Sea History 049 - Spring 1989

No. 49

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

SPRING 1989

y.:75

THE ART, LITERATURE, ADVENTURES , LORE & LEARNING OF THE SEA

THE GLOUCESTERMEN: They Fished the Bitter Seas with

Matchless Grace and Speed. On

a Few Survive Today ....

MSC Fuels The Fleet

USNS Kawishiwi refueling USS Missouri and USS Kitty Hawk

The Military Sealift Command (MSC) operates 21 fleet oilers, stores and ammo ships that keep Navy combatants resupplied around the world. These ships are the backbone of the U.S. Navy's underway replenishment fleet.

Pictured above is USNS KAWISHIWI which has been operated by MSC since 1979. She operates off southern California and averages 450 underway replenishments each year.

MSC offers excellent civil service career opportunities both afloat and ashore. For information write to:

MILITARY SEAUFT COMMAND Washington Navy Yard Attn : Hedy Kuemmel, M-22c Washington, D.C. 20398-5100

MSC IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

ISSN 0146-9312

No. 49

SEA HISTORY

OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE WORLD SHIP TRUST

SEA HISTORY is publi shed quarterl y by the National Maritime Hi stori ca l Soc ie ty, 132 Maple Stree t, Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520. Second c lass postage pa id at Croton-on-Hudson N Y 10520.

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ME MB E RS HIP is in v ited. Pl ankowne r $ 10,000 ; Be nefactor $5,000; Spo nsor $ 1,000; Donor $500; Sustaining Patron $250; Patron $ 100; Contributo r $50; Famil y $35; Regula r $25; Student o r Re tired $ 12.5 0. A ll membe rs outside the USA pl ease add $5 for postage. S EA HISTORY is se nt to all me mbers. Indi vidu al copies cost $3 .75 .

OFFICERS & TR USTEES a re Chairman , James P. Mc All iste r; Vice Chairmen, Alan G . C hoate, James Ean, Schuy le r M. Meyer, Jr. Ric hard I. Morri s; Presider// , Pe te r Stanford; Vice President, Norma Sta nford ; Secretary , Spe ncer Smith; Treasurer , Robe rt W . Ell iott , Ill ; Trustees, He nry H. Anderson, Jr. , A lan G . Choate, W ilbur Dow, Robe rt W. Elliott , Ill, Karl Kortum , Ric hardo Lo pes, Robert J . Lowen, James P. Mc Alli ste r, Sc huy le r M . Meyer, Jr. , Richard I. Morri s, Nancy Po uc h, Lud wig K. Rubin sky, Spencer Smith , Pe te r Stanfo rd , Ed ward G. Zelinsky; Chairman Emeri111s, Karl Kortum ; President Emeritus , A lan D. Hutc hison.

OV E RSEER S : Chairman, He nry H . Anderson, Jr. ; C harles F. Adams, Townsend Hornor, George La mb, C li ffo rd D. Ma llory , Sc hu y le r M . Meyer, Jr. , J. Wil lia m M idde ndorf, II, Ric hard I. Mo rri s, John G. Rogers, Jo hn Stobart.

A DV ISORS: Co-Chairmen , Fra nk 0 . Braynard , Me lbo urne Smith ; Raymond Ake r, George F. Bass , Fra nc is E. Bow ke r, O swald L Brett, Dav id Brink, Wil lia m M. Doerflinger, John S. Ewa ld , Joseph L. Farr, Timothy G. Foote, Ric hard Goo ld Adams, W alte r J. Hande lm an, Robe rt G. He rbe n , II , R. C. Jefferson, Irving M. Johnson, John Ke mble, Conrad Mil ste r, Edward D. Muhl fe ld , Willi am G . Mull e r, George ichols, Dav id E. Pe rkins, Ri chard Rath , Nancy Hughes Ric hardso n, Timo thy J. Ryan , George Sa lley , Melbourne Smith , Ralph L. Snow, Albe rt S wanson, Pe te r Th roc kmorton, Sh annon J. Wall , Robe rt A. We in ste in , Thomas Well s, C harles Witth o lz. American Ship Trust, Hon. Secretary , Eric J. Be rry man.

WORLD SH IP TRUST: Chairman, We nsley Haydon-B aillie; Vice Presidents, He nry H. Ande rson, Jr. , Vi scou nt Caldecote, Sir Rex Hunt, Hammond Innes, Rt. Hon . Lo rd Lew in , Sir Pete r Scott , Rt. Hon. Lord Shac kleto n; Dep. Director, J .

A . Fo rsythe; Hon . Treasurer, Mic hae l C. MacSw iney; Eric J. Be rryman , Me nsun Bo und , Dr. Neil Cossons, Maldwin Drummo nd , Dav id Goddard, Richard F. Lee, Alan McGowan, A rthur Prothero. Mem bership: £ 12 payable WST , c/o De p. Dir. , 129a Notth Street, Burwell , Cambs.

C BS OBB , Eng land. Reg . Ch a rity No. 277751.

SEA HISTORY STAFF: Editor, Peter Stanfo rd ; Managing Editor, Norrna Stanford ; Editorial Assistant , M ichael J. Nette r; Advertising and Public Affairs, Sue Morrow Flanagan ; Accounting, Martha Rosval ly; Membership Secretary , Patri cia Anstett; Membership Assistant , Grace Zere lla; Assistant to the President, Sally Kuns.

SPRING 1989

CONTENTS 4 7 11 13 16 19 20 21 22 23 29 30 34 35 36 40 42 46

DECK LOG , LETTERS AND QUERIES DOWN TO THE SEA WITH IRVING JOHNSON ,William P. Cough lin THE QUEST OF THE GLOUCESTER SCHOONER, Peter Stanford THE GLOUCESTERMEN, Joseph E. Garland GLOUCESTER 'S ADVENTURE, Joseph E. Garland THE LETTIE G. HOWARD AND HER PEOPLE, Norman Brouwer THE BIRTH AND REBIRTH OF THE L.A. DUNTON, Dana Hewson "MANTENHAS": ERNEST/NA ' S WO]{K TODAY, Peter Stanfo rd THE SCHOONER AMERICAN EAGLE, John C. Foss MARINE ART: THOMAS HOYNE: ARTIST OF THE GLOUCESTERMAN, Russell Jinishian MARINE ART NEWS SAIL TRAINING: ABOARD THE SPIRIT OF MASSACH USETTS , Mark Pendergrast SHIP NOTES , SAIL TRAINING , AND MUSEUM NEWS NEW ENGLAND SCHOONERS , by Charles F. Sayle MODELMAKERS ' CORNER: THE THOMAS M. HOYNE COLLECTION OF FISHING SCHOONER MODELS, Erik Ronnberg, Jr. THE BOOK LOCKER: THE GLOUCESTERMEN, Andrew W. German REVIEWS DESSERT: WESLEY MARRS SETS HIS STAYS 'L, James B. Connolly

COVER: A fast and able Grand Banks Gloucesterman struts her stuff; shouldering aside a rising sea with the grace and power for which the breed is famous. Detail of painting by Thomas M . Hoyne. (See page 23.)

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

We bring to life Ameri ca·s seafaring past through research , a rc haeo log ica l expedi tions a nd ship prese rvatio n efforts. We work with mu seums , historians and sai l training gro ups and report on these activities in our quarte rl y journal Sea History.

We are al so the Am e ri ca n a rm of the Wor ld Ship Tru st , a n internationa l g roup wo rking wo rld w ide to help save ships of historic importa nce .

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Membership in the Society costs only $25 a year. You ' ll receive Sea History, a fasc in ati ng magaz ine fill ed wi th articles of seafaring and hi sto rica l lore . You' ll a lso be e li g ibl e for di scounts o n books, prints and o the r ite ms. H e lp sa ve o ur seafa ring he ritage. Join th e Natio na l Ma ritime Hi storical Society tod ay'

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3

Deck Log The schooner Ernestina's longev ity is due to the fact that she has been used and worked hard all her life. As, indeed, she works today , carrying a vital message of oceanic daring and of serv ice to the farflung Atlantic communities she fi shed fo r and traded to.Ernestina is one of five surviving Gloucester schooners we look at in this iss ue of Sea History, and I believe anyo ne with a trace of salt water in his or her veins will have to ag ree that each of these ships is needed.

We bespeak yo ur interest for two of them particularly. The first, the schooner Adventure, returned to Gloucester last summer to begin a new career honoring the proud traditions of that hi storic fi shing port on Cape Ann. Gloucester needs her. The old ways are pass ing, leav ing a once-rich culture threatened , depressed, impoveri shed. Even the old Tarr & Wonson 's Paint Manufactory, purveyer of good red copper bottom pai nt to the world, no longer stands open at the harbor mouth as recounted on page 11.

What could do more to affirm Gloucester 's true spirit than commi ss ioning the Adventure to sail as Joe Garland, hi storian of the Gloucesterman, urges in hi s report on page 16? What single act could do more to help the young people, particularly, to find their way in what is for them a troubled and troubling time?

And for the fine-lined Lettie G. Howard, the first sailing ship acquired

by South Street Seaport Mu seum , we are here to affirm that in the wealthy city of New York there are people who need the challenge of sailing such a ship.

Peopl e need to learn how men launched little dories from her decks to fish the bitter sea for cod. The South Street Sea port Museum 's pl an to rebuild the Howard-and that is what she needs, complete rebuilding-is wonderfull y inspiring: It is simply to ha ul the schooner out and set up a shipyard to renew her tired frame , ri ght in the middle of the city street!

Thi s will nouri sh the im aginations of young people of the city. And it would carry lessons of deep value to the burghers of nearby Wall Street and the touri st crowds that surge through the wate rfront today, heightening their awareness of the seafaring challenge whose whole spirit is embodied in that delicate ly shaped but tough little ship.

PS

Contributions to support these needed, and rewarding efforts can be made to "NM HS-Schooner Fund, " 132 Maple St., Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520.

4

LETTERS A Berth for Tradition It is with great interest that yo ur magazine is read in the wardroom of the Coast Guard bark Eagle ; her officers believe that, in addition to providing an excellent training platform and leadership laboratory for the US Coast Guard Academy, Eagle helps to inculcate in future Coast Guard officers an appreciation of our common sailing heritage.

Eagle also serves the U nited States as an am bassador of good wi ll , often in the company of many of the world 's tall ships, as at the Australi an Bicentennial celebrations last year. S uch gatherings are terrific opportunities for young people from various nations to learn about each other; often the only common language is that of the sea.

Given the international fame of Eagle as both em issary and sail training ship, it was with a littl e concern that I read in "The Chanty Movement in Europe" (SH46) the statement: " What can be said of the commitment of the world ' s wealthiest country to seafaring when one of the industrial world 's smallest and poorest nations can so thoroughl y outstrip us?"

While the Poles have indeed maintained a proud maritime tradition , and while most Americans are unaware of their own country's maritme heritage, let 's not go overboard on self-flagellation . True fact is that Poland has onl y one active Class A Tall Ship, the Dar Mlodziezy, the Dar Pomorza having been retired to serve as a museum .

The four new Gdan sk-built ships the authors mention are not fo r the training of Polish sailors. These tall ships will all fl y the Soviet fl ag; in fact, Eagle passed by one of them , Druzhba (Friendship) on the passage into An twerp last Jul y 9th . Contrary to the authors' belief, the Poles are not " thoroughl y outstripping" the American s. If there is a tall ship gap, it is between us and the Soviet Union and is strictly numerical and not qualitati ve in nature.

It is wo rth noting that, during the Hobart-to-Sydney Tall Ships Race January 1988, Eagle passed by and successfull y tacked upwind of Dar Mlodziezy before all square- riggers were forced to withdraw due to unfavorab le winds.

Eagle, America 's onl y federa ll y operated tall ship, proves that traditional US seafaring skills are still ali ve and operational, at least in the Coast G uard .

Incidentl y, although for safety reasons sea chanties are not permitted on Eagle's decks (a missed command could be disastrous during a sail evoluti on), the Academy in New London , Connecti-

cut does have a locall y famous singing gro up , the Idlers, which speciali zes in songs of the sea. The US Coast Guard proudly reserves a berth for tradition on its passage into the future .

LT. N ICHOLAS D UJMOVIC, USCG Bark Eagle

"I Smell The Blood of an Englishman . .. ."

In rev iew ing Eric Newby's book The Last Grain Race in yo ur autumn issue (SH45), Mr. Otway provides the gratuitous information that Newby " was not the most popul ar member of the crewat least not according to other Engli shmen who sail ed with him who are all but mi ss ing from hi s narrative." I ask Mr. Otway, "What Englishmen?"

I was not in the ship that voyage, but was two years prev iously, and I was with her in Belfast where he r then master asked me to rejoin her and again in Port Victoria, Australia, when man y of the surviv ing ships were long waiti ng for charters and then loading. I saw Moshulu both arrive and depart, rather spectacul arly, as it happened, since she was tide-rode and sailed right o ut from her anchorage withou t having to box off. I was freq uentl y aboard her whil e she was in the port and my memory , supported by my diary, tells me that Newby was the on ly Engli shmen aboard.

Thi s is verified by my own copy of hi s book in which mention of such other Engli shmen is not "all but mi ss ing," for the very good reason that they simpl y did not ex ist.

Adm ittedly my diaries and Newby's book are not in accord in that period when our paths crossed, but I have no reco ll ection of Mr. Otway's be ing on the scene at the time.

ALEX A. HURST Brighton, England Still Shipmates In the Autumn 1988 issue of Sea History, there appeared a letter from Joe Schienberg of Middle Village, New York , headed " What About the Armed Guard ?" Mr. Sch ienberg remarked on the lesser pay of naval armed guardsmen as compared to the merchant crews.

I mu st correct Mr. Schienberg's impress ion of WWII merchant marine pay. Government studies first introduced at Congress ional hearings in 1945 , and endorsed by Dr. Dean All ard of the D ivision of Naval Hi story , Department of the Navy, in a re port of hi s written to the Civili an/M ilitary Rev iew Board, Department of Defense in 198 1, stated that the take-home pay for merchant marine SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

personnel and naval personnel of comparable rank was roughly equal when all pay and other all owances were facto red into the matrix . The government report did not include in its equati on any additional remuneration received by armed forces personne l th ro ugh the postwar period, e.g., the GI Bill wh ich, of course, was not available then or now to merchant seamen.

Speaking as but one former WWII merchant seaman , J would ass ure Mr. Schienberg that the merchant crews of those days considered their nava l armed guards shipmates as an integrated part of the overall ships company. And we still do!

SANTO E. CERZA, PRESIDE T American Merchant Marine Veterans Cape Cora l, Florida

Faulty Great Lakes Museum List I thoroughly enjoyed the Summer 1988 edition of Sea History with the foc us on the Great Lakes, with the exception of the listing of Great Lakes maritime museum s on page 46. The li sting is not complete. The Musuem ship Va lley Camp, which is owned and operated by Le Sault de Sainte Marie Hi storical Sites in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan is not li sted. ValleyCampwasopenedin 1968.

Other Great Lakes freighters converted into museum status are the William A. Irvin in Duluth , Minnesota, the Willis B. Boyer in Toledo, Ohio and the William G. Mather in Cleveland , Ohio.

In the quick couple of minutes I have counted an add itonal ten Great Lakes maritimeand lighthouse museums which are not li sted in Sea History. An excellent source of correct data wo uld be David Glick , Secretary, Association fo r Great Lakes Maritime Hi story, PO Box 25 , Lakeside OH 43440.

PHYLLIS J . WEAVER Le Saulte de Sainte Marie Hi storical Sites, Michigan Q UERIE S

I am presentl y doing research on US passenger and cargo ships lost to German U-boats off the Ameri can coast during WWII. I would ve ry much appreciate hearing from any surv ivors of the USS Cherokee which was sunk off New England in June 1942.

CAPT. JAMES W1sE, USN (Ret.) 6 11 8 Redwood Lane Alexandria VA 223 10 I'm looking for a captai n I sailed with in 1946 in the SS William John son, a Liberty Ship operated by W.J. Rowntree, SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1989

Inc. on the coal run from Norfolk VA to Gydinia, Poland. I was Chief Steward, and the Captain was Frederick P. Hare, a Texan who in 1946 I would figure to be 37 years old. I believe it was hi s first trip as Master, as he usuall y sailed Chief Mate. He was the finest skipper I ever sailed with and the William W. Johnston was a happy ship.

BARRY W. RODGERS 501 Petaluma Bl vdSouth Petaluma CA 94952 On 3 May, 1967 the replica yacht

America was launched in East Boothbay, Maine. Like the original yachtAmerica, launched 2 May 185 1 in New York, she was sold into foreign ownership after flying the American flag for a relatively short period. In an attempt to ensure the replica America does not get lost in the rush of the world , I seek information-any and all kinds (i.e. maintenence, repairs, alterati ons, etc.)to develop a chronicle of the replica yacht America.

Wouldn ' t it be grand to have the America's C up races in New York with the yacht America, flying the American flag, as host?

ROBERT G USTAFSON PO Box 25 LittleSilver NJ07729 I am engaged in researching a schooner named the H. J. Powell. S he probabl y sai led in the late 19th century, possi bly from a southern US port; however, she may be British. Any info rmati on you might be able to provide abo ut her would be appreciated .

ROBERT COOPER Dept. of Languages McNeese State University Lake Charl es LA 70605 I am looking for info rmation about a ship called the Tryall, built in America in 1648. The masterofthe ship was John Graves, who came from England in 1635 and settled in Concord, Massac husetts.

Thi s is my ancestor and I am interested in learning more about the man as well as the ship.

JOHN GRAVES 8 199 Lafayette Rd .

Indi anapol is IN 46278 I am looking for information regarding coal ships (colliers) off the West Coast, before and during World War I. I understand they could use no fuel for warmth or cooking as the freight was very expensive. Seldom did anyo ne work man y

years on such a vessel due to the discomfort.

CHARLES LEONARD 15840 SE Walnut Hill Rd .

Amity OR 97101 According to the International Register of Historic Ships, you are the owners of the hulk Vicar of Bray, now lying in the Falkland Islands. Could you please let me know who this vessel was called after? The town of Bray is only thirty miles from where I live.

I should be grateful for any information yo u could g ive me regarding her hi story and also if yo u intend to restore her, move her to New York, or carry out any work on her in the near future .

