Sea History 012 - Autumn 1978

No. 12

FALL 1978

Mercedes-Benz unveils a new kind of performance automobile: the 300 SD Turbodiesel Sedan Its turbocharged engine boosts power and torque and tra~ Diesel peifonnance, yet fuel appetite is actually cut. And this advance is matched by the car itselfthe most capable, most sumptuous Diesel in Mercedes-Benz history.

The 300SD TUrbodiesel Sedan: the boldestforward stride since Mercedes-Benz built the world'sfirst production Diesel automobile 42 years ago. oving with the smooth ease and

M eager response you might

expect only from a gasoline engine, the new Mercedes-Benz 300SD Turbodiesel Sedan responds vividly to your throttle foot even at low speeds ... even in highway passing .. .even on long uphill climbs.

Meanwhile, the Turbodiesel retains that workhorse efficiency you can only expect from a Dieselsipping the cheapest automotive fuel sold in America, devoid of spark plugs and carburetors and

points, all but immune to conventional tune-ups.

In a single technical masterstroke, the most desirable traits of a gasoline and a Diesel engine have been blended into one. An advance significant enough to make this not just a new kind of Diesel but a unique new kind of car.

Five supercharged cylinders That masterstroke is turbocharging of the 300 SD's five-cylinder engine.

Named after the turbine princi-

pie it follows, a turbocharger harnesses the engine's own exhaust gases to radically increase the supply of air fed into the cylindersliterally supercharging them with air for more volatile combustion.

Turbochargers have appeared on many types of engines, but never until now on the engine of a Diesel automobile. The effect is amazing.

Maximum power is boosted by 43 percent, for example, and maximum torque by 46 percent.

And the driving experience

makes even those numbers pale.

That old Diesel stigma of feeble torque and leisurely pickup has vanished in a burst of turbocharged energy. This is one Diesel that can break away from stoplights and tollbooths with the traffic, not behind it. That extra thrust you need on freeway entrance ramps can be found . You can sustain a normal driving pace on the Interstates, hour after hour.

Mercedes-Benz test data show that although 400 pounds heavier than its lively 300 D Sedan stablemate, the Turbodiesel can zip from zero to 55 mph in 2.6 seconds less time-placing it among the quickest Diesel cars in history.

No minor feat for an engine of only three liters or 183.0 cubic inches in capacity; yet no great surprise for an engine so efficient that it produces .601 horsepower per cubic inch of displacement-the best ratio of power to engine size of any Diesel passenger car power plant in the world.

Fuel appetite down Startling as it may seem, this extra performance helped reduce the Turbodiesel engine's normal appetite for fuel.

Turbocharging so handily solved the Diesel need for power that it freed the engineers to specify a more economical rear-axle ratio- in effect, gearing the car to go further on the power produced by a given gallon of fuel.

Consider the Turbodiesel's performance. Then consider that EPA

Amazing turbocharger device weighs only 17 pounds but boosts horsepower by 43percent.

Each piston in the 5-cylinder 7Urbodiesel engine is cooled by a fine spray of oil injectedfrom below.

estimates show 29 mpg in highway driving and 24 mpg in the city: Naturally, your mileage will depend on the condition and equipment of your car and on where and how you drive.

Record-breaking reliability This breakthrough has hardly been rushed to the market. MercedesBenz placed the 300 SD Turbodiesel engine in production only after 5 years of testing- and only after placing it in the reliability record books.

Fitted with a modified version of this engine, a C-111-3 research car went out on April 30, 1978 and set nine world records- including one stint of 2,345 miles in twelve hours at an average speed of 195.39 mph.

For the entire record run, the engineers report a fuel mileage figure of 14.7 mpg.

A car apart The Diesel turbocharging trail blazed by Mercedes-Benz with the Turbodiesel may some day be followed by others. But no Diesel engine will ever share the privilege of propelling a comparable car. It is the unique combination of that engine and this automobile that truly sets the Turbodiesel apart.

As befits the most elegant Diesel Mercedes-Benz has ever built, the Turbodiesel sits on the longest wheelbase of any Diesel car produced by the company in modern times. Yet its turning circle is a tight 38 feet and its crisp handling lets you nip through traffic.

Fastidious engineering is everywhere. You glide along on a suspension that is neither spongy nor harsh, but designed to provide both ride comfort and roadholding. The key is the independent suspension of all four wheels, allowing each wheel to individually react to the road surface.

Each shock absorber is gas pressurized to help cushion even minor ripples. The automatic transmission provides not three but four speeds, and the option of shifting for yourself if you prefer. From a monocoque body shell to 11-inch disc brakes at all four wheels, nothing from the vast store of MercedesBenz technical expertise has been held back.

This turbochargedfive-cylinder Mercedes-Benz Diesel research carjust shattered nine world speed records- including one lap at an average speed of203.37 mph.

Inside, you and your passengers are a coddled group: surrounded by thick padding, velour carpet underfoot, cradled in spacious seats front and rear. Bi-level climate control, electric windows, automatic cruise control, central vacuum locking system and AM/FM stereo radio are all built in.

Also built into your 300 SD Turbodiesel: 120 safety features, perhaps the most attractive fact of them all.

Summing it up In 1886, the gasoline-powered automobile was pioneered by the two men who founded Mercedes-Benz.

In 1936 came the world's first production Diesel passenger car, again from Mercedes-Benz. And now in 1978 begins the era of the turbocharged Diesel passenger car.

And once again, the innovator is Mercedes-Benz.

ÂŽ

C 1978 Mercedes-Be nz of North America, Inc., One Mercede~ Drive, Montvale, N.J. 07645

The good news

Hands lay aloft aboard Gazela Primeiro on a Grand Banks fishing voyage. Built in 1883, the barkentine carried on as the last working square rigger in this oldest of North Atlantic trades, until acquired by the Philadelphia Maritime Museum, who sail her in educational programs today. Photo by E. Baier. ŠLeeward Publications, Inc.

2

is that the us Congress has now set up a $5 million fund for the maritime heritage. This was proposed by the Ship Trust Committee of the National Maritime Historical Society. It was proposed not to provide handouts to help meet deficits, but to support an integrated effort to achieve critical objectives-and so begin to change the whole scene of the maritime heritage.

Let it be clear that this fund does not replace existing maritime efforts by the government (reported in "Ship Notes" in this issue) but is intended to support new citizen initiatives on projects of national importance-projects which, being everyone's business, have too often been the business of no one.

As to bad news, we have none to report: only the very great challenge that is now laid upon this Society in its work, only the fact that whatever we have achieved together in the past, we must now do more to live up to the opportunity before us.

Trustees and patrons of the Society met on the decks of the Gaze/a Primeiro in Philadelphia, as guests of Richard K. Page, director of the Philadelphia Maritime Museum on the stormy evening of September 12. The barkentine, now approaching her hundredth birthday and used in active sailing by the Museum, strained at the lines that held her to the pier, as Captain Irving Johnson spoke to us of his voyage round Cape Horn in Peking 49 years ago.

Of 28 young men in Peking's forecastle, 27 became shipmasters, and one a distinguished aviator, in later life.

That voyage of Captain Johnson's he has said, taught him to lean forward into life. It bids fair to live as one of the historic voyages that we shall continue to learn from, because of the specific learning and inspiration it generated.

Let us know that we are not just in ¡ the business of restoring old wood, and iron. We are, as Irving Johnson tells us, in the business of restoring a living inheritance of priceless value to people. For in the abiding challenge of seafaring, people discover with deep refreshment what man can do and be.

PS

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

No. 12

FALL 1978

OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE WORLD SHIP TRUST PROJECT 2 PRESIDENT'S REPORT 6 LETTERS 9 IN CLIO'S CAUSE, by Joseph Persico 13 JOHN LYMAN: THE HUB OF OUR WHEEL, by Karl Kortum 16 COME SAIL WITH ME, by ADM. Arleigh Burke, USN (ret.)

17 THE SHIPS OF JOHN PAUL JONES, by Wm. Gilkerson 22 THE PROVIDENCE SAILS AGAIN, by RADM. John R. Wadleigh, USN (ret.) and Charles W. Wittholz, NA 25 THE SEARCH FOR THE BONHOMME RICHARD, by Eric Berryman with Norman Rubin and Sidney Wignall 27 HISTORIC WARSHIPS OF THE WORLD, by Norman Brouwer 30 THE SL-7: SEA-LAND's CLIPPER SHIP, by Peter Stanford 33 THE U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE, by Wm. Ray Heitzmann, Ph.D. 35 SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS 35

PROGRESS IN THE DEFENCE DIG, by David C. Switzer

36

A SEAPORT MUSEUM FOR LIVERPOOL,

by Michael Stammers

37

CHANTEY FESTIVAL IN SEATTLE, by John Townley

38

DOWN EAST NOTES, by Charles R. Sayle, Sr.

39

NEW JERSEY'S MARITIME HERITAGE, by Glenn Gordinier

40

NEW HELP FOR THE ERNESTINA/MORRISSEY,

by Michael Platzer

44 MARINE ART: BRITISH SEASCAPES, by Malcolm Cormack 49

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MARINE ARTISTS NEWS,

by Charles Lundgren

50 BOOKS 54 SAILING BACKWARD INTO THE AZORES,

by Capt. Samuel Samuels SEA HISTORY is the journal of the National Maritime Historical Society, an educational, tax-exempt membership organization devoted to furthering the understanding of our maritime heritage. Copyright © 1978 by the National Maritime Historical Society.

OFFICES are at 2 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY 11201; at the San Francisco Maritime Museum, Foot of Polk Street, San Francisco, CA 94109; and suite 643, 1511 K Street, Washington, D.C. 20005.

MEMBERSHIP is invited and should be sent to the Brooklyn office: Sponsor, $1,000; Patron, $100; Family, $15; Regular, $10; Student or Retired, $5.

CONTRIBUTIONS may be made for any recognized project. Make out checks"NMHSShip Trust," indicating on the check the project to which you wish support to be directed.

OFFICES & TRUSTEES are Chairman: Admiral John M. Will, USN (ret.); President: Peter Stanford; Vice Presidents:Karl Kortum, John Thurman; Secretary: Alan G. Choate; Trustees: Frank 0 . Braynard, Nor-

man J. Brouwer, Robert Carl, Alan G. Choate, F. Briggs Dalzell, Harold D. Huyck e, Barbara Johnson, Karl Kortum, Edward J. Pierson, Kenneth D. Reynard, Walter F. Schlech, Jr. , Howard Slotnick, Peter Stanford, John N. Thurman, Shannon Wall, Barclay H. Warburton III, John M. Will, Charles Wittholz; President Emeritus: Alan D. Hutch inson.

ADVISORY COUNCIL: Chairman: Frank 0 . Braynard, New York Harbor Festival; George Campbell, American Museum of Natural History; Frank G. G. Carr, Cutty Sark Society; Harry Dring, National Maritime Museum at San Francisco; Richard Goold-Adams, Great Britain Restoration; Robert G. Herbert; Melvin H . Jackson, Smithsonian Institution; R. C. Jefferson; John Kemble, Pomona College; Rick Miller; Conrad Milster, Pratt Institute, NY; Robert Murphy; John Noble, artist; Capt. David E. Perkins, USCG (ret.); Ralph L. Snow , Bath Marine Museum; John Stobart, artist,: Albert Swanson, Commonwealth of Massachusetts;

Peter Throckmorton; Alan Villiers, seaman author; Alen York, Antique Boat & Yacht Club.

SEA HISTORY ADVISORY COMMITTEE Timothy G. Foote, Time, Inc., Oliver Jensen, American Heritage, Karl Kortum, National Maritime Museum at San Francisco; Clifford Lord, New Jersey Historical Society; J . Roy McKechnie, Ogilvy & Mather; Robert A. Weinstein.

SEA HISTORY STAFF Editor, Peter Stanford; Managing Editor, Norma Stanford; Associate Editors, Norman J. Brouwer, Francis J. Duffy, Beth Haskell, Maryanne Murphy, Albert Swanson; Advertising Sales, David 0. Durrell; Circulation, Jo Meisner; Membership, Marie Lore.

COVER: Ranger vs. Drake, in the English Channel, April 24, 1778, by Wm. Gilkerson.

See John Paul Jones articles, beginning page 16. Fine prints of this painting, done for SEA HISTORY, may be ordered from the advertisement on page 49.

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEW YORK

WASHINGTON, D.C.

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The Crown Jewel of England.

A noted lexicographer observes that the expression 'crown jewel"applies not only to crowns and sceptres, or artifacts of gold and precious stones.

The tertn"crown jewel" can refer to the crowning achievement, the most shining example, of any form of craftsmanship or art.

It is in this sense that we refer to BeefeaterÂŽGin as The Crown Jewel of England.

Beefeater has long been acknowledged the crowning achievement of the distiller's art in London, home of the world's driest, most delicate gin.

Indeed, there is in the distilling of Beefeater a remarkable resemblance to the art of 'the great jeweler. A distilling run consists of an unblemished middle, or "heart'.' and of"foreshots and feints'.' the beginning and end of the run,which are flawed and out of balance.

Beefeater is literally all heart Because a Beefeater stillman, like a master jewel-cutter, will preserve only the choice, flawless "heart'.' thus assuring you of an unblemished jewel of a gin, a gin of brilliance and clarity A perfect gin, like a perfect gem, will glow with highlights. In Beefeater,each

flavor contributes a highlight of its own.

But each highlight serves not to blind the partaker with its own brilliance, nor to upset the delicate balance of flavors; but rather to flatter the blending as a whole.

Thus the designation of Beefeater as The Crown Jewel would appear to be highly appropriate.

But whyThe Crown Jewel of England?

Beefeater is The Crown Jewel of England because Beefeater is distilled in England, in London itself (just a cobblestone's throw from the Tower of London).

Beefeater's London heritage is of critical importance. .

London is the home, for one thing, of the proud Beefeater stillmen. It is the city where stillmanship is esteemed as art, and Beefeater stillmen as master artists.

Beefeater is the only major imported gin distilled, bottled, and sealed at the distillery in London, where no detail can escape the watchful eyes of its proprietors.

So a gin by any other name may possibly be called a copy of Beefeater, but never its equal.

There is only one Beefeater.

The Crown Jewel of England.

BEEFEATERÂŽGIN The Crown Jewel of England. @ 1978, Kobrand Corporation

LETTERS Yes, to the Hudson Heritage To the Editor: I am delighted that there is a strong impetus to memorialize the incalculable contribution of the Hudson River and its traffic. The value of the River extends not only to the world-renowned port of New York on the Atlantic but also the settlement of the Hudson Valley and the first great thrust to populate the vast region west of the seacoast.

I feel that the designation of Kingston as the center of such a project would be most appropriate since Kingston harbor for three and a half centuries has been recognized as the most commodious and safest harbor on the entire river and the harbor most greatly utilized north of New York City.

Kingston was involved in river and canal transportation for many, many years. Cross-river transportation here has existed si nce the mid-l680s and until the bridging of the river in the 1920s.

Shipbuilding has existed as a prime industry from the 1600s through World War II. Ship chandlery and other ship accessory business was part of the local scene until very recent days. As a matter of fact, a ropewalk here was destroyed when the British burned Kingston in 1777.

Kingston was the hometown of the Mary Powell, long known as "the Queen of the Hudson." The community, today contains much memoriabilia and many marine artifacts which could be made available by loan or gift. The aid of Kingstonians would be available without question.

HARRY RIGBY, JR. City Historian Kingston, New York To the Editor: I was very much pleased to learn of your plans to establish a Museum of Hudson River Navigation at Kingston.

The river played an important part in the War of the Revolution as it has in war and peace ever since its discovery by Hudson in 1609.

Even before the outbreak of hostilities in 1775 the Americans realized that the British would attempt to gain control of the north-south waterway comprised by Lake Champlain, Lake George and the Hudson River. Attempts were made to do so in 1775, 1776 and 1777. Theimportance of the Hudson River was recognized by the Americans when they built West Point and by the British when they tried to obtain it with the help and co-operation of Benedict Arnold. General Washington made his headquarters 6

during the last years of the war at Newburgh on the river.

The most delightful and romantic era of Hudson River navigation comprised the lifespan of the palatial dayline and nightline sidewheelers. Nostalgia is the only word that describes memories of these graceful and luxurious vessels.

JOHN H .G. PELL Chairman N. Y. State Bicentennial Commission Doing It the Hard Way To the Editor: For years I have asked people who I thought should know, why since the Straits of Magellan were discovered in 1520 and the Panama Canal was opened in 1914-a period of 394 years-did sailing ships continue to round the treacherous Cape Horn to the Pacific, particularly in the California Gold Rush?

I also wonder what became of the many ships that were abandoned by their crews in San Francisco during the Gold Rush.

A.P. FROST, Sr. Rockville, Maryland

South Street Seaport Museum Historian Norman Brouwer, leader of a recent expedition to the Straits done with the National Society, responds as follows: "Prior to the opening of the Panama Canal, the Straits of Magellan were used by steamers and small sailing vessels.

The Straits are winding and quite narrow in places, and swept by severe gales with little warning. A large sailing vessel would never be far from a lee shore.

There would be little chance of anchoring successfully due to the depth of the Straits. And there are strong currents, particularly at the bends and the narrows, whose characteristics are as unpredictable as the gales, since they are more affected by the weather conditions prevailing in the various adjoining bodies of water than by the global tides.

Steamships could drive on through the Straits, or quickly seek shelter if the weather deteriorated. Small sailirrgc vessels could feel their way through, anchoring in a sheltered cover each night, of which there are a number, th(lughfew have room enough to maneuver a large ship under sail.

"From time to time there were proposals to station powerful tugs at the Straits to tow sailing ships through, but these were never implemented. By the time the Panama Canal was opened, the economics of sailing ship operations were such that the cost of Canal tolls, plus towage, would have wiped out any

profits on a voyage. The small amount being spent on the longer voyage in crew wages and board were not comparable.

"The fleet of sailing ships abandoned at San Francisco was largely wiped out by several major fires. The unburned lower hulls were buried in landfill as the shoreline was extended, and these reappear from time to time during modern construction. " The hotel ship Niantic, uncovered and partly salvaged in May of this year, was one of a number of ships put to use as a shoreside building. It might also be noted that study of sailing records shows a large number of the 500-odd vessels crowded on the San Francisco foreshore in 1849 setting sail again in ensuing years, with crews shanghaied from the boarding houses ashore. Shipmasters or owner's agents kept watch on these "abandoned" ships until they could set out again.-ED. The Bayard Finds a Home To the Editor: I have been promoting, by speech and published word, the saving and restoration of the Thomas F. Bayard and a very small handful of surviving ships in this area for a good many years now ... and my verbal work has now finally caught up with me. The Vancouver Maritime Museum has just bought the Bayard!

In late July we learned that her owner J . P. Mackenzie was ill and had moved off the ship. I took my new colleague Michael Duncan, who has been appointed Chief Curator here, down to the mooring site to acquaint him with one of the few existing historic ships still in local waters. We noted a new, roughly painted sign tacked on the vessel which said, in effect, For Sale, Quick ..... See Boat Agent Round the Corner. Accordingly we went off to the agent just to find out what was going on. We were informed that Mackenzie was too ill and had therefore decided to sell the ship as quickly as possible as he was not going to go back to it. We decided on the spot that we shold at least try to obtain this historic vessel for the Mari time Museum, the last unengined sealing schooner hull in existence here-plus being the holder of some other notable records. In something just over 24 hours we had persuaded our Board of Trustees to authorize payment and, three days after having come across the "Sale" sign, we took title.

We know what we took title to. She is pretty much a disaster! But, we are confident, recoverable. We are going to prepare for a major fundraising camSEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

paign. Our idea is to establish her in a permanent basin afloat and to restore her rig and gear as a sealer-a tribute (there is nothing anywhere at all) to an important and totally vanished marine industry of this area.

To restore her to the aspect of a sealing schooner is going to be interesting. I have just located one-there may be more-photo of her in operation as a seal-hunter and I have been in touch with a very elderly but still lively newspaperman who was on her in her last years as a sealer. She passed out of the sealing fleet in 1906!

Historically, Victoria was the site of the sealing industry in the latter part of the 19th century. We will therefore be seeking some sort of joint association with Victoria to make the restoration of the Thomas F. Bayard not just exclusively Vancouver's but a provincial effort.

There ¡is nothing else like the Bayard around. Our history here is pretty short-a bare hundred years-and the lack of interest in holding on to any aspect of it is dismaying. There is a small groundswell of enthusiasm; but it moves so slowly and has to counter such general apathy that by the time an official action or reaction can be obtained, the object of interest will have disappeared, permanently.

So we had to-and did-move quickly. We now own the Thomas F. Bayard and need all the help that we can get.

LEONARD G. McCANN Curator Vancouver Maritime Museum Kind Hearts, Remember Coronet!

To the Editor: I've been gathering information about the schooner Coronet, once of Brooklyn, hoping to publish her complete history. Shouldn't she have been in your 'Schooners Old and New" (SH 1I)?

You may be aware of her origin at Poillon's in Brooklyn, 1885, and of her pilot boat design. It's also noteworthy that she has had quite a reputation as a world-wide cruiser and a marvelous boat in heavy weather. No stranger to Cape Horn, she twice sailed around the world and is now probably the oldest registered yacht in the US. She has earned herself a place of honor in yachting history.

My approval of NMHS goals, your excellent magazine, and especially the Ship Trust is unbounded. Ever since becoming aware of your activities, I've been asking myself what place vessels like Coronet fill in our marine heritage?

She didn't raise money for her owners, SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

but in my judgment she has made maritime history, and should be saved as the last living representative of the great sailing yachts of the last century. Currently she is berthed in Gloucester. While her former glory is sadly dimmed on deck, below a good portion is still extant.

Any readers who know more of her history, especially between 1885 and 1905, are enthusiastically invited to contact me at Box 188, Dublin, NH 03444. I know too little about these years; her story from 1905 , on is much more accessible to me .

Carry on your excellent work, and God bless the Ship Trust.

TIMOTHY T. MURRAY Dublin, New Hamsphire

"Schooners Old and New" listed boats carrying passengers for hire in New England waters-as we should have made clearer! Coronet, not the oldest yacht in the US (a Lawley yawl of 1880 holds that distinction), is the only big sailing yacht from before the great age of steam, and at 133" overall (123" on the waterline), spreading 8305 square feet of canvas, was for a time the largest sailing yacht in the New York Yacht Club fleet. Her owner Arthur Curtis

James wrote a book on her, Coronet Memories (London, NY & Chicago, F. Tennyson Neely, 1899) and there's a book on her voyage to Japan to photograph the eclipse of August 19, 1896, Corona and Coronet (Boston & NY, Houghton Mifflin, 1898). Her later career as missionary schooner took her to the earth's far corners and she still continues in that service in semi-retirement today. She should be kept in life and her full story told!-JOHN A. FRIEMAN. Keeping Liberties Alive To the Editor: Malcolm Wilson states in his letter on Liberty Ships that the rigidity of her allwelded construction was the cause of the John Corrie's breaking "just aft of #3 hold". He's wrong in both statements.

The "hold" being the bottom cargo space in the hull, if she'd broken there, she'd never have made any port, so he must mean abaft #3 hatch, which is on the main deck . While a few did rupture just forward of the house, most of the crack-aparts occured aft of the house, in the area of #4 hatch. The break would run across the deck on one or both sides, (continued on page JO)

Come Sail with Us!

Every issue of SEA HISTORY takes you on a voyage of discovery in the wide world of our seafaring heritagea voyage full of challenge and reward.

Sign on today ... and help keep alive the ships, disciplines and arts of our voyaging pastand stay in touch with others who care.

To: National Maritime Hi storical Society 2 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 I want to help your work and receive your quarterly journal SEA HISTORY . Enclosed are my du es as: D $10 Regular D $100 Patron

D $1,000 Sponsor D $5 Student/ Retired

NAME ADDRESS

7

farrell Lines.

