Sea History 017 - Summer 1980

No.17

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

SUMMER 1980

By Charles Robert Pallerson

The clipper Youn g Am eri ca of 1853.

BAY REFRACTORY salutes the United States of America and the ships great and small that brought us our people, our prosperity, and our freedom.

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BROOKLYN, NY 11231

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Photo: James Dion

Molding of C harles Cooper stem carving

Dow Corning salutes the National Maritime Historical Society for their participation in the World Ship Trust-a vital link to our seafaring heritage.

This heritage is exemplified by the stern carving of the South Street packet ship Charles Cooper. A replica of the carving, created through a gift of moldmaking silicone rubber, and a pictorial history of seafaring ships will soon be displayed at New York's World Trade Center and Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.

Dow Corning is also proud to sponsor the film "Ghosts of Cape Horn," which captures the saga of the 19th century clipper ships. The film will be shown on television worldwide. lnforma~ tion on the film and stern replica is available from the National Maritime Historical Society.

Risk, challenge, investment, success and pride are traditions apparent in our sailing history. This story needs to be told and supported. We invite America to join us in enjoying and supporting these ventures.

DOW CORNING

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SEA HISTORY No. 17

OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE WORLD SHIP TRUST

SEA HISTORY is the journal of the National Maritime Historical Society, an educational, tax-exempt membership orga nization devoted to furthering the understanding of our maritime heritage. Copyright © 1980 by the National Maritime Historical Society.

OFFICE: 2 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY 11201.

Telephone: 212-858-1348.

MEMBERSHIP is invited and should be sent to the Brooklyn office: Sponsor, $ 1,000; Patro n, $ 100; Family, $20; Regular , $ 15 ; Student or Retired, $7.50.

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

OFFICERS & TRUSTEES are Chairman: Admiral John M. Will, USN (ret.); President: Peter Stanford; Vice Presidents: Karl Kortum, John Thurman; Secretary: Alan G. Choate; Treasurer: F. Briggs Dal zell ; Trustees: Norman J. Brouwer, John Bunker, Alan G. Choate, F. Briggs Dalzell, Harold D. Huycke , Barbara Johnson, James F. Kirk, Karl Kortum, Edward J. Pierson, Kenneth D. Reynard, Walter F. Schlech, Jr., Howard Slotnick, Peter Stanford, John N. Thurman, Barclay H. Warburton Ill , Joh n M. Will, Alen York. President Emeritus: Alan D. Hutchinson.

ADVISORS: Chairman: Frank 0. Brayna rd ; Oswald L. Brett, George Campbell, Robert Carl, Frank G. G. Carr, Harry Dring, Joseph L. Farr, Timoth y G. Foote, Richard GooldAdams, Robert G. Herbert, Melvin H .

Jackson, R . C. Je fferso n, Irving M. Johnson, John Kemble, Clifford Lord, Conrad Milster, John Noble, Capt. David E. P erk ins, USCG (ret.), Ralph L. Snow, John Stobart, Albert Swanson, Peter Throckmorton, Alan Villiers, Shannon Wall, Robert A. Weinstein, C harles Wittholz.

SHIP TRUST COMMITTEE: International Chairman, Frank Carr; Chairman, Peter Stanford; George Bass; Karl Kortum; Richard Rath; Barclay H . Warburten, III ; Senior Advisor, Irving M. Johnson.

SEA HISTORY STAFF Editor, Peter Stanford; Managing Editor, Norma Stanford; Associate Editors, Norman J. Brouwer, Francis J. Duffy, Michael Gillen, Ray Heitzmann , Ted Miles, Naomi Person, Albert Swanson; Advertising & Circulation Director, Charles E.A. Muldaur, Accounting, Jo Meisner; Membership, Marie Lore.

SUMMER 1980

CONTENTS 9 EDITOR'S LOG LETTERS 12 SAIL TRAINING: A BRIDGE, Barclay Warburton 13

TALL SHIPS-1980

14 THE YOUNG AMERICA SAILS, Capt. Peter Vanadia 17 THE BIRTH OF THE YOUNG AMERICA, Charles Wittholz 19 THE USS CONSTITUTION MUSEUM, RAdm. J.C. Wylie 20 THE NORFOLK WHERRY TRUST, James Forsythe 25 SAILING REPRODUCTIONS OF HISTORIC SHIPS, William Avery Baker 27 HISTORIC REPRODUCTIONS: PAST EFFORTS, Ted Miles 28 REPRODUCTIONS: A LIST, Norman Brouwer & Ted Miles 30 TRADE WINDS, Michael Gillen 33 THE ARGONAUT, John R. Wadleigh 34 SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS 35 ERNEST S. DODGE: MUSEUM BUILDER, Philip Chadwick Foster Smith 37 TRIAL BY FIRE, Frank 0. Braynard 38 BOOKS 41 MARINE ART: REPORT OF THE EEL BAIT COMMITTEE, Peter Rogers 43

A REDISCOVERY OF NEW YORK SEAPORT, Keith Miller

44

A HIDDEN AGENDA, Willard Bond

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 sto ri ca l Society 2 Fult on Street, Brooklyn , NY 11201 I wa nt to help yo ur work a nd receive you r quarterly journal SEA HISTORY . Enclosed are my dues as:

0 $I5.00 Regular 0 $100 Patron COVE R: The brigantine Young America romps at large on a sun-dappled sea, a:s painted by Chris Blossom. Sailing to good purpose to train young people in seafaring, she is a participant in Tall Ships- 1980. Her story is told in this issue, and a limited edition print of the whole painting, as shown on page 14, is available from NMHS.

ISSN 0146-9312

0 $ l ,000 Sponsor 0 $7 .50 Student/ Retired

AM E ADDRESS _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Z IP _ _ _ _ __

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

New England This Summer, spend some time amid the rustic beauty and charm of the New England Islands in the Summertime. Relax and unwind as you spend seven carefree and fascinating days aboard the Independence or American Eagle cruising the beautiful New England Islands.

Your cruise will take you to Newport, RI; home of the Breakers and many other stately old mansions.

(Few people realize that this town is actually Aquidneck Island.) Nantucket Island, often called the "Whaling Capital of the World"; Martha's Vineyard, an island made up of four residential communities that have preserved their traditions; and Block Island, a year round residential community that comes alive in the Summer.

While you're in port, there's plenty of time for shopping, sightseeing, or just plain daydreaming.

And when underway, the enchanting scenery is

always just a stone's throw from the ship's sun decks. Enjoy what's outside from the air-conditioned comfort of the glass-enclosed Nantucket Lounge.

The Independence has 46 staterooms, the American Eagle, 26. All are large, comfortable, and on the outside, with private facilities, regular beds, and large, opening picture windows.

The food is out of this world, the service superb, and the atmosphere informal.

Round trip New England Islands cruises depart from Haddam, Connecticut. The Independence sails every Saturday, June 14 through Sept. 27, 1980.

The American Eagle sails every Sunday, July 27 through Sept. 28, 1980.

Seven day cruise from $588 per person. For reservations and information, send in the coupon, or call toll-free 1-800-243-6755. In Connecticut call 345-8551 collect.

Islands Cruise American Cruise Lines 1 Marine Park, Haddam, Conn. 06438 Toll free: 800-243-6755 In Conn.: 203-345-8551

Chesapeake Bay Cruises This Summer or Fall, enjoy a seven day cruise of the historic Chesapeake Bay aboard the Independence or American Eagle.

Ports of call are Solomons Island, St. Michael's, Crisfield, and Oxford, Maryland; Yorktown and Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia; ports that abound with beauty and American history.

Summer Chesapeake Bay cruises aboard the American Eagle depart from Annapolis, Maryland June 8, 15, 22, 28, July 6, 13, and 20, 1980.

Fall cruises aboard the Independence sail Oct. 25, Nov. 1, 8, and 15, 1980. Aboard the American Eagle, Oct. 12 and 19, 1980. From $588 per person.

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1 Marine Park, Haddam, Conn. 06438

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OR CALL TOLL FREE: 800-243-6755 In Connecticut: 203-345-8551

SH 68

This Is A District 2 MEBA-AMO U.S.-Flag Merchant Ship

Help Protect Your Merchant MarineAn Endangered Species American Maritime Officers Service

LETTERS Another Comer of the Forest I enjoy SEA HISTORY but being a nonsailor I don't know why the Falkland Islands ended up as the graveyard for many large sailing ships. An article on this might be of interest to your readers.

Many times we can't see the forest for the trees!

H.C. RANDOLPH, SR. Plymouth Meeting, Penna.

Lying some 300 miles downwind from the southern tip of South America at Cape Horn, the Falklands were the nearest accessible port of refuge for ships damaged in battle with gales off the Horn. For a ship with some of her rig carried away, and so able to run only downwind, the Falklands were a godsend. Limited repair facilities dictated the abandonment of some vessels in the islands; others were beat up too badly to be worth repairing.

We should indeed do an article on this -and will keep better in mind what part of the forest we're inf-ED. A Mighty Act We enjoy SEA HISTORY, and do appreciate your mentioning in "Museum News" the restoration and opening of the steam ferry Berkeley's engine room. But as to who was responsible for this project: the idea of turning the great main engine over was Ed Paxton's. An engineer and member of our Board of Directors, he in fact supervised this effort from beginning to end, and its exhibition to the public is mainly due to his efforts.

GREG CHANDLER Librarian Maritime Museum Ass'n of San Diego

Editor's Log The talk at lunch was of Arthur Ransome's yarns of young people sailing on the Norfolk Broads-those sheets of water on England 's East Coast where the sea flowed in to fill peat bogs dug out in the Middle Ages. James Forsythe, Secretary of the World Ship Trust, started this off by reminding Frank Carr, our Chairman, how Frank had helped him in 1948 to found the Norfolk Wherry Trust and save England's last working wherry, a fine-lined craft which sails today (see pages 20-21) .

We got on, l think, to Cockney rhyming slang, a language unknown to nine tenths of the English-speaking peoples even in England, but still spoken in the pub on the corner when your editor lived in London years ago, where a hat was universally a "titfer" (as in tit for tat).

Such languages make an unbreakable code, unless you know the utterly arbitrary key. If you had to learn what was going on, I suppose you'd have to study people's response when various things were said, over a prolonged period. Our work, I think, it is a little like that: people saying rather special, sometimes mystifying things to each other and then rushing •to the waterfront to do some extraordinary thing like bring in a ship-or, as will happen this year on the East Coast of the United States, a fleet of ships (as reported on pages 12-13).

Well, we got up from our chairs in the Athanaeum and walked down the street to St. James's Palace, a less imposing

edifice than Buckingham Palace, and older, with no two windows matching and some quite close to the street-making it easy for Charles II, that good sailor and merry monarch, to skip in and out o'nights three hundred years ago, and making a point also which wise historians have noted, about the English suspicion of grandeur and fondness for government that does not get too far removed from the thronging concerns of everyday life.

Prince Philip met us there (or we met Philip, I get hopelessly muddled on matters of protocol) and spoke with us and the other trustees in businesslike fashion about our work. His remarks, of which we may hear more later, were all to the point that the Ship Trust from the outset should strive to be of service.

He spoke with some authority on this, as President of England's Maritime Trust, an institution which in the ten years since it was founded at Frank Carr's call, has saved more historic ships-and superbly maintained them-than any other outfit in the world.

Philip also asked me what we were about putting a sinking steamer on the cover of the last SEA HISTORY . I explained that we'd used that painting by the late Anton Otto Fischer especially as a communication to the Ship Trust, to urge that it adopt the motto: "We shall not abandon you." We got so worked up on this idea that we neglected to show the full painting, an omission made good PS herewith.

We Shall Not Abandon You A memorable use of the signal "A over I"-"We shall not abandon you"-occurred when the SS President Roosevelt stood by with those flags streaming in the gale while the late Captain George Fried (I was later with him in the George Washington) battled to rescue the crew of the foundering British steamer Antinoe.

Norman Wilkinson did a fine painting of this gallant act. The rescue took three and a half days, beginning January 24, 1926.

All of the Antinoe's company were saved-at the price of two seamen lost from the Roosevelt.

ROBERT G. HERBERT, JR. East Northport, New York Something More than Bums Your Curator-at-Large has been quoted (in another publication) as saying: "Today's captains aren't seamen really, they're essentially computer technicians, mathematicians, engineers. Ask them to (Cont. p. 10)

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

"The rest of the convoy has passed ahead to leave a stricken ship, with all way off her, as she lies wallowing and sinking deeper after being torpedoed. The culler stands by to pick up survivors. It is no weather to be abandoning ship and it is well that an escort is available to pick them up. " -From Katrina Fischer, Anton Otto Fischer, Marine Artist

9

LETTERS sail a sailboat and a lot of them can't do it.,, I am a Chief Mate on the Great Lakes, and a 2nd Mate on any gross tons on oceans. I know many Masters, and in spite of their tremendous load of bookwork, they have all been seamen before anything. It is not our fault that we can't sail in the romantic age of sail!

You claim to be concerned with our nation's sea heritage, which we lost as a people generations ago. The British still have it. I know, I'm descended from a long line of English sailors of all ranks . I have parish records of my ancestors dating back to the late 12th century. I, too, am interested in reviving America's maritime heritage, but the only way this heritage can be maintained is for the present generation of seamen to be seamen .

And we have been fighting against government and public inertia and ignorance for as long as I can remember.

Surely your people should realize that there will be no past to recall if the present is lost. For example, Washington is now considering, against the President's wishes, a bill to give our own ships more than their present 5 percent of our foreign trade. Other nations already do this.

Another thing, now being brought up by my Union, is the granting of veteran's

benefits to those of us still surviving who served in the combat zones of World War Two. We earned it, but we are officially "non-veterans". And we badly need a "Seamen's Retirement Act," like the Railroad Retirement Act. Most of us, like myself, have sailed for many companies now gone, or non-union companies with no pension program . If you need living proof of this, go to any place around New York where old , broken-down seamen congregate, and observe the misery.

Salvaging old ships sailed by men long dead is a noble enterprise, but what about the living, the only men who can carry on our tradition? I've just mentioned three issues of interest to Living seamen.

Nothing would raise our low morale more than to know that, at last, the American people think of us as something more than bums.

R.G. PIGGOTI Bonifay, Florida

Mr. Piggott's protest seems to us sound in all dimensions. And our Curator, a licensed officer now at sea, joins us in regrets for a hasty remark aimed at a quite different point.-ED. Does an Island Nation Need Ships? am pleased to see your report in the Winter 1980 issue on the dilemma that the

US merchant marine is facing. There is no doubt that if something is not done quickly by our legislators to create an equitable environment in which the US maritime industry can compete with the others nations of the world, then our merchant marine will be nothing but a memory. Almost every year another American flag carrier bites the dust. And history shows that the US maritime industry is critical to the economic and defense security of America .

Best of luck in the issues ahead! You are helping to point out to the American public that their continued apathy will result in elimination of American vessels in the sea lanes surrounding this island SAMUEL R. SACCO nation.

Regional Director National Maritime Council Marine Art Lives in Salem!

Raymond White's article "American Marine Artists: A Research Project" (SH 15: 54-56) proposes a dictionary of marine artists. It may be of interest to know that the Peabody Museum of Salem and Mystic Seaport plan jointly to publish such a dictionary within the next year or so, from the work of Marion and Dorothy Brewington over their long association with maritime museums and marine artists. The Peabody Museum is also contemplating a reprint of the Brewington's monumental Marine Paintings

and Drawings in the Peabody Museum.

The work, some 500 pages with 64 color plates and many black-and-white illustrations, has been sold out for years, and copies for upwards of $350 when they can be found.

There is also a second volume to the Brewingtons' catalog, More Marine

Paintings and Drawings in the Peabody Museum, by my predecessor, Philip C. F. Smith. This volume, recording accessions 1968-78, is available from the museum shop.

JOHNS. CARTER Curator of Maritime History The Peabody Museum, Salem, Mass.

