LETTERS CAMM Approves
1910, not in 1913. Mr. Coughlin gives the length of the Preussen as 440 feet. He may have taken this figure, as well as her tonnage of 11 , 150 from Lubbock' s Nitrate Clippers. Actually Lubbock says she was 433 feet overall, a meaningless dimension since it includes the bowsprit which is part of the rigging, not the hull. Since A Direct Insult the register length of all vessels is given The letter from Sotheby 's printed in Sea in Lloyd's Register and similar li sts, that History 51, calling on NMHS to play a is the standard criterion which should be "constructive" role in marine archaeol- used: The Preussen's was 407.8 feet. ogy was a direct insult to all members of Nor is it appropriate to claim that the NMHS, as well as to the Society itself. Preussen was 11 , 150 tons without The preservation of our seafaring heri- tellings us thi s is displacement tonnage. tage by saving artifacts, indeed ships It far exceeds her gross tonnage of 5,081 themselves, obviously is not the main which is the normal way one compares interest of Sotheby's. I was indignant, the size of one vessel to another. and my wife considered the letter one of Sea History continues to provide us the most insulting she has ever read. with important news and good reading! GEORGE M. JAMES ANDREW NESDALL Colonel, USMC (ret.) Waban, Massachusetts Ponce Inlet, Florida NMHS Advisor Nesdall is clearly right to use gross tonnage and registered No More Commercial Desecration! length and we were sloppy not to. NorI must go on record along with everyone man Brouwer, Ship Historian at South I know as being in accord with the posi- Street Seaport Museum, where the Petion taken by the National Maritime king makes her home, offers the followHistorical Society. The commercial ing on the "largest" question: desecration of shipwrecks to line a few In gross tonnage, Peking was the largest pockets is rather too close to grave rob- sailing vessel in active service in 1929. bing for my taste. Land-based archaeo- Priwall, Passat and Herzogin Cecilie logical digs have been regulated for some were smaller in gross tonnage. Star of time now, and national treasures are Lapland, Star of Shetland, Star of regularly being returned to their lands of Zealand, M oshulu and Mary Dollar were origin. Lord Elgin at least preserved laid up through 1929. Mary Dollar's cawhat he salvaged-and his day is over! reer as a square-rigged vessel was over. The bottom of the ocean belongs to She next sailed as a six-masted schooner everyone, and it is simply not in the during World War II. The three "Stars" public interest to have a few rich organi- went back to sea in the mid-30s, on onezations utilize modem technology for way voyages to scrap yards in Japan. their own profit by looting wreck sites. Only Moshulu resumed an active career If auction houses like Sotheby's intend when the Finns bought her in 1934. to aid this looting by offering market Magdalene Vinnen had an auxiliary facilities for the loot, they find them- engine when built, as did Kobenhavn, selves well outside of acceptable behav- R.C. Rickmers and France. France had ior and, hopefully, in some other busi- hers removed in 1919, making her the ness at the end. largest sailing vessel ever operated at 5633 gross tons . She was wrecked in TOWNSEND HORNOR Osterville, Massachusetts New Caledonia in 1922. R.C. Rickmers was seized by the British during the Say What You Mean, SH! War. Kobenhavn went missing in 1928. William P. Coughlin's article in SH 49, The question certainly opens some fasand your editorial reply to Mr. Smith's cinating perspectives! When we said letter in SH 50 invite some comment and "largest" wemeant(butdidnotsay) "of correction. The Peking was not the larg- the largest class," the giantfive-masters est sailer in 1929, being exceeded in like Potosi, Preussen and France having gross tonnage by the Magdalene Vinnen, departed from the scene. That left the Star of Lapland, Star of Shetland, Mary big four-posters of 3,000-plus tons as Dollar,Moshulu, Priwall, andHerzogin the biggest surviving square-riggers. Of Cecilie. And the Preussen was lost in the ships in this class, Peking, Moshulu NMHS got a vote of appreciation from CAMM for their recent stand on the Whydahmaterial with the auction houses. Again , our thanks for all that you do! JoHN S. CARTER, Presi dent Council of American Maritime Museums
SEA HISTORY 52, WINTER 1989-90
(Philadelphia),Passat (WestGermany), Pommem (Sweden) and Kruzenshtem ex-Padua(USSR)survive today, Kruzenshtem as active sail training ship, the others as museum ships.-ED.
What About Hog Islanders? There seems to be be a good deal of interest in the last of the Liberty ships. But I have often wondered why no one has written about the "Hog Island" vessels of World War I. From my first vessel in 1931 (SS Exermont) to the sixth in 1939 (SS Scanpenn), all were Hog Islanders. In 1931 I became a cadet on the Empire State, the training ship of the New York State Merchant Marine Academy which had been the USS Procyon, a Naval supply ship and a Hog Islander. When I became an officer in 1933 for the Moore McCormack Steamship Co. all service was in its fleet of Hog Island vessels. Cliffwood,Argosy, City ofFlint, Independence Hall , City of Fairbury, Sagaporack, Bird City, Minnequa, to name some. M&M converted four of these vessels to designs by George Sharp in 1932, to carry 85 passengers in the Baltic trade. Other companies whose main fleet consisted of Hog Islanders were American Export Line, Black Diamond Line and Cosmopolitan Line. These vessels were built at Hog Island on the Delaware River- j ust abeam of the Philadelphia Airport-as emergency shipping for World War I. They went into service after the war ended in 1918 , some being completed in the 1920s. About 400 feet long, 5,000 gross tons , they were not shapely ships, having all straight plates except at the bow and stem. They were extremely strong, however, having been designed by a bridge builder. The only cases I know of their cracking was after grounding on rocks. As late as 1960 I took a picture of a Hog Islander in Santos, Brazil. So they lasted over 40 years. They kept the American merchant marine alive in the long hiatus until American shipbuilding picked up with the approach of World War II in the late 1930s. loHN LARSEN Englewood, Ohio
Setauket, Home of Heroes I wonder how many Setauketers would like to have you walk the plank for placing that "sleepy town" in its neighbor Port Jefferson in your Long Island Sound article in Sea History 50? They
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