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We never stop widening our horizons. have breakbulk, container. LASH and RoRo-type shipsAt Farrell Lines. we're proud that our 52-year history every one built and manned by Americans. reflects dynamic growth. And 1978 has been the most dramatic growth year of all. When we Our new schedule includes more Services between U.S. ports and: acquired American Export Lines, we than 200 sailings a year. and we sail from increased our fleet and added new all four coasts of the United States. We've routes. destinations and services. got the right service to the right place at the right time. So next time, go with us.

Now we serve ports on five continents. From North American ports. we United Kingdom. continue to reach Africa and Australasia.

North Europe, Mediterranean, Our new American Export Lines Service Middle East, Asia South reaches Europe and Asia. and the Far East.

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IN CLIO'S CAUSE*

Why preserve the past?

By Joseph E. Persico

*Clio, the Greek Muse of History, lives for those alive to her message. These essays are offered to suggest that her message is one of challenge and refreshment, and that her learning is by no means irrelevent or a luxury in the face of global problems of war, hunger, or disease, but urgently needed for the selfawareness and understanding that is vital to the survival and progress of the human race.

History has a powerful appeal. To step into the past, to place one's hand on a wall or a railing where another hand, no different from our own, rested centuries before; to witness the re-creation of the timeless human rituals of living, learning, building, cooking, and work- . ing is to see our forebears as flesh and blood, and ourselves as part of the unending river of life, and not as isolated grains of humanity.

Why are we what we are? Why do we live as we do, speak as we speak, and believe as we believe? What shaped us, as a nation and as individuals? Helping us to find answers is a motivating force of historic preservation. We try to save pieces of the past, to restore small worlds long gone, because within them lie responses to the questions which intrigue every thinking human being.

"Who am I? Where do I come from?"

For many Americans, particularly those who live in the Northeast, the search for self-awareness leads back to the Hudson River and to the life which flourished along its banks. The valley is filled with history. Here Henry Hudson sailed, George Washington fought, and Benedict Arnold betrayed . Generals Howe, Clinton, Burgoyne, von Steuben, Lafayette, Kosciusko all passed this way. Here dwelled, albeit in legend, figures familiar to every American school child: Rip Van Winkle, Ichabod Crane, the Headless Horseman.

Largely because of the efforts of a farsighted man and those who shared and helped to fulfill his vision, three historic sites along the Hudson have been restored and opened to the public . In visiting them, Americans today and tomorrow can personally experience three centuries of their heritage.

Above, a crafts demonstration at Van Cortlandt Manor engages today's children-and their teachers-in the work of the past.

Below, the water mill at Phillipsburg Manor, where grain is ground by.rumbling wooden mill works and granite millstones. Photos courtesy Sleepy Hollow Restorations.

" ... to see our forebears as flesh and blood, and ourselves as part of the unending river of life . .. "

From the introduction to the Annual Report of Sleepy Hollow Restorations, Inc. The report is available on request from the Restorations at 150 White Plains Road, Tarrytown, N. Y. 10591.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

9

LETTERS then down the side to the 'tween deck. (I was in a loaded one about 20 miles out of New York when she let go there-with the sound and the jump, we thought at first it was a torpedo, until we saw the mizzen mast move differently than the rest of the vessel!) The failures were caused, not by rigidity, but by the stresses built into the hull due to the assembly sequence of the hull sections. I recall on my first visit to the J. R. Jones yard at Panama City, seeing large (and I mean large) concrete blocks with the numbers 25, 50, 75 painted on them.

They stood acros~ the crane-way from the ways heads, and upon asking, was told that the figures indicated the ton weight of each, and that they were used to help flatten the hull. So I watched, and noted that every morning each ways foreman would go under the hull and measure the rise of the (designed) flat keel ends off the blocks. When the ends got up to I Yz-1 314 inch off, those were put on the hull ends and the welding sequence reversed-forcing the ends back down to the designed position! So many of those buckets cracked that the Arthur Tickle Engineering Co. set up a "Reinforcing facility" on Pier I, Brooklyn.

Every Liberty that came into New York,

when empty was sent over there to have a sheer belt of 60 pd. plate, 24 inches deep put on, the ends of each section of steel being welded together to make an endless belt, and the whole, a tight fit riveted to the hull at the top of her sheerstrake.

Apparently the Corrie was taken by the Navy-and not in merchant service -which, though surprising, might account for having a Long Tom at the stern. All the merchant Liberties carried the famous, dual purpose 5/ 38 on the after house. The 5/ 51 or Long Tom was an excellent weapon, but only a "surface" gun with a very small range of elevation, while the 5/ 38, though of shorter range (and barrel), was both surface and anti-aircraft, working from - 15 ° to + 85 ° elevations.

As a final bit of "nit-pick in' "-since the whole vessel design and building program of the Liberties was based on welded construction, the Corrie might have been the first welded ship out of the Jacksonville yard (another one that I put time in), but she could not have been the first of the welded Liberties. That honor, if such it be, would go to the Patrick Henry, the first Liberty to be built, launched and put into service. The

Liberties were just an American adaption of the Gibbs & Cox design for the British emergency ship program which specified welded vessels.

ROBERT G. HERBERT, Jr. East Northport, New York One of a Kind To the Editor: Several weeks ago a man came in to our Brooklyn headquarters and announced to me that he had figured out how we got the name of our Membership Secretary. He wrote "Marine Lore" on a slip of paper, then crossed out the "n". He thought this was an invented name and seemed so pleased with working it out that I did not dare disillusion him.

MARIE LORE Membership Secretary, NMHS

Mrs. Lore really exists, to the great reward of all who know her or work with her in her volunteer labors for the Society and for South Street Seaport Museum.-ED.

A HISTORY OF WAR AT SEA An Atlae and Chronology of Conflict at Sea &om Earlieet Timee to the Preeent

By Helmut Pemsel The entire history of war at sea is described and charted in this remarkable book. The conflicts covered range from the victory of the ancient Greeks over the Persians at Salamis in 480 B.C. through nearly 2500 years of war at sea to the naval operations of the Vietnamese and lndo-Pakistani wars.

Every major naval conflict in history is presented in these pages, including the campaigns of the Romans, the conquering Vikings, Lepanto, the Spanish Armada, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years War, the American Revolution, Trafalgar, the American Civil War, the Russo-Japanese War\ World Wars I and D, Korea, and many others.

In A Hietory of War at Sea Helmut Pemsel has combined the merits of a visual encyclopedia with the accuracy of an authoritative chronology.

This is an illuminating reference indispensable to everyone concerned 1977/240 pagee/illaetrated/$15.95 with the history of war at sea.

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(Please add 5% sales tax for delivery within the State of Maryland.)

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Mitchell Lyman joins John at the wheel of the Charles W. Morgan, Mystic Seaport, 1948. Photos¡courtesy Mitchell Ly man.

John Lyman: The Hub of Our Wheel

By Karl Kortum

John Rowen Lyman (October 28, 1915 -November 17, 1977), a native of Berkeley, California, graduated from the University of California in 1936, and went to work for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La Jolla. Here he began to publish the first of many articles on maritime history, centering on West Coast shipping. In 1941 he joined the US Navy, serving during World War 11 at the Dahlgren Proving Ground in Virginia. He remained active in naval affairs, retiring from the reserve as captain in 1975. After the war he joined the Navy Hydrography Office and went on to lead programs in oceanography at the National Science Foundation, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, and Office of Naval Research. He earned his Ph.D. from Scripps in 1958. In 1968 he went to Chapel Hill to head up the Office of Marine Sciences at the University of North Carolina, retiring in 1973 to pursue independent interests ranging from the history of flags, to sea chanties, to his untiring consultation and support of many efforts in maritime history. A founding trustee and later advisor to the National Society, he was also organizer and council member of the North American Society for Oceanic History.

His death at the age of 62 is mourned by a wide circle offriends. The scope of his contribution to maritime history is suggested in this appreciation.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

"The sun has fallen out of the sky," I said.

"The sun has fallen out of the sky," agreed Lew Parker, sitting alongside my desk. That great scholar of the East Coast schooner happened to be in San Francisco in December of last year. We were talking about the death of John Lyman a couple of weeks before.

Harold Huycke had called from Seattle in late November. He was desolated.

Harold is a West Coast sailing ship scholar. He has idolized John Lyman since 1941. Lyman had invited him down from Santa Monica to a meeting of the Marine Research Society of San Diego that year on the Star of India; Harold was 18.

"It was easy to hitchhike to San Diego. Passing through San Pedro I saw the Erskine M. Phelps moored up against the mudbank. That added atmosphere. And on the Star of India I met John Lyman . I was a young fellow getting interested in ships, particularly the old schooners and barkentines moored as fi shing barges in Santa Monica bay, and here I had landed smack-dab in the presence of the best West Coast maritime historian of them all. Instead of working my way up ... " Harold told me about Lyman at the time that plans for the San Francisco Maritime Museum were starting to come together. This was in 1948. I remember his awed tones. Lyman and I exchanged some letters about Kaiulani, which l had sailed in. I needed an article about her.

John Lyman obliged with a piece that told me a great deal that I didn 't know about my old ship . All of it fascinating and all of it true. We had been writing

back and forth ever since.

Andrew J. Nesd.all, sailing-ship savant of Waban, Massachusetts : " I have been having a correspondence with John Lyman (mostly one-way!) about the book On Many Seas . . . " What Andy means by "one-way" is that Lyman was doing most of the digging and supplying most of the answers as the two of them tried to decide the true identities of the ships mentioned in the book. "Spent some time in the Library of Congress yesterday and came up with the following ... " Lyman writes Nesdall. "John is a marvel at these things," writes Nesdall to me.

Someone described nautical research as "crossing old sailors' yarns with customhouse records." Some of us collect old sailors' yarns, but we are spokes in the wheel.

The hub-also referred to above as the sun in the sky-was John Lyman, who was so educated in the subject (and related subjects such as politics, social history, economics, maritime law and the oceans themselves) that he saw in our fragments the parts of a system. The system might be a particular voyage, or the economics of the down-Easter, or the rise of iron-hulled vessels vis-a-vis wood, or the merits of Hu mboldt pine over Douglas fir for shipbuilding, or the largest two-masted schooner ever built, or the effect of Hawaiian politics on ship registration, or the effect of tonnage laws on ship designs, or the effect on the intercoastal trade of wind systems at different times of the year.

1 sk im the surface.

As to so urces, Lyman said: "Few people not connected with shipping realize 13

...

¡~J.

the amount of legal documents that gather around a sh ip . Every time she leaves or enters port, is bought or sold, signs off or on a crew member, or suffers any damage, an official record is made that eventually winds up in the National Archives . So it is simply a question of knowing where to look and how to sort out the relevant details quickly. " ¡ This modest statement doen't record the fact: he was a wizard-the wi zard-at working the archives .

Lyman pointed out (in the introduction to The Schooner That Came Home): "The sai ling ship has been badly neglected by the professional historian, and most of the works on the history of sailing ships have been produced as a sideline by those who must earn their living in other ways ." That is how he did it, too, as a sideline . But a sideline (to science) that usually left the professionals far to leeward.

The president of the University of North Carolina is quoted in the Chapel Hill Newspaper on November 17: "John Lyman was one of America's distinguished scientists ... " We have been benefitting from a scientist's mind -educated , reaching, retentive, analytical-and we've been lucky that sailing ship history is the "sideline" it chose.

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A friend of John's, Donald K. Routh, whom I don't know, wrote the following:

Elegy for John Lyman Rough, gruff, A jut of jaw, And canvas shoes.

Seemed like an admiral on vacation.

A razor-sharp mind, And sometimes Unexpectedly, grandfatherly gentleness.

Death came fast.

He managed His own demise As efficiently As everything else.

But I like to remember The gentleness .

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At left, John, age three, at family ranch in the Napa Valley; center, with Mitchell Sept.

1946; and above, with Mitchell and friend at home two months before his death.

A small circle of us, who made unending demands on his knowledge, remember, too, his generosity. As Bob Weinstein says, " .. . his devotion to the needs of his friends was unflagging."

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John Lyman, who was only a couple of years older than I am, turned to the subject of sailing ships for the same reason that I did. Here they were -palpable-four-masted barks, iron and steel full-rigged ships, schooners and barkentines in the ship graveyards of San Francisco Bay. This was in the early 1930s. The graveyards were in Oakland Estuary, on the San Joaquin river at Antioch, California (chosen for wooden ships because salt water didn't reach that far and so ship worms died), and Richardson's Bay, off Sausalito.

There were a dozen tattered squareriggers to be found and an equal number of fore-and-afters. San Francisco was the last large registering-place of American sail. in the early 1930s none of them was venturing to sea, except the codfish schooners out of Richardson's Bay. But who were these vessels?

They intrigued me as a source of artifacts; they intrigued John Lyman (whom I didn't know-he lived in Berkeley; I lived in Petaluma) as a source of knowledge . He went to the libraries to learn about them, but on the shelves were books on clipper ships, not books about these vessels.

The sailing ships remaining in San Francisco bay in the 1930s were European ships from the last quarter of the last century and New England-built ships (down-Easters) from the same period ; about half their numbers were West Coast-built sailing ships that the historians on the East Coast barely acknowledged.

So Lyman set about writing their history himself. In his thorough way .

It has been remarked, from time to

time, that John Lyman never wrote a book . So he is less known than, say, his distinguished peer, Robert Albion, who approaches the subject much the same way but puts his research in volumes.

Well, the most used book in the San Francisco Maritime Museum has the author's name , John Lyman, stamped in gold on its well-worn covers.

It is called "Pacific Coast Sailers, 1850-1905" and it con,sists of the description of each vessel-some longer, some shorter, a lphabetically arrangedpublished in the Seattle magazine Marine Digest in 1941. From the fourmasted schooner A. B. Johnson to the three-masted schooner Zampa. We had these articles bound . The resulting book is falling apart from over-use.

It has a second section: "Pacific Coast Owned Sailers That Were Built Elsewhere ." The preface to that part points out in a sentence what no maritime historian, to my knowledge, had pointed out before: "by 1900, however, practically every square-rigger left under American registry was owned on the Pacific Coast, being operated either in the lumber trade, the North pacific Whale Fishery, the Hawaiian sugar trade, or the Alaska salmon fishery." This series in the Seattle magazine was followed in the same publication by "Pacific Coast-Built Sailers of World War I, 1916-20," "Pacific Coast Wooden Steam Schooners, 1884-1924" and by "Steel Steam Schooners of the Pacific Coast, Summarized by Shipyards." This was published in 1943 .

A ll of these we have had bound in book form for daily use in the museum office.

Lyman was putting together his compilation s for Sea Breezes magazine of Liverpool in the 1930s ("James Rolph, San Francisco," September I 939, for example) and he was early on the editorial SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

JOHN LYMAN

board of The American Neptune. For a taste of the Lyman method, I suggest examining the famous back-and-forth that he had with Carl C utler in that quarterly over whether the Flying Cloud or the Andrew Jackson (from Cutler's town, Mystic) holds the record around Cape Horn to San Francisco.

John Lyman swung in behind Howard Chapelle in Chapelle's contention that the Constellation being restored in Baltimore is the sloop-of-war from the 1850s rather that the frigate from the late 18th century. I contributed a phrase to that one myself: "They are trying to restore a Model A back into a Model T." Lyman, however, brought scholarl y method to the controversy.

He contributed (and that is the word; there is no pay for such writing) regularly to Mariner's Mirror, published in London. In 1948, with his wife Mitchell's help, he started cranking out his own publication on a mimeograph machine . This was called Log Chips.

Now there is a book-we have had all our mimeographed Log Chips bound into a volume, too.

Where else do the three-masted schooners of the East Coast come marching out of mid-century? We march back to meet them in Log Chips, a vessel at a time, starting in 1929 with the Adams built by Storey. They are followed by the three-masted schooners of the West Coast, similarly meticulously arranged . And the barkentines: threemast, four-mast, five-m ast, six-mast. By coast again, East, Gulf, West. And a massive list , running for years, taking the steel and iron sailing ships of the United Kingdom , vessel by vessel, back toward s their beginnin gs. French square-riggers , ship by ship. Danish square-riggers, German sq ua re-riggers, one by one.

Then there are the thumb-nail sketches of American shipbuilders, nowhere else to be found between covers: Thoma ston Shipbuilding (Edward O'Brien; Dunn & Elliot; Washburn ; Chapman & Flint and more) , Bath Shipbuilding (Sewall; Houghton; Goss, Sawyer & Packard; Rogers; Minotts; Percy & Small; I. Kelley, Spear), San Francisco Bay Shipbuilders (John G .

North ; Matthew Turner), Humboldt Bay Shipbuilders (Murray; Cousins; McWhinney; Matthews; Petersen; Hitchings; Joyce; Bendixsen; Rolph), Coos Bay Shipbuilding (Hans Reed; Asa Simpson; Kruse & Bank s), Port Blakely Shipbuilding (Hall Brothers). This again is just a skimming. John Lyman was the first to pay them all tribute.

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SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

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There are a number of different responses to the call of the sea. Some build ship models, others read the novels of Conrad. Some contemplate the romance of an old schooner heaving at her moorings. John Lyman found profundities in statistics, and did us all a favor.

To the person mooning over the schooner and finding romance there, he says : "There were 123 of those built on the West Coast alone . . . " Think of itwhat you find enchanting can be multiplied by a hundred and twenty three!

It is a way of thinking about ships that has always appealed to me. Lyman supplied San Francisco one of its most valuable statistics when he estimated for us one time the number of sailing ship voyages made around Cape Horn to our city-10,000. A figure to conjure with.

Another figure that has never been in the books came in a letter last year in a nswer to a request-how many iron and steel sailing ships were built in the British Isles during the last century (really, during the las t half of the century)? Lyman estimated 3,000.

There was, for many years, a tendency by even British sea writers to sk ip lightly over this large category and jump from the tea clippers to the age of steam .

My last telephone conversation with John Lyman was to ask how many down-Easters (in the sense of New England-built ships and ba rks) were built from the C ivil War to the end of the sailing ship era.

He had the sources within reach of hi s telephone; the answer came back in a matter of minutes, 975, give or take a few vessels. For a moment that splendid fleet shone in our eyes at either side of the continent-these were the American merchant ships that set the standard for smartness throughout the world.

We deplored the run of books that have been published-the authors dazzled by our two-hundred-odd clipper ships -that purport to be hi stories of our. mercha nt service and which never mention the 975 down-Easters!

It was an appropriate and satisfying last conversation. Suddenly, the genius of ship research is no longer there at the other end of the telephone. But he worked hard and quietly in our field and over many years and he has left us a written legacy. John Lyman will always be wit h that part of mankind that mulls the sea and is moved by the wind-moved sh ips once found in numbers on its surface.

.t .t .t Mr. Kortum, chief curator of the Na-

tional Maritime Museum at San Francisco, is a vice president of the National Maritime Historical Society.

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PRIDE OF BALTIMORE The graceful, clipper-schooner

PRIDE OF BALTIMORE To commemorate her successful first year, the International Historical Watercraft Society, builders of the 1812 replica ship have published a unique color poster in limited edition. The lithograph illustrates this vessel accurately under full sail from an original gouache paintin g by the marine artist and captain, Melbourne Smith.

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NOTICE: By permission of Mitchell Lyman, SEA HISTORY plans to publish a revised edition of Log Chips with addenda and corrigenda incorporated under the direction of a scholarly committee. Those interested in subscribing as patrons of this work, are invited to send their names to Log Chips NMHS, 2 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201.

15

Sign On With Me Said John Paul Jones The young American Republic was a threatened and risky experiment when John Paul Jones wrote his famous appeal to patriots to sail with him against the armed might of the British Empire.

The actual words of his call are worth reading today:

"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong and the free.

Heed my call. Come to the sea.

Come sail with me."

Jones was no easy man to sail under.

He announced his intention to steer in harm's way, and he carried out that mission to the letter. While the barely united colonies waged their desperate struggle on this side of the ocean, he sailed two hundred years ago to Europe, to carry the struggle to the chops of the English Channel and beyond-into the lions mouth. In doing so he aroused the world and gave confidence to friends of the American cause everywhere.

It's worth noticing how he framed his appeal in those long-past dangerous days.

The stature of the nation is measured not by its size or might. For Jones, an avid reader in history, knew that the greatest empire can be defeated, and ultimately destroyed. No, it is to be measured in the citizen's devotion to it-that defines the nation and gives it its standing and declares what it shall be.

And he links the freedom at home to freedom in the world. Freedom in his eyes was not a thing that belonged to anyone, but a thing to be striven for, and the thing this nation, or any nation, should be dedicated to as the only legitimate basis for national authority.

In this belief, which he spoke of on many other occasions, he carried truly the message of the founding fathers, who were then struggling to forge a nation on the principles of the newly adopted Declaration of Independence in the land he left behind him, which he sailed to defend.

Finally, his call is to the young. As an old admiral now long retired in the service Jones helped to found, I like to think he meant the young in spirit. For the cause of freedom is always young. It has to be reborn, and fought for, in each generation. Its service demands people who respond to young ideas, and whose 16

spirits are not corroded and jaded or worn down by disappointments but ever alert to its young appeal.

Freedom always looks weak, like a child, because it is always young, always trying to become something, always looking to the future-and nourished by the past.

It's dangerous, we're told, to draw hard and fast lessons from history .

Situations keep changing. But John Paul Jones was a rare commander, a man of action who was deeply aware of history, and who clearly felt he was living in history, even living for history. Perhaps that explains, or helps explain, his seemingly magic touch in overcoming invincible odds, and achieving things that live for all who follow his story today.

Certainly his voice and his acts speak clearly to us across two hundred years, in the quite different world we sail in today.

In this issue of SEA HISTORY we take a look at the ships John Paul Jones commanded, and at the reproduction of his beloved sloop Providence, which sails out of Newport, Rhode Island, today, manned by a very dedicated crew, and at the project to recover the remains of his most famous command, the Bon homme Richard, from the floor of the North Sea, where she sank after her immortal fight with the Serapis off Flambrough Head on England's East Coast.

These are good works and good projects. Through research, and through art, through active sailing, and through recovering historic artifacts, we are not merely rummaging the past. These projects, which are the projects of the Ship Trust in this country today, help us understand how people kept the young idea of freedom alive in this time, and help us keep its torch alight today.

Let me invite all who follow the sea and take an interest in its heritage to sign on for the Ship Trust of the National Maritime Historical Society, and so support its good projects which bring life to the message of John P<Jul Jones and other sailors who helped win the freedom we enjoy today.

Admiral Burke has written undying chapters in our naval history, in hisservice career. He earned the nickname "31-Knot Burke" in command of destroyers in the Pacific in World War II, and many decorations from a grateful nation.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

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The sloop Providence breaks off action with a British frigate, firing a single taunting musket shot over the transom.

This naval issue of SEA HISTORY comes during the 200th anniversary of John Paul Jones's epic raid on the English Channel. In the little sloop of war Ranger, Jones in 1778 brought the war to the home waters of the Crown and won the first ship-to-ship action of the war between equally matched British and American naval vessels, as shown on our front and back covers in a water-color by the marine artist Wm. Gilkerson. Here are portraits of the other vessels commanded by Jones in the Revolution, along with their stories and a commentary by the artist on how he arrived at pictures of ships which in their own day were never recorded by eyewitness artists.

THE SHIPS OF JOHN PAUL JONES Written and Illustrated by Wm. Gilkerson hen John Paul Jones entered the Continental Navy in December of 1775, the first of its first lieutenants, he was offered a choice: he could be second officer on the square-rigged ship Alfred, or he could have independent command of the little sloop Providence. He choose the former, explaining that he wanted to learn something of naval service from what he presumed would be experienced officers.