J1M R EES Arklow County of Wicklow Ireland The Vicar was named for an English

clergyman in the 16th century who changed conveniently fr om Roman Catholic to Protestant and back again as the times dictated. The chorus of a humorous song ''The Vicar of Bray" ends: "And whatsoever king shall reign, still I'll be the Vicar of Bray, sir. " The ship was indeed given to NMHS by the Falkland Islands Co. through the good offices of the World Ship Trust. NMHS Trustee Edward G. Zelinsky heads a Ship Trust project to return her to San Francisco , as the last surviving ship of the California Gold Rush.- ED. ERRATUM

In Captain Morin Scott's " A New Bark Built in 1906" (SH 48), readers may find themselves at sea with an item described as " Displacement Sail Area. " Fear not, readers, ne ither you nor we (and least of all Captain Scott!) have lost our minds.

The entry sho uld have read: Displacement 540 tonnes (530 tons) Sail Area 10 I 0 sm ( 10,872 sf) Later in the same article we are informed in all seriousness that German terylene " hoists traditionally ." This lunati c assertion should have stopped with the word " terylene" and a new sentence should have informed us that all the bark 's yards are fixed except the skysail yard-that hoi sts traditionall y. We regret thi s jumbling of good sense into nonsense.

The phone number to reach the Mary Rose Trust, printed in SH48, is inaccurate . The tele phone number should read (9705) 750-52 1. J,

5

What's rarely seen, barely understood but always used and needed by every one of us in the metropolitan region?

It's our Port. The Port of New York/New Jersey.

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Down to the Sea with Irving Johnson

by William P. Coughlin

Route 47 winds down , cutting Hadley , Massachusetts roughly north to south. On this chill October morning, the grass is tan and encrisped and reddened leaves carpet the land. Hunch backed willows, rooted in the Connecticut River, drape monster shapes; beneath it all , black cows munch sociably in a corner of a partitioned field. Time-thinned gravestones-page markers in myriad yesterdays-fi le by at the townline; a dairy farm, si lo, red barn and all, looms on the horizon beyond sloping emerald pastures. Mitch 's Marina slips astern at a river bend , just as a familiar silhouette, a brigantine driving hard with everything drawing full and by, heaves into view.

Aye, mate. She 's got the unmi stakable bearing of the old Yankee, two-masted out of Gloucester, Captai n Irving Johnson commandi ng, standing in from a thousand celebrated yesterdays. But in truth she's a painted image on the porch wall of a rambling white house at the river's edge, the homestead of Irvi ng M. and Electa Search Johnson, the natal place where 84 years ago, come this July Fourth , began the career of one of the sea's most remarkable sons.

Thi s pl ace at 42 degrees, 30 minutes North Latitude; 72 degrees, 35 minutes West Longitude, lyi ng 100 miles from the nearest salt water is where Sailorman Johnson , Explorer Johnson , Adventurer John son, Wartime Daredevil Johnson, Writer, Teacher, Lecturer, and Inspirer of Thousands Johnson and Sea Captain Johnson was " led astray by Jack London , Conrad and all the rest. " It is where he answered the sea's first call. And , it 's where as a boy he learned to row retrieving logs and ferryi ng Smith and Mount Holyoke College g irls across the Connecticut, and secretl y built hi s body to Atlas proportions with the help of a mail order book, "Earl Liederman 's Speci al Introductory Offer to Build Your Body. Only $8," and then practiced for a lifetime of masthead gales, standing on his head atop a swaying telephone po le across the roadside. " It did the job," Captain Johnson said, "I've never had a fight, never had to throw a punch. Everybody wants to be fri ends with someone built like that . .. . And that pole-I dreamed a make believe that it was a tall mast-gave me confidence."

Now the octogenarian John son sits, smiling, in the same farm house where he was born , just six feet from where he watched Joshua Slocum and hi s father Clifton di scuss a book.

Making the best of advancing Parkinson's ("one good thing, there 's no pain ") he yet dreams of sailing while patiently taking on a steady flow of old friend s, visitors and interv iewers anxious to know the man who battled Cape Horn 's worst in the world's largest sailing ship, the four-masted bark Peking. He is also the man who: -as mate with Captain Paul nearl y went down seven times while driving Sir Thomas Lipton 's badl y leaking J boat Shamrock V home through an Atlantic hurricane; --commanded the famed transatlantic yacht Highland Light in Bermuda and Fastnet races and was mate with the ce lebrated Captain Warwick Tompkin s on a 14,000-mile odyssey in the schooner Wander Bird; -seven times took hi s wife Electa, their young sons and a crew of paying adventurers around the world in hi s own 95foot schooner and later brigantine and, still later, cruised 28 times through all of Europe 's canals, the Baltic and Mediterranean in a 50-foot ketch-"all for the fun of it! " -because of his knowledge of the South Seas was re luctantly (because he lacked a college degree) commissioned by the Navy in World War II, and who crept ashore on scores of Pacific islands under the guns of the Japanese garrisons to map uncharted reefs and channels weeks ahead of naval amphibious assaults; SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1989

All that youthful dreaming, scheming and body-building paid offfor a Connecticut farm-boy: Captain Johnson at the helm of his great schooner Yankee, May 1935 , halfway through their first round-theworld cruise with young people in crew.

-says hi s " life was so perfect it is unbelievable, and the top thing was getting the right wife at the right time."

Captain Johnson fi xes a steady blue eye on an interviewer, and dishes it out in pla in words , like sa lt horse to a foc 'sle hand. " My fa ther wrote children 's and trave l books. A hundred of them." They line an upper shelf in the living room near eight volumes by Irving and Exy about the ir own expeditions from the thirties to the sixties.

Captain Johnson te ll s of "getting caught" in 193 1 while aboard the Shamrock " in one of the strangest seas I ever saw .... Everyone of them was pyramid shaped, and literally jumped up under and all aro und her in 25-foot high lumps. I've never seen seas anything like it before or since. They came up and hammered under her long overhangs, and she was leaking pretty badl y, twi sting so much in those seas .... ButthoseNorwegians we had as crew were awful good sailors. They took her when her own crew could not, as a way to get home to Norway . And we made it. " Yellowed news clippings fill in the thrilling detail of that incredible, 19-day October run to Bi shop Rock. Mate Johnson to ld a reporter later: "A man named Peterson was at the wheel; he weighed 220 pounds. A great sea broke over the quarter, tore the binnacle out, bolts through the deck and all , and swept it overboard with the compass. Again , a wave came aboard and Peterson who is six feet five inches tall was lifted upside down so that he came to with hi s feet up the mizzenmast ....

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To see those waves coming astern was enough to give one heart fa ilure. So, we looked ahead instead. It was hell on the hi gh seas, and how high! " The yacht was without li ghts becau se waves constantly extingui shed the lanterns , and the food mostly spoiled. "We were getting weak fro m lack of food and loss of sleep, and we knew that the last time the Shamrock went back home it took 46 days. We decided it was better to drown than starve; so we wo ul d dri ve no matter what came . ... Why she d idn't break in two, I don't know. It wou ldn ' t have taken us long to get to the bottom because we were half way there in the trough of those waves ."

The Captain ho lds the listener transfix ed. It 's as if a half a century never had intervened. Once again, yesterday is today in the o ld sail orman's eye. Be loved Exy clatters away in a comer, answering a stack of letters and responding aloud to an occas ional question: "Exy, how do you spell Preussen ? ...

Exy, how do yo u spell Mariehamn?"

The Windjammers He's te lling of the great stee l windjammers, so called at first as an insul t by the scornfu l steam ship men they challenged in the ir heyday ("Look at 'em jammin ' inta th ' wind with their ya rds braced all aro und 'ginst the backstays"). But the sobriquet " wi ndjammer" soon was to become the laudation , if not the glory, assumed yet today, though inappropriately , by impertinent li ttle sail shi ps seeking summertime passengers.

Captain Joh nson relives the 93 wild days that began at Hamburg on Friday, 13 December 1929 in the four-masted bark Peking, " the shi p that had tremendous effect on my life. " For starte rs, on departu re, with some of the superstitious crew fearing the worst, she walked into one of the worst storms in years lashi ng the Chan ne l, a ki ller that sent 69 strong ships to the bottom. She was bound forTalcahuano , Chile with general cargo. (Johnson's book about th is voyage, The Peking Battles Cape Horn , is available from NMHS. The film is available from Mystic Seaport Mu seum , on videotape.)

Swaying crazi ly in 300-foot arcs 175 feet up on the royal yard as the Peking ro lled down 45 degrees, her decks and struggli ng men awash in tons of cold, swirling sea ("the grandest sight I ever looked on") and nearly being swept away by a rog ue wave while shooting hi s Kodak camera from the chart house roof, the 24-year o ld Hadley farm boy made an epic fi lm record as " she bashed to windward and crashed her way westward- the wrong way-through a pairof Cape Hom Ri p Snorte rs."

Captain Johnson lived again every thri ll of that day with the glass dow n to 28. 19 inches and seas as high as 50 feet sending spray and scud streaki ng over the upper tops ' I yards. He again saw new heavy canvas boom away in shreds as three quarters of an inch thi ck steel wire parted with the sound of a cannon bl ast; he heard again the crashi ng wave that bent in a 20-foot long section of the Peking's stee l hul l, and he remembered agai n that she had logged on ly I 0 miles, Sunday to Wednesday. And he recalled the sadness he fe lt when told that the Peking had lost five sailors overboard on her homeward run.

He sm iles now abo ut the cond itions: "The turkey got sick so we ate that. Then one of the hens got sick and we ate that . ... And the men were wet all the time, and no heat. But nobody caught cold. You never get a chance to get warm so you fe lt good all the ti me."

The o ld mari ner glowed with unabashed fondness for the Peking's master, Captai n Jurs. "T hat master of sai l and super expert on Cape Hom , was the finest professional man in the world ... it was his 56th trip aro und the Hom ." Jurs's seamanshi p and rugged di scipline (better known to old tars as the

8

Exy at th e helm of Warwick Tompkins's old schooner Wande r Bird sailing San Francisco Bay in the fall of" 1983. Thev 111e1 a/ward the \"essel in Europe. some 52 years earlier. Photo . .li111 Linderman .

rope's end) kept all in order, Captain Johnson recall s. " When the mate got tired whacking them (the ship 's boys) he'd send them up the masthead while he rested hi s arm . And when he got tired chasing them around the deck, he'd set the skipper's dog after them, biting, to keep them running."

He spoke also of other great ships, the fiv e- masted bark Potosi, which once ran from Hamb urg to Chile in a record 66 days, spreading, like the Peking, up to 55,000 square feet of sa il ; and the greatest of them all - the 440-foot, 11 , 150-ton five-masted ship Preussen, carry ing no less than 59,000 sq uare fee t of canvas. He told how Preussen was lost needless ly in 19 10 when a steamer, mi sjudgi ng Preussen' s great speed ran across her bows, and smashed away her headgear, leav ing her helpless, unable to ail off from the Dover cliffs where she broke into pieces. Thus perished the pride of Ferdinand Lae isz's great German fl eet of Flying P Liners, so named because every ship 's name began with the letter P .

These Flying P Liners, along with Finnish Captain Gustaf Erikson's fl eet of second-hand square riggers, of Mariehamn , Finland, were indeed the las t of the Cape Homers-the true w indj ammers that made a li ving lugging nitrate from South America to Europe through the earl y 1930s. " And the top thing was getting the right wife at the right time," the venerable Yankee had said. A Rochester NY nati ve,Electa Search, then 23, was that woman who, in 1931 , won this Yankee fa rm boy 's proposa l. They met in Le Havre when he was the mate of Wander Bird with Captain Tompkins, cruising European waters.

With hi s proposal came marri age in 1932, a marriage before the mast, and a lifetime of high adventure, perhaps never again to be equalled in thi s age; a sailor 's job as second mate aboard thei r Yankees, scrubbing and chipping paint, nav igating, ri gg ing, and standing four-on four-off watches; as mother and teacher of the ir sons Arthur and Robert ("S he' d take them to the masthead and read to them of the great men of Greece and Rome, the ir legs dangling over"); and as the " we" in their co-authored e ight volumes . She smiles when asked if she minded be ing called " Mrs. Gulliver," "a feminine Marco Polo," or"Mrs. Zanzibar. " The appellations, she knows, SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

" ... and the top thing was getting the right wife at the right time." only reflected their lives which many envy.

Indeed, with Irving 's proposal came ten transatlantic voyages, seven circumnavigations of the world, once around the Cape of Good Hope and trips as far as Sudan and up the Nile, and cross-continent exp lorations, as well as wartime duty at Pearl Harbor monitoring Tokyo Rose broadcasts for the OSS. That perhaps was the only time she worried for her Captain out there on those dangerous secret Pacific missions.

As for the Yankee voyages, each an epic, suffice it to let the seventh and final 40,000-mile 'round-the-worlder speak for all. A year and one-half long, its itinerary might defeat a travel agent's computer today. Departing Gloucester's Rocky Point on 5November1956-where every Yankee voyage began and ended-it included stops at Bermuda (to pick up three women disallowed by US law to sail as paying passengers from a US port), Haiti , through the Panama Canal to the Galapagos, thence to Pitcairn 's Island (historic refuge of the Bounty's mutineers), the Marquesas, Tahiti, across the South Seas to Siam, Singapore, Bali, West Africa, Capetown, West Indies, and then back to Bermuda and Gloucester by 1 May 1958. And except for one voyage when he was ten minutes late, it was Captain Johnson's custom to return 18 months to the minute from his time of departure.

There's hardly an islet or cove in the Pacific and Southern Atlantic that the Johnsons ' schooner and their later brigantine Yankee failed to visit in 25 years of roving. In fact, the Captain may be the last true explorer, in the tradition of Captain Cook, to have actually di scovered five unknown islands, one of them uninhabited, north of New G uinea. It was 1934, his first voyage. They were du ly named Yankee, Arthur Cook, Robert and Search Island-"that one was after Exy's father's name. " And of course he found one for Exy. "They were all small islands, and Exy was not very big, but wow," the old mariner chuckled. "So we named the smallest one for her. " Exy can speak of the exotic with ease. This daring and devoted lady had seen her son, Arthur, at the age of ten months become the youngest known toddler to sail around the world on the deck of a schooner. She knows the recipes of the West Indies, Panama, Pitcairn Island, the Solomons, the Hebrides ,

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Madang, New Guinea, many strange places. She can tell of learning to ram a boat into a coconut tree and then dodging its falling fruit; of climbing volcanoes; of singing at native si ngsongs where a hundred pigs were ki lled with less upheaval than ki lling one on a New England farm; of stepping on a floating river island and hearing snakes slither away at each step; of watching elephants log teakwood; of living with rajahs in Bali, "where we had the best time we ever had. " And she was among the first whites to witness the long forgotten land-diving on Pentecost Island, watching 28 native men plunging headlong for six hours from man made 100-foot towers with vines tied to their ankles to break the fall just inches from the earth. Indeed , she recalls that some needed to have their heads pulled from the soft earth, and those who chickened out were beaten with nettles.

The episodes are endless. There was Captain Johnson, a Navy Reserve lieutenant commander ("I had no idea who to salute") in command of the hydrographic vessel USS Sumner all during the war, "turning out charts ' til they came out their ears"- fifty of them from Bora Bora to the Philippines to Iwo Jima. And, there he was at bloody Iwo Jima, again ahead of the landing fleet, towing a pair of dead ships across the expected Japanese line of fire, and at famed Iron Bottom Sound, named for the hundreds of American and Japanese ships sunk there between Guadalcanal and Florida Island. Daily, he and his crew dove to the bottom to jimmy compartments, files and cabinets to recover secret codes, charts and documents, sorely needed by intelligence, from sunken enemy vessels.

But war, for all his heroi sm, would not be foremost among hi s memorabilia. Instead in the barn next to that house with the barkentine silhouette on the porch is the collected lore of Irving and Exy Johnson, South Seas Explorers-native canoes, masks, paddles, spears and the like. It is a first-ra te Pacific Island Museum. So the Captain and Electa have come back bringing their story with them, to where it all began-still indomitable, ready to respond to the call "Turn out the watch! " .i,

Mr. Coughlin, veteran reporter for the Boston Globe, is a lifelong aficionado of things maritime.

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SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

The Quest of the Gloucester Schooner

by Peter Stanford

There they were-unmistakable. Amid the thicketed masts of the tubby draggers in Fulton Fish Market, there were two slender poles, raked well aft with yes, by heaven , topmast bands standing empty on the forward one! A Gloucester schooner had come back to the market on this snowy midwinter day, in the year 1965 ! And she bore the name Our Lady of Good Voyage. That evening, around the fire, we talked of what we'd seen. There couldn't be too many of these vessels left.

There was the L.A . Dunton, of course, lately brought into that great seaport museum in Mystic, but beyond that. .. .

A year later, in our own Alden schooner Athena we chased those masts we'd seen in Fu lton Market to Gloucester, where we found Our Lady of Good Voyage and in deep excitement rowed over to her for a closer look. Yes , there was the graving line for the old waterline, skipping a plank here and there where a new one had been put in , and high out of water now because the hull sat deeply weighted by the stem, so a big diesel could drive her home through choppy seas without taking too much water over the bows. And there was the incised niche for the bobstay iron! Measuring its angle to the stem, you could figure a 20ft nosepole. "Saw 5 good hulls, built apparently as power schooners, heavier in stem than sailing schooners, but. .. "ran the entry in the log. They were: the American Eagle, Edith L. Boudreau, Columbia, Evelina Goulart, and Our Lady of Good Voyage.

And in April 1967 we sailed Athena into the Fulton Market, with the arch conspirators Karl Kortum , Archie Horka, Bob Herbert, and Os Brett aboard. (The idea was to have a sailing vessel present in announcing the citizen plan to establish a museum on the South Street waterfront, based on the fish market piers and nearby old brick market buildings.) In such company, we started learning about schooners fast! To our surprise we learned that what we call a Gloucester schooner is a modem development stemming from the Grampus of 1885 ,

designed specifically to provide a safer hull for the offshore fisheries than the dangerous, flat-floored "clipper schooners" that drowned so many fishermen from the 1850s on. By the early 1890s, Captain Mel McClain and others were turning out the fast and able type from which our own Athena derived. So clear was the line of descent (and she was rigged fisherman style, and painted in fisherman colors) that when we drifted into Gloucesteron a breath of morning air the year before, with topsail and fisherman staysail set, the Tarr and Wonson Paint Manufactory at the entrance to the inner harbor blew its whistle, and men appeared waving hats and handkerchiefs at the windows!

