Sea History 032 - Summer 1984

ISSN 0146-9312

No. 32

SEA HISTORY

OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE WORLD SHIP TRUST

SEA HISTORY is the journal of the National Maritime Historical Society , an educational , tax-exempt membership organization devoted to furthering the understanding of our maritime heritage. Copyright © 1984 by the National Maritime Historical Society .

OFFICE: 132 Maple St. , Croton-on-Hudson , NY 10520_ Telephone: 914 271-2177_ MEMBERSHIP is invited: Sponsor $1 ,000; Donor $500; Patron $100; Family $30 ; Regular $20; Student or Retired $JO_ ALL FOREIGN MEMBERS , including Canada and Mexico , please add $5 for postage.

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

OFFICERS & TRUSTEES are Chairman: F .

Briggs Dalzell ; Vice Chairmen: Thomas Hale, Barbara Johnson ; President.- Peter Stanford ; Secretary: Alan G_ Choate; Treasurer.- A.T. Pouch , Jr. ; Trustees: Norman J. Brouwer, Alan G. Choate, F . Briggs Dalzell , Thomas Hale, Barbara Johnson , James F . Kirk , Karl Kortum , Robert J. Lowen , James P . McAllister, II, A . T . Pouch , JL , John H. Reilly , Jr. , Peter Stanford , John N. Thurman . Chairmen Emeritii: Walter F. Schlech , Jr. , Karl Kortum.

President Emeritus : Alan D. Hutchinson.

ADVISORS: Chairman: Frank 0. Braynard ; Francis E. Bowker, Oswald L. Brett, George Campbell , Robert Carl , Frank G. G. Carr, Harry Dring , John Ewald , Joseph L. Farr, Timothy G. Foote, Richard Goold-Adams , Robert G. Herbert, R. C . Jefferson, Irving M .

Johnson, J;<red Klebingat, John Kemble, Conrad Milster, William G. Muller, Capt. David E. Perkins, USCG (ret.) , Nancy Richardson, Ralph L. Snow , John Stobart, Albert Swanson, Shannon Wall, Robert A. Weinstein , Thomas Wells ,AICH, Charles Wittholz.

WORLD SHIP TRUST: Chairman: Frank G. G. Carr; Vice Presidents_· Sir Peter Scott, Rt. Hon _Lord Shackleton; Hon. Secretary: J. AForsythe; Hon . Treasurer: Richard Lee; Erik C. Abranson , Dr. Neil Cossons , Maldwin Drummond , Peter Stanford _ Membership: £10 payable WST, c/o Hon . Sec., 129a North Street, Burwell , Cambs. CB5 OBB, England.

Reg. Charity No. 277751 .

AMERICAN SHIP TRUST: International Chairman: Frank Carr; Chairman: Peter Stanford ; Hon _ Secretary.- Eric J. Berryman ; George Bass , Norman Brouwer, Karl Kortum, Charles Lundgren, George Nichols , Richard Rath ; Senior Advisor: Irving M .

Johnson ; Curator, NY Harbor: Mel Hardin .

SEA HISTORY STAFF: Editor: Peter Stanford; Managing Editor: Norma Stanford ; Associate Editor.- Norman J. ·Brouwer; Accounting: Maureen Conti; Membership : Heidi Tepper Quas; Corresponding Secretary: Marie Lore_

SUMMER 1984

CONTENTS 3 EDITOR'S LOG LETTERS 7 IN CLIO 'S CAUSE: ELISSA LENGTHENS HER WAKE , Walter P. Rybka 10 CHESAPEAKE BAY LOG CANOES , Joe Valliant 13 ALAN VILLIERS , Oswald L. Brett ; Introduction , P. Stanford 25 A THREE WEEK VOYAGE , J . Richard Ashton THE CONRAD AT MYSTIC , Donald P. Robinson 26 A UNIQUE VISION OF THE SEA , Philip Sugg 28 MODELMAKER'S CORNER : A MAGICAL SHIPYARD , Eric A. R. Ronnberg , Jr. 30 SAIL TRAINING : DAY 'S RUN, Report of the American Sail Training Association 32 THE REVENUE CUTTER CALIFORNIAN, Steve Christman 33 ERNESTINA/MORRISSEY SAILS AGAIN, Julia Brotherton 35 MARINE ART NEWS 36 MARINE ART: OSWALD LONGFIELD BRETT 41 SHIP NOTES , SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS 44 BOOKS 47 THE BOOK LOCKER

COVER: Ship Joseph Conrad, Alan Villiers, Owner-Master, running her easting down in Cook Strait , on passage New Zealand towards Tahiti in May 1936. From the painting

by Oswald Brett in the possession of Dr. S. Sakker, Sydney, Australia. -

The National Maritime Historical Society is saving America's seafaring heritage. Join us.

We bring to life America· s seafa ring past through researc h, archaeo logical expeditions and ship prese rvati on effort s. We wo rk wi th mu seum s, hi storians and sail trai ning groups and report on these acti vities in our quarterly journal Sea His1ory_ We are also the Ameri can arm of the World Ship Trust , an international gro up wo rking wo rld wide to help save shi ps of hi sto ric importance.

Won ' t you join us to keep ali ve our natio n's seafaring legacy?

Membership in the Society costs on ly $20 a yea r. You ' II receive Sea His1ory, a fascin ating magaz ine filled with arti cles of seafa ring and hi storical lore. You' ll also be eligible fo r discounts o n books, prints and oth er items. Help save our seafa ring heritage. Join the Nationa l Maritime Histori ca l Soc iety today!

TO: National Maritime Historical Society, 132 Maple SL , Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520

YES

I want to help . I understand that my contribution goes to forward the work of the Society ' and that !"II be kept in fo rmed by rece iving SEA HISTORY quarterl y. Enclosed is: 0 $1 ,000 Sponsor 0 $500 Donor 0 $100 Patron '.J $30 Family C $20 Regular Member 0 $10 Student/Retired

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LETTERS

EDITOR'S LOG He knew fear, the terror of the wild ocean , and the loneli ness of voyag ing. He knew also the joys, th e fe ll owship, the enduring loya lties bred up in seafaring, and he devoted his li fe to the deep learni ng of ma n's voyaging experi ence unde r sa il. In th is iss ue we pay tri bute- a sa ilo rs' tribute-to A lan Villie rs. Onl y a frac ti on of the words we' ve collected these past two yea rs since his death , from his shi pmates and his peers, are printed here. The main body of the story is ca rri ed in the narrative of his friend the art ist and hi storian Os Brett .

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Villiers made the sketch above of the little full -rigger Joseph Conrad in heavy weather on her fa mous aro und-the-wo rl d voyage und er hi s command in 1934-6- a voyage begun just half a centu ry ago. It is that scene that Os Brett has painted fo r our cover. Captain Go rdo n C hapman of Austra lia , mate of the Conrad at the time, writes w ith pride of the ship's performance and Os's rendition of it: " You will see, Peter, we d idn't dr ive her under nor did she wallow in the troughs.

She was kept at it."

So also Alan kept at his m ission of coming to know and to depict the sailor's wo rl d.

He had to act things out , he had to embrace the world in his sailing , and he offered no easy answers as to what it was about. T hat refu sal to accept easy answers and that will to get out and deal with the real thingthese g ive Alan's work a sinewy toughness ass uring its long life and continued usefuln ess .

The other thing his work radiates, and his li fe, is refe rred to, in different ways , by all who knew him . Dav id Proctor, Secretary of England's National Maritime Museum , of which Alan was trustee, calls this qual ity "generos ity of spirit ." That is a sailo rl y quality- perhaps the sailo rl y quality, th e one that is made possible by all the hard disc iplines. One can make a good case I believe that it is the most needed quality in the wo rld today, and perhaps always has been.

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Sail tra ining is another subject Alan was devoted to, a cause that he and Irving and Exy Johnson have led in in the last half century, bringing us much of the rati onale and practical applications that we li ve by today. How good it is to see that cause breaking th rough in our time-see all the good news reported from a growing, acti ve fi eld in " Sail Training," this issue!

PS SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

" The First. .. I Had Ever Seen" George Crowninshield 's article on Sorlandet (S H30: 13) sti rs memories of a windy cloudless eveni ng in 1933, when I saw her ret urning from her visit to the Chicago Wo rld 's Fair. She was being towed by a tug with a hawser a mile long , or so it seemed .

The ship's masts and crossed yards were silho uetted agai nst the brill ian t orange sky, just after sunset.

As I watched to my great surprise and pleas ure, one by one the square sails were hauled into place and there stood the first sq uare- ri gged sai ling ship I had ever seen , under full sa il , black aga inst the sky. She began to shorten the d istance between herself and the tug and w ith a strong northwest wind pushing her dow n the lake, she disappeared in the dusk fa r to th e east.

What a glo rious sight ! T his took place on Lake Ontari o in late August. The sighting pos ition was a little East of30 Mile Point Lighthouse on the south shore of Lake Ontari o di ago nall y across the lake from Toronto, Canada. As a resu lt of your article I watched fo r signs of her this summer at the same site but d id not see her. But I was mos t pleased to lea rn th at she had surv ived the turbulent yea rs betwee n and had made the same trip aga in.

ER NEST 1. BREED Englewood , New Jersey With 1his lovely Lefler M1'. Breed sen! a dona1ion 10 !he Na1ional Socie1y 'sfund lO res/Ore 1he ship Wavertree in Soiah S1ree1; we hope Mr. Breed comes to see her sails sheeted home one day against an evening sky. - ED

the end of the tunnel. (One always has to hope that it is not , in fact , an approaching train!)

It was fine to read the tribute to Corwith Cramer, fo und ing pres ident of the Sea Ed ucati on Association. We met when we both sai led in different yachts in the 1949 Fastnet Race, when there we re some 35 entriesun like now when there are over 300. I actuall y sai led as mate in the gaff cutter Theodora which before the wind set a squaresai l, square topsail and studd ingsa il s. I would guess this is the on ly time those sai ls have been set in a modern ocean race!

H .F. MORIN SCOTT

Sq uare R igged Services Ltd. Bognor Regis, England Your editor was in Myth of Malham with Corey in that ra ce; we hadjust sailed across the Atlantic together. He was a fine shipmate. - ED

A Seam to Caulk Things have improved for us and I am glad to send along a slight increase in our annual donation. I am sure you can fi nd a seam to cau lk someplace.

ALLEN BERRJEN

M ilford Boat Works Mi lford , Connect icut Mr. Berrien doubled his always generous year-end co111ribution to the work of the Natinal Socie1y-and thanks to him and 793 other members who contributed toour year end dri ve, we're lookingfonvard to considerable new achievement in this , our 21st year. - ED

From Old Roots, New Growth

Mel Jackson, Shipmate and Scholar

New growth in sail tra in ing shou ld take place in the United States fo llowing the new laws and reg ul ati ons of th e Coast Guard noted in your last (S H32:52). It seems to me to be highl y app ropriate th at modern sa il tra ining shoul d be reported alo ngside nautical histo ry, fo r part of the benefit of sai l tra ining is derived from res pecting the custo ms, habits and acti vities of vessels of yesteryea r and continuing the best of them. In our tra ining brig Royalist, when we stage a tug-of-wa r between the two watc hes, th is is always known as " hoisting the propeller," and the opportunity is taken to explain to the young crews how this operation was carried out in the sail-and-steam peri od of 1840-90 when th e ord e r was " Dow n funn el, up screw," or the reverse.

We are also interested in modern comme rcial sail. At lo ng las t our MICASS (Mini -Container-Auxiliary-Sailing-S hip) design, a 120-footBermudan schooner capable of lifting two contai ne rs, has been recommended by a United Nations department fo r use in Eastern wate rs. It is all ve ry interesting and looks a little like the light at

I offer a few li nes about Dr. Melvin Jackson, fo rme r Curator of Water Transpo rtation at th e Sm ithsonian, who died last October (S H31:53) . My memori es of Mel encompass a fr iends hip of nea rly 20 yea rs, some laughs, some hard wo rk and some adventures , and a collaboration that ranged from the scholarly confi nes of the Smithsonia n Institut ion to the decks of the several ships in which we served together, with Mel on the bridge and me in th e fo'c'sle.

He was an old timer who had gotten his mate's license and sailed on it back before the wa r, and he was as fa miliar with the deck gea r of a wo rking fre ighter as he was with he r chart roo m . We once wo rked fo r three hard dirty days in the Washington Navy Yard overhauling th e winches, blocks, booms, hatch boards and tarpaulins of a battered old wartime ya rd cargo vessel that had just come out ofl ay up after23 yea rs. "Now," he said , when we fi nall y had the deck gea r squ ared away, " lets go topside and see if this rust bucket's got a wheelhouse." She did , and fro m it he steered her across the Atlantic.

Mel could be stubborn as a mule in de-

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LETTERS fenseofwhathe knew to be the truth. When we were working on an exhibit dealing with the history of the maritime industry in the US, he commented on a script I was writing: "There's too damn much romance in this thing . The age of the tea clippers , the adventure of deep-sea whal ing, all that Melville, Dana stuff, very exciting-but do you know what the real long-term profit-making history of the American maritime industry was and still is all about? Inland waterways, the lakes and rivers, boy-that's where it's always been! " He was a crackerjack seaman , first-rate scholar and a good friend.

PETER COPELA ND

Arlington, Virginia

Needed: An Historian at MARAD It is worr isome news that the Maritime Adm inistration does not have a staff historian.

As you may know, the logs of World War II merchant ships have already been destroyed. Presumably, this was because they were not considered "sufficiently significant" for permanent record. Despite this loss, MARAD does sti ll have a large amount of records which should be retained for posterity. At the present time there are one or two persons at MARAD who, albeit nearing

retirement , have an appreciation of the historical value inherent within this material.

The problem is that once those people retire, there apparently will not be any staff member remaining who is interested in seeing that this material is shepherded into archival depositories.

Obviously, there should be a MARAD historian . Without one, muc h of the maritime history which still exists regarding World War II and before wil l be lost. I hope we can use the Society's good offices to inves ti gate and help correct this.

CHARLES D. GIBSON Boca Grande, Florida A distinguished former MARAD official points ow that he was involved with the repository of World War II ships' logbooks . "!#?provided a service giving access to the books for hundreds of people. One day I found out to my horror that they had been shredded on a schedule approved by some Washington administrative type." He asks whether an historian's "chair" might be set up with private citizen support andfunding -a quest ion we are prepared to pursue with anyone prepared to he/pc- ED

A Couple of Errors I first got onto your organization when I met some ship restorers and researchers in the

Falkland Islands in 1978. I might call to your attention some errors in SH 32. " The Last Dreadnought " refers to the USS Texas bringing President Hoover to Havana in 1928, but Calvin Coolidge was President in that year. Hoover was President-elect from the election in November 1928 until March 4, 1929, when he assumed office. And on page 55, 1911 is shown as the date of the Titanic sinking, but she went down in 1912 .

Keep up the good work! I am a stickler for details-that comes with less frenzied activity in retirement.

WM. E. ROBERTSON Wilmette, Illinois

Not the First The SS Energy Independen ce was not , as you state (SH29:30), " th e first coal-fi red steam-powered cargo carrier built in this country since 1929." Coal-fired steam turbine cargo carriers were built for Great Lakes service all through the 1950s, among them the late, we! I known SS Edmund Fitzgerald (1958). At 729 feet, the Fitz was one of the largest vessels flying the Ame rican flag. It is true, however, that all but two of these ships were later converted to oil firing.

AW. SWEIGERT C leveland, Ohio

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SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

The A111erican Sea an He stands shoulder-to-shoulder with his true blue union sisters Women have always gone to sea. Before World War II they were very much part of the maritime scene on the big passenger ships. During the war, however, they were ignominously beached. The National Maritime Union supported our women members' determination to return to sea-not only in "pink collar" jobs as stewardesses, waitresses and beauticians, but in any job aboard any ship.

NMU member Hazel Zuckerman led the fight against Coast Guard regulations to get women jobs aboard tankers, freighters and container ships after the passenger ships gave way to the jet plane. She prevailed, opening the way for ordinary women to sail as ordinary seamen. "I'm no crusading feminist,'' she said, "Just a widow who needs to make a living'.' Today females routinely attend NMU's Able Seaman school.

Able Seaman Kitty Stasiak, Crew Chairman on the USNS Range Sentinel.

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IN CLIO'S CAUSE

Elissa Lengthens Her Wake

by Walter P. Rybka The Villiers ideal ofth e human condition was that of a ship's crew, where everyone is needed and all hands pull together to make the voyage. That ideal lives in a special way in the Elissa restoration ofthe Galveston Historical Foundation-an 1877 bark recovered from Greece, restored and sailed today (see SH 15 and 26). Here the director of the restoration reflects on what it takes to sail the ship, and what it means to serve in her.

The headsail s are being set for the last time this year, to dry out afte r last night's ra in . In the next few days most of the sail s will be unbent and sent down for the wi nter.

The tarring down of rigging will resume and o ne by one the yards w ill be sent down for maintenance. The work never stops.

Elissa demands over 300 hours of it each week. The staff can onl y provide a little over half of this. The rest comes from vo lunteers , some of whom are new and completel y green a nd some of whom have bee n with the ship for yea rs. This human prese nce is the life of the ship.

One of the most important things to grasp about a sailing ship is that it is built upon principles o pposed to modern li ving. In today 's wo rld the emphasis in mechanical des ig n is on re moving the human eleme nt , on evolving ever mo re sophisticated tools and machines to minimize the need fo r human intervention in ma intenance o r operation . A sailing ship, on the other hand , is the stark minimum of mecha nical contrivance that o nl y works with a max imum of human effo rt. Elissa '.s mainte nance requires no sophisticated tools o r shipya rd facilities. What it requires is the constant laying on of hands. In washing decks, oiling rails, tarring rigging, touching up pai nt , sh ifting moorings, it is the frequency and constancy of the effo rt that counts.

The highlight a nd focus of this effort is the annual progra m to sai l the vessel as inspiration and reward to all her people. In 1983 we decided to postpone the sails until late October. Preparation began in early summer by reinstituting the weekly sail drill s. On Friday ni ght , Saturday morning and afte rnoon, and Sunday mo rning, about 35 people spe nt two to three hours at a time loosing , setting and furlin g sa il , running from halya rds to sheets to braces.

In August our routine was dramatically interrupted by Hurricane Alicia , a sto rm which gave very little notice. The night before the storm was the most grati fy ing proof of the learning that had come from the restoration , because forty concerned citizens would not have been able to do half of what was needed , but forty hands under command was a different story. Both royal yards were sent down in six hours by a crew of men and women working aloft in the dark SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

under the superv ision of the staff rigger.

Less than th ree years ago none of the m , including the rigger, had even been aloft.

They had shown up to help clean up a mastless hulk . Being ab le to tum my back on the above left me free to see to the moorings and order the rest of the work.

To best moor the ship we needed the capstans manned to warp her ahead 30feet so that two shots of the starboard bower cable could be sent dow n the adjacent wha rf to share the load over several bitts.

Staff and vo lunteers kept o n worki ng through to run o ut hundreds of feet of l 1A " c hain , l "wire, and 2" nylon in all directio ns. We went aloft with long coils of light line and put nearly continuo us gaskets on everything. With the approach of darkness and the tide lapping over the pier it was time to leave her. The mid watch brought the eye of the hurricane ashore on Galveston Island with it winds up to 115 mph that made the floors flex in our fo ur-story brick building.

Next morning we fou nd Elissa riding gentl y to the wind and swell. The wind laden with salt and sand had peeled va rnish and paint , and much of the running rigging had chafed itself hoary and old in that single night , but not a line parted anywhere.

In the weeks that followed the normal routine was gradually resumed and the sail handling drills were intensified . On October 13 Elissa was towed the 46 mi les of the ship channel to Housto n. As the little ba rk came up the winding channel with a tug alo ngside she was saluted by long blasts and dipping ensigns from ship after ship, her g iant successors in the cargo trades.

They were saluting a vessel that was corning in from a far longer voyage than any of them wi ll ever make .

The Houston trip was a success , a n exhausting round of ship's work, public tours, private parties and receptio ns, and sail drills, with no e nd to the last minute details that accumulate around departures.

On the morning of October 24, the tug came alongside again to take Elissa down to the sea. Captain Carl Bowman had joined again , as he had in he r previous outings unde r sail (see SH 26) . The idea of doing this year's series of daysails from an anchorage rather than the pier was initially conceived ofas a way to minimize the risk of damage to the ship. I also wanted to have the chance to work the groundtackle as an important part of the ship's gear that had never been really tested . The tow lasted till afte r dark and with her o il sidelights burning Elissa was nudged into the anchorage.

It was a quiet thrill to hea r "let go" come booming up from aft followed by the sharp tunk of the carpenter's sledge and the thun derous rumbl e of the chain . " Three a nd a half shackles to the water's edge, sir."

October Tl was the 106th anniversary of Elissa '.s launching a nd even before the launches brought the guests aboard for the sa il the wind lass was manned and we hove short the cable. Six hands on the brakes and all verses of " Rio Grande," were just suffi cie nt to bring in a full shot of chain . With rest breaks and rotation of c rew the anchor was we ighed in less tha n an hour.

The first two days of sa iling were a tow to a few miles offsho re, then sailing close hauled down the island in a IO kt breeze that had her gliding along at about 5 knots. After lunch the ship was put about and sailed back fu ll and by. '~ .. afar longer voyage than any of them will ever make."

Saturday the 29th brought 18-20 kt winds. It was a wonde rful feeling to see her with a real slant to he r decks, and a real pull on her lines. After mo nths of bei ng chased around the braces in drills the crew had complai ned about the leisurely manuevering of the last two sail s. Captain Bowma n obliged by putting he r and us through six tacks in an ho ur and a half. We lea rned a lot. It was more wind tha n we had sailed in last yea r (a nd remembe r that for all practical purposes this is a new ship six days out of the builder's ya rd).

That day the breeze held all afternoon a nd Captain Bowman was able to sail he r all the way up to her anchorage. It was trul y satisfying to hea r the c hain run with no diesel in th e background.

Sunday the 30th was o ur last sail on a chill gray day with the same 20 kt wind a nd a good deal more of a swell that had built up overnight. T hat day saw the decks wet with spray as she made 8.5 kts close hauled with a white roll of rushing wate r curling off he r stem as it gentl y rose and fell a fa th om or so to each swell .

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As of this writing the possibility is being pursued of havi ng Elissa sail to New Orleans next spring for the World 's Fair to be held there. This wi ll provide the challe nge of getting the ship and her crew ready for an offs hore passage of several days. This year's sai ls represented the first step in a gentle weaning away from the land . The routines of standing watches, cooking meals, trimming the la mps, ma nning the windlass have brought all concerned that much farther alo ng as the ship's company.

J,

J,

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Mr. Rybka, Restoration Director for the Elissa, is co-manager of White Elephant Management, which directs planning and funding efforts and restores ships: 2104 Strand, PO 1049, Galveston TX 77553.

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m·'.

· _

·'tl.'10 -rc)·\ ·\m•:i ~ H. YV JJg:;

~0-f Thomaston.

- George Williams, THE SACRAMENTO BEE

\'

-t-

(Mciine ),'

t- ·went to Sea t;. the -following ·wrnter "' ,r. J\nd ne'er : · came Horne again. ·

"'COASTER" ... appealingly records the 'LEA VIITS' construction, from the laying of her kee l to the fitting of her "shutter plank" that sealed her hull. The Maine cra ftsmen, their tools and techniques, are fascinating to watc h and listen to ."

- Christian Williams, WASHINGTON POST "COASTER" is about a dream, hard work a nd high risk , about men as hore and at sea stubbornly pitting old skills against an implacable enemy. T he film ing, ed iting, writ ing and scoring of"COASTER" make it an American saltwater classic."

- Paul Denison. MONTEREY PENINSULA HERALD

"COASTER" is now available for rental to Maritime, Historical , Educati o nal , Boatbuilding & Sailing Organizati ons. It is an experience yo u will never forget. 16mm & 35mm Send inquiries to : Atlantic Film Group-I 102 Harbor Road Kittery Point, Maine 03905 Or call : (207)439-3739 © 1984 ATLANTIC FILM GROUP-I

8

Overseas Distributors' inquiries invited.

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

H:ER:E:S TO TH:E RIGHI STUFF AND THOSE WHO HAVE IT. Before Chuck Yeager turned 22, he showed the world what he was made of by shooting down thirteen enemy planes in World War II. Five in one day.

But it wasn't until after the war, when still only 24, that Yeager began to tackle an even more dangerous adversary: the untested limits of space: He went on to become the first man to break the sound barrier, the first to travel at more than twice that speed (over 1600 mph) and one of the first pilots to reach the edge of space, taking a plane above 100,000 feet.

If there's ever been anyone who had "the right stuff", it's Chuck Yeager.

Especially when it comes to the Scotch he drinks: Cutty Sark. ~-

I

CHESAPEAKE BAY LOG CANOES:

by Joe Valliant, paintings by Charles Raskob Robinson

"The Magic and the Mystery" shows craft bui/1 in the 1890s and 1930s respectively as they appeared in 1983 races.

"Rounding th e Red Nun " in the Govern or 's Cup of 1981 , the Mag ic (3) leads Island Lark (16), built in circa 1900.