We are glad to know of the Brewington dictionary, and to report elsewhere in this issue that the Peabody is sponsoring an important exhibition of contemporary marine art next spring. Mystic is sponsoring an exhibition of contemporary work this spring. (See ASMA News.)-ED.

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919 THIRD AVENUE NEW YORK , N.Y 10022 (212 ) 752-7150

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"Except these abide in the ship ... " The latest issue is superb. It looks as if the Society is indeed in some danger of surviving.

RICHARD L. RATH Editor, Yachting J:,

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SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

The urgent need for unity . .. and a common policy for the merchant marine A strong American merchant marine is essential for national defense and for America's role in world trade.

To build and maintain an adequate merchant fleet under the American flag requires the unified efforts of all segments of the marine industry: the federal government, the maritime unions, shipowners, shipbuilders and repairers, marine suppliers, foreign traders and the many other businesses that depend upon American flag shipping for their livelihood.

At present, the maritime industry is dangerously fragmented in its efforts to promote and support an American fleet sufficient for the national defense and for the nation's trading requirements.

This disunity is due in large part to lack of a well-defined national maritime policy. There must be unanimity of thinking on maritime goals to achieve much-needed objectives.

In future issues of this magazine the SIU will define the nation's maritime needs and set forth a plan of action whereby all interests can unite to restore the American flag to its rightful place on the trade routes of the world .

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SEAFARE RS INTERNATIONAL UNION 675 Fourth Avenue Brooklyn, N.Y., 11232 The Sea-Land Patriot, one of the modern new ships of t he American merchant marine, manned by the SIU.

A Bridge Over Troubled Waters

By Barclay Warburton, III President, American Sail Training Assoc.

"The sea can be our bridge"-these words spoken by Captain Kazimier Jurkiewicz, former master of the Polish sail training ship Dar Pomorza, epitomize the spirit of the "Tall Ships" Races. The eminent Captain, who served on Poland's beautiful full rigged ship for forty-two years, from apprentice seaman to master, was commenting on the purpose and value of the Sail Training Association's program which has brought the ships and youth of the world together every two years for the past 24 years.

What are the real purposes of the sail training races? Surely there is something more at work here than simply providing a spectacle for the enjoyment of the masses in connection with a national or international event; surely there is a deeper meaning which manifests itself in the joyousness shared by those who come to the waterfronts to see the great sailing ships. There is something inspired by the very ships themselves. This sort of inspiration, and its attendant joyousness, which is so apparent at any gathering of the "Tall Ships" strikes our modern sophisticates as an astonishing phenomenon; yet such inspiration was, not so very long ago, a real and constant presence in the lives of those who lived in the seaports of the world. It is historically a fact that the most experienced sailor, the most hardened merchant, or the most mean-minded citizen along the waterfront never failed to stop for a moment in awe and wonderment as a great ship stood into harbor after months at sea.

There was rejoicing at the hard-won victory of the ship over the cruel sea. The same mixture of longing, fear, wistfulness, and excitement momentarily overwhelmed the passerby as he saw a ship cast off her mooring lines. Perhaps there is deep within us some ancient instinct that is alerted; perhaps it is compounded of a fear of the unknown depths from which the race made its escape so many eons ago, perhaps it is the dim racial remembrance of a voyage across the stars. But whatever these racial memories are, whatever the instinctual and emotional reactions that strike upon one's being at the cutting of the cord that binds us to the safety of the land, it is a fact that these primal instincts do exist.

The arrival in port of a group of square riggers, following a long sail training race, evokes in today's spectators a similar instinctual response-and serves to recall to them an awareness of man's voyage through time. While this is not the primary purpose of the "Tall Ships"

12

Races, it is nonetheless a vital aspect which brings deepened meaning to the gatherings-gatherings which should continue in the tradition of a sailor's joyful celebration after a long and successful voyage.

For these "Tall Ship" gatherings are not, and have never been, commercial in any sense of the word. Yet, in recent years, the spectre of exploitation has begun to appear, and there now exists the threat that the "harpies of the land shall pluck the eagle of the sea." Both the Sail Training Association and the American Sail Training Association have heard unhappy rumblings from captains and' crews alike, from ships both large and small, that the purveyors of "spectacle," with all their attendant traffic in geegaws and hucksterism, are using them, their ships, and their youngsters for exploitative and commercial aggrandizement.

The sail training ships steer to another purpose. The progress of the sailing ship from its earliest days of exploration,

Discovery, growth, maturity -these are the qualities given back by the sailing ships to their creators. through cargo carrying to sail trammg provides us with a continuum which links past, present, and future.

It was through the sailing ship that man learned about the planet. Through the sailing ship, the peoples of the earth grew closer, learned about each other, traded silks and furs, iron and coal, lumber and wheat-supporting one another, helping one another, beginning to understand one another. And often, when understanding failed and darkness fell upon the lands, the ships kept open the sea routes until such time as the light might reappear.

Sometimes swift, sometimes slow, but always graceful, with wings spread to catch the winds, the sailing ship made possible man's voyages of discoverydiscovery of his world and of himself.

Knowledge of self was the most important discovery, for through this knowledge has come growth.

Throughout the ages it has been the youth of the world who have manned and sailed the great ships. Ship's boys at twelve or fourteen, mates at eighteen, and masters at twenty-one or twenty-two, often the crews of the great clipper ships averaged under twenty-five years of age.

The sailing ship demands courage, bold-

ness, swift reactions and certainty of decision. In the sailing ship, weaknesses are discovered quickly, and the youth, overcoming his weaknesses, becomes strong and capable. Discovery, growth, maturity-these are the qualities given back by the sailing ships to their creators.

From time at sea and from contact with others comes an understanding of the two basic principles of the new age; the value of the individual and the fact of the one .humanity. Recognition of the importance of these principles leads an individual to strive to fit himself so that he can better discharge his responsibility as an integral part of the whole of humanity.

It is in the new purpose of unity that the sail training ships find their highest role; they sail not in competition, but in cooperation. No longer do the ships carry cargoes of silks, furs, iron or coal; they carry that most valuable cargo of all-the youth of the world-working together, sailing together, growing together.

The newly formed World Ship Trust moves in the same direction; its efforts will greatly aid the worldwide sail training movement now in its twenty-fourth year.

While ship preservation is, by definition, concerned with the past, it is far more than simply the saving of old hulls. From the inspiration of past deeds, mankind gains an awareness of present needs and future actions . Through an examination of early ships we are able to understand something of the indomitable spirit of their creators.

It was this creative spirit, working with wisdom, intelligence, and harmony that brought forth the great sailing ship. It is the same creative spirit, working in the present generation with wisdom and intelligence that will bring forth the new forms needed to heal the planet and establish harmony.

Captain Jurkiewicz spoke of the sea as the bridge which ultimately will join the peoples of planet Earth together. This is the high purpose of the sail training races-that the youth of many nations may be borne across God's great handiwork, the sea, in man's greatest handiwork, the sailing ship, to the end that these young people may come together in friendship and grow in understanding.

Sail Training welcomes the World Ship Trust and congratulates its founders, led by that notable sailorman Frank Carr; for in the preservation of old ships and tested methods are found the leading lights, set out in former times, which will help us stay on course through the unknown reaches of the future.

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

TALL SHIPS-1980 Over the past 24 years, the Tall Ships Races have brought the nations of Europe Closer together, and twice the Sail Training Association has organized races to bring the ships to North America, in 1964 and 1976. In 1980 the Sail Training Association and the American Sail Training Association, in a cooperative effort, are linking three continents in a series that starts in South America, goes to North America, then across the Atlantic to Europe.

The list of seaports being visited by the sail training ships speaks to the sea trade and maritime history of many lands and peoples: Cartagena, Norfolk, Boston, Kristiansand, Kiel, Karlskrona, Fredrikshavn, and Amsterdam. Ships from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the USA, and West Germany will participate. A high point on the circuit is the visit to Boston for that seaport's celebration of its 350th Anniversary.

The schedule is given below, and entrants for the first three races are listed this page.

Race 1: Start May 5 from Cartagena, Colombia, to Norfolk, Virginia, USA. At Norfolk, the ships join a parade of sail up the Elizabeth River on May 21, and are open to the public May 22-24 as part of the Norfolk Harborfest.

Race 2: Class B vessels start for Boston May 24; Class A vessels Start May 25 for a cruise in company with exchange crews.

At Boston, all ships rendezvous outside harbor on May 29, and enter the harbor May 30, 10 AM, in a parade of sail.

Race 3: Start June 4 for Kristiansand, Norway, ships on view July 4-8; thence cruise to Kiel, Germany, for fleet review July 13.

Race 4: Start July 16 from Kiel to Karlskrona, Sweden, where ships will be open to the public July 23-27; thence cruise to Friedrikshavn, Denmark.

Race 5: Start August 1 from the Skaw to Amsterdam, Netherlands, where ships will be on public view August 6-12. w

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SEA HlSTORY, SUMMER 1980

SHIPS PARTICIPATING IN RACES 1, 2 & 3 DATA: Ship's name, nationality, rig, length on deck , hull color, owner/ master's name, total crew (trainees): races entered. C indicates cruise-in-company to Boston.

CLASS A Christian Radich, Norway, ship, 213 ' , white, Ostlandets Skolaskib/ Cdr. Jan Fjeld-Hansen, 99 (80): 3 Creole, Denmark, 3-masted schooner, 190 ', black , Sofart Sskole, 48 (37): 3 Danmark, Denmark, ship, 213 ' ,white, Dir. for Maritime Ed./Capt. Wilhelm Hansen, 99 (80): 3 Gloria, Colombia, bark, 212 ', white, Navy/ Capt. Angel M. Gustavo, 134 (75): l, C Gorch Fock, W. Germany, bark, 212 ', white, Navy/ Capt. H.H. Wind, 198 (120): 3 Guayas, Ecuador, bark, 212 ', white, Navy/ Capt. Nelson Armas, 125 (45): 1, C, 3 Juan Sebastian de Elcano, Spain, 4-masted tops'! schnr, 305 ' ,white, Navy/ Capt. Ignacio Cela Diaz, 336 (251): 1, C Unicorn, USA, brig, 89 ' , black, Unicorn Maritime Inst./Capt. Jonathan B. Smith, 32 (20): C Young America, USA, brigantine, 90 ' , black, YA Marine Ed. Soc./Capts. P. Vanadia-P. Miller 34 (24): c CLASS B America, USA, schooner, 105 ', Carolos Perdomo/ John Bardon: C Apollo, Netherlands, Bm ketch, 45 ' , beige, L. van Gasselt/ G. Ulrich, 6 (3): 3 Astral, USA, ketch, 99 ', white, Navy/ Lt. Gen. Robert Taber (ret), 23 (18): 3 Blanca Estela, Chile, ketch, 65 ' ,white, Navy/ Capt. John Martin (ret), 14 (7):1, 2, 3 Chaser, Gt Britain, Bm sloop, 54 ' , dk blue, Joint Svc Sailing Centre/ LCdr Budge, 12 (9): 1, 2, 3 Christian Venturer, Bermuda, lug schnr, 52 ', white, Robert R. Doe, 10 (5): 2, 3 El Pirata, Guernsey, tops'! schnr, 70 ', white, John C. Cluett, 24 (18): 3 Esperanza, Argentina, yawl, 48 ' , white, Coast Guard/ Cdr. Juan Babich, 14 (10): 1, 2 Fortuna II, Argentina, sloop, 48 ' , white, Navy/ Cmdt Rafael Heredia, 13: 1 Glad Tidings, USA, brigantine, 45 ' , dk green, Bruce Trembly, 6 (3): 2 Lindo, USA, 3-masted tops'! schnr. 91 ' ,black, Atlantic Schnr Assn/G. Francis Birra, 12 (6): C, 3 Mabel Stevens, USA, Bm ketch, 45 ', dk green, Ned Chalker, 6 (3): 2 Sabre, Gt Britain, Bm yawl, 54 ' , red, Joint Svc Sailing Centre/ LtCol Goodhart-Maj GravellsMaj Gomersall, 12 (7): I, 2, 3, Zenobe Gramme, Belgium, Bm ketch, 93 ' , white, Navy/ Lt. Hanton, 16 (8): 3

The brig Unicorn of Deerfield Beach, Fla.

Spreading her wings on a halcyon sea, the Young America is caught in flight by the young artist Chris Blossom. A member of the American Society of Marine Artists, he helped sail the vessel south last fall, and will be al sea in her as this issue appears, sailing Key West-Norfolk 10 join the Tall Ships Race to Boston. Fine prints of this painting are available upon inquiry to NMHS.

From the decks of a working square rigger

The Young America Sails!

From a distance she was a sight to stir the heart. Lofty masts with yards crossed against the sky, a clipper bow and a thrusting jibboom combined to excite the imagination. Up close it was a vastly different story.

A dead ship is a sorry sight under the best of circumstances and these were not the best of circumstances for the brigantine Enchantress. She had been tied to that dock all winter. No one had thought to send down her sails and they showed the ravages of a Long Island winter. Her running rigging and ratlines were manila and thoroughly rotten . Peeling paint was abundant. Her hull was foul.

Below decks she was grim. Pipes had frozen and burst in almost every compartment. There was ample evidence of deck leaks. In the engine room none of the machinery was working and there was a water mark on the bulkhead sufficiently high to stop one cold. It was hard to believe that she was only three years old.

She was designed by Charles Wittholz to meet U.S. Coast Guard requirements for passenger vessels and built by her original owners, the Port Jefferson Packet Company, for the cruise trade.

Launched in I 975 at Port Jefferson, NY, she had taken part in Operation Sail '76.

That was the high point of her career.

She was never a success in the cruise trade and by the fall of 1977 the U.S. Marshal 14

By Capt. Peter Vanadia was tacking the notice of seizure to her mast. At the subsequent auction she was knocked down to Chemical Bank, who held her mortgage. Months later she was still awaiting a buyer to bring her back to life.

At that point, in the spring of 1978, the Young America Marine Education Society was formed by Historic Gardner's Basin (the Atlantic City maritime museum) and The Oceanic Society, MidAtlantic Region . Both parents are grassroots organizations without endowments.

There was some feeling that taking on a project of this magnitude was insane.

There was a stronger feeling that the taking of carefully calculated risk was in the finest seafaring tradition. Enchantress was bought and renamed Young America. The name symbolizes both a commitment to youth and a hope that her career will be as long and as successful as that of the original Young America, William Webb's famous clipper of I853 .

The Work Begins We became the owners of Young America at the end of May I 978. The first task was to move her to Historic Gardner's Basin where most of the refitting would be done. Weeks of work would be required before she could sail, so we had to move her under power.

Steve Clarke and his crew at Greenport Yacht & Shipbuilding Company hauled

her the first week in June. While she was on the railway we cleaned and painted the bottom and also underwent Coast Guard drydock inspection. The Greenport crew performed some minor miracles and she passed inspection and was back in the water in a few days.

With a hastily recruited crew we got underway for Atlantic City.

Once secured alongside at Historic Gardner's Basin the work began in earnest. Although it would be weeks (some said months) before she would be ready for inspection, Coast Guard inspectors from Philadelphia went through her from stem to stern, helping us identify everything that needed to be done. The list was aweso me.

Working eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, the crew and some enthusiastic volunteers got everything done in seven weeks. Some last-minute work was just finished as the inspector walked down the dock. There was still much to be done, but she was safe and seaworthy, and to prove it she soon had a Certificate of In spectio n on the charthouse bulkhead.

Two years later we are still working to improve Young America. Probably it will be another two years before we can say "Now all we have to do is maintain her."

We have had an enormous amount of help from many. Thanks to ITT Decca, SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

The clew has just pulled out of a headsail (right), and Chris Siegel is muzzling it. Below, Sea Cadets stow the mainsail, Sept. 1979. Ar bottom, the Young America at Historic Gardner's Basin. Her squaresails brail in ro rhe masr, making it possible ro stow rhem from on deck.

Phoros, P. Vanadia.

Young America is very well equipped with navigation and communications electronics. Uncounted gallons of paint have been donated by International Paint Co. The Flood Company provided Deks Olje (which is used for all brightwork and decks). Switlik Parachute provided an inflatable liferaft and Danforth donated a new anchor.