We learned of one of the original breed still extant, until recently in the Brava packet trade between Providence, New Bedford and the Cape Verde Islands. She was called the Ernestina, and had achieved fame as the Arctic exploration ship Effie M. Morrissey. Launched into the sedgy creek that runs by the small shipyard village of Essex in 1894, just around Cape Ann from Gloucester, this strong-lined beauty came in the very morning of the Gloucesterman type, and fished successfully for a generation until picked up by Captain Bob Bartlett for his Arctic trips in 1925. We carved a model of the vessel to put in the model of South Street Seaport that architect Levi Kiil built for us, to go with models of Our Lady ofGood Voyage and the bark Kaiulani (the vessel the National Society had been founded four years before to save). This model-making went on before a glowing coal stove in our schooner's cabin in winter layup in Westchester Creek-a quiet backwater for such dreams of handsome hulls flying home under a press of canvas from the Grand Banks!

So we went ahead and opened shop in a fish stall in the market. We wrote the Ernestina/Morrissey' s owner in the distant Cape Verdes, off Africa-first step in a long campaign which ultimately brought the big schooner home to New

Fulton Fish Market, on New York's South Street-a scene alive with sail, schooners ofall shapes and varieties.gathered to feed the expanding immigrant population of the New World's gateway city. Eighty years later.founders of the South Street Seaport Museum searched for a survivor of this white-winged fleet to bring back into Fulton Market.

Grinning yard workers fit the gammon knee under the Lettie G. Howard's bowsprit in Gloucester-they wouldn' t let her go without this grace note added.

Bedford, not New York, in 1982. We secured the invaluable patronage ofF. Briggs Dalzell , then Fleet Captain of the New York Yacht Club, to secure Coast Guard permission to allow sailing in the harbor again (it was at that time against the rules) , and as the summer of 1967 drew to an end , we sponsored the first in what has become a series of schooner races. What joy to see those masts against the Brooklyn skyline, and to hearthe East River murmuring about the rafted hulls of these vessels, mostly derived from fi sherman types , nested again in Fulton Market!

Then we got word of a live one-a first-generation Gloucesterman back in Gloucester! Paul Henry Dunn, venturer in old ships , had found a Gloucester schooner fi shing in the red snapper fleet out of Pensacola, Florida. She 'd been shorn and chopped and changed , with a pilot-house sitting atop her after cabinhouse and a tugboat buffer over her snubbed-off stem.

Dunn took off the pilot-house, got hold of some old schooner spars (not quite the right size- but plenty historic!) and brought the vessel north to be a museum ship in Gloucester.

There she languished- there were no funds to keep her up . We reported all this to Jakob Isbrandtsen, chairman of the fledgling South Street Seaport Museum. He shared our excitement: "Buy her!" And we did so, adding the cost to a loan he had guaranteed for us, the loan to make our first landside purchase-236 Front Street, a building that had hitherto been used in fish market trade .

And so in September 1968 I found myself camped out in the president's office at Gloucester Marine Railway , typing letters and phoning around for funds as Jack Dickerson, clearly visible in the yard below, yanked out planks that he insisted on replacing before he would certify our vessel as seaworthy. People in the yard had heard us deploring the unshapely gammon knee that had been put in to replace the one that was destroyed when the bow was snubbed off. The yard foreman stopped me: " You ' re not going to leave here with that poor excuse for a knee, are you?" Shamefaced, I told him the truth: we had just enough money to cover Jack Dickerson's mandated repairs , with nothing left over for cosmetics.

The word "cosmetics" did not go down well. The foreman looked at me. "I knew you had that problem ," he said. He led me over to a big rough knee of pasture oak. "We' ll give you this. The men will fit it free of charge." Evidently this had all been thought through in advance. All they needed was a drawing to work to. Back to the phone I went to call Howard Chapelle at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. I asked if he could give us a drawing .

Chapelle said we could make our own drawing on the site better than he could in Washington. "Just look at a lot of photographs," he said. "Get the look of these bows in your heads. That's all the builders had in the first place, a sense of how it should look. Then get a batten ," he continued, "and 12

spring it into place until it looks right." I made some sort of protest. Chap grew a bit testy . "Just go out there, act as if you know what you ' re doing, and do what I say." Bang went the telephone receiver. We did as he said. Using a rough crayon and some corrugated board, Norma took the angle from the bow , and with the workmen as advisors, drew and cut a pattern for a knee that pleased all their eyes. Caviare (as Paul Henry Dunn had christened the schooner, not being quite sure of her identity) left Gloucester with a Gloucesterman bow.

The tale of that passage up the coast to New York is a yarn and a half in itself. The late Russ Grinnell towed us as far as Newport, a tow costing $700. He was strict about our not setting sail-insurance specified that he would tow us south through the Cape Cod Canal and on to Newport, and tow us he did .

After Newport, we were on our own. One remembers highlights-holding our breaths and desperately backing foresail as well as jumbo and spitfire jib (we had been unable to find a full-sized jib) to get the schooner' s head to pay off as she surged ahead in the merest zephyr in the crowded Newport anchorage. We had had a bangup sailors' farewell at Barclay Warburton 's Black Pearl Tavern the night before ....

And then getting all sail off her on the run as we glided into Minneford ' s at City Island, while Harry Naverson, the dockmaster (who had sailed in square rig) , rushed down the pier howling in mock anguish: "No, no, you can't bring that big black thing in here!" But we did, managing not to hit anything or scrape anyone's paintwork. And a mug-up in the foe' sle did much to reconcile Harry to the big black schooner's presence, while we polished her up for her entry into New York City.

* * * * *

Bringing the fine-lined beauty into the fish market slip in South Street brought the magic of public interest and involvement to the struggling waterfront museum. Sailormen of all sorts and conditions appeared (summoned by the black magic of TV) to see this archetypical hull and its old-fashioned rigging; school children who had never been near a sailing vessel tweaked the halyards and marvelled that the actual fishing was done from the boats stacked up on deck. We served coffee aboard at lunch hours , and invited passers-by to join in the daily exercise of making sail so that the aged canvas could air, flapping out its musty memories until premature dusk came over the scene, in the shadow of the steel and glass skyscrapers that had grown up along the waterfront in the years since a true Gloucester fishing schooner had come into the Fulton Market under sail.

On these ensuing pages, Joe Garland, on whom the mantle of historian of the tribe has fallen , tells us what the Gloucesterman, the ship and her sailor, truly is and has meant to our seafaring story. What we have to say here is that there are only a handful of the full-blooded types left in the world today: the delicate Howard, of the year 1893 , in the first generation of the breed, the gallant and far-travelled Ernestina , ex-Effie M. Morrissey of the following year, 1894, and the later L.A .

Dunton of 1921 , and Adventure of 1926, both built to take engines but representing, in their quite different ways, ultimatedevelopments of this fast and able breed of sailing vessel.

Last of all there is the American Eagle of 1930 (the same we saw in Gloucester in 1966), built when the Gloucester schooner ' s day was really done, but built to travel far and fast under sail anyway. Each has a different story to tell and each serves different purposes today. They all deserve our interest and support, and will reward support that is given in wonderfully creative ways-ways that can deeply refresh all our purposes -ti in historic ships.

SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

THE GLOUCESTERMEN

by Joseph E. Garland

The story of the heyday of American fis hing in the Western Ocean is the story of fi shing under sail , the bittersweet saga of the Gloucestermen.

The first sailing craft were of necessity fa miliar types brought over from Britain or bu iIt here, shall ops and ketches mostly. The shall op was a double-ended boat propelled by oars or by either a fo re-and-aft, sprit-rigged mainsail or by a two-masted setup with square sails.

Being undecked, the shallop was suitable only fo r the inshore fi shery.

The larger and more versatile ketch was commonly employed on the offshore banks and was the forerunner of the schooner, in the opinion of the late naval architectural historian Willi am A. Baker. The coloni al ketch carried two masts, the larger mainmast fo rward, the shorter mizzen aft. Though combinations of rig varied greatl y, Baker thought th at the ketch was generall y larger than the shall op, with round stern , flu sh deck, frequently setting a lateen mi zzen sail and sprit mainsail, sometimes a maintopsail.

The term schooner was rapidly taken up along the coast in the first quarter of the e ighteenth century and applied, as most of the experts of modern times seem to agree, not to a particular hull fo rm but to a new wrinkle in ri g: big mainsail aft, smaller foresail forw ard.

Why did the schooner catch on so quickly with the notori ously conservative fis hermen? Because it was demonstrably fas ter than the ketch, probably.

Schooners fl y more canvas than ketches, and under most conditions sail fas ter under a more balanced and versatile sail plan.

It may also have been a pleasant surprise for those first schoonermen to discover that their vessels could jog along the banks, under fo resail onl y, barely creeping ahead a trifle off the wind , perhaps with the jib he ld to windward as well, and that in a gale of wind they could lie to with ease under doublereefed mainsail alone-to which thi s author, once the master of a Nova Scoti a-built gaff-rigged schooner yacht of thirty-fi ve feet, can but whi sper amen .

For the first hundred years or so the New England fi shing schooners were bluff of bow, broad of beam and high of stern . The Marblehead heeltappers slid off the ways at up to seventy-five tons gross, sixty feet long on deck. When the winter's first surge of Arctic air decended from Canada with the nor' wester, some skippers were apt to make a run down to the West Indies to see what could be bartered for a cargo of salt fi sh SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

Dorymenpitch their catch into the deepening deckload ofthe Onato, a l 06ftlong "Indian-header" designed by Tom McManus and built in 1904 by Oxner and Story at Essex. Below, the Onato icing up on the banks, around 1905. These photos were taken by one ofOnato' screw, Chester L. Morrissey, a young man from Nova Scotia , who brought along a cheap box camera and made these priceless photographs of a working Gloucesterman at sea.

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The sha1pshooters emerged in the 1840s, with the slightly hollow , racy bows that also appeared on larger ships in this decade. Th ey carried more canvas than their predecessors and were fa st, reliable sailers .

Th e pinkies preceded the sharpshooter and outlasted them , but were never as popular.

Th e Smuggler of 1877 was a clipper schooner. Th ese schooners were shmp-ended ,shallow, beamy and over- can vassed. Fast, yes , but unstable, resulting in heavy losses.

Dennison J. Lawlor' s plumb-stemmed design f or a fishing schooner, based on his experience with yachts and pilot schooners, had a deeper hull and greater stability than th e clippers. Shown here is the Lawlor-designed Harry L. Belden of 1889.

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and lumber, carrying along a brace of squaresails to take advantage of the beckoning trade winds. The reputation of the bankers for speed, and of the sailor-fishermen for their seamanship and knowledge of the coast recommended the crude co lonial schooners for service in the nascent American Navy and as privateers during the Revolution.

Along with the high-pooped heel tappers , at least two other distinct schooner types had emerged by the eve of the War of 18 J 2. One was a smaller fishing craft being spawned in awesome quantities on the banks of the Chebacco River where it was and is bridged by the road between Gloucester and Ipswich. This community , built around family shipyards , was Ipswich ' s south parish , called by the Indian name of Chebacco, which in 1819 was incorporated as the town of Essex. These " Chebacco boats" rarely exceeded thirty tons and forty feet and might qualify as primitive schooners, for the foremast was stepped way up in the "eyes," practically in the stern , catboatwise, and they carried neither bowsprit nor jib, only a pair of gaff-headed sails. Some were double-enders; others, with square sterns, were known as "dogbodies. " Narrower and sharper than the heeltappers, with a deeper grip on the water and no doubt faster, the peaked-stem pinkies that appeared after the War of 1812 were keen on the windward haul and much superior as mackerel chasers.

Their more cramped cabins, however, and the rocking-horse sterns that kept them happily cantering in a seaway, also kept them out of the mainstream of schooner design, the more to the liking oftheirold-fasioned adherents who hung on to a dwindling few of the stoutly built Methuselahs and nursed these ghosts of a bygone era from the twilight of colonial times into the dawn of the air age.

By early in the 1840s ice was being cut from the ponds of Cape Ann in the winter and packed in sawdust in icehouses for year-round distribution.

Chopped ice quickly replaced the live well in the market schooners , and ever so much more satisfactorily. And the extension of the railroad from Boston to Gloucester in 1847 put a new premium on speed: the first boat in to Gloucester (or Boston ' s T Wharf) with a well-iced fare of fresh halibut, haddock or mackerel won the top dollar from the dealers in the bidding. Furthermore, there can be little doubt that the tragic loss of the cream ofMarblehead's fleet in the gale of 1846 was Gloucester' s gain .

Out of the competitive ferment of

those watershed 1840s emerged a true departure in fishing-schooner design.

They called them "sharpshooters," long of hull and straight of keel, sharp bilges, and graced with the first susp icion of that slightly hollow, racy, slici ng bow that would be the immortal mark of the clipper ships. The sharpshooters were at first eyed with susp icion by the oldtirners on the Gloucester waterfront, who predicted that any vessel deprived of a good bluff bow wo uld nose under and drown herself anchored on the tideripped shoals of the Georges.

In reality, as fair-weather sailers the sharpshooters proved bearny enough to stand up to more canvas than any of their predecessors, faster than anything ever seen out of Gloucester, and sufficiently shoal of draft to continue berthing in the shallow, mostly undredged and frequently undredgeable docks of the inner harbor. Nor did they nose-d ive.

After the Civil War, fishing and shipbuilding were vigorously resumed.

Regular steamship service between Boston and Gloucester opened up a whol e new channel for fisheries products. And two of the four technolog ical revolutions to overcome the conservative industry (the third and fourth were the otter trawl and the quick-freezing process) practically overnight catapulted Gloucester into the mass-production business and raised the town (incorporated as a city in 1873) to its dominant position as the leading fishing port in the world.

The first of these great innovations was the perfection of the purse se ine with which in one swoop the mackerel fishermen, if lucky, were enabled to net an entire school or the better part of it within a matter of minutes. What a contrast to the old way, one by one and two by two over the rail!

The second postbellurn pi scatorial revolution involved the widespread adoption of dory-trawling, a pursuit that ipso facto was not as innovative as its multiple appli cation to the ingenious, and all too frequently in its consequences awful , conception of the schooner as mother ship. Now one man, instead of fishing with four hooks at one time, could fish with four hundred-and at only ten times the ri sk to himself.

As the fort unes of Gloucester rose with the tide of world demand, dealers and processors and packers, owners and skippers, bankers and builders pushed and pushed for the high line, for the top stock, for the fastest vessel, for the most reckless crew , forever haranguing for speed, for that press of sail. "Drive her, boys , drive her! " Jim Connolly loved to SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1989

Hard work, discomfort and risk are all in a day's work for fishermen. Here the men of the Gorton-Pew schooner Corinthian work their ship through high wind and seas in the mid-1930s.

PHOTO. EDW IN H. COOPER, T HOMAS COLLECTION.

The schooners designed by George M. McClain (often called Fredonia schooners after the prototype vessel) offered a graceful bow with roomierforedeck and the elegantly rounded stern so typical of th e Gloucesterman. This is the Senator Lodge of 1893, built

by Arthur Story of Essex.

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The "Jndian-h eaders" were so called because of the lndian names given to the first schooners with this strongly curved convex stem profile. This type , along with its variations of knockabout and semi-knockabout , was the las! of the classic Gloucester types .

Shown here is the Cavalier of 1904.

The knockabouts did away with the bowsprit , from which so many men were lost.This is the Arethusa of 1907, designed by Thomas F. McManus. All models shown here are by Erik A.R. Ronnberg , Jr.

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have his thinly fictionalized captains roar into the teeth of the gale--out to the banks and fish and home, ni ght and day, fair weather and foul, first in to market for that top dollar, and first back out.

The sharpshooters, in thi s first wave of the mania for speed, grew sharper and longer and flatter on the bottom and more seductivel y clipperlike. Vast mainsail s, huge mainbooms hangi ng away off astern, kites of topsails, jib upon jib shivering back from outthrust bowsprits that dipped into every green sea to sweep a man from the footropes.

Surprisingly rapidly, and with a seeming disregard for the lives of the men who must sail them , the owners and designers turned from the old sharpshooters and embraced the new clippers in their obsession with speed. There were staggering losses following the Civil War, when in the twenty-five years between 1866 and 1890 Gloucester lost 382 schooners and 2,454 fishermen.

And finally , when the carnage was at its worst a hundred years ago, did the stoic fishermen and the widows and the orphans of the victims rise up in their wrathful sorrow and demand an end to it? No, they were voiceless. Nor did the union, for there was none. Nor the owners, who cared not. Nor did the government, which knew not.

It was a master mariner who had been through it and seen it all and had survived to have ome influence in fishing circ les and in Washington , a compassionate newspaper editor, and a few others of their stripe who denounced the old ways and spoke up for reform .

Captain Joseph W. Collins was a self-educated Gloucester skipper, one of the best and most fearless of his day, who had been through hell in a long career at sea and had gained a highly respected position with the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries in Washington. Appalled by the crescendo of losses, and an articulate and powerful writer, Captain Collins mounted a personal campaign for greater safety in the New England fisheries through design reform. He immediately drew the sup-

port of George H. Procter, editor of the Cape Ann Weekly Advertiser.

The payoff came in 1885 with the launching of the commission 's plumbstem research schooner Grampus, the inspiration of Collins, the creation mainly of Dennison J. Lawlor, East Boston designer and builder. Grampus broke the mold of blind habit and inertia. It was as if the veil had been lifted . One might think the designers had rediscovered the wheel, in this case the first principle of the seaworthy sailing vessel known by every boy who ever whittled out a model with a jackknife: depth of hold and low center of gravity, according to which, if one ad heres to common sense, the more she tips, the more she wants to right herself. They had but to look around them at the last surviving pinkies, reproachful reminders of forgotten basics, and ask themse lves, How? Grampus and a few other pioneers led to the big schooners of the turn of the century , the knockabouts , the "Indian Headers," the powerful wineglass hulls with deep keels and yachty lines, and finally to the breathtakers of the 1920s and 1930s, lofted to race the fastest of the Canadians and to fish enough to qualify-the be-all and end-all of the Gloucestermen in their magnificent dying days.

** ***

The balance of power between man and fish , between predator and prey , had for centuries been moderated-sometimes thi s way, some times that-by wind and wave. With the interjection of machinery and technology into the equation , the scales have tipped , perhaps decisively. Wind power and sails, hooks, and lines , even seines-too chancy, too slow, too arduous, too patient, too balanced. Or were they? .V

Mr. Garland, lifelong resident ofGloucester, has been a union organizer and newspaperman , and is the leading historian of the Gloucesterfishingfle et. This article is adaptedji¡om his book, Down to the Sea: The Fishing Schooners of Gloucester (God ine, Boston, 1983).

