recovery from the Falkland Islands in 1970 must rank as the greatest oceanic ship-save of our time. We hope to publish a full account in a future issue. Meantime, inquiries and vitally needed contributions may be forwarded to: SS Great Britain Project, Great Western Dock, Gas Ferry Road, Bristol, BSJ 6TY, England.-ED.
To the Editor: My very great friend Oswald Brett, marine artist, who comes from this part of the world, sent me the July issue of your SEA HISTORY-a fine magazine. A couple of ante-World War I shellbacks and I are enjoying its pages. As Patron of the Australian Cape Homers, I am interested in all things to do with the wind ships. I went to sea on 8th January 1910, just catching the last great days of sail. That is something of which I am very proud, for it is great to look back to the days when my ship was one of fifty big sailing ships awaiting charters and coal loading cranes in Newcastle, New South Wales, away back in 1911-12. I have been in retirement now for getting on to seventeen years-I will be 82 in April next (if I make it)-and during that time I have written a couple of books besides contributions to our Australian Cape Homers quarterly magazine. This letter accompanies my first book, Mate in Sail, which I would like to present to you for your library. The San Francisco and San Diego museums have the Mate and I thought I would like to leave part of me in New York. During my knockabout the world before getting my certificates, I spent a year in the U.S.A.-sailed in two Luckenback ships, one from San Francisco to New York via the Straits of Magellan, the other the fourteenth ship to go through the Panama Canal. I worked in the rigging gang at the Newport News shipyard, and then sailed from that port to Boston and way ports towing old exsailing ships cut down to coal barges. I stayed at the South Street Sailor's Home, and from there luckily got a job at the Marine and Field Yacht Club, in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, before I passed on to England and back to my own country, New Zealand. To be sure, much of my American experience rubbed off on me. I admired the American style where if a man knew his work he was treated as a man and in after life as officer and mate in ships and when manager of a Sydney stevedoring firm, I found myself going along those lines. I was happy to meet Karl Kortum who with his wife came to our house when last he was in Australia. CAPTAIN J . GABY Balgowlah, New South Wales Australia The International Association of Cape Horners, formed in St. Malo, France, flourishes in different parts of the world
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