"Into the Ba v: Governor'.1¡ Cup 197J " features Marion C. Marshall and his crell' in ti1e Rover. built circa 1886.

10

Across the starting line they go, like a flock of white-winged seabirds with sharp, jutting beaks. Chesapeake Bay log canoes are racing in the muggy heat of a Maryland summer weekend. Nowhere but on the Eastern Shore of Maryland do such boats race.

Sleek, low in the water, vastly overs parred for their beam, the Chesapeake Bay log canoe is the end product of over 300 years of hull design and more than 200 yea rs of innovative sail development .

Their hull s are literall y shaped from logs. When the first Europeans ventured into Chesapeake Bay, they found the Indians travel ling and fi shing in canoes hacked from a sing le tree by the ancient fire-hollowing method. Some of these canoes were enormous- over 40 feet. Their design was described as "an hogg's trough , but somewhat more hollowed in ."

At first, lack of ski lled shipwrights fo rced some colonists to adopt the Indians' building methods, but as the colonies fl ourished, they improved on the Indian vessel, shaping it with steel tools and ap pl ying their knowledge of sails to it . America was a land of timber, and the colonists we re dependent on their canoes for transportation. Soon dugout canoes were ubiquitous.

By the end of the 17th century, in response to the need for boats that could be built quick ly and cheapl y to ca rry heavy ca rgo, the multi-log canoe was developed. At first they were catamarans, then three logs bolted or pegged together and then holl owed out . No log canoe racing today has less than three logs in her, and most have five. These logs form the keel and bottom of the vessel ; the sides are fo rmed by rising planks. The logs are bolted together and shaped as desired before the planking goes on.

Sails came to the log canoes of the co loni sts in the later 17th century. The earliest records indicate that the so-cal led " Dutch Carpenter's rig" or Bermuda rig appeared soon after the colonists ado pted the dugout from the Indians and sharpened its bow. The Bermuda rig consisted of two raking masts and leg-o-mutton sails, and , despite the fact that a single-masted rig was known to have been used in Tidewater Virginia about the same time, the twomasted rig with a foresa il , mainsai l andjib is the one that survived and evo lved into the present-day racing rig.

Oddly enough, centerboards are not known to have been used in log canoes until racing started. The first log canoe with a centerboard was built at St. Michaels, Maryland in 1857 by Robert Lambdin , a prolific boat-builder who is thought to have produced 68 canoes between 1865 and 1894. As the 19th century progressed, log canoes lost their function as ri ve r transportation to steamboats, but were increasingly used by watermen who tonged oysters or netted fi sh in the shallow rivers of the Chesapeake country. By 1880, the US Census reported 6,300 log canoes at work on the Chesapeake.

Rac ing probably began as simple contests between individuals who just wanted to see whose boat was fas ter, but interest in the sport was keen enough by 1840 for the first organized races to have been held on the Mil es Riveroff St . Michaels. Within a few yea rs of the Civil War's end , log canoes built specifically for racing began to appear, and the tradition of a unique sporting vessel began.

In 1885 the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Club was organized and log canoe races became more carefull y planned. A body of rules was set up, which included a handicapping system to account for the boats' different sizes and characteristics. At the first race sponsored by the CBYC, the first prize was won by the Tilghman Island-built Island Blossom , a vessel that is still raci ng today. In the races of those days , the custom was to offer a cash prize to the winner, and, for the owner of the last boat over the line, a ham "so he could grease her and do better next time."

The 1890s and first decade of the 20th ce ntury were the heyday of log canoe racing. After that, the introduction of the gasoline engine into the work boat fl eet spelled the rapid decline of the graceful , sa il -powered working boat that could be rapidl y rigged for weekend racing.

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

from Dugout to Racing Yacht Spo radi c attempts to revive a nd ma inta in th e races fa il ed unt il the Miles Ri ver Yacht C lub was fo rmed at St. Michaels in 1924.

Three years late r the Gove rno r's C up was establ ished as the premier prize in log canoe rac ing, and the spo rt began its slow revival .

By the 1920s the trans itio n of log ca noe rac ing fro m a co ntest among working watermen to a spo rting event was nearl y complete.

The o ld boats vani shed into th e mud of th e ma rshy coves whe re old boats we re taken to die; new o nes, built by spo rtsmen specificall y fo r rac ing too k to the wate r. Careful restoratio n has kept a few ve ry o ld boats a li ve : Island Blossom was built in 1892, Magic in 1894, and Island Bird, th e smallest of the canoes, in 1882 . Another venerable ca noe, th e Rover, was resto red in 1972 by he r owne r, Ma rio n M arshall , Jr. of St. Michae ls, without the use of fiberglass patches o r sheathing, w hi c h is co mmo nl y fo und in o th e rs.

In the 1970s there were more restorations and even new co nstructio n . The Jay Dee and Flying Clo ud ~ built in the 1930s for racing a nd th e la rges t of th e log ca noes, returned to thei r nati ve Easte rn Sho re fro m long yea rs of disuse or sailing alien waters. New canoes such as Faith P Hanlon , Spirit of Wye Town and Tenacious joined th e fl eet. Othe rs have fo ll owed , e ithe r resc ued fro m rot or built fro m the keel log up by ded icati on and love of the spo rt . By th e e nd of 1982 the re we re 23 of the m , w ith rumors of mo re coming.

The allure of the log ca noes is ove rwhe lming. The s ight of a dozen of th e m crowding the sta rting line in the Miles, Tred Avo n or C heste r Ri ve rs is breathta king. Knowledgeable spectato rs look for distincti ve colors o n the ir " kites", o r read th eir numbe rs; othe rs ma rve l at the d azz le of white geo metri c sail s and the fantasti c rigs th at send the m slic ing th ro ugh th e wate r at such speeds. A round the first ma rk they co me. sail s fl apping a nd crew sc rambling to windwa rd o n 12-foot planks j utting fa rover each canoe's high side. "'Sailing a log ca noe is li ke riding a bicycle," says Doug las Hanks, a ve te ran sa il o r wh o has skippe red log ca noes in spe ll s s ince the 1930s. " Balance and coo rd inati on is everything when you race log ca noes . They 'll turn ove r as qui ckly in calm as they will in a wind."

Betwee n perfo rming an e ndl ess balancing act , bailing and c ha ng ing sa il s on a breezy day, a log ca noe's crew is consta ntl y o n th e jump. Eve n so, th e slightes t mi sjudgement or a flaw in the w ind th at ta kes eve ryo ne by surpri se will dump th e m bes ide th e ir ca psized boat, tang led in the sa il s, rigging and the clouds of stinging jell yfi sh th at a re the curse of th e Chesapeake. ' ¡It 's mu c h mo re of a c ha lle nge to sail log canoes than any oth e r kind of boat I know," says Do ug Hanks, who has raced o n ri ve rs, bays a nd oceans. " Winning the race is kind of incidental; first yo u have to get o ut to th e course a nd th en you have to stay right s ide up till yo u get ho me . And so metimes , whe n yo u have a long tow fro m o ne yac ht c lub to a noth e r and th e weath e r's a littl e rough , yo u wo nd e r wheth e r yo ur ba ile rs are go ing to g ive o ut befo re yo u eve n get to whe re yo u' re s upposed to race ."

But C hesapea ke Bay log ca noe race rs are an enthus iasti c breed .

The ha rd wo rk , te mpe rme ntal boats, tri c ky weath e r and jell y fi sh do n't sto p th e m . Whe n summe r co mes , the log ca noes will be ready, a nd , o n almost eve ry summe r weeke nd , o n so me ri ve r, off so me yac ht club o n Ma ryland 's Easte rn Shore, the g un w ill po p a nd th e s lee k boats with the ir towe rs of sa il s will lunge across the line, defy ing th e w ind fo r a chance at g lo ry.

In "Becalmed Beyond the Buoy" th e Sandy (7) , one of th e oldest canoes, lies nea r the new Fa ith P. Ha nl o n.

In ':August on the Bay" the Mag ic (3) trails th e square stern ed Jay Dee , built as a racer in 1931.

In "Mo rning Mist " the Fa ith P. Ha nlon (76) , launched July 4, 1976, j oins the red-kited Sil ve r Hee l and Mag ic fo r a race.

Mr: Valliant is an &lsrern Shore native and the editor ojTh e Wate rman's Gazette, Annapolis MD. Mr. Robinson 's an ,ji-om his studio in Washington CT, has been widely seen in national and international exhibitions in the US. *Once th e propertY of the late John Noble ofNe\\ ' York , res10red and sailed wdar b1¡ his son Allen.

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

II

Rare, prized and fabled- then and now... smooth as the kiss of spindrift, dangerous as the broadsides of England's walls of oak, this is the original "Nelson's Blood" - the British Tar's splendid 8-bells answer to Napoleon's brandy. At the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805, the daily FUSSER'S RUM ration was Y2 pint per man - and oftimes before battle (and always after victory), the order was given to "Splice the Main

Brace!" -which meant a double issue for all on board. From before Trafalgar to the victory toast at the Falklands, the Royal Navy's rum has been the most famous of its traditions. Excellent mixed- but first, try sipping it their way: "neat" - or undiluted. This superb rum is not a drink; it is an Experience. Ask for it. Taste it-you're tasting history-and the world's finest rum.

ALAN VILLIERS:

"Here in the Battered Bark All Men Mattered"

by Peter Stanford

In 1he Royal Navy in World War II, Villiers !Oak aj701illa of landing craft across 1he Allamic and on 10 landings in Sicily and Normandy, and halfway round 1he world 10 Singapore. He had ul1i111a1ead111ira1ionfor 1he young people who lea m ed IOdrive 1hese unlikely sea ivagons. PholO, A.J. Villiers.

Between age 16, when he first went to sea in the bark Rothesay Bay as a cadet, and age 23, when he was interviewed for the Essenden High School Maga zine (as " Sailor, Journalist , Novelist" ), he had voyaged to France, serving before the mast in the British square rigger Bellands, had visited London , made his way back to France and thence home in the Finnish bark lawhill, become a newspaper reporter, gone on a whaling expedition and published a book about it , and published two novels as well. To the obviously awed interviewer for the high school magazine, he explained that he owed everything to his high school English teacher, a Miss Sweetman !

There was typical Villiers generosity in that hyperbole. And a not-untypical response on the other side, for Elaine Stahl , a later student at the school who entered seven years after Alan left, noted that "his English teacher, Miss Sweetman (later our headmistress) told us of him again and again. She was intensely proud of him ; staid but starry-eyed she would pass on her enthusiasm ...."

We of the historic ships movement would like to pass on some enthusiasm too, based on what Alan made of the next half-century of his life, up to his death two years ago this spring. Oswald L. Brett , sailorman , marine artist and fellow Australian , has written his story in these pages. It was Os who introduced Villiers to your editor and to the ship Wavertree in South Street-a vessel which Alan campaigned with formidable energies to save. He exhausted himself performing, bringing to life the ways he had learned at sea, from Cape Horn square rigger to Arab dhow, even to outrigger canoes launched through the surf, which he took delight in: He had an extraordinarily generous vision and a sailor's capacity for instant helpful action. He described life as a journey and so lived it.

* * * * * He had scant patience with what he called " knockers,"people who suspiciously looked for angles in the effort, rather than looking towards its goals. He had no time for political and corporate manipulators in general. "Never trust the shore bastards; they'll do you if they can," he has old Jack Shimrnins say in his valedictory to the boys aboard theRothesay &yin his autobiographical Set ofthe Sails.

And in that same lecture, these words: " Towards! That's the thing.

Always towards-and do your damnedest to get there."

There were deep satisfactions on the voyage, and among these, surely, the judgment of his peers , sailormen who knew the values he tried to live-what he called " my poor ideals ." " You would have been heartened by the crowd* at Alan Villiers' memorial service," wrote the young artist Mark Myers, who sailed *He means this word in the seamen's sense, "c rew."

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

with Villiers. "They were what might have been expected-people from all ages and walks of life who were inspired by or indebted to the Old Man , academics, writers, museum types, crews from his old ships from the 1930s to the end of the 60s .... He was an amazing man and one who will be so widely missed , in the States, in Australia , as well as England and all the coasts of Europe."

Twenty-five years earlier Warwick Charlton , conceiver of the Mayflower voyage which Villiers commanded, noted enroute: "Alan has a g ift for talking about the Pilgrims as though they were his next-door neighbors and the crew are really interested and anxious that these talks should continue until we reach the other side."

And hear Captain Ken Reynard, who sailed as mate in one of Villiers' movie ships, the Wandia, to Hawaii: " It was a memorable experience to listen to him reminisce on the poop of a little squarerigger slipping along on a warm , starlit night. . .."

"What a splendid man was Alan Villiers!" says Karl Kortum, Chief Curator of the National Maritime Museum , San Francisco, who was also on the Wandia voyage. He salutes Villiers as " the moving, floating center of the interest in square-rigged ships ... ."

And here is the sailorly judgment of Captain Alan Gordon Chapman , who joined the Conrad in Australia as mate, sailing her around Cape Horn to New York with Villiers in 1936 : " When I paid off the Conrad, it was with a sense of great professional satisfaction and personal achi evement. I felt I had played some part in consolidating that unique team spirit which was the Conrad's legacy to those in her service."

During the Conrad voyage, Villiers acquired a friend in Nancie Wills, who came to hear him speak to the Melbourne Shiplovers Society. They met again in wartime England , and were married.

When I knew Alan, campaigning to save ships like the Wavertree, sending notes on other ships from places like the Straits of Magellan , he referred often to his Nancie. They lived together in Oxford amid that quiet English countryside Villiers loved from the first moment he saw it , for over 35 years , the longest time he'd lived anyw here-"though of course he was away quite a bit," says Nancie. His ashes were cast into the Isis where it flows by at the foot of their garden , into a river that flows into the wide seas Villiers sailed , and so touches all the countries where his worldwide circle of friends lives.

His own words on his first voyage, written later from Oxford , may stand for his feelings about that world: " Here in the battered bark , all men mattered .. .."

13

Commander ALAN JOHN VILLIERS nsc, FRGS, D.LITT.

by Oswald L. Brett The mild spring morning was gray and overcast when I visited the Stanfords in Westchester in late March 1982. I inquired about news of my old friend Alan Villiers since I knew that he was in poor health . They regretfully informed me that Alan had died only weeks earlier on March 3 at the age of 78, in his beloved Oxford .

He is survived by his wife, the former Nancie Wills ofCamberwell , Victoria , and three children . In every sense he was a big man ; amiable , generous, helpful , and giving the impression of quiet competence in all that he undertook.

I had known and enjoyed Alan's work for the last half century (his energy and output was prodigious, and what a gift he had with words!) and it had been a privilege to have known him personally for forty-eight of those years. Alan Villiers was not only one of the most colorful and adventurous deep-water sailors of his generation, but the graphic manner in which he recorded his diverse experiences afloat made him unique. He was an electrifying speaker, and invariably addressed a packed and overflowing house when showing his films. He had the happy knack of making his subject universally popular, on which he was almost without peer as an authority. "The Villiers Phenomenon" is how my publisher friend in England , Alex Hurst, aptly describes him .

Alan was born in North Melbourne on September 23, 1903, one of six children-four boys and two girls. His father, Leon Joseph Villiers, was a "gripman" on cable cars, and was also a poet of the Australian bush country, and a writer of some note on political subjects. Unfortunately he died prematurely of cancer in 1918 at the age of 45 when on the threshold of a promising political career, leaving his family in straitened circumstances. A man of outstanding character and precept, he was to exercise a great influence on Alan's life, even though adamantly opposed to Alan's enthusiasm for sailing ships and a seafaring career.

While Alan was still very young, the family moved to a two story house with a balcony on Spencer Street from where Alan could clearly see the Yarra River wharves and Spencer Street docks. Sailing ships were commonplace in Australian and New Zealand ports during this period. The ports themselves were relatively small, compact , clean and accessible. They were not in some distant " Siberian" reach of the port and shut off behind miles of slums and industrial jungle. Fascinated by the spectacle of sailing ships during his boyhood , Alan was easily able to visit them and befriend many of their crews. He meticulously drew and kept records of each vessel in a secret notebook.

After his father's death Alan pointed out that his absence at sea would be one less mouth to feed, and his mother finally acquiesced to the logic of this assertion. Captain Charles Suffern of the Melbourne Ancient Mariners Club had a small nautical school for seaminded youth who wished to go to sea in square sail . Here the boys became acquainted with handling a boat under sail or oars, and the rudiments of seamanship. On Albert Park lake in Melbourne the captain had a brigantine-rigged lifeboat to make the boys familiar with the principles of handling such a vessel under sai l, and to understand the old words of command . The year was 1919 and Alan was 15 when Captain Suffern found a place for him in the half deck of the old bark Rothesay Bay, then lying at Port Adelaide loading gy psum for the cement works at Whangarei in New Zealand . The Rothesay Bay was one of a considerable fleet of small , aging square-rigged vessels employed in the intercolonial trade of the often stormy Tasman Sea between Australian and New Zealand ports. In a few short years they'd be all gone. They were hard-working little vessels, providing excellent training and experience for a boy going to sea. Alan would later reflect , as have so many others on the shock of first going to sea: " I remember, the first few days at sea, being struck by the viv id differences between the actual thing and all that I had imagined about it previously! Why hadn't someone written about the real sea? I thought ; for

14

then I should not have gone! The broken sleep, the cold, the wet , the poor food and wet bunks, the misery of the soulless and endless pitch against unchanging head winds, the unutterable horror of days of seasickness unrelieved by anything save work and an hour or two, now and then , in a sodden bunk- why had I never read about these? They were the sea-not romance, and not adventure!"

You had read about them, Alan! Remember? But such remarks only whet the enthusiam of the greenhorn for the sea. Experience and reality are the only teachers. Ultimately the young sailor enthusiastically entered into the life of the bark , working on deck and aloft. The Rothesay Bay, belonging to a timber merchant in Sydney, discharged her gypsum, and then loaded timber at Auckland for Sydney. The timber was badly stowed and the vessel was crank .

The wind was a dead muzzler for the entire passage across the Tasman, as the unstable Rothesay Bay staggered along under lower tops'ls. One hundred miles south of Sydney they were fortunate to encounter a tugboat ranging well south looking for tows, which took them into Sydney after a 40-day passage. The average cargo steamer in head winds could cover the distance in less than a week!

In Sydney Alan joined the handsome bark James Craig which cleared for Hobart to load timber. Off Gabo, on the south coast of New South Wales, the Craig was almost lost in a blow. She ran back up the coast to Sydney in distress where she lay for six weeks while repairs were effected. She finally arrived at Hobart where she loaded heavy timber at Port Huon for Port Pirie, South Australia . She then loaded superphosphates at Port Adelaide for Auckland, and thence timber for Melbourne where Alan left her. She was a happy ship and Alan always spoke of her with great affection.

The skipper had his wife and two children on board, and everyone got along well together. The food was good, the ship dry on deck and handled easily. While on board he made some lasting friendships. With the laying-up of the Craig in the post war shipping slump of 1920, Alan was forced to look elsewhere for another sailing vessel in which to finish his four years sea time to qualify him to sit for his second mate's ticket. Prospects for a career in sail were becoming remote, and his ambition of a command in square rig was fast becoming a virtual impossibility.

Alan , together with some forn'ier shipmates, next joined the British four-masted bark Bellands as ordinary seaman . Built as the Foreteviot in 1891 , she was well found , with labor-saving brace winches and a Liverpool house, which provided roomy and dry accommodation for her people, and made her maindeck less vulnerable to seas breaking on board . She was bound from Melbourne towards St. Nazaire with grain. The food was atrocious, and to almost everyone's dismay her store of tobacco was soon exhausted which very nearly provoked a mutiny on board ; all in the best hungry limejuice tradition!

To Alan's disappointment-but not to the older seamen-the vessel did not head eastward towards the Horn , but made an easy flying-fish passage by way of the Indian Ocean and Good Hope. She was not well sailed and , incredibly, ignored the desperate plight of a burning bark she came upon in the Atlantic. Alan was glad to leave her after a weary 151-day passage in St. Nazaire, where she paid off and the crew sent home to England. Alan was entranced by his first sight of the " lovely English fie lds," in that summerof 1921 , but appalled by the slums of London's dockland. His own prospects were bleak. There were 120 Cape Hom square-riggers either outward , or homeward bound from Australia, but any sailing ships in London were not in need of people. Eventually Alan found a job working-by the four-masted bark Omega. This was on a casual basis and did not count towards his sea time. It was hoped that she would shortly sign articles and go to sea with a cargo of Welsh coal , but there was a coal strike, and Alan left when he heard that there were jobs in France. He slipped across the Channel once more-illegally-and ended up living in a drain pipe at

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

On top of the world, the 26 year-old Australian sits out on one of the Grace Harwar's yards, with the camera he used to record the life of a dying breed, the square-rigged deepwaterman. Photos, A.J. Villiers unless otherwise noted.

Bordeaux , from where he fortunately managed to sign as able seaman aboard the Finnish four masted bark Lawhill, skippered by Ruben de Cloux and owned by Gustav Erikson. The "lucky" Lawhill, built at Dundee in 1892 , survived two world wars and would likely be afloat yet had her later owners not abandoned her to disintegrate in an East African roadstead about 1950. She dragged ashore and was broken up where she lay some years later.

The old girl made a smart 75-day ballast passage to Port Lincoln for orders to load South Australian grain for the Channel . She was very competently handled, if undermanned, and the boy crew from Mariehamn were a happy family. Unfortunately, when approaching the anchorage off Port Lincoln the Lawhill briefly stranded, and Alan, aloft making fast the fore lower topsail, hauling up the canvas with both hands, was suddenly pitched onto the deck below when she touched the shingle. Miraculously he was neither killed nor broke any bones-but he did suffer severe internal injuries, and could barely move for weeks. It was the only fall from aloft he experienced , or even saw, during his time at sea . Since he had not recovered when the Lawhill sailed, the Old Man had no alternative but to pay him off, and Alan returned home to Melbourne by train. Scarcely recovered , he worked for a time ashore in an iron foundry before going back to sea.

In the Little Dock at the foot of Spencer Street , Alan joined the decrepit 70 ton ketch Hawk, trading across the wild waters of Bass Strait; a forbidding graveyard of shipping. For the passage to Launceston, fifteen miles up the Tamar River in Tasmania , the Hawk loaded 100 tons of bagged superphosphates. This was topped off with a deck cargo of cased benzine, upon which was situated the firebox, or "galley." When Alan brought this hazard to the mate's attention the mate's rejoinder was : " How the hell else can we git our tea?" A turn at the wheel was go there and stay there, as was going on deck with almost no watch below, and the quarters were miserably damp. Meals consisted of what could be caught on a fishing line trailing astern , augmented with moldy potatoes.

After a two-day passage they arrived in the Tamar, and beat up to Launceston where they worked out the cargo themselves. They then loaded sawn hardwood for Melbourne. Alan's injuries were still very painful, and after making two trips , articles were broken for the Christmas holidays. Alan was then glad to pay off for good from the parsimonious Hawk.

If he was ever to finish his time it would have to be in steam , so he signed on the Erriba , a new tramp steamer of 6,000 tons of the Australian Commonwealth Line. Loading South Australian grain in sacks at Port Lincoln , she discharged at New Castle-onType after a comfortable though uneventful passage to England.

From Cardiff the Erriba loaded a cargo of coal for East Africa , and then light ship home to Melbourne. Alan had now completed his four years' sea time, but the prospects of a career as an officer in steam, and later command, held little appeal. Rather than sit for his second mate's certificate, he decided to make a fresh start ashore in Hobart, on the banks of the Derwent River in Tasmania , which has one of the loveliest settings of any Australian city.

Originally a convict settlement with a savage reputation, Hobart Town became a great whaling port and shipbuilding centre, where a number of famous whalers and bluegum clippers were built. The waterfront with its many ancient stone convict buildings, was steeped in the history of its maritime past . Alan had previously noted these things when they had once loaded timber here in the James Craig. The hulk of the once lovely iron bark Otago, which had been Joseph Conrad's command in the 1880s, was now used at the Hobart wharves to furnish coal to steamers. She became a never-ending source of interest to Alan on his waterfront visits.

He would delightedly walk her small poop, still intact with its original wheel and fittings .

Having no idea what he'd do ashore, Alan soon found work as SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

'its long as I li ved I wo uld owe her so m ethin g," said Villiers of his first ship, the imercolonial bark Rothesay Bay, at right. Below, the big bad Be ll a nd s, a staunch ship bur contemptibly officered , in which Villi ers fi rst sail ed to Europ e.

Ph o tos, Natio nal Maritim e Mu seum , San Francisco.

"The struggle to get the ship... past the Hom was so bitter and all-absorbing that we forgot our other troubles." a rigger on a construction site at Risdon, and when this ended, he worked in a jam factory. One evening at a theater, the reporter covering the show was pointed out to him, and it occurred to Alan that perhaps journalism might be a challenging and congenial profession. He visited the editor of the Hobart Mercury, who shared Alan's interest in Hobart's maritime past. He expressed great interest in the private journals Alan had kept at sea, and was pleased to learn that Alan had done well at school, matriculating with a scholarship. However, the editor held out small hope for a career as reporter on the Mercury's staff.