Possibly he was also leery of the sloop, not only a diminutive vessel, but also oversparred and a type with a dangerous reputation.

Five months later, Jones was again offered command of Providence. He had by then participated in a number of naval actions, had indeed learned some things, and unhesitatingly

W

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

accepted the independent command of Providence, humble and tricky though she might be.

PROVIDENCE Originally named Katy, the Providence had been converted from merchant sloop to warship by Rhode Island, which then sold her for use in the Continental Navy . Like the other ships Jones was to command, we know next to nothing today of her appearance and have little enough data by way of clue. The known facts are that she was sloop rigged, had a crew of some 70 men, and was rated as carrying 12 deck guns, although she actually mounted only IO of them, all four-pounders . She is also listed with a further armament of IO stanchion mounted swivel guns.

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THE SHIPS OF JOHN PAUL JONES A British intelligence report describing rebel warships in 1775 describes Providence as "A sloop, all black, low and long . .. with crane irons over the quarters for oars.''

Jone's orders for the summer of 1776 were to cruise and "seize, sink, burn or destroy" enemy shipping. On this and subsequent cruises in Providence he did all of the above. His little ship repeatedly proved herself a swift and nimble vessel with the desirable ability to overtake fat merchantmen and get away from fast frigates.

Here Providence is portrayed in one of her brushes with a British frigate, this one off the coast of Nova Scotia.where she was pursued by an enemy vastly more powerful than herself, but slower in the quartering wind that was blowing. Jones toyed with the bigger vessel, baiting her and, as Jones put it, making her waste powder and shot. At last, unable to catch up with the little sloop, the frigate rounded to and fired an extreme range broadside which went wild. Jones ordered one of

his marines to fire a single impudent musket shot in reply. This is the moment depicted.

This picture was based mostly on the model of Providence

by Robert I. Innes in the Mariner's Museum at Newport News.

Although models are by no means always reliable sources for the marine painter with a thirst for accuracy, the Innes model seems as educated a guess as possible, with one or two minor exceptions . It follows the type of large Colonial cargo sloop then in use, influenced by "Bermudian moulde," with outrageously long bowspirit, jibboom and masts. Providence is here postulated as a 70-foot vessel, with long quarterdeck, and of course sweeps bundled in their crane irons on the quarters.

If her decks seem overcrowded to the viewer, it should be noted only two thirds of her total complement of men are shown here, the rest having gone off as prize crews.

The life-size Providence reconstruction discussed elsewhere

A converted merchantmen, tender sided and crank, Alfred was nonetheless a useful cruiser.

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SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

in this issue, differs in several substantial ways. Unlike the artist whose picture need not float, the builders of this actual vessel were beset by twin realities of Coast Guard and the expediencies of navigation today.

ALFRED After his successes with Providence Jones was given command of Alfred, the vessel aboard which he had first served as Lieutenant. The smaller Providence was kept under his command so that for a short time he had a mini-fleet. With it he again raided the Canadian coast, capturing many prizes and burning shipping.

Alfred was one of the first two ships purchased into the American navy. She had been built in Philadelphia before the war as the Black Prince, and her figurehead showed that personage drawing his sword, a figure which also served well enough as King Alfred, the monarch whom our Continental forefathers honored as the founder of the Royal Navy.

She was measured at a tonnage variously reported at between 350 and 440. In her conversion from merchantman to warship she was originally given between 24 an~ 30 guns, but they were too burdensome for her, and her armament was reduced to 20 nine-pounders. Even so, she was tender, and Jones complained in a Jetter to Robert Morris that she was "crank," and too easily put her lee gunports underwater, making that battery unserviceable. Commodore Ezek Hopkins shared that view of her. He reported her as "tender sided," and, in 1777, "the most unfit vessel in the fleet," and besides, he noted, she had "a nine-pound shot through her mast."

We know of Alfred that she had yellow topsides, and a customs declaration from Philadelphia dated 1775 describes her as "square sterned," Another eyewitness description of her notes she was "square and taut rigged, without quarter galleries.'' .

There exists a small, crude drawing of Alfred in an account book of 1777, now in the collection of the Navy Department. It is here reprinted, perhaps the only eyewitness drawing of any of Jones's ships. This is not known to be the case, of course, but the style of the picture is quick and plain, quite possibly an onthe-spot wharfside view, with sails added by the artist.

Although the large quarter gallery shown in the sketch seems contradictory to the description above, it is possible the artist may have taken license enough to enlarge the quarter window until it seemed a gallery instead. On all but this point, the reconstruction of Alfred here follows the drawing.

Chappelle has given us lines and sail plans for the London, a Colonial vessel of 1771 quite similar in appearance to the Alfred in the little drawing. Though London's measurements are smaller, her rig is exactly the rig depicted in the sketch, and the silhouette of the two hulls are quite close. Making allowances for the size difference, this rendering of Alfred relies to a considerable extent on the plans of London, incorporating the known features of Alfred mentioned above.

RANGER In 1777 Jones was given another ship which, although more lightly armed than Alfred, represented a step up, for Ranger was brand new and designed and built specifically as a warship. She was a ship-rigged sloop of war mounting 20 sixpounders. Jones later reduced her battery to 18 guns.

In Ranger Jones sailed for Europe and made a series of raids in the English Channel which effectively brought the war home to England. As a result of Ranger's devastating presence in British waters, insurance rates went up prohibitively, a large squadron of naval vessels was tied up looking for him, and militia units throughout England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales were mobilized to protect their shores against his raids.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

A sketch of the Alfred from a 1777 account book. Courtesy, Navy Department.

Twice the landing parties did go ashore from Ranger, once burning shipping in Whitehaven Harbor, and again raiding the Earl of Selkirk's castle, from which a quantity of silver plate was looted. In the tradition of commerce raiders from Drake to von Luckner, Jones in Ranger made a nuisance of his little vessel far, far out of proportion to her size.

On April 24, 1778, one of the warships which had been sent to find Ranger did so. Off Belfast, Ranger engaged HBM Sloop of war Drake. Ranger was a larger ship, but Drake was armed with a heavier battery, so the two vessels were evenly matched. (By coincidence, Drake was a Philadelphia-built vessel that had been taken into the Royal Navy, and as the ships went into action, Jones noted her resemblance from the bow to his former ship, Alfred.)

The action between the two vessels lasted over an hour, was described by Jones as "warm, close and obstinate," and ended with Drake's officers dead or wounded, her rigging torn to pieces, and her decks "running with blood and rum." (A cask of rum had been gotten up in anticipation of their impending victory over the American, and it was smashed by a cannon ball.)

Drake and Ranger are depicted in the opening phases of their engagement on the covers of this magazine. Captain Jones can be seen, cutlass in hand, just abaft the mizzen shrouds. The battle marked the first American victory in an evenly matched ship-to-ship duel.

Again, no plans or pictures exist of Ranger, but in her case there is more to go on for a reconstruction. Her measurements were 97' 2" on the gun deck (suggesting about I 10' overall), beam of 28' 12", 12' depth of hold, displacing 315.5 tons.

(Historian S. E. Morrison makes the point in his biography of Jones that the original Ranger was 25 feet shorter than the yacht Ranger which defended the America's cup in 1937.)

She carried royals and stuns'ls and was fast but tender. She had black topsides with the usual broad yellow stripe. She probably carried the figurehead of an American rifleman, a ranger, and she was a quarter-decked ship as big as a small frigate, comparatively undergunned for her size.

A Captain Gurley who had the opportunity to examine her in the English Channel, described her as "Hake built and hollow counter'd." He added that she looked "Bermudian built" (rakish), but that she carried too much sail. (It should be remembered that a rakish vessel at the time of the Revolution would no longer be termed so even a quarter century later, by which time she would appear bulbous and squat compared to the fast tall ships of a new age.)

Perhaps most important to Ranger's reconstruction is the survival of other ship plans by her designer, Wm. Hackett, 19

THE SHIPS OF JOHN PAUL JONES also the probable designer of the Raleigh and possibly the Hancock as well, both ships whose lines have survived.

A final note on Ranger of interest to the historical artist is that her crew were probably all clean shaven during this battle.

A few weeks before, it is recorded, Jones had a French barber on board to shave every man jack, as he did not want his allies to think he was carrying a crew of bearded Russians or Turks .

BONHOMME RICHARD After Jones's notable successes in Ranger, the decision was to give him a more powerful ship, even a squadron . However, the desirable ships that were intended for him were, for various political reasons, used otherwise, and he cooled his heels until May of 1779 in France, awaiting his next command .

This was Due De Duras, an old armed merchantman given the American navy by King Louis XVI. Jones renamed her Bonhomme Richard (after his patron, Ambassador to France, Ben-Poor Richard-Franklin), outfitted her with an awkward variety of cannons (some of which burst at their first firing), and, in company with a small squadron, set out to again raid the English Channel. The cruise terminated in a ferocious and complex night conflict off Flamborough Head during which Bonhomme Richard was victorious in a battle against great odds. She was destroyed during the action, although she fortuitously did not sink until the follwing day.

Commodore Jones transferred his flag to Serapis, his former opponent, a powerful British frigate which had been beaten into near wreckage but was able nonetheless to stay afloat and painfully crawl to neutral Holland with the remnants of Jones's squadron.

Of all Jones's ships, Bonhomme Richard is at once the most famous and the most enigmatic. It is true that many contemporary pictures of Richard were done, but they have added more confusion than clarity to any kind of accurate

reconstruction of her, for they were all done after she was sunk. Many of the pictures that were rushed into print after the action are obviously hasty efforts and wildly inaccurate, but others came later, done by more careful artists who took some care to position the ships correctly, but who had never seen the ships they were drawing, and therefore drew types rather than the individual ships. Any serious student can find obvious flaws in these pictures. Their artists worked like the police artists of today, from descriptions by witnesses with inevitably faulty memories-witnesses who didn't stand by to edit the completed work.

Under these circumstances, no real accuracy was possible in contemporary prints and paintings of Richard, whatever the integrity of the artists . Their inaccuracies have been regenerated into the present day in model after model based on their faulty information, gracing the museums of our land. It is paradoxical that the marine artist of today has better information to work with in making an accurate rendering of one of these ships than the artist who lived in that time.

I have long been interested in Richard. The reconstruction of her here is not the first I have done, but it is possibly the most accurate, thanks to the work of another researcher, Norman Rubin. Mr. Rubin has painstakingly combined the plans of over a dozen East Indiamen of Richard's type and era to come up with a composite picture of her probable dimensions and hull form, and he has learned much else about her rigging and furniture from early French inventories and manifests. He has made his plans of the ship available to me, and it is upon them that the drawing here is based .

This picture shows Richard as she might have looked on the afternoon before her great battle, in light airs, with stuns'ls rigged, an unweatherly ship sagging off to leeward of the rest of the squadron. This consisted on that day of Alliance (closest to Richard) a new American, Hackett-built 36 gun frigate of

151 feet, and a fast sailor; Pallas (in the far distance), French 32 gun frigate, and (far left) Vengeance, a French vessel rated as a cutter, but rigged as a brigantine, mounting 12 guns.

Mr. Rubin's researches are embodied in a book, The Bonhomme Richard, scheduled for publication this year by Leeward Publications, Inc. of Annapolis. It follows the recent discovery on the bottom of the English Channel of a wreck that Mr. Rubin and others feel is that of Richard (see page 25).

Are we to see more of Bonhomme Richard? If Mr. Rubin and his colleagues are right, possibly there will yet be photographs and survey of her remains, and we shall know

more of a ship whose desperate action under the command of John Paul Jones led to her destruction-and to immortality. .t .t .t Mr. Gilkerson, who sails his own boats in various corners of the world, is a scrimshander as well as artist and student of history. He is the author of The Scrimshander recently reissued in an enlarged edition. His painting of the DrakeRanger action in the English Channel, which graces the cover of this issue, is available from SEA HISTORY (see ad p. 49).

Other prints of Mr. Gilkerson's work are available from Barkentine Graphics, P. 0 . Box 1196, Mendocino, CA 95460.

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Armed and fully rigged at last Providence shows a clean pair of heels off Newport in October 1977, sailing the waters where her predecessor earned immortality two centuries earlier. Photos: Seaport '76.

By R.ADM John R. Wadleigh, USN (ret.) and Charles W. Wittholz, NA

The Providence Sails Again: Reproducing John Paul Jones's Favorite Command 200 Years Later Our founding fathers came to America by sea, through the sea we as a nation have survived-and will! Seaport '76 Foundation Ltd. was formed in 1973 as a nonprofit organization in Newport, Rhode Island, to bring life to this history in the Bicentennial era. Seaport '76 undertook as its first major project, the building of an operational reproduction of the Continental Navy sloop, Providence, formerly the Rhode Island sloop Katy. First ship of the first colony to have a Navy; first authorized ship of the Continental Navy; first combat command of John Paul Jones; and first ship from which American Marines landed in an amphibious operation, this 90-ton craft of two hundred years ago speaks proudly for the maritime heritage.

How to transform an idea, conceived by the founder of Seaport '76, historian John Millar of Newport, into a viable project? Millar had already built a reproduction of HMS Rose, the British frigate which harassed Colonial Rhode Islanders and caused the colony to form its own navy in May 1775. Rose, built in Canada out of Millar's own funds, came to Newport in 1970. Rose has had troubles. Built of wood and outside the United States, she was not certified by the Coast Guard, and her owner had a long and painful battle before finally 22

making her available for public display.

A far different course of acton was required to build Providence. In late 1974 a new and expanded Board took on this task with myself, John Wadleigh, as president.

At this time the American Bicentennial was grinding slowly ahead and initial support was sought there. Coincidentally a membership had to be built-when the new Board took over, less than 25 were on the roster. Starting with less than $1,000 in the operating account, by spring of 1975 Seaport '76 obtained $32,000 through the Rhode Island Bicentennial Commission, its largest single grant. As required by law this grant was matched with private funds, raised through an expanded membership and distinguished Advisory Board. So funds were available to begin.

Consideration was given to remodelling an existing fishing trawler of about the same size. This idea was discarded after available hulls on the East Coast were inspected. Another plan was to construct a new wood reproduction. But rough cost estimates for an authentically designed and constructed vessel were out of sight, and feedback from various organizations and individuals who now operate historic type sailing craft showed that they almost all had serious and cost-

ly maintenance problems.

How about using fiberglass for the hull and producing a 1775 ship using 1975 techniques together with 1775 hull form, rig and fittings? In Newport, the Solna Corporation, who had recently started production of fiberglass sailboats in a US Navy surplus building in Coddington Cove, agreed to produce the hull and decks for $64,000. Charles Wittholz was retained as naval architect to draw up working plans. A 1777 painting of Providence in action by Francis Holman, a rough drawing of the vessel presented by John Millar, and several models existed. It was decided to build the reproduction as close as possible to the original in all respects except that the hull would be of fiberglass. The vessel was to have her original topsail sloop rig and a complete operational armament of one pound swivel guns and four-pounder deck cannon!

The accompanying drawings show a very substantial vessel for her length on deck of just under 65 '. Modern yachtsmen might regard Providence as boxy and unavoidably a slow sailer . But her particulars reveal a good combination of stability and favorable ratios of sail area (driving power) to resistance (wetted surface), adequate lateral plane, and a prismatic coefficient and longiSEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

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tudinal center of buoyancy which offer minimal resistance at sailing speeds.

The architect had some concern for her steering with a tiller on such a heavy rudder (she has a lead of center of effort of sail forward of the center of lateral plane of 12.4% of LBP) but later sailing trials were a happy surprise to her various skippers who found her nicely balanced.

Plans were carefully reviewed at each stage with the Coast Guard, and the ship was built a few feet shorter then the original to come under their 65 ' length rule-additional manning is required over that length, and a whole new set of regulations. As construction proceeded, there were frequent Coast Guard inspections and testing of fiberglass components, with work held up a various times until approvals were secured.

Seaport '76 directors accepted these burdens in building an unusual design to meet full Coast Guard standards and achieve certification as a passengercarrying vessel.

More serious obstacles arose with actual construction, which offically began June 24, 1975. Solna was a new and small firm, specializing in building 30' Scampi sloops, and they were unable to meet construction deadlines while keeping the Scampi line rolling. By November Solna had received over three quarters of their payments anp the hull was less than half complete. Seaport '76 determined to hire its own manager and complete the hull in an abandoned Navy boat storage shed. In March 1976 the hull was moved. A $50,000 bank loan was secured to keep the project moving ahead, since costs had long outrun all estimates.

Through the summer of 1976-the summer of Tall Ships in Newport-work was pushed to complete the basic hull in the face of timetable and budget problems. Many came down to see manager Henry Chamberlin at work with a dedicated crew. The ship's eight spars arrived, properly lathed Oregon pine (Douglas fir) ready for rigging at far less than cost from For-Tek Company and 24

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The sloop is launched on October 2, 1976, a gray and rainy Saturday, and christened Katy, the first name the original Providence sailed under.

Neidermeyer-Martin. Shore Sails of Newport, working on the sails, threw in a free topsail. There were many other donations. The largest was 33 tons of keel and interior ballast lead from American Smelting and Refining Co. Cordage was contributed for all needs

by Atlantic Cordage Corporation; all 114 blocks by Brewer-Titchener Corp.; the twelve cannon carriages by Greene Enterprises; Machinery by Essex Machine Works; paint by W. R. Grace & Co., and Woolsey Marine Industries; commissioning pennant and flags by Ebeneezer Flagg Co. In all such contributions reduced costs by $40,000.

Amid parades, bands, and fitting speeches, the sloop was launched on October 2, in autumnal weather. She was christened Katy, the name Providence bore as a private ship, before being taken up by the Continental Navy. Over the next three weeks Chamberlin and his "raunchy crew," as they called themselves, worked through inclement weather to ready the Katy for her commissioning as Providence at India Point Park in Providence. There on October 24 she was duly commissioned.

Over the winter of 1976-77, Chamberlin left and was replaced by his assistant Don Gilkison. Money continued in short supply but during the spring and summer Providence began her work of training young people with Explorer Scout Troop '76, and made several trips to nautical and patriotic events in Narraganset Bay. Her crew was augmented by a Continental Marine Detachment of some forty retired Marines banded together to re-enact traditional drills. So she was employed under engine and at dockside, even while the extensive work of rigging and fitting out continued. At last sails were brought aboard, cannon mounted, and on August 18, 1977 Captain Gilkison took her out under sail.

The 1977 goal set by Seaport's directors had been met: she was now "visible and sailable."

Early this year, Vice Admiral Thomas Wechsler USN (ret.) succeeded me as president, and Captain Mayton Truxton

Scott USN (ret.), who had served as Executive Officer during these years of effort became senior member of the small Seaport staff which has never numbered more than three. A major funding drive, Operation Fairwinds, begun in late 1976 has now passed the $100,000 mark.

Donations are received from across the nation to augment the limited but valuable program under which the new Providence now sails the seas.

America's maritime heritage is a story that needs to be told and retold. Seaport '76 has chosen one method, to bring that heritage to our citizens visibly and realistically. Dare we hope that her fiberglass hull, given good care and renewal of wooden structure will still tell the Providence story 200 years from now?

We cannot know the answer to that question. But we know that the nation owes much to the ninety-ton sloop that set sail two hundred years ago with one hundred daring sailors and marines on board to help make history for the young United States of America. Her successor's mission is to bring that history to as many Americans as possible today, and we believe that mission will be important to future generations of Americans, as to our own.

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NOTE: For a detailed history of the sloop Providence ex-Katy, see Valour Fore and Aft by Hope S. Rider, available from Seaport '76, Box 76, Newport, R.I. 02840 for $10.00.

Admiral Wadleigh retired from the US Navy in 1971after38 years of service afloat primarily in cruisers and destroyers, and ashore in naval communications. Living in Newport, RI, he served Seaport '76 as president 1974-77 and is currently a director.

Mr. Wittholz of Silver Spring, MD is an independent naval architect, known for design of the 90 ' schooner Pegasus, the 90' brigantine Young America (exEnchantress), new rig and arrangement on the schooner Western Union, design of the Providence, and trustee of the National Maritime Historical Society.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

The Search for the Bonhomme Richard

By Eric Berryman, University of New Mexico, with Norman Rubin, Bonhomme Richard Project, and Sydney Wignall, Atlantic Charter Archaeological Foundation

Captain Pearson was knighted for his gallant-and correct-defense of a British convoy against the irresistible force of John Paul Jones, who attacked in a totally inadequate ship, the converted lndiaman Bonhomme Richard.

Some think the bones of that ship, which won the most famous single ship action of all time, worth recovering. Here is their report on their project with which the National Society is proud to be associated. - ED Houdon 's bust of Jones.

Fought into the night of September 23, 1779, off the Yorkshire coast, its official title is the Battle of Flam borough Head.

But few people know it by that name.

From school child to elder it has come down in history as a clash between personalities and ships; John Paul Jones's Bonhomme Richard and "I have not yet begun to fight" flung in the face of a Royal Navy captai n whose HMS Serapis was altogether the superior vessel.

Whether or not Jones actually said that is still debated, but it suits him . The Richard was a converted French East lndiaman (Due de Duras) and already well worn when Jones got her. The pitched battle with a new, larger, and far betterarmed ship tried her beyo nd endurance.

On the second morning after the action Jones " saw, with inexpressible grief, the last glimpse of the Bonhomme Richard, " as her shattered hulk slid beneath the seas.

Captain Pearson received a knighthood* for his troubles with the colonial "pirate" and passed away at a respectable age after a long career and an honored retirement. Jones was awarded a gold medal by a grateful Congress and had his bust carved by Houdon . Soon thereafter he was forgotten.

Following a strife-laden stint as an admiral in Catherine the Great's navy he died at an early age in obscure poverty in Paris. Some hundred and twenty years later President Theodore Roosevelt, still in the flush of the naval victory over Spain, dispatched a squadron to France to bring back the remains of the man who "gave our navy its earliest traditions of heroism and victory." *"! hope l may meet him again, " Jones is reported lo have said on learning this. "I'll make a baron of him. "-ED.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

The Bonhomme Richard remained lost at the bottom of the North Sea. In 1976 the Atlantic Charter Maritime Archaeologica l Foundation (ACMAF) with dual headquarters at University College of North Wales and Austin, Texas, set out to find her. Officially designated as a project of the American Revolution Bicentennial, and smiled upon by the US Navy and aided by the governments of France (who still retains title to the wreck) and Great Britain, the Foundation sought to raise sufficient funds to locate and survey the remains of the wreck and then to bring back for permanent display in Washington D. C., as many of the artifacts as could be salvaged . Conservation was to be undertaken by the University of Texas Balcones Research Center. But cash was meager and slow in coming. The Navy League helped and the Navy Reserve Association backed it (their Kansas City chapter came through especially well) but there was not enough to carry out the whole plan . Without the timely intervention of National Ocean Industries Association-a Washington-based-organization-the research and work that was started by Sydney Wignall, the expedition chief and ACMAF Executive Director, might have been delayed indefinitely.

Phase I, "Wreck Location," was successfully completed through the kind intervention of NOIA's President, Charles Matthews. A British firm, Decca Survey Limited, volunteered one of their hydrographic survey vessels, the Decca Recorder, equipped with an array of sophisticated underwater detec~ion apparatus and radio-navigational aids and staffed with a team of experts led by William Ogi lvie. The result of that

survey off Flamborough Head, in far from perfect weather, was encouraging.

The overall search area was about 43 square miles with a High Probability Area (HPA) of some five square miles.

