Sea History 056 - Winter 1990-1991

No. 56

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

WINTER 1990

SEA HISTORY$ 375

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

SAIL AMSTERDAM 1990: From a Rowboat SUMMER OF 1940: Taranto!

COLUMBUS: The Atlantic Romp

ISSN 0146-9312

SEA HISTORY No. 56

OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE WORLD SHIP TRUST

SEA HISTORY is pub li shed quarterly by the Nationa l Mari time Hi storical Society, 132 Maple Street, Croton-on-Hudson NY 10520. Second class postage paid at Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520, and Cinci nnati, OH 45242. USPS # 000676.

COPYRIGHT © 1990 by the National Maritime Historical Society. Tel. 9 14 27 1-2177.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Sea History, PO Box 646, 132 Maple Street, Croton NY I 0520-0646.

MEMBERS HIP is invited. Plankowner $ 10 ,000; Benefactor $5,000; Sponsor $ 1,000; Donor $500; Patron $250; Friend $ 100; Contributor $50; Family $35; Regular $25; Student or Retired $ 15. All members outside the USA please add $-10 for postage. SEA HISTORY is sent to all members.

Individua l copies cost $3.75.

OFFICERS & TRUSTEES are Chairman Schuyler M. Meyer, Jr.; Vice Chairmen, Henry H. Anderson, Jr., A lan G. Choate, James Ean; President, Peter Stanford ; Vice President, Norma Stanford ; Treasurer, Thomas Gochberg; Secretary, Richardo Lopes; Trustees , Henry H. Anderson, Jr. , Alan G. Choate, Thomas Gochberg, Norbert S. Hill, Jr. , Truda C. Jewett, Karl Kortum, George Lamb, Richardo Lopes , Robert J. Lowen , James P. Marenakos , Schuyler M. Meyer, Jr. , Daniel Moreland , Nancy Pouch, Ludwig K. Rubinsky , Edm und S. Rumowicz, Frank V. Snyder, Peter Stanford, Sam uel Thompson, Wi lliam G. Winterer, Edward G. Zelinsky. Chairman Emeritus, Karl Kortum OVERSEERS: Chairman , Henry H. Anderson, Jr. ; Charles F. Adams , Townsend Hornor, George Lamb, Cli fford D. Mallory , Schuyler M. Meyer, Jr., J. William Middendorf, II, John G. Rogers, John Stobart ADVISORS: Co-Chairmen , Frank 0. Braynard, Melbourne Smith; D.K. Abbass, Raymond Aker, Robert Amon, George F. Bass, Francis E. Bowker, Oswald L. Brett, David Brink, Frank G. G. Carr, Wi ll iam M. Doerflinger, John S. Ewald, Joseph L. Farr, Timothy G. Foote, Thomas Gi llmer, Richard Goo ld-Adams, Walter J. Handelman, Robert G. Herbert, Jr. , R. C. Jefferson, lrvingM . Johnson , Conrad Milster, Edward D. Muhlfeld, William G. Mu ller, David E. Perk.ins, Richard Rath , Nancy Hughes Richardson , Timothy J. Runyan, George Sa lley, Ralph L. Snow, Edouard A. Stackpole, John Stobart, Albert Swanson, Shannon J. Wall , Raymond E. Wallace, Robert A. Weinstein , Thomas We lls, Charles Wittholz. American Ship Trust , Hon. Secretary, Eric J. Berryman WORLD SHIP TRUST: President, Wensley Haydon-Baillie; Vice Presidents, Henry H. Anderson, Jr. , V iscount Caldecote, Sir Rex Hunt , Hammond Innes, Rt. Hon. Lord Lewin, Rt. Hon. Lord Shackleton; Chairman , J. A. Forsythe; Hon. Treasurer, Michael C. MacSwiney; Trustees, Eric J. Berryman, Mensun Bound, Dr. Neil Cossons , David Goddard , D.R . MacGrego r , A la n McGowan, Anthony Newman, Michael Parker, Arthur Prothero, Michael Stammers, Jayne Tracy.