Others, most notable Greenport Yacht & Shipbuilding, Atlantic Marine Diesel and the venerable Philadelphia chandler Elisha Webb, have provided materials and services at a "square rigger discount" and extended credit for months. Young America couldn't keep sailing without their help and that of many others.

Getting People to Sea During July and August Young America is based at her homeport, Historic Gardner's Basin in Atlantic City, N .J. Twice every day she casts off and heads for the open Atlantic, less than a mile away through Absecon Inlet, for three hours of sailing with up to sixty-five people aboard.

There is no structured program . Some days we might have a shantyman aboard, or someone who provides an informal lecture on ships of the past. The only constant is the ship herself and the willingness of the crew to explain her workings. Most people come away from a sail in Young America with a deeper understanding of the skill, courage and determination required of those generations of sailors who relied solely on the wind for power.

Jn the summer of 1979 more than 5,000 people sailed in Young America.

Thousands more will sail in her during the winter months. For many this is their first and, perhaps, only possible experience of sailing in square rig.

Key West is Young America's winter home. Some weeks during the winter are spent at sea on sail training cruises. The others are used for daily sails, open to the general public.

Young America accommodates twentyfour trainees in addition to her crew of ten. Although she can carry water and stores sufficient for a month or more at sea, sail training cruises are of one or two weeks duration. For our average trainee (16 or 17 years of age), this appears to be the optimum time to spend in the ship.

We expect some of them will go on to longer programs in Westward, Regina Maris or perhaps the US Coast Guard's Eagle.

A limited number of apprentices are accepted in Young America. They must be at least 16 and able to spend a SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

mm1mum of two weeks (preferably a month) with the ship.

Between September and December Young America visits East coast cities on her way to Key West. In port for a few days she is open to the public and educational programs are conducted for school groups. These port visits do not provide the spectacle of a major harbor festival and certainly they cannot offer the broad view of maritime history gained by visiting a good museum. But they do stimulate an interest in things maritime, and the Young America can help publicize local preservation efforts and programs for marine education.

Odds and Ends One can sail for days without sighting another ship. Finally one is sighted, often on a collision course.

Normally this is no problem. The burdened vessel alters course a bit.

Sometimes there's a bit of a garn on the UHF, particularly if the meeting occurs in the middle or morning watch.

Every time we pass a really BIG vessel at sea, usually with no visible evidence of human life aboard her, I wonder about

The continuity of tradition to another generation will be established. meeting one of her sisters on a cruddy night. Will we produce a decent echo on her radar or be lost in the sea clutter? Will her lookout see us? Does she have a lookout?

The notion of being crunched by some automated 250,000 DWT behemoth haunts me. Tony Muldoon gave my nightmare monster a name: the Godzilla Maru.

We've had a varied assortment of people crewing in Young America, and our present crew is no exception. First Officer Lou Buck had been working in research vessels and had no experience in sail before he signed on as a deck hand a year ago. He took to sailing immediately.

Laurie Watson is an art historian by training, who was working for an insurance company when she learned that Pride of Baltimore needed a cook. Laurie joined Young America a year ago, and we have enjoyed four-star cuisine ever since.

Steve Briggs is one of four brothers, three of whom have crewed in Young America.

David Stout came aboard as a

YOUNG AMERICA volunteer cook and soon earned the title "Captain Carbo." We threw him out of the galley when Laurie joined. Today, David is Second Officer, a marine biologist by training, who first sailed in

listening to Captain Johnson's accounts of a lifetime at sea . None of us had been born when he rounded Cape Horn in the Peking. Some of our crew hadn't been born when he was sailing the brigantine

Westward.

Yankee.

Dan Nelson was a schoolmate of Lou Buck's and skipper of a Great Lakes ferry. The Lakes get cold in the winter, and when Dan learned we were heading for warmer latitudes, he signed on.

Bill Bachert is a photographer. He volunteered for the passage from Atlantic City to Key West and stayed on.

Probably the only thing we all have in common is a passion for sailing larger vessels, preferably square riggers.

Perhaps we were born a few generations too late-or too early, considering the possible rebirth of commercial sail.

Maybe we are analogous to the monks who kept scholarship alive throught the Dark Ages.

Although we had to get underway in the morning, none of us was willing to turn in so long as Irving kept talking. Sitting there with the lamp swinging to a tug's wake, we were transported in time and space. We could imagine the feel of Peking rising to a Cape Horn roller and leaning to the winds of the Southern Ocean.

Some night many years from now one of the people who was enthralled by Captain Johnson's stories will be on a ship somewhere. To an audience of young sailors yet to be born, he will recount his memories of a lifetime of voyaging.

Maybe he will recall an evening with Irving Johnson at South Street. The continuity of tradition to another generation will be established .

*

*

*

*

*

Young America was lying at a pier at the South Street Seaport Museum, New York, in the shadow of the great Peking.

Our Advisory Board had met earlier that day, and Irving Johnson had stayed for dinner.

After dinner we all stayed around the table, drinking endless cups of coffee,

Capt. Vanadia is skipper of Young America. Information on the ship's programs is available from: Young America Marine Education Society, Historic Gardner's Basin, Atlantic City, NJ 08401. Membership is $15 per year and

open to anyone interested in the ship and her work.

Young America, after a sojourn in Key

West where there are some interesting things stirring, will come north to join the Tall Ships Race from Norfolk to Boston.

Thereafter she will come into New York under the National Society's sponsorship, thanks to a generous grant by the Chemical Bank, to take 24 young New Yorkers to sea for a week's rigorous sail training.

Following this she will join the New York Harbor Festival over July 4th weekend. Argentina's Libertad will lead the harbor parade with Young America next in column: so Captain Vanadia's dream that an American tall ship will spread her wings in such an event (SH 16: 6) will come true. And true in the best way, with the ship fresh from a drill exercising young people in old disciplines at sea.

The ship's continued sailing is threatened by the need to pay her mortgage-she is meeting all expenses currently out of income. A drive is on to raise funds to burn the mortgage: contributions may be sent to NMHS marked Young America to support this vital effort. -ED.

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SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

The Birth of the Young America

By Charles The design of the Young America has several beginnings, and numerous detours which were very inspiring at times and very disappointing at others. It all began back in December 1963 when Captain Arthur Kimberly approached me for plans of an 89 ' brigantine designed by the late J . Murray Watts, whose designs I had acquired. Captain Kimberly, a graduate of the US Maritime Academy, has one of the few unlimited licenses as master under sail or power, had sailed around the world on commercial square riggers, and was Captain of the brigantine Yankee for two years under Mike Burk, after Irving Johnson gave her up.

He agreed with me that it would be worthwhile to develop a new design for his purpose of carrying passengers for

NAUTICAL MEMORABILIA

W. Wittholz hire. He wanted a good ship which would meet classification society rules and Coast Guard inspection. Once the new design was completed, Captain Kimberly sold his charter schooner Olad II and began work as the chief rigger at Mystic Seaport to prepare for construction of the new boat.

A short time later, United Artists hired Alan Villiers to re-rig a Danish trading galeass from ketch to brigantine for the movie "Hawaii." After the movie the ship was put up for auction, and Captain Kimberly purchased her for approximately $30,000. This immediately changed the whole picture and with approximately $50,000 extra, he had an 86 ' charter brigantine which he renamed Romance and began sailing in the charter business

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SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

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with his able wife Gloria.

The original plans for the 90 footer we had designed were then published in several of the boating magazines.

Sometime in 1972, David Kent, who owned a steel construction company in Port Jefferson, Long Island saw them, and decided he had to have this vessel. He visited me, bought the plans on the spot, and after returning to Long Island, proceeded with construction-and a long correspondence with me that resulted in changing the boat to ferro-cement construction, plus many other modifications.

I often wondered if David Kent would complete the enormous job he had undertaken. There were many dark periods of months when nothing could be done at all for lack of funds. It is a great tribute to David Kent that in spite of his many obstacles, he did complete the vessel, which he named Enchantress. He got her certified by the US Coast Guard, sailed her and continued in the charter business until the vessel was forced out by economic pressure.

For my part, I designed the boat using the best tools I had acquired in a lifetime of naval architecture, and still feel that the vessel is an excellent example of her type, though the excess weight of the ferro-cement construction is a handicap.

A wooden version of this brigantine, but with schooner rig, named Pegasus is now being completed by Gaston Santos in Tampico, Mexico.

'1> '1> '1>

Mr. Wittho/z is an Advisor and farmer Trustee of the NMHS.

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A new museum in Boston, built around our most famous fighting ship

The USS Constitution Museum

By Rear Admiral J.C. Wylie, USN (ret.)

In the late 1960s and early 70s, with the National Bicentennial looming ahead, thought was given to the role "Old Ironsides," the frigate Constitution of 1797, should play in this grand birthday. Over $4 million was appropriated, and the first complete restoration since the 1920s was taken in hand. Much of the framing, hull planking and copper sheathing was renewed. She was restored, as best as could be determined, to the configuration of 1812.

About this time it began to be recognized that, if she were to be fitted as though she were ready for sea, the belowdecks displays and ancillary artifacts -musty uniforms, paintings, and incredible jumble-must come out. And this led to realization that a supporting museum was needed-to tell her story and to support the ship in her task of bringing to visitors an awareness of her role in the times in which she served.

So, in 1972, a small group of men incorporated the USS Constitution Museum Foundation as a private, non-profit, non-governmental, educational (and tax exempt) foundation.

Then, in February 1973, it became publicly known that the Boston Navy Yard was to be closed. So Plan "B" was put in operation. Trustees of the Foundation approached the National Park Service to interest them in taking over the thirty acres of the original Navy Yard in order to provide a home berth for the ship and a site for the planned museum.

The National Park Service was interested, and Speaker John W. McCormack, by then retired, welcomed the idea and agreed to get the necessary legislation through the Congress.

Fundraising began. Five Boston firms-the Boston Globe, The Raytheon Company, New England Mutual Life Insurance, Prudential Insurance, and Gillette-pledged $50,000 each. Then other contributions came in and work was started on the old granite building.

In the spring of 1975, the Trustees had to make a basic decision. Should the pace

of the restoration of Building 22 be geared to the actual income of contributions? Or should the Museum Foundation go into debt in order to complete the work and open the museum in time for the Bicentennial? The Trustees bit the bullet and borrowed the money.

The Museum was opened on April 8, 1976, when Samuel Eliot Morison, in his last public appearance before his death, cut the rope and the first visitors entered the Museum.

The resulting legislation created the Boston National Historical Park consisting of seven sites including the "old thirty acres" of the Navy Yard. There was one critically important phrase in the legislation. The Department of the Interior (the Park Service) was authorized to enter into "cooperative agreements" with state and local governments and private organizations. That provision made it possible for the Foundation to plan for a museum close by the ship in the Navy Yard Site of the National Park.

The overt reason for these "cooperative agreements" was to ensure local cooperation and participation, and this has been effective and successful. The un~poken added reason for the cooperative agreements, in which the nongovernmental organizations operate the several sites, is that this takes a large load off the taxpayer's back. This, too, has been successful; costs to the federal government are minimal, and vastly less than they would be if the government ran everything.

The Trustees of the Museum Foundation made their cooperative agreement with the National Park Service (which, as it has turned out, is an uncommonly able and understanding agency). Building 22, which originally in 1832 housed the machinery for the old drydock, was made available. The Museum Foundation was to bear the cost of restoring the building and adapting it to museum use. The changes from the original configuration were minimal-climate control to protect artifacts and documents, an inconspic-

The "fighting top" exhibit (left) allows visitors a close up look at a pan of the ship normally visible only from the deck-a considerable distance

uous elevator, fire and theft protection and the like.

At that time the debt was about $800,000. By the end of 1979, alt the commercial debt had been paid off; plans are in hand for 1980 to pay the remaining few thousand dollars loaned (in addition to gifts) by trustees; and the Museum is operating in the black.

As the Museum became a going concern, artifacts and documents have been given or loaned, including some unexpected treasures. One such is a diary kept by the Captain's Clerk in the 1840s, donated by a woman in Maine whose family had providentially preserved it over the years. This diary gives long forgotten information on Constitution's role in the suppression of the slave trade along the African Coast, both afloat and ashore.

The Museum's recently opened Samuel Eliot Morison Library makes available both volumes and microfilm and has an impressive list of archival material, including the oldest known log of the USS Constitution dating from 1798.

The first-floor exhibit space is now being modified to show an entire full-size cross-section of the lower portion of the ship with its heavy keel and keelson and ribs. There is already a companion exhibit to show woodworking tools and techniques of the times. There is a rigger's model used for years in the Navy Yard, which enabled the riggers to work out in advance the actual placement of the running and standing rigging.

Last year there were over 100,000 visitors to the Museum. It has built up its own style and following, serving well that most famous of American ships, the oldest man-of-war in the world still afloat and in commission, most famous of all our famous ships, the United States Frigate Constitution. w

Admiral Wylie has served as President of the USS Constitution Museum, and is Chairman of the American Sail Training Association.

on /he Constitution. Here /wo boys scramble up !he rigging. At righl, note size of /he people on deck and the distance from /hem lo /he lops.

The Albion today (left) is kept in sailing trim by the Norfolk Wherry Trust and carries passengers on holiday cruises. Earlier, in her career as cargo carrier (right) she carried whatever was needed. Here, with mast lowered, she reaches Yarmouth quay to load timber. Note the extensive steam drifter fishing fleet in the background.

THE

NORFOLK WHERRY TRUST

By James Forsythe

Photo: courtesy Eastern Daily Press, Norwich.

In the heyday of sail, between 1850 and 1900, there were probably over two hundred different types of small sailing craft trading and fishing under sail on the coasts and inland waters of Great Britain.

Many such types became very numerous.

On the Thames estuary alone, over 2000 of the Thames sailing barges, made famous by Frank Carr in his book Sailing Barges, once traded; and there were a host of others, including upwards of 200 trading wherries on the Norfolk Broads, a system of some 200 miles of interconnected lakes and rivers in the extreme east of the county of Norfolk, flowing into the sea at Gt. Yarmouth, and linked to the rivers of N.E. Suffolk.

Now only one trading wherry survives still in trading trim , the Albion, preserved by a voluntary organisation, the Norfolk Wherry Trust, of which the author, a founder member and quondam Chairman, is now President.

From the Middle Ages until the early 19th century, the heavy cargo carrier of the Broads district was called a keel.

These were heavy barge type open vessels (descended from the Saxon war keel)," some 60 to 70 feet long, carrying 60 to 80 tons, with a single mast stepped amidships, upon which was set a large single square sail. A similar type, the Humber keel, survived in trade in East Yorkshire until 1939, and one is now preserved, the Comrade.

20

For several centuries, the Norfolk keel was the principal cargo-carrier in this part of East Anglia, an area which might be likened to Holland, where every village and market town had its own stalthe or mooring place.

The keel must have been largely dependent on the tides, and very awkward to handle on the narrower rivers and dykes, where she must have been easily delayed by head winds, being impossible to tack in a narrow river.

By the end of the 18th century the fore and aft rig was becoming familiar in Northern Europe. There are no exact records, but well before 1800 in Norfolk, some enterprising builder had produced a much finer lighter hull than the cumbrous keel, double ended like a navy whaler, and had moved the mast into the bows and installed a single large fore and aft gaff mainsail, thereby producing a far more handy vessel for narrow waters, capable of beating up the narrowest dykes. By 1820, these 'wherries' had proved so efficient that they had swept the keels from the rivers. The wherry hull was somewhat smaller; an average load of 25 to 40 tons was common. The dimensions of our Albion are typical of a large wherry. Length 58 ft., Beam 15 ft., Draft 3 ft. 6 in. light, and 5 ft. 6 in. when fully laden, with 40 tons. She is fitted with a slipping keel, which could be unbolted and removed when heavy laden, thereby reducing the

draft in shallow waters by some 9 inches.

