PROJECT SEA WITCH
The skills relearned in recreating one of our greatest maritime achievements are as important as the ship herself. to preserve the ingenuity and ski lls t hat a sailing ship of this magnitude demands in her construction and sailing. The sk ills relearned in recreating one of our greatest maritime achievements are as important as th e s hip herself. I know it can be done. Recently in my construction of the 1812 Baltimore clipper Pride for the City of Baltimore, the schooner was built entirely in a proper manner and launched within ten months after the keel was laid . Every st ick of timber was cut from the forests of Central America and fashioned on the site. She was the larges t sailing craft to be built on Chesapeake Bay si nce the 1930s. The employment of a master shipwright and a master shipsmith assured that the skills of ad dressing enormous timbers and the working of wrought iron were passed on to future ge nerations. Upon launching, Pride departed immediately for the Bermudas and th e sk ills of sailing an historic topsail schooner with a loose-footed main , boomless foresail, runnin g mainstays, bonnetted sails and a jackyard topsail were reclaimed. The vessel completed over 12,000 miles visiting 35 American and foreign ports in the first year. I am proposing that an American clipper ship be built while there are still a few craftsmen, misfits from yesteryear perhaps , who can display their skills for the preservation of their breed. It may also be the very last opportunity to procure those vital timbers as they are quickly being stripped from the face of the earth. It is a project that cannot be delayed. Carl C. ¡ Cutler wrote in his book, Greyhounds of the Sea, "Before her brief life had ended the Sea Witch had broken more records than a ship of her_ inches had ever broken, and in company with other clippers, had established the majority of sailing records that still survive. She was the first vessel to go around the Horn to California in less than one hundred days. Twice she broke 20
the record from Canton, and neither of these passages have ever been eq ualled by any other ship under sai l." It is necessarily a n emotional choice, but I choose the New York built Sea Witch to represent the American clipper ship . She was the first of the very sharpended, full midsection clippers. Her size of 1250 displacement tons is within my limited capacity to construct. The original sail plan, complete offsets an d a contemporary carpenter's model exist; thus her reconstruction can be completely authentic. In 1933 Alexander Laing chose Sea Witch as the subject for his book of the same name . His reasons for doing so are given in the Foreword and they present a so und argument for this particular vessel. " My final a nd most important reason for choosing Sea Witch as heroine is that to me her lines a nd proportions, from jib boom to taffrail, from truck to keel, are a faultless unit of beauty. Marine arc hitects claim for ships built five years later a greater refinement of mold, which certa inly was reflected in a faster pace-over shorter distancesthan Sea Witch ever achieved; but to my eye Lightning and Red Jacket have the nervous leanness of overbred race horses, rather then the st urdier grace of the hunter. Thus, if yo u agree that the hunter is the most beautiful of horses, a st udy of existing models perhaps will convince you, as it has me, that Sea
Witch was the most beautiful of ships." The project requires one year to cut the timbers and prepare the site. Twenty-four months would be spent in construction. I propose that she be constructed at Battery Park in New York City, where the public may watch her sistered frames rise above a bed of wood chips. My dream for an American clipper ship does not end in the Hudson River. Properly built and fitted for . sea, she should not be condemned to an exhibition pier. There are also the skills of sailing a full-rigged clipper ship to be passed on to future generations. Sea Witch would be only beginning her career as she departs on the California gold rush route, around the Horn to San Francisco. Thence to China and London with premium cargos on one of the greatest goodwill public and trade relations programs ever mounted from the Port of New York since the original ship herself astonished the world with her sailing records. Project Sea Witch is, by necessity, a research program to reclaim those sk ills that allowed America to lead the world in naval architecture and seamanship for a brief period in our maritime history. This is a part of our heritage we cannot afford to lose . Project Sea Witch is also intended to be a profitable maritime venture. Aside from the obvious historical significance
The original sail plan of the Sea Witch illustrates the remarkably handsome proportions of American clippers.
SEA HISTORY, WINTER 1979