Alan enrolled in a business college, taking shorthand and typing, and became competent at both. There was no vacancy at the Mercury, however, and when the job in the jam factory ended, Alan got a temporary job again at the Risdon zinc works as rigger. When that ended, in desperation he sold insurance. At 19 the future seemed to hold little promise for a youth of Alan's restless curiosity, and as yet latent creativity, to say nothing of his romanticism.

Finally he was taken on in the copy room at the Mercury . He found a friendly spirit in the office amongst dedicated and considerate colleagues. The paper made a generous salary allowance since Alan was older than the usual beginner and not living at home.

He was determined to learn everything possible and somehow circumvent the interminable four-year training period . He was soon given a horse racing column which necessitated attending race meetings and giving tips. But one day there suddenly appeared in Storm Bay, steaming up to the Hobart wharves, a small fleet of strange-looking vessels accompanied by a large steamer; this was a Norwegian whaling fleet heading for a great new shaling ground in the icefields of Antarctica . Here was opportunity knocking with an unusual story, which Alan eagerly seized. At the Norwegian consulate Alan signed on the factory ship, the large steamer Sir James Clark Ross. Rated as " whaler's labourer," he was given leave of absence by the Mercury to accompany the expedition, and was provided with a camera and film .

To date only scientific expeditions of discovery had penetrated the Antarctic. This, the first whaling fleet to enter these hostile seas, was under the command of the distinguished Norwegian whaling figure, Carl Anton Larsen . Alan laboured 12-16 hours a day coaling the whale chasers-one of which was lost-and hauling frozen blubber around the deck of the factory ship. The chasers hunted the giant blue and fin whales of the Antarctic, which were beyond reach of the old wind-driven whalers, which could not break through the almost impenetrable pack ice. Often the whale would sink when harpooned , and the carcass could only be handled by the greater resources of modern powered vessels.

Alan revelled in the novelty of this unique adventure, marvelling at the glowing dawns and sunsets. He was fascinated by the breathtaking beauty of this desolate, frozen world glittering in the pale sunlight, which could be suddenly blotted out by furious gales and blizzards. His enterprise exceeded all expectation , and his wireless accounts of the undertaking were syndicated with great success in Australia and New Zealand. These were later issued in book form locally, to be followed by an enlarged and revised illustrated edition, which was well received in England and the United States before being translated. Alan was promoted to junior reporter, and soon after was married to a staff member of the newspaper.

Alan thrived on the Mercury. He liked the paper's spirit of public service. Within a year he was a general reporter covering council and parliament meetings besides much else and within two years he was a senior reporter.

But Alan continued to dream of the big Cape Horn squareriggers . Could he use his new skills to write of these ships? His brother Frank, who had spent a season whaling in the Ross Sea , was now in the Finnish four-masted bark Hougomont, formerly 16

a Scot. He kept Alan informed of the activities of the remaining square-riggers afloat, employed in the Australian grain trade. With his marriage failing (his wife thought seafaring a low-caste occupation; they had little in common) Alan worked late nights and a scheme took shape in his mind.

Sales of Tasmanian fruit were lagging aboard, particularly the apple market in the United Kingdom and Europe, which vitally affected the local economy. Alan suggested to the Mercury that someone be sent to investigate such matters and send back reports which would be of absorbing interest to local readers. The paper thought the idea excellent: Alan could also act as a one-man trade mission to stimulate exports. He would pay his fares in exchange for a nominal sum to maintain his home in Hobart for six months.

He did not specify how he would travel. ...

While visiting Melbourne in 1927 to report a conference, Alan discovered the presence of two of the finest sailing ships afloat discharging Baltic pine in the River Yarra. They were the four-masted barks Herzagin Cecilie, a big Finnish vessel built in 1902 as a German training ship, and the smaller Swedish Beatrice originally a Scot. Both vessels were to load grain in South Australia and make a race of it round the Horn to Europe. Boarding the Herzagin Cecilie Alan was delighted to discover that her master was the great Ruben de Cloux who remembered Alan from the Lowhill-and yes, he would be glad to sign him on as AB! Alan returned to Hobart and made the necessary arrangements with the Mercury for six months' leave. Alan would support himself with magazine articles he'd sell in England, and would also market a book about the voyage he'd write during his watches below on the passage. Recalling his success with the whaling photos, he invested in a camera. His wife, however, was appalled; chasing the will o' the wisp around Cape Horn with sailors who were all a no-hope bunch of vagabonds!

Alan joined the Cecilie at Port Lincoln and she in company with the Beatrice sailed on January 19, 1928. Going south of New Zealand the former Nord-Deutscher Lloyd Line schoolship rounded Cape Horn some 33 days later after some furious driving by her master in the gales and great seas of the Southern Ocean .

It was punishing and unceasing toil for her inadequate boy crew aloft in the massive rigging and on deck making and shortening sail. However, the long poopdeck kept the vessel clear of seas breaking on board and provided dry and comfortable quarters. The food was also warm and abundant. An unwelcome addition on board was an Australian girl stowaway, who did add a certain interest to the voyage and later appeared in Alan's subsequent books and articles.

In the Northeast Trades, as the vessel sped towards the English Channel , with Alan on the wheel , Captain de Cloux would yarn with him about his plans to buy a four-masted bark to sail in the Australian trade. Alan found such conversations a pleasant diversion as the noble Cecilie raced towards Falmouth for orders. The Beatrice sailed by way of Good Hope, and despite her advantages, was beaten in the race by the Cecilie. Alan once told me that he had no idea when he joined the Cecilie that the book he wrote on board would meet with such overwhelming success and become a sea classic.

Alan spent several months in England , first leaving the manuscript of his Cecilie voyage, Falmouth for Orders with a literary agent. He wrote articles on the voyage and then traveled on the Continent , thoroughly investigating the state of the fruit market. He took the opportunity to visit Gustav Erikson , the great sailing shipowner in the small port of Mariehamn in Finland_:'a small man with a limp and a somewhat aggressive way of speaking," as Alan found him. Captain Erikson made a deep impression on Alan, who often referred him in his later books and articles.

Alan returned to Australia in a passenger vessel. He soon learned

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

The aging bur classically beautiful full-rigger Grace Harwarshe killed Alan's friend Ronald Walker. Photo, National Maritime Museum , San Francisco.

that his fruit marketing articles had caused a sensation amongst the growers in Tasmania and were being issued in book form by the Mercury. He was invited to sit as a member of the fruit advisory board and to make a lecture tour of the chief fruit-growing districts.

In fact Alan could eas ily have entered state politics "on the red sk ins of the island's lovely apples," but other horizons beckoned.

I once remarked to Alan, half facetiously, that he might well have become Australian Prime Minister had he sought political office at this time. "What a fate! " Alan instantly snapped. He had scant use for politicians.

A young reporter from the Mercury, Ronald Walker, had suggested to Alan that a documentary windjammer film should be made, so, pooling their resources they acquired two small German cameras from Sydney with 6,000 feet of film , and signed aboard the Finnish ship Grace Harwar about to load grain at Wallaroo, South Australia . This vessel was a classic full-rigger and the last such vessel in the Erikson fleet. Historically ideal , the vessel was also old and virtually worn out. Her gear aloft was in parlous condition-fatally so, as it turned out- to take on Cape Horn in midwinter. In addition, although competently handled , she was woefully undermanned with a largely inexperienced boy crew. It was another month after Alan and Walker joined the ship before she was loaded and ready for sea, this giving Alan an opportunity to work on his maritime history of Tasmania. There would be little enough time during the voyage.

The Grace Harwar sailed from Wallaroo on April 17, 1929 on what turned out to be a nightmare 138-day voyage. The film-making proceeded with satisfactory results till Walker was killed while working aloft at night. The gear being rotten , a halyard carried away and he was crushed by the falling upper topgallant yard . He had perhaps been studying camera angles, Villiers felt, "for the view from high aloft of the black sea breaking in phosphorescence before the bows, that moonlit morning, must have been grand ."

The vessel leaked and required constant pumping as she butted on towards the Horn in the great seas and opposing easterly gales of the Southern Ocean . " The struggle to get the ship across those miles and past the Horn was so bitter and all-absorbing that we forgot our other troubles ."

Her chronometer developed a serious irregularity-s he ran on by dead reckoning. No land and no sun ; a lovely windjammer in an immensity of rolling gray ocean. In bad weatherone of the boys went overboard but was fortunately rescued although in falling darkness the boat itself was almost lost from sight. The second mate had a nervous breakdown , and the captain had to take his watches on the poop. In the Atlantic the ship ran short of food , and scurvy broke out. Grain from the cargo was pounded into flour.

Only calashee watches were kept , which meant that only the essential work of the ship was done; for any heavy work all hands would be turned out. Eventually a steamer was stopped and fortunately she was able to furnish fresh provisions. The Harwar eventually dropped her hook in Cobh , Ireland, from where she was ordered to the Clyde, and towed to Glasgow to discharge her grain.

Soon after coming ashore to work on Fleet Street for an Australian news agency in the Times building, Alan completed a book on the Grace Harwar's voyage, By Way of Cape Horn. This book, as with Falmouth for Orders, became a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic. Then followed Vanished Fleets, the history ofTasmanian shipping which Alan finished during theHarwarvoyage, which also met with success. The film of the voyage, which he had continued to shoot after Walker's death , was a disappointment, since the studio exhibiting the film insisted that it become a "feature" with a director, script writer, and actors, with Alan's footage used merely as background . The nautical integrity of the film was destroyed .

However, Dr. Gilbert Grosvenor, President of the National GeoSEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

graphic Society, who had recently passed the Grace Harwar at sea in an Italian cruise liner, read of Alan's voyage in a London illustrated magazine. He invited Alan to Washington , DC to lecture and show his film to a packed audience of seven thousand in a huge auditorium. Alan was then engaged by a lecture agency to tour the United States, appearing before enthusiastic audiences at yacht clubs, uni versities, museums, and schoo ls.

From the books and film lectures, Alan amassed considerable capital-a novel experience-and he wondered what he might do with it. While ashore in London he never missed an opportunity to visit any deepwater square-rigger calling at a South of England port . Going aboard the bark Plus in the London docks, Alan was surprised to meet Captain de Cloux in the saloon. He had thought de Cloux was chicken farming near Mariehamn . De Cloux asked Alan whether he was still interested in going to sea in big sailing ships, and he mentioned to Alan the fine four masted bark Parma laid up in the Segelschiffshafen in Hamburg and going for a song.

She had been employed in the Chilean nitrate trade by Laeisz , but this had ended with the deepening depression . There was ample and profitable employment for her in the Australian grain trade, since depression or no depression , Eu rope had to eat. The captain and the seaman-writer decided to buy the Parma!

This was no Trade Wind yarn; within a month the big bark was theirs. She was Scots built in 1902 and loaded 5,000 tons of cargo.

The price was a mere ÂŁ2 ,000 ($8,000). Furnished with three suits of sails, she was already ballasted and needed only crew, which would come from the Plus, aboutto be laid up. A charter was secured worth some ÂŁ8,000 even prior to completion of purchase; a propitious beginning.

The Parma sailed in November 1931. Encountering bad weather in the North Sea , she was forced by head winds and gales in the Channel to round the north of Scotland. After three weeks the weather eased and the Parma was soon bowling along in the Trades.

Well manned with a competent crew she arrived in Spencer Gulf after a run of 83 days. She loaded 62 ,650 bags of wheat at Port Broughton , a small out port where loading was slow but inexpensive. She sailed on March 17, 1932 , one of a fleet of twenty big square-riggers lifting Australian grain that season , and 103 days later came to anchor in Falmouth Bay. After discharging in Cardiff she laid up at Mariehamn in late August where dues were little or 17

This is what Villiers did with the money he'd earn ed by hisfil1ns and wri1i11g- he bough! th e big bark Parma. wi1h Captain de Cloux, and se1 0111 from Auslralia 10 Creal Bri1ain with 5,200 Tons of grain in cargo: so That a young crew, including Lamber! Knig/11 of Martha 's Vin eyard, who took 1hese pho1ographs , could lay aloft 10 change Th e foresail, s1ruggle in icy seas on deck ojf Cape Horn , and keep up wi1h 1he endless busin ess ofsailorizing. All 1his Villi ers recorded.

He's shown here wi1h his camera s, on Th e main deck of his ship, a happy 111an.

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•

'~ .. somehow,

in a curious kind of way, one feels that one is not yet finished with the Cape Horne rs."

nothing. The profit was £3,000 ($12 ,000) and all the capital invested in the Parma was returned to the new owners.

In October, 1932 , the Parma was again outward bound towards Point Victoria , dry-docking at Burmeister's in Copenhagen on the way out. In Spencer Gulf the bagged wheat was lightered out in small ketches and schooners to be fou nd there during the wheat season . The homeward voyage towards Falmouth was a record one of 83 days, one of the best runs for halfa centu ry. Discharging her grain in Hull the Parma returned to Mariehamn where A lan left her in the summer of 1933 after what was a voyage of glorious weather from Australia. Being a co-ownerof the vessel with Captain de Cloux had given A lan the unique opportunity to understudy one of the greatest master mariners of the later sailing ship era.

He wrote the book Grain Race from the Parma venture , and a splendid collection of photos of the Parma voyages was also published at the same time.

In the summer of 1934 Alan was seeking a suitable, small squarerigged vessel , for another kind of ventu re. Unfortunately there was little offering. There were a considerable number of fishing barkentines out of Fecamp and St. Malo in the codfish trade, but they would require considerable reconditioning and their timbers needed attention. So he kept looking ... until one day on the Copenhagen waterfront he caught sight of the small iron full-rigger Georg Stage. A delicately graceful vessel , rigged with big single tops'ls and a long steeved jibboom- frigate-style, as Alan called it , echoing the sailing warships of 100 years before. She was al ready an anachronism when she was built as a training ship in 1882 .

Learning that she was for sale, to be replaced shortly by a new and somewhat simi lar vessel, Alan hastened to his broker to make a bid . He got her fo r a mere£ 1,500 ($6,000) . Her circumnavigation of the globe during the next two years would be one of the great maritime adventures of all time. Alan renamed her Joseph Conrad after the great Polish master mariner and novelist whom he so greatly admired .

He sailed her across the North Sea to England to refit and register her in Ipsw ich . His crew came from the grain ships and Danish school ships, augmented by some dozen boys who would pay a nominal sum to sail as cadets. T.E . Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) proposed to sail in the Conrad together with Bruce Rogers, the New York typographer. Their intention was to produce fine books during the voyage on a press in the tweendecks . Lawrence died in a motorcycle accident and Bruce Rogers instead carved the outstanding figurehead that still graces the vessels' bow, and lettered the name on the bows, the counter, and on the lifebelts when she reached New York .

Departing England in the fierce equinoctial gales of October 1934, the little full-rigger reached New York at year-end . On the fi rst day of 1935 she dragged her anchor and went ashore in a heavy winter gale and was almost lost in the rocks of the Bay Shore Road in Brooklyn. This involved Alan in a heavy expense, but the vessel was salved and soon rolling down to Rio, completing the passage in 57 days. Alan originally intended to weather the Horn and enter the Pacific from east to west, but the ship was vulnerable and it would be unnecessarily dangerous, so he decided instead to sail west to east towards Good Hope. From the Cape the Conrad sailed to the Straits of Bali in seven weeks, and thence to Singapore. Then on through the China and South Sulu seas, northabout towards Melanesia and Australia. This leg of the voyage was tedious, hot and difficult, giving Alan an appreciation of the daunting task of navigation faced by the early Portugese and Spanish voyagers in these seas . The Conrad was now headed towards Sydney where she was tumultuously welcomed in December 1935.

Alan cherished the hope that the little vessel might somehow remain in Australian waters for training purposes, but there was little interest in the idea and no funds. It was my good fortune to SEA HIS1DRY, SUMMER 1984

7he grear ship in herelemenl, deep-laden in 1he AI!a111ic swell , and, be/01-t ·, a1 mrage's end in Cardiffdocks. "Fro1111he quavside we look back at her, /01h 10 depan: she looks po11•erf ul and huge in !h e docks .. .and somehow, in a cu rious kind of111av, onefee/s 1hm one is 1101 ye1ftnished wi1h 1he Cape Homers," Villiers said after 1his mrage.

19

"She was a trust, as a work of art is,'' said Villiers of the Joseph Conrad , "for she was a thing of grace and use and infinite beauty, this last expression of man 's sailing art of all the centuries. Just because I happened to have paid for her, was she mine?"

first meet Alan in Sydney when I boarded the vessel with John Allcot, the famous Australian marine painter. I was privileged to accompany these two Cape Horn shellbacks into the saloon , where few people were invited to enter in Sydney, and admire Al an's art collection of sea paintings on the panelled bulkheads, together with framed examples of his own splendid windjammer photographs.

Alan opened an air mail package from Denmark and noted that while the ship took fourteen months to arrive, this package had taken fourteen days. I would have gone in the ship, but my parents were fiercely opposed to such a venture. However, I did watch her beat down the harbor, a poem of grace and upright beauty, and stand seaward past the towering sandstone bluffs of the Heads . In the freshening summer northeast breeze she was seen hull down in the sparkling blue distance of the Tasman Sea , heading towards Melbourne on Australia's south coast.

In Melbourne Alan's financial circumstances were truly desperate. Fortunately, he received an unexpected but substantial royalty from his New York publishers, and a group of gold seekers were anxious to pay for their passage in the ship to the Coral Sea. This meant a hazardous passage in these reef-strewn waters in the hurricane season , but despite one anxious grounding, Alan delivered the people and his ship safely. He touched at Auckland , New Zealand where he engaged the service of a new chief officer, with wide experience in sail , Gordon Chapman , a friend of the NMHS. Alan's wife divorced him when the Conrad was in the Pacific. The sea was named as co-respondent!

After calling in at Tahiti and setting up the standing rigging and overhauling the gear for the homeward voyage towards New York, Alan headed into the Southern Ocean and the glacial maw of the Horn. "The little ship ran nobly in the great midwinter seas," Alan notes, "though I had to heave-to four times when the sea was too great to run on ." Doubling Cape Horn, the Conrad progressed up the Atlantic reaches to come to anchor in New York Harbor completing the passage from Tahiti in 106 days, ending her epic two-year voyage in late October 1936. Later Alan was to ask himself more than once, what the voyage was about. Perhaps he answered his own question best when he said , a dozen years later after World War II had shattered the world she sailed in: "Not a boy or a young man trod the Conrad's decks who did not benefit by that voyage ...."

20

"The last time I actually sang chanties myself was when heaving up the anchor in 1936 to tow up to Brooklyn," Gordon Chapman , the <:onrad's mate, told me recently. " The crew prevailed upon me. The skipper of the towboat slacked off and dropped right under our cathead. Only after much pleading could I get him to go ahead and take some of the strain. That would have been the last time chanties were sung genuinely in New York Harbor to hoist the anchor of a full-rigged ship. We had anchored one night for practique and Pilot Petersen was our inwards pilot. He fetched with him a bag of steaks, tomatoes, potatoes, and newspapers from the pilot steamer. After 106 days at sea imagine how we felt about him!

The ship's doctor was in transports of delight at having something to really cook! " Living the hard life of a working ship, fostering teamwork, singing at the work! These things were part of the Conrad's voyaging never to be forgotten by any who took part in it.

Alan had come back broke and in debt. He had no choice but to sell the Conrad. In the end the wealthy young Huntington Hartford bought her, having first wanted only the superbly carved figurehead ; Alan would not sell one without the other. She went for ÂŁ3000 ($12 ,000) , that being the sum of Alan's financial liabilities in paying off his crew and their repatriation . " I had sailed round the world to deliver a 'yacht' to a millionaire," he later noted. "I hurried away to sail with the Arabs in their deep-sea dhows across the Indian Ocean ...."

There were Arab dhows in the Indian Ocean , Burma rice barks in the Bay of Bengal , and there were yet "country built" brigs in the Maldives : a Makassar prau in the Malay Archipelago, or carrying teak in some Borneo or Sumatran river in a Chinese tongkang, or perhaps a passage in a Balinese schooner! There were also Chinese and Japanese junks, Greek caiques, Syrian schooners, sponge fishermen in the West Indies and the incredibly fast Papuan lakatoi . .. . Alan hoped , in time, to become better acquainted with them and their crews. He would finance his projects with books and by lecturing with films .

Before World War II broke out Alan made a brave beginning on his ambitious program . He embarked in a zarook trading in the Red Sea. She was a supremely able little 40-foot double-ender with no deck , lights, compass, pumps, charts, or accommodation , and SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

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i With main yards backed, the Conrad lies-to offSydney Heads , late in 1935, halfway round the world. .. a work ofart, indeed! Below, at a Brooklyn pier in New York Harbor, December 1934.

"a great thirst for the sea." Although primitive in the extreme she was very ably handlecj with a big lateen sail and beautiful underwater body. Her galley was a fire-pot and Alan lived on fresh caught fish cooked on its ashes , with rice, dates, and ghee. Given Alan's stoicism , she was tough by any standards. "I suffered from malaria and dysentery, and the zarook nearly killed me," Alan recalled .

Alan next made a voyage in an Arab dhow, known as a "boom", a sizeable vessel , decked and double ended , of some 150 tons ; lateen rigged with two masts. She traded with dates from Basra round the south of Arabia to Somaliland. Thence, with cargo and passengers, an ancient trade, down the East African coast to Mombasa and Zanzibar.

Alan again suffered from malaria and dysentery and for a time was blinded, for which there was no explanation. He survived on unleavened bread , tea , coffee, and fish from the sea. His only comfort for eight months was the 6-foot bench he slept upon. He made extensive notes, photographs , and a movie of this unusual and ancient type of vessel. Alan was even negotiating to buy and thus preserve a Kuwait baggala, a very similar vessel to the boom , just as the 1939-45 war burst upon Europe.

Alan hastened back to England , completing his splendid account of sailing with the Arabs, entitled Sons ofSinbad. He was granted a commission in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and after a number of routine assignments-instructing in coastal forces and minesweeping in the English Channel-Alan was appointed to Combined Operations and had a distinguished career in landing operations. As a squadron commander he picked up a new type oflanding craft , LCI (L) , and helped ferry them across the North Atlantic to England, a hazardous undertaking since the U-boats could easily have disposed of them with impunity.* These ungainlylooking but extremely functional vessels served valiantly in the Mediterranean and Normandy landings .

After these European beachheads were secured, the LCI were ordered to southeast Asia , sailing from Plymouth to Bombay in 35 days. Alan next saw service in the Rangoon landings and helped open Singapore, prior to further operations in Java and Sumatra, Indo-China and Siam. With the cessation of hostilities in the Pacific these Lend-Lease landing craft were returned to the US Navy base in Subic Bay in the Philippines. Over the previous three years these hard-worked little ships had seen much service and had steamed some 50,000 miles, greatly contributing to hard-won Allied victory.

During the war Alan had met and married " Wren" Lieutenant Nancie Wills. He was demobilized late in 1946 and settled with his young family in the lovely Cotswold hills just outside Oxford.

During the postwar years he travelled extensively and continued writing. Some of his finest work dates from these later years of his life. The War with Cape Horn is possibly the finest study of the whole windship era and is a happy combination of the practical and academic. Alan had little patience for the purely academic approach. He took an active interest in the training of youth making passages in a number of schoolships. One vessel which particularly interested him (about which little was known till she suddenly appeared in New York in 1948) was the Portuguese naval training bark Sag res, formerly the big German Rickmer Rickmers of 1896, in which Alan made an Atlantic passage in the 1950s.

His earlier plans for studying surviving local sailing craft in remote parts of the world were never fully realized. He did accompany the Portugese Grand Bankers-31 schooners and one barkentine on the 1950 cod fishing season to the Davis Strait, producing an excellent book and fascinating film. Alan later went to Ceylon seeking an Indian Ocean brig in which to sail , but regrettably, when *He explained that the U-boats stayed away because of the odd looks of the landing-ramp gear, thinking it some form of anti-submarine equipment. He may have been right about this'-Eo.

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

21

Villiers with his wife Nancie, and, from the left, their children Peter, Christopher and Catherine, gath ered on the poop of the Mayflower II in Brixham, prior to her Atlantic crossing in 1957. At right, the ship herself, which proved staunch and able-a piece of working history.

Villiers with the ship's company aboard the Mayflower II; crew members prize the memory of his talks to them on the voyage. Below, in pursuit of history, Villiers in his later years visits the German square-rig skipper Captain Miethe.

Plimorh Pfa mario11 Photo

he found her she had just been shorn of her spars and hulked.

Alan took command of the sailing vessels engaged in a number of films; notably Moby Dick in the Irish Sea, John Paul Jones in the Mediterranean, and Hawaii in the Pacific. Karl Kortum, then director of the San Francisco Maritime Museum, and a number of West Coast sailors were shipmates with Alan in the bark Wandia, engaged in Hawaii. Karl later spoke enthusiastically of "the Villiers style." This style was perhaps best exemplified when Alan sailed the Mayflower from old Plymouth to new Plymouth in 1957, across the Atlantic; a gesture which caught the imagination of the whole world.