She sets one large square cut gaff mainsail of some 1200 sq. ft. This carries two sets of reef points, and in fine weather onto the foot of the sail can be laced the bonnet, an extension roughly equal to shaking out an extra reef. The use of a bonnet was once common in Northern Europe. It is thought the wherry is now the only type to survive still with its traditional bonnet.

The mast, which is unstayed apart from a forestay, is stepped in a tabernacle, supported by the main beam, and is counter-weighted to enable it to be lowered by one man for the numerous fixed bridges on some of the rivers. The hold extends aft from the main beam some 40 ft., and can be close-covered with hatches, and will carry up to 40 tons.

The crew, normally two men, sleep in a small cabin in the stern with two bunks and a good cooker against the fore bulkhead. The wherries had black tarred hulls, many with a white eye in the bows, and the hatches, upperworks and spars were brightly painted, many owners having their own colour schemes. For instance, Albion, (which is the old name for Britain) is painted red, white and blue!

The photos taken in the twenties give a good impression of these craft at work.

Their normal cargoes consisted of coal inwards, lightering the collier brigs at Yarmouth, and corn and flour outwards, plus timber, bricks, and all sorts of SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

The wherry Fir (above right) slips through the Norfolk countryside in light airs. The mate urges her along with a quant. At right, the Norfolk Hero in the heart of Norwich, doing work now done by trucks. (Photo from Robert Malster's Wherries and Waterways published by Terence Dalton, Suffolk, Eng. At bottom, a heavy-laden wherry in Womack Dyke. Photos: courtesy Michael Seago, Norwich.

manufactured goods to remote villages, plus, later, sugar beet to the factory set up at Cantley early in this Century. On occasions, passengers were carried, and one small wherry, known as the 'Cabbage Wherry,' took garden produce to market.

The wherries were normally fresh-water craft, limited to the rivers and broads of East Anglia: but there were notable exceptions. One of their principal duties in the last century was lightering ships (mainly collier brigs from the Tyneside), in Yarmouth roads.

Two famous voyages at sea should certainly be recorded. In 1857, a total of eight wherries were sailed from Lowestoft to the South along the East Coast, through the Straits of Dover, down channel to the Isle of Wight. They were used for a year or more sailing in open water off Portsmouth, and across to the Island, by contractors, for transporting materials in connection with building barracks at Gosport. One wherry was lost in the Solent. Two more were sold at Portsmouth, and ended their days on the Thames. But the remaining five returned eventually to the East Coast, and finished their days in peaceful trading on the broads. These voyages were entirely under sail.

Another spectacular voyage was in 1888, when the pleasure wherry Gipsy was taken to Holland. She was actually towed by an old paddle-wheel tug from Yarmouth across the North Sea to Den Helder, where she entered the Zuider Zee, going as far as Stavoren, where she entered the complex maze of canals and lakes in Friesland. Gipsy spent the next four years cruising extensively in Holland and Germany. Her adventures are fully chronicled by her owner, H. M. Doughty, in two books, Through Friesland Meres in a Norfolk Wherry and Our Wherry in Wendish Lands.

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

After the first War, the number of wherries declined dramatically, hastened by the motor lorry, and by 1945 not one was left under sail, their trade having largely gone from our waters. In 1949 the Norfolk Wherry Trust was founded, as a voluntary organisation dedicated to saving one of these craft, not just as a static museum but afloat under sail on her home waters. Funds were raised by voluntary contribution, and eventually the hull of Albion was made available to the Trust through the generosity of Lady Mayhew, one of our Trustees. Albion is unfortunately untypical in one respect, being carve! built. The true trading wherries were invariably clinker built of 2 in. oak planks on 4 in. oak frames, fastened by galvanised bolts.

In 1949 Albion, built by William Brighton at Oulton Broad in 1898 for W.D. and A.E. Walker, the Malsters of Bungay, had to be substantially renovated. Spars for a new mast and gaff had to be obtained and made up, together with a new sail and rigging, no easy task in post-war England. But success crowned these efforts, and eventually in November 1949 Albion made her maiden voyage under the Trust from Yarmouth to Norwich, carrying a distinguished party including the Mayors of these two towns. Albion is now fully employed for the summer months carrying parties of young, and not so young, for open air holidays on the Broads, sailing as their forefathers did, utilising only wind and tide in a vessel with no auxiliary power, now in her 82nd year.

.t .t .t Major Forsythe, Secretary of the World Ship Trust, invites any reader interested in visiting or sailing in the Albion to write to him at: Scoutbush, 129a North St., Burwell, Cambridgeshire, England. Tel: Newmarket 741612.

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SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

uy nes.

Today, thousands of people have found that owning a Brooklyn brownstone prov id es the stimul at ion of city Iivi ng without the congestion. And the security and pri vacy of neighborhood suburban life without the isolation.

And therein lies a story.

A century ago, Brooklyn, already a bustling seaport, became America's first suburb. Thousands of people bought newly buil t brownstones and made Brooklyn a welcome retreat from the overcrowding and commercialism of Manhattan Isla nd.

Today , history is repeating itself.

A new generation of "brownstoners" are buying and restoring Brooklyn brownstones. Preserving historic neighborhoods. Building a new pride. And a new life in Brooklyn.

They're rediscovering the grandeur of Victorian-era New York.

Gracious, affordable homes. Stimulating urban life styles.

They're part of a back-to-thecity movement which is creating important changes throughout the country. As the movement grows, it's beginning to dawn on many more

people that revita lized cities may just be the answer to escalating suburban property ta xes, weeken d parents and gasoline shortages.

Today, Brook lyn 's Cinderel la story con ti nues. In the process, neighborhoods are on the upswing and new businesses are booming. The future?

Good neighborhoods are growing in Brooklyn .

If you'd like to find out more about buying a Brooklyn brownstone, call our Brownstone Information Center ~ at (212) 643-4293.

\V Brooklyn Union Gas

125 High Street Boston, Massach usetts 0211 0 Tel. (617) 423-5959

THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR EXPERIENCE The Martha's Vineyard Shipyard has built boats to order for well over a hundred years. We have carved a unique niche as a yard building contemporary designs while maintaining competence in the fine details of yacht construction .

The Vixen 34 is one of two boats now in "production ." Production meaning 5 or 6 boats are built to order each year. moderate displacement fiberglass double ender h a low wetted surface, the Vixen 34 is fast to er, quick tacking, and has the easy motion of a le ender in a seaway.

She's stiff, but in lig hosts away under a moderately high asr:>, ch boat is meticulously finished to t pacifications. Our custom options in g skylights, teak decks, and a host e have been putting on yachts Ion ilders have been in business.

In a world en mor roduction we are comfortab1 ..---;=~=:1...111.--~-ICJl:;tmn ith a few individuals each y dful of fine yachts. We h;';-ft;;~~~ilrr.:: ~~,4ol!f<~ r way of boat building and Ml-til-V-l~f'lli1Jt o ars and let us show yo 1--+1-...,-,rtttt'M<itn c makes in boatbuildin.,.__ _ _-4

Vixen 34 L.O.A. 34'-4" L.W.L. 27'-5" Beam 10'-6" Draft 5'-2" Displacement 12,500 lbs Ballast 5,500 lbs Working Sail Area 552 Sq. Ft.

Martha's Vineyard Shipyard, Inc. Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts 02568 Telephone (617) 693-0400 24

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

The Maryland Dove (right) and the Mayflower II (below) show that reproductions can be very real ships-real in their ability to recapture life aboard such craft, and real in their ability to cross oceans, the truest test, passed with flying colors by the Mayflower II.

An historic naval architect finds sound sense and value in . ..

Sailing Reproductions of Historic Ships

By William A. Baker Full-sized reproductions of historic vessels have been constructed in the past primarily in connection with the celebration of some historic event. I use "reproduction" rather than the more common "replica," for a replica is defined as a duplicate, especially by the maker of the original, obviously an impossibility in the cases of vessels such as Columbus's Santa Maria. These reproductions have ranged from the ludicrous-the rig and superstructure of one period on the hull of another-to well researched vessels, capable of deep-sea passages.

Some reproductions have been built on the assumptions that any pre-clipper ship era vessel must have been chunky in shape and crude in finish. The widening of maritime research during the twentieth century has shown these assumptions to be false. Enough material is available to present-day naval architects to design convincing reproductions of most types of vessels. It is difficult if not impossible, however, to reproduce specific vessels.

For most reproductions of early vessels, one can claim no more than that they are of the size and type of the vessels whose names they bear.

But sailing such reproductions leads to

PHOTO: TOM DARDEN , COURTESY OF ST. MARY'S CITY COMMISSION

a greater appreciation of the accomplishments of early explorers, traders, and fishermen. This is one of the great advantages of reproductions-they can be sailed. There are many good reasons for not hazarding an old ship, such as the Charles W. Morgan of 1841, at sea; further, of course, there are no preserved examples of many types of vessels. Among the modern reproductions that have provided sailing experience is the Mayflower II, built from my plans in England between July 1955 and April 1957, which sailed across the Atlantic after a two-andone-half hour trial trip. Her passage was chronicled by her master Commander Alan Villiers, her sponsor Warwick Charlton, and by Peter Padfield who from a crew member's point of view wrote of the "ghastly authenticity" of the ship .

Reproductions of three other English vessels of the early seventeenth centurythe 120-ton Susan Constant, the 50-ton Godspeed, both ship rigged, and the 20-ton two-masted Discovery-were built at Norfolk, Virginia, for the 1957 Jamestown Festival. A report of their extensive sailing trials on Chesapeake Bay was published in the Transactions of The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers for 1958 (Volume 66). Since October 1978 another small ship-rigged seventeenth-century reproduction has been sailing from St. Mary's City, 6~ Maryland. She is the 40-ton Maryland . ~ Dove which was built to my plans and m~ tended to represent the pinnace Dove, the ~ smaller of the two. vessels that brought ~ the first settlers to Maryland in 1634. ~ Other Atlantic crossings have been ~ made by a too-small version of Colum0 bus's Nina in 1962-63; in 1974 by an 5 American-designed, English-built version _._,,,_.....,...._"'--" ii: of Drake's Golden Hind; and by the skin-

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

boat Brendan in 1976-77, which spent the intervening winter in Iceland. She proved that St. Brendan and a group of Irish monks might have sailed from Ireland to the New World during a seven-year voyage. When last reported a few years ago the Nina was afloat in a pool at Acapulco, and in February 1980 the Golden Hind was said to be west of Singapore en route under tow to England from Japan where she had been featured in a motion picture after sailing across the Pacific from San Francisco.

Unique experience was gained in the Atlantic crossing of Thor Heyerdahl's reed boats Ra I and Ra II in the late 1960s, although they were not preserved.

The Tigris, another of Heyerdahl's reed craft, this one based on Sumerian traditions, sailed during the winter of 1977-78 from the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. There she was burned as a symbolic protest against the arms race and fighting in Africa, when barred from proceeding farther by violent politics. In the Pacific, the double-canoe Hokule'a demonstrated the navigating skill of the islanders by a voyage between Hawaii and Tahiti in 1976.

The Hudson's Bay Company's Nonsuch, built at Appledore, North Devon in 1968, although deck cargo for the Atlantic crossing, demonstrated the sailing qualities of a seventeenth-century ketch along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America and on the Great Lakes before being enshrined under cover in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1974. Another reproduction of a square-rigged ketch of 1670 named the Adventure has been sailed periodically in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, since April 1970.

Built to my plans on Maryland's Eastern Shore, she has corroborated the seven25

HISTORIC An Account

GEN . WM . LANA GAN , USMC

Reproductions of the British frigate Rose (above) and the American sloop Providence (right) are both based in Newport, , RI. JOHN T. HOPF

teenth-century ketch's reputation for handiness.

Sailing experience with large gaffrigged sloops was a thing of the past until the building of the Hudson River sloop Clearwater in 1969. As her name indicates, she is employed to create a public awareness of the polluted Hudson. A reproduction of the Revolutionary War sloop Providence was built of fiberglass in Rhode Island and launched on 2 October 1976. Since completion, she has made a number of special tours and has participated in the re-enactment of several events of the War for Independence. A wooden reproduction of a similar sloop, the Welcome of 1775, built by the British at what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, has been under construction at the same place for the past four years. She may be sailing in the summer of 1980.

The Pride of Baltimore, a clipper schooner built of wood on Baltimore's waterfront, was launched on 27 February 1977. Described as another in a long line of Baltimore clippers, she was inspired particularly by the famous privateer Chausseur. She has sailed extensively in trade promotion for the City of Baltimore. A wooden sailing reproduction of HMS Rose of 1757, built in Nova Scotia in 1970, is now moored on the waterfront of Newport, Rhode Island. Prior to the War for Independence, the original 20gun, 6th rate Rose was a great nuisance to the honest Colonial smugglers.

Reproductions for use in motion pictures cannot be overlooked but their quality has varied. Many would not bear close scrutiny from an historical point of view although there has been an improvement in the last few decades.

Individual craftsmen beyond count have built and are building reproductions of classic types of small craft which may be defined as the sailing and pulling boats that existed in the commercial and recreation fields at the beginning of the twentieth century before the gasoline engine became common as propelling power.

Going back almost three centuries earlier, a 33-foot by 9-foot reproduction of a shallop with only 350 square feet of sail 26

often has discouraged the owners of modern fiberglass flyers in handicap races at Plymouth, Massachusetts. When not under sail she can be moved at a good clip by eight oars. A 29-foot reproduction of a two-mast boat of 1725 sometimes attracted as much attention at Chesapeake Bay boat shows as the new yachts on display. Two 1775 whaleboats have raced occasionally on Long Island Sound since 1977 to commemorate the cross-Sound raiding indulged in during the War for Independence by the patriots in Connecticut and the Tories on Long Island. These last three types were built to my designs, the whaleboats being Bicentennial community projects.

A number of reproductions are under construction or are in the planning stages.

A builder on Maryland's Eastern Shore is constructing almost single-h')pded a round-sterned bugeye, a type not seen on Chesapeake Bay for many years. A gundalow, the shallow-draft freighting boat peculiar to New Hampshire's Piscataqua River basin, will be under sail in 1981. I have currently in the planning stages a reproduction of a Spanish ship to represent the galleon Los Tres Reyes Magos which brought supplies and troops from Spain to St. Augustine in 1566. Dr. Eugene Lyon of Vero Beach during extensive research in Spanish archives found the galleon's basic dimensions and an inventory of her equipment in 1566.

Some maritime historians have questioned the wisdom of building reproductions, arguing that models are sufficient.

No model, however, can convey adequately the impression of the mass of an actual vessel, of the sizes of her fittings and equipment, and of the space on board available for living and working.

And no model can take you to sea. w

Mr. Baker, an historic naval architect with unique practical experience, is Curator of the Hart Nautical Museum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This article is excerpted from a paper delivered at the First Florida Maritime Heritage Conference, held at Tampa, March 22, 1980.

By Ted Miles Reproductions of historic ships sail to some purpose today, and are often built for continuing service. Early efforts, ranging from good to very bad, were brought into being for important anniversaries and expositions, which often serve as inspiration for building a reproduction today. There was a Santa Maria at the New York World's Fair in 1964, and La Grande Hermine at Montreal's Expo '67.

Although not built for the fair, the Bluenose II was also there and was visited by thousands.

The Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago occasioned notable reproductions of Christopher Columbus's three ships. Built in Spain by the Naval Shipyard at Cadiz and launched in June 1892, the Nina and Pinta were towed to the United States by the US Navy. The Santa Maria sailed over on her own bottom. On arrival at the fair in July, they were a very popular part of the celebration. After the fair, the three ships were given to the City of Chicago and they were displayed in a lagoon in Jackson Park. The Nina sank in 1918 and the Pinta was destroyed by fire in 1919. The Santa Maria, rebuilt about 1920, survived until she too succumbed to fire in 1952.

The Norwegians asserted their claim to the North American discovery at the Columbia Exposition, with an actual plankby-plank replica of the thousand-year-old Gokstad ship, which had been excavated from a Norse burial ground in 1880. This gallant ship, Viking, was sailed and rowed across from Bergen. After the fair she was displayed at Lincoln Park, where she is undergoing restoration today.