IS

GLOUCESTER' s ADVENTURE

by Joseph E. Garland Fifty years ago, on 26 October, 1938, the age of sail died in Gloucester, died in style. On that day Gloucester ' s Gertrude L. Thebaud and Bluenose of Lunenburg sailed the last of the International Fishennen ' s Races.

So ended a way of life, dependent upon the wind , that had endured and clung on since Gloucester was settled in 1623, the first in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. Under sail, a hundred thousand men of Gloucester had hauled a mountain of fish from the sea, hand over hand (48 million pounds in 1878 alone), in four thousand schooners built next door in the salt marshes of Essex . Ten thousand G loucestermen who went down to the sea never returned , nor hundreds of their vessels.

"Small wonder that the mere mention of Gloucestermen was enough to command sharp respect and even wonder wherever seafaring men congregated, causing many to indulge in an interlude, however brief, ofunabashed reflection ," said Gloucesterman and later movie actor Sterling Hayden, mainmastheadman on the Thebaud in that last splurge of sailpower fifty years ago.

Now, a half century later, just when it seemed that time and even memory itself were giving out for Gloucester, Adventure has sailed home . She is a survivor-a true Gloucester fishing schooner, the genuine article. The age of sail is being revived here where the fishing schooner was born , and where it seemed to expire in what was regarded at the time as the final curtain of canvas on 26 October, 1938.

After taking Adventure 22 years in the Maine windjammer trade, Captain Jim Sharp has returned her to Gloucester, from which she first sailed fishing 63 years ago. He attached only one condition: " I am prepared to offer her as a gift to our posterity if I in return am offered assurance that she will continue to be cared for, prominently displayed as a monument to the hi story of Gloucester, and used for the education and pleasure of the public."

Realizing that such an opportunity will not come our way again, a group of citizens has organized the Gloucester Adventure as a nonprofit corporation for the following purposes:

To preserve the historic Gloucester fishing schooner Adventure and other fisheries and maritime artifacts, including watercraft. . . to heighten and perpetuate public awareness of the rich and pioneering role of the City of G loucester and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in tht< birth and growth of the American fishing industry .. . and [to protect] the vital global resource of the fisheries.

The Gloucester Adventure ' s first goal is to repair the forward sections of Adventure for her recertification by the Coast Guard as a passenger-carrying sailing vessel. Target date is June 1989, estimated cost: $340,000.

Over time it is planned to install watertight bulkheads and an auxiliary engine, and to incorporate other features that will enhance Adventure's versatility and earning ability as a sailing school vessel. These capital costs will raise the overall funding goal for the Adventure project to $765,000. w

Those wishing to help save Adventure may send contributions to The Gloucester Adventure Corporation, Fitz Hugh Lane House, Harbor Loop , P.O. Box 1306, Gloucester, MA 01930; tel: 508 281-8079.

Preparing to sail, Adventure takes on crushed ice in fish baskets, about 1950. The swordfish pulpit on the stem has been hauled up out of the way. And while Adventure still carrries a headsail and try sails on the fore and main, herfore gaffand main boom and gaff have been removed.

16

Th e Adventure today. Built: 1926, Everea./ames, Essex MA. Type of rig: Schooner, two masts, selling 6 , 000~/: Registered length: 121 'on deck, 107' on the waterline. Breadth: 24'6" Draft: 13 ' 9". Gross tonnage : l 30. Original owners: Captain.Jeff Thomas of Gloucester Present owners: The Gloucester Adventure Corporation .

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The Lettie G. Haward and Her People

by Norman Brouwer, Curator of Ships, South Street Seaport Museum

It would be hard to find a fleet of hi storic vessels with more diverse origins than those collected over the last twenty years by the South Street Seaport Museum. Consider the 2, 100-ton, 294ft iron full-rigged shipWavertree, which sailed from the great English seaport of Liverpool and was acquired by the museum in 1968. The former suburban estate of R . W. Leyland , Wavertree's owner, visited early last year by the author on a trip to Liverpool, is a showplace of Victorian splendor with its landscaped grounds, grand stairways, etchedglass sky lights, and richly decorated plaster ceilings. Somewhere toward the other end of the social and economic scale lie the origins of South Street's 75ft wooden fishing schooner Lettie G. Ho ward, acquired as the Museum's first sailing vessel, just before the Wavertree.

The schooner's builder, Arthur D. Story of Essex, Massachusetts, was the principal owner when the vessel was launched in 1893 , but the captain, Fred Howard of Beverly put together the backing to build this schooner and he named her for his daughter, Lettie Gould Howard. Lettie, who undoubtedly christened the schooner, was born 22 years earlier when the family lived in Deer Isle, Maine. Captain Howard had moved to Beverly by 1888, where he lived until he disappears from the record in 1921 at the age of 73. The streets on which he lived survive in Beverly today , hardly altered in nearly a century. They are mostly narrow , slightly meandering, lined with very modest frame dwellings on tiny lots that crowd the sidewalks and each other. At hi s home, 26 Railroad Avenue, hi s daughter Lettie was married in 1896 to Pearl Tremaine Barron, a printer of Salem, Massachusetts.

Captain Fred Howard 's venture into captain-owner status was brief. He gave up command of the schooner he had named Sailing into City Island en route lo New York's Fulton Market , the for hi s daughter in 1895 after just two years. Six years later the Lettie G. Howard glides along on a breath of moming air, Peter boat was "sold south," to work in the red snapper fishery out Stanford at the helm. Photo, Bob Ferraro. of Pensacola, Florida. Frederick Howard continued to command fishing schooners for other owners. Research is under- 1923. Subsequently a rebuilt schooner named Mystic C. way to fill in the remaining detail s of the lives of Captain appeared . When this vessel was brought north to Gloucester Frederick Howard and hi s daughter Lettie, and we hope in the mid- I 960s the group responsible believed her to be the someday to locate living decendants of the first captain of rebuilt Caviare , built in Essex , Massachusetts in 1891. But South Street's fishing schooner.

Caviare was wrecked on a reef off Mexico in 1916, and there The Lettie G. Howard spent just eight years in the New was no record of her having been salvaged , and no evidence England fisheries, operating out of Beverly and Gloucester. of her existence between 1916 and 1923. After the schooner One of the smaller class of vessels of her type, she worked the was acquired by the South Street Seaport Museum under the banks closer to home, particularly Georges Bank east of Cape name Caviare in 1968 , investigations were launched to deterCod. She fished for cod caught with hand 1in es from one or two mine the true identity of what was so clearly a Gloucester hull. man dories, gutted and cleaned on the deck of the schooner, Late in 1969 William J. Broughton of Birmingham, Alabama and salted down in the hold. When she went south to the Gulf interviewed H.L. Mertyns, who had operated the marine of Mexico in 1901 she was entering quite a different fi shery . railway of the Warren Seafood Company of Pensacola, a Here the entire crew manned the weather rail to fish for red rai lway also used by E.E. Saunders & Co., owners of the snapper, while the vessel with its wheel lashed was allowed to Mystic C., to overhaul and repair its vessels. Mertyns had a log drift off slowl y to leeward. The skipper fished next to the for the railway with a page for each vessel hauled in the period wheelbox, and the cook next to hi s companionway. The rest 1921-34. As Broughton and Mertyns leafed through the log of the men were arranged along the rail according to their they found a page for the L ettie G. Howard. The name Lettie seniority.

G. Howard had been crossed out and above it written, " name Northern-built schooners continued to dominate the snap- changed to Mystic C." per fishing fleet well into this century. When boats had spent Historian John Lyman then searched federal records and twenty years or so in the fi sher!}' they were generally hauled the Pensacola papers of the period, and determined that the out and thoroughly rebuilt, acquiring in the process new Mystic C. was the Howard rebuilt. In 1971 the South Street names and new official numbers. Some boats were also built Seaport Museum gave the ship back the name Lettie G. on the Gulf in thi s century. Gulf builders usually gave their Howard. Launched in 1893, rebuilt in 1923, she is now in need vessels more beam than the New England builders. They also of another major rebuilding, just short of her centennial, to get dispensed with the break in the deck so popular in New her sa iling again. .i.

England, which had provided eight or ten inches of additional headroom aft, preferring instead to build, or rebuild , their Mr. Brouwer is author of The International Register of Hisschooners flush-decked . toric Ships (Sea History Press, $29.75 ), and former trustee of The Lettie G. Howard was dropped from enrollment in NMHS. SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1989

19

The Birth and Rebirth of the L.A. DUNTON

by Dana C. Hewson, Shipyard Director, Mystic Seaport Museum

I,

NANCY D'ESTANG PHOTO, COURTES Y MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM.

The big, able schooner dominates the skyline at Mystic Seaport Museum (at left), her starkly simple rig towering over the worldgirdling square rigger Joseph Conrad (left) and matching the height of the royal mast ofthe Charles W. Morgan (rig ht).'Above,she cruises under easy canvas on Georges Bank off Cape Cod in 1928.

COURTESY MYSTIC SEAPORT MUSEUM .

Among the major vessels preserved at Mystic Seaport Museum is the L.A. Dunton. She, like the Joseph Conrad and the Charles W. Morgan, is an outstanding example of restorations of our maritime heritage.

The L.A. Dunton was launched in March of 1921 , a product of the famous Story Yard at Essex , Massachusetts. She was built without an engi ne but provisions were built in for a later installation . These included a shaft log and propeller aperture.

We believe her first engine was in stalled two or three yea rs after she was launched . She fished out of Massachusetts unti I 1934 when she was sold to G&A Buffet of Grand Banks, Newfoundland. In Canada she saw service as a fishin g vessel and later she carried freight. She remained in Canadian ownership until 1963 when the Seaport acquired her.

At that time, Mystic Seaport 's Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard did not exist, and major restoration work had to be done in commercial shipyards. Before ever coming to the Museum she went to the Thames Shipyard in New London for restoration work. At that time the stern was rebuilt to its earliest confi guration and the whaleback house was removed.

In the fall of 1972 work was begun at the Seaport retopping the ship from the break beam forward. The forward portion of the deck was also renewed at this time. This work was accomplished with the ship in the water under a temporary shed . She was rerigged and put back at her regular berth for the summer of 1973. The LA. Dunton was hauled at the Seaport for the first time in 1975. At thi s time she was retopped from the break beam aft with her aft deck being replaced at the same time. During two subsequent haulouts she has been rebuilt below the waterline at both her bow and stem. The foe 'sle and aft cabin were also restored during thi s period.

When a restoration is undertaken, one of the first deci sions made is the restoration target date. Once this has been dec ided , research focuses on the appearance and construction of the vessel at that date. We have a great deal of information about the LA. Dunton in the period 1922-1923 and therefore we

20

have chosen that time period as her restoration target date. The ship is exhibited without an engine since her first one was not installed until after that date.

The Seaport goes to great lengths to make its watercraft restoration and maintenance work accessi ble to the public.

The Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard is open to the public and visitors are perm itted to wander about the lift dock, lumber sheds, and sawmill area. There is also a visitor 's gallery overlooking the interior of the main shop from which small craft restoration and construction may be viewed. Visitors we re, for example, able to see the ten dories for the Dunton be ing built from thi s gall ery. When portions or al l of a boat or ship must be enclosed in a temporary shed , the public is either allowed inside the building, or plex ig lass panel s are used to allow viewing from the outside. This approach gives the public a chance to see first-hand watercraft construction and restoration.

The restoration of the L.A. Dunton has been an ongoing project for several years and will continue for several more.

Most recently we have installed a donkey engine with windlass drive gear which should be operational by spring of 1989.

Because we have a first class restoration facility and staff, we are ab le to refine our restoration projects as research is completed, and nearly every year more work is done which brings the L.A . Dunton, as a whole, closer to her restoration target date. We also have control over the quality of material and workmanship involved in our projects, which is of spec ial importance as traditional ways of doing things die out in the general economy . Any benefit which is lost due to having one of our ships temporarily undergo ing restoration (downrigged and tom apart), is more than made up for by the opportunity thi s affords the publi c to see the work being done. w

Mr. Hewson is director of the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard at Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut.

SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

''Mantenhas'': Ernestina's Work Today

by Peter Stanford

"To willingly go out in the North Atl antic in a bloody littl e schooner, and then, worse than that, anchor the thing and get in one of those little dories and row away fro m the ship, in a fog," said Captain Dan Moreland , "be lieve it or not, that was considered a technological breakth ro ugh."

He was speaking at Mystic Seaport Museum 's 8th Annual Symposium on Southern New England Maritime History, ex pl aining how the big Gloucesterman he commands had started out in life as a Grand Banks schooner. Thi s is just one of the careers the vessel has lived through. She went on to sail out of Brigus, Newfoundl and , with an American in her crew li sted as skipper so she could come in to market her catch in US markets. T hen, in 1925 she was picked up by Captain Bob Bartlett fo r hi s annual trips to Greenl and and Alaska to catch and bring home li ve musk ox and other fauna for variou s zoos and museums. These voyages continued during World War II under the auspices of the US Navy, who commi ss ioned Capta in Bob to carry out urgentl y needed suppl y and survey work in those remote waters he knew so well.

And then ensued her postwar career as the "Cape Verdean Mayflower," as a New York Times reporter chri stened her, rev iew ing an ex hibition on the ship and her place in the story of Cape Verdean immigration to the United States-an ex hi biti on sponsored by the NMHS to support the campaign to save the ship. Think of it: The last sailing immigrant packet ship, bringing peopl e to build new li ves in the United States as late as 1965 !

It was a 4,000-mil e passage over seas as dangerous as in the Mayflower' s day, traversed by the aging schooner without radi o or auxiliary power, arri ving every year or so in Prov idence where her people came down to her at the pier and she became "a sort of community center, in effect," in Captain Moreland 's words.

Earlier, Moreland noted that the old Morrissey sailing out of Bri gus was for the Newfoundl anders, " their connection to what makes the world round ."

And so, when Moreland took charge of the ship ' s restorati on as a first-class sailing vesse l after her return to the US in 1982, he and the Schooner Ernestina Commi ssion of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts dedicated her sailing to " mantenhas"-maintaining the salt water connection between the communities the schooner served . So, in that true and Ii vely way, she sti II serves those comm unities today, challenging all who see her with hermagnificentpresence, and with her continuing story.

And the beat of that story continues: a report in Cruising Club News has her coming into Bri gus las t summer at 12 knots--outrunning the classy ocean-racing yachts sent out to meet her! w

Captain Dan Moreland at Ernestina' s helm off Gloucester, 1987, where working schooners gather each summer to try their paces, in memory of the International Fishermen's Races of yore.

SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1989

Schooner weather! Ernes tina ex-Effi e M. Morrissey strides along, her bow wave flashing white under overcast skies, off Portland, Maine in 1987. Photo, Captain Jan Miles.

The watch turns to, to sheet in theforesai/--->{lnd it takes the whole gang to do it. But anything is easy, after tailing on to that long throat halyard fa ked out on deck in the fo reground!

The Schooner AMERICAN EAGLE PHOTO: BILL HA YES

In August 1977, the American Eagle heads out to sea from Gloucester, passing Thatcher Island in the background, propelled by her big engine. Below, in 1986, rebuilt as a sailing schooner with lengthened stern, she slips along smartly under her four lowers, as she started out more than half a century ago.

PHOTO: 0.K. BARNES

by John C. Foss

The schooner American Eagle was launched in Gloucester in 1930 for Captain Patrick Murphy, already a veteran of 53 years of fishing. Modelled somewhat after Emily Cooney, a previous command of Capt. Murphy's, American Eagle was constructed by the United Sail Loft, on their pier at the mouth of Vincent Cove. She was one of at least two Gloucester fishermen built by the United Sail Loft, Shadow being another.

She was christened Andrew and Rosalie, after Captain Murphy 's ni ece and nephew, and left on her maiden swordfishing trip on 26 June.

Her first eight years were occupied by swordfishing summers and dory trawling winters on Georges Bank. Rigged with four lowers and a husky Cooper Bessemer, she did well under Captain Murphy and Captain Rose. In 1938, upon Captain Murphy' s death, she came under the management of Captain Pine. A larger engine was installed in 1938; in 1942 he renamed her American Eagle, as a patriotic gesture; a shelter house over the wheel and a squall net winch were added by 1944. Carlo Ciamitoro bought her in 1944 and had a modern pilot house and Hathaway winch installed in the year or so he owned her. He then sold her to the Piscitello family, who sold her to me in 1984.

By 1984 Captain Murphy 's craft had been fishing out of Gloucester long enough to completely fill up her main cabin seat Jockers with gear and spare parts from every piece of equipment she had ever had- harpoons , fish hooks, gauges, engine parts, bel ay ing pins, and tons of rusty mystery items.

The dories were gone, the bowsprit sawed off. Aboard was a shrimp net, whiting net, flounder drag, survival suits, radio, radar and depth sounder. She was just good enough to run down the coast under her own power to Rockland , Maine and the North End Shipyard, of which I am co-owner.

Her general arrangement was typical of the last fishing schooners-ten or eleven bunks forward and four aft. The forecastle was finished in varnished cypress and the main cabin in mahogany. In between was the fish hold with a capacity of 100,000 pounds.

Between November 1984 and April 1986, she was completely rebuilt and re-rigged at the yard. A crew often, at times including six schooner captains, replaced all the frames above the waterline and half the planking, and put in a new stem, deck, rails, ironwork and rig. We faired the sheer and drew the stern out to 92' over the rails. She is 19 '2" wide and draws 11 '6" and carries about 45 tons of inside ballast and 4,000ft of sail in her four lowers. And the four lowers are all there is, aside from a dory sail and harbor awning. She will do about 8 knots under power and up to 13 under sail.

In the past three seasons we have carried Murphys and Piscitellos among our guests. The old fishermen find her much different from her fishing days but are glad that she found a new career in her retirement. The American Eagle participated in OPSAIL '86 in New York and competes in the Gloucester Schooner Race, Labor Day Weekend every fall.

After a summer of cruising the Maine coast, the trip to Cape Ann and back is a welcome change, a chance for an overnight sail or two, and an opportunity to relive her past history with some of the people who made it.

www Capt. John C. Foss has run his own cruise schooner in Maine forfifteen years, served as a deck officer in the Coast Guard, and is co-owner ofthe NorthEndShipyard in Rockland, where a number of schooners have been rebuilt.