Search operations with Wignall aboard the Decca Recorder began September I, 1976. After four months of flat calm in one of the hottest summers in England's memory, weather in the North Sea began to deteriorate with Force 5 winds coming from the northeast, a most unwelcome quarter. With the winds rising to Force 7, the ship had to anchor in the lee under the cliffs of Flamborough Head. A local fishing boat had foundered that afternoon and her masts could be seen protruding from the sea. Another attempt was made later that night, but the Recorder was forced to abort operations again after one hour due to what had by now become a Force 8 gale and 25-foot waves . The original plan for a six-day, 24-hours per day examination of the HP A had to be amended. Once more the Recorder sought shelter in the lee of Flamborough Head in company with nineteen other vessels sheltering from the gale.

The next day retired fisherman John Pockley, who now sells bait at the end of Bridlington Pier, came aboard and produced a photograph taken twenty years earlier, showing himself holding a shellencrusted musket snagged on his line while fishing off the Head. Examination of the picture and analysis of Pockley's description suggested that the weapon was of European continental manufacture, and not English. English shoulder weapons of the period were known as "Tower Muskets" and the lock plate would have stamped on it the imperial crown, the word TOWER, and the date.

The musket described by Pockley had a brass lock plate and the date 1775 on it.

Because no museum expressed interest in the piece, it eventually disintegrated in his workshop, whereupon a lead ball was found in the barrel indicating the weapon was loaded and in ready use condition at the time it was lost. The evidence suggesed that it was French in origin and that it had been raised from the wreck of the Bonhomme Richard.

The "Musket Site" correlated nicely with our own HP A. But bad weather again interrupted operations. Wignall and company philosophically put into port where they waited out the worst of the gale quaffing welcome drafts of warm English ale.

First wreck contact came at 5:30 AM September 4, and proved to be the 25

The Richard grappled bow to stern with HMS Serapis. Jones fired at the Englishman's masts, while Pearson poured his 18-pounders into the Richard's hull. Photos courtesy the author.

5,500-ton SS Commonwealth, torpedoed in 1918, With fixes taken every 60 seconds and fed into the computer, a second wreck was located before breakfast. After saturating an area southeast and southwest of the HP A (site of 75,000 ton SS Chicago, another WWI torpedo casualty), a line of cannon-possibly those jettisoned by the Richard-was located northwest of the search area. In all, three likely-looking targets were recorded. Decca B, as it is called, answered to the parameters of the Richard: length 100-110 feet, width 30-45 feet, and 9 feet proud of the bottom. All that needed to be done was to send divers down for positive identification. But the season was over, Wignall was down with the flu, and the funds had run out. The BHR Project seemed to have accomplished all that was possible.

Then, in early 1978 Clive Cussler, author of Raise the Titanic! read Peter Throckmorton's latest book, Diving for Treasure (a publisher's title to attract a wide audience, it is actually a compelling study of marine arachaeology), wherein is mentioned ACMAF's search for Jones's ship. From this coincidence one thing led to another and Cussler offered the funding for Phase 11, "Positive Identification and Survey." This time sonar knob twiddlers will be led by Marty Klein, under the overall direction of ACMAF's President, Harold "Doc" Edgerton of (Doonesbury and MIT fame).

After relocating and marking the Decca B wreck site a survey will be undertaken of the entire area during which every mound, lump, and timber will be recorded. After that, some of the artillery and whatever artifacts that come readily to hand will be raised . From the log book and inventory we know that the Richard was ballasted with pig-iron, rejected shot, shingle and stone. It was common to use pig-iron for permanent kentledge, adding stone to ballast for the conditions of a particular voyage. The size of the pigs in Richard are not known but they would have been somewhere between 300 to 350 lbs. in weight with a hole in each end for handling, and maybe marked in livres. English pigs would be stamped in hundredweight, stones, and pounds. Shot ballast may be of any size and consists of improperly cooled, out-of-round, or captured shot not in French sizes.

French anchors were marked with a fleur-de-lys and the name or mark of one of the dozen or so foundries, and 26

provide another clue to wreck identification. There were four of them on the bows. Unless they were jettisoned in the 36-hour effort to save the ship after combat, they are still there. On the bows was the bower and a sheet anchor, and in the hold stream and kedge anchors.

The French in that era made their anchors in weights of 6000, 5000, 3000, 2000, 1,500 and 1000 livres. Richard's bower and sheet were 3000, stream 1,500 and kedges 1000 or less. Anchors were laminated from plate using sledge hammers, water-operated trip hammers, or drop hammers raised by twenty or thirty men. Not until the invention of the steam hammer in 1830 could arms and shanks be forged from ingot.

The guns will also assist in the identification. The Richard mounted six 18-pounders, twenty-eight 12-pounders, and ten 4-pounders. Two of the 18pounders burst during the first broadside attack (with resulting loss of life and damage to the ship). Descriptions of the action written in later years say that the IS-pounders were jettisoned after the battle to try to bring shot-holes above water for plugging, so these guns may not be on the wreck but lie scattered elsewhere. Samuel Morison says that there were sixteen new and twelve old 12-pounders. Guns made to the 1776 regulations were known as "new" or "good" artillery, as compared to older models. In 1778 short 12, 8, 6, and 4-pounders were introduced for frigates and smaller vessels. A 1786 regulation made minor changes, including distinctive trunnion and touch holes. English and Spanish gun sizes were 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 32, etc., compared with French and Dutch 4, 6, 8, 12, 18, 24, 30, etc. so that gun sizes will help in identifying the right wreck.

The log book further records that four swivel guns, the standard number issued to a frigate, were brought on board .

These could have been used in boat guns by landing parties or have been emplaced in mast tops. Research indicates that the swivels were in the tops and are probably still there. The old breach-

loading swivel was called a perrier because it fired stone shot, but this weapon had disappeared by the early 1700s. In its place came a bronze gun which retained the name perrier but fired "boxes of balls." Boat guns were mountain guns or pack howitzers, firing case shot. Although there is no record of boat guns aboard Richard some may be found on the wreck because Jones went to considerable trouble collecting as much artillery as could be found. The standard frigate issue of 100 hand grenades were on board in barrels of twenty-five. Most of these were probably expended (a grenade-throwing Scot in Jones's crew was responsible for clearing out the Serapis' 18-pounder gun deck), but some may .remain. They were spheres 2 Yi " to .3" in diameter with sixsecond fuses. They should not be confused with 4-pounder shot and may still be live. A definitive account of the Richard, her construction, armament, and stores, by Norman Rubin will be published this fall by Leeward Publications of Annapolis, Maryland.

Of Jones's personal possessions abandoned when he left the ship, we can only guess . Certainly he had his own engraved plate of silver or pewter; his tenure in Paris produced many ardent admirers who were generous with gifts. There would also be a certain amount of coinage, unpaid wages, prize money, captured coin and the like. Personalised navigational instruments and a variety of tools left on board in the confusion may be found in the ballast mound or encrusted in conglomerates on the seabed in the vicinity of the wreck . If funds are available, Phase Ill, planned for the late spring and summer of 1979, will concentrate on a thorough excavation.

At last, the most famous fighting ship of the Revolutionary War may be coming home.

Dr. Berryman, Dean of Students at the University of New Mexico, is secretary to the Falkland Islands Project of the National Society and is a director of the Atlantic Charter Maritime Archaeological Foundation.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

Historic Warships of the World

By Norman Brouwer

Drake's Golden Hind was preserved in a Thames River dock after her epic circumnavigation of the globe four hundred years ago; she fell to pieces, and a project exists to recover possible remnants from under riverside landfill today. Nelson's great three-decker 路 Victory, an old ship somewhat rebuilt when she fought at Trafa/gar in I 805, was long kept in service, latterly on public view in drydock, and sustained bomb damage flying the flag of C-in-C Portsmouth, during the Battle of Britain when she was coming up to her two hundredth birthday. Our own super-frigate Constitution, victor in an incredible series of single-ship fights, was saved by public outcry when her turn came to go to scrap, and after many rebuildings remains afloat in Boston today. Great issues rode with these ships, and the course of world history was turned by what they achieved at sea.

Here a distinguished student lists the fighting ships of the world that have been saved and can be seen. The list is arranged to foil ow chronological development of different types as the world's navies graduated into the machine age. A number of proposed warship saves are not listed and may be material/or a future review. The author asks, as usual, for corrections, additions and updating of this listing.

-ED.

Sailing Warships 1628 sh ip of the line Vasa. 200 ft., (hu ll , overa ll), buil t in Royal Dockyard, Stockholm , ca psized leavi ng port on ma iden

1776 lake gunboa t Philadelphia. 51 ft. , buil t at Ske nesboro ugh, New Yor k. G un da low; si ngle mast , sq uare-rigged . Sun k in October 1776, d uri ng engagement with British fl eet at Valcour Isla nd , Lake C hamp lai n. Armament ; l-12pdr. & 2-9pdrs. Raised in 1935, a nd now o n ex hibit in the Smith soni an Instituti o n Mu seum o f Hi sto ry a nd T echnology, Was hington, D.C., U.S.A. 1797 fri ga te USS Constitution. 175 ft. , between perpen dicula rs, built at Boston. Took pa rt in the War aga inst the Barbary Pirates, a nd in severa l fa mo us ac ti ons of the Wa r of 18 12. Ar mame nt; 44 gu ns, 32pdrs . & 24pdrs.

Saved fro m scra pping a nd reb uilt in 1833-34, 1897, 1906, 1927 -31. Recently thoro ughl y rebuil t aga in . Mu seum at Boston, U. S.A.

( 1879). Arm a ment : 2-8in . guns in single turret, ram . P rese rved as Nava l memo ria l a t T alca hu ano, Chile.

fri gate HMS Foudroyant ex- Trincomalee. 180 ft., built by Eas t Indi a Co . Drydock, Bombay. T ra ining hulk si nce 1860, currentl y moo red in Portsmo uth Harbor .

Spent mos t of ea rli er career in reserve. A rmament; 22-32 pdrs . (1 845). Res tora ti o n a nd use as a Mu seum has been proposed . Gt. Britain.

1868 seagoin g mo nitor Buffel. 200 ft., built in Gl asgow , Sco tla nd. Des igned for coastal defense. Arma ment: U in. gun in single turret, ra m. Undergoing restoration for mu seum at Rotterd a m, Netherlands.

Oth er survivin g vessel o f type: Schorpioen (1868). Tra inin g hul k a t Den Held er, Netherlands.

1817

1824 fr iga te HMS Unicorn. 152 ft., buil t a t C hath an Dockyard , wood , has iro n knees a nd diagonal iron strapping. Spent entire career eith er in layup or as tra ining hulk . Never rigged o r armed fo r co mbat. Mu seum a t Dundee, Scot la nd . Eventua l riggin g, a nd fitt ing o ut as 1820s wa rship pla nn ed . Gt. Britain.

1854 corvett e USS Constellation. 176 ft. , between per pendicul ars, built a t No rfo lk Naval Yard, Virginia. Employed in suppress io n of slave trade o n west coas t o f Afri ca. Served as tra in ing ship from 187 1 to 1940. A rma ment ; 20-8 in . & 2- IOin . gun s. In recent yea rs has been lyin g at Ba lti more, undergoin g " resto ra ti o n" to serve as replica of 1797 fr iga te of same name. U .S.A .

Evolution of th e Steam-Powered Warship 1860 steam fri gate Jylland. 210 ft. , built by Naval Dock ya rd , Co penh agen . . Woodenhulled, una rmored , full -rigged shi p with 1300 HP horizo nta l engin e a nd screw. T oo k pa rt in 1864 batt le off H elgo la nd with A ustroP russ ia n sq uadron. Armament; 44 guns, ra ngi ng fro m 12pdrs. to 30 pd rs. Museum at Ebelt oft, Denm ark, parti all y res tored . Eventua l di splay at old Navy Yard in Cope nhagen is pl anned . Denmark.

voyage. Arm ament; 64 guns ranging fr o m I pd rs. to 62 pdrs. Refl oa ted May 4, 196 1, a nd now displayed in a specia l building at Stockholm, Sweden.

1765 ship of the line HMS Victory. 186 ft., built at Chath am Dockya rd . Flags hip of Admiral Lord Nelso n at th e Ba ttle of T rafa lgar in Octo ber 1805 , a nd the ship on which he died . World 's last surviving ship-of-the- line of the period . Armament; 100 guns ranging fro m 12pdrs. to 68pd . carronades. Museum a t P ortsmo uth , Great Britain.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

1865 seago ing monito r Huascar. 200 ft. , bui lt a t 路 Birkenh ead, Engla nd . Iron-hull ed bri grigged stea mer, built fo r Peru a nd ca ptured fr om that Co untry in the War of the Pacifi c

1861 a rmored ri ver gunb oat USS Cairo.

175 ft., built by James B. Eads at Moun d Ci ty, Ill. Act ive in Civ il War ca mpa igns o n O hi o a nd Mi ss issippi ri ve rs a nd tributar ies .

Sunk by a min e in Yazoo Ri ver Dec. 1862.

Broke up whil e bein g ra ised in I 960 's.

Reassembl y in specia l museum ex hi bi t at Vicksburg, Miss. is pla nned . Armament: 6-42 pd rs. & 6-32 pdrs. United States.

1861 a rm ored stea m fri ga te HMS Warrior.

380 ft. , bui lt at Blac kwa ll , Lo ndon . World 's fi rst seago ing iro nclad warship. A rmament : 26-68pdrs. & I 0- 11 Opdrs . C urre ntl y pipeline pier near Mil ford Haven, Wa les. Gt. Britain.

1868 coast defense ba ttleship HMS Cerberus.

225 ft. , built Ja rrow, iron hull. First British warship with superstructure a midships a nd turrets fo re a nd a ft. Spent entire ca reer in Au strali a. G rounded in 1926 as breakwater fo r yacht club nea r Melbourne; engin es removed , bu t o riginal gun s sti ll in turrets, Movement begun to restore and use as museum 1970 . Ma in a rm ament : 4- IOin . guns in two tu rre ts. Australia.

1891 pre-dreadn o ught arm ored crui ser USS

Olympia. 344 ft. , built by Uni on Iron Work s, San Francisco. Flags hip o f Adm . Dewey a t Ba ttle o f Ma nil a Bay in Spa ni sh-American Wa r, May 1898. Also acti ve in W orld Wa r I, in cl ud ing expediti on to north ern Ru ss ia .

Ar ma ment : 4-8 in. guns in two turrets & IO-Sin. Mu seum at Phil adelphi a , Pa., U.S.A. 1900 pre-dreadnought crui ser Aurora. 41 6 ft. , built a t Galernii Island , St. Petersburg.

Gave signal for storming o f Winter Pa lace in

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Bolshev ik Revoluti on of 191 7. Ma in a rmament : 8-6in . gun s. Hi sto ri ca l monument a nd tra inin g ship , moored in Neva River at Leningrad, USSR. 1902 pre-dreadnought ba ttleship Mikasa. 415 ft. , built by Vickers-Armstrong, Barrow, Engla nd . Flags hip o f Admiral Togo at ba ttle of Tsushim a, decisive ac tio n o f Russo-Japa nese Wa r, September 1905. Ma in armament: 4- 12in. gun s in 2 tu rrets. Museum at Yokosuk a, Japan.

1910 a rm ored crui ser A veroff. 461 ft. , built in Ita ly. Armam ent : 4-9in . gun s in two turrets & 8-7i n. gun s in fo ur turrets. Stationa ry training ship a nd museum a t Poros, Greece.

27

WARSHIPS OF THE WORLD 19th Century Steam and Sail Gunboats 1874 cruising gunboat Uruguay. 158 ft., built in Birkenhead, England for Argentina. Later career was spent as hydrographic and Antarctic Research vessel. Rescued Norwegian party from Weddell Sea in 1903 . Armament: 2-6in . guns. Preserved as historic monument, fully restored, at Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1877 cruising gunboat Abel Tasman exBonaire. 148 ft., built at Rotterdam . Iron barkentine-rigged steamer, designed for service in Dutch East Indies. Armament: l-5 .9in. gun & 3-4.7in . guns. Current ly floating barracks for Nautical College at Delfzijl, Holland . Not open to public . Eventual restoration and use as museum is being considered. Netherlands.

1878 cruising gunboat HMS Gannet. 170 ft., bark-rigged steamer with composite hull , hoisting screw and telescopic funnel. Employed protecting outposts of the British empire and British citizens in remote corners of the world . Stationary training ship since 1903 . Armament: 2-7in. guns&4-64pdrs. Acquired by British National Maritime Trust in 1972 for eventual restoration. Great Britain.

1882 cruis ing gunboat HMS Dolphin. 157 ft., built by Dixon & Co., Middlesborough, barkrigged steamer with composite hull. Employed in suppressing the slave trade on the east coast of Africa and in the Red Sea. Training ship since 1896. In stationary use since 1907.

Not open to public. Armament: 2-6in. & 2-5in . guns. Current ly moored at Leith, Scotland, Great Britain.

Torpedo Craft 1907 torpedo boat Drezki. 98 tons, built by Schneider Creusot, France for Bulgaria . Torpedoed Turkish cruiser Hamidiyah September 21, 1912. Armament: 3-18in . torpedo tubes, 2-3pdr. guns. Preserved at Marine Museum, Varna , Bulgaria.

1916 torpedo boat CMB 4. 40 ft., built by Thorneycroft 's Ltd., Southampton . Sank the Rusian cruiser Oleg in 1919. First boat with hydroplane hull; predecessor of the World War II MTB' s a nd PT boats. Armament: one torpedo tube over stern. Preserved in Imperial War Mu seum, London, Great Britain.

1922 torpedo boat CMB 103. 55 ft., built by Thorneycroft's, Southampton . Took part in Normandy Inva sion 1944 . Armament: 2-l 8in. torpedo tubes, 4 Lewis guns. Preserved at Coastal Forces Base, Gosport, Gt. Britain.

1945 PT boat PT-796. 78 ft., built by Higgins at New Orleans. Completed too late for service in World War II. Armament: 4 torpedoes launched from racks, 40mm & 20mm guns. Prese rved at Battleship Cove, Fall River, Mass . U.S.A. 1958 torpedo boat Kranich. built by Fr. Lurssen. Vegesac k. 138 ft. , composite; steel frames a nd diagonal-planked mahoga ny hull.

One of 40 boats of Jaguar class, largest class of torpedo boats built in Germany since World War II. Armament: 2-40MM AA, 4-2lin. torpedo tubes. Museum al Bremerhaven, Germ.any.

28

Submarines 1862 submarine CSS Pioneer. 30 ft., built at New Orleans, for Confederate States of America. Iron, propelled by manually operated screw. Sank several small vesse ls in experiments, never used in combat. Armament: clockwork torpedo desig ned lo be sc rewed to hull of enemy vessel. On exhibit at Cabi ld o Museum, New Orleans, U.S.A. (There are also the experimental submarines Intelligent Whale (1860's) to be seen at Washington Navy Yard, and Fenian Ram (1880's) at Patterso n, New Jersey.

1906 submarine U-1. 139 ft. First submarine of the German Navy. Served as a training vessel during World War I. On exhibit at Deutsches Museum, Munich since 1921. Germany.

1941 submarine U-505. 252 ft., built by Deutsche Werft, Hamburg. Captured at sea off coast of Africa by US Navy task force, June 1944. Exhibited as hore at Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. U.S.A. (It is believed a similar boat is on exhibit at Kiel.)

1941 submarine USS Silversides. 312 ft., built at Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, Calif.

Active in western Pacific during World War 11. Armament: 10-21 in . torpedo tubes, l-3in. gun. Mu seum at Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. (Other surviving boats of Silversides type on exhibit as museum vessels; USS Drum (1941), Mobile Ala.; USS Pampanito (1943), San Francisco; USS Ling (1943), Hackensack, NJ; USS Bow/in (1942), Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, USS Torsk (1944), Baltimore; USS Lionfish (1944), Fall River, MA; USS Batfish (1943), Muskogee, Okla. , USS Becuna (1944), Philadelphia; USS Cava/la (1944), Galveston, TX; USS Cobia (1944), Manitowac, Wisc.; USS Cod (1943), Museum at Cleveland; USS Croaker (1943), Museum at Groton, CT; USS Roncador (1944), Museum at Los Angeles, Calif.)

World War II midget submarine HU-75. 39 ft., built by German Navy for two-man crew.

Armament : 2-21 in. torpedoes. Preserved al Submarine Base, Groton, Conn. U.S.A. (Other surviving vessel of class is on di splay at Washington Navy Yard, Washington, DC).

World War II midget submarines. Designed for two-man crew by Japanese Navy. Armament: 2-18in. torpedoes. Two examples are preserved at the Submarine Base, Groton, Conn. Others may be seen at the Washingto n Navy Yard, Washington, DC; at the Lighthou se Mu seum of the Key West Hi storical Society, Key West, Florida; and at the Submarine Base, Pea rl Harbor, Hawaii .

1953 midget submarine USS Marlin 131 ft. , built at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine. Spent active career as a training vessel. Armament; one torpedo tube forward Muse um at Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A. Destroyers and Escort Vessels 1917 sloop HMS Chrysanthemum. 268 ft., built by Armstrong's Newcastle. Employed in World War I as decoy ship for U-boats, disguised as small merch ant vessel. Armament: 2-4in. guns & 2-2pdrs. Naval Rese rve drill shi.p moored in Tham es a t London, not open

to public. Great Britain.

(Other surving ship of same class: HMS President (1918) ex-Saxifrage, serving same purpose. ) 1929 Destroyer Burza. 351 ft., built by C hantiers Navals Francais, Blainville, France for Poland. Operated with Allied forces throughout World War II. Armament : 4-5.lin . guns, 6-21 in. torpedo tubes. Preserved as Museum at Gdynia, Poland.

1934 sloop HMS Wellington. 266 ft., built by Devonport Dockyard. Active in North Atlantic during World War f.1..Armament: 2-4.7in & l- 3in. guns. Current ly clubhouse moored in Thames at London; not open to public. Gt. Britain.

1942 destroyer escort USS Stewart. 306 ft., built by Brown Shipbuilding Co., Houston, Texas. Unit of Edsall class, active in Atlantic and Mediterranean during World. War II. Armament: 3-3in. guns, 3-21 in torpedo tubes. Museum at Galveston, Texas. U.S.A. 1943 destroyer USS The Sullivans. 377 ft., built by Bethlehem Steel Co ., .San Francisco.

Unit of the Fletcher class. Active in western Pacific in World War II. Armament: 5-5in. guns, I0-2in. torpedo tubes. Museum at Buffa lo, New York. United States.

1943 destroyer HMCS Haida. 355 ft., built

by Vickers Armstrong, Newcastle, England for Canada. Active in North Atlantic during World War I I, and in Korean War. Armament: 4-4in . & 2-3in. guns, 4-2lin. torpedo tubes. Museum at Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

1944 destroyer HMS Cavalier. 340ft., built

by J . Samuel White , Cowes, Isle of Wight.

Active in North Atlantic in last months of World War II. Armament: 4-4 .5in . guns, 8-21 in. torpedo tubes. Being restored for Museun ship. Gt. Britain.

1945 destroyer USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. 391 ft., built by Bethlehem Steel Co., Quincy, Mass. Unit of Allen M. Sumner Class. Active in Korean War. Armament: 6-5in. gun s, 10-2lin. torpedo tubes. Museum at Fa ll River, Mass., U.S.A. Cruisers 1914 light cruiser HMS Caroline. 446 ft., built by Camme ll Laird, Birkenhead. Last survivor of the Battle of Jutland. Main armament: 4-6in. guns. Naval Reserve drill ship at Belfast, North Ireland since 1924. Not open lo public. Great Britain.

1939 light cruiser HMS Belfast. 6 13 ft., built

by Harland & Wolff, Belfast. Active in North Alantic in World War II, including act ion

against German battleship Scharnhorst. Also active i11 Korean War. Main armament: 12-6in. guns in four turrets. Museum al London, Great Britain.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

1944 light cruiser USS Little Rock. 610 ft., built by Cramp Shipbuilding, Philadelphia.