The Hudson-Fulton Exposition of 1909 was responsible for two more reproductions: the Half Moon and the North River Steamboat of Clermontpopularly known as the Clermont. Initial efforts to celebrate the IOOth anniversary of the Clearmont's 1807 voyage from New york to Albany, generally reckoned the first successful commercial voyage under steam power, had fallen through, and the celebration was then combined with an observance of the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage up the Hudson in the Half Moon, the first European ship to come that way. A grand harbor parade featuring the two reproductions was held.

The Half Moon, reproduction was built in the Navy Yard at Amsterdam, Holland, to designs by C. L. Loder, who had devoted intense study to the project and produced a successful ship. Brought across the Atlantic as deck cargo, she was re-launched at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

REPRODUCTIONS of Past Efforts Her Dutch naval crew made sail during the parade, and cast off from the tug meant to tow them, proving to everyone's surprise that their ship could really sail.

After the celebration, she was displayed at Penolopen Creek near Bear Mountain, up the Hudson . Later she was moved to Cohoes, NY, where she burned in 1935 .

The Clermont reproduction, built by Staten Island Shipbuilding, was also more than a dummy ship. She steamed successfully, propelled by a replica of the original Bolton and Watt steam engine.

Following the celebration, she was taken over by the Hudson River Day Line, who displayed her at Kingston Point, NY. By 1935 she was in deplorable condition. The hull was dismantled and the engine removed. Rumor had it that the steam plant was bought by the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, but a recent check shows that they do not have it and apparently never did.

Another Viking ship was built by the perseverant Norwegians at Bergen a generation after the first, and sailed across in 1926 to take part in the sesquicentennial celebration in Philadelphia .

This vessel, the 42' Leif Erikson, was towed to Duluth , Minnesota after the fair, and is still on exhibit there in Leif Erikson Park. Three years later a third Viking ship was built and sent across; after visiting various ports she was sailed back to Norway in 1932.

The tricentennial of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1930 produced an Arbella, a 104' coasting schooner made over to represent the 17th century ship. A similar effort had been made on the Colony's 250th anniversary in 1880. The new Arbella was displayed in Salem, and later went to Pioneer's Village as a dry-la nd display. She was broken up in 1953.

The Maryland tricentennial in 1934 resulted in replicas of the Ark and the Dove, the ships that brought the first settlers. The 1892 schooner Mary Brown was made over to represent the Ark, and another existing hull became the Dove.

The Dove designed by William A. Baker and now sailing from St. Mary's City reflects the great progress made since these efforts of fifty years earlier; it is to be hoped that the present Dove will still be sailing fifty years from now, for she is planned for an active, functional career.

Another Santa Maria was built for the New York World 's Fair in 1963 . The 65' vessel was built in Spain and brought across on the deck of a frei ghter. After the fair, she was displayed in Washington, DC. In 1969, while on her way to St. Louis, she capsized and sank during a SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

The Viking in 1893 in New York Harbor with Mayor Thomas F. Gilroy and City dignitaries aboard. She survives today as the oldest replica in the US. Photo courtesy Viking Restoration Committee. Below, the reconstructed Bolton-Watt engine of the North River Steamboat (Clermont) drives her at a saucy clip through the Hudson-Fulton celebration of 1909. Courtesy Robert G. Herbert and Steamship Historical Society. At bottom, the Dutch Naval crew aboard the Half Moon reproduction cast off their tow and insisted on sailing through the Hudson-Fulton parade-which they did successfully! Photo courtesy Ted Miles.

storm in the Mississippi River.

And a third Santa Maria was built in St.Petersburg, Florida in 1976. This one was a copy of the one built for the Chicago Fair of 1893 . Although the ship was not a very accurate reproduction, she is interesting because she was sailed all over the East Coast from Maine to Florida where she was visited by thousands of school child ren and curious adults. This most recent Santa Maria was destroyed by fire while tied up in New Orleans in 1979.

Carthaginian, built as the 103' schooner Wandia at Svendborg, Denmark in 1921, was converted to represent a I 9th-century American whaler, to take part in the movie "Hawaii" in 1965.

After the movie, she was displayed at the Lahaina Restoration Museum in Lahaina, Hawaii, and was sailed on sightseeing cruises until she was lost on a reef in the mid-1970s.

Reproductions have in the past been a way for the curious to see history recreated . They are assuming new functions today . Beyond reviving extinct types, through studied design and construction, they are helping to perpetuate shipbuilding, shipkeeping and sail ing skills. They have, thus, a very real and increasingly recognized function in keeping valuable aspects of the seafaring heritage in life . w 27

Historic Reproductions: A List of Existing Vessels Compiled by Norman Brouwer and Ted Miles

This list includes oceangoing and larger coastwise vessels, designed or adapted to represent a particular historic ship or type. The date shown in parentheses is the date of the original ship or the period of the type. A few ships made over from existing hulls are included , though not of museum quality. A great number of vessels built to traditional style, and a countless number of small craft, are not.

Movie ships are included only if open to the public.

As with prior ship lists published in SEA HISTORY, we invite correction and additions . A revised list of historic ships of various classes is planned for publication later this year.

INTERNATIONAL Bluenose II (1921) Built in 1961 at Lunenburg N.S. An active schooner that sails out of Halifax during the summer. Both the replica and the original were built in the same

~

British Museum in London. Length 50 ft.

Reale (15 71) Full-sized replica of the galley which was the fl agship o f Don Juan de Austria at the Battle of Lepanto. On exhibit inside the Maritime Museum at Barcelona.

Santa Maria (circa 1492) Built at Barcelona, Spain in 1892 and is on display there. Original

was the flagship of Christopher Columbus on his voyages to the New World . Length 65 ft.

Sebbe Ats (circa 1000) Built in 1974 at Augustenborg, Denmark , this is a replica of ship #5 in the Roskilde Viking Ship Museum at Roskilde, Denmark. An active ship based at Augustenborg. Length 36 ft.

UNITED STATES Adventure (circa 1750) Built at Cambridge, Md. in 1969 and now on display at Charles Towne Landing, Charleston , SC. The ship is a recreation of the small trading ketches that were used in the area during Colonial times.

Length 45 ft.

shipyard and some of the same craftsmen worked on both. The original dominated the International Fishermen's Races of the 1920s and 30s. Length 160 ft.

Brunswick Lion (19th cent.) Built in 1975 at King's Landing Historic Site, N.B. and sailed and displayed from there. These cat-rigged schooners were used to move wood and farm produce around the St. Johns river basin.

Length 38 ft.

Comet (1812) Built in 1962 at Greenock, Scotland and displayed there. The original ship was the first successful steamboat on the Clyde River. Length 43 ft.

Deliverance (1610) Built at St. George, Bermuda around the 1960s, and is currently displayed there ashore. She represents a ship built

by English colonists after their own vessel was wrecked there enroute to Virginia.

Nonsuch (1669) Built at Appledore, England, in 1968. After sailing in English waters and on both coasts of Canada, she is now displayed in the Manitoba Museum , Winnipeg, Canada.

The original was used for trading by the Hudson's Bay Company. Length 53 ft.

Perseverance (1807) Converted from an ammunition barge at the Old Sydney Town restoration, Australia, in 1974. The original vessel was a trading brig built in the first years of the settlement at Sydney.

Raven (circa 1000) Viking ship replica built in Norway in 1979 and sailed to the Isle of Man, where she is normally displayed . During early 1980 she was part of the Viking exhibit at the

28

America II (1851) Built at Boothbay Harbor Me. in 1967. Now a private yacht cruising in

.

Lagoda (1826) Built in 1915 in the New Bedford Whaling Museum and still on display there. The ship is a half scale, water line model of a New England whaler. Length 52 ft.

Leif Erikson (circa 1000) Built in 1926 in Bergen, Norway. She was sailed over to take part in the sesqui-centennial of Philadelphia.

Today she is displayed in Leif Erikson Park, Duluth, Minn. Length 42 ft.

Maryland Dove (1634) Built at Cambridge, Md. in 1978, and now displayed at St. Mary's City, Md. The original ship brought the first settlers to Maryland. Length 60 ft.

Mayflower II (circa 1620) Built in 1956 at Brixham, England . She sailed across the Atlantic in 1957 and is now displayed at Plymouth, Mass.

Original ship brought the first European settlers to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Length 105 ft.

Pride of Baltimore (circa 1810) Built at Baltimore, Md . in 1976. She is an active vessel based there. Original Baltimore Clippers were a fast sailing type widely used as privateers and slavers. Length 97 ft.

Providence (1768) Built of fiberglass at Newport, R.I. in 1976, and displayed and sailed from Seaport 76 in Newport. Original was the first ship in the U.S. Navy. Length 65 ft.

Rose (1756) Built in Lunenburg, N.S. in 1970 and now displayed at Newport, R.l. A copy of the Royal Navy ship that blockaded the harbor during the Revolution. Length 86 ft.

Rose Dorothea (1905) Under construction in 1980 at Provincetown, Mass. This half scale, waterline model will be displayed at the Provincetown Heritage museum when completed.

The original fishing schooner became famous when she captured the Lipton Trophy of 1907.

Length 55 ft.

Shenandoah (1849) Built in South Bristol, Me. in 1964. She is an active cruise vessel sailing out of Vineyard Haven, Mass. Original was a Revenue Cutter noted for grace and speed.

Length 108 ft.

the Caribbean . Original schooner won the trophy that became the America' s Cup in 1851. Length 104 ft.

Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery (circa 1607) All three ships were built at West Norfork, Va. in 1957. They are now displayed

Bounty II (1789) Built at Lunenburg, N.S. in 1960 and now displayed at St. Petersburg, Fla. There was a famou s mutiny aboard the original ship in 1789. Length 114 ft.

I

Clearwater (circa 1840) Built at South Bristol, Me. in 1968. She is now sailed from Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Original carried passengers and cargo in the Hudson Valley. The replica is a center for environmental studies of the river.

Length 86 ft.

Golden Hinde (1579) Built at Appledore, England in 1973. She is usually on display in San Francisco, Ca . She has sailed to Japan to take part in the filming of a historical novel.

Original ship was Drake's flagship in his voyage around the world in 1577-80. Length 103 ft.

at the Jamestown Festival Park in Jamestown Va. The Susan Constant is now being rebuilt and the site is open to visitors. Lengths SC 111 ft. , G 68 ft., D 50 ft.

Vernon Langille (19th cent.) Built at Bath, Me. in 1979. Now sailed and displayed from there.

The original Tancook Whalers were a coastal fishing/ cargo carrying type used in Maine and the Maritime Provinces. Length 34 ft.

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

Viking (circa 1000) Built in 1892 at Bergen, Norway. She was sailed across the Atlantic to take part in the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She is a full size replica of the Gokstad ship discovered in 1880. Today she is displayed under cover in Lincoln Park, Chicago . Length 62 ft.

The Thames Spritsail Barge 'REMINDER' Sails the waters of the Thames estuary and the East Coast of England providing exciting sailing holidays.

Built in 1929 Reminder h as been skillfully converted for holiday cruising whilst maintaining her traditional character.

One week fully inclu sive cruises starting and finishing at our Maldon base from £100 per berth.

Welcome (1775) Built at Mackinaw City in 1976. She is now on display in Fort Mackinaw Historic Park there. The original was an armed sloop used to supply the fort in the 1770s.

Length 55 ft.

If you are thinking of visiting Brit ain in 198 1 write for advance details of our historic craft holidays . Free cruise brochure from:

Capt. Roser Beckett

COMMERCIAL Beaver (1775) Built as the schooner Aeroe at Marstal, Denmark in 1908. Converted in 1971 to represent the ship which look part in the Boston Tea Party. On display at Boston, Mass.

Beaver (1835) Built at Vancouver, B.C. in recent years . Now displayed there. The original ship was the first steamship on the West coast of Canada. Length about 100 ft.

Bounty (1789) Built of steel at Whangarei, New Zealand in 1978 . The ship was built to take part in a movie that now has been cancelled. Length I05 ft.

Endeavor (1768) Replica of Capt. James Cook's ship, in which he made his first voyage of exploration to Australia. Converted from the trading ketch Wellington, built in Tasmania in 1884, and currently on display at a resort on the "Gold Coast" of Queensland, Australia.

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For FREE color brochure call 207-596-6060 or write:

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Essex (1819) A steel replica of an American Whaler built in New Bedford, Mass. Now displayed at the Lahaina Restoration in Lahaina Hawaii.

You can be a CG Licensed Officer Mail order Deck and ~ -· .

Engine courses, all · . _ grades. Write for brochure.

Flying Cloud (1851) Built at Lunenburg, N.S. in 1966. The ship is now displayed at Gardiner's Basin, Atlantic City, N.J. The ship is a half size replica of the original clipper ship.

Length 102 ft.

Golden Doubloon (1580) Built in Sweden in 1949 as the schooner Astrid. In 1967 she was rebuilt and converted to a Spanish galleon at Fort Peirce, Fla. Now on display at Key West, Fla. The ship is used to house a museum of artifacts located by Treasure Salvors, Inc. Length 167 ft.

Golden Hind (1579) Replica of Drake' s ship made from a former motor fishing vessel, displayed at Brixham, Devonshire, England.

This hull was originally converted around I 951 to represent Anson's Centurion of 1740.

La Grande Hermine (1535) Built at Montreal in 1967. A copy of the ship that brought the first settlers to Quebec. The ship was at Expo 67 and is now displayed at Quebec.

Lady Nelson (1800) Converted from a barge at the Old Sydney Town restored village near Gosford, Australia in 1975. She represents the brig used by Matthew Flinders to explore the Australian coast in the early 19th century.

Pilgrim (1832) A three masted schooner built in 1945 at Holbaek, Denmark. Converted in 1973 to represent the brig in Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. Now on display at San Pedro, Ca. Length 100 ft. w

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

CAPTAIN VAN'S SCHOOLS Box 53, Port Arthur, TX 77640 Serving Mariners for Over 50 years.

EXPLORE THE MAINE COAST WEEKLY

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Ship Modelers Associates has rapidly become the LARGEST company in the UNITED STATES which is solely devoted to providing only the materials required by the MODEL SHIP BUILDER. Our PLAN department is the most complete in the world, offering drawings by such notables as, MacGregor, Lusci, Underhill, Gay, Channing, Leavitt, Musees de la Marine, Mantua/Sergal, Corel, Art Amb Fusta, 'Breisinger, Campbell.

In order to be lhe only FULL SERVICE firm for the ship modeler, we also offer a complete line of books, tools, rigging and fittings, kits from the U.S. and plank-on-frame from abroad, woods, and all of the advice that our experienced staff willingly offers.

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29

Pushing through the heartland of America, a giant towboat shoves barges south on the lllinois River. She can move as much cargo as 900 big trucks on highways. Photo: M. Gillen.

Trade Winds

By Michael Gillen

At Harbor Place and Overlooking Historic Baltimore Harbor

The B/,ack Pearl An Intimate Tavern andan Elegant 19TH Century Dining Room

ENTERTAINMENT LUNCHEON SERVED DAILY FROM 11:30 AM DINNER FROM 6 PM

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TELEPHONE: 301-962-5050

The Black Pearl Baltimore Company PROPRIETORS James W. Ballard J. M. Dryden Hall, Jr. Barclay H. Warburton, III

30

While the US mant1me indust ry in general languishes at a low ebb-could we go much lower than carrying less than a twentieth of our own overseas commerce in US-flag ships?-our Western Rivers navigation is flourishing. Called "Western" since the days when anything beyond the Appalachians was considered "Out West," the Mississippi River and its tributaries (Missouri, lllinois, Ohio, Arkansas, Tennessee and ot her rivers) have experienced steady growt h since the early 1940s.

Barge traffic on all of the US inland waterways increased over 8 percent between 1970 and 1975 . And the actual number of dry-cargo barges increased by more than 20 percent between 1972 and 1977.