A voyage that particularly interested him was one which I proposed , of sailing a reconstruction of Captain Cook's Endeavour from England to Australia for the Cook bicentenary in 1970 commemorating Cook's discovery of much of New Zealand and Australia. The governments of the various countries involved approved the plan and made substantial financial contributions. Construction of the vessel was about to begin when suddenly, for reasons still unclear, the venture was discontinued.

Perhaps, after all, Archie Horka best summed up what Alan meant to us all after meeting Alan at a glittering New York Yacht Club dinner and lecture organized by Peter Stanford to raise funds for the Wavertree in April 1969 : " That was a twenty-one gun evening that was! At long last I fell in with a man whom I had been pursuing, figuratively, for most of my life as a seaman. As I mentioned to him , our paths must have crossed somewhere in the sailing-ship ports of the world. Perhaps in Sydney's Lower George Street, maybe on Stockton's 'ballast bank,' or in Newcastle's Hunter Street. Then again , maybe amid the horse-dust and flies in Flinders Street, Melbourne or admiring the Tassie ketches in the Little Dock. Maybe even in the rollicking taverns of Hamburg's Hafenstrasse though old Alan was never much ofa lad forthat sort of thing. He knew all these places as I did and oft frequented them with the same dreamimage in his eyes-the sight of a square-rigger's lofty rigging soaring skywa rd above the wharf-sheds."

*

*

*

*

*

With a dreamer's zeal and diligence, each of us found what we sought at sea. To get it all down in pictures and the printed word as no one had done before-that was Alan Villiers' achievement.

I was happy to find him easy to meet , pleasantly spoken and so ready to give to others of his vast knowledge of his lifework. w

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

Books the Age of

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103 Sa~ Merchant Sailing Ships, 1775-1815

By David MacGregor The first of three volumes, this book con· tains an exceptional collection of photos, plans, and line drawings, including analyses of all the major types of merchant sailing vessels of the period from schooners to East lndiamen.

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Ship of the Line

Greyhounds of the Sea,

Volume I: The Development of the Battlefleet, 1650-1850

By Brian Lavery Provides a general historical background and includes appendices listing all ships of 50 guns or more, divided by period, rate, rigging, armament, and fittings. 224 pages.

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By Carl. C. Cutler The definitive study of American clipper ships now back in print in a handsome new edition that includes an extensive appendix with 500 sailing ship records.

720 pages. 100 black & white and color plates. App. #232X ...... ($32.95) Sale price: $29.66.

Merchant Sailing Ships, 1815-1850

By David MacGregor A beautifully illustrated, comparative study of the mainstream of merchant ship design.

Includes Blackwell frigates , North Ameri· can packet ships, whalers and other spe· cialized types, as well as standard small brigs and schooners.

192 pages. 110 photographs. 100 line drawings. Apps. Ref. Index. #9413 ...... ($21.95) Sale price: $19.76.

Seafaring Under Sail

By Basil Greenhill and Denis Stoneham This photographic history of the sailors who manned the merchant sailing ships of the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth cen· turies offers a captivating look at all phases of their lives-from shipboard duties to waterfront haunts. It contains powerful pho· tographs and detailed views of rigging and ship design.

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The Mary Rose

Ship of the Line Volume II: Design, Construction, and Fittings This volume is devoted to technical deve· lopments in hull design, construction, rig· ging, armament, and fittings.

192 pages. 250 illus. Notes. Index. Apps. #9537 .. . ... ($29.95) Sale price: $26.96.

Third Edition

The Mayflower and Other Colonial Vessels

By William A. Baker

An illustrated history of the design, con· struction, and rigging of early colonial sail· ing ships.

180 pages. 66 illus. App. Biblio. Glossary. #8433 . ... . . ($15.95) Sale price: $14.36.

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The Excavation and Raising of Henry VIII's Flagship

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SEA HISTO RY, SU MM ER 1984

A Three Week Voyage Which Has Lasted My Lifetime

by J. Richard Ashton Mr. Ashton, an Australian artist who had wanted to join the Joseph Conrad under Villiers' command when she was in Sydney in late 1935, revisited the ship 35 years later in Mystic. His parents would not let him sign on with Villiers, but he did go in the vessel in a stormy passage from Sydney, around Australia's southeast corner to Melbourne. Visiting the ship at Mystic Seaport Museum brought memories flooding back, and more than memories a new appreciation of Villiers' voyagini.

Standing on the Conrad's decks amidst bright , chattering American kids, parents and tourists, I was overpowered by the memory of her at sea another time under the Australian sun. The present dropped away and I distinctly heard the skipper's voice, soft spoken to the mate along the waist , whose broadcast repetition of the order rang through the yards to reach the boys aloft. I surely heard their answering cries , birdlike, echoing high aloft amid chirp of block and skirl of rope through sheave.

I heard , oh so vividly, crash of bright sea on poised hull scending, rattle of sail, whistle of wind through cord and chain . I swayed dreamlike to her heave and halt as she rose gathering force to meet again her eternai mother-the speechless sea. I awoke- still standing in the bright sun , surrounded by the crowd. Such a power is the symbol of the ship-to touch our imagination so strongly as to lose ourselves in time and space!

It was years ago when as a boy of twenty, on the edge of life, I clambered over the Conrad 's rail and dropped to her snowy deck. On that sparkling morning we tacked out of port , dropped pilot , clapped on all plain sail, stood off and were soon hull down, alone on the purple sea. Yachtsmen

trailed their boats like beads clustered behind us, as we dipped to the groundswell off the heads ; crowds showed thick as crows from every point.

It was Christmas and I had brought rum for all hands which we broached that memorable day. That same evening we wore ship and battened down, reducing sail to ride out a gale of great savagery, which blew from the south and then back to the east , to develop into a great storm . We were hoveto for three days and driven far from the land . It was such that I prayed God it would never cease. Such experience Columbus, Drake and Captain Cook had known. We lay over amidst flung spume and glittering spray-seas like the writhing backs of prehistoric monsters, yet with a rhythm and an order our dumb awe recognized as part of the same rhythmic force of our own fearful heartbeat.

The ship spun, whined , shuddered and plunged, fell down the seas and wallowed groaned and creaked, complaining mos~ bitterly whilst in the rigging the great voice of the storm roared and shrieked from every strung cord, halliard, brace and stay. And yet , the ship found her way tortuously up these great mountains of water and down the impossible valleys in a manner marvelous to see.

I have striven lifelong to get a part of the great sea force in my pictures. I suppose I shall never know whether I have succeeded or not. It seems to me an ambition greater than most others I can imagine-the gift of communication of something deeply felt.

I am surrounded by wonderful students now and did not become a sailor after all. But I can count myself blessed that I was chosen from hundreds to sail with Captain Villiers - a three week voyage which has lasted my lifetime. I am eternally grateful to him.w

"Furling th e Mains '/, " by J. Richard Ashton , made aboard the Conrad on the voyage he describes.

Th e pmnflngs he made al sea were shown soon afterward, and, to his surprise, sold ou1.

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The Conrad at Mystic

by Donald P. Robinson, Curator of Ships, Mystic Seaport Museum The Joseph Conrad today serves as the core of our youth training program at Mystic Seaport Museum. So she continues her long service in training young people in the ways of seafaring, first as the Danish schoolship Georg Stage for the half century 1883-1934, then as the Joseph Conrad in Alan Villiers' voyage of circumnavigation, 1934-36, and after an interval as a private yacht, as a US Navy training ship in Florida during World War II. She came to Mystic soon after the war. Here, with us, she no longer goes to sea but is actively engaged in youth training programs (SH30, p 35).

We' ve just completed another 10-year plan for Mystic, in which we looked at our whole purpose and how we're going about it. The period 1814-1914 is our concern , a hundred years in which the United States made the great transition from primarily hand tools to a high degree of mechanization . Its maritime impact was substantial.

The Conrad as an iron ship reflects that change from the world of wood represented in our whaling ship Charles W Morgan .

And as a full-rigged ship, she rounds out the range of rigs presented by the Morgan as a bark , and the schooner L.A. Dunton. Our scene would be poorer without her classic rig against the sky.

Next year we' re going to do some rebuilding in the winter months , with minimal interruption to her full and important schedule. We'll be recapturing some halfforgotten skills like rivetting, so the Conrad will be teaching us things we should know and practice, by our philosophy.

We have come to understand and cherish the ship for what she is. We' ve sent people to Denmark to research her, and located a rigged sailor's model by Jan Junker, who sailed in her on Alan Villiers' Cape Horn voyage, and whose father had been her last commander as the Georg Stage. Rigging and other ship's gear is what makes the living link between the ship and her crew, but it is also the perishable part of the ship and hardest to replace accurately. Our goal is to reinstate it all to re-establish that link for the sake of her crews of today and time to come, as well as those who served in her in the past. w

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A Unique Vision of the Sea on Film

by Philip Sugg, Film Officer, National Maritime Museum of Great Britain As a write r and recorder of the sea , Alan Vi ll iers spoke from firs t-hand knowledge as a sailo r and from deep conv ict io n as a man of ideas . His upbring ing in Australia a nd tough early life serv ing o n board square- rigge rs gave a kee n edge to his observati on , which cut thro ugh some of the mo re ro ma ntic noti ons of th e sea to be found in literature. Yet he sha red with the g reat write r, Joseph Conrad , a real awe of the sea and love of its challenge in itself, and as a profo und part of man's ex pe rience. Recording a nd sha ring his pa rt of this ex pe ri e nce was impo rtant to him , a nd he used a var iety of medi a to achieve his e nds. His books (many, sadl y out of print , are soughtafte r coll ecto rs' ite ms) rema in the most complete records. They range from the late 1920s to the end of his life a nd are ofte n il lustrated with his own still photographs-a mere sample of the many hundreds he took.

Among his last books still in print a re Voyaging With the Wind (1975) , as introductio n to sai ling large square- rigged ships usi ng some of his photos ; and his contributio n to Problems ofShip Management and Operation , 1870-1900(1972) , both obtainable fro m th e Nati o nal Ma ritime Museum at G ree nwich , Lo ndo n SE 10.

Alan Villiers was also a cine film -maker of no small ab ility. The sto ry of his int roducti o n to the med ium bega n in tragedy. It was on the voyage of the finnish square-rigged ship Grace Ha n var from Wall aroo to Gl asgow with a cargo of wheat , that he was bapti zed as a film -ma ke r, a nd it was this voyage which was reco rded in o ne of his mos t successful ea rl y books, By Wa y of Cape Horn .

One thing was certain : anyone who went o n such a voyage, even as a " passenge r," knew that they were e nte ring a ha rsh wo rld w ith sta nda rds mo re akin to those of preceding centuries than the world of the 1920s o r 30s. Alan Villie rs and Ro nald Walker sig ned o n fo r complex and inte res ti ng reaso ns wh ic h a re ex pl a ined at the beginning of Villiers' account of the voyage.

A jo urnalist's eye fo r a sto ry was combined w ith th e bo redo m felt by two yo ung re po rte rs o n a provinc ia l Tas ma ni a n newspa pe r, e mphasized no do ubt by Villie rs' ea rlier ad ventures at sea o n board th e big square- rigger Bellands. They pla nned to ma ke a cine film of the voyage , w ith Ro nald Walke r as photographe r, alth o ugh he had not had much expe ri ence of film-making . However, the light weight came ras the n being introduced fo r the amateur ma rket were sound and effecti ve machines, and were cheap compa red to professio nal equipment. In some ways, they stood a better chance than the profess io nal : th ey had their sea legs and knew the ropes, and had a job to do instead of just getting

26

"I managed, somehow, more by the grace of God than any inherent capacity for the job." under the crew's feet. With a crew of o nl y thi rteen (far fewer than she wou ld have had in her old life) , Captain Svensso n needed all the hands he could get, however inexperie nced or yo ung.

T he voyage was horrifying by our standards, and pretty bad by th e standa rds of the day. The ship was serio usly unde rmanned ; a nd with a very old and decrepit ship thi s was a reci pe fo r d isaste r. The death of Ronald Walke r, ki lled off Cape Ho m by a falling to pgall ant ya rd, deepl y affected A lan Vil liers for the rest of his life. It spurred hi m on to complete the wo rk , both of wr iting a nd fi lming the world of th e Cape Horn Road. But Walker had been th e photographer. As Vi ll ie rs put it: " I did not know how to load the cameras with film .. . .I managed , somehow, more by the grace of God tha n a ny inhe rent capac ity for th e job."

The res ul ti ng book was hailed as a masterpiece of its genre, and the fi lm too, produced excellent rushes. But film -maki ng is a mo re com plex med ium tec hnicall y th an writing. T here are mo re stages between the fi lming of the ex pe ri ence and the fi nis hed presentati on. T his involves professionals, who, ce rtai nl y at th at time , were not ab le to unde rsta nd Walker's and Villiers' intenti o ns. Alan Vill iers makes it clear th at he rega rded the commerc ial fi lm Windjam mer, which incorpo rated their fi lm and some of th e story, as a travesty. In tru th , it is an odd res ult : li ve actio n of beautifu l qu ality is j uxtaposed with inte ri or ship scenes on very early sound stages whi ch are stati c, e ncourag ing some very sti ff acting.

T he film certainl y does not fee l rig ht , and it seems a shame th at nobody of the stature of G rierson or Flaherty wo rked on the project. Vi llie rs' res ponse to the fa ilure of the fi lm in his ow n eyes was inte resting. As he wr ites in the preface to a later editi on of By Way of Cape Horn, " I went away and took the real fi lm that had not been used , and looked at it myself. This was, I thought, one fi lm the nabobs might have left alone." So rathe r th an aband on fi lm-ma king altogeth e r, he simpl y turned his bac k o n the professio nal and continued as fa r as possibl e o n his ow n .

For nea rl y every o ne of his books the re is some film footage, capturing the graceful Arab dhows he wrote of in Sons of Sinbad; the big fo ur-maste r Parma , of which he was part-owne r for a titne , in he r Cape Ho rn voyages, a nd the little full -rigge r Joseph Conrad which he sailed around the wo rld in a o nce-in-a- lifetime sa il trai ning venture.

Se lf- taught as a cameraman , Villie rs had suffic ie nt command of the medium to convey h is ow n ideas a nd visio n , even th o ugh the ma te ri al was neve r fin all y edited no r sound track added. Afte r th e wa r his fi lm s divers ified together with his acti vities . Sa il training projects ; skippering conve rted shi ps for famo us movies such as Billy Budd a nd Hawaii and the great transatl a ntic voyage of the Ma yflower 11. These were all fi lmed as fa r as time allowed . Villie rs used the footage by incorpo rating it into lectures, whic h became a well loved part of his work thro ugho ut the wo rld , ofte n spo nso red by enterprising institutions such as the National Geographic Magazine.

W hat chance is there to see some of Villiers' rema rkable o utput? First of all , th e reade r may have seen some of the footage w ithout rea lizing it 1 Profess io nal film-ma ke rs have often used small extracts, pa rticul a rl y fro m Cape Horn Road, to give the effect of a ship beati ng her way th rough heavy seas. Sometimes they use the mate rial in just the way that Viii iers disli ked : fo r the roma ntic appeal a nd sensati o n. Even when th e use is more ho nes t , we seldo m see mo re th a n a few minutes of the whole reco rd.

T he original fi lms re mai ned with A la n Vi llie rs until , towards the e nd ofhi s li fe , he placed them on loa n to the British Nati o nal Maritime Museum , whe re he had bee n a trustee for many years. He had prev io usly dona ted copies to other institutio ns such as Mystic Seapo rt , Connecti cut , whe re the Joseph Con rad is moo red . Howeve r, the ma in body of fi lm required pro pe r storage and a great deal of documenting of the many di ffere nt versio ns he had made fo r lecture to urs . As pa rt of the Museum's survey, we are listing all the othe r holdings th rougho ut the wo rld and comparing copies to find o ut which a re the best vers io ns. So me ge ms have emerged , including a so und ve rsio n with Villiers lecturing in hi s inimita bl e style on a ra nge of material fro m Arab d hows to Grace Harwar.

Ala n Villie rs' reputati o n as a write r a nd maritime documento r has been established for many years, but what of him as a fi lmmaker? In some ways Villie rs was a pio nee r and I am su re he wo uld have bee n happie r worki ng in the modern wo rld of the television documentary. How well his ideas would have worked o n a te lev isio¡n sc reen with himself there to add his own tre nchant philosophy to th e images he had selected! Let us ho pe that by prese rving hi s coll ectio n intact we shall retain something of his visio n of the sea . w Mr. Sugg 's thoughtful appreciation of Villiers 'films originated in a discussion he held with your editor and the artist-historian John Noble at Snug Harbor, Staten Island, in the spring of 1983.

SEA HISTORY, SU MME R 1984

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'~MAGICAL

SHIPYARD": An Appreciation of the Modelmaking Art of Erik A.R. Ronnberg

by Erik A. R. Ronnberg, Jr. Since infancy my father and I have always lived near the sea, surrounded by reminders of ships and the waterfront milieu , and hardly a day has passed in either of our lives in which ships, ship models, or seafaring were not a part of daily activity or conversation.

For those who are brought up in a busy maritime setting, the sights, sounds, and smells of the waterfront become so strongly imprinted that a life without them is scarcely imaginable. So it was with my father and me.

The paternal sponsor of my happy childhood environment, Erik Axel Rune Ronnberg, was born in Vaxholm, Sweden in 1909. The family soon moved to Norrkoping, a seaport city just south of Stockholm which, in the early years of this century, still offered the charms of an old Baltic trading port surrounded by the pastoral beauty of farms and forests. From age 15 Ronnberg's life was directed seaward, first as a cadet on the three-masted training ship Abraham Rydberg (later to become the American yacht Seven Seas), followed by a stint in the Swedish Navy as part of the gun crew (forward 6in turret) in the coastal defense ship (sometimes called a "pocket battleship") Gustav V. He then served as AB in tramp steamers, and as a senior cadet (with <layman's privileges) on the four-masted bark Abraham Rydberg, with periods ashore for classes and exams for mates' tickets. In 1938 he studied for and passed his master's examinatons at the navigation school at Harnosand, then reported for duty as second mate on Abraham Rydberg which was departing on what would be her final grain voyage to Australia. At the outset of the voyage, the first mate decided to leave the ship in England , and Ronnberg was promoted to this billet while also serving as an instructor in navigation and seamanship.

The 1938-39 voyage was successfully concluded and another grain trip was planned and actually begun , but the outbreak of war in Europe and the ensuing risks to neutral flag shipping forced the Rydberg to the United States and a subsequent series of trading voyages between North and South American ports. In 1942 , the ship was sold and my father-to-be came ashore, a married man and a U.S. citizen.

Wartime employment brought him to Boothbay Harbor, Maine as a rigger at the Frank Sample shipyard.

Ronnberg first tried his hand at modelmaking while an officer in the Rydberg, and his first effort was presented to the captain's wife. He did not build a second model until he came to Boothbay, and the results were likewise given away, this time to the boss rigger at the Sample shipyard, notwithstanding a cash offer from a collector. Other

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"Capable ofsailingforward, backward and sideways ' '-the author with his revenue cutter inspired by a romantic painting, seated with his father about 1950. Photo, Axel Benson.

models followed in a variety of sizes and settings, some of them being bottle models, others waterline miniatures sailing on putty seas. By the late 1940s model making had become a remunerative evening occupation and a welcome cash supplement to income from the rigging loft he had by then set up at Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Living on Cape Ann brought my father in contact with a variety of very interesting boats and larger vessel types, and he responded to them eagerly. He made several models of fishing schooners and draggers, but also models of dories, lobster boats, granite sloops, pinkies, and whatever other historic types he could find in books or in his visits to museums. I was quite surprised in 1962 to make the acquaintance of Colonel George L. Smith of the staff at Peabody Museum of Salem, who recalled with great accuracy one of my father's visits to the Museum some seven or eight years previously in search of plans of the stone sloop Albert Baldwin. Col. Smith helped him locate just what he was looking for.

These models of local watercraft were a welcome respite from the monotony of the clipper ships and frigates, which also sailed forth from the workbench. But for me they served as an introduction to the usually forgotten types and left me immune to the hangups and fixations of modelmakers who, having built a Constitution or a Flying Cloud, feel they have done all that is worth doing in ship modelmaking. It mystifies me to this day that with so many varied and beautiful types of American watercraft, '

there is so little public interest in them: victims of " bigger is better" mentality!

This interest in local craft did not go unrewarded , for it led to a strong relationship with James G. Geddes, a retired business executive whose hobbies included painting, antique collecting, and nautical research.

During the mid- and late-1950s, Mr. Geddes purchased several models oflocal vessel types while helping my father to find new materials-mainly copper alloy metals-for model construction. This assistance was particularly appreciated during the building of magnificent framed and planked half-model of USS Constitution, which he decided to sheathe with copper plates. This operation required considerably more copper shim stock than he had estimated, and Mr. Geddes happily made several detours during his regular trips to Boston to procure the extra material. The finished model , quite resplendent with its oiled topsides of natural oak and weathered copper bottom , was purchased for Warmuth's Restaurant and hung in its famous "Port Side" bar for many years. What happened to it after a fire which closed the establishment, I do not know. Mr. Geddes' collection has had a less obscure fate, most of the models having been willed to the Sandy Bay Historical Association at Rockport , Massachusetts , where they can be seen today.

This period was probably the best in my father's modelmaking activities, when work at the rigging loft was often slack and there was plenty of time to work on modelSEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

Photos by Robert F Sherman.

Half model of US frigate Constitution made in 195 The hull was fram ed and planked in oak and the bottom coppered. Left, Erik Ronnberg with model ofMayflower II 1957. This model was shipped to England and made the return trip to the United States in the cabin of the full-size replica. Below, Model of Gloucester fishing dragger Immaculate Conception , 195 7. Ronnberg also rigged the actual vessel in 1946:

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making techniques and find better materials. This culminated in the late 1950s with the models of Mayflower II which he rigged and augmented considerably in hull detail under the direction of William A. Baker. By 1960, it was no longer profitable to work as a rigger on the waterfront, so that business was abandoned in order to start a marine supply store and nautical gift shop in Rockport. The new business thrived, but its seasonal nature left only the winter months for modelmaking, ha rdly time enoug h to get started on a major project. T here was sufficient time for model repair work, a nd this activity became more important in the years that followed. In 1975, my father retired from the retail business and resumed model construction in addition to the repair work.

Certainl y the most useful lesso ns in my father's modelmaking experiences were those offered by the actual ships he rigged a nd sailed in . It was always his practical knowledge of seamanship and rigging which gave his models a lively a nd convincing look so often lacking in othe r models.

They are lessons I have found worth learning and which I have stri ven to keep foremost in my own modelwork . For all the refined methods and sophisticated tools and SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

machinery available to modelmakers today, I would not give up the basic ski lls, knowledge, and attitudes I have learned from my father. No, and not a minute's worth of those enchanted childhood hours spent in this rigg ing loft , on the vessels he rigged, and at a dini ng room table which nightly became a magical shipyard in miniature.

An early customer for Ronn berg models was the Grey family of Boston , ow ners of Warmuth's Restaurant whose nautical decor called for ship models, murals , and a square-rigged lower mast complete with the lower yard and doublings. My father built the models and rigged the mast which had been made to his specifications by Essex sparmaker Arthur Gates. The mu ra lssilhouettes of sai ling ships of various rigs -were the handiwork of Larry O'Toole, artist, sailor, storyteller extraordinaire, and most celebrated a nd beloved of the famous W harf Rats of Boston's T Wharf. The results of his collusion were nothing if not spirited and genuine in thei r nautical flavor, making Warmuth's a landmark for many years.

About this time, I was becoming old e nough to take an interest in the little shipyard which materialized on the dining room

table every night after supper, so it was not long before I was presented with blocks of balsa wood salvaged from an old life raft and a wood rasp with which I could shape them to any hull form I fancied . I was also given a pine hull in the likeness of a Gloucester fishing dragger, and this I set to rigging in many and wondrous ways. I had come unde r the spell of a large print of Montague Dawson's classic painting , Chasing the Smuggler, which hung in the living room , so the dragger hull often sported the rig of an English revenue cutter.

On one of his frequent evening visits, usually accompanied by a loaf of fresh bread and a bottle of wine, Larry O'Toole happened to see this c reation , and in a roar of mirthful approval, he declared that my little ship would be capable of sailing forward, backward, and sideways! Like all conversation that passed over this table, no offense was meant in any criticisms and none was taken, and between the matter-of-fact comments of my father, the jollity of Larry's ya rns and repartee, not to mention the enthusiastic participation of many others, the enchantments of nautical lore held sway in the Ronnberg household . No mortal vision of heaven could have improved on it. u.

29

DAY'S RUN Report of the American Sail Training Assn.'

Eisenhower Hou se, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI 02840

Lake Ontario "Tall Ships" Rendezvous '84

by George W. Crowninshield This year marks the two hundredth anniversary of the fo unding of the Prov ince of Onta rio, and the one hund red fifti eth birthday of both Toronto and Rochester. In honor of these three events, ASTA has agreed to run a sail training race in Lake Ontario this summer. Some 26 vessels from England , Europe, North America, and the Caribbean have already accepted the invitation to assemble in Toronto and j oin this two-week sail training event which will feature a race to Rochester, and from there to Kingston.