Unit of Cleveland class. Completed too late for World War II, and in layup during Korean War. Co nver ted to gu id ed mi ss le cruiser 1957-60. Armament: 6-6in. guns in two turrets, "Talas" missles. Mu seum at Buffalo, New York, United States.

1944 battleship USS Missouri. 861 ft. , built at Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York . Third ship of Iowa class. Active in western Pacific in World War II , a nd in Korean War. Scene of Japanese surrende r September 2, 1945. Main armament: 9-16in. guns in three turrets.

Op-en to public at Bremerton Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington, United States.

Aircraft Carriers 1943 aircraft carrier USS Yorktown. 786 ft., built by Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock, Newport News , Va. Unit of Essex class.

Active in western Pacific during World War II. Armament: 12-5in. guns, 95 to 100 planes.

Museum at Charleston, S.C., U.S.A. (Other surviving ships of class:) USS Intrepid (1943) proposed museum in New York City; USS Lexington (1943) proposed museum at Pensacola, Fla.)

Battleships 1912 battleship USS Texas. 573 ft., built by Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co ., Newport News, Virginia. Veteran of both World Wars. Last surviv ing early type battleship. Main armament: 1O-l4in. guns in five turrets. Museum at San Jacinto, near Houston , Texas, United States.

1940 battleship USS North Carolina. 729 ft. , built by Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York .

First battleship built in the United States after the Washington Disarmament Conference of 1921. Active in the western Pacific throughout World War II. Main .a rmament: 9-16in. guns in three turrets. Mu seum at Wilmington , North Carolina, United States.

vation as an exhibit is studied.

1918 submarine UC 97. 185 ft., built by Blohm & Voss, Hamburg. Awarded to US after World War I. Sunk as target in Lake Michigan, in 185 ft. of water, in 1921.

Salvage and use as a museu m at Chicago has been proposed.

1938 light cruiser USS St. Louis 608.5 ft., built by Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Va. Veteran of Pearl Harbor attack. Armament; l 5-6in guns. Currently Brazilian Tamandare. Campaign for preservation in U.S. underway.

1942 battleship USS New Jersey 887.5 ft., built at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, PA. Veteran of World War II, Korean War, and War in Vietnam. Main armament; 9-16in. guns. Preserved as Museum at several locations in New Jersey.

Miscellaneous Vessels War II River Monitor Zheleznyakov 157 .5 ft., Armament; 2-4in, 3-45mm & 2-37mm guns. Preserved ashore in a park at Kiev, U.S.S.R.

1942 battleship USS Alabama. 679 ft. , built

by Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, Virginia Fourth ship of South Dakota class.

Active in North Atlantic and western Pacific during World War II. Main armament: 9-16in . guns in three turrets. Museum at Mobile, Ala. U.S.A. (Other surviving ship of same class: USS Massachusells (1942), Museum at Fall River, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

1942 aircraft carrier USS Lexington 888 ft., built by Bethlehem Steel Co., Quincy, Mass .

Proposed Museum at Pensacola, _Florida, U.S.A. 1943 aircraft carrier USS Intrepid 888 ft., built by Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Va . Proposed Museum in New York Harbor, U.S.A. .t

1965 Gunboat USS Asheville 165 ft., built at Tacoma, Wash . Armament; l-3in, l-40mm, & 2-50cal. machine guns. Preserved in Naval Museum fleet at Fall River, Mass. U.S.A. Proposed Museum Ships

Mr. Brouwer hunted up old ships around the

world during his service in the merchant marine, and continues to do so as Historian of South Street Seaport Museum in New York. He is a trustee of the National Society and associate editor of SEA HISTORY.

1862 monitor USS Monitor built at Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY 172 ft. Armament; 2-11 in . guns. Currently sunk off Coast of North Carolina. Possible salvage and preser-

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29

Under the ocean-cleaving bows of a new breed of ship, officials gather to christen the fifth SL-7, the Sea-Land Trade, in March 1973 at Emden, West Germany. She went on to set a new transpacific speed record five months later.

The SL-7: Sea-Land's Clipper Ship

By Peter Stanford

Toward the middle of the last century the American clipper ship burst upon the shipping scene. Radically designed for speed, heavily rigged, manned with large crews, the clippers broke records in all oceans and wrote chapters in shipping history people not only remember but argue about today. One recent school of thought argues that there was no such thing as the clipper ship as a type; she was just a big, fast vessel sailed by owners who valued speed.

But a ship never exists in isolation.

She is a product of commercial and technological ideas, and even of ways of looking at things and styles of doing them. The late Howard Chapelle, dean of historic naval architects, having observed that the clipper ship did not ex. ist as a design, came in one memorable discussion to agree that she did exist as a cultural phenomenon. He was pleased by this resolution, which met a number of criteria, among them the commonsense observation that the world recognized the type clearly-and was astonished by it-at the time.

Early in this decade a remarkable new class of vessel appeared under the American flag. A ship as long as the biggest luxury liners ever built, and capable of the incredible sustained sea speed of 33 knots-faster than the famous 30

Queens, faster than all but one of the superliners, the SS United States.

Seeing the great, graceful hull of one of these ships moving through the harbor, one could not help sensing their contained power and potential for speed. They are simply revolutionary, visibly so, a kind of ultimate ship, a clipper appearing suddenly among us in our time.

The SL-7 is the product of a decision made by Sea-Land Service, Inc. in 1968 to put a new kind of containership on the oceans in the 1970s. Once this decision was reached, work proceeded rapidly. It took only ten months to design and engineer the ships, as well as provide contract plans, specifications, bid forms, shipbuilding contracts and financing. Engineers from Sea-Land's Sea Operations Department, working in conjunction with a naval architecture firm developed the unique SL-7 configurations: Length, overall: 944 '-0" Breadth, molded: 105 '-6" Draft, design: 30 '-0" Displacement: 42, 700 tons Speed: 33 knots Container capacity: 1096 containers of 35 and 40 ft. lengths Complement: 47 officers and crew

The intial order for five of these great ships was increased to eight before the first was launched. The first SL-7 to be completed, the Sea-Land McLean, was launched in September 1972. Celebrations in Sea-Land's home port of Elizabeth, New Jersey, marked the occasion. Between that date and December 1973, the McLean's sister ships took to the water in rapid succession: The

Trade, Finance, Galloway, Commerce, Exchange, Resource, and Market. The ships have seen continuous service ever since, a necessity when operating such captial-intensive equipment. They are maintained with periodic drydocking at the Canadian government shipyard in Esquimault, British Columbia, one of the few yards in the world that can accommodate the huge cargo liners.

The SL-7s serve on the principal arteries of what has become a worldwide high-speed freight service reaching 137 ports, with lesser vessels in the 58-ship Sea-Land fleet filling out the network.

To conserve fuel, the SL-7s generally operate at no more than 25 knots, but their significant reserve speed enables them to meet schedules in the face of adverse weather.

Sea-Land Service began when McLean Industries, a trucking firm, bought a fleet of seven C-2 passengerSEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

The new ships demand a new kind of port, to capitalize on their ability to move large cargoes fast. Here is an SL-7 at Sea-Land's containerport in Oakland, California.

cargo liners operating between New York and southern ports, in 1955. Their first containership was a converted tanker. Her operation was dubbed a success, and in 1956 they rebuilt several T-2 tanker hulls to begin volume movement of freight in containers lifted aboard directly from trucks or railway cars. The T-2s were lengthened 60 feet to carry 240 containers. In 1958 they began work on a giant containerport, suited to the new cargo-handling mode, at Port Elizabeth, New Jersey. This opened in 1962, in time to serve a new fleet of T-3 tanker "jumbos"-vessels with new mid-sections added, and lengthened fully 127 feet to carry 476 containers, with no loss in the vessel's speed.

The next step was the concept of going first-class with giant ships travelling faster than all but one ocean liner had ever travelled before, and that is what produced the SL-7s. One is reminded of Bully Waterman sailing converted cotton packets to China in the 1840s, until his owners decided to take the plunge and built him Sea Witch as our first outand-out clipper. And in the SL-7s one sees the same dynamics at work that led to the clipper revolution: a concept of shipping economics that drastically cuts cargo transit time by high investment.

Today American ships are more costly to sail then those of other nations . So were our sailing clippers. But they sailed with short turnaround and full cargoes, and they captured the top of the ocean shipping market.

The clippers were succeded by Fullerbodied Down Easters," as steam service made their extreme speed increasingly irrelevant. But, interestingly, the Down Easters were faster ships and sailed more agressively than other sailing ships of their era. "It was notorious that you ate better but worked harder under the American flag at sea.

Vessel replacement and acqms1t1on programs continue at Sea-Land today.

The first of four new D-6 containerships built in 1978 for the Company was recently launched at the Mitsubishi shipyard in Kobe, Japan. Named Leader, Pacer, Pioneer and Adventurer, the new ships will fly the American flag and be manned by US crews. They are powered by energy-efficient six cylinder diesel engines, and will carry 595 containers. They are fitted with shipboard gantry cranes, for flexibility in serving

ports not fully developed for container to move into markets as our resources service. The first two vessels will be permitted and a lot faster then the typical assigned to Sea-Land's direct service American carrier." between Europe and the Mid-East. The Essentially Sea-Land is dedicated to the real economics of fast, reliable last two ships will be placed into Seafreight movement. They grew to world land's direct service between the Far leadership in containerized shipping by East and the Mid-East, across the Indian investing fully to achieve that concept in Ocean.

And Sea-Land reports that they are market after market, studying the marnow evaluating construction bids for 12 ket in each case, and actually changing new linehaul containerships. the market with the impact of their serWhat of the future? Sea-Land is well . vice. They currently look to continued aware of the problems faced by American improvement and continued expansion ships competing on world trade routes in their worldwide system, viewing that against heavily subsidized foreign vessels. as the way to meet all competition. "I Running a completely unsubisdized don't mean that our cost economics operation themselves, they feel their own would be as low as those of a foreign 22-year history of success holds lessons state-owned carrier,'' says Hiltzheimer. for their future. "We had the flexibility "But our total resources, and our total to determine what trades we would serve capacity would enable us to withstand and in what fashion," notes Chariman C. just about any kind of intrusion by I. Hiltzheimer. "We generally were able anyone." .t

The grace of an utterly functional hull is apparent in this aerial view of a giant SL-7, the Sea-Land Galloway, cutting across a calm sea on one of her weekly transatlantic runs.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

31

THE U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE: A Commitment to Education of Serving Officers-and the Public!

By Wm. Ray Heitzmann, Ph.D.

Long recognized by the naval and maritime community as a significant contributor to the intellectual discussion of naval issues, the Naval lnstitute's tradition of service to the Navy and naval officers dates back over one hundred years. Liveliness and openness characterize the Naval lnstitute's programs-as result of which it has been a center of innovation and change in this last century of rapid and sometimes overwhelming change.

Looked upon as a successor to the Naval Lyceum (see SH 9) the lnstitute's founding came at a time when the nation's concern with domestic affairs far overshadowed its foreign interests. Rising in this period of naval doldrums (not too different from the present era) were a group of naval officers whose interest in the state of their Navy led them to found the Institute in 1873. These young Turks cou ld document their concern: the Navy of the 1870s consisted of an out-dated undersized collection of very limited ships in various states of disrepair; an excess of officers made promotion painfully slow; training among the enlisted men was infrequent and sometimes non-existent! Commodore Foxhall A. Parker's comments on the 1874 Key West naval maneuvers nicely summarize the dismal situation: "The vessels before us were in no respect of a great nation like our own ... for what cou ld be more painful ... than to see a fleet armed with smooth bore guns , requiring close quarters for their development, movin g at a rate of 4 \/2 knot s? What inferior force could it overtake or what superior force escape from, of any the great powers of the earth? "

A "Mutual Learning Company" Under these circumstances a group of men came together and founded a professional society dedicated to the "advancement of professional, literary, and scientific knowledge in the Navy". A charter member remarked, "We must constitute ourselves a sort of mutual learning company.'' The core of the first meeting (1873) at Annapoli s consisted of the reading of a scholarly paper on the Battle of Lepanto; thus the society began on the intellectual note which has came to characterize its work.

From the beginning the Institute had an impact upon the Navy. The second paper (later published in the Proceedings as the magazine's first article) presented

by Captain Stephen B. Luce in 1874, "The Manning of Navy and Merchant

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

Marine," convinced Congress to act to rectify the problems he addressed. Luce followed up this success with a presentation (and Proceedings article in 1884) entitled "War Schools" delivered at the lnstitute's Newport branch. He argued for a post-graduate school as a "place of original research on all questions relating to war and to statesmanship connected with war." The efforts of Luce and some of his associates resulted in a general order issued in 1884, establishing the Naval War College. The College faced serious difficulties during its early years; Luce successfully defended it in the pages of the Proceedings.

The Proceedings The Proceedings has served as the organization's main vehicle to achieve its purpose. Begun as a journal to record the society's activities, it expanded and became a monthly in 1917. The position of the Institute was stated early, following publication of an article critical of the Navy's training procedures: "The Board is of the opinion that a free discussion of the various questions affecting the service can only be beneficial." They further explained "it is the earnest hope of the Board that all officers will express their opinions vigorously and freely in the Proceedings . .. " Admiral Arleigh Burke, one of the most popular of the lnstitute's presidents (by tradition the Chief of Naval Operations serves in this office), qualifies the above: "there shouldn't be any articles in the Naval Institute Proceedings that tear down the Navy. There should be articles that try to improve the Navy."

Articles generally fall into the three main categories: professional education, historical and technical. "The School of the Officer" (1902), "The Naval Officer as a Speaker and Instructor" ( 1949) and "Graduate Education-The Continuing Imperative" (1973) typify professional education articles. The Institute's concern with naval history began with Parker's paper at the first meeting; the tradition thus begun has been maintained. Present Proceedings general policy

calls for one historical piece a month and a shorter "Old Navy" article on alternating months. Often a pictorial essay appears in lieu of one of the above.

These have fallen into "narrative accounts" and "interpretive and analytic" essays. Some of these historical pieces constitute the finest primary sources available on naval history.

Many Civil War participants recorded their observations in the pages of the Proceedings. In his "The 'Monitor' and the 'Merrimac'," Foxhall Parker recalled, "On the Monitor not a word was spoken; but each man registered a vow of vengenance, on the tablets of his heart against the ruthless Merrimac. " In 1927 Rear Admiral John Watson in "Farragut and Mobile Bay-Personal Reminiscences" verified a sometimes disputed fact. "I was standing on the poop deck at the time and heard the Admiral shout, on the instant it seemed: 'Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead, Dayton'." The brillant naval intellectual Alfred Thayer Mahan in "Blockade to Naval Strategy" (1895) and Lieutenant Commander W. L. Rodgers, "A Study of Attacks Upon Fortified Harbors" (1904) provide a technical strategic analysis of Civil War situations.

More recent publications on the war are exemplified by "Lieutenant Carvel Hall Blair's interesting "Submarines of the Confederate Navy" ( 1952) and "Sea Power in the Civil War" ( 1961) by the prolific naval historian Rear Admiral John Hayes; additional historical articles have focused on famous ships-a particular interest of maritime and naval enthusiasts .

Technical articles cover such matters as navigation, strategy and what might be called educating the Navy Department. The contribution of publications of this nature can be seen from the comment of Rear Admiral R. W. McNitt: "During World War II 1 read a short art icle by a Coast Guard officer explaining the relationship of surface currents on the ocean to wind direction. I clipped the article and a few month s later used it in navigating the USS Barb to a rendezuous with survivors from a torpedoed troopship who had been drifting on rafts for severa l days. Four hours after our arrival typhoon winds made further rescue impossible. I credit the rescue of twenty men to the accuracy of our pred icted position based on what I read in the Proceedings. "

As the "vehicle for professional expression" desired by the founding 33

U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE

Arthur Beaumont 1890-1978

fathers the Proceedings provides a "Comment and Discussion" section for reaction to articles-this has often resulted in useful dialogues for man y years. More recently "Nobody Asked Me, But. .. " and "Leadership Forum," offer outlets for short, to-the-point contributions which add to the lively interchange.

The Naval Institute Press

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34

The book-publishing activities of the lnstitute's press commenced with The Log of the Gloucester by Lieutenant Commander Richard Wainwright in 1899. In the ensuing years close to four hundred titles have served the naval and maritime community. Prese ntly they divide into the following categories: nav igation and seamanship, professional books, reference books, science and engineering, histor y, biography and service life. Some of these have become classics: Dutton' s Navigation and

Piloting; Naval Customs, Tradition and Usage; Prayers at Sea; the officer guides (Marine Officer's Guide, others); Welcome Aboard; and for seventy-six years the most widely read and bestknown of alt, The Blue Jacket's Manual.

History has been taken up in such welt recogni zed volumes as Greek and Roman Naval Warfare (1937) and Naval Warfare Under Oars ( 1940) by Vice Admiral William Ledyard Rodgers; Der Seekrieg by Fleet Admiral William Leahy; Commander Robert Waring's

Soviet Naval Strategy-Fifty Years of Theory and Practice and most recently the co-publishing (with American Heritage) of the outstanding The U.S. Navy-An !//ustrated History.

The Naval Review, first published in 1962, . was conceived with the thou ght that some phases of current policies and operations of the U.S. Navy in particular, and of the defense effort in general, could benefit from thorou gh sc rutin y, analysis and di sc ussion in a major annual publication."

Specifically, "it examines in great depth the most important questions facing the Navy each year;" because of this, orientation articles are solicited by the editor.

The Review has been published since 1970 as the May issue of the Proceedings, for financial reasons . Its articles serve to educate the officer and the Department of the Navy. The former category is typified by "Dangerous and Exotic Cargoes" ( 1973) and "Educating Future Naval Officers" (1967); the latter by "Progress is Our Most Important Problem" (1962-63) and "The Develop-

ment of Navy Strategic Offensive and Defensive Systems" (1970).

Special Programs From the earliest years of the Institute the Prize Essay Contest has served as one of its most important functions . In its 99th year the winners read like a litany of naval intellectuals; the early years saw winning or honorable mention essays by Mahan, Goodrich, Chambers, W.L. Rodgers, R.C. Smith, Wainwright, Calkins and Belknap. The twentieth century has continued the tradition-Luce, Alger, Fiske, King, Hayes, Taussig, Eller and Puleston. The Vincent Astor Memorial Leadership Essay Contest for Junior Officers and Officer Trainees of the Sea Services provides an opportu nit y for future leaders to air their observations. These essays contribute to the lnstitute's mission.

In 1969 the Naval Institute established an Office of Oral History with the hope that it "wi ll one day be a valuable so urce for those who will write the naval histories of our time."

Additional programs include the Naval and Maritime photographic Contest, which has produced outstanding photographs. (The Institute maintains one of the finest and largest collections of photographs in the world).

From the perspective of this author a relatively recent development by the Institute shows promise of educating the American public to its maritime tradition . For too long the Institute has "preached in church" reminding the membership of the Navy's importance; fortunately it is taking its show on the road. America's Maritime Heritage, a high sc hool textbook by Eloise Engle and Lieutenant Com mander Arnold Loot, provides an excellent account of the nation's rich and colorful nautical tradition. Originally disigned for the NJOTC market, the book will find a home among educators, libraria ns and students. We may hope this trend will contin ue as Americans seem to be beginning to remember the role the sea and inland waters have played in the development of the American nation.

The U.S. Naval Institute has continuously and successfully se rved the naval officer, the Navy Department and the nation for over a century; a brighter future lies ahead as the Institute not only continues its historic role but branches out to educate the American public. .t Dr. Heitzmann, a maritime historian and educator, wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Naval Institute.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS

Progress in the Defence Dig .............................................................................. ""'5

~o--..r..r..r..r..r..r..r.....-.....-

~ "To the extent 8always taught

By David C. Switzer, Defence Excavation Project Director

"We think Delays in the present Case are extremely dangerous," the captains in the American fleet operating in Penobscot Bay wrote to their commodore, while he hemmed and hawed about the task of ousting a small British force from their base at Bagaduce. The intelligent fears of the captains were overwhelmingly realized when on August 13 a British squadron appeared in the offing, bottling up the American force of nineteen vessels. The whole fleet was scuttled. Careful work is now going forward under the direc.tion of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology to recover the remains of one of these ships, the Defence, as reported here. -ED. The excavation of the mud-imbedded hull of the Revolutionary War privateer Defence, scuttled by her crew in Stockton Harbor, Maine, following the disastrous Penobscot Expedition of 1779, has been the goal of an underwater archaedlogical project initiated in 1975 by the Maine State Museum. The project began in the summer of 1975 with a survey of the wreck site of the Massachusetts-built brig. Excavation of the hull began during the summer of 1976 and has continued through the summer of 1978.

The project involves a multi-institutional approach: The Maine State Museum is responsible for the holding, preserving, and the display of artifacts.

The Maine Historic Preservation Commission maintains responsibility for the administration of the Defence site, which is included in the National Register of Historic Places. Maine Maritime Academy .Provides logistical support and technical assistance. Supervision of the archaeological work ·is the responsibility of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) based at Texas A&M University.

Funding for the survey and successive field seasons has come from a variety of sources including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, the National Geographic Society and the Texas A&M Research Foundation.

In addition to the recovery of artifacts, the archaeological investigation of the Defence has provided first-hand knowledge of shipbuilding techniques of the era. Approximately fifty percent of the hull is being documented by means of drawings and photography. Prof. DavSEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

has~ S

that the sea us lessons in cooperation and determination , it§ is indeed fitting that you should be gathered together as a band of § Scitizens, united in the task of 8 §reviving our maritime heritage. "

§ §

§

§

§

~

The shot locker (port side) reassembled on work float. Impressions of cannon balls can be seen on interior surface. Photo, D. Switzer

id B. Wyman of Maine Maritime Academy, associate project director, is transposing structural information and dimensions into a set of plans of the hull.

These plans, along with the record of the provenance of artifacts recovered from the inner hull, will provide the unique opportunity to develop two models. In add ition to building a model restoration of the hull remains, it will be possible to create a complimentary "use model" that includes the human dimensions.

During the past field season, June and July 1978, efforts were concentrated in the midship area and at the st ill-standing stump of the mainmast.

Silt and mud were removed by airlifts operated with a grid system placed over the wreck. Numerous artifacts were found in the mud and within the ballast, among them were mess kits, spoons, and crockery, medicine bottles, navigation instruments, gunner's handspikes and grape-shot stools.

At the main mast the largely intact shot locker and bilge pump well were exposed. Following in situ documentation, the structure was disassembled, raised, and reassembled for further photographic documentation and then transported to holding tanks at the State Museum . To learn more about the hull construction and design , some ceiling planking was removed to determine the method of frame construction.

As the field season ended, a sheathing of polyethylene was laid down and the excavated areas refilled with sand. To protect the exposed structure.

While many of the artifactual and structural elements of the Defence can be easily identified or interpreted, there are still many questions to be answered.

Also yet to be discovered is the identity of the builder of the Defence or a muster or crew list. With the latter it will be possible to associate many items bearing w initials with the owners or users.

~

-Senator Edward M. Kennedy

§ §s

§

§ §

§ §

§

§ ~

We join Senator 8 8 Kennedy in saluting § § the remarkable § ~ efforts of the Ship § § Trust of the National ~ ~ Maritime Historical ~ § Society. §

~ Bay Refractory ~ ~ 164 Wolcott St. ~

§

Brooklyn, N.Y. 11231

§

~.................................................................................................................................0-~

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35

A Seaport Museum for Liverpool

By Michael Stammers Keeper of Maritime History County of Merseyside Museum Liverpool, England

In recent years Mr. Stammers has worked on plans for a seaport museum on the 19th-century docks of Liverpool, a port which grew to greatness on the Western Ocean packet trade to New York. In 1972 the National Society joined him on a televised tour of the site, advocating the museum. Here Mr. Stammers, who is a member of the Falkland Islands Project and active in other Ship Trust affairs, reports on progress in this most important undertaking.-ED. It really looks as if Liverpool will get its long awaited waterfront maritime museum. Plans are well in hand for a museum sited in the historic Canning and Albert Dock areas of the port. The old pilot office of 1883 has been taken over as a headquarters building for the project. Costed proposals will be laid before the Merseyside County Council for its approval by the end of 1978. The new mu se um is planned to hou se all the great maritime collection <>f Merseyside County Museum (formerly Liverpool Museum) with its wealth of models, pictures and archives. The 19th-century emigration to the USA and Canada will be a major feature. It is hoped to preserve examples of full-si ze vessels both afloat and in the two 18th-century grav ing docks on the site.

