worker scraping out the ship' s hold, or the teenage student happy to grapple with wood and iron as a respite from algebra and social studies , each is helping to keep the ship afloat literally and figuratively. The ships need people, but it is also true to say that people need their ships . As the actual experience of sailing the big square-riggers died out in the world , the question arose , what would happen to the skills that maintained them? Harry Dring, who had sailed with Kortum on that voyage in the Kaiulani in 1941 , had kept the Balclutha in shipshape fashion, and tended to the growing family that gathered round her-the steam schooner Wapama, the schooner C. A. Thayer and other vessels . The skills of old-time sailormen , Captain Fred Klebingat of Falls of Clyde, his friend "S miling Jack" Dickerhoff the master rigger, and others had been mustered to restore Balclutha, Star of India, Falls of Clyde-but who would step in behind them when they were no longer there to summon the old skills and give things about the decks the shape and style of a vanishi ng culture? Kortum noted this concern recently: "I wondered what was goi ng to happen to the vessels when the old-timers passed from the scene. That question has happily been answered. " The same force that draws people to the ships drives people to give the best that is in them to their ship-and that includes learning the old ways, learning them and passing them on . The rebuilding and sailing of the Elissa, Alexander Hall's beautiful iron bark of 1877 , which Kortum and other National Maritime Historical Society leaders were concerned to save even before the Society existed, speaks volumes for the vitality of this culture. The Elissa sails, bringing life to Conrad' s observation that it is good to be alive in a world in which such a vessel has her being (he was speaking of the very similar bark Otago , which he had commanded under sail), and bringing life to the concerns and memories and aspirations of all who share in the dream of voyaging which has so occupied mankind since people first set out on the waters that cover most of earth's surface , and which has so reshaped mankind's world. We do demand more of museums these days, and we should . They are not just attics full of junk, though junk can be rewarding to explore. They are vital centers of-what was it Kortum said?-lore, humanity, history . ... And they are more vital as the old world of work under the open sky gives way to the world of abstraction, not even paper any more, but electric impulses stored away in hidden circuitry. That's progress , perhaps. But it is not well to see the world always through a screen. SEA HISTORY , WINTER 1987-88
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The museum ship delivers her message with great force and utter directness . And she reaches multitudes, with a message that is fresh and full of challenge-as challenging as having the sea come crashing through your room one morning, sweeping your bed away, as challenging as the wi ld dawn breaking over an utterly untamed sea, and the great freedom old sailors speak of, in service to the ship . .i,
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ROSE is U.S. docume~ted - 2899 11
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R~E Underway on 1June1988 The Largest Sailing School Vessel in America For facts regarding : •Educational Programs • Port visits • Corporate use • Licensed crew • Apprentice crew
The Continuing Story Surprisingly, this remains a very sparsely documented field , despite the public interest so unmistakably shown in public visitation to historic ships. The only accounts of the historic ships movement are the 55page booklet The Ships That Brought Us So Far (1971) by Peter Stanford, available in xerographic form from NMHS for $4. It is supplemented by another NMHS booklet, "Take Good Care of Her Mister ... " Frank Carr and the Ship Trust Movement (1974) , also by Peter Stanford , available for $2. Both works , little more than a decade after their publication , are seriously in need of updating. Individual histories for only a few ships as museums do exist. The best accounts of actual ship saving are undoubtedly Richard Goold-Adams' s classic account of the saving of the Great Britain, The Return of the Great Britain (1976) , and Ernie Bradford' s Story of the Mary Rose, which treats the subject of the recovery and display of Henry VIII's flagship through 1982. Steven E. Levingston's Historic Ships of San Francisco, A Collective History and Guide to the Restored Historic Vessels of the National Maritime Museum (1984), with a foreword by James P. Delgado , is perhaps the best single book about the purposes that underlie the saving of a group of ships in one place . Last, but by no means least, is Norman Brouwer's encyclopedic International Register of Historic Ships ( 1985) , published by the World Ship Trust in conjunction with the US Naval Institute and the NMHS . This single volume treats more than 700 existing historic ships-whether working, in museums or unmai ntai ned- with capsule histories for many of the vessels and brief bibliographies for nearly all of them.
Contact "HMS" ROSE Foundation 1 Bostwick Avenue Bridgeport, CT 06605 (203) 335-1433
tftlANIEL S. ·~11
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--- o00-1 B1\) ' L \ S\ \~ ' lf;lfN J: RIDING SAILS YACHT SAILS COTTON FLAX AND DACRON
Box 7 1, Li ncoln Street, East Boothbay, Mai ne 04544 (207) 633-507 1
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