As she celebrates her two hundredth anni versary, Ontario's legacy is rich and varied , vital and vibrant , a remarkable achievement and ample cause to celebrate.

Long before written records, Eskimo and Indian peoples inhabited a deeply forested Ontario. Next came French and E nglish in turn , soldiers and settlers, whose fo rts and battlefields, missionary outposts and stockaded villages you can still visit. Begi nning in April of 1784- arriv ing by bateau, on horseback and often on foo t- hund reds, and then thousands, of new arri vals began life over in the Canadian wilderness. These were the Loyalists, whose departure from the United States fo llow ing the Ameri can War oflndependence pro mpted the British government to offi ciall y open up this province to orderl y settl ement. The sudden and massive influx of those first arri vals established the pattern that has persisted ever since, as the orig inal settle rs were j oined, wave upon wave, by peo ple from the whole world over, eager to start afresh . The history of Ontario is many stories and one shared tradition , a generous measure of civility and mutual respect.

Toronto, first port of call in the Lake On tario race series, is a true sail or's home. It combines the peaceful beauty of the To ronto Island Lagoo ns with the dynamic attractions of one of the most cosmopo litan cities in North America. The city's co-host during the visit of sail tra ining ships will be Harbourfront. This is a 92-ac re lakefro nt revitalization project in downtown Toronto: a fed erall y owned development company, vitally interested in restoring and developing Toronto's waterfront . Harbourfro nt is Toronto's li veliest recreation and entertainment complex , offering some of the most interesting cultural events in the city. One of the fea tures here is the " School by the Water," featuring the choice of no less than fi ve professional sailing programs, with daily, weekly, and weekend instruction.

Educational cruises of Toronto harbor are al so run from mid-May to the end of June.

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Rochester, next port of call , is the third largest city in New York State. Located in the western part of the state, it was fo unded in 1803 and incorporated in 1834. The city's business and industri al center is seven miles south of Lake Ontari o, up the Genesee River, where two waterfalls prov ided power to run the early fac tories . Ove r the years, metropolitan Rochester has grown to its present popul atio n of over 700,000, and is known the wo rl d over fo r its rich manufacturing heri tage, being the home of Eastman Kodak Company as well as other maj or companies .

Rochester Harbo r, at the mouth of the Genesee Ri ver, is located on the south shore of Lake Ontario. It is approximately seventy five nautical mil es east-southeast of Toronto. Once hav ing cleared the islands at the beginning of the St. Lawrence Ri ve r, a straight run may be made ac ross the lake to Rochester. Rochester has planned a full schedule of acti vities fo r the visit of the sail tra ining ships, includi ng a week-long carni val starting the Wednesday before thei r arri val.

The last port of call , Kingston, one of the most beauti fu l cities in Canada , is strategicall y situated at the point where Lake Onta ri o fl ows into the St. Lawrence Ri ve r and at the southe rn end of the Rid eau Canal which goes to Ottawa. The city has a long tradition of being host to sailing men, startin g w ith th e very fi rst ve ntu re in 1678- when Sieur de la Sall e built the first sa iling ship on Kingston's shores-and continuing th rough days of schooners and giant logging rafts of the last centu ry, down to modern times , when it has been host for Olympic competition and many other firstclass sailing events. From a fur-trading post, military stronghold , and first capital of the nation , Kingston has evolved into a thriving indu strial and agricultural center without demolishing its past. Its impressive co nce ntrati o n of nineteenth ce ntury buildings, most bu ilt of the distinctive local limestone , g ive it an appea rance quite unlike other North American cities. The sai l training ships will arri ve there after a breathtaking cruise through the renowned Thousand Islands. Once there, Captains, crew, and trainees-and visito rs as well will find that Kings ton's sailo rs have prepared a wa rm welcome. When ships reach Old Fo rt Henry-an impress ive nineteenth centu ry Citadel which overlooks the approaches by water- they can be expected to be greeted by booming cannons fired by the colorful Guard.

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Dra wing by Tina Holdcrofi , courresy Canadian 'rilchting.

The Lake Ontari o " Tall Ships" Rendezvo us ' 84 is shapi ng up as a unique opportunity to introduce vessels and crews to an inl and sailing experience along hi sto ri c waterways. For those vessels who a re attending the Quebec '84 celebration (SH 31 and elsewhere in these pages) here is a chance to sail th rough the St. Lawrence Seaway and into the Great Lakes. Through the sponso rship ofM olson's Breweries, the Joint Coordinating Committee fo r the event will cover the costs of entering and exiting Lake Ontari o th ro ugh the St . Lawrence Seaway ; these will include: pilotage, lockage, tug a nd lines man ass istance, portable heads, and other special requirements such as lowering of masts (as necessary) in order to meet the 116-foot (3 5.5-rneter) limit at Massena.

The itinerary of events is as foll ows:

Toronto: Jul y 7 Jul y 8-10 Jul y II

July 7-11 Sail Past of Fleet Pu blic Visiting & City Parade Start of Molson Chall enge Cup Race to Rochester Rochester: July U-16 Jul y 12 Finish Molson Cup Race Jul y 13-14 Pu blic Visiting Jul y 14 Fireworks Di splay & Concert Parade of Yachts Jul y 15 Jul y 16 Start Race to Kingston Kingston: July 17-20 Jul y 17 Finish Race Jul y 18-19 Pu blic Vi sits Sa il Past and Departure Jul y 20 Furthe r info rmation on the Rendezvous may be o btained by writing Mr. Kingdon Boa ke, Director, Lake Ontari o Tall Ships Rendezvous '84, Toronto, Eaton Centre Gall eria Offi ces , Suite 109, 220 Yonge St. , Toronto, Ontari o M5B 2Hl. SEA HISTORY, SU MMER 1984

1984 International Sail Training Races Schedule To all mariners and followers of "Tall Ships" alike, this is the final notice of the exciting events planned for this summer.

Gathering of the Ships. The sail training ships are expected to gather at San Juan by Tuesday, May 15. They will be berthed in Old San Juan and during their four-day stay, many of the ships will be open to the public during visiting hours.

Parade of Sail and Start of Race. On Sunday morning, May 20, the ships will sail in column out of San Juan harbor to the starting line for the Cutty Sark Inter-American Race to Bermuda.

Finish of Cutty Sark Inter-American Race. The finish of the race from San Juan will be off St . George's in Bermuda; it will be visible from spectator craft (although quite spread out in time), with arrivals expected between Saturday, May 26, and Tuesday, May 29.

Display of Ships, Prize-Giving. From Tuesday, May 29, to Saturday, June 2 , the sai l training ships will be berthed at Hamilton. Early arrivals will be accommodated at St. George's until that date. Many ships will be open to the public during visiting hours.

The colorful Parade of Cadets and PrizeGiving Ceremony will be held on Wednesday, May 30, at 7:00 PM on Front Street in Hamilton.

Departure from Bermuda. Ships will be getting underway early Saturday morning, June 2 , for a Parade of Sail to the starting line for Race Two to Halifax- a spectacular sight visible from the shore and from spectator craft.

Class B and C Feeder Race. Eight to twelve small sail training ships will gather at Portsmouth NH on Tuesday, June 5, and will be moored off the Portsmouth Yacht Club. They will get underway early in the morning on Thursday, June 7 for the start of a feeder race to Halifax.

Arrival at Halifax. The finish of the races from Bern1uda and Portsmouth will be at sea off Chebucto Head , with arrivals expected June 7-10.

Ships in Port, Prize-Giving. C lass A vessels will be berthed at Ocean Terminals, Ports Canada Federal Area. ALI Class Bs and Cs will be in the immediate downtown area.

Many ships will be open to the public during visiting hours through Tuesday, June 12. The Parade of Cadets and Prize-Giving Ceremony will start Mon. , June II , at 11 :00 AM. Departure from Halifax. Ships will depart on the morning of Wed ., June 13, with the host vessel, Bluenose II, passing in review at 11:00. They will cruise in company to Quebec City with a stop at Gaspe.

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

Sail Training Opportunities-1984

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A few berths are still available aboard the 117ftdbark Ma rquhes an~ the.125ft bhr.ig Inca - an severa1 ot er sa1 trammg s 1ps- m this summer's International Sail Training Races from San Juan to Bermuda to Halifax to Quebec. And a full schedule of cruises is being offered aboard the !02ft gaff schooner Rachel and Ebenezer and the 50ft staysail schooner Windsong .

ASTA training cruises involve deepwater sailing in square-rigged ships or large schooners and are working expeditions with trainees organized in watch teams to serve in four-hour, round-the-clock shifts .

Although the training is especially geared toward people between the ages of 15 and 26, several of the listings are also open to "youth of all ages." An ASTA counselor is aboard each cruise to supervise training, which follows the course outlined in ASTA's Syllabus and Logbook. Cruises take place at various times throughout the summer and are six to eight days long. Several offer berths during this summer's "Tall Ships" Races, giving the

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Arrival at Quebec City. Ships will start arriving at Quebec on Saturday, June 23.

Class A ships are expected to be berthed outside the harbor ; Class Bs and Cs wi ll be inside. Many ships will be open to the public during visiting hours through Sat. , June 29.

In-shore Regatta, Prize-Giving. There will be a festival of inter-ship competitions at Quebec, featuring such sports as sw imming, small boat races, volleyball , tug-ofwar, and soccer matches. The Parade of Cadets and Prize-Giving Ceremony will take place Wednesday, June 27, at 10:00 AM. Departure from Quebec. The ships will get underway by mid-morning on Sunday, June 30, and will form a Parade of Sail as they start on their way downriver to Sydney.

Visit in Sydney. Vessels will be berthed in the port of Sydney at the Canadian Coast Guard College, adjacent to the Naval base, from Saturday, July 7, to Wednesday, July 11.

They will depart in a Parade of Sail to the starting line for Race Three to Liverpool.

In addition to these ASTA-organized events, each port plans varied activities for visitors during the port visits. For information about schedules of these events, call: Puerto Rico Tourism Co,-(809) 721-1576 Bermuda Dept. ofTourism-(809) 292-0023 Portsmouth , NH Maritime Heritage Commission-(603) 436-1118 Halifax Parade of Sail-Nova Scotia 1984(902) 453-1984 Q uebec Comm ittee 1534-1984(418) 643-1667 Sydney Parade of Sail - (902) 453-1984 The ASTA office, at (401) 846-1775, can give any extra help or advice you may need.

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Ji ~- - _.. opportunity to meet youth from other nations.

Fees vary, from $400 to $700. This cost covers all bunk, food , and training charges.

Trainees are responsible for their own transportation to and from embarkation and debarkation points, and for providing their own gear (nothing expensive to buy) . There are limited scholarship funds available, where need and interest are demonstrated through confidential references.

For further information or to subscribe write to : Summer Sail, c/o ASTA (address at top of page). An advance payment of $50 holds your reservation (not refundable ; applicable to any other cruise this summer).

Combined Annual Meetings: October 17-19 For some time it has occured to us at ASTA that it would be more efficient to pool the efforts which go into our two important fall meetings and have one large event . Therefore, plans are underway to combine the Meeting of Members and the Annual Sail Training Conference, October 17-19. This joint meeting should permit our members to meet and speak with those who operate sail training ships and programs. The location planned for this first joint venture looks at first glance like a typical small New England campus, nestled on a wooded hillside which stretches along the banks of the Thames River. But the presence of the threemasted bark, Eagle, docked at its berth next to a cutter, soon tells you that this is no ordinary campus. It is, in fact , the US Coast Guard Academy situated on a 120-acre site in New London , Connecticut.

Along with a complete land-based campus which includes a chapel, hospital , gymnasium and sail loft , there are waterfront facilities on the Thames River. Also on campus is the US Coast Guard Museum-a rich collection of models, paintings and artifacts telling the story of proud service.

Members and friends who plan to attend the Annual Meeting or the Sail Training Conference (o r both) will have an opportunity to visit this unique campus and to meet others who share our interest , including most of the leaders in the field of sail training.

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The Revenue Cutter Californian Nears her

by Steve Christman, Director, Nautical Heritage Museum of Dana Point

Jay Hazell of Bequia , master shipwright , has built boats fo r 53 years. His traditional skills shape the vessel for active voyaging to reach tradirional values of seafaring.

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Memorial Day, May 28, will see the launch at Spanish Landing, San Diego, of the Californ ian-a " 12 inches to the foot " recreation of an 1849 Revenue Marine Cutter. The Na utical Heritage Museum of Dana Point is building the Californian to restore to our shores the grace, beauty and indom itab le spirit of the single Revenue Marine Cutter that maintained law and order along the Californian coast during the frenzy of the Gold Rush . And the proud cutter sa iling tradition will be revived as young cadets board th e Californ ian to learn her story. .. and to sa il her! The citizen-supported ship has been desi gnated to represent the State of California at the 1984 Olympics, leading the Jul y 4 " Topsail -84" parade, and she will also represent Cali fornia at Opsail -86 in New York Harbor honoring the IOOth birthday of the Statue of Libe rty.

Much research was done by Melbourne Smith (see SH30, " Master Builder") , naval architect and builde r of the Californian , and members of the Museum to determ ine what kind of vessel would be most app ropriate for sa il-training. All effo rts seemed to lead us to the same conclu sion: the Revenue Marine Cutters were to small sailing vessels, what the Ameri can clippers were to large ships- the ultimate in the evolution of sa il prior to the adve nt of steam .

From th e beginning of th e United States Revenue Service in 1790 when Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton commissioned ten small cutters at $1,000 each, the Revenue Cutters played a vi tal role in our nation's earl y maritime hi story. Fast

enough to catch privateers smuggling goods into th e new country, these earl y Revenue Cutters began collecting import duties th at helped e nab le our struggling young nation to repay its Revolutionary War debt. After the War of 1812 came the fastest , gra ndest evolutio n of the cutter class , and the Lawrence, exempl ary of this latter-day Revenue Cutter, was chosen as a model for the

Californian.

Last Fall , at ceremonies held at the US Coast Guard base on Terminal Island , Rear Admiral Alfred P. Manning, Commander of the E leventh Distri ct, presented us with a West Coast lumber schooner's wheel , a symbol of the pride we al1feel in representing the Revenue Marine Service, predecessor of today 's Coast Guard. Four young sai lors accepted the wheel on behalfofthe Californian , representing some of the groups which will sail as cadets once our sh ip is at sea- Yacht Club Juniors, NROTC Midshipmen, Sea Mariners , Sea Explorers, and Navy League Sea Cadets.

The California Assembly and Senate voted unanimously last spring to designate the Californian the State's Official Tallship Ambassador. We recogni ze th at in accepting this offic ial status, we have also assumed a significant res po nsibility-to m ai nt a in a level of quality and profess ionalism in th e ship a nd he r operation that will reflect well on the State of California.

Even more exciting th an the Californians ro le as goodwill ambassador for the State of California and the US Coast Guard , however will be her role as a unique sailtraining vessel for the yo uth of California.

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

Launch Date

Ernestina/Morrissey Sails Again

by Julia Brotherton , Assistant Project Director, Ernestina/Morrissey

W hile teaching them the near-forgotten a rts of sa iling tall ships, she will be giving young cadets invaluab le expe rience in selfreliance a nd teamwo rk-the corne rsto nes o n which our natio nal he ritage is fou nded.

As Director of the Nautical Heritage Museum , I see a unique oppo rtunity fo r our o rgani zati on to provide the full range of sail tra ining from e ntry level in small boats o n up to blue wate r sailing in the Califo rnian .

O nce afl oat, a young skippe r knows that he alo ne is res po nsi ble fo r his boat a nd himself. He is keenl y aware that the re is absolutely no substitute fo r knowing what need s to be done and being able to do it alone. T he ex pe rience of wo rking with th e natu ra l fo rces of wind and wate r and maste ring the m to advantage is exhilarating . As he goes on to larger vessels he learns the vita l need fo r teamwo rk . And learning to sail a nd doing it well has a pe rvasive and lasting effect, affecting us lo ng afte r we have left th ose ea rl y yea rs behind .

T he re is now in place a working comm ittee th at is able to offe r competent professional instruction and suppo rt to ad minister the classes . And o ur H istori c Watercraft Committee offe rs not onl y a tra ined shipwri ght , but a strong volunteer fo rce to assure th at our fl eet of small boats is ma inta ined in good conditio n .

Las t fa ll th e Ame rican Sa il Training Associati o n des ig nated us to be Regio na l ASTA Representati ve for the State of Ca li fo rn ia. We are working hard to c reate sup po rt and enthusias m for sail tra ining o n th e Wes t Coast. Admiral Jack La ngille, USN (Retired) , who helped w rite o ur Ca lifornian sail tra ining syllabuss, fo rmul ated the Nava l Academy sail training prog ram a nd he lps coo rdinate our wo rk with th at of ASTA . We are confident that we will be able to provide a program that combines th e virtues of vigo rous phys ical acti vity, tra in ing in balance, timing and judgment , selfconfide nce through sel f- reliance, com municatio n through teamwork while teaching Ame ri can hi story-a n unbeata bl e combinatio n!

But we can use yo ur help to whi stl e up a littl e mo re wind fo r the Califo rnian !

Funding for the ship is totall y pri vate: fo undatio ns, corporatio ns and indi viduals are donating their time, resources and mo nies to make this exciting dream a reality.

Our fundrai sing goal of $2 ,500,000 is 70 pe rcent complete. All of the ship's maj o r construction materials have been purchased and a last financial push is needed to unde rwrite the labo r costs of fin al constructi o n and rigging. Oppo rtunities fo r participatio n are available at all levels a nd you a re e nco uraged to get involved . Just d rop a line to: Cali fo rni an, 24532 Del Prado, Da na Po int CA 92629. Tel: 714 661-1001. w SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

Famous at the turn of the centu ry as a Grand Banks fis hing schoone r, then an acclai med Art ie explorati on vessel before and d uring Wo rl d Wa r II , and a celebrated transatlantic sail ing pac ket in the postwa r yea rs, the schoo ne r Ernestina ex-Effie M. Mo rrissey is refi tting today as a mu seum ship th at has been mandated to continue operating under sail -as she did conti nuously fro m he r launc hing in 1894 to her las t commercial voyage to the US in 1965.

Following the vessel's last American voyage in 1965 some Nati o nal Ma rit ime Hi sto rical Soc iety members began to thin k of he r as a poss ibl e histo ri c shi p for South St reet Sea po rt Museum , a nd worked to aro use inte rest in he r case. An initial atte mpt to return the ship to Ame ri ca fa iled due to a dis masting in 1976. Ernestina was the n ac quired by th e govern ment of the Re public of Cape Ve rd e who, with the help of the Friends of the Ernestina and the Nati onal Maritime Histo ri cal Soc iety, unde rtoo k th e restoration of the aged schoo ne r.

T he Ern estina arri ved in the United States in August 1982, greeted with fanfare.

A five-person , State-appointed Massachusetts Schooner E rnestina Commission took title to the ship a nd sti pul ated that she be kept acti vely sailing as a n educatio nal vessel. Afte r this pro mising welcome, howeve r, the momentum somehow flagged .

The schooner was towed to Gloucester, and there she languished fo r nea rl y a year without fund s, leadership, o r specific plans. But the summe r of 1983 saw re newed acti vity o n board the 89 yea r-old schoo ne r. The Ernestina Commission.appo inted a Captain fo r the ship, Daniel Mo rela nd , who holds an unlimited Masterof Sail license and has twelve years of deep-sea sailing expe rience which include fo ur yea rs as a n offi cer on board the Dani sh tra ining ship Danmark.

Mo rela nd gathe red togeth e r some mo ney

and a crew, made some minor repairs to the ship, and took Ernestina sailing in the fall of 1983-gain ing expos ure fo r the ship and emphas izing the fac t that she is an historical vessel th at sails.

The ultimate plan is to operate the Ern estina as a Sa iling School Vessel certified by the Coast Guard under the new regulations.

The sai l-tra ining program th at Mo reland and othe rs have des igned for th e ship will allow Ern estina to suppo rt he rself fin ancially. Twenty-fi ve stude nts, supervised by the Captain and seven crew, will live aboard fo r weeks o r mo nths at a time as the ship sails the waters of the Atl antic. Summe r trips up and down the East Coast and winter trips across the Atl antic (to Cape Verde and Afri ca) and to the Caribbea n a re planned .

Included in the program will be both extensive sail training (sail handling, marlinspike seamanship, nav igati on , coope ratio n) and the teaching of histo ry and culture, with an e mphas is o n the connectio ns amo ng the communities of the Atl antic Basin and the multi-ethni c parti cipation in the sea-going trades. To e nsure that a wide va ri ety of s tu de nts be nefi ts fro m thi s ty pe of educatio n, an extensive scholarship program w ill be impl emented .

An estimated $400,000 is needed to resto re a nd outfit th e Ernestina for acti ve commiss io n unde r this sail-training progra m . T he ship's rig wi ll be resto red to the fi shing schoo ne r rig carried up to 1953, a C ummins-donated engine will be instal led, accommodations for students will be outfitted below, and electronic nav igatio n and safety equipment will be purchased . With the stro ng bac king of Governor Michael Duka ki s a nd State Senator William Maclean, the State of Massachusetts has appropriated ove r half of the fund s needed to carry out the project . Hundreds of indi viduals have already made do nations of goods and mo ney to the Ernestina; additi onal fund s and mate rials a re still being sought fro m both private a nd public sources .

Readers wishing to help should contact: Schooner E rnestin a, 13 Centre St., New Bedford MA 02740. Tel: 617 992-4900.

The 1983 crew ofthe Ernestina,.from left to right: Normwi Gomes, Linda Bailey, Mac Coombs, Joy Cardozo, Craig Walsh , Julia Brotherton , Chandler J1'.ynn , Captain Daniel Moreland.

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Dept. SH 20 Front Street, Salem, MA - 617-745-5777

"Dirty work, long hours, no pay."

"It is important," says Rod Stephens, "that this ship Wavertree be restored, in true sailorly fashion, right through to the skysail clewlines."

A spirit of hard work, enterprise & cooperation sailed the tall ships of yesterday & the Liberty Ships of World War IL.. and that's what makes things move today!

BAY REFRACTORY MARINE REFRACTORY AND MARINE INSULATION 164 WOLCOTT STREET • BROOKLYN, NY 11201

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Thanks to the generous help we've had , the ship is now in good shape and is receiving visitors on a limited basis. (Call South Street Seaport Museum , 212 669-9400, to find out when you can go aboard .) A beginning has been made on the crew's deckhouse, which was dedicated on October 21 to the memory of the late Allen Rupley, co-chairman of the Freinds of Wavertree.

We have a long way to go to get to the s kysail clewlines, whic h we very much want to do by the old Cape Homer's 100th birthday, December 10, 1985.

With many hands working to our now-famous motto (see the head of th is ad), our main need is funds-funds for materials, which can't always be donated , and for heavy industrial work beyond the capacity of our volunteer gang.

Rod Stephens has sent a letter to his sailing friends asking their help in the terms set forth above.

Such good friends as Ya chting Magazine's publisher Ed Muhlfeld and Bowne & Co.'s president Franz von Ziegesar have contributed to this effort.

Won't you join in ,, and send a check or ask your company to contribute?

FRIENDS

OF THE

WAVERTREE

2 Lafayette Court , Greenwich , Connecticut 06830 CONTRIBUTIONS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE AND SHOULD BE MADE TO " SHIP TRUST-WAVERTREE."

SEA HISTORY, SUMM ER 1984

E>t. 1909

Antique Maps & Prints Paintings by Su zy Aalund , ASMA, Yves Parent, Joh n Wh ite & Others

MARINE PAINTINGS RESTORED

MARINE ART NEWS Mystic Seaport Museum's Schaefer Gallery features an exh ib.it from May through September 9 of 106 works by Milton Burns (1853-1933), an Ohio-born painter and illustrator who went to sea with whalers and fishermen (above)to depict men at work in wide waters in small craft. Some of his illustrative work for Harper's Weekly and other illustrated journals of the day may be fo und a bit se nsational , but it is all founded o n c lose- in experience in the cramped forecastles or on the wide ranging seas that were the seaman's habitat. The Maritime Gallery features the Mystic International Show will be up May 14- June 24: 69 works by 55 artists. Catalog $8. The Gallery is currently exh ibiting a n unu sual examp le of the Modelmaker's art-a 7-inch model of the Charles W Morgan , by Lloyd McCaffrey, which has its port side cut away to reveal constructi on detail (at that scale!) including some data learned in the recent rebuilding of the ship. The model ca rri es a crew of2 1 %-inch men , and even a ship's cat tucked away in its ow n hiding place . McCaffrey observes: "Afte r a few hours of miniature work , parts no longer seem small ...you yourself end up less than % of an inch tall."

Gallery, Mystic CT 06355.

Smith Gallery 's handsomely produced Occasional Journal for Spring 1984 fea tures Otto Muhlenfeld (1871-1907) , who was born within a quarte r mile of Baltimore Harbor and became the painter of the port , as James Buttersworth was of New York.