22

SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

The men of the Admiral Dewey of 1898 have ner doing a good nine knots even under short canvas and are giving the Boston steam trawler Spray of 1905 a run for the money. "Steel to Starboard, " oil on canvas, 26" x 38"

THOMAS M. HOYNE: Artist of the Gloucesterman These days you've almost got to be a computer genius to run one of the great steel hulled vessels that regularly fish the Ban.ks. Between Radar, LORAN , SA TN AV , depth finders, fish finders , knot meters , gas gauges, tachometers, VHFs etc. , the inside of the wheelhouse looks more like an airplane cockpit than anything else. But there was a time not so long ago when brave ~nd hearty men set out for the great fishing grounds of the Grand Banks 150 miles off the New England coast in large, sleek wooden sail-powered vessels with no engines, no electronic navigational gear or winches, no radio for distress signals or communication with other vessels, no updated weather reports and no warm pilothouse to shelter them. These men fished the rugged waters of the North Atlantic throughout the seasons, in all kinds of weather, and under all conditions, relying only on their skill and savvy to see them safely out and home again. These men and their Gloucester schooners, as their vessels were known, have left us with stories of speed, seamanship and personal courage that rival any maritime history.

It is these ships and the men who sailed them that keep marine artist Thomas Hoyne awake at night as he figures out how best to preserve the rich variety of this fascinating fleet in paint.

SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

By Russell Jinishian Although he is not old enough to have witnessed these vessels in their glory years, he relies on those men who did, or those who have made a lifetime study of them. But like all great artists, his most important tool is his powerful imagination through which the mere facts and figures of these vessels are forged into beautiful and symbolic vi sions of what life aboard them must have been like.

For most people what sets Tom's work apart from all others is his treatment of the sea, that ever-changing elemental force that engenders fear and fascination in all who spend their life on her or make their living from her. So full of promise and despair, immutable and inscrutable, the ocean's waters are among the most difficult subject for any arti st to paint. No one does it better than Tom Hoyne. From the thundering seas of "First for Home" to the oily water of "The Uninvited ," he has developed a way of rendering salt water so vividly that you would swear it was about to spill out of the canvas at your feet. Using techniques mastered during his years as an illustrator in combination with reference material gathered from hours and hours spent on the sea observing and photographing, Tom Hoyne has captured the majestic rise of an ocean swell with unmatched authenticity.

And in this sea, he has placed a vessel , heavily laden with a full load offish, canvas flying, racing to be the first to arrive at market to obtain the best price, or plowing deep into the trough of a wave, members of the crew furling the jib, clutching the bowsprit for dear life, as the vessel plunges into the sea again and again , as shown in his memorable "Hanging On." He 's recreated the moment with a sympathy and insight that transcends the mere facts of the action.

But as with all great artists, this kind of consummate masterful skill did not come to Tom overnight. He spent 35 years in the illustration field, working his way up from a tenderfoot with no formal training through the ranks to one of the most accompli shed illustrators around. He travelled the country doing work for companies like International Harvester, United Air Lines and Standard Oil, honing his skills on everything from landscapes and antique cars to airplanes and marines. Among his most important projects was painting portraits of 16 American winners of the Nobel Prize for Science, as well as a campaign portrait for Barry Goldwater.

In the famous courtroom clash between the American artist James Abbott MacNeill Whistler and the English art critic John Ruskin , Ruskin's counsel

23

"Hangin' On," oil on panel, 24" x 30"

Above, the Gloucester schooner Stiletto, a semi-knockabout ofMc Manus design,fishedfor twenty years as a mackerel seiner, haddocker and halibuter, and sometimes freighted bulk herring from Newfoundland during the winter. Here, in rising wind and seas, the men are furling the jib topsail on a lifting bowsprit. With the next swell they will again be plunged into the sea.

Below, after a hearty breakfast the early-rising crews sliced bait, readied their trawl tubs and launched the dories. "A Flying Set," oil on canvas, 25 " x JR"

24

challenged Whistleron what grounds he felt entitled to charge a handsome fee for a picture he had painted in and hour and a half. Was his time really worth so much? Whistler replied,"No, it was for the knowledge gained through a lifetime." While Tom Hoyne's paintings take much longer to complete that Whistler' s did, the knowledge from a lifetime's experience is no less vital to his painting style.

With Tom Hoyne, both art and ships have been a lifetime preoccupation. As a young boy summering in Ogonquit, Maine ,he became fascinated with the great ships that remained from the Golden Age of the Gloucester fishing fleet. It was here also that he became acquainted with marine artist Gordon Grant, whose encouragement and interest in marine subjects fueled his own growing interest. After college at the University of Illinois, he was made an officer in the US Navy ' s Amphibious force .

As gunnery officer on the LST 48 with its crew of 12 officers and 125 men, he participated in the landing on Okinawa and patrolled the often turbulent Pacific. But there is one moment that galvanized his interest in painting ships- that was his first viewing of the movie Captains Courageous in Gloucester. He says : "The subject of the story was the Gloucester fi shing fleet and I was completely taken by it. In fact it started a lifelong interest in the New England fishing industry , its ships and traditions. I started drawing fishing schooners and building models of them, and have been doing so from that day to the present." That day was in 1938.

Only since the late 1970s however, has he been able to tum his considerable talents back towards his true love, maritime art, focussing specifically on the vessels of the Gloucester fishing fleet.

By now he has painted many of the great vessels of that fleet in all their various aspects and at all the activities a fisherman of that day might engage in. How does he select a particular vessel or aspect of the industry? He says: " It isn't always a ship that starts my mind working. In fact, it is seldom that. It is an activity . .. launching a dory .. . hauling in the nets ... running ahead of a storm ... putting up a sail. I romanticize the action-see things in my imagination, and then begin the long process which results in a painting. Certainly, it isn't taking a list of ships and deciding to paint them all. That would be boring for me."

Tom ' s intense interests in Gloucester SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

/

I

"The Uninvited," oil on panel, 27" x 37"

fishing schooners have led him to painstaking research of every aspect of these fishermen's lives. Over the years he has amassed an enormous amount of reference material, photographs, plans, and writings on over five thousand vessels, which his wife Doris, a librarian, has catalogued and cross-referenced by horneport, dates, activities, type of fishing, captains, family histories, etc. He has also worked closely with one of America's premier model builders Erik Ronnberg to build perhaps the finest collection of fishing schooner models in the country. He uses these models to get the position of the vessels and detailing in hi s paintings just right. Ronnberg, whose father was a rigger on the famous Gloucesterman Gertrude Thebaud, has built a number of models for Tom over the years.

Almost five feet in length , these models are completely accurate scale representations of the actual vessels on which all parts work-the blocks run, the windlass cranks around, the anchor chain comes in and runs out." They're probably the only models of their type in the country today," says Torn. 'Tm trying to build a collection of models of representative types for my own enlightenment, to aid in my work, and also to establish a permanent record for the future ... sort of a benchmark for people to build on in the future . I'd like to have these models made while there are still people around who actually witnessed the vessels and can put their input into it, from first-hand experience."

But he hasn't stopped there. He has been a regular at maritime museums up and down the East Coast looking for information, and also sailing aboard a few remaining coasting schooners sailing regularly out of Maine where each visit helps him recapture the feeling of the sea and wind and these great vessels under sail. When he can't verify a certain fact himself or needs special firsthand information, he calls upon one of the close friends he has developed over the years who share his enthusiasm for the Gloucester fishermen.

One of them is Charlie Sayle, a legendary figure who came to Gloucester when he was just 17 years old from the Midwest, and began fishing. During his long career he sailed on all types of fishing vessels, coasters, freighters all over the North Atlantic and the Great Lakes. At the same time he was taking photographs and recording information, and he now has an unparalleled collection of material on these vessels, as well as a first-hand memory of many of SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

I II I

The North Atlantic fishermen had to share their fishing grounds with the transAtlantic steamships, whose sea lanes cut through the Grand Banks and other rich grounds. Here the Stiletto's dorymen , warned by the steamer'sfoghorn, cluster around their schooner. In 1925 this steamship , the Glasgow-built Tuscania, ran down the Gloucester schooner Rex, cutting her in half and drowning fifteen men. The nine survivors were rescued by Tuscania's lifeboats. The Stiletto survived until April 4, 1930 when she stranded on a sand bar offNew Jersey. The schooner was a total loss, but fortunately her crew was saved.

Below, an on-deck view of the newly-built Shepherd King of 1905 with 40"_ _ __ the Norumbega in the distance. "Running By," oil on canvas . 24" x ...,.,... ~ ij ~

'

,.

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them , how they were rigged and the captains who sailed them.

Another man who played and important part in developing Tom's sense of these vessels was the late Gordon Thomas who made it his life 's work to accumulate and dispense accurate information on Gloucester schooners. He spent his life collecting photographs, reviewing newspaper files, and poring over the records of government agencies to uncover information on them. He compiled much of this information in his book Fast & Able which chronicled the stories of 76 of these vessels. His tremendous collection of photographs has now been turned over to the Cape Ann Historical Association where it may serve other painters, as it does Tom. And there's Dana Story, whose father Arthur Dana Story was the leading builder of Gloucester schooners at the end of the 19th century. He is another friend and valuable source of information for Tom. He has compiled a list of 1,100 wooden ships launched at Essex at the different yards over a period of 107 years.

With the help of these men , and many others, and with Tom 's own collection of reference material , he is able to ensure

Commission Your Favorite Ship Sail or Steam

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the accuracy of his work and include information in his paintings that either may not have been brought to the surface before or was in danger of slipping away forever. Like the author who spends years researching his subject before writing the definitive history, Tom is preserving for posterity little-known facts about a way of life that has now passed from the scene. Of this he says,"I was born too late to witness this, and am therefore trying to recreate these scenes for .my own enjoyment so I can see the things that I can see no other way.

Through research I strive to make them as accurate as possible and have the people in the vessels look as they looked in those days, trying to create a sense of being there on the spot, witnessing for yourself."

But Tom's paintings are much more than a description of a particular event or moment in time, much more than the literal sum of their parts. While he strives for great accuracy, he is also able to imbue his works with a powerful spirit and evocative energy that makes them more than mere illustrations. Like all good artists he realizes that it is the composition, line and qua! ity of painting that sets the stage for his message to be delivered, and he will spend days, even weeks, working an idea up through a series of thumbnail sketches into a fullscale highly detailed pencil rendering of the picture to get each element in just the right proportion and place. He refers to the sketch constantly while working on the painting, so that with everything in place he can concentrate on painting the picture.

It is this kind of dedication to his craft and painstaking care that has made Tom one of the most sought after and recognized marine artists working today. His paintings are the focal point of the Russell

Knight collection in the permanent Fisheries exhibit at the Peabody Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. A Fellow of the American Society of Marine Artists, he was awarded, in 1983, the Rudolph J. Schaefer award at the Mystic International Exhibition. This award is given annually to the marine artist whose work "best documents our maritime heritage, past or present for generations of the future." Hi s work can be found in private collections all across the country and thou sands more have been able to enjoy hi s unique images through the many limited edition prints that have recently been made available of hi s paintings.

As interest in contemporary marine art contin ues its explosive growth, more and more talented artists than ever before are devoting their considerable skills to depicting and recreating all aspects of maritime life. These artists are working within the great tradition of the artists who have gone before them , and this activity is producing its own modern masters who continue to be sought after by the next generation. As the rugged, hard-working men Tom Hoyne admires so earned their place in the annals of seafaring, Tom has earned his place among the masters of marine art now and in the future . w

J. Russe/!Jinishian is the Director ofthe Mystic Maritime Galle1y of the Mystic Seaport Museum Store , Mystic CT.

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SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

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No Quarter-No Mercy depicts a battle between a pirate ship and a man-of-war. Never before has Mr. Vickery put so much action and detail into a painting. It's a battle to the finish-pirates in action-cannonbal ls raising havoc w ith the ships-sa il s on fire-a man's picture made to adorn his study, den or office. ju st comp leted prints were too late fo r th e " Vickery At Sea" brochure. Issue price: one hundred fifty dollars . To readers of this issue of Sea History on ly- order at half price. Print image size: 16x20 inches.

The Christmas Tree Schooner (16"hx19"w) The famous Rouse Simmons which for many years brought Christmas trees from the north woods to Chicago and other G reat Lake ports. It went down w ith all hands in 1912, during an unexpected blizzard on Lake Michigan.

Rouse Simmons (16"hx19"w) The famous Christmas Tree Schooner, now unloaded, but w ith one last tree sti ll tied to the topmast. An ideal companion piece to go with The Christmas Tree Schooner.

Mr. Charles Vickery is recognized as one of the most outstanding marine artists of our time . His paintings and prints grace museums, embassies and private collections the world over. He has been featured in leading newspapers, television and radio programs, and video documentaries.

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Marine Art News Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool, England, opened a new marine art gallery in November. The Museum consists of seaport buildings grouped around the Canning Half-Tide Basin, and activities include a working cooperage, boatbuilding, rigging and ship modelling. Liverpool was a center of marine painting in the 1800s, and included among fifty paintings in the new gallery are works by Joseph Parry, Robert Salmon and Miles and Samuel Walters. (Merseyside Museum, 127 Dale Street, Liverpool L69A, England)

Cabin Fever Catalog Write for our first short catalog in two years! Items include: a rare Chelsea striking ship's clock; etchings by Reynolds Beal, Henry Moses, and C.JA. Wilson; Martha's \ Vineyard broadsides; books; photos; small oils and ' watercolors; half models; and marine ephemera.

"Ships and the Sea: Marine Paintings from the CIGNA Museum and Art Collection" will be on ex hibition at Mystic Seaport from 1 April to 12 June.

CIGNA, a Philadelphia-based insurance corporation has lent 48 paintings illustrating the perils of the sea, which will be on display in the museum 's R.J. Schaefer Building. The collection reflects the major artistic styles of the last two centuries including folk painting, romantic seascapes, impressionism and 20thcentury reali sm. The In surance Company of North America, CIGNA 's subsidiary, began insuring ships in 1792, and has been acquiring works of art related to its early business interests as a marine insurer since then. (Mystic Seaport, Mystic CT 06355; 203 572-0711) More than 100 works of art by 85 contemporary marine artists will be displayed 31 March through 19 August in the ninth National Exhibit of the American Society of Marine Artists at the Maryland Historical Society Museum History in Baltimore. ASMA, a nonprofit organization devoted to the work of living marine artists, was establi shed in 1978 to recognize and support marine art and history in the United States.

The I 1th annual Smith Gallery Marine Exhibition was held 14 January to 16 Febuary at the Smith Gallery , 1045 Madison Ave., New York NY 10021; 201 744-6171. Catalogue, $10.

Fournew limited edition prints by John Mecray have been issued by Mystic Maritime Graphics depicting "Shamrock V," "Concordia Yawl," "The Sloop Gloriana," and "A Narragansett Passing. " Mecray, famous for hi s portraits of racing yachts, is chairman of the Museum of Yachting in Newport, Rhode Island.

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SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

29

Getting Into the Spirit: SAIL TRAINING ABOARD SPIRIT OF MASSACHUSETTS

by Mark Pendergrast

Ten days aboard a sailing schooner changes the way you think about the world. There are obvious differences from life ashore, such as the absence of phones, showers, stereos, and firm ground on which to plant your feet. And yes, you begin to think in terms of starboard, port, fore, aft, below and aloft.

But it's more than that ....

Such thoughts are far from my mind just now, however, at 4AM this July morning. My mind is fog-bound, since, as a member of the port watch, I have just staggered up on deck for another four hour rotation of bow watch, taking the helm, and being available for sail changes. I have had about three hours sleep since we went off watch at midnight.

No one warned me I would work quite this hard when I signed aboard as the education officer for this Maritime Wilderness trip with a group of teenagers way back ten days ago. I only knew I would be sai ling on one of the newest of the tall ships: the Spirit of Massachusetts, a 123ft vessel built and launched at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston. Only two years old, Spirit is owned by the non-profit New England Historic Seaport, Inc. Modelled after the Fredonia, a traditional Gloucester fishing schooner sent down the ways in 1887, Spirit' s three-fold mission includes charters, goodwill missions for the State of Massachusetts, and sail training.

As part of that training, Captain J.B. Smith, a crew of eight, seven teenage trainees and I are on the last leg of our trip, which has taken us up the Maine coast to fog-shrouded islands rich in history , wildlife, and adventure. In only a few hours, we will be sailing into Boston Harbor again, gliding toward skyscrapers while planes thunderoverhead approaching Logan Airport. Then, almost inconceivably, we will be on land again, where we wi ll travel, not by boat, but by car over paved Going ashore from the big Fredonia-mode/ schooner helps get a highways back to our regular lives. Just now though, I have novel experience in perspective. Photos by the author. awakened and am standing bow watch. While scanning the horizon for ships or lights, I think back on all that has crammed Heidi and Susan. I think of them together, since they itself into our trip and on how this adventure has affected some of the trainees. usually are. Heidi Glowacki and Susan Darragh are both from John Buckley, 17, from Hingham, Massachusetts, is enthu- Charlestown. Neither had any sailing experience prior to the siastic, strong-bodied, already an experienced sailor on large trip. Nor were they quite prepared for life at sea. Heidi , at 14, and small boats. Still, he came aboard a bit unsure of himself. is the yo ungest of the trainees and was at first rather self-conA heavy sleeper, he is sometimes hard to roust for his watch scious about it. The first day, when crew and trainees were and sports a somewhat blank look for a while each morning as sp lit into two lines on deck to hoist the mainsail by means of we wash down the decks, polish the brass , put fresh water on the throat and peak halyards , Heidi complained that the line the bright work (all the varnished wood) . No one is quicker to hurt her stomach. It became a shipboard joke that she said vo lunteer for hard work, though-hauling on halyards, faking "Ouch! " every other word. She enjoyed my educationa l afterout the mainsheet, or laying aloft to help furl the main topsail. dinner talks by sleeping through most of them .

Solid. Dependable.

Susan, 18, came aboard wearing pearls and leather-soled Jam feeling particularly fond of John because he enjoys my flats. For several mornings, she took a mysteriously long time talks about the history of the islands. He was fascinated by in the head, until it was discovered that she was applying stories about the granite industry on Hurricane Island, our first makeup. Susan slept on deck the first night out, claiming she stop. The island, now home on ly to Outward Bound students, couldn't possibly stay in that claustrophobic bunk. She and at one time housed some 1,500 people and shipped granite for Heidi stood back and giggled nervously the first day or so some of our country's most famous and enduring buildings, whenever line-handling was called for.

No one stays aloof for long on the Spirit of Massachusetts , such as the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.