The Museum already owns a number of small local boats including the nobby Daystar. She was built about 1891 and is an early example of the yacht- lik e lines adopted for this type of inshore fishing vessel at this time. She was cutter rigged with a long sliding bows prit and a large jackyard topsail. She was designed for traw ling s hrimps and her large sail area enabled her to race the catch to market in prime condition. She was working until bought by the Museum in 1970, although latterly under motor alone. A few nobbies are still fishing from the Mersey and along the northwest coast mostly under power and quite a few have been converted to cruising yachts.

Because of Daystar's age, we have reluctantly decided to preserve her ashore, but in full rigged condition to ensure that one at least of these beautiful cutters is kept in perpetuity.

w

36

SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT INTERNATIONAL

NATIONAL

Discovery, the Antarctic exploration ship put up for sale by the Ministry of Defence (SH 11 , 31) has been taken on by the Maritime Trust of England, which is now seeking funds. The greater London council has donated ÂŁ4,000, but more must be raised to care for the vessel when the Ministry ends its ties in 15 months' time. Plans are being made to fully restore her as a steam bark and moor her at St. Katherines Dock, London . The National Maritime Museum would like to put aboard a "Museum of Explorat ion" focusing on worldwide exploration.

A $5 million maritime heritage fund has been appropriated by the US Congress, to be administered by the Department of Interior. Introduced by the Ship Trust Committee of the National Society, this item was conceived specifically for emergency action to save major historic ships and to encourage sail training projects . The need was documented by the record of recent losses: Champigny, (SH 8;) Alexander Hamilton, (SH 10); Niantic, (SH 11). Essentially it is hoped that the fund will be administered to provide the "ambulance service" called for by Frank G. G. Carr, Chairman of the World Ship Trust Project headquartered in London, and to keep in life the disciplines of traditional seafaring, which are considered a living part of an endangered heritage.

The Australian Bicentennial in 1988 may see the re-enactment of a dramatic moment of history. In 1788 eleven ships. six of which were floating prisons, sailed to Botany Bay to found Australia. Plans are being made to build two replicas, of HMS Sirius, the 540-ton flagship of the original fleet and the 170-ton sloop HMS Supply, to resail the route in 1988. The six transports that carried the prisoners will be rebuilt from hulks in Scotland . Three other vessels will be built to serve as the three store ships that accompanied the original journey. The complete plans of HMS Sirius and Supply are on file with the British Admiralty. The 1988 voyage would follow the 1788 route from England, by way of Rio de Janeiro and Capetown to Sydney, a distance of 24,000 km. The trip should take about 8 months and will carry around 400 fare-paying participants. Jonathan King of the University of Melbourne is promoting this ambitious scheme.

MS Explorer, former geodetic survey vessel, is to be converted into a restaurant-disco center in Belize, British Honduras, Central America. Bought recently by a local consortium for the conversion, the Explorer, built in 1904, is on a sandbar off Belize. She was used on the Alaskan and Hawaiian coasts for charting and maping expeditions until World War II, when she was refitted for gunboat service.

More recently she was the flagship for the State of Washington Bicentennial celebration.

The Tall Ship Races-1980 program will be announced after an international meeting of the Sail Training Association in London, November 12. The races may end in Leningrad , and include a stop at Tallinn, Estonia, in the USSR, where the Olympic sailing races will be held . Other events planned include a race to Sweden and possible final celebration in Amsterdam.

Western Hemisphere ships may rendezvous at Boston, in May or June 1980 on their way to Europe. This reception would honor the 350th anniversary of the seaport city, under arrangements now being worked out by the American Sail Training Association.

The Department of the Interior through its existing historic preservation program, is making available an increasing amount of matching funds for maritime preservation projects. Since 1971 Interior has made matching grants totaling more than $595,000 to 17 vessels. In the last three years the grants have totaled over $355,000. The program is open to items on the National Register of Historic Places and is administered through the State Preservation Offices. The Saguin of the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine, has received $73,523 for survey and restoration work over two years. The Wawona of the Northwest Seaport, Inc. has received grants totalling $53,000 since 1971. Other grants of sim ilar scale have been made to the SS San Mateo, a ferryboat in Bainbridge Island, and the Virginia Vat Seattle, both in Washington, the USS Olympia at Philadelphia, the USS Constellation at Baltimore, and others. The Department of the Interior's commitment to the maritime heritage is growing and represents the largest source of public money available for maritime preservation.

The National Endowment for the Humanities is also taking an increasing interest in maritime heritage projects. The remarkable new exhibition in the National Maritime Museum at San Francisco, the comprehensive exhibit "New England and the Sea" at Mystic seaport, and the new master plan for the buildings of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum at St. Michael's, Maryland, are among major maritime projects supported with matching funds by the Endowment.

Support has also been extended to research projects and to ship restoration projects, notably the Ernestina/ Morrissey project administered by the National Society. A further report on Endowment efforts in this area will be given in a future issue.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has begun disbursement of over $320,000 turned over to it from the proceeds of Operation Sail in 1976. Awards in a first round of grants range from $1,000 for the restoration of the sloop Great Republic in Gloucester, to $160,000 for South Street Seaport Museum's square-rigger Wavertree in New York. Elissa SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

& MUSEUM NEWS (see SH 11, 29) received $15,000, and smaller grants were made to other projects across the country . Among the 19 grants was $10,000 "in escrow" for the Ernestina/Morrisey.

Aplications for a second round of grants from the Op Sail fund should be sent by December 31 to Maritime Division, NTHP, 740-748 Jackson Place NW, Washington, DC 20006.

The National Society's Falkland Island's Project is mounting a third expedition to the islands for detailed survey of the Vicar of Bray, last surviving ship of the California Gold Rush. Made possible by generous private contribution, this expedition sets sail. in December. Its main object is to develop practical plans for return of the Vicar to San Francisco. Full report of the second expedition, mounted with South Street Seaport Museum and other participating organizations, will be made in SH 13 . A film on the Falklands heritage, "Ghosts of Cape Horn," is also being produced under National Society auspices. Those with a particular interest in these efforts to recover the heritage of historic sailing ships hulked in the Falklands are invited to be in touch.

Sea Education Association Director Corwith Cramer, Jr., has outlined the achievements of the Association, sailing the schooner Westward in 1977: "to us in SEA the most important statistics are the 123 students who graduated from Sea Semester in 1977. They came from 64 colleges and universities and represent 25 states and one foreign country.

We're particularly pleased that we were able to expand funded scholarship aid to our students from $16,000 to nearly $25,000 in 1977." The report stresses academic excellence as "our most important immediate objective. We established the position of dean to coordinate and strengthen the academic program; we funded a bunk aboard ship for visiting scholars .. .. During 1977 we provided week-long 'Seminars at Sea' for classes from Cornell University and from the Williams College/Mystic Seaport maritime studies program." The success of the program is reflected in the next step proposed in this report: "To meet the growing demand we shall need a larger sea-going campus. We have been unable to find an existing, suitably sized sailing ship. We therefore shall complete preliminary designs for a new one in 1978."

EAST COAST Correction of the New England Schooners List (SH 11, 30). Our list covered the 20 and growing number of windjammer schooners that take passengers for a week or a couple of days' sail. Many readers have pointed out that an historic New England Schooners List would have included many other vessels of note. Sorry for the confusion. To update the NE Windjammer list there is already the addition of Voyager, launched early this summer, to operate out of Mystic and Annapolis on two- and three-day sails. Welcome to the fleet, Voyager! Steamboat Wharf, Mystic, CT 06355. Tel. (203) 572-0077.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

Chantey Festival in Seattle

By John Townley X Seamen's Institute

The Wiscasset Schooners in Maine, imperilled by a fire started by 1uly 4th fireworks, may have a new lease on life. The Lu/her Li/tie of 1917 and Hesper of 1918, both built at South Somerset, Maine, have lain as hulks on the foreshore of this small Down East town for nearly half a century and are the last survivors of the big multi-mast Down East schooner. Peter Throckmorton, Falkland Island Project director and curator-at-large for the National Society, is now working with town fathers to stabilize the hulks and open them to public exhibition with a small museum on the heritage they represent. lnq u i ries may be directed Wiscassett Schooners, NMHS, 2 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY 11201.

The Piscataqua Gundalow Project of Strawbery Banke (SH 11, 34) has raised $5,000 toward the building of this traditional craft, says Peggy Armitage, Director of Strawbery Banke. This summer saw other activities including City Sunday on August 6, when visitors to Strawbery Banke could see the outline of the Fannie M., the gundalow to be built, laid out. A New Hampshire lumberer, Ed Bartlett, has been looking for pine logs to start construction early in the fall.

Ellis Rowe of Wells, Maine will rough out the logs when they arrive. A Speakers Bureau has been formed to promote interest in the gundalows and the project. On November 3, Prof.

William A. Baker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and designer of the Mayflower II among other replicas, will speak on gundalows, wherries, sailing barges, and other working craft of the world's estuaries, at 8 PM, Kittery Naval and Historical Museum, in Kittery, Maine. For more information, contributions, or Speakers Bureau: Piscataqua Gundalow Project, PO Box 1303, Portsmouth NH 03801.

The Peabody Museum of Salem, Massachusetts, houses a unique service for serious cruising yachtsmen, provided by the Cruising Information Center. Sponsored and run by the Cruising Club of America, the Center in the past two years has gathered information in depth in such areas as weather, winds, customs regulations, port facilities, and "delicate political situations," all over the world. Fees, on an individual contract basis, range from $50 to $150 or more for longer cruises. Most work is done by mail, but the office is open to stop by Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings. Cruising Information Center, Peabody Museum, 161 Essex street, Salem MA 01970. Tel. (617) 745-1876.

The sparkling summer skies of Seattle smiled down on new piece of sea history revival as July turned to August over Puget Sound. I was fortunate enough, along with the rest of the musical X Seamen's Institute, to have been invited to join in a solid week of sea-song along the Seattle waterfront, to welcome ships and sailors of the American Sail Training Association's Tall Ships Pacific.

And the company of English singer Lou Killen and the legendary Stan Hugill, the last living true chanteyman and researcher of most of what is known about chanteys today, made the week unforgettable.

As a member of a New York chanteying crew, I have tended to view the musical sea tradition as a rather small pond. My trip to Seattle certainly changed my view-and far for the better.

Greeting the majestic US Coast Guard's training bark Eagle as she sailed down the sound from Vancouver, accompanied by a fleet of smaller square-riggers, yachts and wooden fishing vessels, was an international host of chantey singers, gathered from across the nation and across the sea to join in the choruses of the songs of a not-so-by-gone age.

The following week saw dozens of concerts and workshops with Stan Hugill, Lou Killen, Utah Phillips, the X, and other local and West Coast singers that filled in a kaleidescope of sea music, from soulful forebitters to rousing capstan and halyard chanteys, focussing on the many different aspects of work, history, and sea experience reflected by the songs of the tall ships. After a week spent singing and sailing in the matchless Northwest air and sea, we all came away with a feeling that sea music is a stillgrowing and living tradition-and we and the thousands in our audiences had shared a very special time together.

It is a tradition that will continue to grow, as festival organizers David Baumgarten and Clark Bramson plan to repeat the affair next year, this time in coordination with an East Coast chantey festival put together by Bernie Klay of the X Seamen's Institute. Individuals and organizations who would like to join in should write to Sea History-the sooner it gets under way, the better.

Watch for an album of this unique festival as well, scheduled for release after Christmas, a chronicle of a true first in living sea history. .t 37

Down East Notes

SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS

By Charles F. Sayle, Sr. Nantucket, Massachusetts It is hoped to launch the schooner John F. Leavitt at Thomaston, Maine before s now flies. They have 10 or 12 men working on her now. She's all planked, and cabin trunk and hatch coaming being built. Spars are in the yard, and standing rigging is ready. It will be a big event, and she is expected to be laun ched all rigged and ready to sail. Ernest Smith of Fairhaven has her sails ready to rope.

A crew is working on the old fishing schooner Laura Goulart (1921) sunk at the Percy & Small Yard, Bath, Maine the past 15 years. Getting ready to put slings around her to lift with a big crane as well as air bags inside. This weekend a crew is working to extend the north ways at the P & S yard 24' more into deeper water, so she can be hauled behind the tug Seguin for rebuild . That will make three old Gloucestermen of 1921 afloatGoulart, Dunton, and American. They expect to have the Goulart afloat by September 15 .

Bath Marine Museum has enjoyed their busiest summer ever. A large building is being built in the back of the small craft restora tion shop to house the small boat collection. And they are getting ready to start rebuilding Seguin this fall after they hou se her over.

The last schooner built at Essex, Massachusetts, Eugenia J., launched in 1949, has been in here the past three weeks and sailed for home, Vineyard Haven, yesterday. Name is now Suzy.

Bill Baker- is working on the sail plan for Ernestina. Havilah Hawkins has given up on building a topsail schooner for now, due to sky-high costs. Shenandoah and Bill of Rights have been over ¡ here a number of times this summer and are a breath of fresh air in a sea of plastic .

Captain Pete Culler's passing was a great loss . The contents of hi s shop are going to Mystic, and 1 understand they would like to move shop and all to set up at the Seaport.

Hope you have enjoyed a fine summer.

M~~~~ ~~l~nd uises

(~) ¡-

95' Windjammer

~ Harvey Gamage, - -

(203) 669-7068

Box SH, 39 Waterside Lane, Clinton, Conn. 064 13

38

At Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, part of the premier collection of whaling art and artifacts, the Barbara Johnson Collection, was on exhibition at the R. J. Schaefer Building this summer. Made up of scrimshaw, logbooks, ship portraits and whaling gear collected by Mrs. Johnson with the expert counsel of Edouard Stackpole of Nantucket, the collection includes such treasures as an original edition of Moby Dick with handwritten notes by Herman Melville.

One third of the Charles W. Morgan's deck was replaced last spring with long-leaf yellow pine spiked with bronze fastenings. Ship-

wright Howard Davis led the crew caulking the new decking this summer, affording a fasc inating outdoor exercise utilizing the tools his grandfat her used as shipwright in a _M ystic yard.

As summer ended, Mystic's third annual Antique and Classic Boat Rendezvous saw forty sai l and power craft assembled to show off some lovely hulls lovingly maintained by private owners.

Mystic now has a curator to replace Revell Carr, who became director this year. He is Benjamin A. G. Fuller, who had been Assistant Director at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.

Schooner Incorporated ran a summer small boats program in New Haven Harbor to supplement the sailing of their sc hooner Trade Wind. Three K Boats on loan from Yale were used for the program, which included classes held six evenings a week. Trade Wind took groups for full day sailing environmental awareness instruction, ranging up and down Long Island Sound and as far afield as Staten Island in New York. Schooner Inc., 60 South Water St., New Haven CT 06519. Tel. (203) 865-1737.

The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater traveled this summer to Seabrook, New Hampshire, to join the Clamshell Alliance in demonstrating against the building of the Seabrook nuclear power plant. The demonstration involved local fishermen and others who feel a stake in the estuarine life which contributes to the life of the ocean. "That whole week," reports Clearwater Association President Angela Magill, "Clearwater was awash with visitors who knew us a nd were excited and approving of our miss ion. It was good to be able to say we represented 5,000 people iri the Hudson Valley who were with them in their protest." The sloop returned to take part in the Great Hudson River Revival at Croton Point, where 14,000 people gathered to join Pete Seeger, Ario Guthrie and others in song, with other festival activities. Clearwater, 112 Market St., Poughkeepsie, NY 12601.

The Atlantic Ocean Alliance, a newly formed environmental action group headquartered at Toms River, started to build a replica 1850 saili ng garvey in September. Built from plans acquired from the Smithsonian Institution, the garvey will be used to monitor pollution a nd encourage improved access and public use of New Jersey waterways. Labor costs of $52,000 are being met through CETA. AOA President Paul Lander says that $1,500 has been raised toward total materials cost of $6,500. Sam Hunt, known to Jerseyites as a member of the Pineconers, a group devoted to the traditional folk music of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, will supervise construction. An active membership is enrolling to support this enterprise. AOA, PO Box 942, Toms River, NJ 08753.

The Maryland Dove is scheduled as we go to press to arrive under sail at Old St. Mary's City on October 8 from her builder James Richardson's yard near Cambridge, Maryland. William A. Baker, the nation' s leading designer of historic craft, drew plans for this

The English-Speaking Union is sponsoring two Winston Churchill Traveling Fellowships in Recycling of Landmark Structures, open to New York State residents or employees ages 25-45. A grant of $4,000 is provided for at least three months ' travel and work. E-SU, Education Dept., 16 East 69th St., NYC 10021.

The National Society offers seminars at its Brooklyn headquarters, on the seco nd Thursday of each month, aboard Olga's Musicbarge tied up to the Society's pier just south of the Brooklyn Bridge. For schedule, write NMHS, 2 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY 11201.

reconstruction of a vessel of the type of the original Dove, which along with the larger

(continued on page 41) SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

Catching Up on New Jersey's Maritime Heritage

By Glenn Gordinier Board of Directors Down Jersey Marine Historical Society Box 1031 Delran NJ 08075 The usual New Jersey resident envimarque granted by the Congress in 1976, sions a crowded beach and boardwalk which makes her America's only authorwhen he thinks of the sea. But his ized privateer. maritime heritage embraces privateers, Most of the Down Jersey collection of shipbuilding, life saving, coastwise artifacts and vessels is on display at traders, whaling, and a five hundredHistoric Gardner's Basin Maritime Park vessel fleet of sailing oystermen. Four in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The thiryears ago, the Down Jersey Maritime teen-acre park is designed to represent a turn-of-the-century Jersey seacoast vilHistorical Society came into being to bring fresh life to that half-forgotten lage with its old Absecon Island cedar shake houses. The Society's floating vesheritage, born as the dream of Donald sels are docked in the Basin's slips, and H. Rolfs, an energetic Methodist its smaller craft in the new boatyard and minister. shed where members continue the work Rolfs' dream unfolded when he was of restoration. In addition to the ongogiven a parish in Port Norris, an old oystering town near the Delaware Bay. ing process of acquisition , research, and restoration the Society has been involved There he found living ties with the in local conferences on the sea and burgeoning oyster trade of the turn of educational programs and lectures at the century. He published a pictorial Gardner's Basin. history of the trade, Under Sail, the Dredgeboats of Delaware Bay, and The organization suffered a harsh setback on June 23, 1978 when its museum rounded up a handful of supporters to found tire Society as a nonprofit educabuilding at the Basin burned down. This tional organization in 1974. Since then, included a ship's chandlery exhibit, an the Society has grown to over 500 exhibits room, office space and sleeping members and has gathered an impressive quarters for the membership. Valuable collection of artifacts and vessels. Much artifacts and documents and two Jersey of its strength and expertise stems from hunting boats that were on display were members who worked in the shipyards destroyed. On the night of the fire the or on the schooners that dredged the bay members of the Society's board of direcunder sail three decades ago. tors spontaneously met at the Rolfs' The 90' LOA bugeye ketch Russel A . home. Unbidden, each director had come to hear of the loss first hand, and Wingate is the Society's principal vessel. to offer continued guidance and supBuilt in Madison, Maryland in 1901 she port, thus assuring the Society's conworked as an oyster dredger on the tinued progress.

Chesapeake and Delaware Bays for over Redoubled efforts are being under-. seven decades. When the dredging laws taken in the restoration of the Russel in New Jersey changed in 1945 allowing Wingate, and the establishment of a oystering under power, the old vessel working forge in the small-boat shop at had her masts cut down and a pilot Historic Gardner's Basin. The forge, house added. From then until January which will be manned by an old Down 1976, when she was purchased by the Society, the Wingate dredged for oysters Jersey shipsmith, will turn out the ironusing the power of her old caterpillar ware needed for the growing collection of vessels. In addition, the Society will engine. She is in basically sound condition but she needs major work in order continue to offer community lecture to restore her to her original rig and apprograms on the sailing oystermen of the Delaware Bay, America's maritime hispearance.

Other vessels belonging to the Society tory, and New Jersey in the days of sail. include, besides various Jersey small During the past four years the Down craft, a Herreshoff-design 10 meter Jersey Marine Historical Society has sloop, a Hogarth crab skiff, a Barnegat worked diligently to preserve the local Bay catboat, and the sail trainer Cornautical traditions. The voyage has not morant, a 52' replica of a Boston pilot been an easy one, but through the conschooner. The Cormorant serves as the tinuation of present programs and the Society's flag ship. During the Bicentenestablishment of the Russel A. Wingate nial she was pressed into service for as a museum vessel it seems that New celebrations in communities along the Jersey's maritime heritage will be saved Delaware River, sailing under a letter of from the wrecking crew . .t SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

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Ernestina/Morrissey

By Michael Platzer Project Director

On August 10, Captain Frans Meijer sailed his 50' rebuilt Portuguese fishing schooner Se)az Feliz into Mindelo in the Cape Verde Islands. He had left Lisbon July 25, with a crew including Lucille Langlois of Washington DC, a principal supporter of the project, myself, and four young Dutch people who follow the seas in sail : Sophia van Hecke and Kees W. Christiannse of Amsterdam, Stefan News of Skertogenbosh, and Mariette A.G. Groos of Geffem. Cargo included: 50 kilos of nails, 12 hand saws, 4 sledgehammers, 5 wooden mallets, 12 ball hammers, 7 cla w hammers, 43 chi sels, 10 screwdrivers, 2 hack saws, 100 hack saw blades, 15 cutting disks, 35 sanding di sks, 8 Stanley planes. I0 pair working gloves, 4 met a l measuring tapes, 2 angle measures, 4 rightangle squ a res, 2 compasses, one chain saw , 3 bow axe, I whetstone, 50 mast hoops, 160 kilos ca ulkin g material, 20 single and double blocks, Frans Meijer's own tools-and hi s car!

All arrived safely after a voyage in traditional style using no engine, radar, or radio, during which a large sea turt le, two whales and many porpoises were encountered.

On arrival, Meijer set to work with Augusto Duarte who is in charge of the labor force provided by the Cape Verdean Government as one of its contributions to the project. The Government has also procured heavy timber from Guinea-Bissau and pine planking from Portugal. A Portuguese fishing cooperative donated an eighty-foot mast to replace the spar lost when the Ernestina was dismasted en route to Operation Sail in New York in 1976.(A farming cooperative also donated provisions for the

Feliz 's voyage.) Electric saws, drills, nails and a chain saw donated by the New York and Warham Ernestina Chapters, oxy-acetylene gear donated by New Bedford Friends of Ernestina and a tral1$former donated by Freed Transformer, Inc., of Brooklyn are being added to shipyard stores .

The Massachusetts Schooner Ernestina Commission in the meantime has met and named · Julius Britto of Wareham as chairman. The noted historical naval architect Willam A. Baker of Boston, who has taken a continuous interest in the project, sits as a member of the Commission and has prepared the new rigging plan. A cooperative plan has been worked out between the National Society and the Commission under which we hope to see the vessel delivered to the Commission in the United States next year.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington DC has also taken an interest in the project. They have made a grant of $10,000 from Operation Sail funds. (In size, this is about seven percent of the funds raised by citizens or contributed by Cape Verde.) The grant, however, is to be held "in escrow" pending further project development. The Commission and the National Society have sent a joint letter requesting th e release of the grant. Had citizens and the Cape Verde Government held their contributions "in escrow" there would be no Ernestina/ Morrissey project today . .ti Mr. PlatZ'.er's regular job is on the West African a/esk of the United Nations in New Yorlk.