The Ga llery also announces the publication, June 1, of Antonio Jacobsen-The Checklist. Compiled by Harold Sniffen and The Mariners Museum, this monumental work lists all 2 190 known Jacobsen paintings, 2200 sketches and 2600 identified and cross-referenced ships, in a limited edition of2 ,000. Copies available for $75 (NY residents add sales tax) from the Gallery, 1045 Madison Ave. , New York , NY 10021. Upcoming shows of interest include a Willard Bond show by the Annapolis Marine Art Ga llery in September, and a juried internatio nal exhibition by Newman & Saunders Galleries in Wayne PA in September. Newman & Saunders has held two American Society of Marine Artists national ex hibitions, and in thi s show is broadening its scope to include artists from abroad.

The liner historian (and Operation Sail impressario) Frank 0. Bray nard is also an artist of some note. He offers 40 postcards of sketches, 25Ceach , $10thesetof40. Braynard , 98 DuBois Ave., Sea Cliff NY 11579.

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

1411 Th ird Avenue New Yo rk , NY 10028 Refe re nces 212-288-3211

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"NANTUCKET", a limited-edition of 950 prints by the noted marine artist PAUL McGEHEE. Available signed and numbered for $100, or with artist 's remarque for $150. Please include $5 shipping. Depicted is the entrance to the famous whaling port's harbor in 1908. The steamer "Nantucket", built in 1886, is shown passing the Brant Point lighthouse, erected in 1901 and still standing. A Paul McGehee print is not only a piece of fine art, but a historically accurate window to the past.

Send S1 for FULL COLOR CATALOG

Š 1982 by Paul McGehee

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(212) 744-6171 35

MARINE ART

I Couldn't Take My Eyes off Cook's Endeavour

By Oswald L<mgfield Brett Oswald wngfield Brett, born in 1921 in Sydney, NSW, is the biographer of his friend and fellow Australian Alan Villiers in this issue. A seaman and scholar, he is also a distinguished marine artist, and here he tells how, like Villiers, he chafed at shore life "Down Under" andfollowed the great navigators he idolized to sea.

Sydney, NSW where I was born in 1921, is one of the world 's great seaports and a paradise for yachtsman. My forebears came to Austra lia ea rl y in its history, some of them on the establishment of the colo ny at Sydney Cove in 1788.

My earliest memories are of always attempting to draw and paint.

My mother was an outstanding po rtraiti st who did exquisite work in watercolor. An art student in her youth , she never worked professio nall y, and finall y gave up, she said , when I would take her brushes on learning to walk. M y mothe r had two dark blue-bound vo lumes of Victorian paintings over which I pored e ndless ly. In one of these was reproduced Thomas Somerscales' classic Off Valparaiso of which I made a copy when I was eleven. The orig inal of this magnificent oil is now at Greenwich , a nd is perha ps the finest sea piece ever painted- if o ne is permitted superlatives in matters of taste . I also greatly ad mired the paintings by Anton Otto Fischer in the Saturday Evening Post.

At the time I was copying Off Valparaiso , a painting was presented to the school I attended , by the late Judge H.V. Evatt , a distinguished jurist, politician and historian who almost became Prime Minister, and whose son was a classmate. This pai nting was by the noted Australian mari ne artist John All cot , and hung in the classroo m . The subject was Captain Cook's Endeavour off Tahiti , showi ng the island aglow in the golden haze of late afternoo n with the ship under sail pitching into the blue trade w ind surges . This painting struck a res ponsive cho rd in my psyche, a nd I couldn' t take my eyes from it ; schoolwork beca me irreleva nt. I obtained perm iss io n from the headmaster to copy it on afternoons after school. I even copied it twice and improved with the second try!

This Allcot painting not onl y stimulated a lifelong interest in Cook a nd his Pac ific voyages of discovery, but Australian maritime history generall y. It also crystallized certai n ideas I had about becoming a marine a rtist and of goi ng to sea. This painting quite literall y cha nged the course of my li fe.

I the n bega n pes tering my mothe r to take me into John Allcot's studio where I cou ld meet the artist , a nd see mo re of hi s o riginal work. One very hot day in the city when I was twelve she reluctantly consented. My mother must have been extraord inaril y long suffe ring, since I wonder whether I would have obliged my c hildre n at that age with such a request . Whe n we a rri ved at the studio, it was noo n a nd John was o n hi s way o ut and my first impression of him was of being extremely short in stature and very broad , with piercing grey eyes and a marvellously dry sense of humo ur. Although in a hurry he ve ry kindly showed us a fasci nating a rray of landscapes, ha rbo r, yachting and shipping subj ects which were framed and ready to be taken away. The variety of subj ect matter attested to how compete nt , ve rsatil e a nd pro lific an artist John was.

My mother ex plained how I collected a nd copied reproductions of his wo rk from cale ndars and magazi nes , and how I e ntertained ideas of perhaps someday becoming an artist. John told my mother - no doubt fo r my benefit-that thi s would not o nl y e ntail study and application, but I would also have to acqui re the ab ility to draw.

(Just g ive me the cha nce, I thoug ht to myself') I then asked : " Did you go to sea , Mr. A llcot?" John replied: " Yes , for ten years, it's a dog 's 1ife- the re are compensat io ns, though ." Then we all went dow n in the lift to the street , and in response to my eager questions John furthe r told me that he grew up in Li verpool, whe re his father was a shipmaster. John added that he first vis ited Australia in a

36

hungry Scottish bark in 1907. The country and its climate made such an overwhelming impression that upon returning to England he stowed away in a steamer to return to Australia . When discovered at sea , the " Old Man" signed him on , and John pa id off in Sydney.

At thirteen I attended an inte rmed iate high school nea re r to th e ci ty, and after school , now being acq uainted with John Alcott , I'd take the train to town a nd vis it John in hi s studio returning home later. A ny drawings o r painting I'd done I wou ld submit for John's crit icism and advice. Quite often he wo uld demonstrate how they might be improved in either colour o r composition . Since he never objected , I'd hang around and watch him paint wh ile av idl y listening to him expound o n ships and the sea , a rt , artists and literature .

Snobbery, particularly in the arts, and prude ry, we re two subj ects abo ut which he became visibl y irritated . I would also make myself usefu l by running errands, a nd when there were paintings to be deli vered to the master of a ship, I'd often accompany John o n board. On such occasions John wou ld introduce me by say ing. " Oswald is a student of mine", whi ch I felt was a great complime nt.

John also said ifl g rew any talle r he wo uldn't be seen on the street with me' * Becoming familiar with ships a nd sa ilors at thi s ea rl y stage of my life was an education in itself. Meeting shipmasters, seeing business transacted , and liste ning to ya rns about the sea made school dull by comparison. (My Engli sh teache r told me, " Yo u ' II e nd up like Masefield 's ' Daube r'"; a poem which I then studied a nd me mori zed , and years late r met the poet in England .) It was in these circumstances that I met Alan Viii iers in the Joseph Conrad, and later Captain Adrian Seligman in the St. Malo barquentine Cap Pilar.

Meanwhile I continued to sketch and paint the ha rbor's pagea nt of shipping . An ideal vantage point was the towering sandsto ne ram part of South Head with the sunlit ro lle rs of the South Pac ific thundering on the rocks fa r below. Australia was also the last strongho ld of sailing ships a nd was visited a nnuall y by Germa n a nd Finni sh square-riggers to lift grai n cargoes , wi th an odd o ne turning up in Sydney. The graceful old pil ot steame r Captain Cook was kept busy in the offing with he r boarding wha le-boat putting .a pilot aboa rd a n arriving vessel o r picking o ne up from a hove-to o utwa rd bounder. I sometimes ventured to sea outs ide the Heads in a canoe hired from a harbo r boat shed to better see the ships and get the feel of the sea. This was an ex tre mely dangerous a nd foo lhardy practice, what with the presence of sha rks , and a coupl e of times I almost broached-to in heavy seas and came to gri ef!

I ofte n wondered whether it might be poss ible to establish a " li ving" maritime museum and preserve some of the old ships inev itably bound for the shipbreakers, as well as res tore some of the a ncie nt vessels surv iv ing as hulks in th e ha rbor. Regrettabl y the time of the Ka rl Kortums and Pete r Stan fo rds had then not yet a rrived , and being so yo ung, my ideas received scant sympathy for such an undertaking . I had to conte nt myself by recording the m as best I co uld in drawings and paintings.

My parents were very concerned abou t my interest in becoming a mari ne a rtist , but were appall ed when I broached the subject of go ing to sea , and mu st have wondered what was to become of me.

I had no real ideas about a profess io nal ca reer at sea but thought that some ex pe rie nce as a practi cal seaman was indispensibl e fo r a marine art ist. At 15 1/2 my parents in desperation enrolled me at the East Sydney Technical College where I completed a three year a rt cou rse in little more tha n a year. During this time I even ma naged a trip to sea. Slowly I became proficient at drawing from life, a nd continuall y sketched a nd painted wate rfro nt and coastal sub *Archie Ho rka desc ribed Jo hn as be ing " built c lose to the dec k" (May 1973).

SEA HISTORY. SUMMER 1984

Bre11 's early dra wings reveal th e beauty of old hulls and the artist 's f eeling for rh em. Above, th e pilot schooner Ca ptain Cook of 1892 sketched in 1939 at Floods Wha1 f, Sydn ey. Righr , th e Sobraon , 317ft (ove rall) composite tea clipper built by Hall of Aberdeen , 1866, converted to a boys' ref ormatory, later naval training vessel. Below, th e author engaged in his "foolhardy practice."

Th e English tea clippers Cutty Sark and Th e rmopylae in Sydney Harbor in March 1873-th e first time these two fam ous rivals were together.

SEA HISTORY. SUMMER 1984

37

._ ..... . .

'"

Th e coal hulk Agnes Mui r, ex-Adele skeTched in Melbou rn e in 1941.

jects, and had little difficulty in selling paintings of ships. After co mpleting the course at East Sydney I was free to go to sea.

Life at sea meant adventure, travel and an escape from the limiting authority under which I'd grown up. Alas, as l soon discovered, the sea was a far more demanding authoritarian than any I'd eve r e nco untered ashore at home or school. One lives and learns' The sea literature in which I'd steeped myself ill prepared me for the ceaseless toil and the primitive foc'sle li ving conditions I expe ri enced , not to mention the sea sickness I suffered during my earlier time at sea . I saw service in many kinds of ships in most parts of the world during the following seven or more years I spent afloat.

I began studying for my Second Mate's ticket but came to realize that this was not really the direction in which my amb ition led.

It was during my latter years at sea th at I met Gertrude, whom I would marry in New York. So I reached another turning point in my life, when I settled ashore here at the age of twenty-five to begin a new life as an artist.

'1i '1i w

s

M1: Brett painting ofthe bark Kaiulani was presemed to President Johnson in 1964 by President Macapagal of the Philippines , launching the campaign around which the National Society was formed. His works are also to be found in the McAllister Bros. and Seamen Bank for Savings collections, among others. He still makes trips to sea , often going on Columbus line ships to paint and draw on the foreshores of his native Sydney. An Advisor of the National Society, he has published major studies ofhis mentors Captain Cook (whom Villiers also looked to as examplar) and Charles Robert Patterson in SEA HISTORY.

s

Paintings reproduced by courtesy ofNorman Kjeldsen, Patron ofthe National Society. Full color fin e art prints , signed by the artist, will soon be available from NMHS, 132 Maple St., Crown NY 10520.

Os as a seaman (in a borrowed apprenTice's hm) on Th e coal-burn er

Mildura in 1941. Al righT, The awhor wiTh his sisTer JudiTh and John AllcoT in Sydney, Jun e 1971.

This classic portrait of an embattled Cape Horner was painted by Brett to support the campaign to recover the iron ship Wavertree from Buenos Aires for South Street Seaport Mus eum. IT hangs today in the Whitehall Club, New York. Signed limited edition prints are given to rhose donating $100 or more to the NMHS Ship Trust campaign To restore the Wavertree.

38

SEA HIS1DRY, SUMMER 1984

This sparkling por1rai1 of//1 e Elissa. delicme-lined iron bark bui/1 in Alexander Hall's Seo/fish yard in 1877, was paimed for 1he vessel's 100//1 bir1hday.

The ship Joseph Conrad running her easling down in Alan Villi ers' voyage in her toward Cape Horn , early in 1936. This fine seamanly portrait of the form er Danish training ship in high seas can be compared with a sketch Villers made for Brei/ (seep. 4).

SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

39

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SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS WORLD SHIP TRUST NEWS Two new vice presidents of the Trust have been elected , Sir Peter Scott, CBE, DSC, and the Rt. Hon Lord Shackleton, KG, PC, OBE, together with a new Trustee, Dr. Nei l Cossons, QBE, MA , who is director of the National M aritime Museum of Britain . " Like you,'' wrote Dr. Cossons in his letter of acceptance, " I be lieve that the work of ship preservation should be carried out in a spirit of mutual cooperation and consultation and I wou ld regard it as a privilege to be allowed to add my views to your deliberations."

The Trust has retained George Campbell , architect of the Cutty Sark restoration at Greenwich and of the %vertree in New York , to draw up plans fo r the restoration of the iron bark Lady Eliwbeth in the Falkland Islands . This work will be based on a carefu l survey made last year at the request of the Trust by the Snowsqua ll Expedition, led by Dr. Fred Yalouris of H arvard .

It is proposed to restore the Lady Elizabeth as a museum ship in the Falklands-whose population has seen three historic ships and parts of one other (as well as one ship's cutter, the Wavertree's) removed for exhibition in England and the Un ited States.

The Trust is also actively interested in the preservation of the Liverpool-built East Indiaman Jh elum , which has deteriorated sufficie ntly to endanger the hulk . The bitter course of cutting the ship up to save her may have to be adopted.

Thought is also being given to preserving the whale catcher Petrel, now in South Georgia, which might be brought to the Falklands by Operation Raleigh in 1988. And plans are being weighed to recover from South Georgia the steel sa iling ship Brutus, built in Scotl and in 1883, which might become an ex hibition ship fo r the Londo n Dockland development.

A C hatham Dockyard Trust has been proposed at the initiative of Nei l Cossons of the National Maritime Museum , to preserve the buildings of the historic dockyard which date back to 1703. An active shipbuilding and rigging center is envisaged to fill the old buildings with act ivity and provide a center for hi storic restoration and replica work. This would move the National Museum decisively into the rea lm of the "experiential " museum embodied in such centers as Mystic Seaport in Connecticu t o r the National Maritime Museum in San Franc isco or the Exeter Maritime Museum in Devo nshire.

Matters of purely British interest are the concern of the Maritime Trust of Britain , whose c hairman Maldwin Drummond is a Trustee of the World Ship Trust; but the development of the Dockyard and its ships for restoratio'n wou ld involve international interests in which the World Ship Tru st would have a poss ibl e role to play.

GREAT BRITAIN The future of the historic Chatham Naval Dockyard in Kent is now assured. The Government has announced that it is setti ng up a Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust to control the area after official closure in March. In redeveloping the area , the concept of a " living dockya rd " is being adopted with a variety of activities varying from commercial ship-repair to a major museum project. The history of the Dockyard reaches from the days of Samuel Pepys to the repair of nuclear submarines. Within 80 acres there are SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

about 50 listed buildings, and for the future of what is an almost intact Georgian dockyard, there is to be an endowment of $ 11 million .

Starting in April , admission charges have been introduced at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. It is hoped this will raise ÂŁ500,000 a year, making possible longer opening hours and a greater marketing effort. At present, the Museum attracts 600,000 visitors a year.

A survivor of the Severn Trows, traditional sailing barge on the River Severn and its tributaries, the trow Spry is currently awaiting restoration at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum in Shropshire. She is not the only survivor. Your correspondent recently went to Purton near Gloucester. There, between the river and the ship canal are the remains of about 40 vessels, including a few almost-intact hulls. Mostly mud-filled, they stabilize the bank. They include the wooden motor barge Severn Collier built in the Thirties fo r the Lydney Canal coal traffic. About twenty trows and double-ended Stroudwater lighters are identifiable. The best preserved is the trow

Harriet, her name and port of registry still legible on her transom .

The classic British pleasure paddle-steamer Kingswear Castle has retu rned to steam. Built in 1924, she was used in trips on the River Dart in Devon . She is ow ned by the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society (i nvolved with the p.s.

Waverly Preservation Project). She is on the River Medway and may be carrying passengers by summer. Built by Philip & Son of Dartmouth , she is 108ft by 17 l/2 ft . Fourteen years of volunteer restoration have restored her to pristine condition. Her small size and " Victorian" si mplicity make a great contrast with the %verly. Finance to the tune of $ 10,000 is being sought to back the commercial operation : donations please to P.S.N. Ltd, 138 Gillingham Rd ., Gi llingham , Kent, England.

Plans are in the pipeline to move the pioneer steam turbine vessel Turbina to the Quayside at Newcastle. Tyne & Wear Museums are hoping to arrange for het display as part of a new exhibition complex to be developed on the Quayside.

At present in storage Turbina, built in 1894 by C harles Parsons, made history by passing through Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubil ee Review at Spithead at 34 knots .

On a visi t to London recentl y, your correspondent was privileged to be shown some substantial wooden piles, uncovered in a development on the si te of the old Scott Russell shipyard on the Isle of Dogs. It is suspected that they are part of the wooden ways constructed for the launching of Brunel's huge iron steamer the Great &stern. The Museum of London is hoping to su rvey and possibly preserve some of the timber piles, which extend over a large area.

Some Brunel-style wrought iron bridge railway track has also appeared .

R OBERT FORSYTHE

Information-and photos-should be sent to Mr. Forsythe at !29A North St., Burwell, Cambridge CBS, OBB, England. (This address was erroneously transcribed in SH:JI.) The National Maritime Museum plans an " International Symposium to Commemorate the Centenary of the Adoption of Greenwich as the Prime Meridian;â&#x20AC;˘ July 9-13. Co-sponsored by the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science and the International Astronomical Union, this will take up such topics as long itudes and meridians before the 17th centu ry, cartography in the age of exploration, 19th century meridians, international cooperation towards universal time. "Longtitude Zero Symposium ," National Maritime Museum , Greenwich , London SE!O 9NF. The International Commission for Maritime History co-sponsors another important conference with the National Maritime Museum , September 17-21. This covers " various aspects of the history of shipowning, and fuctors and patterns of its development from the med ieval peri od to the 20th century." ICMH Conference Secretary, National Maritime Museum .

The Jubilee Sailing Trust works to get disabled people to sea under sail-square rig at that! This su mmer they continue their cruises in British waters in the chartered 105ft brigantine Soren Larsen , built in 1948 in Denmark as a cargo vessel. The Trust 's experience has shown that " by bringing disabled and able-bodied together to face the chall enges, adventures and achievements of sai ling a square-rigger" people are effectively helped to a new life. This spirited outfi t is now campaigning for fund s to build a 400-ton bark, designed for the purpose by Co lin

Mudie. She wi ll be called Lord Nelson , after the admiral who wrote, after losing his right arm that he had become "a burden to my friends and useless to my cou ntry." This was in 17CJ'7, before he won the victories that made him the most honored admiral in history. Jubilee Sailing Trust, Atlantic Road , Each Docks, Southampton , Hants SSOI IGD.

I

Square Rigged Services Ltd. Commercial House Station Road Bogner Regis West Sussex P0211QD England Tel : Bogner Regis (0243) 825831/826877 Telex : 86664 ROWENA G

41

SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT EUROPE

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The 70ft former saili ng trawler Wilma Rudolf, built in 1877 as Fear Not, whi ch fished from British ports until 189 1, sank last summer in the Odense Canal in Denmark. Her owners have now raised her, our correspondent Ol e Mortenso n informs us, and offers to donate her hulk to any outfit prepared to restore her to her "original ,../

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MARINE CHRONOMETERS Bought , Sold and Serviced Restoration and Appraisals

good looks." Denmark has good facilities fo r the restoration , Mortenson remind s us, and he and others will do all they can to help. Owners: Lene Henriksen, Bredstedgade 7, st. th. 500 Odense C, Denmark.

The U-boat Wilhelm Bauer, at th e Maritime Mu seum of Bremerhaven , built in January 1945 as U-2540 Type XX! by Blohm & Voss at Hamburg, was sunk in May 1945 at Flensburg, and was raised 10 years later to cont inue 1956-83 as a training ship. In addition to the Bau er. notes our co rrespondent Hans-Joach im Gersdorf, the U-505 is preserved at Chicago, and the U-995 Type VIIC bui lt in 1941 by Blohm & Voss, is a museum ship at Laboe, near Kiel. Gersdorf also notes that last yea r marked th e 794th birthday of the free port of Hamburg, not 784th as we said in SH29. Th e birth of the city itself goes back toadocumentof811 Ao, 1,173 years ago, if ou r arithmeti c is right (thi s time). Hamburg was a great center for emigration to the US , and offers a research service to find records of emigrant departures, $30 if year is known , $10 for each additi onal yea r that must be sea rched. Hi storic Emigration, Museum fiir Hamburg isc he Geschichte, Holstenwall 24, 2000 Hamburg 36, Germany.

Migration wi ll be the topic of a major conference nex t yea r in Germany, "Maritime Aspects of Migration," sponso red by the International Commission fo r Maritime Hi sto ry, August 25-September I, 1985 in Stuttgart , with the German Na tion a l Commi ss ion as host .

Wilcomb E. Washburn , Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC 20560.

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Erik Abranson, engaged in rounding up sai ling ships for Quebec 1534-1984 and attendant events (see SH31:51 and this issue, pp. 30-31) reports that this may be " the si ngle biggest project of its kind si nce the requisitioning of merchantmen during the Napoleonic Wars." He notes also:'The popularity of'tall ships' is increasing, more and mo re are being built or restored and more gat her in gs are planned and mooted . ... Sponsors and other business people are becoming aware of the pub I ic relations value of these ships, and money is about to move in , in significant amounts." We surely welcome this!

NMHS and i\S Ship Trust have long campaigned for more money from shoreside events to support the sa iling of the "tall ships" that bring their magic to seapo rt cities in their visits.

The North American Society for Oceanic History has ex panded coverage in its informati ve newsletter a nd does invaluable work cultivating our somewhat neglected and weed-grown fie ld .

Membership is a modest $15, payable NASOH and sent w Secretary, NASOH , Dept. of History, US Nava l Academy, Annapolis MD 21402.

The new ly built 65ft topsail schooner Dayspringjoins the vesse ls sa il ing on week ly cru ises o ut of Camden, Maine, thi s summer. She's built in tradi tional fashion , oak planked on sawn oak frames. Her maiden voyage takes he r in th e "Tall Ships" Race from Portsmou th , New Hampshire to Halifax, Nova Scotia, sta rting June 7, sponsored by the American Sai l -----..:....-~~===:;::;:;;~~== Training Association. She' ll ~ do wi nter cruising from Char- ~ lotte Amalie, St. Thomas. -<>--=-- ~ Dayspring, PO 6 11 , Camden ME 04843.

Launch of the 65 ft wooden coasting schooner Janet May took place in April in the Narraguagus River, another traditional entrant in the Maine schooner trade. We join her well-wishers: " Fair winds , Jan et May!" Kansas Rd. , Cherryfield ME 04662 .

Also in Maine, the Grand Banks Schooner Museum has undertaken a major restoration of their 142ft schoo ner Sherman Zwicker, whi ch spent 2 1/2 months on the ways at Samples Shipyard renewing topside planking. She' ll resume her mu seum role dockside in Boothbay thi s spring-though there is some thought she might go to Boston for Operation Sail June 2-8, and poss ibly join the race to Halifax. Museum , 100 Commercial St. , Boothbay Harbor ME 0453 8.

The town of Gloucester has awarded its Mariner's Medal to Capt. George B. ichol s th e Gloucester skipper of the 811ft supertanker Ogden Yukon who successfull y maneuvered hi s huge vessel to rescue nine shipwrecked Spanish fishermen on August 2 , 1983 in the stormy At lantic 150 mi les west of Gibraltar. The traditions of this seafaring tow n, which st ill sends brave ships and men to sea, are honored in the Gloucester Fishermen's Museum , Rogers & Porter Streets, G loucester MA 01930.

Maritime activity in the Mediterranean that may extend back mo re than 10,000 years- lo ng before written language or such inventions as the wheel-is evinced in marine archaeolog ical artifacts in " Crossroads of the Ancient World: Israel's Archaeological Heritage," on ex hibition May I-July 31 at the Harvard Semitic Museum , 6 Divinity Ave., Rm 102 , Cambridge MA 02138.

At Mystic Seaport, the 1841 whaling ship Charles W Morgan , re-launched last fa ll after the most extensive rebuilding of her long career, was opened to the public at Chubb's Wharf this spring. This rebuilding was accompanied by thoroug~hgoing documentation , including many new deuails brought to light in the rebuilding. The SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

& MUSEUM NEWS fishing schooner L.A. Dunton is next up, for a thorough rebuilding of the after end and refastening the keel. On another front , Mystic announces a 56-minute film on the America's Cup, "To Win At All Costs," has been added to its library of some 60 maritime historical films avai lable fo r sale or rental. Seaport, Mystic CT 06355.

The annual Wooden Boat Rendezvous is set for June 23 at Seawhanka Corinthian Yacht C lub in Oyster Bay, Long Island ... and on September 14-16, the Connecticut River Foundation in Essex wi ll hold their Ninth Annual Traditional Vessel Weeke.nd , with races on the River and in the Sound , with The Museum maintained by the Foundation in an 1878 steamboat warehouse servi ng as headquarters. Foundation , PO 261, Essex CT 06426.