All along the Western Rivers existing marine facilities are being revamped and enlarged. And new ones are being constructed or planned for the ineVitable increased needs of the future. Ground has been broken for a huge new riverport in Louisville, Kentucky, which will boast a vast warehouse complex and a foreign trade zone. To the south the enviro nmentally controversial Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Project is now progressing at full throttle. All these projects will stimulate growt h and employment along the Western Ri vers.

Why is such growth and prosperity being recorded on the Western Ri vers, when elsewhere in the maritime industry just maintaining the status quo is viewed as a major accomplishment?

For one thing, river transportation becomes more and more attractive, as opposed to rail and truck transportation, as the price of fuel continues to go up. Just one towboat, pushing a standard 15-barge tow (some push upwards to 35 or 40 barges), can accomplish what it would take either 250 jumbo railroad cars or 90 semi-trucks to do. So, whether it's grain, chemicals, coal or earth-moving equipment, it'll be cheaper to move if you can get it to a riverport. Each year the amount of raw materials and finished products hauled on the Western Rivers increases . Tremendous quantities of

energy-producing materials are hauled on the rivers-some 60 percent of all riverborne commerce-and if the "rediscovery" of coal continues to gain acceptance into the 1980s, this figure is bound to increase.

So, the energy crunch has someth.ing to do with it, but it can't really take major credit for the growth we've seen on the Western Rivers in the last 40 years. So where does the credit lie? The answer, in a word, is legislation.

The Merchant Marine Act of 1970 can take some of the credit, since it made available new sources of funding for ship, tug, towboat and barge construction. It clearly is the most significant piece of maritime legislation of the last 44 years.

But why does the inland industry continues to grow while the deep-sea segment continue to spin its wheels?

The answer-and now we're getting to the root of the problem-lies in a piece of legislation born in 1920: Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, commonly called the " Jones Act." While foreignflag outfits dominate our deep-sea trade, and even now are encroaching on our offshore industry, the Jones Act reserves commerce moving from one US port to another for American vessels. This takes in our coastwise trade, and our inland trade, though the Virgin Islands Loophole allows commerce moving between there and the US mainland to be carried in foreign bottoms.

So there, I believe, is the crux of the problem: our deep-sea industry does not have the protection that our inland indust ry has. It will take legislation, improved cargo preference legislation, to do it. This would require, by law, that greater percentages of our ocean-borne commerce be moved in US-flag vessels.

More bilateral trade agreements, the negotiation of which could be mandated

by Congress, would also ensure greater participation by our merchant marine in the hauling of our commerce.

Only with such legislation as this will the deep-sea segment of our maritime industry enjoy the growth and prosperity now in evidence on the Western Rivers . .ti SIEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

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SE A HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

The Argonaut Sails into Her Second Half Century

By John R. Wadleigh Private yacht, United States warship, and cruise liner known to thousands of Americans, the 4,000-ton Greek motor vessel Argonaut celebrated her fiftieth birthday last year. This year, having embarked passengers in Pireaus, her homeport, she sailed through the Suez Canal for another winter of Red Sea cruising.

By the end of the year she will have visited almost one hundred different ports from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. A ship that has had three very different roles in the last half century, she still forges through the waves .

In 1929 the American woolen tycoon, Julius Forstmann, accepted delivery of a palatial yacht from the Germania Werfft Works of Kiel, Germany. Orion, as he named her, was the largest private yacht in the world. Powered by two Krupp air injection diesel engines, she could make better than fifteen knots. Besides a magnificent owner's suite with elaborate guest staterooms, she boasted a swimming pool below decks (three feet shorter than one in the new German luxury liner Bremen), an electrically equipped exercise gymnasium, and space for a seaplane on her broad fantail. With a crew of over fifty the Forstmanns cruised in Mediterranean and Baltic waters each summer. In the fall Orion would cross the Atlantic and meet the Forstmanns for a cruise to the Caribbean. The owner and his wife, who were getting on in years, preferred to cross on the Bremen or Europa, far faster and steadier ships in Atlantic seas. Julius Forstmann died in 1939, and his beautiful Orion was put up for sale.

In that year, as World War II began in Europe, there were few who could use such a peacetime luxury. But the US Navy could, and on November 13, 1940 Navy purchasing agents closed the sale with the Forstmann estate for $240,000.

Before the month was out she moved to the Sullivan Drydock Co. of Brooklyn, where guns were installed, most of the interior of the ship completely redone, and communication facilities added. Three months later on February 15, 1941 she was formally commissioned as USS Vixen (Patrol Gunboat 53), with Commander P.L. Meadors, USN as the ship's first captain. By late May Vixen had completed a shakedown cruise to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and reported for duty in the expanding Patrol Force, US Fleet.

Original concepts on Neutrality Patrol had changed during Vixen's conversion and shakedown period. Surveillance areas had shifted to the east nearer to Europe, and patrols had become searches for submarines. Almost one third of SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

Pacific-based combatant ships had surreptitiously passed through the Panama Canal during the spring of 1941 to reinforce units in the Atlantic. Instead of a patrol assignment Vixen was designated as flagship for Commander Submarines, Atlantic Fleet, newly promoted Rear Admiral Richard S. Edwards . Based in New London, Connecticut the gunboat served as headquarters for the Admiral and a small staff as well as a makeshift mothership and tender for submarines scattered around the Atlantic. These were "0", "R", and "S" boats of World War I vintage, used primarily for training and as targets for our own anti-submarine ships.

There were new "fleet" boats completing and preparing for Pacific duty. There were a few submarines in new bases in Bermuda and Argentia, Newfoundland assigned for local defense. On occasion Vixen went to sea with fleet units; an amphibious exercise off Morehead City, North Carolina, later a cruise to Argentia escorting R boats of Submarine Squadron 5 to that bleak and growing base to the north.

On December 8, Vixen was at her New London berth. Within a few days Admiral Edwards and staff had moved ashore, and on Christmas Day the exyacht put to sea under secret orders: "Proceed to Washington Navy Yard and report to the Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet.'' In a few days Vixen was flying the flag of Admiral Ernest J. King, President Roosevelt's new fleet Commander-in-Chief. For the next six months King and a few key staff personnel Jived on board with Vixen's offices and communications spaces serving as top secret planning areas, until in June he moved to USS Dauntless, a smaller converted gunboat, sending Vixen for a short tour with coastal convoys. Two months later she reported to Norfolk, Virginia as flagship, US Atlantic Fleet, serving in this assignment until the end of World War II. First under Admiral Royal Ingersoll and later under the jovial, former football star, Admiral Jonas Ingram, Vixen was a roving headquarters ship visiting fleet activities and units from Argentia to the Caribbean.

In this role she was a forerunner of the modern command ship. There were passable accommodations for staff personnel, adequate communi<;:ations, and she was replacing a fighting ship for combat duty.

Early in 1946 Vixen's colors were lowered for the last time and the new command ship Pocono became flagship of the Atlantic Fleet.

Late in 1946 Vixen and two other

As USS Vixen, on convoy duty in 1942 (USN photo); below, as MTS Argonaut in 1975 (courtesy Epirotiki Lines).

former yachts were acquired by the Alaskan Steamship Company of Seattle.

It was intended to convert these into small tourist liners to visit western Mexican ports . Experience with the first one converted, the former yacht Corsair, proved financially disastrous, and in 1954 Vixen was resold, this time to the McCormick Steamship Coinpany for service in the Caribbean.

Ten years later the former gunboat was purchased by the Potamionas family of Athens, Greece to join the Epirotiki Line of Piraeus. Renamed Argonaut (Argonaftis in Greek), she was fully modernized and put into the Aegean Islands cruising trade. Success here Jed to charters for Caribbean cruises during wintertime, and in 1967 the veteran United States travel corporation, Raymond & Whitcomb Co. of New York Oty, chartered the little ship for voyages in the Windward and Leeward Islands. Most of Argonaut's cruises today remain under the guidance and management of Raymond & Whitcomb. Through the years these cruises, most of a two-week duration and composed largely of Americans, have taken Argonaut down both coasts of Africa, from the Black Sea to the North Cape, and until recently to the Caribbean and along the coast of South America.

Passengers are normally flown from the United States to meet the ship at ports such as Pireaus, Nice, Lisbon, and Copenhagen, returning by air after two weeks of cruising. There are rarely more than 125 on board, with many repeaters from previous years. Food and service is good, but Argonaut is not a "jet set" luxury ship with night clubbing; her style is rather, perhaps about as close as you can come today to the family cruises of the Forstmanns. .t Rear Admiral Wadleigh, USN (ret.) is past president of Seaport '76 in Newport, R.J. Having sailed in the Argonaut, he looks forward to doing so again.

33

SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & EDWARD J. LEFKOWICZ Rare Books & Mss .

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Great Liners of The Past Are you interested in great liners such as the TITANIC, OLYMPIC, BRITANNIC, LUSITANIA, MAURETANIA, AQUITANIA , QUEEN MARY, and the QUEEN ELIZABETH I? If so, you may be interested in joining the TITAN IC HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC. This society, found ed in 1963, covers these liners plus much more about the White Star Line and Cunard White Star Ltd . steamship companies and their ships. Publi shes a fine JOURNAL four times a year, profusely illustrated.

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1836 and again in 1956, since when she has been the subject of painstaking research and investigation. In 1979 Prince Charles became President of the Mary Rose Trust, which maintains working headquarters in Portsmouth. MRT, Old Bond Store, 48 Warblington St., Portsmouth POI 2ET, GT. Britain .

HMS Discovery, wooden steam bark built for Captain Scott's 1901 Antarctic expedition, is now in keeping of the Maritime Trust, and, after drydocking , joined other Trust vessels in St. Katharine' s Dock, London, in March . She is now undergoing restoration there, and a Museum of Discovery will be developed aboard, with the help of the National Maritime Museum. Maritime Trust, 16 Ebury St. , London SW l W OLH , Gt. Britain.

The rerigging of the bark Polly Woodside of 1885 has now been completed in Melbourne, Australia, where she has been undergoing restoration since 1968, when she was retired from her last service as a coal barge. Recently the main royal yard was sent aloft by rigger Tor Lindquist, who sailed in Lawhil/, Passat and Viking in the Australian gra in trade.

Work continues on the ship 's living quarters, and on the deckhouse, containing foc's'le and galley.

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Sending up the royal yard. From left, (back to camera) rigger Tor Lindquist, project chairman John Yunker, Capt. Hegen (in suit).

Mariners International is entering the wooden brigantine Phoenix in Tall Ships-1980 and will be putting some crew aboard the Norwegian Sorlandet and other vessels . This hardy outfit (SH 16:28) has been deluged with cal ls from people wishing to get to sea in square rig. MI ,

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

MUSEUM NEWS Ernest S. Dodge, Museum Builder 58 Woodville Rd., New Barnet, Herts ENS SEG, UK.

By Philip Chadwick Foster Smith

The Humber Keel & Sloop Preservation Society celebrated its 10th anniversary with an exhibit in the Hull Town Docks Museum early this year. The Society maintains archival records and sails the keel Comrade and the sloop A my

In 1931, 18-year-old Ernest Stanley Dodge unobtrusively arrived at the Peabody Museum of Salem, Massachusetts, as a summer assistant. The needed work suited him, and he suited the institution's needs. Summer turned into autumn, and autumn evolved into a whirlwind of fleeting seasons through which he remained.

Forty-nine years later, 30 of them as Director, an untimely cancer robbed the Peabody Museum of its own institution.

Ernest Dodge's death on February 9, 1980 marked the end of an era in the museum world.

When he first came to Salem, via Phillips Academy, Andover, from his boyhood home on the coast of Maine, the Peabody Museum was the embodiment of a musty, dusty New England museum of the day, a peaceful cloister for leisurely, genteel scholarship surrounded by the visual cacophony of antiquarian curiosities. Already 132 years old in 1931, the museum had grown by fits and starts, but no physical addition to it had been made for nearly 25 years. Nor had the exhibitions been altered materially during much of that time. And only just recently, principally through the increasingly spirited publishing ventures of the looselyassociated Marine Research Society of Salem, had it innocently penetrated the consciousness of the national and international communities.

The ingredients for explosive growth had been nearly assembled. An awareness of maritime history, spurred perhaps by an emotional nostalgia for the disappearance of commercial sail, was mounting around the world. The Peabody Museum was the only institution in the United States which had been collecting actively in the field for over half a century. And, now, appeared a young man in the right place at the right time.

For almost two decades, Ernest Dodge worked intimately with the disciplines his museum had to offer. As a museum assistant for the first six years, he worked in whichever department demanded his immediate attention-maritime history, ethnology (particularly that of the South Seas), and the natural history of Essex County, Massachusetts. By the time he became Director in 1950, he was well versed in the maritime sector, and had also served as Curator of both Natural History and Ethnology, his principal love.

He once was asked how he happened to know so much in so many diverse areas. His answer was simple enough: if you dealt day by day, year after year,

Howson. Society, "Glen Lea," Main Road, New Ellorby, Hull HUI I SBT, UK. Our correspondent Barry Beadle brings us up to date on traditional steamers in UK waters: The yacht Gondola (1859) has been launched to resume steaming in Coniston Water in the Lake District this summer. The Waverly, last seagoing paddle steamer, has resumed her Clyde cruises and will call at English ports this summer. The Humber ferry Wingfield Castle is now berthed in the Thames below the Tower Bridge. An effort to place the Lincoln Castle as a restaurant ship on the Humber has encountered town planning opposition.

UNITED STATES Work continues in Cape Verde on the packet Ernestina, built 1894 as the Gloucester schooner Effie M. Morrissey. Shipwright Franz Meier reports that work on frames and beams has been completed, and deck and topside planking is being renewed. The hoped-for schedule is that the schooner will be launched and ready for return to the US in July 1980.

Friends of Ernestina/ Morrissey, c/ o NMHS. The Florida-based brig Unicorn and New Jersey's brigantine Young America will sail with the Tall Ships to Boston in May (see pp.

18-19), joining with the USCG bark Eagle and Barclay Warburton's brigantine Black Pearl, making four US square riggers in this internations gathering. They will be greeted in Boston by the USS Constitution, frigate of 1797, who, with a 220' mainmast, will be the tallest Tall Ship on the scene.

Bimonthly supplements to the late John Lyman's research journal Log Chips (SH 12: 13) which ceased publication in 1959, are being issued by NMHS with Norman Brouwer as editor. Supplement I, a list of British sailing ships launched in the UK in 1875, and other matter, is now available from the Society for $2.

EAST COAST The new centerboard schooner Heritage is abuilding at the North End Ship Yard in Rockland, Maine. She will be 93' LOA, 24' Beam, and 8'-16' Draft, of the coasting schooner type with topmasts on both masts.

Doug and Linda Lee currently of the schooner Isaac Evans, plan to sail the new vessel out of Rockland on summer passenger cruises. The keel has been laid, the first frames have been raised and the whole site enclosed in a wood and plastic shed. The project is expected to take the next four winters to complete, reports our correspondent Leonard C. Smith .

The Kittery Historical and Naval Museum has opened a new exhibit, "Shipbuilding in the

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

with the subjects at hand, you were bound to absorb some measure of knowledge of them.

Once he became Director in 1950, the Peabody Museum was galvanized into action and grew rapidly from a fulltime staff that could be counted on the fingers of one hand to one which, at his death, approached fifty or more. Throughout, he was aided and reinforced by a Board of Trustees who believed in him and what the institution could accomplish. One addition to the building complex after another, culminating in a 45,000 square foot ultra-modern wing which opened in April 1976 and was named for him in June 1979, more than doubled its size and its capabilities. But bricks and mortar do not necessarily a viable museum make. Ernest Dodge went on to turn a unique, albeit regional institution, into one of truly international dimensions.

He believed wholeheartedly in the value of the scholarly word to spread the museum's name far and wide as a center of erudition. He wrote a number of books and many hundred professional articles. And he encouraged his trustees, his staff, and museum volunteers alike to aspire to the highest plateaus of authorship and editing. More than one derived lasting benefit from his intmt1ve understanding that a great museum must not only attract visitors, but also earn the respect of a global audience.