Hurricane Island supplied the granite for the 64ft columns on though. A boat, even one as large as Spirit, doesn't allow the the front of that church. Then one day in 1915, the granite com- room or the leisure, and gradually, during the next few days, pany folded, and in the ensuing panic to get off the island , Heidi and Susan became part of a cohesive team. On the sixth day of the trip, the two were assigned to the jib topsail halyard. people left meals half-eaten on their tables.

Amy Abbot, 19, from Hanover, Massachusetts, the oldest The jib topsail has a lot of halyard, since it must be pulled from and most mature trainee, came aboard with some smal l boat the deck all the way up the forestay to the masthead. As Heidi sailing experience. Since she is of slight build-must weigh and Susan struggled with the weight of their sail, I offered to bare) y I 00 pounds-I was worried at first that she might be too help. "No!" Susan gasped . " No thanks! We're OK! " Their frail, but she proved to be just as tough as anyone else in work- style left a good deal to be desired. They fell on their behinds. ing the see-saw windlass to pull up anchor, or swaying a They lost their rhythm _ But they kept at it. And they succeeded. The entire crew cheered when the sai l was finally set. halyard or sheet to get it just that inch tighter.

30

SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1989

Quite a handful, that big mainsail! A fishing schooner could carry a sail that size because of the dozen or more hands aboard, needed to man the dories.

Susan has become this trip's brass fanatic. On every sailtraining voyage, it seems that one trainee becomes obsessed with shining the brasswork, but I've never seen one as compulsive as Susan. She even shined the copper at the head of the main saloon ladder, though she was discouraged to see it begin to tarni sh again immediately.

Without the crew, of course, we would never have sailed.

More than that, though , these special people-ranging from enthusiastic Conrad Gann, a twenty-year-old college student, to quiet, competent Rinn Wright, forty two-have shown a real concern that the trainees learn. Whether it means going over splicing technique, teaching knots such as bowlines or sheet bends, or helping with bearings and chart work , each of the crew has shown patience and humor in passing on the art of sail.

Sue Farady, twenty-three, has done a remarkable job of feeding us all , especially considering this is her first stint in the galley . She was "promoted" from deckhand in order to slave over Fang, the despised diesel cookstove, but she still finds the time to help out with instruction and sail-handling.

As I continue bow watch, keeping an eye on the early morning trawlers chugging out to fish the Stellwagen Bank, I think back to all the times and places that have made this trip unique: ihe first overnight sail "Down East" into a thick Maine fog, watching the sun sizzle into the sea from a granite outcrop atop Hurricane Island; accepting the challenge of the Outward Bound kids to jump off the dock into the frigid ocean waters; screaming down Penobscot Bay on a glorious , blustery , sunny day in the company of the Maine schooners-the Adventure, fast and venerable, the Roseway with her crimson sails, Angelique with distinctive black sails , Mary Day with her newly painted black hull; exchanging miniature cannon-fire salutes using fierce but harmless blanks.

My favorite island was Isle au Haut. Named by Champlain ("high island"), it rises to 554ft and is one of the gems of Penobscot Bay. We dropped anchor one night in Moore's Harbor and rowed ashore the next day, equipped with buckets and high hopes for scavenging much of our supper from nearby Seal Trap Cove. Actually , seals were never trapped there. Champlain thought the cove so still and mirror-like, he named it Trappe de Ciel, " trap of the sky." The present name is our awkward way of Anglicizing it.

At first hesitant to get wet and muddy , the trainees were soon knee-deep in the muck of low tide, finding more seaworms than clams, but having a great time anyway . Heidi ' s shoes sunk out of sight ("Ouch! ") and John lost his balance, landing flat on his back in the mud flats.

SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

Captain J.B. led us further down to a point where he knew of a plentiful supply of green spiny sea urchins hiding under the rocks. Pulling out a pair of dull scissors, he cut around the five-cornered mouth of one creature and removed it, revealing brown eggs inside. "Here, John. Try this. They're delicious. " "Raw? Really?"

"Sure. Better than caviar. Look." J.B. downed a thick glob.

So, in addition to the plentiful supply of whelks and mussels and a few clams, we came back aboard with numerous sea urchins. We had appetizers from the sea, capped by urchin eggs served on toast with a bit of chilled white wine provided by the captain to wash them down. We kept the urchin ' s bony mouth parts, which, when cleaned up and dried, are called Aristotle's lanterns.

That night, we camped out on Isle au Haut and, gathering everyone around a campfire built safely on a rocky point, I finally got this determinedly non-musical bunch to sing. We went from old folk songs to sea chanties to African rounds.

Somehow or other, we ended up singing an impromptu round of "Louie, Louie," desecrating the holy night air of Isle au Haut with sounds that closely resembled cats yowling.

Each island seemed to have its own character. The Barred Islands, so called because they are connected at low tide by sand bars, were resplendent with red and white wild roses and beach peas. Tiny bumblebees assaulted the sumac growing in thick groves towards the summit. Butter Island had a pleasant meadow on top, a spectacular view , a rare sand beach , and a small sign attached to a tree asking us not to litter, signed by a Boston Cabot of High Street.

* * * * *

A whale off the port bow spouts again , but I cannot see hi s body. As I peer off the stern port quarter searching for the whale, I see the first glimpse of the sun. It rises, blood-red , incandescent and ovoid, out of the sea. There is just a smudge of cloud darkening it on the horizon. It is 5:25 AM. I've never been so conscious of the earth moving. Within minutes, the sun has cleared the horizon, turned into a yellow ball, and turned too bright to look at. Heidi relieves me of my watch and tells me to take the helm .

Our last day aboard has dawned. .i.

Mark Pendergrast, a freelance tra vel writer based in Stowe, Vermont, has participated in sail-training trips for teenagers over a ten-year period on a variety of ships. He tells us he would be happy to entertain other story ideas or sailing invitations.

31

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SHIP NOTES, SAIL TRAINING & MUSEUM NEWS INVENI PORTAM (1915-1988) George C. Campbell, distinguished naval architect, marine artist, and maritime historian, died on 9 October in his native England at age 73. He came to the US in 1963 with his wife Peggy and their three children, and worked as an exhibit designer at the American Museum of Natural History until his retirement in 1979, when he returned to England.

In the late 1960s he showed up at the converted fish stall that housed South Street Seaport, to offer his services as a volunteer. He became the naval architect for the restoration of the museum's square rigger Wavertree, an office he had also filled for the tea clipper Cutty Sark preserved at Greenwich, England.

Born of a family of shipwrights and fishermen, he had worked in the famous Cammell Laird yard outside Liverpool, and this experience gave a strongly practical bent to his artistic vision and scholarship. He became a memberofthe Royal Institution of Marine Architects in 1947.

He was author of a well received and beautifully illustrated hi story The China Tea Clippers, and he also wrote The Jackstay, a handbook for modelmakers which is now a standard in the field. In 1978, Campbell was the recipient of the NMHS Jam es Monroe A ward. He served on the NMHS Advisory Council and continued to be active in Society affairs after hi s retirement to Brighton, England. Humor and scholarship alternated in his contributions to Sea History, as in his private correspondence, which was voluminous and endlessly helpful to students of things maritime.

He wrote movingl y of the ships that he studied and depicted in his paintings and drypoint etchings, ballasted by his practical experience and his sure feel for dimensional things. The China, clipper, he said , "m ust surely rank as the most aesthetically perfect man-made shape."

And he added. "There is much to be learned about the purpose oflife looking back .... " Peggy said that finding him unconscious toward the end, she knew he was away somewhere-"in one of his ships." PS GEORGE C. CAMPBELL

H ARRI SON

J.

0RI NG

(1919-1989)

Harry Dring (he did not like to be called Harrison!), for many years the keeper of the historic ships in San Francisco, died 20 January 1989." A great guy-a legend in his own time," is how his friend William E. Burgess, Jr., described him .

Burgess is one of the host of private citizens, volunteer supporters of the 34

former San Francisco Maritime Museum (now a National Park), who learned what they knew of ships from Dring. Dring had been shipmates with his boyhood chum Karl Kortum, founder of the museum, in the bark Kaiulani (which NMHS was formed to save) in her Cape Hom voyage to South Africa and Australia in 1941-2. He put the well being of the ships first in his concerns, as a note from Burgess's journal 10 November 1984, soon after Dring 's retirement, nicely illustrates: Harry was in fine fettle, drinking scotch and enjoying a cigar. He told us he has done all he had intended to do in life, and ifhe is to go, he ' ll do it his way.

So be it. Ray Aker had read to him Davis' letter to me on the state of the ships. Harry just dropped by Fort Mason, and the stem section of Galilee is still unprotected from the rain!

Our heartfelt sympathies go to Harry 's wife Matilda, and his sons, one of whom drives a tugboat today in San Francisco Bay.PS W. FREEMAN, JR. (1906-1988) Fred Freeman, whose passing was noted briefly in our last, died on 6 June 1988 in Essex, Connecticut, where for many years he had made his home. A marine artist par excellence, and maritime historian of considerable note, he was distinguished by his infectious enthusiasm and enormous generosity to aspiring artists and indeed anyone who appreciated the story of American seafaring, especially the naval side. A retired Commander USNR, he commanded a subchaser in World War II, participating in the battles of Guadalcanal, Saipan, and Guam.

After the war he became the leading artistic interpreter of the nuclear navy, particularly the undersea branch, making annual reserve outings aboard nuclear submarines until recent years . He designed and illustrated Scribner's Picture History of the US Navy, and the Naval Institute's histories of destroyer and submarine operations in World War II, among many other works. His memory will be bright in naval circles for decades to come, and his dedication Jives on in the work of young artists he inspired and helped. PS FREDERICK

***** Commander Tyrone G. Martin, USN (Ret.), former skipper of USS Constitution and author of her standard

biography, A Most Fortunate Ship, has been assembling from primary sources a database ofinformation on people who served aboard USS Constitution during her nearly 200-year career. Currently, the database is virtually complete for all those serving prior to 1882. All of the ship 's officers of the 20th Century are thought to be accounted for, but more research is needed to enlarge the enlisted men 's segment for the modem period. (Captain 's Clerk, 68 Pond Street, Cohasset MA 02025-1920.)

In celebration of its 25th anniversary, the National Maritime Historical Society made seven awards to leaders of America's maritime preservation movement on Friday, 2 December at the New York Yacht Club. Yacht Club Commodore Frank V. Snyder welcomed the Society and introduced National Maritime Historical Society Chairman Jam es P. McAllister, who opened the ceremonies with the James Monroe Award .

This award is given annually in recognition of distinguished work in maritime history, and this year's recipient was Norman Brouwer, curator of ships at South Street Seaport.

New York, explained Brouwer, is "the city with the richest maritime history in this hemisphere. Yet, the port as it was is virtually disapppearing .. .I think we have an even greater responsibility to save this maritime history for future generations." Previous recipients of the award include the late Robert Albion, the leading maritime historian of the Atlantic world, Alan Villiers , historian of the last great square-riggers, and George Campbell, architect of the Cutty Sark restoration in Britain and Wavertree restoration in New York.

The American Ship Trust Award was presented to Alan Hutchison , for his efforts to save the Kaiulani. The effort which began in 1963 resulted in the formation of the National Maritime Historical Society. At present, Hutchison is installing her bow as a monument in San Francisco.

The Sheet Anchor A ward was presented by Society President Peter Stanford to the five founders of the Society, including Brouwer and Hutchison. Other founders honored were Frank 0. Braynard , curator of the United States Merchant Marine Museum, Karl Kortum, founder of the National Maritime Museum in San Francisco, and Scott Newhall , publisher, conservationist and adventurer.

"The Sheet Anchor is the ultimate SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

New England Schooners anchor," explained Stanford. " It holds when all else fails . Future awards will be made to major donors to the Society who help assure the future as these founders assured the past." Also honored, with resounding applause, was Laurance S. Rockefeller, who gave the National Society a $25,000 grant to help assure that future. (NHMS , 132 Maple St., Crotonon-Hudson NY 10520; 914 271-2177) Seeing a large wooden merchant ship being built is a unique experience, but it doesn ' t go on forever, especially when Nick Benton and The Rigging Gang are at work. Benton is building a replica of Henry Hudson's Dutch East India Company merchantman Halve Maen (1609) in Albany, New York for the non-profit Holland Village Inc. "Beginning this week," said Benton, "our shipwrights will be working full time on the ship in Albany until its launch and completion this summer."

Until now, all the ship's major structural members-its keel, stem , transom , frames, deck beams, etc.- have been made in Mayville NY and Middletown RI, and trucked to Albany for assembly.

Because of this, there have been periods when there was only limited visible progress at the site. "We expect to see a lot of progress every day from now until she's launched," said Benton.

With the completion of the visitor's center, the public can now see the shipwrights working on Hudson's 17th century ship. Admission is free, and special weekend tours and educational programs can be arranged by calling 518 4261135. (The Rigging Gang, Albany phone-518 426-3319) One shipyard in New York harbor, Caddell Drydock and Repair, is not only flourishing , but is doing booming business in refitting big, square rigged sailing ships! Last year it was the l 78ft barkentine Gaze/a (built 1883) which came in from Philadelphia for re-coppering and other work; this year the giant 34 7ft bark Peking (1911) from South Street Seaport, and as we write, the 277ft Coast Guard bark Eagle (1936) .

Soon after Eagle leaves, early in the new year, she will be joined by the l 25ft HMS Rose (1970 replica of the 1757 frigate) . One wonders if the yard ' s founder, John B. Caddell , handled such tonnage in square riggers 85 years ago , when the yard opened. (Caddell Dry Dock and Repair, Foot ofBroadway, PO Box 327, Staten Island NY 1031 O; 718 w 442-2112) SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1989

by Charles F. Sayle We worked to save the old schooner AliceS.Wentworthforseveral years, and when she was given to NMHS she was too far gone to save. Well there is some good news now. The crew at Mystic asked me some years back about building a replica of a Connecticut-built coasting schooner for their vessel collection and I mentioned A lice Wentworth as a fine , good sailing, handsome little vessel, and the last coaster in service under sail on this part of the coast. I had many photos of her and had measured her above the waterline in 1937, and had much info of her bottom. They agreed and over the years worked up a fine set of plans. There has also been a fine plank and frame model built of the Alice at the Seaport. They have been picking up timber for the replica for several years, while they put the Morgan, Dunton, and J. Conrad in good shape.

Now that they are caught up and want to keep their shipyard busy, plans are to start soon to build another Alice and visitors will be able to follow the progress as she takes shape.

Gloucester had a small fishermen ' s museum for fifteen or so years and a year and a half ago, Jack Farrell had to close down and store his collection, when the government cut off funding. In the last four or five months Joe Garland of Gloucester has been working to set up a new museum between the old Burnham ' s Railways and Duncan Point on the harbor. Saul Jacobs Park is already set up down there and the city already has the piece next to the park, an ideal spot for the museum . Friends are now being sought.

Captain Jim Sharp found the old schooner Adventure (1926) last American dory trawler to sail on our coast, in need of considerable repair this year, so he gave the schooner to Gloucester. As funds come in she will be hauled at the old Burnham ways and restoration will begin , right next to the musuem. Joe Garland , author and newspaperman of East Gloucester is heading up this effort.

Back about 1882 a gorgeous cod fisherman was built for Gloucester, the J.E. Garland, named for Dr. J.E. Garland of East Gloucester. Capt. Tom Firth, famous mackeral killer who was well into his 70s, and very handy with tools , made a very fine model of her for Joe, and we all had a drink to her in 1982, on the lOOth anniversary of her launch. Since building her, Tom has passed on. He was very active in the fleet when I was fishing in the 1920s.

Jean Kortum contemplating the swamped Alice S. Wentworth in Boston harbor, shortly before the old schooner was acquired by NMHS in late 1973. She broke up in a winter gale early in 1974 . Photo , Karl Kortum .

About 15 years ago Byron Coffin stopped in the Chesapeake area on the way home from Florida, and bought the 1890s Chesapeake Bay bugeye Sallie L. Bramble. She is about 50 feet long and sloop rigged, round stern , a framed bugeye (plank and frame built, rather than built from a raft-like log bottom).

He and his wife brought her to the island and they lived aboard her for several years. She was finally sold here, and during a NE gale dragged her big anchor and plenty of chain ashore, but was hauled off undamaged within the hour and remoored. She was tender on one side at the turn of the bilge on one quarter, and tied up in the Boat Basin, sank during another fresh NE gale.

Captain Fred Hatfield in the big dragger Ruthie B. raised her and pumped her out, and canvas was nailed over the seams.

Paul Dunn later came from Boston and bought the vessel , sailing her to P. town and hauling her out on Flyer' s railway, where some new framing and planking were put in . From there he sailed her to Boston and anchored her off the Congress Street Bridge, where the replica of the old brig Beaver lays, the one used in the Boston Tea Party, that Paul brought over from Europe a few years back.

On 12 August, I had a call from Paul D. that he had sailed the Sallie to St. Michaels, Maryland where she is tied up now . She is now owned by the Maryland Oyster Fleet Foundation. Bids will be requested from several yards of the area for rebuilding the 98 year-old vessel.

She is finally back home and the state of Maryland has given a grant to restore her. When ready she will be at Pier 5 on the Baltimore waterfront with the other Chesapeake types of vessels. In the closed part of the oyster seasons, spawning time, the Sallie went freighting , including trips east with oyster seed for .t East Providence RI.

Mr. Sayle, scrimshander and master model-builder of Nantucket, sailed in the Gloucesterfisheries and in the coasting schooner Alice S. Wentworth.

35

\

\

\~ Around th e turn of the century fish ermen adopted a new color scheme. Here is the Cavalier of 1904 with dark green topsides, \ \ yellow stripe and black rails- the traditional look of th e new England fis heries that prevails even ¡~ today. Note the clutter of boats, gear and machinery on deck - a challenge to the mode/maker, as it was to the men who worked th ese Grand Banks schooners!

MODELMAKERS' CORNER:

The Thomas Hoyne Collection of Fishing Schooner Models

by Erik A. R. Ronnberg, Jr. This bow view shows th e stong V-sectionfor the Harry L Belden of 1889, whose slack bilges, deeper keel and lower ballast impro ved stability and, hence, safety at sea.