South Street Seaport Museum offers a workin-progress tour of the Wavertree, which the National Society's Ship Trust is helping to restore, and a 50-minute tour of the historic district. Sailor's work songs and sailor's arts are presented in special programs. Museum , 2ITT Front St., New York 10038... .Across the East River, the National Society's Fulton Ferry Landing Museum, just south of the Brooklyn Bridge, has had a well received exhibition on fireboats in the harbor, and , may shortly welcome some historic craft for harbor tours and sail training activities. Museum, 2 Fulton St ., Brooklyn NY 11201.

The Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild reports good progress in refitting the wooden barkentine Gaz.ela Primeiro for her proposed voyage

I

to Quebec in June. Their informative newsletter describes the "continuous effort" of staff and an energetic volunteer crew. Guild , Delaware & Spruce, Penn's Landing, Philadelphia PA 19106....South in the Chesapoeake, Bugeye Times, newsletter of the Calvert Marine Museum, reports that their 6Ift buy-boat l#n. B. Tennison , which started life in 1883 as a nine-log canoe, began public cruises this year May I. A major new exhibit, "Seasons of Abundance, Seasons of Want," opens June 30. Museum , PO CJ"/, Solomons MD 20688.

Hampton Mariners Museum in the old fi shing town of Beaufort , inside Cape Hatteras, announces the building of a ship's boat of the type used in exploration of the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries, a project that will be on view

this summer, with launch in September. Their Tenth Annual Traditional Wooden Boat Show will be September 29-30. Museum, 120 Turner St., Beaufort NC 28516.

On the West Coast, another Melbourne Smith traditional ship, the Revenue Cutter Californian, will slip into the water in Southern California on Memorial Day (see pp. 32-3) .... In San Francisco, the Friends of Historic Ships newsletter Bow 1-Jiuch reports that this great gang of volunteer ship people have gone to work on the stranded steam schooner l#ipama , not waiting for the Federal aid help the ship desperately needs and deserved as a National Landmark. Friends, 680 Beach St. , #330, San Francisco CA 94109. The Liberty Ship Jeremiah O'Brien steams from her Fort Mason berth to Sausalito, May 26, returning May 29-another vessel largely saved and kept steaming by ski lled (and dedicated) volunteers.

O'Brien, Fort Mason , Bldg. A, San Francisco 94123 .... And in Washington , the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding offers a full program of progessional training in building and maintenance. School, 25 1 Otto St. Glen Cove Industrial Park, Port Townsend WA 98368.

On lakes and ri vers we have the good news that the 1914 steamer Katahdin on Moosehead Lake, Maine, offers cruises again thi s summer thanks to the efforts of the Moosehead Marine Museum in Greenvill e, reviving a tradition begun as early as 1835 with th e first steamboa t on th e lake ... .while in New York the 1896 pad dlewheeler Mark Twain, which operated on the Miss issi ppi the first 65 yea rs of her li fe, languishes at the lntrepid's pier on the West Side of Manhattan , unable to secure community approval to open as a floating restaurant. . .The schooner Richard Robbins Sr., bui lt for the Delaware Bay oyster trade in 1902 , which had worked as a crui se boat first in Maine and then on Lake Champlain, is being refitted in Newburgh on the Hudson for service this summer out of Alpine NJ, fu rth er down the river opposi te Yonkers . ...On June 16-17 the Great Hudson River Revival , spo nsored by the Hudso n River Sloop Clearwater, will take place at Croton-on-Hudson , with the big sloop Clearwater in attendance along with the small ferry sloops Woody Guthrie and Sojourner Truth and other vessels, workshops and singing ashore.

Clearwater Revival , 112 Market St., Poughkeepsie NY 12601 ....Clearwater is a lso among the organizations playing a part in the programs of the Hudson River Maritime Center, halfway between New York and Albany at the old steamboat port of Kingston. Their well illustrated newsletter Focs 'le News reports acqui s ition of th e Rondout Lighthouse at the entry to the Rondout Creek, and the opening of an extensive exhibit on Hudson River ferries in the exhibit hall , renovated by volunteers over the wi nter. Center, I Rondout Landing, Kingston NY 12401.

The Thousand Islands Shipyard Museum offers the Third Annual Scale Model Competition May 26-27, open to professional and amateur modelers of all ages. The Museum houses a unique co llection of freshwater boats, on the St. Lawrence waterfront. Museum, 750 Mary St., C layton NY 13624.

NITTES & QUERIES I am writing a book about the action between the Liberty ship Stephen Hopkins and the German raider Stier in World War II (SH29:43), and would li ke to hear from anyone who built or sai led in the ship, or from next of kin. Ian A. Millar, Founder, Sons and Daughters of US Merchant Marine Veterans of World War 2 , 1806 Bantry Trai l, Kernersville, NC lli87.

For a book about the March 14, ICJ70 mutiny aboard the Columbia Eagle, a Victory type steamship chartered by the US Government (MSTS) during the Vietnam War to carry napalm , I wou ld appreciate hearing from former crew members, and from anyone else who has any information at all about the incident. Also, I wou ld li ke to hear from anyone with information regarding the defunct Columbia Steamship Co. , Inc., of Portland , Oregon, former owners of the Eagle. Richard Linnell , 16 East I05th St. #17, New York NY 10029.

Former crew members of the US. Navy Armed Guard gun crews of WWII are invited to a reunion , June 8-10, in Austin , Texas. Write Charl es A. Lloyd , 5712 Partridge Lane, Raleigh NC 27609.

A call is out for interesting vessels which " might be lured into Lake Erie to visit Buffalo" after th e Quebec 450th A nni versary and the Toronto/ Rochester celeb rations, we learn . For further information: Captain J. Edmund de Castro, Jr., USN, 132 Lexington Ave., Buffalo NY 14222 .

Racine celebrates its 150th anniversary this year and seeks to know more of Captain Gilbert Knapp, born at Barnstable or Chatham , Massachu setts, December 3, 1798. Knapp had much to do with the early history of the town and sailed in the vessels Leo, A.I. Dallas, Floyd, Morris, Sherman, Benjamin Rush , and lastly, the Fessenden of Detroit. "U nfortunately the Captain neglected to tell anyone about himself or where he had lived,'' notes historian AlvinJ. Pietkivitch of "Old Racine," 3422 North Green Bay Road , Racine WI 53404.

I want to get into communication with other enthu siasts interested in deep water sailing ships of the period 1880-1958 with a view to exchanging photographs and technical and genera l information. Chief Steward J6rgen LOnn , Borgmiistargatan 7, S-116 29 Stockholm , Sweden . U,

Companion Publ ication to lantern s

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SEA HISTO RY, SUMMER 1984

Historical Exhibit on Ferryboats of the Hudson Albany to New York.

Beautiful old black and white photos for each month, annotated dates in history makes th is an unusual gift , $14.50 includes shipping . Support the:

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44

Ferryboats-A Legend on Puget Sound,

by Mary Kline & George Bayless (Bayless Books, Seattle, 1983, 400pp, $39.95).

The history of the Northwest is inextricab ly li nked with its waterways , and whi le seago ing vessels, with thei r perceived romance, have captured most of the historian's attention, it was the munda ne and commonplace steamer and ferry that did so much , day in and day out , to develop the region. Here forthe first time is an authoritati ve examination of the vi tal part these smaller vessels played in transporting people, freight, and fina ll y the automobile.

The au thors, both with backgrounds in maritime history, are well qualified to produce such a work . Kl ine has been director of Northwest Seaport , while Bayless has long been active in local sh ip preservation efforts. Their mutual enthusiasm for the subject , which has created virtually a labor of love, shows throughout. Bayless purchased the extensive photo and document collection of the late Wm. Thomiley, public re lations man for Puget Sound Navigation Company, and it is this collection which provides the framework for their research efforts . The authors have compiled a tremendous amount of data and presented it wisely, without getting bogged down in obscu re detai l. (For those wishing to dig deeper, a good bibliography is included .)

The reader gets a solid gro unding in Puget Sound's maritime history, goi ng back to the Hudson's Bay Company steamer Beaver. The development of steam navigation in the region is presented , with the principal characters , such as Jos hua Green and the Peabodys of the Black Ball line, covered in detail.

Just what constitutes a ferry varies around the world , and the authors have, quite rightly, included the "mosquito fleet" of small steamers in showing how ferries developed. In modern context a ferry is a vessel operating on a regularly schedu led ro ute, in place of a bridge or tunnel.

This book does not deal with technical aspects of ferry construction, which may disappo int some readers . It is instead largely a story of people, those who ventured their capital to meet demand , the crews who ran the boats , and those who rode them. Fortunately, many of these people are still living, and their input has done much to enliven the narrative. Wherever poss ible, old timers such as Captai n Bob Matson have been interviewed , and many of those who figured in the history have checked the text for accuracy.

The chapter on the creation of labor unions, and the strikes of the thirties, is well done and sheds considerable light on how we got to our present situation . Perhaps this is the real value of history, to make sense

of our contemporary crises . Eventuall y the many smaller ferry compan ies were bought

by Peabody's Black Ball line and in time even Peabody was bought out- by the State of Wash ington. Why thi s happened , and how the State became owner of what is often call ed the largest ferry fleet in the world , is well covered . With perhaps a little reading between the 1in es o ne may discern who rea lly squeezed Peabody out , know ledge wh ich shou ld help in understanding today's messy situatio n.

There are hundreds of interesting photos of vessels, well reproduced , but unfortu nately captions are seldom dated and in some cases m iss ing enti rely. Editing of the text is poor. Employment of a tru ly competent editor, (a circumstance all too rare these days) would have perfected what is otherwise a fine effort. These oversights do little to lessen the work's importance, however.

In addition to a solid bib liography, there is a very thorough index and detailed fleet lists for the major ferry companies, features wh ich ins ure that Ferryboats wi ll become a standard reference. The physical aspects of the book, enhanced by Herb Carlson's renderings , are superb. Considering the high quality ev ident throughout , the price is ve ry reasonable. It is not likely that the wo rkaday ferryboats of Puget Sound wi ll ever receive such deluxe, comprehensive treatment in the future .

ROB ERT

B. CHAPEL

Mr. Chapel is editor of L ines and Offsets, journal of the Traditional Wooden Boat Society.

Steaming To Bamboola: The World ofa Tramp Freighter, by Christopher Buckley (Co ngdo n & Lattes , New York, 222pp, $7.95 pbk).

And where have all the sailormen gone?

Christopher Buckley tells us in Steaming to Bamboo/a , his narrative of life on a tramp steamer. The men who go to sea today, it seems, are very much like the men who went to sea a hundred yea rs ago in the tall ships. They are misfits. They are criminals.

They are innocents hiding from life on land.

They are loving, and , most of all , they are real human beings who love the sea.

Like the sail ors of old , they move from ship to ship with ease. They stride through foreign po rts as easily as New York and Savannah , and they stagger or are carried back to the ship at the last possible moment before she leaves port. There are differences, of course. Now, we have a chief engineer who hates the captain with a vengeance, but who loves that engi ne more than life ashore . There is someth ing cozy about the drippy and steaming atmosphere of a steamer's engine room that is lost in the more modern and antiseptic world of the SEA HISTDRY, SUMMER 1984

s low-speed d iese l.

Christopher Buckl ey captures the essence of li fe aboa rd the sh ip and g ives us a wa rm and sy mpathetic v iew of the me n w ho sail today. He has a lso captured th e sh ip boa rd atmos phere fro m the ac rid taste in the mo uth whi ch co mes fro m sa iling aboa rd a vesse l not we ll ca red fo r in dangero us and sto rmy wate rs to the fr ie ndships a nd enmities that develop d uring the voyage. From C harlesto n, South Carolina , to Breme rhave n, th ro ugh th e sto rm-swept E ng li sh C hanne l and back to New Orl ea ns, C hristopher Buckl ey reminds us, o nce aga in , that the re is something spec ia l abo ut me n who go dow n to the sea in ships.

ALA N

The 3 Masted Schooner

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Sailing Adventures

G CHOAT E

Choate, a maritime lawyer, is Secretary of the Na riona / Society.

SCHOONER HARVEY GAMAGE

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" World 's G r eatest Ship": The Story of the Leviathan , vo l. VI , by Fra nk 0. Brayna rd (Ameri ca n Merc hant Ma r ine MuseUin , US Me rc hant Ma rin e Acad emy, King 's Po int NY, 1983, 444pp, illus, obtainable fro m autho r, 98 DuBo is Ave., Sea Cliff NY 11579 fo r $47 pre pa id , o r $250 for th e s ix volumes + tx & shpg) .

We have come at last to the fin a l vo lume of Braynard's mo numenta l, millio n-wo rd histo ry of the fabled ocean liner Levia rhan.

He r chronicl e too k its dedi cated a uthor 15 years to co mpl ete. The first vo lume o pe ns in the opt imi sti c if threate ned wo rld of th e great line rs j ust befo re Wo rl d Wa r I , and includes a hea rtfe lt tribute to A lbe rt B allin , the German idealist and peace-seeke r who was the mov ing spirit be hind th e building of what became " the world 's greatest liner."

Big ships have big need s, and fill a big space in the public imag inati o n and in the me mories of th ose who sail in them , w he the r as first-class passenge r or coal-heave r. Frank Brayna rd 's big book fulfill s those great expectatio ns. He plunges fea rl essly into the w ide ning s ke ins of assoc iati o n that g athe r ro und the g reat line r, a nd his reward , and ours, is to see the ship li ve in inc re dibl e detail , in a ll the ups and downs of he r lo ng and va ri ed ca reer. So many times she had been threate ned with di sco ntinua nce, but he re at last she e nds he r days in a S cottish sc rapper's yard with a new a nd even mo re te rribl e war about to b rea k out upo n the wo rld . Bray nard ends the boo k on a n eleg iac note ex pressing the so rrow of William F ranc is Gibbs , her great advocate a nd p rotecto r in he r Ame ri ca n yea rs, at he r passing. Gibbs went on to fulfill his own dream , as Ballin did his, and built the s upe rline r United States; it is not pe rhaps too fa nc iful to see th e l eviathan rebo rn in th at ship, which surely inherited her title of " world 's g reatest ship."

A nd I think it right to say, to the world 's SEA HISlDRY, SUMM ER 1984

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46

greates t liner histo ri an (a nd summoner of peaceful gath eri ngs upo n the wate rs of o ur planet, from the Bicentennial's Op Sail ---'76 to this year's Op Ship---'84 at New Orleans): " Well done, Frank Braynard! " PS Britis h Steam Tugs, by P. N. Thomas (Wa ine Resea rch Publications , Mount Pleasant , Beamish La ne, Albrighton, Wolve rh am pton , WY7 3JJ , UK , 216pp, illu s. £ 15.95. Post-free wo rld w ide, dollars acce pted).

This beaut ifu ll y illustrated , large-fo rmat book includes many detailed plans of th e craft described , and is obviously backed by voluminous research. It opens with the firs t days of the steam paddle tug ea rly in th e 19th centu ry. These tugs became of increasing importance in ass isting the vas t fleets of sai l round the rock-bo und a nd often sto rm -las hed British coasts. The sto ry is traced o n throug h th e deve lo pme nt of th e powerful sc rew tugs a nd ocean-go ing vessels whi ch appea red late in the century, and of th e salvage tugs o n th e d readed Good w ins Sands and elsewhe re, nava l tugs. especiall y in two World Wars, and tugs built fo r such spec ia l purposes as th e Lifeboat Service- until at length steam was replaced by the all -pervad ing diesel. . One of the more inte res ting recent sagas 1s that of the steam paddl e tu g Ep pl eton Hall , built o n the Tyne in 1914, resc ued and restored and steamed across the Atl a ntic in 1970 by Scott New hall and Ka rl Ko rtum , which steams in San Francisco Bay today as a wo rking mu seum piece.

J AMES FORSYT HE

Major Forsyth e is Secretary of the World Ship Trust.

Navies of the West, by Bernard Ireland (Ian Allen , Shepperton , Surrey, TWl7 8AS, UK 1984, l92pp, illus, £9. 95).

A mos t comprehe nsive g uid e to th e navies of the Western powers, from the smallest fleets like th at oflreland , with ve ry few offshore patrol c raft , to th e vas t navy of th e United States and th e still sizabl e fl eets of France and Britain-all powers fo r which the seaways of the wo rld have major significance-this book deals with the vario us classes of vessels in an info rmati ve manner it provides not j ust a concise refe re nce, bu; a g uide to th e stre ngth s and weak nesses of Weste rn wa rship design.

JAF T he Guiness Book of Sh ips and Shi pping Facts & Feats, by Tom Ha rtma n (Guiness Supe rl ati ves , 1984, 265 pp, illus. , £9. 95 UK , $19. 95 USA , $24. 95 CAN).

A n abu nd a ntl y il lus tra ted " record ac hi eveme nts" c hroni cle of sea faring which makes s urpri singly good reading-

useful for c hecking dates and settling a rguments , though some a rguabl e conclusions are presented such as calling Preussen the fastest squ a re rigge r!

The Aspinwall Empire, by Duncan S. Somerville (Mystic Seaport Muse um , Mystic CT 06355, 1983, 129pp, ill us, $12 pbk) . A close and sympathetic look at William H . Aspinwall , merchant prince of South Street , builderofthe first China clippers and of th e rail way across Panama that helped bring the clippe r era to an e nd.

Deepl y studied , superbl y evocative of an era of challe nge and achievement.

The Empress of China , by Philip Chadwick Foste r Smith (Philadelphia Maritime Museum 321 Chestnut St. , Philadelphia PA 19106, 1984, 33lpp, illus, $3 5.00 hdbk , $17 pbk). This beautifull y printed volume conveys a vivid picture of America's first China venture, by a schola r deeply versed in the pe ri od and in seafaring, who admires vision and courage and thwacks rascality where he finds it. Another worthy effort made possible by a Mellon Foundation gra nt .

New York and the China Trade, by David Sanctuary Howa rd , intro. Conrad Edick Wright (New-Yo rk Histo rical Society, 170 Central Pa rk Wes t, New York NY 10024, 1984, l42 pp, illus, colo r, $18.95 pbk) . This catalog of the Society 's exhibition mounted to mark the bicentennial of the Empress voyage expresses the delicate cu lture Americans e nco unte rd in the Orient- an enco unte r ex plo red in a th o roughly worthwhile histo rical introduction .

Silent Pilots: Figureheads in Mystic Seaport Museum , by Georgia W. Ham il to n (M ysti c Seaport Muse um , 1984, 169pp, ill us, $15 pbk). This handsome, author itati ve rev iew of the Seapo rt 's fi g urehead collecti o n is the second in a series of monographs o n the Seaport's collections funded by the Andrew W. Mell o n Foundation- a brilliantly successful effo rt to get th e collections more accessible and understood by sc ho la rs a nd the pub lic. If yo u have wonde red at the fo rward -leaning figures gazing towa rd fa r ho ri zo ns in the Wendell Bui lding, yo u w ill find your wonder deepe ned in thi s effo rt to unde rstand th ese evocative statues and th eir prove nance.

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~SEA

HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

a

THE BOOK LOCKER On a late March day when the ra ins fell and the winds blew, assaulting and flooding the twisting streets of Lower Manhattan wh ich were choked with snow that had falle n only that morning, I came to film-make r Gary Pol lard 's small house to see Ne il H o ll a nd 's film The Last Sailors-a two-and-a-half hour explorati on among the surv iving working sai ling craft in the world . The company th at turned o ut this watery day included shipwright Richard Fewtrell , who built his ow n log raft to sa il with South American fisherman , Norman Brou wer, Curator of Ships at South Street Seaport , who had sa iled in remote corners of the ocean world in rather la rge r craft, Dimitri Popovich who grew up sailing schoone rs in the Bl ack Sea , o ur host Gary w ho had sailed in the sq uare rigger Statsraad Lehmkuhl , and the writer and director of the fi lm Neil Holl and , who fo r the past three years had been traveling to so uthern Chile to sail the sto ut cargo sloops th at still trade amo ng the islands faring so uth from the outpost market town of Puerto Montt , to Sri Lanka to sa il in 400-ton lateen vessels bringing fresh produce from the mainland amo ng othe r cargoes of va ri ed sort, a nd to Ganges delta to join th e thronging, largely squ a re- ri gged traffic in cattle , building materials, and God knows what-all th at move steadi ly from place to place by water roads . Outside, the wind howled a nd buffeted the snug brick building- insid e, we marveled at what we saw, the a rched canvas, the seaworn hulls and the seaw ise faces of the peopl e, and we li stened to Ne il 's sensi ti ve and bold reporting as read by Orson Wells. Walking away th rough streets that wo uld have been navigab le by some of th e small e r craft , lea ning aga inst the wind and mak ing my way by dim , grey la ndmarks in the c ityscape, trudging through sw irling waters , I th ought not of the exotic quality in what we'd seen but its huma nity, and a commonality in the seafaring ex pe rie nce and in th e water that covers most of our globe a nd ma kes it o ne.

See what yo u think . The film is ava il able in home video : Avant Communications, 36 West 44th Street , Rm. 7ITT, ew York 10036. Neil Ho lla nd , I must warn you , intends to go on from this; his work has been published in Europe in a book and will soon be published in New York .And he ho pes to save some of th ese nobl e work ing craft of incred ible durabi lity and grace of line , and not just the vessels but the skills to build and sail th em . There is onl y o ne center in the world th at does thi s in any seri ous way, the Exeter Ma ritime Mu se um in Engla nd . We shall be work ing further w ith Ne il in thi s matte r and perhaps if we are bold and lucky, we' ll see suc h a cente r take shape in New Yo rk Harbo r, for which we' ve recentl y SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984

established a National Society C uratorship.

Other film s linked to projects in wh ich we have a n interest are of course Jim Donaldson's awa rd-winning Ghosts of Cape Horn (ABC Wide World of Learning) , Sanford Law 's The Navigators (see SH29: 14-15; film ava ilab le from Documenta ry Ed ucati o nal Resources, 5 Bridge Street , Watertown MA 02172)-with Sam , we are hoping to do a film on the Ronson Ship, and what she means to the natio n (see SH28) ; Philip Thorneycroft Teuscher's Carib sailing film , and a film we hope to do with him on natural growth oystermen of the Connecticut sho re ; and Richardo Lopes's monumental record of the sailing of the Ernes1ina/Morrissey, a film including priceless, no lo nger re producible footage which we seek funding to bring out. The depth of conviction of the prod ucers is in each case ev inced in the fac t that each is linked to a n ed ucatio n project- the film maker wants you not o nl y to e nj oy the film but do something abo ut it. We salute all such , and hope to become produ cers in a modest way ourselves through an inspiring film reco rd made of a voyage with Alan Villiers (topic of this iss ue of SH) by the late Lambert Knight , rounding Cape Horn in the Parma in 1931.

I come back to my watery midday in Lower Manhattan: the sea th at seems to wash away space- it is the same sea , after all , that sw irl s around pilings in th e East Ri ver and hurtles aga inst th e rocks of Cape Horn, or laz il y sets th e fi shing boats bobbi ng unde r th e cli mbing hill side streets of Amalfi- also seems somehow to condense and uni fy time: faci ng into a gale at sea , o r in the awe of a star-fi I led night , alI seafarers are contempo ra ries.

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Limited Edition prints of C h esapeake sailing log canoes a nd oth er marine subj ects by

CHARLES RASK OB ROBINSON includin g some w hich appear in the summer 1984 Sea History article on log canoes.

Send $3. for full color catalogu e of these and other S&N p r ints on 100 % rag p aper to: BRUSH HILL STUDIOS Washington, CT06793 (203) 868-0898 (Catalogue pri ce full y credited againsl first o rde r)

*

A la n C hoate, in hi s review of C hri stopher Buckley 's Steam ing 10 Bamboo/a in this issue opines th at seamen remain much the same breed they we re in the days of wooden ships a nd iron men. But there has been cha nge, fundam e ntal and far-reaching, in the ways of life. This is illustrated in a richl y human book ed ited by the director of th e Marine Soc iety of Eng la nd - Ro nald Hope's Sea Pie. Described as "a celebration of fifty yea rs of The Seafarer," the Society's disti ngui shed magaz ine which has the dis tinction of carryi ng words and pictures only by seafarers , Sea Pie is challenging, amusing, touch ing stuff, the life stuff of seafaring in the las t half century. Copies of thi s 146- page paperback may be o rd e red from the Marine Society, 202 Lambeth Road , London DE i 7JW for £6.60 (£9.60 hdbk) , o r from NM HS, 132 Ma ple Street , Croto n NY 10520 for $ 15.00.

G

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~Hudson ~River

Revival 1984 Sat. JUNE 16 & Sun . JUN E 17 • 11 a.111. · Dusk CROTON POINT Park in Wes tches ter Co. , NY

A JOYOUS CICLEIJRA TION with Music. Dana.

Theatre , S toryt elling. Fiddlers' Co 1111e111io11.