The master-builder is now gone. But, as his beloved museum reaches toward the conclusion of its second century, his irrepressible spirit will continue to walk the halls he brought into being and cherished. w

Mr. Smith, Curator of the Philadelphia Maritime Museum, served under Ernest Dodge, latterly as Curator of Maritime History, at the Peabody Museum, 1963-79. He is author of Fired by Manly Zeal, a Naval Fiasco of the American Revolution and other works.

35

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The South Street Seaport Museum in New York has aquired the pilot house from the harbortug New York Central 31. The tug, built in Brooklyn in 1923, was owned by the railroad for her entire career. After being refurbished the pi lot house will be used as an information booth for the Museum's fleet of historic ships berthed on Piers 15 and 16 on the East River.

SSSM, 203 Front St., New York NY 10038.

The Calvert Marine Museum has begun a second season of scenic cruises on the Patuxent in the bugeye William B. Tennison, built in 1899.

She is the oldest Coast Guard licensed passenger vessel on the Chesapeake. Calvert Marine Museum, Solomons Md 20588.

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ship demonstrations, speakers, films, music and marine art. Center, 2770 W. Lake Ave. N., Seattle WA 98109.

LAKES & RIVERS Work has begun on a new River Center for Mississippi River history at Winona, Minn.

The $5 million facility, cantilevered over the city's riverfront drive, will include as a dryland exhib it the 1898 wooden-hulled sternwheel steamboat Julius C. Wilkie. A fu nding drive is underway to complete the project by 1983. River Center, 160 Johnson Street, Winona MI 55987.

Restoration of the Viking, a Viking ship reproduction sailed over for the Columbia Exposition of 1893, is underway in Chicago.

America's oldest historic reproduction, and a worthy voyager in herself, this ship is plan ned for a major exhibition center where people can "hear the roar of the sea, the flap of a sail, and see sunrise on a Nordic horizon ten centuries ago." Viking, 518 Davis St., Evanston IL 60201.

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All Nautical Subjects The Mariners Museum of Newport News, VA. celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, with a special exhibit: "To Make America Sea Oriented; Fifty Years of the Mariners Museum," June-October 1980. Museum, Newport News VA 23606.

WEST COAST T he National Park Service reports that the National Maritime Museum, San Francisco and its fleet of historic ships was visited by 737 ,000 people last year. The Golden Gate Recreation Area of which the museum is a part is the fastest growing facility in the Natonal Park System. The Museum has announced plans to acquire the Barbara Johnson Whaling Collection, including log books, whaling harpoons and tools, scrimshaw a nd other items related to the 19th century whale fishery. San Francisco was a major center for whaling during the late 19th century, but until now no major collection on this trade existed on the West Coast.

Also in San Francisco, the construction of a new office building for the Levi-Strauss Corporation has uncovered a 1849 Gold Rush Era Ship. She appeared to be largely intact and well preserved, and architects Ray Aker and William A. Baker were able to make some studies of exposed portions in a dig organized by historian Roger Olmstead before the ship was reburied-to be resurrected one day, it is hoped!

whali ng items

MARINE AN TI QUES & SEA SH ELLS

36

Piscataqua Region, 1630-1800." Founded in 1975, the purpose of the museum is to collect, preserve, interpret, and exhibit important artifacts, documents, research materials, and buildings of historic concern to southern Maine. Toward that end, the museum has aggressively undertaken two systematic archaeological survey programs, one on land, the other offshore, to identify, research , and preserve the area ' s valuable historical resources. The Kittery Historical and Naval Museum is open Tuesday-Saturday, 1-5 PM, and is located on Rogers Road, next to the Town Hall. Admission is free .

T he Center fo r Wooden Boats will hold its 4th Annual Boat Show July 4-6 at the Naval Reserve Base on Lake Union, Seattle. This gathering, which attracts over 10,000 people each year, includes boat building and seaman-

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by Charles F. Morris A rare eve nt in marit ime publi shin g is thi s uniqu e blend of hi story, th e economi c a nd techni ca l developm e nt of pa sse nge r ship ope ra tion a nd the de sign and con stru cti o n o f th e last grea t lin e r. Co pi o usly il lustrated w ith photo gra ph s a nd diagra ms, th is big, hand so me vo lume was wr itte n by the fo rm e r Chi ef Arch it ec t of th e famous Orient lin e. He traces the growth of ocea n lin e rs from sa il to th e gia nt stea m-drive n lu xury vesse ls of tod ay a nd describes, in em in e ntl y rea dable tex t, the deve lopments in speed , size, sa fe ty and co mfort a nd th e ir int e rrelation ships. He brings a ll th ese factors togeth e r in a de ta iled account of th e des ign a nd buildin g of ORIANA, demonstrat in g how a ll of th e confl ictin g de ma nd s are bro ught togeth e r to produ ce th e ult ima te lin e r.

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SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

A Brave Captain Is Remembered

TRIAL BY FIRE

By Frank 0. Braynard On the hot Monday afternoon of June 28, 1880, the 225-foot walking-beam steamboat Seawanhaka left Manhattan from her East River pier at 33rd Street.

Nearly 300 passengers were aboard, including New York's Mayor William R. Grace and Charles A. Dana, editor of The Sun. They headed up the river for Hell Gate and Long Island Sound, bound for Sea Cliff, with stops along the way at Port Washington, Glen Cove and Roslyn. Captain Charles P. Smith was in the pilot house. Engineer Edward Weeks was below . The Seawanhaka, built in Keyport, NJ, in 1866, was a fast vessel, making up to 20 miles an hour. Her single huge iron boiler, built by Hubbard and Whitaker, had a diameter of 7 feet and a length of 21 feet.

She was an express commuter boat and left morning and night right on schedule with her load of distinguished and ordinary citizens who preferred the breezy hour's boat ride to the much longer and more difficult route by rail or horse. Just abaft the pilot house on the upper deck was a gentlemen's parlor, and there waiters served food and beverages while passengers whiled away the time at cards.

It was a comfortable and happy group of people enjoying the best of things as they sped toward their Long Island homes.

But they did not have too much time to relax. Barely 20 minutes after setting out, while the steamer was roughly between Randall's Island and Ward's Island, there was a heavy thud and shock from below.

Captain Smith recalled the moment: " I looked up towards the smokestack and saw a dense volume of smoke rolling from it. It was not steam, but black, thick smoke, such as would come from tar or powder." He turned to his nephew Stephen Vernon, who was with him in the pilot house, and ordered him to get the fire buckets ready. "I knew there was danger and that we were in a bad place," he said later.

The next ten minutes were filled with horror. The steamer listed to starboard and her entire midship section seemed to explode into flames at the same moment.

Mate James W. Ray, of Roslyn, saw fire burst from the entrance to the fireroom.

He tried to maintain calm, but the passengers were wild with fright and began jumping overboard. The screams of those caught in the churning paddle wheels terrified the surging crowd. Mate Ray and others passed out lifejackets.

There were 565 of them aboard, but nothing could control the passengers.

Mothers threw their helpless children overboard and then jumped after them.

Two recent maritime fire disasters were SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

fresh in everyone's minds, adding, no doubt, to the feeling of terror. Captain Smith clung to the wheel, despite the flames already licking at the pilot house.

There were two lifeboats aboard, but the fire quickly consumed them. They could not have been launched anyway for the craft was making full speed, heading for land. Captain Smith had decided that the only safe place to beach the Seawanhaka was on Ward's Island, in the marshes. Had he turned back to run her aground off Randall's Island; he would have struck the rocks offshore, with the steamer' s stern in deep water. It was a coolly calculated and wise decision.

Freddy Harriot, one of the passengers, remembered hearing Captain Smith's shouts of encouragement. As he jumped he heard the master tell all who could hear or would listen that he was running the ship ashore and that she would soon be out of danger. When he surfaced in the choppy late afternoon waters and he turned and saw Captain Smith still in the wheelhouse, the flames burning his clothing and even his hair and whiskers.

"Nevertheless the brave fellow stuck to his wheel," he said.

A Manhattan businessman noted: ''Captain Smith stood at the wheel with flames bursting out all around him and it seemed almost as though he was turning a wheel of fire."

The ship grounded and at that very moment flames enveloped the pilot house. Staggering from the wheel, Captain Smith fell overboard. He was picked out of the water, unconscious and badly burned.

Forty-one passengers who had jumped overboard died. All those who remained aboard survived. But in patent disregard of his skilled seamanship and heroic behavior, Captain Smith was indicted for manslaughter and brought to trial.

After two weeks of testimony reported with banner headlines by the New York press, the jury was discharged without reaching an agreement. The accounts say ten jurors were for a verdict of innocent.

Two, however, insisted on finding Captain Smith guilty. A grand jury handed down a ruling that charged the ship's owners with being reckless and stating that there had been imperfect boiler inspections before the disaster.

Captain Smith died before a year passed. The public pillorying of Captain Smith led to the creation of a defense committee of masters and pilots. This was to become the International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots, whose goal has been better safety at sea, and the common good of ships officers and pilots. Today

Capt. Smith at the Seawanhaka's helm.

the MM&P represents 10,000 professional officers on American-flag vessels.

This June 28, on the hundredth anniversary of the Seawanhaka disaster, a memorial service will be held in the Sea Cliff Museum. Captain Robert J. Lowen, President of the MM&P, will attend with other members and participate in lighting a lamp saved from the Seawanhaka-in honor of a brave American master whose trial by fire has never been forgotten . ,i,

Frank Braynard, Advisor of the NMHS, is Director of the New York Harbor Festival and Curator of the US Merchant Marine Academy Museum.

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37

BOOKS Lone Voyager by Joseph E. Garland (Rockport, Mass., Nelson B. Robinson, 1979, 308 pp., $8.95).

This new edition of Garland's biography of Howard Blackburn is both sound scholarship and armchair voyaging.

Howard Blackburn was dory fishing from the Gloucester Schooner Grace L. Fears when he and his dory mate were separated from the schooner by a fierce winter storm. Although his friend perished from the cold, Blackburn managed to row ashore and survive. He lost most of his fingers in the process! Most men would not ever set foot aboard another boat again . Blackburn was not typical of most men.

In later years, he twice sailed across the Atlantic in small boats and also voyaged the inland rivers and coasts of the United States. While ashore he ran a saloon that was the neighborhood gathering place for old seamen to swap tales and always a welcome haven for those who had a bit of hard luck. Blackburn always made sure they had a hot meal or a new pair of shoes.

Today two of Howard Blackburn's boats are still with us. The Great Republic has been restored and is on display in Gloucester and the Cruising Club is owned and sailed by Joseph TED MILES Garland.

Mystic Seaport Museum: Watercraft by Maynard Bray (Mystic Connecticut, Mystic Seaport Museum, 1979, 280 pp., ill., $17.00 paper, $22.00 hardbound).

This is an extraordinary book, to be read and savored by all who enjoy boats.

An outstanding departure from conventional museum catalogues, it is in many ways the best presentation of watercraft information available today. Mr. Bray and Mystic live up to their excellent reputation. Reading this catalogue, one imagines he is actually taking a leisurely walk through the warehoused collection.

Both large and small boats are included in the catalogue. The foremat and categories are well thought out and easy to use. Each entry is documented by a detailed explanation containing historic and technical information that will satisfy all but the most ardent boat enthusiasts.

All of the 269 entries are accompanied by photographs, drawings, a suggested reading list, a condition statement, and a donor name and accessioning number.

And, in the final section of the book there are fifty-eight single pages of boat plans from the collection-an unusual and helpful addition. For those who need more information, they can choose to ex-

38

plore the suggested reading list or call the curator to make a date to go see for themselves! v. PAUL COYNE Mr. Coyne is Executive Director of the

Heritage Ship Guild of Philadelphia.

New England Masts and The King's Broad Arrow Policy, by Samuel F. Manning (Kennebunk, Me., Thomas Murphy, 1979, 60 pp., illus., $4.95).

The current first edition of this slender paperback is destined to become a collector's item. Its author-artist, an associate editor of and long-time illustrator for The National Fisherman, traces how beginning as early as 1609, England's pressing need for mast timber resulted in shiploads of white pine being sent from the Colonies. As England's demand for wood grew desperate in the late 17th century, a Crown appointee blazed all likely trees with the King's mark: a "broad arrow."

The present volume traces the history of the broad arrow policy, and traces it clearly and reasonably. But what turns a respectable job of research into an exciting book are Manning's black-andwhite illustrations. There are 16 major illustrations, done originally for the Maine public broadcasting system, complemented by 2 minor illustrations, the cover, and 4 useful maps. The illustrations enable any reader to follow the processes of those who labored in the King's broad arrow service: from prepar-

ing the ground to receive a fallen tree to the felling of that tree; from limbing the tree to twitching it down logging roads; from hauling it by oxen through town squares to launching it in, preferably, tidal waters; from loading it into mast ships through oversize ports in the stern to an interior scene of men at work in such ships.

The illustrations are excellent-as one would expect from the illustrator of such solid books as Cape Breton Ships and Men, Ships Through History, and John Gardner's much-admired The Dory Book. They bring history to life and give us-literally-glimpses into the past.

Manning tells us about an historical process and enables us to see that process.

STEVEN H. RUBIN Shipwrecks Around New England, by William P. Quinn (Lower Cape Publishing Co., PO 901, Orleans, Ma. 02653, 1979, 230 pp., 375 ill., $30).

This pictorial review of maritime disasters covers the most heavily traveled water routes on the Northeast Coast, from Novia Scotia to Sandy Hook, including the inland waters of Long Island

Boating's Best Books Excellent selection on history by Chapelle, Lubbock, Underhill and others.

Send for catalog of over 500 titles-history, boatbuilding, design, navigation, cruising, fishing, cooking, etc. $2 refundable with first order.

Books reviewed by SEA HISTORY are available at a 10% discount.

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BOOKS Sound and the Hudson River, during the period 1870-1979. The abundant illustrations are skilfully mixed with just enough copy to go beyond normal captions, but with not too much detail to swamp the reader. The early photos are from archives, while many of the recent ones were taken by the author, a professional photographer. It's unfortunate that the official US Coast Guard photos do not give credit to the Coast Guard men whose work deserves a byline.

FRANCIS J. DUFFY The Treasure of the Concepcion: The Wreck of the Almiranta, by Peter Earle (New York, Viking Press, 1980, 274 pp., ill., $12.95).

Overloaded, badly found and miserably officered, Nuestra Senora de la pura y limpia Concepcion left Havana on her final voyage in the summer of 1641. Her voyage ended on a previously unknown reef north of the island of Hispaniola.

Many men; Spanish, British, Bahamian, Jamaican and American, sought her remains, which were finally located in 1687

by Captain William Phips. The immense silver treasure he salvaged gave him a knighthood and raised the former merchant marine captain to the governorship of Massachusetts. It also paid the tremen-

dous debts of Phips' s backer, the Duke of Albermarle. Freebooters from Jamaica and the Bahamas gleaned after Phips but then the location of the wreck was lost.

In 1979, while this book was being written, Burt Webber of Pennsylvania relocated the wreck of the Concepcion!

He proceeded to lift some additional millions of dollars worth of silver out of the sea. The author, Peter Earle, an expert on the 17th century was drafted into this effort. He writes with color and authority on the Concepcion 's final voyage, and on the freebooters of the 17th and 20th centuries whose lust for seabed treasure led them successfully to despoil her remains.

MICHAEL COHN The Men AU Singing: The Story of Menhaden Fishing, by John Frye (Virginia Beach VA, Donning Corp., 1978, 243 pp., ill. $14.95).

The menhaden fishing companies, the men who ran the companies and the boats, rather than the fishermen, are the focus of this work. There is a chapter on the biology of the menhaden, the fatbacked relative of the herring, as well as a chapter on the possible future of the industry . Of special interest is a transcript of some of the menhaden men chanteys that were sung in the 1920s and 30s. many

SHIP MODELS

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CLIPPER CLASSICS Presenting the most authoritative and renowned works on clipper ships ever published.