Membership:£ 12 payable WST, I 29a North Street, Burwell , Cambs. CBS OBB, England. Reg. Charity No. 277751 SEA HISTORY STAFF: Editor, Peter Stanford; Managing Editor, Norma Stanford; Assistant Editor, Kevin Haydon ; Advertising, Michelle Shuster; Production Asst. , Joseph Stanford; Accounting , Martha Rosvally ; Membership Sec'y, Patricia Anstett; Membership Assis. , Grace Zere lla, Sall y Doherty; Assistant to the President, Sally Kurts

WINTER 1990

CONTENTS 4 4 7 8 12 13 16 20 23 26 29 30 32 34 36 44

DECKLOG LEITERS AND QUERIES NMHS MISSION A PASSION FOR THE PACKARD , Robert B. Streeter THE SUMMER OF 1940: BRITAIN STANDS ALONE TARANTO: ROYAL NAVY SINKS HALF ITALIAN BATTLEFLEET, C.P. O 'Connor REDISCOVERING COLUMBUS IV: THE ATLANTIC ROMP, Peter Stanford GHOSTS OF HONOR, Randall Edwards MARINE ART NEWS MARINE ART: DEREK GARDNER, Alex. A. Hurst TALL SHIPS RACE: A "HANDY LITTLE YACHT," Morin Scott SAIL AMSTERDAM 1990, Patricia and Robert Foulke AMSTERDAM BY ROWBOAT, Ed McCabe SHIP NOTES , SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS REVIEWS DESSERT: WITH U-53 TO AMERICA: PART II, Thomas J. Hajewski

COVER: A-riot with fres hly painted carvings, the lofty stem of the brand-new Dutch East Indi aman Amsterdam expressesthe pomp of the Netherlands ' Golden Age. The replica is belle of the ball as the Tall Ships gather for the international rendezvous, Sail Amsterdam 1990.

Join the National Maritime Historical Society today ... and help save America's seafaring heritage for tomorrow.

We bring to life America's seafaring past through research, archaeological expeditions and ship • preservation efforts. We work with museum s, hi storians and sail training groups on these efforts and report on these activiti es in our quarterly journal Sea History. We are also the American arm of the

World Ship Trust, which is an international group workin g worldwide to save ships of hi storic importance. Membership into the soc iety is only $25 a year.

As a member of NMHS you'll receive Sea Hi story , a fascinating magazine filled with articles of seafaring and hi storical lore. Come aboard with us today!

Yes,

I want to help. I understand that my contribution goes to forward the work of the Society and that I'll be kept informed by receivi ng SEA HISTORY quarterly. Enc losed is: 0 $ 25 Regular 0 $35 Fami ly 0 $ 250 Patron

0 $50 Contributo r 0 $ 100 Friend 0 $500Donor

To: National Maritime Historical Society, PO Box 646, 132 Maple St, Croton NY 10520 NAME~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ADDRESS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~....,,-..,..,,.-..,,.---:-:-;-;-;;-;;~.,---,=-:7"7"~~ZIP~~~~~~c on1ribu1ions to NM HS are tax deductible.

NATIONAL MARITlME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

5g

%" .'

And now it's exposed What's big, booming and bustling? Bringing you the food you eat, the clothes you wear and the products you use on a daily basis ... giving jobs to 200,000 people?

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.

~ l~at

last!

Now we want to let you in on our secret ... all the important facts, exciting activities, the whole story about our Port, captured in color on videotape, film or slides. Ready to be shown by our Port representative to your organization, club or school. And at absolutely no charge !

Simply fill out the coupon or call (212)466-8317.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Date and time requested (in order of preference): FILL IN DETAILS BELOW: 1._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Yourname¡~----------------

Title _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Address_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Telephone#

Hours._ _ _ _ __

Name of organization. club, school. etc. at which Port package will be shown:

Address of meeting place: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

2._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

Approximate size of audience: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Please have a Port representative call to confirm all details.

