Jakob /sbrandtsen inspects th e bolting-up of the deckhouse, prior to rive11ing th e plates in place. At center, th e ship in her salad days, laden with California grain in San Francisco Harbor (this portrait led to Kortum 's discovery ofher); and at right , as she looked on a soft summer day this year, at her pier in South Street Seaport, below the Brooklyn Bridge in New York's E.ast Ri ver.
we don't know fell down that hatc h in 1907, died of his injuries, and was buried at sea from the Wavertree , as we know from A .G. Spiers's narrative.3 In August the ship returned from the yard to her South Street pier, with her sand bins cut down to the tweendeck level , and new bulb beams stretched across the gap the bins had made in the deck structure. Web plating was ri vetted in place to reinforce this underdeck structure, all done in traditional style. The wooden deck , laid by a hard-driving crew from Maine, was installed as summer ended , while the volunteers still continued cleaning and painting the ship's vast fabr ic. My contribution slacked off as the demands of the fall season took over, but the volunteer crew grew as people noticed the activity aboard . Prodded by Jakob, we put up a littl e sign offering " Dirty work , long hours, no pay " which suitabl y became the motto of the Wavertree Gang . Clearly, a new presence and new ethos was here to stay. One of the autumn's recruits was Penny Thomas, newl y emigrated from Wales . Jakob put her to work under one of the big tanks that had been used to hold ship's biscuit , which lay on the floors in the bilge. Scrunched down under this big metal box between the floor pl ates, Penny felt , I think , a bit oppressed. I was working in a neighboring bay, and Penny handed me an amorphous, dripping lump of goo with something hard inside. "What is this awful thing?" she asked rather plaintively. " You should know it , Penny," I told her. " That's a piece of Welsh coal." The Wavertree's last cargo out of Cardiff was coal, we believe, and salvaged lumps of it retrieved from the bilges are available. Perhaps Jakob plans to hold a ceremoni al fire with them one day. So the work went forward, rain or shine, in boiling heat or thick snow. A small grou p turned out Wednesday nights, and a larger group, numbering usuall y about two dozen , turned to at SAM Saturdays, adjourning to neighborhood pubs into the evening. Now and then a special occasion has come along. One such was when William F. Buckley, Jr., and his wife Pat came to meet with volunteers and supporters, with Os Brett the marine artist who painted " The Wavertree off Cape Horn ," of wh ich prints have been made that are given to donors of $100 or more to the ship. On the lOOth birthday of the Brooklyn Bridge dinner was served aboard to a crowd of several hundred people, who were suitably awed by the fireworks bursting and booming over a river filled with the bobbing lights .of attendant craft. In the fall of 1983, work began on a steel deckhouse, which now, 3500 rivets later, is complete. It is dedicated to the memory of Allen Rupl ey, who died , full of yea rs but missed by all , the previous February. He had started his career in the forecastle at W.R. Grace, without fo rmal education , and rose to command 3. The Wavert ree: Being an Accou nt of an Ocean Wanderer and Particularly of a Voyage Around the Horn in 1907-1908 from the Narrative of Capta in George Spiers, edited by Peter Stanford (South Street Seaporr Mus eum, New York , 1969) .
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preserving a generous, open outl ook. No friend of shoddy work or shoddy behavio r, he was endlessly helpful to people he fe lt we re really doing their best. In the memoir which J. Peter Grace wrote for SEA HISTORY (SH29:13) he spoke memorably of " the depth of Rup's concern for others." Two things may be observed of the restoration to date. First, it has been first-class all the way. Prince Philip, in his visit in 1981 , had advocated duraluminum spars, say ing that to send up wooden ones was j ust "storing up troub le for future generations." But those of us involved in the restoration have felt it is our job to store up trouble for future generations! Trouble is life, and the li ving processes of restoration should , we fee l, continue and perhaps be perpetuated in a school aboard the ship. The second thing is that it has been executed with extraordinary economy. Thus the deckhouse, slated to cost $110,000 by shipyard estimate, has been brought in for $27,000. The poopdeck awning, estimated at $6,000, is bei ng completed for $1,500 -and is a superior job, handsewn of flax imported from Arbroath, Scotland . How do you get superio r qua lity at roc k-bottom low cost? T hrough dedicated leaders hi p, and the force of human desire ex pressed through volunteer labo r. Prince Philip maintains his interest in the ship and in the argument for the use of original material s and traditional methods. He sent the Wavertree Gang a message last yea r sayi ng: The National Maritime Hi sto rica l Society has done a wonderfu l job in restoring Wavertree for th e instruction and pl easure of th e publi c. Her presence at the Sou th Street Seaport Museum in New York wi ll help to remind all who see her of the great debt the city owes to her and her kind and to the sea men who manned her.
I am sure this leader in maritime preservation world wide, who serves as President of Eng land's Maritime Trust , would not object to my adding, that the Wavertree restoration may stand not onl y as a monument to the seamen who manned her, but to the cheerfu l, dedicated crew who are her ship's people today.
The Wavertree project strengthened the South Street Seaport Museum in its early days. Sending out hard-won money to a ship 6,000 miles away inspired extraordinary resolve in those days when the South Street dream had few supporters and it was difficult to keep the doors open at home. The Wavertree still generates that kind of commitment today. Her crew are restoring a Whitehall boat in her tweendeck, and under National Society aegis, two vessels have been added to her program: the sail training brigantine Black Pearl, and the harbor lighter Vernie S. The Black Pearl is currently being restored with new cabin house and mainmast; the Vernie has already been on several cargo-carrying missions, up the Hudson to bring back donated material from IBM's Fishkill plant, and most lately f etching the Black Pearl's new mainmast from City Island. SEA HISTORY, WINTER 1984-85