I '1

36

My first encounters with Tom Hoyne were over the telephone in 1978, when he called with questions about the plans of fishing schooner Elsie which I had drawn for Model Shipways Company. Tom was then doing his own modelmaking, though quickly discovering that this activity was consuming more of his time than he wished. In the spring of 1979, I received more calls, inquiring if I was interested in finishing a fi shing schooner model he had started. After seeing photos of the model , I said I was, and a few days later, received a crate containing a very large hull. Tom had decided that large scale models-nothing less than 3/8"= 1 '- were the best for his purposes, and I was to have an enlightening (and sobering) experience in meeting the demands for detail that such a large model imposed. By early 1980, the model was finished , Tom was satisfied with the results, and we embarked on building a collection representing the major types of fishing vessels dating from the1880s to the early 1900s. A few types from other periods were also built as Tom found a demand for paintings of them.

All subsequent models were built solely by me, working from scratch or using castings from patterns of my own making. The large schooner models took from 1,000 to 1,300 hours to build, depending on variations in complexity or the amount of fishing gear required. Several models had two sets of dories and fishing gear, or a set of dories and a mackerel seining outfit, so many different types of fishing could be represented in the paintings. The models were removable from their baseboards and all spars and running rigging were workable to simulate different situations under sail. Working sails were not fitted, however, due to the difficulty of making them behave realistically. To study and sketch each model, Tom would pose it in a sand box , then view it from angles that interested him , making careful notes and sketches to work out the proportions of the hull and its details in perspective.

To date, the 3/8" scale fleet comprises nine models of SEJA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

Th e greatly extended f oredecks of the knocka/Jouts replaced the dangerous bowsprits of earlier schooners and prol'ided more room j i1r gear and safe r conditions f or working the headsails. At right , Cava lier'sji1re riggingj'ea111res 14 " hlocks ,an iron cranefor thefore throat halyard, and other 111assi1â&#x20AC;˘e hardware . concomitants of the 1¡as1 sail plans carried hy these.fast and ahle schooners.

sailing fishermen, with a model of an early steel hulled steam trawler in progress. Working with my father, we produced several other models to smaller scales, none of them offering the challenges posed by 3/8" scale. Some may rightfully maintain that miniature-scale m odels are the most dem anding of a modelm aker' s skill (and eyesight) , but I have found that large scale makes its own unique demands, particularly with fine detail and quantities of it required. One must not only replicate detail, but also deal with its nuances-the styling of the ironwork and wood moldings, proper splices and other rope and wire work, the visual effects of weathering and wear.

A "slick" fini sh just won ' t do, and the model maker has to deal seriously with the contention that a ship model approac hes (but never attains!) perfection by understanding and simulating the ship ' s imperfections. In the rarefied atmosphere of this modelmaki ng philosophy , the measure of a modelmake r's sanity is knowing when to stop.

The creation of a collection of models embodying this much detail is as dependent on accurate source materi al as on skill , and I have people and institutions to thank for ass istance in thi s task. Among them are Edward S. Bosley, the late Willi am A. Baker, the late M.Y. Brewington, the late Howard I. Chapelle, Charles F. Sayle, D ana A. Story, John S. Carter, and the late Erik A.R. Ronnberg, Sr. Helpful institutions include the Cape Ann Historical Association, Peabody Museum of Salem, Essex Shipbuilding Museum , New Bedford Whaling Museum, Mystic Seaport Museum , Smithsonian Institution , The Mariners' Museum, and the Hart Nautical .i.

Collections of the MIT Museum.

Mr. Ronnberg, a mode/maker by trade , was curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum and is currently Vice President of the Cape Ann Historical Society and on the Board ofDirectors of the Nautica l Research Guild.

SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1989

37

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39

THE BOOK LOCKER: The Gloucestermen Some people say Britain's North Sea smacks, those plumb-stem, no-nonsense ketches of Grimsby, Hull, and other east coast ports, were the greatest sea-boats to fish under sail. But to a New Englander, or Nova Scotian or a Newfoundlander there is no question about it, the preeminent sea-boat for fishing offshore under sail was the "Gloucester" schooner of eighty years ago. The pilot-schooner-like plumb stemmers, the clipperbowed followers of the Fredonia and Nellie Dixon (like the Lettie G. Howard and Effie M. Morrissey), the round-bow variations on the "Indian head" model (like Mystic Seaport's L. A . Dunton), and the knockabouts, shorn of a bowsprit (like Adventure), all combined lofty rigs, deep, stable hulls , and long, lean, yacht-like lines. They fairly flew to the fishing grounds, tended their dorymen with just skipper and cook aboard, kept their crews secure in howling gales, and pounded home to market. No wonder so many books have been written about them and the way of life they represent.

Certainly Rudyard Kipling's convincing (though secondhand) fictional tale of a spoiled boy's coming to manhood aboard a fishing schooner, Captains Courageous, is the classic image of fishing schooner life. It is often on high school reading lists, but it 's worth another look (and the 1930s movie version, despite its plot changes, had some wonderful working and sailing footage) . Gloucester's own adopted storyteller was James B.Connolly, an Olympic athlete and author who actually sailed in schooners and may have encouraged the exploits of some of the skippers with his tales of full mainsails and green water over the lee rail. Yet, he knew the fishermen, especially the Irish, and something of their solid, fatalistic bravery in putting protein on the tables of warm, inland homes comes through in his short stories. Only two of his volumes are now in print: Out of Gloucester (1902), and The Deep Sea's Toll (1905), both reissued by the Short Story Index Reprint Series.

When it comes to biography, the schooners have fared better than the men . The late Gordon W. Thomas, son of a renowned schooner captain who was forbidden by his father to go to sea, did the next best thing and became the historian of Gloucester fleet. His Fast and Able: Life Stories of Great Gloucester Fishing Vessels (Nelson B. Robinson, Rockport MA, 1973 reprint) , offers thumbnail biographies of some of the port' s most notable schooners from the 1870s through thel920s. Gordon's fa40

ther, Captain Jeff Thomas, finished off MarinePublishing, CamdenME, 1976). his career in the Adventure (which Jeff Finally, model-maker Erik A.R. commissioned and Gordon named), lit- Ronnberg, Jr., who seems destined to erally dropping dead on her deck. Then, fill Chapelle' s shoes as the living expert under Captain Leo Hynes, she motor- on fishing vessels, has published two sailed right into the 1950s. A real anach- works on schooner types: Gloucester ronism with her dories and trawl lines Clipper Fishing Schooners -a modelamong the draggers, she was the last ing guide for the schooner SmugglerAmerican dory-trawlerto work offshore. (1976 reprint, TAB Books, 1985), and She then put in a second career in the The American Fishing Schooner BenMaine windjammer fleet , and has now jamin W. Latham (Model Shipways, returned to Gloucester. Her remarkable Bogota NJ, 1973). story is told by Joseph E. Garland, with Given the picturesque beauty of fishCaptain Jim Sharp, in Adventure: Queen ing schooners, and the coincident develofthe Windjammers (Down East Books, opment of reliable, quick photographic Camden ME, 1985), which contains technology, it is not surprising that a much firsthand commentary by the leg- large number of fishing schooner books endary Leo Hynes and some of the best are pictorial works. The classic is Albert photographs of dory fi shing that exist. Cook Church 's American Fishermen Dana Story, son of A.D. Story, the great- (W.W. Norton, New York, 1940), which , est builder of fishing schooners, has de- with its many on-board views, would be tailed the career of the Columbia, one of even better if someone would republish the classic racing schooners of the Inter- it in a larger format on hard paper. Gornational Fisherman's Cup series, in Hail don Thomas published some very inforColumbia (Ten Pound Island Press, mative photos of Gloucester and her schooners in Whaif and Fleet (Nautical Gloucester MA, 1985 reprint) .

Dana Story also wrote the very evoca- Reproductions , Gloucester, 1977), but tive description of life and work in the this large-format, comb-bound booklet schooner-building town of Essex, Mas- also suffers from production flaws. A sachusetts, entitled Frame Up! The Story much better produced book, which unof the People and Shipyards of Essex, fortunately is also out of print, is Edward Massachusetts (Ten Pound Island Press, W. Smith, Jr. 's Workaday Schooners: The Edward W. Smith Photographs Gloucester MA , 1964, reprint 1986).

The typology and design of fishing (International Marine Publishing, vessels has occupied a number of skill- Camden ME, 1975). It includes beautiful researchers and writers. A very use- ful shots of mackerel seiners in the viful outline essay on the subject is the late cinity of Newport, Rhode Island, beWilliam A. Baker's "Fishing Under Sail tween 1895 and 1905.

William H. Bunting, who perfected in the North Atlantic," published in the festschrift The Atlantic World of Robert the skillful analysis and interpretation of G. Albion, edited by Benjamin W. La- maritime photographs, included an baree (Wes leyan University Press, importantchapteron fi shing in his trendsetting Portrait of a Port: Boston, 1852Middletown CT, 1975).

Of course, the late Howard I. Chapelle 1914 (Belknap Press of Harvard Unihas long been considered the expert on versity Press, 1971 ). In Down on T fishing schooner design. His best-known Whaif: The Boston Fisheries as Seen work on the subject is The American Through the Photographs of Henry D. Fishing Schooner, 1825-1935 (W.W. Fisher (Mystic Seaport Museum , MysNorton, New York, 1973), which is still tic CT, 1982), I followed Bunting's lead in print. It offers a generally clear, though in interpreting fishing vessel photographs dry , analysis of schooner half-models my grandfather had taken in Boston and and plans, but lacks a strong narrative Essex during the transitional period outline and has gaps where plans or 1908-1920, but I tried to go a step-be- models for certain vessels are not avail- yond other fishing schooner books in able. Still, it is the most comprehensive addressing the milieu in which the schoobook on schooner designs. One of ners worked, as well as the coming of Chapelle's preliminary works, which competitive fishing technology and the contains some additional schooner plans, decline of the schooner even as it reached is also in print: American Sailing Craft its ultimate design.

The fishing schooner has also cap(Bonanza Books, New York, 1936 reprint). Chapelle addressed the subject tured the imagination of many artists, again in a wonderful reference book, and some excellent examples of their The National Watercraft Collection, work are contained in Paul F. Johnson's second edition (Smithsonian Institution , The New England Fisheries: A Treasure Washington DC, and International Greater Than Gold,The Russell Knight SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

Collection of New England Fishing Scenes (Peabody Museum, Salem MA, 1983).

Yes, there is a solid shelf worth of books on New England fishing schooners, but much work remains to be done.

Joseph Garland's Down to the Sea: The Fishing Schooners ofGloucester(David R. Godine, Boston MA , 1983) gives us the feel of going to sea in a Gloucester schooner in a style reminiscent of J.B. Connolly (and contains some great photos), but there is not a good history of Gloucester, or Provincetown, or Boston that puts the fishing industry in its local and regional perspective.

Finally, while Harold Clifford ' s Charlie York: Maine Coast Fisherman (International Marine Publishing , Camden Maine, 1974) is an ora l history ofa fisherman who sometimes went offshore in schooners, few other works serious ly consider the fisherman and his world beyond the deck of a schooner or the thwart of a dory. In his day he was sometimes considered a "modern industrial hero" or a "modern-day Viking", but in reality he was usually an immigrant laborer in one of the most dangerous occupations in America. We need to get to know him and hi s captain s as well as we know their schooners.

A NDR EW

w. G ERMA N

Mr. German , editor in the publications program at Mystic Seaport Museum, is author of Down on T. Wharf. He pursues his interest in the.fisheries as time allows .

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Fifty Years of Fortitude: The Maritime Career of Captain Jotham Blaisdell of Kennebunk, Maine, 1810-1860

by Kendrick Price Daggett Captain Blaisdell spent fifty years in the North Atlantic carrying trades, and this reconstruction ofhiscareer, with liberal quotes from his surviving correspondence, gives the best available picture of a shipmaster's role in transporting the commodities of the Atlantic world - sugar, cotton, manufactured goods, and emigrants-during the "golden age" of America's merchant marine.

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Doom on T Wharf: The Bostmi Fisheries as Seen through the Photographs ofHenry D. Fisher

by Andrew W German Henry D. Fisher created a remarkable photographic record of the fishing fleet in Boston Harbor between 1908 and 1920, when Boston was America's largest fish market. 117 photographs, accompanied by an equally vivid text, recreate the fishing fleets and markets of a vanished era. The North American Society for Oceanic History named this the best book on American maritime history published in 1982.

160 pages, 117 photographs

A Supplement (1971-1986) toRobertG. Albion's Naval&: Maritime History: A Bibliography, 4th Ed.

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Origins tfSea Tenrudiffers from existing glossaries

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Atlantic Four-Master: The Story of the Schooner Herbert L. Rawding, 1919 1947

by Capt. Francis E. Bowker

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Captain Bowker twice sailed in this schooner before World War II. With special emphasis on his own experiences, he describes the vessel's career during the last days of sail, from her launch in 1919 to her loss in 1947. Presented the 1987 award in Marine Science and Technology by North American Society for Oceanic History.

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REVIEWS Charleston's Maritime Heritage, 1670-1865, an Illustrated History, by P. C. Coker, III (Cokercraft Press, PO 176, Charleston SC 29402, 1987, 314 pp, illus , $40) This lively and informative narrative takes us in good, robust, story-telling style from the arrival of the first small square riggers on the Carolina coast, through the development of Charleston as one of the British Empire's most luminous cities, and into the slowerpaced evolution of the nineteenth century seaport, seen at the end spending its genius to prolong the resistance of the Confederacy probably by at least a year.

P. C. Coker is well known to aficionados of Charleston 's proud past as art collector and model maker as well as maritime historian. It is appropriate that he burst upon our national scene with this deeply studied and deeply fe lt his-

tory. Clearly, this book has found the utterly right author, and a needed story is now open to casual readers and historians less versed than they should be in the rich heritage of the Southern states.

In Colonial times, Charleston was in a class with Philadelphia as a leading city ofBritain 's North Atlantic empirean imperium that has left rich legacies in the seaport towns on both sides of the stormy Western Ocean. Coker reckons, however, that its true golden age came with American Independence, in the era that led up to the War of 1812, roughly a generation. After that, accumulated wealth, a sophisticated leadership class, and the skills of its shipwrights and sea captains did not suffice to keep Charleston in the front rank of the brawling North American seaports. New York snaffled off the cream of the cotton business, with its famous triangular trade

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across the Atlantic-Carolina planters, increasingly in debt to northern merchants, simply provided the aggressive New Yorkers the return cargo they needed to make their rich transatlantic traffic pay in both directions. And New Orleans drained the developing trade of the deep South-and indeed the trading watershed of thi s giant among seaports reached far inland to Ohio in the east, Missouri in the west. Charleston's cultural eminence remained , as well as the organizing and leadership abilities of the city's ruling class. It was here, after all, that the Civil War started (as the Revolution may have been said to have started in Boston), and here its outcome was most brilliantly and doggedly contested by sea.

As noted in an earlier review of the artistic aspects ofthis fine, deeply rooted story of a seaport city (SH 47, Marine Art Notes, p39), photographs of ship models and dioramas bring a breathtaking quality of immediacy to the vanished scenes of maritime activity Coker records. Brilliantly detailed models show men at work building ships, outfitting them and loading them for sea on the city's foreshore, giving a strong impression of the physical processes by which Charleston maintained contact with the Atlantic world while it was building up a brilliant center of commerce and culture am id the sands and swamps that surround the little neck of land between the slow-moving Ashley and Cooper rivers, with the booming Atlantic just outside the sheltering outer beaches.

Coker writes from a deep-rooted fee ling for his city, and he is in fact a descendent of one of its shipbuilding families. He brings to life the feel and very look of the town as it weathered the centuries, and has assembled a constellation of marine artists to paint the scenes that ii 1ustrate this book, interleaving fresh interpretations with the work of the old artists. It is truly wonderful to see history visualized this way, through the changing face of a seaport city. To this reviewer, who first encountered Charleston with its pale seafront buildings blushing like a sea bride in the face of an early morning sun, while he drifted into its harbor on a breeze stirred up at dawn, Coker's visual love affair with his city is both attractive and true. He notes the role of hi story in shaping the face the city wears today, qbserving: "While the northern coastal cities changed, Charleston retained its colonial character and to this day more resembles southern Europe than America."

PETER STA FORD

SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

The Wreck

Destiny's Daughter- The Tragedy of the R.M.S. Queen Elizabeth, by Russell Galbraith (Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh , Scotland, 1988, I 76pp, illus, £12.95) Launched fifty years ago, the Cunard Liner Queen Elizabeth was the largest passenger 1iner ever built. Designed as a running mate forthe earlier Queen Mary and built at C lydeside, this magnificent ship was launched in September 1938 , less than a year before the start of World War II. She was sti ll uncompleted when hostilities commenced and she became a likely target for Hitler's Luftwaffe.

Completed in double-quick time, the great ship sailed from the Clyde early in 1940 under secret sealed orders and without proper sea trials. After zig-zagging across the Atlantic she reached safe haven in New York, early in March, to be docked in company with the Queen Mary and Normandie.

Thereafter she was principally employed (as was the Queen Mary) as a troop sh ip, their great speed making both comparatively immune to attack from lurking U-Boats. In this role she carried hundreds of thousands of servicemen across the Atlantic.

When the War ended, the Queen Elizabeth (and the Queen Mary ) were returned to Cunard to be refitted and refurbished , and returned to their intended role of carrying the luxury passenger trade across the Atlantic. However the writing was on the wall, with long distance air travel shortly to supplant these huge liners in the travel field.

In 1968, Cunard so ld the Queen Elizabeth to an American consortium and she sailed for the last time to the USA, intended as part of a tourist display in Florida. Thi s project was beset with problems, and finally the ship was sold to Ch inese owners who renamed her Seawise University and took her to Hong Kong.

Here, in Jan uary 1972, a number of fires started aboard (attributed by a later court of enquiry to probab ly deliberate acts on the part of persons unknown) and the fine old ship , burnt almost to the waterline, sank in shallow water with the remains to be sold eventuall y for scrap.

Galbraith carried out an immense amount of research, and obtained splendid period photos in this enthralling story of one of the the last great Atlantic liners.

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REVIEWS 1

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S hips a nd Shipwrecks of the Americas : A History Based on Underwa ter A rchaeology, ed. George F. Bass (Thames and Hudson, London and New York, 1988, 272pp , 376 illus, $40.00) "Those who want to understand America and the Americans cannot di stance themselves from the ships and boats descri bed in the fo llowing pages," says George Bass in the introduction to thi s admi rable volume. And here, indeed, the important wrecks are covered, fro m the brig Defiance lost in the Penobscot in the Revo lution, to the battleshi p Arizona sun k in Pearl Harbor. Bass, the acknowledged dea n of marine archaeolog ists, has assembled a stell ar cast to tell hi s story, in each case a leader in the fie ld , involved acti vely in the investigation of the ships di scussed.

