BOOKS
ships. William Hester, master of the panorama, the pose and the drama, has provided an extraordinary window into the twilight age of the modern sailing ship. Mr. Weinstein has gently pulled the drawstrings, parting the red velveteen curtains for a glimpse into this era, so that a new generation may view his handiwork. HAROLD D. HUYCKE Captain Huycke is a marine surveyor in
the Seattle area, and Trustee of the National Society. He is author of To Santa Rosalia, Further and Back.
Taking Care of Wooden Ships, by Maynard Bray (University of Maine Sea Grant Publications, Ira C. Darling Center, Walpole ME 04573, 1978, 80 pp., ill.' $2.00). Like the men who built them and sai led in them, wooden ships are mortal. Sooner or later they must rot away. Whatever else may be involved, caring for an aging wooden vessel is inevitab ly and primarily an unending battle against rot. The enemy are the various species of fungi that thrive on moist wood. So long as wood is dry or immersed in water soaking wet, it is safe from their incursions. Some species of timber suit their appetites better than others. Various substances, ranging from highly toxic chemicals to comon salt , slow down these fungi to a greater or lesser extent, but though repulsed for the time being, the var ious forms of rot lurk ever close at hand ready to reappear a nd renew th eir depredat ions when the opport unity presents. Fortunately, rot can be controlled to a considerable extent and for lengthy periods, but only by exercising the utmost vigi lance, painstaking care, by using common sense, and by paying heed to the experience of successfu l shipkeepers past and present. Taking Care Of Wooden Ships deals principally with rot prevention and remedy, covering what is presently known about this crucial subj ect fully and with authority, and from the standpoint of the practical shipkeeper. The first part records a panel discussion of wooden vesse l maintenance at the Bath Marine Museum' s Symnposium on American Maritime History, May 6-8, 1977. The panel was chaired by Maynard Bray, former Superintendent of the Shipyard at Mystic Seaport Museum, who as a private consultant later supervised the partial rebuilding of the Hudson River sloop Clearwater in 1975-76. Participating on the panel were Cdr. Tyrone C. Martin, USN, commanding officer of 58
Graving pieces being fit into a deck beam on the Clearwater.
the USS Constitution, which first put to sea in 1798; Capt. Havilah S. Hawkins, skipper and owner of the windjammer Mary Day and former owner of the Stephen Tabor, and the late Capt. R. D. Cu ller, owner, skipper, builder, and designer of wooden vessels, and the author of several books including Skiffs and Schooners, now recogni zed as a classic in its field . It would not be easy to assemble a more knowledgeable and competent panel of experts. The seco nd part of the book reprints the detailed manual prepared by Maynard Bray for the care of the Clearwater following her rebuilding.r ln 1969 the Clearwater cost $160,000. Only seven years later it cost about half of that to get her back into reasonably so und condition. Although the original quality of her timber and workmanship may not have been of the highest, most of the catastrophic rot damage she suffered in so short a time cou ld undoubtedly have been prevented had she had proper care-which she did not receive, not from lack of concern, but from want of experience and knowledge. There is more to the book, including a ga llery of horror pictures-photos of rot condit ions found in the Clearwater when she was opened up-relevant excerpts reprinted from R.D. Culler's Skiffs And Schooners and from The Ways of the Sea by Charles G. Davis, and a glossa ry. One thing that does not entirely satisfy me is the treatment of chemical wood preservatives. I do not share the confidence in Cuprinol that Havilah Hawkins seems to have. And pentachlorophenol is just as poiso nous to people as it is to fungi . I, personally, would not want to spe nd much time below in a vessel extensively treated with penta. JOHN GARDNER
Mr. Gardnet~ director of the Small Boat Workshop at Mystic Seaport Museum, is an editor of National Fisherman and a leader in the movement to revive traditional boa/building skills. He is author of Building C lassic Small Craft and The Dory Book.
Philadelpha Merchant: The Diary of Thomas P. Cope, 1800-1851. (South Bend, Indiana, Gateway Editions, Ltd.,1978, 628 pp., illus., $19.95) . For almost a week I spent several hours a day with a man who has been dead for 125 years. And good company he was, too: intelligent, art iculate, candid, even funny. He introduced me, on intimate terms, to an America both astonishingly different from present-day America and asto nishingly the same (they, too, worried about welfare costs and crime in the streets). My companion was (I'm tempted to say is so lively is his diary) Thomas P. Cope, not a name most will have encounte red in their readings in American history. Yet Cope was a sign ificant figure, proving anew that while history is writte n about the celebrated, it is made also by those important in their time and place all too quickly overlooked by historians preoccupied with captains and kings. Although Cope succeeded (handsomely, one assumes) as a merchant, his main interests, as his diary demonstrates, were his family, his religion (he was a Quaker) and the public good. In fact, such was the depth of his humanity, it was inconceivab le to him that the three could be separated. But if Cope were merely a good man, his diary would have been of more limited interest. However, Cope was one of the leading civic and philanthropic figures in Philadelphia for more than five decades. He was, for instance, instrumental in bringing a public water supply to the cit y; he was long president of the Board of Trade; he was important in the founding of the Pennsylvania Railroad; and he was often called upon to head various c1v1c projects. He knew from the streets of Philadelphia, then but a small city, Franklin and Talleyrand and Louis Philippe (later King of France) and the Pretender to the British throne, the last of the Stuarts. He knew on familiar terms Cabinet members in several Administrations, was welcome in Washington at the Senate and House (where he was often asked to serve), and dropped in at the President's House, as the White House was then known, to pay his respects to his friend Doll y Madison. His diary gives a se nse, so difficult now to comprehend, of a government so much smaller, so much less formal than now, when the leaders were: easily approachab le, not separated frorrn the people by enormous bureaucracies. Orne wishes that present-clay businessSEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1979