AMERICAN CLIPPER SHIPS 1833-1858, by Howe & Matthews The histories of 350 clippers. Two volume boxed set, 780 pages, 113 plates-$40.00 POSTPAID THE LAST OF THE WINDJAMMERS, by Basil Lubbock The swan-song of the mightly iron and steel Cape Homers. 1870-1928. Two volumes, 34 foldout plans, 966 pages, 300 illustrations $60.00 POSTPAID

interesting illustrations accompany the text, unfortunately not all well reproduced. John Frye, a long-time correspondent for the National Fisherman, knows not only fish but the problems of the MICHAEL COHN fishing business.

Bristol Bay Basin, by L. Morgan (Anchorage, Alaska Geographical Society, 1978, 95 p., ill., $9.95).

Having wintered in Anchorage, I have seen some of the countryside whose interest and beauty are echoed in this book.

Far more than another coffee-table production, this finely illustrated work opens the region, its history, people and economy in rewarding ways that the traveler or adventurer (armchair or not) will find authoritative, engrossing and GEORGE COHEN rewarding.

Oregon's Salty Coast, by Jim Gibbs (Seattle, Superior Publishing Company, 1978, 160 pp., ill., $14.95).

Jim Gibbs' latest book offers a wealth of information on the exploration, settlement, Indian lore, shipwrecks, and navigational history of Oregon's beautiful and rugged coast. His familiarity with the coastal happenings of the Pacific Northwest, stemming from his years as editor of Marine Digest and his previous authorship of a string of maritime books, shine forth in this, which is accompanied with historic illustrations and a 45-page photographic section. Unfortunately, editing and reproduction are not equal to the quality of the material.

MICHAEL GILLEN The Mariner's Catalog, Vol. 6, ed.

George Putz and Peter Spectre (Camden ME, International Marine Publishing, 1978, 192 pp., ill., paperback, $7.95).

Do you want to know about lighthouses, early English pirates, boats, tools, navigational equipment, models, books? You'll find this unique and nowfamous catalog an excellent starting point for such quests. It is not a list of items and prices, but rather a review of sources of supply and information, in which the opinions of editors and writers are freely offered and are alone worth the price of admission .

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40

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SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

ASMA NEWS

Report of the Eel Bait Coniniittee "Trying to organize artists is like trying to tie eels together,'' the distinguished marine artist Charles Stanford has said.

That bit of truth and whimsey belongs on our letterhead. But perhaps the point of ASMA is more aptly stated as getti ng the eels to take the occasional swim together in the same direction.

As chairman of the "Eel Bait Committee," I've been asked by the editors to go beyond mere news to the cloudy waters of the philosophy and aspirations of the Society. Hoping, then, to speak fairly for my colleagues, I'll hazard an attempt.

Marine art is of consequence because a free society values and depends on the perception of individuals and because maritime history is highly significant itself. Beyond the universal drama of the struggle to use the seas lies the astonishing variety of those uses- t he thousands upon thousands of vessel types, the millions of ships and small boats through history-war, economics, discovery, and the incalculable amounts of physical and intellectual energy poured into seafaring.

This heritage is nothin g less than th e essential conduit of human enterprise that found and settled the world. Religion, finance, arms, language-all were passengers. Maritime history is not a side show, tales of Long John Silver a nd old fishnets hung up as restaurant decor, nor is it pointless nostalgia for imagined "simpler" ages . Earnest historical inquiry is essential, for it goes beyond an appreciation of design and technique to a chilling awareness of past prices paid for neglect of naval and merchant fleets and to the proof of the value of certain character traits, both individual and collective-steadfastness, optimism, attention to detail, learning, prudence, informed boldness-and staying awake on watch .

Marine art is about three things: the tension of the confrontation with the sea, the profusion and ingenuity of vessel types, and the results of those elements of character that produce success or failure -including those of seamen, admirals, designer, builder, shipowner and heads of state who support, or fail to support , their fleets. The maritime endeavor of the world, both the accretions of history and the experience of th e present, is vast and represents enormous intellectual achievement.

One man' s paintings express the results of his solitary inquiries into men , ships, periods of history and certain special moments that have governed his intellectual life, his art, and often his long experience at sea.

What many artists can do, that one SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

can't, is to begin to inform the public of that vast variety, scope and accomplishment that comprise the larger subject.

This collective effort is necessary to reflect that variety, for art exists only for the value of its unique expressions.

Marine art has value not simply for its archival preservations, but for its ra re ability to capture the "feel" of an epoch or a moment through the wisdom of a gifted eye.

ASMA is not a "school" of marine art. Rather, it is pledged to the variety of expression required to do justice to the subject. And this collective effort, this joining of individual interpretations and private curiosities, has important internal purposes as well as its obvious external functions.

A basic lesson of seamanship is that well tended gear and well learned skills never restrict freedom.

A culture values its artists, and even manages to support some of them, for the strength and validity of their independent statements. No serious art society should tie its "eels" to any orthodoxy beyond honest inquiry. What ASMA does do is permit young artists to see, and to learn from, more good marine art in a year than could have been possible in ten years heretofore; it encourages careful scholarship and thorough craftsmanship; it provides assistance and research; and in demonstrating the variety within marine art, we may hope it emboldens each artist to take more seriously his individual statement. It can also show that publication preferences are not quite so uniform and predictable as is sometimes assumed.

ASMA recognizes the truth that care, excellence and committed individual expression coexist and are worthy. The past and the present, convincing water, movement and draftsmanship, mood and detail, composition and accuracy, the abstract essence and delineated specifies, an event of recognized consequence of obscure moments captured by a skilled eye are all valid contributions.

A basic lesso n of seamanship is that well tended gear and well learned skills never restrict freedom . Marine art, honoring its so urces, is about freedom of expression and discipline. What ASMA can do is pass on, from one generation of artists to the next, a respect for both elements of the traditon, and to pass on pride in doing it well.

The Society exists in order that artists and laymen alike can enjoy more and bet-

ter art through larger and more frequent exhibitions, that viewers can better understand the richness of the maritime world, and that a greater understanding will emerge of the talents and schola rship of American marine artists. To paint the sea well, to know and represent ships truthfully, is an achievement of the first magnitude-and we invite yo ur interest in the excitement of that quest.

* * * * * The best way to spark that interest is to tell yo u where the art is. Listed below are major continuing or special exhibitions where the work of several members will appear. Lay (non-artist) membership in ASMA is encouraged, and the Society newsletter will provide a more comprehensive listing of individual and smaller shows .

I . Mystic Seaport Museum Stores: First International Maritime Awards Show, juried, April 20 through July. Approximately 65 works, Mystic, Connecticut.

2. Kirsten Gallery: 6th Annual Northwest Marine Exhibition, invitational, approximately 70 works, July 13-Aug. 19, Seattle, Washington.

3. Access to the Arts: Third Annual Marine Exhibition, invitational, approx.

70 works, July 25-Aug. 19, Westfield NY. 4. Annapolis Marine Art Gallery: yearround, Annapolis, Maryland .

5. ASMA Third Annual Exhibition: juried , 75 works, Nov. 12-Dec. 12, Grand Central Gallery, New York City.

6. Greenwich Workshop Gallery: Sixth Annual Marine Exhibition, invitational, 120 works, Nov. 16-Dec. 13 , Southport, Connecticut.

7. ASMA/Peabody Museum of Salem: Exhibition of Contemporary Marine Art, juried, 60-70 works, May 15-Sept. 15, 1981, Salem, Massachusetts.

8. Mystic Seaport: Second Annual Maritime Awards Show, juried, April 19, 1981.

9. Tradewinds Gallery: Mystic, Conn.

The Board of Directors of ASMA takes great pleasure in announcing the election of Robert Stickler as a Fellow of the Society. The updated membership list is now available from NMHS. Respectfully submitted, PETER E. ROGERS, President, ASMA

To enroll as a lay member send $25 to American Society of Marine Artists, c/o NMHS, 2 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY 11201.

~ I

.

.

41

KEITH MILLER

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42

SEA HIS TORY, SUMMER 1980

A young artist's voyaging leads him to a great city's back yard

Dray horses and longshoremen of the South Street waterfront served deepwatermen like the Western Ocean packet which has just been unloaded here.

Her stern carving, typical of the adornment lavished on these ships, is reminiscent of the Charles Cooper carving reproduced by Dow Corning and shown on page 3.

A Rediscovery of New York Seaport After several years of formal art college education in Canada, I was happy to get out to explore the world at large. An early interest in ships and the sea led me to my first sailing experience on board the 3masted bark, Statsraad Lehmkuhl, a 280' training vessel built in 1914. I was living in Las Palmas, Canary Island s independently, working on a series of drawings of that busy and dirty port, when the Statsraad, all white and delicate, was towed into the harbour and anchored amongst the oil tankers, tramps and Korean fishing boats. I actually saw her approach to the island, on New Year's Eve, 1970. Later, I went on board and talked with Charles Gallagher, President of Oceanics, the New York-based experiential school which had the ship under charter. He needed an art teacher and kindly hired me. I stayed with Statsraad the next five SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

By Keith Miller months, until she concluded her voyage at the end of May, back at her home port of Bergen, Norway.

Stepping on board for the first time, I was bowled over by the complexity of the rigging. It all seemed incredibly complicated; but as the weeks passed, each autonomous halyard and brace revealed its utilitarian function. The confusing Rube Goldberg appearance fell away and the ship revealed her sober, "form follows function" character.

As in all of my travels, in Europe, North America, or the Canadian Maritimes, I began to draw my surroundings; the st udents standing watc h at the wheel, the staggered convergence of "Gaze/a Primeiro, Masts and Rigging". A view looking forward from the wheel house at the mizzen and fore masts.

MARINE ART "Main Rigging of the Statsraad Lehmkuhl. " Interestingly, the Statsraad is the last of the big Class A school ships to be still equipped with wooden deadeyes, as shown in this drawing of the main backstays. The main upper topsail halyard runs through the massive block on the ¡ right; it is the heaviest block on the vessel. A furled mizzen staysail is seen in the background, draped over the raised compass binnacle. Below: "Pier 19, New York Harbour. "A pair of Percheron draft horses stand idle as a tug nudges a Down East bark towards her East River berth.

I did learn at first hand what it is to be sent aloft to help take in the royals in advance of an approaching squall . ...

shrouds and backstays at the trestle-trees, or the portly capstan flanked by stout catheads. Sitting on the deck or in the foretop, the Statsraad offered in all glorious variety of shifting conditions of sunlight and sea, a new world; a misty, romantic world to be sure, but a physical nuts and bolts, hemp and canvas world too. The drawings and impressions I gathered while on board, in addition to the actual sail handling experience, continue to be of great help in my studio work.

After my half year on the Statsraad, I joined the crew which was to sail the Philadelphia Maritime Museum's newly acquired barkentine Gaze/a Primeiro from Lisbon to the US. Again, many offwatch hours during that quiet voyage were spent drawing studies of the vessel's sail and rigging plan. It was instructive to compare the much smaller, wooden sparred Gaze/a with the 1800 ton school ship. It is fascinating to me that the square rigged vessel evolved the way it did, usually along the lines which made the ships increasingly efficient. The dynamics of counterbalancing systems which played themselves out under varying sea conditions and which drove the vessel forward are analogous to the complexity of human anatomy and locomotion itself. This inter-relationship between man and physical vessel is an underlying concern in all of my painting.

Through my sailing experience I did learn at first hand what it is to be sent aloft to help take in the royals in advance of an approaching squall as well as what it is to bend on heavy storm canvas, and perform the variety of tasks which are part of the crew's work on a large sailing vessel. I think some of this experience comes across in my painting and I feel greatly encouraged by the reaction to them at the Annapolis Marine Art Gallery and in the South Street Seaport Gallery.

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

I'm just as excited by the discoveries that I and thousands of others are making today in their own back yards.

While my time under sail was exciting, and a time of personal discovery, I'm just as excited by the discoveries that I and thousands of others are making today in their own back yards.

In port cities throughout North America, people are turning again to their historic harbour districts. A kind of waterfront renaissance is underway. I am particularly excited about the port of New York, which I have been concentrating on in my paintings for the last two years. New York is especially rich in her maritime history and in the juxtapositioning of old and new harbour architecture.

The clusterings of 19th-century buildings and wharfs in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge on both sides of the East River, cheek by jowl with the functionings of a still active port is one of the great urban surprises of the city. With the restoration of wharfs, warehouses, and countinghouses, and with the creation of Liberty Park on the New Jersey shore, New York harbour is being looked at anew as a valuable historical and recreational resource.

This new respect for all of our old ports and vessels, dovetails with my own special interest in harbour scenes. All of the elements of the maritime environment come together in the port; outward bound and arriving vessels, crowded wharfs and streets, and the intermingling of the various tradesmen and professions which make up the economic life of any busy coastal city.

I believe we are on the verge of a cultural reassessment and rediscovery of our maritime heritage in North America.

Although much has been lost and cannot be brought back, much remains to be restored and reinterpreted . Part of this reinterpretive role must be undertaken by the marine artist. I feel good about throwing some of my own light on different aspects of the physical port as it was and as it is today. .t SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

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"BAY COUNTRY LANDING" The Kent in 1894

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SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

MARINE ART

The Flowering of a Hidden Agenda

By Willard Bond

After about fifteen years making the SoHo loft scene in Manhattan as both a ceramic muralist and easel artist, I got bitten by the Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome bug. l moved into a rain jungle by the sea in Jamaica, WI, where for five years I experimented with geodesic construction with all manners of local materials from bamboo to ferro-cement; some experimentation on speculation and the last bit on a grant from USAID through the Peace Corps. My part of the coastline was absolutely no good for sailing which was greatly disappointing because sailing was my hidden agenda all along.

In early 1976, for various reasons, Jamaica ceased to be the glorious place to live that it had been for me and my wife and I found myself at loose ends back in Manhattan gladly accepting a job as night pier master at South Street Seaport Museum. Note the year! Ships and the sea had always been in my repertoire as subject matter for painting, but not very profoundly. Operation Sail turned me around. I rediscovered ships in all their glory when I received the port lines from the young ladies of the Sir Winston Churchill on Pier 16.

Those were great weeks for me. I was rediscovering watercolor as my medium-and the "subject matter" was all around me! Behind my office on Pier 15 sat a 33-foot skipjack. She was being rebuilt by Richard Fewtrell in off-hours from his giant task of restoring South Street's own square-rigger Wavertree.

For me and my lady she was love at first sight. We bought her from Richard and today sail her out of Three Mile Harbor at the east end of Long Island, bringing her to the East River for occasional visits to South Street and to the National Society's headquarters pier across the way.

I work entirely in watercolor now, almost exclusively ships and seascapes, with an occasional nude thrown in. The plunge for me has proved rewarding, ships and ships' people being a good crowd to be among. .i,

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1980

I

The fishing smack Lettie G. Howard in the foreground nods daintily to the East River tide.

Behind her is the sturdy bulk of the original Ambrose lightship of 1907 at South Street Seaport Museum's Pier 16. Below, Willard Bond celebrates the urgency and color of an ocean racer running under spinnaker.

47

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w

Ice-e ncrusted S andy Hook pilot boat pushing to meet waiting ca rrie r. (Copy right 1979. Ca ptain Arthur J . Roche)

Still a tough job in 1980.

Despite the armament of "black box" navigation aids available in the 1980s, bringing ship and cargo and the human souls aboard her into safe harbor still calls for the not-outmoded shiphandling skills , knowledge and tradition of unswerving service that have been the hallmark of American pilots since Colonial days . The 40 Pilot Branches of the International Organization of Masters , Mates & Pilots , representing more than 1, 200 commissioned pilots in ports around the country , Puerto Rico and Panama make up a proud segment of the 10,000 professional MM&P ship's officers on American flag ocean-going ships, river and harbor craft.

ROBERT J. LO WEN

LLOYD M. MARTIN

International President

International Secretary¡ Treas urer

ALLEN C. SCOTT

DONALDS. GRANT

International Executive Vice President

Vice President, Pilotage

International Organization of

Masters, Mates & Pilots 39 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10006/(212) 425-3860 / Cable: BRIDGEDECK/Telex No. : 12¡5858