The chronological organi zation is welcome, placing these ships and recovery efforts in the stream of hi story and giving the reader a li ving contex t for the ships in which their contribution to the w ider story becomes clear. An abun dance of historic ill ustrati ons, ma ps, d iagrams and photographs convey a sense of the physical actuality of the underwater heritage. In a ll , thi s book is a worth y successor to Bass' History of Seafaring, first publi shed fifteen years ago, and a very apt compani on to Peter T hrockmorton's Th e Sea Remembers, centered upon ancient and medieva l Euro pean wrecks, reviewed in SH48 .

Building the Blackfish, by Dana Story; photos , John Clayton (Ten Pound Island Book Co. , Gloucester MA, 1988 , I 73 pp, illus, $24.95) In the summer of 1938 , Mendum B. Li tt lefi e ld of Mamaroneck, New York, had the good sense to commi ss ion a new 52-foo t schooner, des igned to the G loucesterman mode l by Henry Scheel, to be built at the Story ya rd in Essex, Massachu setts. And John C layton, who had moved into town from A rizona, had the vis ion to make a complete photographic record of the whole process of bu ildi ng the schooner. The res ul t is a symphonic study of wood coming together to make the robust c urves and splendid shape of a G loucesterm an. Clayton caught the men unself-co nscious at work, putting the vessel together just as they had put fi shing schooners together for generations. The whol e intimate ly recorded process is narrated with ul timate authority by Dana Story (then an apprenti ce in the yard), complete with comments on the men, whom he knew personall y. Launched w ith the name Blackfish on I August I 938, the little ship sailed happily fo rthe SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1989

next twenty-five years , until her loss on 29 September 1963 in the Long Island Sound. Her iron keel had dropped off.

She would be sailing sti ll if she'd relied on the trad itional Gloucester mode of stiffening with all inside ballast!

The Log of Christopher Columbus, trans. Robert H. Fuson (International Marine Publishing Co., Camden ME, 1987 , 252pp, illus, $29.95) A handsome ly produced and authoritatively annotated edition of Columbus's own account, made eminently readable and comprehens ibl e through numerous maps , drawings and well informed commentary- including an appendix on the landfall theories (Fuson 's idea of where Co lumbus made land in the New World is shared by the National Geographic Soc iety), and much supp lementary material on the living conditions of the voyagers , and the life of the great nav igator.

The Eagle; An American Brig on Lake Champlain during the War of 1812,

by Kevin Crisman (Naval Institute Press , Annapolis MD, 1987, 276pp, illus , $22.95) Launched by New York's Adam Brown into Lake Champlain on ly 19 days after her keel was laid, the brig Eagle brought Commodore Macdonough 's squadron up to rough parity with the British, making possible his decisive victory at Plattsburgh in the War of 1812. Crisman 's lucid study sheds li ght not only on the emergency effort that produced the Eagle in time to turn the tides of war against British invasion, but on Commodore Macdonough's whole direction of the effort that produced American victory. Crisman, a nautical archaeolog ist, discovered the Eagle' s remains in 1981 and led the subsequent excavation and stud y of this "tangible relic of Adam Brown's shipbuilding ski 11 and Macdonough's military genius ," as he rightly call s it.

Memoirs ofa Gloucester Fisherman, R. Salve Testaverde (Rockport Publishers, Rockport MA, 1987 , 158pp, illu s, $10.00) This account of a man's life fishing out of Gloucester begi ns in the fall of 193 1, when fresh out of grammar school, he spotted a shipmate blown downwind in a dory, and guided his skipper to save him. Sheltering from gales behind Maine islands , getting caught out badly fishing the "gu ll y" off New York, the captain 's yarn is rich in seagoing incident and the developments of fam il y life ashore in the Italian fishing comm unity.

SEA HISTORY, SPRING 1989

At the Harbour Mouth, by Archibald MacMechan, ed. John Bell (Pottersfield Press, Porters Lake NS , Canada, 1988 , 142pp, $9.95) Shipwreck, fire at sea, and other perils of the deep are dealt with by brave Bluenose sai lors in these short accou nts of actual incidents written by MacMechan ( 1862-1933), a revered scholar and story-teller of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

John A. Noble: the Rowboat Drawings , by Erin Urban (John A. Noble Collection and South Street Seaport Museum, New York, 1988, 96pp, illus, $40.00hb, $20.00pb) When John Noble slipped his cable and quit this earth six years ago come spring, he left New York Harbor a poorer place. As the artist of the harbor he was not just an observer of the scene but an actor in it, a protagonist of its trades and its traditions, its way of doing things. When we had to organize John's funeral parade for the National Society, a parade of harbor working craft, only one call to each boat was needed-and they all turned out. They were turning out for one of their owna man who represented their lives in the harbor as Odysseus represented the Greekness of the Greeks.

We said in Sea History then that we weren 'tgoingto say goodbye. We would be coming back to John , one way or another, again and again. And to come by rowboat-that's the best! And that ' s what one can do in this book of his pencil sketches of old ships and activities in odd comers of the grand imperium of New York Harbor.

Here is the famous yaw lboat of the schooner Annie C. Ross, both in John ' s pensive drawing of her, and in a photograph. Here are notes of his harbor excursions, and further afield , even through the locks to Lake Champlain, with his "green-eyed Susan." Susan died a few months before John, and your reviewer remembers sitting by her bed with John toward the end , while they talked of those rowboat trips. One fe lt that the bed became the rowboat, setting out on a long trip this time. One didn ' t want to move too quickly, to rock that boat, nor wi ll you, reader, want to quit this book too abruptly.

PETER STANFORD Steamships of Europe, by Alistair Deayton (Conway Maritime Press, London , 1988, l 92pp, illus, £ 15.95) This handsome work-some of the photographs are haunting ly lovely-records and discusses the hundred-odd steamsh ips active in European waters. There is a further listing of 200 ex-steamers '1converted to diesel.

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45

Wesley Marrs Sets His Stays 'I

by James B. Connolly [Excerpt from Out of Gloucester ( 1901), slightly edited]

James B. Connolly, the Homer of the Gloucester fishing fleet was very much accepted by the men he wrote about.He had been to sea with them in their schooners, as Andr.ew W. German notes in "The Book Locker" in this issue. He published his fresh , authentic tales of the fisheries around the turn of the century, when the new model Gloucester schooners were seizing the attention of yachtsmen as well as the community of working sail. In this story ofan impromptu North Atlantic race, you' LI note references to the older types the.fishermen used to sail, and to the schooneryacht America.

Andy German suggests . that Connolly's work helped shape fishermen's own picture of themselves. Certainly Captain Marrs and his Lucy have that epic, primordial quality-very much alive and even, maybe, a bit larger than life.

The action of the yarn begins with an English yachtsman opening a conversation with Captain Wesley Marrs in a pub in Reykjavik, Iceland, where Marrs had taken his big schooner Lucy in quest of halibut ...

"Excuse me, but I gather you are fishermen up here for halibut?"says this swell-dressed Englishman.

"You' re right," says Wesley. "From Gloucester."

"Ah, from Gloucester. Fine, able fishermen from there, I hear," he kind of drawed his words out, "hardy, courageous, fine, able seamen-" "And fine able vesse ls," says Wesley warmin' up right away. We guessed easy enough what was in Wesley 's mind.

Somebody or other'd been writing stories 'bout Gloucester fishermen 'bout that time and putting them in the old style pinkies and square-ended tubs that was the fas hion when some of your fathers and mine went to sea. I never yet went among strangers in any of the new vessels that they didn ' t seem to be surprised at the build of our vessels, and, of course, the Lucy Foster and a few others of that model struck 'em dumb.

The Englishman was surprised to hear that the Lucy was a fisherman- he 'd an eye for fine vessels y'see- and had noticed her in the harbor. But he didn 't know much about our kind of people and Wesley kind of explained some things to him.

Then the Englishman told his story. He owned the big schooner yacht, the all-white fellow with the varnished toprails and yellow stripe along the run . We'd had an eye on her, by the way, and a handsome craft she was. That was his cruiser. He 'd come in the day before from some queer place on the coast of Norway and he didn't see anything in Rikievik to hold him . He was bound for America next by way of Boston, Newport, New York, Baltimore and so on down so's to be among the West Indies for the winter.

Well , he was a pretty hot sport, thi s one, and you all know the kind of boy Wesley used to be when anybody spoke against hi s Lucy. They had an argument, back to the days of the old America and all that. Finally, they 'greed to race to Gloucester. The Engli shman said he'd just as leave run into Gloucester so long as it was so handy to Boston.

Thi s Englishman was all right. He says about the money: "Your word is sufficient for me, Captain. Men that look like you will pay up. If you lose, you pay over a thousand dollars.

Ifl lose, I pay over to you a thousand to settle as both boats get into Gloucester. And in the matter of time allowance-the Bounding Billow, you must have noticed, is half as big again as you are. She isn ' t loaded down like you, and I can afford to give it. She has never been beaten at ocean racing, by the way , and I am willing to give you time allowance for our larger measurement. "

46

"To hell with time allowance," says Wesley. " When fishermen race, they all start together. And the first vessel home wins. You're a little longer and more beam and draught-let it go. And's for being loaded down-the Lucy could stow away half as many more halibut, and I wish she had it, the way halibut's been this summer. Don ' t worry 'bout the Lucy.

Those couple of hundred thousand of fletched halibut down below ' ll just give her a grip on things-sort o ' stiffen her up when it comes to blow-and it' s coming to blow or I don ' t know. There'll be wind stirrin' before you or me see Eastern Point, and the vessel that'll carry the sai l' ll be the lad for the trip. " There was a gentle gale stirrin' from the no ' th ' ard when we sailed out ofRikievik next day, Friday. Wesley liked the look o' things pretty well. We put out behind the Englishman , him under two-reefed mains'I and the Lucy under a single reeftwo jibs and whole fores'l, both of us. That was along 'bout dark. Wesley didn't make any attempt to push by the yachtjust laid to wind'ard of her. He did love to get wind'ard of a vessel- lay off her quarter and watch her. And for most of the rest of that night, we stayed there so.

When the sun ought to have been pretty near to showin ' up again, Wesley says: "Boys, I can ' t see but what the Lucy's holdin' her own, and I guess we'll wear off to the east'ardjust a little. We might 's well get out of sight of this fellow quick's we can now. I've a notion too, this breeze ' ll be coming from that quarter before a great while, and there's nothing the Lucy likes quite so well as to take it just a tri-i-fle slanting when it blows."

I don't know whether the Bounding Billow people saw us get away or not-p ' r'aps they didn't care. Anyway, they didn ' t come after us. We sunk their port light down afore daylight, and by good sun-up there wasn't a sail of her in sight.

Well, it didn't come to blow same's Wesley thought it would and nacherally , he was roarin ' 'round fine. We shook out the reef in the mains' 1 before noon-time of that first day, and later we set both tops ' Is and that whoppin' gauze balloon of the Lucy's. And she carried 'em easy, too. We warn't loafing altogether; we was makin' nine knots right straight along. But that wasn't pleasing Wesley. ext day it was the same story and next day it was lighter yet. We hove the log, and got only eight knots for twenty-four hours hand-runnin '.

Then , almost at once, fro m a nice summer breeze it jumped to a gale. Whoo-o-ish it whistled! A regular old buster of a Bounding from wave crest to wave crest, the Lucy overhauls a steamer-still not going fast enough for Captain Marrs.

Wesley Marrs hands the staysail halyards to Dan Ross. This is to hoist what yachtsmen call the "fish erman staysail," a big quadrilateral sail that sets high up between the masts--normally, a fairweather kite.

no'theaster and Wesley dancin' on and off the break while he watched it com in' on. "I'm thinkin' ," he says, "we can stow some of those summer kites for a while. Might put the tops'ls in gaskets, boys, and that balloon in stops. We won'tbe likely to need them any more this trip. This is the breeze I've been waiting for-struck in a little late, but it' ll make up for lost time soon."

And it sure was making up for lost time. The mains 'I pretty soon had to be tucked up, before another day we had to take it in altogether, get the trys ' l out the hold and fit that on. Now you know it was blowing some when Wesley Marrs had the Lucy under a trys'I and a yachtin ' fellow somewhere 'round racing him for a thousand dollars.

That was Friday night late. After midnight it was, for I went watch at twelve o'clock. I remember well Wesley and Murdie Greenlaw at the wheel when I came out of the cabin door to go for'ard. We was driving through it and she layin ' over.

Man, but she was layin ' over. I'll tell you how she was layin ' over. That very afternoon it was that Billie Henderson had walked along her weather run from her stem to her forerigging . You've heard that trick, some of you. Yes sir-we had a line on him in case he slipped-that's the truth .

Well, it must have been getting on toward one o'clock, for I was figuring on being called aft to take the wheel for my second hour; and then in one more hour a fellow could go below and dry off and have a good s leep. We were driving through it-two jibs, fores ' ! and trys ' l. We hadn ' tseen the top of her port rail for more than two days; and this was one of those nights when water gets full of phosphorus. It' d been a new moon gone down, and rain that morning, and you all know how the water fires afterrain and a new moon. It was fair afire now . And the Lucy' she was leapin ' from the top of one sea to the top of another. We made a lane you could see for a cable length behind, and there was blue smoke, I swear, coming from each side.

Her nose would poke under and we would get it all over. I had my elbow crooked in the fore-rigging so I wouldn't wash off. When she ' d rise, she'd throw the water over her shoulder, and it' d run the whole length of her deck and race over the taffrail. That was only the spray, mind you. She was taking it over the rail all the time, besides, as if she had no rail at all. The skipper and Murdie at the wheel must ' ve been pulp. Three or four others were in the waist-five or six men besides the skipper had to be on deck all the time.

SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1989

Well , we was whoopin ' along; we'd just shot by some lumberin ' old tramp steamer that was making awful bad weather of it, and somebody in the waist'd called out, "We 're this far, anyway , thank the Lord." The cook had his head out the foc 'sle gangway-just a narrow slit to sing out to us on deck- when we saw the skipper jump into the main riggin ' and look ahead, and then jump back on deck again as ifhe saw a ghost. He hollers: "If there ain't the Englishman ahead, and carryin ' a tworeefed mains '!! A two-reefed mains'!! And going like a liner!

I'll be damned ifI ' ll stand on the deck of the Lucy Foster and see Bounding Billow beat her home. I'll bust Lucy' s spars, but l 'll beat him. Bend on the stays 'I. I guess the Lucy can carry as much sail as that window-frame boat. Bend on that stays ' !."

You can bet that shook the boys up. A stays')! And her planks rattlin ' then! Dan Ross-most of you know Dan-big Dan was nearest me under the weather rail. He says, ''I'll fix that stays ' !." And he did fix her, as he thought. He yanks the halyards loose and they goes fl yin' aloft. We could just make them out slinging between the fore and main rigging-like long devils, with the block on the end.

Dan hollers out: "Stays ' I halyard-ends loose and can 't get hold of 'em-they ' re aloft. " Skipper says: "Go after them ."

Dan roars back: "What do you take me for. " "For a man," hollers the skipper; "but I guess I was mistaken."

"Show me a man crazy enough to go after them," says Dan. "Here 's one," roars the skipper, and so help me, if he didn't start aloft. Blowing? My blessed soul, we needed cotton hooks to hang on by. The boys was curled up under the wind ' ard rail with their fingers into the ring-bolts. And up went Wesley Marrs-to looard, mind you. And however he managed itwe couldn ' t half make out what he was doing there-but he got hold of them.

Down he comes with the ends fast around his waist.

"Here," he says to Dan, "take hold of that." He unwound about two fathom of it. "That's one end of the stays'! halyards you run aloft a little while back. That snaps into the after upper comer of the stays') , so long as we got to make things plain to you. And this,"- he gave him one end- "this is what you haul on. Is that plain enough? Then see if you can hang on to it, so ' s bettermen than yourself won't have to go aloft in a gale to get them down again . Now then , up with that stays ' !. Call all hands for'ard there, cook-and call all hands aft there, Murdie- and up with that stays'!. Up with it."

And up she went. Such a slattin ' afore we got her up! But she got there-and then! If she was leapin' before she was high-diving now. The water was firing like I was telling you, firing like an ocean of big diamonds and white sulphur mixed; and there was that blue smoke you could almost smell coming out from both sides of her wake. I misdoubted if we'd ever get home. IfI'd had a knife handy, you ' d have seen the stays ' ) go into the sky. But I didn't have a knife, nor anybody else on deck, and all we could do was to hope we'd get in to walk down Main Street just once again, and swearin ' we ' d never ship another trip with that crazy Wesley Marrs , so long ' we lived again. Yes, sir, that was an awful run home. We carried our stays ' I past the Point.

And what happened to the Bounding Billow? Did we pass her? Hell no. We got in Monday morning at five o 'clock.

There warn't any Bounding Billow in sight that night- just one of them ghost dreams of Wesley 's. The Englishman didn't get along till about the middle of the week. w

47

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY S PO NS OR S AMER ICAN CONSERVAT ION ASSOC I AT IO N A PE X MACHINE CORPORAT ION J. A RO N CHARITABLE FOUNDAT ION V INCENT AS T OR FO UN DAT ION JAMES BAR KER R. BARNEn· HARRY BA RON BEEFE ATER FOUNDAT ION A LLEN G. BERRIEN BOW NE & CO .. INC. BROOKLYN UN ION GAS COMPANY 1 EDW A RD & DOROTHY CAR LTON ALAN G. CHOATE EDNA MCCONNELL CL AR K FO U DATION MELV IN CONAN T JOH N COUC H REBEK A H T. DA LL AS LO IS DARLI NG PONCET DAVIS. JR .

DOW CORN ING JAMES EAN MORR IS L. FEDER ROBERT E. GA MBEE JAMES W. GLANV ILLE EV A GEBHARDGOURGAUD FOUNDATION THE GRACE FO UN D AT I ON MR. & MRS. T H OMAS H A L E W. J. H EN T SC HEL MRS . D H. HO A RD ELISABETH S. HOOPER FOUN D A T I ON CECIL HOW ARD C H AR IT ABLE TRUST MR. & MRS. A. D. H UL I NGS A L AN H UTC H I SON INTER NAT IONAL BUS INESS MACH INES INTER NAT IONAL LONGSHOREMEN LCD R. ROBERT IR V ING USN. (RET .)

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