E11 viro 11111e111al Displays, Crafts. Children 's Area

& S tage, Mime. Boat B11ildi11g & mu ch m ore TICKETS: Advance: SIO/day, $ 17/weeke nd : At tile gore: S I I .SO/ day, $20/ weeke nd Di sabled &ovcr60S6.00/ day. Children 12 & under with adult - free.

For tickets & fur1h er information : Writ e ro : Re11iral '84.

112 Marker Street, Poughkeepsie. NY I 260 1, or call (9 14) 454 . 7673.

47

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY RICHARD GALLA NT D OUGLAS A. BR UC E F REDE RI CK H . 13RUENN ER ROBERT GAR VIN STEVEN W . BR U ~l~IEL WAl.TER G ATE S AMERICAN C ONSER VATION A . BUCllTER JOSEPH A . GEMMA A SSOCIATION W~1. F . B UC KLEY . JR .

GEORGE ENGINE COMPA NY ANNENBERG F UND JOHN S . B ULL H . E . GERll ARD APEX \ 1ACHINE C ORPORA T ION NORM AN G. G ERMANY JOllN B UNKER JACK R . ARON AGA B URDOX J. T . GILBRIDE V INCENT A STOR F OUNDATI ON AD~!. ARLEI GH B URKE W ILLIAM GILKERSON A TLANTIC MAR IT IME ENTERPRISES USN (RET.) ROGER GJL~I AN H ARR Y BARON ROBERT J. B URKE ATWELL & (LARE GLASSELL BEEFEATER F OUNDATION C RA IG B URT , JR .

B ERNARD DAVID GLASSER ALLEN G. BERRI EN JAY G . B URWELL H EN RY G LICK B OWNE & C o ., INC. STEVEN B UTTERWORTH TllOMAS J. GOCHBERG C IT ICO RP

BY E B YE B IRDIE JA MES E. GO LDEN PRODUCTION S DAVE CLA RKE TH OMA S P . B Y RN~;s PETER GOLDSTEIN J A~I E S R. D ONALDSON JOllN CADDELL C ARL GOO D Dow CORN ING CORP .

JA~1 E S R . C ADY R . A . G RANT EUREKA C l!EMI CA L Co. B OYD W . C AFFEY JIM GRAY EVA GEBll ARD-GOURGAUD FDTN .

JOHN CALDER :\1 ASON GRAY W . R. CRACE FOUNDATION II ARRI ET ( AMPBF.LL . INC. DR. ROBERT W . GREEN LEAf HA IG/I T , GARDNER, POOR & H AVEN S 0 . CAREY ROBERT H . GREGORY \ •IR . & MRS. TH 0:-011\S HA LE :\I EL CARLIN H ENRY F . G REINER C APT . & M RS. PA UL R . H ENRY :\1RS. JOSEPH R . C ARTF.11: ROLAND D. G RIMM ELISABETH S . H OO PER F DTN. H AROLD J. CA SEY CAPT . & M RS. F REDERICK G UILD C ECIL I I OWA RD C HARITABLE CENTRAL G ULF L INES :\•ll CHAEL I. G ULDEN TR UST R . H . G ULLAGE C . A. C HA PI N ROBERT IRVING JAM ES E . C HAPMAN L CDR E MIL GUSTMSON R. C . J EH"ERSON LIN C HAPMAN CA LF . H ADDEN, JR .

BARBARA JOHNSON W A LTER A . H AG STR0~1 R . (HA RM AN C HRI ST IAN A . JOHNSON ( APT. GLEN R . C HEEK. U SN ( RET.) CHARLES W. H ALL ENDEAVOR fDN .

JOHN C HICHESTER :\10RTIM ER H ALL IR VING J Otl NSON ALAN C.. C HOATE JOHN R . HAM ILTON 1-IARJUS & E LIZA K EMP ER F UN D E RBERT C ICEN IA ROBERT K . H AN SEN A . ATWATE R KENT, JR. CIRCLE LINE CDR . W. H . H A~11 LTON DAVID J-1 . KOLLOCK M ARTIN E . C ITRIN S . H ANSEN- B URBANK CO .• LTD. II. R. I.OGAN CAPT . ROB ER T H ART U SN (RET.) A LBERT C. ( I ZA USKA S. JR .

MR . & MRS. C . T HOMAS CLAGETT . JR . WILLI AM HAY DEN JAMES A . M AC DON ALD FDN. JOHN G. H AYll Uff JAMES L. C LARK MARl Nt: SOC IETY, P ORT OF NY D AVID C LARKE C HRISTOPllER HEG MRS. E l.LI CE M CD ONALD, JR .

CA PT. JAMES E . HEG H ERBER T A. CLASS MI Lt' ORD B OAT WORK S. I NC. GEORGE F . C L E ~l ENTS H ELLENIC LI NES LIM ITED RADM E DMON D J. :\·! ORAN A RT HUR C LEVELAND TH OMAS HENRY USNR (RET.) JOHN ( OEN H AROLD H ERBER NATIONAL ENDOWM ENT FOR T HE EDWARD COLLINS W. R . HERVEY ll UMANITIES F . S. COLLINS H ERBERT ll EWITT NA UT ILUS FOUNDATION J. F ERRELL COLTON ROY H EWS01' NAVY L EAGU E W ILLIAM co ~t BS CARL H EXA~1 ER :\11CllA EL O'BRIEN CONSOLI DATED EDISON Co .. INC. A . E . HEYDENREICH RI CHARD K . PAGE MICHAEL PLATZE R JUDSON H IGGINS T REVOR C ONSTA BLE L. CDR. MICHAEL CORDASCO :"JEAL 0 . HI NES A . T . POUCll . JR .

JOHNSON PEDERSON lll NIUCllS H EN RY A . CORREA RCA RI CHARD C . CORRELL T HOR R A~t S I N G R . A . H O H ~I A N JAMES C OSTELLO RICllARD H OKIN :\•IR . & :\ IRS. JOSEPH G . SA WTELLE JOtl N C . C OUC ll 8 . H. H OOPER ll ELEN :\'IA RSHALL SCHOLZ JAM ES W . C OULTER ROBERT B. H OPE . \lD :\1R. & M RS. PETER SEEGER C OU NCIL OF M ASTER \I ARINERS STEPHEN H OPKI NS SIRIUS B ROKERS DAVID Cox ALIX T . H ORNBLOWER H OWARD SLOTNI CK (APT. ALA N 8 .

C RABTREE T OWNSEN D H ORNOR A . M ACY S~11TH JEffR EY C RABTREE ( APT ..\1 . F . H ORVAT l l JEAN S . S~urn BEN & SALLY ( RANE L A URA PIRES HOUSTON SET I! SPRAGUE F OUNDATI ON G EORGE"C RANDALL GODFRE\' G. H OWARD NORM A & P ETER STA NFORD CA PT. DR EW B. !·! OWES DOUG LAS C RUCET EDM UND A . STANLEY. JR .

C ORNELIUS V ANDERSTA R TH OM AS H OYNE, Ill C RUCIBLE Sn: ~: L CA STING COM PANY PER H UFFELDT ll ENRY PENN WENG ER CAPT. N .M .

C UR RI ER H UG llES BROS. INC. :\·I R. & :\1RS. W I U.I A~l T. Wrnn : WILLIA~1 ll UGllES. SR. JOHN ( URR\' C UTIY SA RK SCO TS Wlll SKY W ILLIAM H ULICK Ill ALI CE DADOURIAN ALA N D . H UTC HI NSON H AROLD D . H UYCKE PHILIP J. DA ILE\' REBEKAH T . DALLAS b1PERIAL CUP CORP. F . B RI GGS DALZELL INDUSTRIAL FABRICATING PETER T . DA~lON KAZ INOUYE RAn10ND AKER CHARLES DANA INT' L L ONGSllOREMEN ·s A ssoc.

A LCO :\•I ARINE AGENTS DARIEN POWER SQUADRON INTERNATIONAL ORGANI ZATION P . :\1 . ALDRIC H (DR. W. H. DARTNELL OF M ASTERS, :\1 ATE S & PILOTS Tll O~I A S ROY ALLEN JA~I ES K . DAVIDSON JOT C ORPORATION A~I E R I C A N B UREA U OF SHIPPING F . K ELSO DAVIS JAK OB I SBRANDTSEN A ~IE R I C A N INSTIT UTE OF :\1ERCHANT SlllPPING P . S . DE BEA U ~I ONT GEORGE I VEY A~I ER I C AN PRESIDEl\"T LINES. L TD. ANTH ONY & JOANNA D EA N JACKSON & CO .

ROBERT A MORY . JR .

C APT. J. E . DECASTRO. U SNR C APT. GEORGE W )AllN C llA ll:LES AND ERSON ROBB DEGNON PA UL C . JAMI SON CAPT . E . R . ANDERSON J . A . DE L UC E RAPHA EL JANER :\1R . & MRS. WALT ER AN DERSON BOYD JEWETT RI CHA RD A. DENNY A NDRE 1\'1. ARMBRUSTER JOSEPl l DE PA UL & SONS ( HARLES W . JEffRAS L AURENC E H . ARM OUR. JR. R . H . JOll N C HART AGEN CY ROlllT M . DESA I PETER A RON H IRA~1 D EXTER H ENRY JOHNSON ARn: K INC . :\•I A LC O L~1 DI CK NEILS W . JOHNSON RI CllARU A S HER~1 A N JA MES DICKMAN A LAN JON ES A TLANTIC CORDA GE COll: I' . \\ '. J. JOVAN JOSEPll 0 1RSA B ILL AU BRY JOSEPll D OYLE W . H ADDON JUDSON ll ARR Y K . B AILEY R . L. DO XSEE NORMAN KAMER~l A NN K EN BA ILEY JEREM IAH T . DRISCOLL NEIL K EATING JOUN B . B ALC ll RIC HARi) E . DRO VER :\I. W . KEELIN G 8 . A . B ALUWIN, JR .

C APT. JOHN :\·I. KENNAUAY DRYBULK C HARTERI NG HOBERT H ALY CRAN t' ORD D UNCAN JOHN KENNEY B . D EVEREUX B ARKER R . j . O UNl'llY KIUU ER. P EA BODY FRANK BARKER ll OWARD 1-1 . EDDY W ILLA RD A. KI GGINS JAMES B ARKER E DSON CORPORATI ON NAT 8 . KI NG JEffRE Y BARLOW P lllLI P EGERT ) 1 ~1 & P EGGY K INGSBURY PETER B ARLOW CAPT. RA YMONU T . EISENBERG JOll N KINNEY IRA :\·1. B AROCUS DA VID 8 . ELLIOTT DONA LD P . KI PP J. H . BASCO~!

JAME S EL\1ER. JR .

S. L. K ITTERMAN DAVID BASS 0A~1 0N L. El\"GLE NOR~IAN KJELDSEN DAVID SASSING EPIROTIKI LINES CDR . :\1 . S. K L EIN, USN R . S . B AU ER E RI KSEN W . K LEINDI ENST . :\1D H OBEY 8A UHAN (DR. L.F. E ST ES R . J. K NEEL\ND BENJAM IN BAXTER E LIOT K NOWLES W ILLI AM E VE RDELL BAY RffRAC TORY HARRY K NOX JOll N & CA ROL E WAl.D BAY RIDGE WA T ER & K OBI E NTERPRI SES EYE VIEW F ILM S LIGHTERAGE K OBRAND CO RP ORA T ION HENRY EY!.

B A \' OU MAR INE C ONSU LTANTS ARTH UR K OELLER JIM FA BER N . B . BEAM BETTY KOHAREK JOllN HE NRY FA LK W ALTER BELL DAVID K OLT HOff JA ~1 ES P . F A RLEY JAMES BENNETT E DITH K OONT Z CA PT . JOSF.PH FARR C HARLES A. BENORE SANDRA KRA~1 ER ROBERTS . F ELNER HAROLD P . BERNSTEIN W ILLIA~! H . KR AM ER \1R . & :\1RS. STEPllEN ;., 1, F ENTON BRONSON B INGER ANDREW K RAVIC \ 1RS. JEAN FINDLAY G EOffR EY B IRKH OLZ GEORGE P . K ROH PETER F INNERTY R . M . B I R~11N G HAM C . SCOTT K ULICKE C HA RLES FLEISHMANN W OODEN B OAT S . A NDREW K ULIN M ELA NIE FLEISHMA NN C ARR OLL N . BJURNSON D ANIEL LADD MR . & :\1RS. B ENJAM IN F OGLER ARTll UR BLACKETT NORTON LAIR D FON. JAMES Fo u :y JEff BLINN A NTH ON Y L A \ 1ARCO A LANSON F ORD DANA BLISS GEORGE R . L AM B F . S . F ORD . JR. B L00 ~1 1 N GDAL ES ROBERT L A PORT HENRY F ORSYTH R . A . B OWLING E DWIN LARSON C HARLES F ORTES \ 1B I ORIAL BARRY L. B OYER CH ARLES LA UTE R ~llLCll F UND J. W . B OYLE K EVIN L EARY :\11SS HAZEL ANN F ox ART HUR E . BRACY CLARK L EE :\·I A RBURY B . F ox C APTAIN ROBERT G. B RAUN W . C. LENZ C HARLES M . FREY FREDERI CK BREWSTER PHILIP LEONA RD J . E . FRICKER K .L . B RIEL MR . & MRS. T . E. LEONARD B ENNO F RIEDMAN PA UL H . B RIGER RI CK L EVINE PRODUCT IONS D R. H ARRY FRIEDMA N S . R . BROSS. JR. D AVID L EVITT FR IENDS OF TUE H ISTORI C S11u •s NORM AN J. BROU WER PAULS. L EWI S, JR. FRITZSCllE . DODGE & O LCOTT, INC .

H ARRY & C INI BROWN RUT HERFORD P . LI LLE Y ) Oll N S. F ULLERTON JAMES C . BROWN R . A . F ULTON LINCOLN SAVINGS B ANK RAYMOND G . BROWN L INDENMEYR PA PER CO .

G AGE & T OLLN ER

SPONSORS

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A. S. Li ss DR . & MRS. LLO YD Ii. R . L OGAN C APT . L. \1 . L OGA N JHF L OVI NGER KL\U S L UCKA ( HARLES L UNDGREN JOHN E . L UN DIN Ross MA CD UFFIE C APTAIN WILLIAM H. ?l·IACF ADDEN ALEN MACWEENEY. INC. JOSEPH B .H . M ADI SON JOHN M AGUIRE C LIFFORD 0 . M ALLORY PETER MA NI GAULT A NTH ON Y MARQU ES ELI SABET H M. MARTE l.L Tt!OMAS F . :\1ASON ROBERT MASTROG10V ANN1 PH ILIP ~VI ATTI N GLY PETER \ 1AX JAMES MCALLI STER JOHN G . ~1 C(ARTH Y CA PT. E. C. :\•I CD ONALD JEROME :\1CGLYNN RAYMOND T . :\ICK A Y R . M. :\1CI NTOSH 1 0EL B . M CL EA N ) AMES M CNAM ARA E . F . M CSWEENEY III ROBERT :\·I CVITTIE :\·!EBA DISTRICT 2 A NTIWNY :\I EDEIROS ( APT. FRANK :\•I EDEIROS RICll ARD A ..\ 1ELLA SCH UYLER M EYER. JR . \ 11DLAND l l'SURA NCE CO. JOHN MIL LER C APT. PHILI P MO l lUN R. K ENT M JT Cl! El.L C HESTER MIZE :\1 0NOMY F UND :\10NTAN T RAN SPORT (US A) INC. C .S. \1 0RGAN C HARLES :\10RGAN J . R . :\·I ORRI SSEY AN GUS C . MORRI SOI' \ 1R. & :\1RS. E~11L ~1 0S BA C ll E R , JR .

FRA NK 1 \ -I OSC AT I. INC. RI CHARD :\10SES :\1YERS & GRI NER/CU ESTA MYST I C WH ALER NANTUCKET S tllPYARD NAT'L H I ST ORI CAL Soc. NATIONA L :\1I AR I Tl ~lE UNION E RIC, ELSON H ARRY L. NELSON . JR .

FR . EARLE NEW~IA N NEW YORK AIR NY PROPERTIES N Y SH IPPING A SSOC. N EW YORK T ELEPHON E CO. GEORGE N I CHOLS ROBERT A. N ICHOLS JOHN NOBLE D AVID ] . NOi.AN CAPT. W M . J. N OONAN J. A . N ORTON :\·IJLTON G . N OTT I NG ll A ~I 0 . G . OBER OCEA NI C NAVIGATION RESEARCH SOC IET\' C LIFFORD 8 . O" l-I A RA T . :\10RGAN O" H ORA J A ~IES O'KEF.FE KALEVI A . 0LK IO B J . O'NEl l.L

O RE S JIOWARD O T WAY PA Cff l C-G u u · :\'IARINE. INC. R ICHARD K . PAGE WALTER PAGE \\"I LLIA~t PAPA REL LA S .T. PARKS DAVID PARTRIDGE \lR S. G . J . PELI SSERO A. A . PENDLETON PENNSYLVAN I,\ $C tl00LSHI P ASSN CAPT. D .E. PERKI NS \ 11LES A. N . PETERLE G UNNA R PETE RSON J. C. L. PET LER STEPHEN PFOUT S W ALTER PHARR DR . JERRY C. PICKREL \ ' INCENT J. PIECYK PLATZER S HI PYARDS. INC. AD~\. T . R . POLLACK GARY POLLARD PORT A UTH ORIT\' OF i\'Y & '.'\) G EORGE POTA~IJ ANO S TH EODO RE PR ATT WALTER PRETZAT R . S . PULBO EBEN\\' . PYNE TH OR H . RA~I S ll' G RICH A RD RATH J1 ~1 H . REED COL. A LF RED J. REESE JOtlN REILLY P. R . J. RErNOLDS DONALD RI CE P ETER PEIRCE RI CE FREDERICK W. RI C H ~1 0ND F DN. INC. Russ R I E~1 ANN ROBERT RIGG E DWA RD RI TTENHOUSE E . D . ROBB INS. \10 C HARLES R . ROBINSON PETER ROBINSON VI CENTE RODRIQUEZ HAVEN C. ROOSEVELT DANIEL ROSE F REDERI CK ROSE DAVID ROSEN A . 8 . ROSENBE RG F .S. ROSENBERG :\·I. ROSENBLATT JAMES W . ROYLE . JR .

DA VID F . RYA N :\1 . j. RYAN C HARLES IRA SACHS D . R . SAGARINO CA RROLL A . SA LA ST . ) OE MINERALS JOl l N F. SALI SBURY JAMES M . SA LTER Ill A . HERBERT SAND WEN SAND Y H OO K PILOTS A ssoc .

:1JR. & :\1RS. JOSEPH G e SAWTELLE W. 8 . II . SA WYER FRANK SCAVO DAVID & B A RB A RA SC HELL RA D ~!. WALTF.R F . SCllLECll. JR .

JOYCE SC l lOBRJCll JOS!l l!A :\•I. SCHWARTZ A USTIN SCOTT SEAllAWK I NTERN ATIONAL SEA ~l EN·s C l!URCll INST ITUTE DI ELLE Fl.E I S ll~1A N SEIGNI OUS S E LI G ~I A N SECURITIE S \11 CllAEL SERENSON W li.LIAM A . SHEEH AN ROBERT V . SHEEN, JR. RI CHARD A . SllER.\ IAN K ENNETll \ \ '. SHEETS . JR .

SHlf'S OF T ll t: SEA ;'vf USEUM CA!'T. II. II. SMUt.ELDT DAVID W. SIMMONDS D . \ \ '. St).lf' SON GEORGE Sl.\11'50N ROBERT S!NCERBEA UX FRA NC I S I) . SKELLEY D. L. SLADE DAVIU L. SLAGLE E. K EITll SLI NGSBY HOWARD SLOTN ICK II . F . S.\ IJTll JA~ I E S

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SONAT :\1ARINE. l/\ C. CON WAY B. SONN E T l lO ~I AS SOULES EUW Alm SPADAFORA T. Sf' IGEDllRE Sl'OFFORO JOHN CREW OF Tll E SS BT SAN D IEGO l< Al.l' H .\ \.S TALL ALFHED STAN 1'0R D llHJ AN STA REJ.! l'HI LJ/' STEN G~ R EDNA & I SAA C STERN F DTN. \\1 . T. STEVt:l'S J. T . 5TILD1A.-.

JOl l N STOBART )A~1 ES J. STORROW STUA RT REG AN STONE FRAN K SUCCOP RICl lARU SWA 'I J. C. SYNNOTT SU MNER B . TILTON, JR. SUN REFI NING & \ 1KTG. Co .

SUN S tlll'. I NC. ROBERT JI . SWAIN SWISS A~IER I CA N SECURI T IES 11'C. R. S. SYMON G II. T ABER ) Ol l N T ll U R~IAN DOLIG LAS A . TILDEN SUM NER 13. T ILTON ROBERT TI S 1 1 ~1AN T OAU PIWDUCTI ON GEO RGE F. T Ol.LEFSEN SKll' & ROGE R T OLLEFSON MR . & :\1HS. ALLt:N W. L. T OPPING AN T llONY TRAU.A W. A LLEN TRAVER. JR .

URLIC E TRnlBLY. \10 J A ~1 ES D . T UR."ER Tllm tA S T UR/'.ER UN ION DR Y DOCK l 1NI VERSA L \ l ARITl~IE SER VICES C ORPORATION U.S. N AVIGAT101' Co. U.S. LI NES RENAUD VALEN T IN CA!'T. RO BERT D . VA LENTINE M ARI ON VALPEY VANGUARD F OUNDATION ) Oll N D. VAN ITA i.LiE VAN :\H:TER RAN CH BLA IR VEDDER. JR .

Ctl ARLE S VI CKERY JOHN VREELAND Jl\ ,\ IES W ADATZ Slt ANNON \\' ALL A LEXANDE R J. W AL LACE !~ A YM OND E. W AL LACE E. R. \\'A LLEN3El<G R. C. W AL LI N<; i'ATER ~1 . W ARD A. W ARRI CK D AVID WAT SON N. \\" . W ATSON ~ I R S. ELIZA BET ll WEEDON A RTH UR 0 . WELL~IAN Tl l O ~IA S W ELLS W , S . WELLS L. H ERNDON W ERTH WE STLAND F OUNDATION JOllN \\' ESTRDI JOHN ROBERT \\'111 n : RAY~ON D D. WHI TE W I LLI A~\ T . \\'H ITE G. G. \\'lllTNEr. JR .

FR. JA~IE S W HITTE~lO R E LA URENCE \\"lll TTEMORE ANT llONY W ID~1 AN CAPT . ll AROLU B . W ILDER CA PT . & ~1R S. JOtl N !\:l. WI LL. JR .

II . SE WALL \\ ' ILLIAM S STAN WILLIAM S i<AMA U WrU.I AMS W ILLI AMSBURG SAVINGS BA NK P. J . \\'1 LL1A MSON H AROLD 0 . \\'ILi.iS JAMES H. \\'J LU S :\1 ALC OL~I WI LSON SU ZANNE C. W ILSON CAPT. J. :\1 W JNDAS SIDNEY WI NTON L A URENCE F. W1TTnt ORE WO~IE N S P ROPELLER CLUB. POlff OF B OSTON W0 ~1 EN S PROPELLE R CLU B, PORT OF JA CKSONVILLE J En · W oODS C~IDR . PMILO Woon. USN (RET .) !\I ARVIN R . W ORTELL T !l O ~! A S H . WRIG HT WI L LI A~\ C. Wi'GANT YACllTING JAME S H . \' OC UM ALEN SANDS YORK JOHN YOUELi. ll EN RY A. YOU.\1A NS AN NE YOUNG W . J. Y UENG LING

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Engineering lbmorrow's Sea History

"Christm as in Fe lls Point" is an o riginal painting in acrylic, by Pilot Captain Brian Hope, depicting the Pilo t Steame r Maryland as she prepares to get underway fro m the foot of Broadway in Balti more fo r he r station a t Cape He nry in mid- Dece m ber 1922.

This Is MM&P Country The Association of Maryland Pilots owned the Pilot Steamer Maryland during her 27-year career as a pilot boat. Although lacking the modern navigation instruments with which today's pilot boats are equipped , the skilled and courageous pilots of that time performed their duties with such cool precision and proficiency that they have become part of the lore of the waterfront.

Today's pilots regularly register for courses such as All-Weather Navigation , Electronic Navigation and Ship Handling so they can enhance, in the safe environs of the land-based ship simulators and other classrooms, the ski lls necessary for guiding all kinds of vessels in all kinds of weather through the busy traffic of the nation's harbors. At any time you will find MM&P Pilots enrolled in these and other courses at MM&P's Maritime Institute of Technical and Graduate Studies (MITAGS) at Linthicum Heights, Maryland .

MITAGS is the result of a close and profitable collaboration between MM&P and the American flag shipping companies in their joint Maritime Advancement, Training, Education and Safety (MATES) Program.

ROBERT J. LOWEN International President

LLOYD M. MARTIN

ALLEN C. SCOTT

International Secretary-Treasurer

International Executive Vice President

International Organization of

Masters, Mates & Pilots 700 Maritime Boulevard , Linthicum Heights, Ml 21090 •Tel: (301) 850-8700 •Cable: BRIDGEDECK, Washington , DC• Telex: 750831