SEA HISTORY, FALL I978

SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS (continued from page 38) Ark brought the first settlers to Maryland in 1634. The new Dove, docked at Old St. Mary's City will be the major exhibit in the state's outdoor museum honoring the first capital of Maryland.

Hampton Mariners Museum sponsored its third annual Heritage Boat show over the weekend of September 29-0ctober 1. Many wooden boat types, including indigenous North Carolina watercraft were on display on the Beaufort waterfront. Hampton Mariners Museum, 120 Turner St., Beaufort NC 28516 . Tel. (919) 728-7317.

GULF COAST The Elissa, Alexander Hall's iron bark of 1877, is now ready for tow from Piraeus, Greece, to Galveston, Texas, reports Restoration Director Michael Creamer (see SH 11, 29). Creamer feels that the ship needs to come to the US both for fundraising purposes, and to encourage local skills that would be generated by her restoration, as part of a complete, living restoration of the ship and her heritage. The lowest "do-good" bid for tow home back from Piraeus is $160,000. The National Society is deeply concerned to cheapen this by free tow for segments of the voyage, and urges those with ideas or contributions to be in touch. NMHS, 2 Fulton St., Brooklyn NY 11201.

PACIFIC COAST Tall Ships Pacific was a full summer of ships, races and activities on the West Coast, despite some confusion and skepticism stemming from cancellation of Central .and South American entries for political reasons. Barbara McLintock of the Victoria Times summed up the public· response in an article, "Confession from the Editor": "You win. I know when I'm beaten. And I was beaten last Thursday when I joined almost 10,000 people who lined the Dallas road waterfront to watch the magnificent spectacle of the tall ship Eagle sail past. For the last six months I have been filled with doubts about the hype that has blown the event as big as Canada's centennial. But any overall negativism must surely have been dispelled by the immense success of the Captain Cook festivities."

Three races and a special Class B race were competed in by the fleet that accompanied the Eagle. The first race from Honolulu to Victoria, started on June 24, was won by the Canadian Naval training ketch Oriole. The special Class B race, started July 30 from Vancouver to Seattle, was won by Graybeard, a 67 ' ketch sponsored by the Bank of Nova Scotia. On August 6 the fleet left Seattle and raced to San Francisco, that race won

by Astral, a Bermuda ketch. The last race, from San Francisco to Long Beach was won

by Dubloon.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

A Summer of Tall Ships was provided by other major sailing ship visits. Tlie Chilean training ship Esmeralda visited Hawaii in April, San Francisco and San Diego in May. The sister ships Nippon Maru and Kaiwa Maru, Japanese square riggers, visited Haw11ii, Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria in June and July. Sagres, the Portuguese sailtraining vessel, will be visiting in October, carrying besides its own young crew 10-12 American Sea Scouts on sails from San Diego to San Francisco and on to Seattle and Vancouver.

Ship Trust Awards were presented to J. Patrick Mahoney , the San Francisco developer who saved relics and an 8' section of the Niantic when she was uncovered on the site of his new skyscraper in the financial dist~ict at the corner of Clay and Sansome streets this spring (see SH 12; p. 33), and to the USCGC Eagle for her leading role in sail training in this country, at ceremonies held aboard the San Francisco Maritime Museum's Cape Horn square rigger Balclutha, on August 11. Over 150 leading citi zens attended the reception, which was co-sponsored by the National Society, the American Sail Training Association, the Museum Association and the Bay Area Marine Institute to focus attention on the continuing concerns of the heritage embodied in the sailing of Tall Ships.

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* The Thomas F. Bayard, New York built pilot schooner of 1885 (SH 11, 32), has been bought by the Vancouver Maritime Museum, Vancouver BC. Leonard G. McCann, Curator, and Michael Duncan on a recent visit to the vessel at its pier in Vancouver noted a sign, "For Sale Quick ." Realizing that quick action was needed , they secured the Museum's agreement to acquire the Bayard as its first ship. Mr. McCann is launching a campaign to restore the Bayard to her condition as a sealing schooner.

The stern of Joseph Conrad's Otago has now been removed to join the remains of the bark Kaiulani at a Port Authority pier on the North Beach of San Francisco. Plans and funding are being developed for the exhibition of both relics within the National Maritime Museum. Fleet Captain Ha rry Dring of the Museum, who sailed as donkeyman

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SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS LAKES & RIVERS The Missisippi River's heritage will be the subject of a new museum in Memphis, Tennessee. The new museum, to be located on Mud Island, Volunteer Park, will give a complete view of the river' s history from Indian dugouts, through the many Spanish, French, and English explorers, to steamboat times and the present day. Special exhibits will include the role of the river in the Civil War and major river disasters. This new museum should give the Mississippi the kind of comprehensive maritime interpretation envisioned for the Hud son Maritime Center proposed by the National Society.

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The Winona County Historical Society has received a $32,900 grant from the Minnesota State Historical Society to arrange and inventory archival materials relating to steamboating on the Mississ ippi River. PhD candidate Kurt Leichtle will be in charge of the archival work, leading to an education program and exhibition. Winona County Historical Society, 160 Johnson St. , Winona , Minn.

55987. Tel. (507) 454-2723 The Jeremiah O'Brien, a Liberty Ship now laid up at Suisun Bay, will, it is hoped , be moved to San Francisco to become part of the National Maritime Museum in that city within a year. Sponsors of this effort, the Na-

tional Liberty Ship Memorial, report good progress in their funding campaign to restore the vessel for acceptance by the Federal Government and installation in the museum.

NOTE: It is notorious that headquarters staff sit far behind the front enjoying the fine wines of the country, and know too little of the battle_ National Society Headquarters, however, fronts on a lively waterway, the tidal reach of the East River around which the modern City of New York grew up. We maintain a small museum, with working piers to the south and the Brooklyn Bridge and the old warehouses of Empire Stores to the north, facing South Street Seaport Museum in Manhattan across a river trafficked by tankers, tugs and barges, harbor craft and passing yachts. We are engaged in our own East River Renaissance project (on which we 'II report in our next issue) as well as other projects around the country. People from England, Australia, Africa and Manhattan stop by and we invite you to do so, too! Most of our work is done by mail with emergency interventions conducted through that wretched distracting instrument the telephone: do write Beth Haskell, who looks after these columns, to tell us what you are doing, thinking, heading towarcJ.. Only so will what we print be worthy of the good things being done for the heritage of seafaring in this country.-ED. '11

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SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

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SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

43

British Seascapes

By Malcolm Cormack Curator of Paintings Yale Center for British Art

The Yale Center for British Art held an exhibition last winter and spring of forty-nine seascapes from the Paul Mellon Collection illustrating the development of British marine painting.

The whole sweep of a sea/aring nation's experience with the sea over three centuries is expressed in this exhibition, which tells us much of a developing culture, and of how man saw the medium he ventured in so greatly in this period. Mr. Cormack's memorable essay written for the exhibition is reprinted here with the permission of the Center.

Willem van de Ve/de, the Elder (16ll-1693), "Armed Men Going on Board Ships and Galleys on a Rocky Coast," ca. 1680. From early in his career Willem van de Ve/de the Elder made paintings such as this known as grisailles. His method, which had been used in the sixteenth century, was to draw with pen and brush in monochrome on a white prepared surface on either panel or canvas and the effect is something like a highly worked engraving. Because of their size, however, such paintings were probably not intended for use by printmakers and became wirh van de Ve/de independent works in rheir own rig hr.

Seascapes are normally considered as part of landscape painting. They are supposed to engage the artist in the same problems of painting light and of atmosphere as he finds in landscapes, only compounded by the difficulty of rendering the luminescent effects of water.

From the beginning, however, roughly at the end of the sixteenth century, seascapes became a specialized genre with conventions of their own. As the Netherlandish artists had led the way in the development of landscape, so they also led in the formation of different styles of seascapes, such as quiet estuary

Peter Monamy (ca. 1670-1749), "The Opening of the First Eddystone Lighthouse in 1698, "ca.

1703. The two royal yachrs are lying becalmed near the lighthouse and a flagship is becalmed in the background. Begun in 1696, the Eddystone lighthouse, off Plymourh, was built by Henry Winstanley and began working for the first time on November 14, 1698. It was swept away with Winstanley in it in the Great Storm of November 1703.

44

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

Charles Brooking (1723-1759), "An English Flagship Under Easy Sail in a Moderate Breeze," ca. 1750. To the left, a two-decker with the red flag of the Vice-Admiral of the Red at the foremast. On the right, a ketch is before the wind under easy sail, her staysail set and main and mizzen topsails lowered almost to the caps. The flagship is perhaps the ship of the Honorable John Byng, the only Vice-Admiral of the Red at sea at the time of this painting. All pictures are courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

scenes, ('the tranquil marine'), portraits of individual ships, the depiction of battle scenes, panoramic views of coasts, harbors, and ships and the rage of natural elements in a storm. Examples of all of these can be found in the Mellon Collection but they were mostly painted by English artists who, from the first, looked to the Dutch for inspiration. There are also examples by the two Dutch artists, Willem van de Velde the Elder and the Younger, whose arrival in England in 1673 in effect founded the national school.

The aptly named Isaac Sailmaker painted a bird's eye veiw of Barbados which, with its high viewpoint and fantastic whales looks back to sixteenth century landscapes, seventeenth century maps and the fabulous tales of imaginative voyagers for its quaint vision. The van de Veldes, on the other hand, in their accuracy of detail as well as their ability to render the extremes of natural effects were an important influence on the first two great English seascape artists, Samuel Scott and Charles Brooking.

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

Samuel Scott (ca. 170113-1772), "A Small Man-of-War Close-Hauled in a Breeze with Other Ships," 1753. The Union Jack at the main topmasthead of the ship signifies the presence of the Commander-in-Chief on board. Normally, the ship would have also flown a pendant at the mast head.

John Cleve/ey, Sr. (ca. 1711-1777), "A Launching al Deplford," ca. 1757. An Eas/ lndiaman, probably called 1he Prince of Wales from !he fealhers on her slern is lo !he righl.

She has (most likely incorreclly) the jack and pendanl of a man-of-war. On her port quarler is a royal yacht al anchor. The ship being launched in !he lefl background is a lwo decker flying /he lraditional flags for launching ships of !he Royal Navy. In the righl foreground /here is a sla/e barge under

46

oars. There is anolher version of !his painling al /he National Marilime Museum signed and daled 1757.

Cleveley was a native of !he Deplford area on the Thames, where one of !he Royal dockyards was situaled. His specially was views of !he river and dockyard scenes, especially !he colour and pageantry of launchings.

It may be asked why did the English appear to make the genre so much of a national speciality, so that in the end their seascapes would outnumber those by the Dutch and the French, their rivals at sea, and why did they develop a national style? Apart from the obvious answers that Great Britain was an island and depended so much on the sea, there may also be something in the idea that those national characteristics which caused the predominance of portraiture encouraged a similar rather objective view of ships. Over the whole range of this art, painters had to face criticism not so much for their aesthetic effects but for the accuracy of their rigging, or, in their sporting paintings, whether a particular horse's tail was trimmed or, in their portraits, whether a double chin or nose were made too prominent.

Retired sea captains would want from sea painters records of the battles in which they had fought or portraits of the ships in which they had served. A letter from Admiral Mundy to George Chambers is typical and illustrates the accuracy professional seamen demanded: "I approve of your drawing of the ship, of the sea, and of the land; they are, in my humble opinion, pretty and very spirited: but I must object to the handling of the sails. Why is the foretopsail not set?-no man of war loosens her foretopsail as a signal for sailing-unless she is in charge of a convoy and at anchor. The jib should be eased a third in on the jib boom-it will look more shipshape in blowing weather. The mizzen or spanker need not be loose, which will shew an ensign at the mizzen peak, whiclh you should hoist and blow upwarctls like your jack at the foretopmast headl-these alterations be so good as to SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

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make and then I will pronounce it perfect." And poor Chambers, like Brooking, Pocock and Dominic Serres before him, had been at sea and gained some first hand experience.

Nevertheless, for the greatest artists, the mere painting of detail was not enough. Though the van de Veldes were employed by both the warring Dutch and English, as recorders of events and ships, they were also capable of expressing the emotions of baroque landscape in the movement of a ship on a wave or the sweep of a cloud across the sky.

Brooking, for example, at his best has a measured balance of light and shade which can be compared with the subtle harmonies of Stubbs.

The increasing might of British seapower and the importance of its sea trade provided a wealth of imagery in the romantic period from battles to the overwhelming effects of shipwreck and storm. In the romantic period, too, because of the increased artistic individuality, the distinction between specialist seascape artists and landscape artists became blurred. Turner is the greatest example, but there are also works in the collection by Constable, Bonington, Crome and the Norwich School which, though nominally seascapes, are also representatives of the growing naturalism and interest in powerful atmospheric effects. A number, including Turner's Dort and HMS Victory, Constable's Hadleigh Castle and Bonington's Fish Market, Boulogne, now hang in the principal galleries. It is hoped, that landlubbers and weekend sailors, connoisseurs and sand castle builders, art historians and those who just sit by the sea will all find something of interest in this survey . .t SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

William Clark of Greenock (ca. 1800-1845), "The Black Ball Line Packet Ship New York 'off Ailsa Craig," 1836. The ship is shown in starboard broadside view before a moderate breeze under fore course, mizzen, topsails and topgallants. She is flying a name pendant at the main, the American merchant f lag at the fore, and her signal number. at the mizzen. Ailsa Craig in the mouth of the Firth of Clyde is in the right background.

Clarkson Stanfield, R.A. (1793-1867). "A Thames Barge in a Breeze off Till bury Fort," 1853.

At right center is a small swim-headed Thames barge running before the wind under mainsail and half-covered topsail with a man in a Peter boat coming alongside. Another Peter boat is in the left foreground where two men are laying a fishing net. Tillbury Fort can be seen in the background with its elaborate entrance gate on the left. Started under Henry Vlll, it is located in the Thames near the estuary. Tillbury docks were built in 1886.

The intimate of Dickens, of David Roberts and also much admired by Ruskin, Stanfield had served a number of years at sea in the Merchant marine and the Royal Navy before he took up painting full time. He became perhaps the mos/ respected of Victorian sea painters.

47

FIRST SHOWING IN THE UNITED ST ATES

MONTAGUE DAWSON

Royal Society of Marine Artists- Fellow Royal Society of Arts.

Royal Navy WW II oil paintings in monochrome

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We have just received a new lot of these famous paintings. Acknowledged the greatest marine painter of our time , Mr. Dawson created these masterpieces while at the scene during British combat operations. Thus these paintings are not only brilliantly conceived and executed, but are totally authentic and of great historical importance. We illustrate two of the new arrivals.

"A Cup Race, 1905"

C. S. RALEIGH 1830 - 1925 Signed and dated lower le ft Oil on canvas, 24 "x42 "

VOSE SEA HISTORY PRINTS CLOSE SUPPORT BY THE NAVY 14" x 21 "

Dawson, the finest seascape painter of our time is known the world over for his majestic clipper ships. It is not everyone, however, who know Dawson the war artist and we are proud to present this lesser known but most important pinnacle of his brilliant career.

We offer at present a fine selection of these World War II masterpieces. At today's prices of around six thousand dollars we think their purchase is opportune and we would like to talk to you about them. Photocopies will be sent upon request.

TOLFORD GALLERIES 205 West Wacker Drive Chicago, Illinois 60606 (312) 236-3143 Closed Saturdays

48

A collection of important harbor and river views during the heyday of the merchant sailing ship by the renowned marine artist

JOHN STOBART ALEXANDRIA, CINCINNATI, DARIAN, GEORGETOWN, NANTUCKET, NEW ORLEANS, NEW YORK, SAN FRANCISCO, SANTA FE, SAVANNAH

Published as limited edition collector's prints. Prices are $200.00 signed and $400.00 remarqued, except for New York, Savannah and Nantucket which are rare prints with prices subject to the dictates of the collector's market. All prices are subject to continued availability and are liable to increase.

Through the generosity of the artist, half the price of the prints will go to benefit the work of the National Society. Orders and inquiries should be sent to: NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY 2 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 Tel: 212-858-1348

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

ASMA

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INVENTORY OF SHIP MODELS From estates and private collections. Over 250 fine ship models from 6 " to 7' in length. Send for brochure today! By appointment.

Kathleen Lannan Nautiques 259 Harvard St., Quincy, Ma. 02170 Tel. 617-479-5091

When in Mystic visit the

TRADEWINDS GALLERY The American Society of Marine Artists has become a reality, thanks to the ability and work of our distinguished Board of Trustees, the dedication of Maryanne Murphy as Executive Director, and the tremendous show of enthusiasm and support of over 100 Charter Members.

We are well on our way to fulfill our obligations to recognize, encourage and promote maritime art and history as an essential part of our nation's heritage.

To help meet this goal, we are holding our 1st Annual Exhibition at the U.S. customhouse Exhibition Gallery, 6 World Trade Center, New York. A private preview and reception will be held Wednesday, November 15 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. The exhibit will be open to the public Thursday, November 16, and run through Thursday December 13. The hours will be 9:00 am until 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday, closed Saturday and Sunday.

The paintings submitted to the judges will determine which artists will receive a classification as "Artist Member" of the Society. Therefore extreme care has been given to the selection of a panel of judges.

We are fortunate and honored in receiving the acceptance of men distinguished in the art and marine field for our jury: Bob Abbett and Bob Kuhn, two of America's leading artists, George Wintress, curator of the world-famous collection of the Seaman's Bank for Savings, Olin Stephens, distinguished naval architect, and Philip Kappel, noted marine etcher and author.

CHARLES LUNDGREN President NOTE: As we go to press, arrangements are underway to have the exhibition travel to a number of maritime museums and galleries who have expressed interest in showing it.

Our Advertisers are our Standing Rigging

43/47 W. Main, Mystic, CT 06355 Tel. 203-536-0119

19th & 20th Century Art Marine Subjects and Regional Scenes, Marine Antiques, Oriental Art and Objects.

Currently we offer works by S. Aalund, F. Cozzens, R. Deis, C. D. 22 x 36 Oil on canvas in original Hodges, W. Homer, A. Jacobsen, M. frame. Signed, dated l.r. "A. Jacobsen 1903" Johnson, F. Klay, among others.

Morro Castle

Ocean World is your "window" on the immense, exploding oceanic frontier ... a lively, informative magazine for everyone who looks to the seas for pleasure, profit, or pursuit of knowledge.

You will receive: Ocean World magazine, with feature articles, maps, full-color photos and drawings, six times a year.

Ocean Reporter monthly news bulletin published with each issue of the magazine and mailed separately on alternate months to keep you up to date on developments in Washington and along the coasts; includes Seatrader Report on shipping and commerce.

Send $18 for a one year subscripdon to: Ocean World, Subscription Dept., P.O. Box 8819, Washington, D. C. 20003.

A full refund is guaranteed if you are not completely satisfied.

SEA HISTORY PRINTS A limited edition of 200 collector's prints, each signed and numbered by the artist is offered for sale to benefit the work of the N.M .H.S . Price $48 per copy, image size approx. 11 x 17 .

"Ranger versus Drake," by Wm. (.;ilkerson

TO: NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY 2 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 Please send me prints of "Drake versus Ranger" at $48 per print. My check for $ is enclosed.

AOORESS _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ZI P¡_ _ _ __

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

49

BOOKS The Great Ships Pass; British Battleships at War, 1939-1945, by Peter C. Smith (Annapolis MD, Naval Institute Press, 1978, 544 pp., illus., $14.95).

There were fifteen of them at the outbreak of World War II, and they were old. But as Mr. Smith shows in this account, Royal Navy battleships were hard worked, steaming abroad continuously on vital occasions-more so than in World War I when they were kept together and in reserve to counter a German High Seas Fleet whose weight and power came near to matching their own. Mr. Smith offers a close and fascinating picture of the work of these great ships. He also offers us a balanced view of the strategic role of the British battleship in her last days, in the not-so-subtle pressure she exerted to keep victorious Axis legions penned in the continent of Europe while worldwide forces were mustered to their final undoing.

Even Rommel's bold bid to drive the British from the south shore of the Mediterranean came to grief finally because the Italian Navy, despite its central strategic position and superior weight of metal, could not assure his sea supply. And at that level, Prime Minister Winston Churchill's hand seems a sure one, as he pursues England's ageold game of sending strong forces abroad from a threatened homeland to maintain an advanced sea strategy which, if it had broken anywhere, would have brought catastrophe everywhere. in that game for ultimate stakes, battleships were the ultimate counters. Mr. Smith rightly criticizes some of Churchill's interference in matters depending on tactical factors he did not fully grasp, as in sending Prince of Wales and Repulse to Singapore. This reviewer however has only sympathy for Churchill's order that the heavy ships pounding the Bismarck stay with her till she sank, even if it meant exhausting their fuel and being towed home themselves.

Despite her ultimate power the battleship in her last great war was from the outset hampered by auxiliary arms (the submarine and dive bomber) and increasingly dependent on her own auxiliaries. By the end of the war, the aircraft carrier had become the dominant and infinitely more flexible weapon, as she proved from the outset to be in the Pacific.

Mr. Smith's book is a worthy contribution to general history. It is difficult perhaps for the general historian (and sometimes the naval historian) to imagine that a mere dozen of anything could shape and control events often far 50

removed from their physical presence, as British battleships in fact did, from the days of the Tudor "Main Battle" to "those far-distant, storm-beaten ships" of the Napoleonic Wars and down to the last of the line who held the old lines in World War II. A certain unavoidable aura of majesty clings to these great ships and the traditions that grew up around them in four centuries; Mr. Smith conveys that, but he spells out also the working job these ships did until PS the end.

U-Boat War, by Lothar-Gunther Buchheim, tr. Gudie Lawaetz (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1978, Illus., c.

300 pp., $17.50).

The terror and beauty of the "other side" of sea war-the war waged by groups of men in small boats far¡ from any support, operating under the sea-is memorably conveyed in this combined

Photo: Lothar-Gunther Buchheim

photo-essay and reminiscence by the author of the recent best-selling novel, The Boat. As a 23-year old war artist, Buchheim was moved by the ultimate confrontation with the sea encountered in submarines, and by a conviction that both the valor and the horror of the war should be conveyed. The book is both protest and testament "of everything we did and endured," one worthy of the fell PS occasions the U-boats sailed on.

A History of War at Sea; An Atlas and Chronology of Conflict at Sea from Earliest Times to the Present, by Helmut Pense!, tr. G. D. G. Smith (Annapolis MD, Naval Institute Press, 1978, 176 pp. illus., $15.95).

This remarkable compact work, a virtual encyclopedia of sea warfare in history, gives diagrams and maps of 3,000 years of armed encounters, including many even an avid naval reader might never have explored. The Naval Institute issues a range of special titles of the highest quality (catalog is free on request by mail, Annapolis MD 21402) but for the general reader we recommend this authoritative work to begin on-and keep by his elbow .

PS

North .Atlantic Panorama, by P . Ransome-Wallis (Middletown, CT, Wesleyan University Press, 1977, 192 pp., illus., $17.95).

This straightforward, profusely illustrated volume briefly describes every liner on the fabled North Atlantic run built between 1900 and 1976. Though necessarily sketchy as to detail, the text gives the essential history of the ships, their eventual fates, and their various incarnations as ownerships were changed over the years. Here one finds the smaller vessels, such as the Canadian Montcalm or the French Line's DeGrasse, that often get lost in the shadows of their more famous and glamorous sisters.

Ships are often shown in more than one form as their owners and missions changed over the years; three stackers lose a funnel, superstructures are altered to the point of becoming nearly unrecognizable. The Europa, for example, which became the French Liberte after World War II, went through three total transformations in her 32-year career.

Such changes are well shown in the photographs, some of which appear here DOD for the first time in print.

Cunard White Star Liners of the 1930's,by H . M. Le Flemings (Greenwich, CT, 7 C's Press, 1978, 32 pp., Illus. , $5).

R.M.S. Mauretania The Ship and Her Record by Gerald Aylmer (Greenwich, CT, 7 C's Press, 1978, 64 pp., illus., $5).

These offerings from the 7C's Press line of historic reprints will be welcomed by fans of the North Atlantic shipping scene during the early years of this century.

H. M. Le Flemings' "Cunard White Star Liners of the l 930's" originally published in soft cover by Ian Allan, Ltd., some twenty years ago is basically a photo format book covering the period from approximately 1905 to 1936. It includes not only the standard "portraits" , but drydock , interior, and other detail views. Some thirty ships are described in the text with a brief history of each. Comparison of the reprint with an original copy shows a good quality of reproduction with little detail lost from the photos. One cannot help but compare the $5 price of the 7 C's version to the original price of 2/6 (35 cents) but the limited market for this type of book dictates the price.

Aylmer's "R.M.S. Mauretania," first printed in 1934, gives a concise synopsis of the JMauretania's career and a brief history 1of her owners, the Cunard Company, amd her builders, Swan, Hunter SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

and Wigham Richardson. The stage is set for her famous career by reviewing the state and speed rivalry of transatlantic travel at the turn of the century.

Some eleven photos, a simple set of deck plans and several tables fill out the booklet. Ironically this booklet extolling the virtues and longevity of the Mauretania appeared only one year before the classic liner's demise.

Minor errors of dates and speeds in the originals of these books have not been corrected, and one could wish for an informed commentary to be published with such reprints. But the booklets should appeal to anyone who wants to reminisce on the Atlantic service during its heyday.

CONRAD MILSTER

Mr. Milster of Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, is a stalwart of the Steamship Historical Society and advisor to the National Society.

An L. Francis Herreshoff Reader, by L. Francis Herreshoff (Camden ME, International Marine Publishing Co., 1978, 311 pp., illus., $15.00).

0 This famous son of a more-famous father must have enjoyed a ch ildh ood t'ull of abso lute certainties. L. Francis is entirely sure that he is right about every subject he considers, and this gives his prose a sometimes pompous, always curmudgeonly quality that might turn the reader off but for the saving fact that he is right about every subject he considers.

In this valuable book he considers a great many subjects: hull design, rigging, marine art, various important designers and sailors in the last century of yachting, the care and feeding of coal stoves on a boat, safety, yacht names, model making, trailboards, heavy weather seamanship, even wooden dinner plates. There's q10re than a touch of the poet and the mystic in him, notably in his chapter entitled "The Dry Breakers," where he recounts his experience of a night spent (voluntarily) on a barren ledge outside Marblehead: "I know the seagu lls' secret now, the contrast of the night and day, the changing scenes, the pleasant exercise that chases gloomy thought away and attunes the mind and body pleasantly."

L. Francis is perhaps at his very best responding to presumption. Commenting on a series of articles in the National Fisherman (then the Maine Coast Fisherman) on the design of fishing vessels, he says of the author, "Perhaps when Mr. Steele gets a few more years on him, he will write a different article ." _S EA HISTORY, FALL 1978

A clewed upCDguide to hoisting in@ nautical lingo The language of the sea, gathered over centuries, has been • collected in one impressive, practical, and unprecet dented volume.

In this vividly illustrated nautical encyclopedia,, ~~~~ft~B•C~I the reader will find nearly 4000 terms from the .... great age of sail-along with more modern terminology-colorfully defined and beautifully pictured.

The book contains twenty subject headings, each with an introduction by an expert. Cross references lead the reader to other topics, and a full index provides instant reference to practically every sailing word, old or new.

I. very knowledgeable

2. understanding

THE VISUAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

NAUTICAL TERMS UNDER SAIL Size 8" x 16 3.4". $15.95 now at your bookstore, or send check to Crown Publishers, Dept. 709, 34 Engelhard Ave., Avenel, N.J. 07001. Add SI for postage and handling, N.Y. and N.J. residents, add sales tax.

CRO*N

BLIGH VILLAIN OR VICTIM?

Was Bligh the "Bounty Bastard" portrayed in filtns and many books, or was he a victim of Fletcher Christian's mental instability? Dr. Kennedy, using material from Bligh's long-lost journal and those of two of the men abandon· ed with him, presents a compelling argument exonerating Bligh. A vivid recreation of eighteenth century seamanship, and the tensions and clash of personalities which developed in the cramped, doomed Bounty.

Published by Duckworth, of London

BLIGH Gavin Kennedy

cloth $14.95

Also by Duckworth:

THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN COOK Gavin -Kennedy A fresh view of Cook's uncharacteristic behavior in his last days, and incidents leading to his murder. cloth $11.95 CAPTAIN COOK R.T. Gould The best short summary Qf Captain Cook's life, reprinted for the bicentennial of Cook's death.

With maps and charts. cloth $9.95 CASTAWAY AND WRECKED Rex Cowan Shipwreck photos taken by residents of the Scilly-Cornwall coasts in the late nineteenth' cen· tury, with contemporary newspaper accounts.

Black and white photographs. paper $3.95 Available from your bookstore or:

SOUTHWEST BOOK SERVICES, INC. 4951 Top Line Drive, Dallas, TX 75247, TLX: 73-2561 (TELESERV) DAL

51

BOOKS

BIACK

1'lmsEA Michael Cohn and Michael K. H. Platzer

From African fishing rituals to 20th century sailors, an important, fascinating and vivid chapter of nautical history. Photos. $8,95

And in response to a letter from the marine sales manager of General Motors Detroit Diesel Division proclaiming that more millions of dollars have been spent on the development of lightweight , highspeed diesels than have been spent in a half century by the entire marine industry on hull development, Herreshoff snorts: "I would point out that, while the business of manufacturing small diesel engines is a very young one, the science of naval architecture had been developing for the last 5000 years, and when the end of the world comes and the final history of naval or marine achievement is written up, the contributions of the General Motors Corporation will be so infinitesimal that they probably will not be mentioned ."

Some of the chapters in this book were published 30 to 40 years ago in The Rudder, and some were included in the now out-of-print "the Writings of L. Francis Herreshoff." The remainder have not heretofore been published.

DICK RATH Mr. Rath , Chairman of the Pioneer Marine School at South Street Seaport Museum, is editor of Boating magazine.

The Dory Book, by John Gardner, illus-

A sea

classic and a fine gift!

Capt. Irving Johnson's

The Peking Battles Cape Horn This is Irving Johnson's classic narrative of a passage round Cape Horn in 1929 in the steel bark Peking. A new foreword and appendix provide background on the author and the ship. In the new afterword the author looks back, after 48 years of seafaring, to his experiences aboard the Peking.

10% discount to National Society members.

To: SEA HISTORY PRESS, National Maritime Historical Society, 2 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 (212) 858-1348 Please send me_ hardcover copies of "Peking" at $11.95;_ paper cover copies at $5.95 each. My check for $_ _ _ is enclosed.

NAME - - - - - - - - - - - ADDRESS _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Z IP

52

trated by Samuel F. Manning (Camden ME, International Marine Publishing Co., 1978, 288 pp., illus., $20.00).

The publisher states that fifteen years of research preceded this fine companion to Mr. Gardner's Building Classic Small Craft. One might say "fifteen years, coupled with a lifetime of careful observation, building and appreciation of dories in particular and small craft in general." Best known to readers of the National Fisherman and as the guiding force behind Mystic Seaport's Small Craft Workshop, Mr. Gardner has, in a quiet matter-of-fact manner written what must become the standard reference work on the dory .

The book is divided into three principal sections. The first is a history of the dory type and its origins. Mr. Gardner's careful, well documented and annotated research indicates the existence of this type of boat, described as a "dory flat" as early as 1498 in western Europe. In North America the French and British colonists employed dories as they were relatively quick and economical to bui ld wherever sawn planks and copper or iron fasteners were available. During the French and Indian Wars a large production facility in Schenectady produced dories in quantity for military and commercial lake and river use. This predates

the dory "factories" of New England by almost 150 years.

The second section deals with small craft construction as it specifically applies to the dory. Mr. Gardner's background as a professional boat builder is evident in his descriptions of many detail aspects of small craft construction like spiling plank s, fairing the frames or obtaining a correct stem bevel. While most of Samuel F. Manning's illustrations for the first section of the book may be appreciated as the work of a man with an eye for fine representational illustration, the drawings coordinated to the text on construction are those of an experienced boat builder gifted with the rare ability to capture each operation in complete and accurate detail with no possibility for misinterpretation.

The remaining section gives tables of offsets, line drawings (where applicable) and a wealth of specific detail for the construction of 25 different dories. In size these range from a IO ' dory tender to a 32 ' Maine Log Driving Bateau, while hull shapes vary from the familiar straight-sided Banks dory to the graceful Swampscott gunning and sailing types.

St. Pierre types are very comprehensively covered and a wealth of details given on features like outboard motor-wells, centerboard trunks, transom sterns and haul-up propeller arrangements.

Most of the detail drawings and many of the designs are Mr. Gardner's own or adaptations from earlier models. They are clear, concise and very complete, as one who knows his work as technical editor of the National Fisherman would expect and appreciate.

International Marine Publishing Company deserves compliments for reproducing all this material in a very clear and convenient scale-this reviewer did not have to resort to a magnifier to read a drawing in this very handsome book. Mr. Gardner and Mr. Manning will have the thanks and appreciation of amateur boat builders and students of small craft design for many years to come for this most complete and definitive book.

DON MEISNER Mr. Meisner has done much waterfront

design work for South Street Seaport Museum in New York and is a leading light of that institution and of the National Society.

The Proper Yacht, 2nd Ed., by Arthur Beiser (Camden, ME, International Marine Publishing Co., 1978, 364 pp., illus., $25.00).

Dr. Beiser opens this classic work with SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

this question: "What other than a cruising sailboat is at once so lovely to look at, so exhilarating to travel on, and so charming to live aboard?" Having eloquently stated the main criteria for a proper yacht, he proceeds to discuss the planning and design aspects of each area from "Hull Design" through "Engines and Related Troubles" in a thoughtful and informative manner.

This second edition of The Proper Yacht is a worthy successor to the first, published in 1966. All of the 58 designs detailed and discussed in Part Two are new, with clear, well-printed arrangement plans, inboard profiles, sail plans and principal dimensions, backed up by pertinent text.

DON MEISNER Saga of Direction, by Charles H. Vilas (New York, Seven Seas Press, 1978, 218 pp., illus., $12.95).

The Colin Archer type cutter Direction was tested by history early in life-and failed. In his book N by E, Rockwell Kent brought her wreck on the coast of Greenland to the attention of the world.

That voyage and Direction's return are the main attraction of this book, but her later career as a cruising yacht is equally interesting, perhaps especially to a younger reader. An uncrowded and uncommercialized Long Island Sound is a bit of history that is rapidly fading into the past. Boatbuilders in Nyack and canals across New Jersey may soon seem as fabulous as the Greenland coast.

During the thirty years that Mr. Vilas has owned Direction, he has been collecting information on her history. The friends he has made during this search are as much a part of the story as Direction herself. The material is given to the reader as is, with the contradictions and omissions that are inevitable in the historical record. The result is what the author terms 'a browsing sort of book,' somewhat rough, but much more satisfying to the historically minded reader than a retold, predigested story. The tale is well told, and should entirely satisfy those readers who prefer to begin at the beginning and go until they reach the end.

ROY HAMLIN Mr. Hamlin is a restorer of old buildings

as well as boats, and follows this avocation as a volunteer at South Street Seaport Museum in New York.

Bartlett the Great Canadian Explorer, by Harold Horwood (New York, Doubleday, 1977, 175 pp., illus., $7.95).

Captain Robert Bartlett's remarkable career as Arctic explorer is well told in this biography. Bartlett was best known SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

for his Arctic voyages in the former Gloucester fishing schooner Effie M. Morrissey from the 1920s into the 1940s.

But before he acquired her, he took other boats north under such famous explorers as Robert Peary and Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Controversy has since touched some of these exploring efforts, but Bartlett's courage and capability were never questioned. This biography gives a good narrative of these efforts, and Bartlett's own voyages in the Morrissey. One could wish for a more masterful writer to tell the tale, to make scenes and characters come to life on our mental screens. But in all, this is a good record of a fascinating career, in a time when exploring the far reaches of the earth spelled challenge and adventure of high order. The author is very interested in Bartlett's ship, and makes note of her subsequent career as Cape Verdean packet, but he fails to get the facts right as to the effort to return her to the United States.

BH Songs of the Sea, by Stan Hugill (Maidenhead, England, McGraw-Hill Book Co. (UK), 1977, 198 pp., illus., $17.50).

This is Hugill's third book of sea songs and his first coffee-table book. As with his others, it includes selections from several languages and a solid introduction to each song. He comments on the interchanges that occurred between the traditions, as sailors wandered from ship to ship, disseminating cultural interchange much as the bees do-as a by-product of their work.

Where this book falls down is on the brevity of its notes. The music is good, both for playing and singing. In general, however, it does not compare with Shanties from the Seven Seas, Hugill's first work. He does not present the songs in relation to each other, nor does he trace the development of the songs or present variations of the songs. Although the content is good and does not overly recapitulate the content of his other books, this does not add to his repute as an editor of chanteys and sea lore.

Another somewhat galling point is that he bowdlerized some of the chanteys.

This is not a service to his public. The tradition is one of men who lived hard, lonely lives and usually expressed themselves picturesquely and with little reference to Mrs. Grundy.

ERIC RUSSELL Mr. Russell is boatbuilder and song

maker by avocation, and co-author with Mark Lovewell of Songs of South

The Man Who Rode Sharks, by William R. Royal (New York, Dodd Mead, 1978, 150 pp., illus., $8.50).

The author's first-hand acquaintance with sharks began when he caught one for food back during the Depression.

Since then he has captured sharks for research purposes in a study of cancer in human beings. Here he explores shark history and shark ways in a book full of fact and adventure, which might gain for sharks some respect among movieinfluenced human beings.

MARIE LORE

Mrs. Lore is Membership Secretary of the National Society.

The Bridges of New York, by Sharon Reier (New York, Quadrant Press, 1978, 160 pp., illus., $14.95 cloth, $8.95 paper).

New York's remarkable harbor is crisscrossed by a myriad of bridges built at different periods to move people and goods in and out of town without interfering with the vital harbor traffics on which the city's livelihood depends. This well illustrated review covers the story of those bridges, and sheds intriguing light on the development of the New World's greatest harbor.

DOD Clipper Ship, by Thomas P. Lewis, ill.

Joan Sandin (New York, Harper & Row, 1978, 64 pp., $4.95).

This "history" book for young readers weaves a great deal of clipper mythology into a single imaginary voyage. Two young readers (ages 8 and 9) in my family found much to criticize, however, in what they felt was an overcolored view of seafaring, with a good many improbable and some inaccurate things crammed into one voyage. It's an engaging yarn, handsomely illustrated, but hardly history.

PS Books About One and Two-Man Transocean Voyages, compiled by Richard Gordon McCloskey (Bothell WA, Hakluyt Minor, 1978, 45 pp., $7.50).

This somewhat sketchy bibliography marks a first effort at a comprehensive listing of books on one or two-person ocean crossings. Its usefulness is limited by the fact that no descriptive information on the works is given; often you don't know the name of the boat, her size or rig, or what ocean she crossed.

The author invites corregenda and addenda which can be sent to him at 9206 NE 180th Street, Bothell WA 98011.

NB

Street-Street of Ships.

53

Sailing Backward

By Captain Samuel Samuels

Bully Samuels is the most famous of the packet captains who drove big ships fast across the North Atlantic in all weathers. Starting as cabin boy, he became a captain by age 21. In 1853 the fast packet Dreadnought was built to his order. She competed successfully with steamers and earned the name "Wild Boat of the Atlantic" in the Western Ocean packet trade. She is remembered in the sailor's song, "Bound away to the westward in the Dreadnought we go. " Here Captain Samuels recalls a hard fight to save his ship and his life after a giant wave swept over the Dreadnought.

In the midst of the storm there was a lull. The water left the deck, and the crew carried me below. While being carried aft, I ordered some one to take the wheel, which had been deserted , or we should lose the rudder.

When I was taken into the cabin, it presented a sad appearance. The skylight had been stove in, and the water had poured in through it until it covered the floor a foot deep . More dead than alive, I was laid upon a sofa in my stateroom. My clothes were stripped off, and when my right boot a nd trousers had been split down, my leg below the knee revealed a compound oblique fracture, with the skin broken on the inner side, There was no doubt that the femoral artery was punctured; it was apparent from the bright scarlet color of the blood, which I was losing very fast. With my remaining strength I ordered a tourniquet applied till I could recover myself, which I did after a few minutes, aided by a stimulant. I felt that the hand of God which had snatched me from the deep would not be withdrawn from me now.

We had no physician on board this voyage, and no one knew how to set a

leg. I therefore undertook the task myself, aided by my purser and a couple of men. After a fruitless attempt we abandoned the idea of setting it. Our ignorance on the subject was not enlightened by any rules laid down for such contingencies in the medical books that usually accompany the ship's medicinechest. We tried to force the bones into place while the leg was extended; we did not know that bending the knee would have relaxed the muscles, so that the strength of a child would have sufficed to do what was required. After an ineffectual attempt by three strong men to pull the limb into place I became so exhausted that they desisted. I asked to have the compress applied, to give me time to collect myself; then I decided upon amputation. Life was ebbing fast, and now was the time to act before I became too weak. I had the tourniquet twisted tight, and the knife laid ready for use. It was necessary for me to perform the operation, as no one else would undertake it. I gave instructions for the taking up of the arteries, in case I became too weak to attend to them .

Everything depended upon nerve. I felt that it was better to die in making the attempt than to die without making it.

At this juncture the second officer, in whom I had much confidence, came below, and said that, as he had had some hospital practice, he could bandage the limb to stop the bleeding. He begged me not to amputate it. He said he had fallen from the maintop-gallant yard of the ship Benjamin Adams and broken both legs, which he showed me were as crooked as ram 's horns. He said that we were in the track of the steamers, which always carried surgeons, and might fall in with one at any time. The weather was moderating, and we might soon have a chance

'/

Captain Samuel Samuels, shipowner and master.

to get the leg properly set. I took his advice, and was made as comfortable as wet bedding would allow. Everything was saturated with sea-water. My leg was laid in a V-shaped box, whi le l was wedged on the sofa, to keep from rolling.

My worst fears were now realized. We lost our rudder, and were left to the mercy of the waves without the power to guide ourselves. Night set in without our meeting any vessels. The wind and sea moderated, and finally became calm.

The ship, which had been heading southward, was turned to north by the motion of the sea. The morning sun rose with a light breeze from the west. I sent for the carpenter. I did not know that he had been killed by the sea the day previous. His death had been purposely concealed from me. I wished to instruct him how to fit a jury-rudder. His loss at this juncture was doubly great. I gave the instructions ¡ to others, and at the same time gave orders to get the ship on the southward tack for Fayal for which place the wind was a leading one, and the distance being about three hundred and sixty miles.

Every attempt to turn the ship by the use of drags ended in failure. My inability to be on deck worried me so that inflammation showed itself in my leg. Another day passed and we did not see a sail. At midnight the jury-rudder was ready to be shipped . Tackles were hooked on to its head and heel from the fore and main yards, the chief mate attending to the after end, and the second officer to the fore. It had scarcely been hoisted over the rail when the straps parted and the whole apparatus dropped overboard and was lost. This nearly drove me frantic. Four days passed. Sleep was a stranger to me, narcotics seemed to excite instead of quieting me. My diet was tea aind toast, instead of the nourishing Weste1rn Ocean packet-clipper Dreadnought.

54

SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

into the Azores This rather fanciful engraving of an earlier storm in Captain Samuels' career vividly shows the beauty and terror of a ship fighting for her life, swept by raging seas.

food which I should have taKen to sustain me. My leg was kept cool by constant applications of cold cloths. I had excellent nursing from the s t ~wardess, and from the purser. The latter had been with me on several voyages, and I had taught him some navigation. He could mark the ship's position, and bring it to. me for verification.

On the fifth morning a French ship hove in sight, bound east. She answered our signals of distress by sending her boat along-side with the chief officer.

They had no doctor on board . I could not prevail upon him to undertake to tow us in, nor could he induce me to leave the ship, although he expected to be in Bordeaux in four day . He kindly agreed to take a hawser from us, and turn our ship' s head to the southward, when, with sails properly trimmed, we could make towards Fayal while building a second rudder.

From nine o'clock in the morning until three in the afternoon we undertook to run him a line, but in vain. There is no doubt that this was bad seamans hip, for at times the Frenchman would pass so close to our jibboom that a man could have jumped on board. I sent for the second mate and our herculean boatswain, and ordered the former to take charge of the ship, and the latter to support him . I had no confidence in my first officer. My whole trouble I believed had been caused by his incompetency . It had occurred through his failure to have the sails properly handled, which made it necessary for me to leave the quarterdeck . The boatswain went into the boat with a fresh crew and reached the French ship while the second mate paid out the line, to which a hawser was attached.

The Frenchman at once hauled in , when by some chance the hawser kinked, and the line parted.

The excitement of the day was almost too much for me. Night was closing in fast. The Frenchman sent his boat along-side with his compliments, and said that he regretted to leave me, but could waste no more time. He urged me once more to go on board his ship. I wrote letters home, and to our agents in New York and Liverpool. To the latter I sent for Mr. Bursley, who I knew was due at Liverpool. I gave the letters to the Frenchman to post. After thanking him SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978

we parted, he with the happy thought that he would soon reach home and expectant ones, while I suffered the torments of hell. Inflammation had attacked my leg, I believe, through my sheer worry at finding myself so utterly helpless. But my suffering was my second thought my first was how to get the ship into Fayal.

The wind was still fresh from the westward, with a smooth sea. Another jury-rudder had been begun. During the first watch I decided to back her towards the island until the rudder was built. I sent for the second officer, who had charge of the deck, to instruct him to back the yards, trim and furl such headsails as the occasion required, and give

her a steady sternboard. This was successful, and we backed on a southerly course at the average of three and a half knots an hour, for by observation we found that we had made one hundred and eighty-three miles in fifty-two hours. Then the wind died away, and the sea became smooth, giving us an excellent opportunity to ship the rudder, which was successfully done. Again a light wind favored us from the westward, and continued until we arrived at the island on the evening of the fourteenth day after the accident.

www

From

Samuel Samuels',

From the Forecastle to the Cabin (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1887).

55

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''The Naming of Old Ironsides'' USS Constitution Engages HMS Guerriere August 19, 1812

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An Exceptionally Rare Collector Print Offering Which Includes an Actual Piece of "Old Ironsides."

Maritime History in Art, a company dedicated to the perpetuation of our maritime heritage, is proud to announce the release of this limited edition print depicting the spectacular sea battle during which the name "Ironsides" originated.

Commissioned by the U .S.S. Constitution Museum Foundation, one of America's leading marine artists, Jam es Clary, created this action packed, accurately detailed painting after \TIOnths of study and research made possible through the assistance of the U .S.S. Constitution Museum Foundation.

We are offering 900 prints individually signed and numbered by Mr. Clary, along with a sliver of wood from the U.S. S. Constitution adhered to a certificate of authenticity from the U .S.S. Con-

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