Mail coupon today to:

~~~;:""ORRY ~ New York, NY 10048 (212) 466-8317

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SEACRAFT

HALF MOON

CLASSICS

WASHINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA

l DISTINCTIVE HAND CRA"ED SHIP MODELS Famous American Sail Classics • Hand carved mahogany and teak • Painted in authentic colors • Fine details • Size 18" to 34" in length •From $495 • Satisfaction guaranteed For a free brochure or more information call 1-800-356-1987 Seacraft Classics 6623 North Scottsdale Rd. Scottsdale, Arizona 85250 (602) 951 -9518 Visa • Mastercard accepted.

Come explore a replica of a 1609 ship - Henry Hudson's HALF MOON! Berthed in beautiful Washington, North Carolina at the intersection of Hwy. 17 and the Pamlico River, the HALF MOON offers guided tours of the vessel, special events, and a shoreside museum/gift shop. Special rates for adult and school groups.

Map

For more information, contact: Half Moon Visitor Center ; •.,,..., Havens' Wharf • W. Main St. !~~·"l#lw;;..M~:;·~..;,-f'.',~ Washington, N.C. 27889 .. --.::. (919) 946-1609. (919) 946-2212 ...

ToN••ll•rn andW llmln;lon

North Gtrolina

The Beauty Only Begins Wtth The Scmery.

HOURS: Monday· Saturday - 10 AM· 5 PM CLOSED TUESDA VS Sunday - 1 PM · 5 PM

JOHN ERIC CHRISTIAN PETERSON Danish-American 1839-1874

Open-Beam Paddlewheeler "Suwo Nada" Provenance: Estate of L. Francis Herreshoff ' The Castle '

Marblehead, Massachusetts Oil on canvas 20 x 34

Signed L.L.: Jolm E.C. Peterson, dated 1873

Fine Marine Art I Antiques Specialists 18th, 19th, & Early 20th Century

1610 West Coast Highway Newport Beach, California 92663 714-642-7945 • FAX 714-631-3161

DECK LOG In this Sea History we take a further look back across the past 50 years to the summer of 1940-a perilous time when many people believed the victory of Nazi Germany in world War II to be a foregone conclusion. Charles Lindbergh, a popular hero, indeed called Nazi ism "the wave of the future"-and he was not alone. American Ambassador Joseph Kennedy at the Court of St. James made public pronouncements on the softness of the English and the vanity of their trying to tackle the Nazi super-state, the strongest military power in the world (as it then was) . Kennedy was finally removed by an aroused President Roosevelt, who came round in the summer of 1940 to believe that the English would fight and soldier on until they somehow found their way to victory.

It is perhaps difficult for those who did not live through those days to grasp how important that continued fight was.

In our day , when we see totalitarian regimes collapsing like cardboard houses, the terrific threat of Nazi Germany to the world polity may seem distant and unreal. It shouldn 't; dissenters were killed on the spot or herded away to concentration camps where they were killed more slowly, and the whole Jewish people of Europe was sentenced to death, a task the Nazis could not quite complete, but which led to the destruction of entire communities through the shooting or gassing of every man, woman and child.

Winston Churchill was not guilty of exaggeration when he said quite simply of the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 that the stakes were "infinite."

One function of history is that we not forget these things, ever.

* * * * *

History is there also for more sunlit, spacious purposes-to those of us who find purpose in history . The revival of proud argosies and fierce rowing races in Sail Amsterdam this past summer is one such romp in history's meadows, transcending national boundaries as we] I as generations. Columbus's first crossing of the Atlantic was surely another, in the splendid sailing of those first generation oceanic ships in the realm of boatswain birds, flying fish and sounding whales, as we report in this Sea History .

PS

4

LETTERS New Perspectives on Columbus's World With the quincentennary of Columbus's voyage, we are all "rediscovering" the Discoverer, thanks in part to your features.

Most of us have been raised on the Columbus delineated by Samuel Eliot Morison. Allow me to add two perspectives, different from yours and Morison's, that contribute to rediscovery.

The most exciting hi storical research into the Age of Columbus now under way is ecological history, pioneered by Alfred Crosby. Ecology had not yet been born when Morison wrote, but for us environmental concerns are immediate and pressing-and they have a sea-borne history! See Crosby's The Columbian Exchange: Biological Consequences of 1492 , and his Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe.

Ecologically informed history Jets us ponder not only how humans have affected their environment, but how environmental factors have shaped and constrained human actions.

Secondly your article on "Rediscovering Columbus" states that "Columbus's faith was not polluted by superstition."

That's a tough call. Most medieval people lived in a mental world very different from ours. No sharp division separated superstition and faith. I suggest that we can only understand Columbus's psychology and motivation by taking a medieval journey into mysticism, dreams, prophecies, messianic illusions, and apocalypticism. To consider Columbus's Catholic faith without these components is to sheer it of its rich historical context. Devout and pious, yes.

Faithful only to the teachings of the Church as we understand them-no.

See Leonard Sweet, "Christopher Columbus and the Millenial Vision of the New World," Catholic Historical Review, July 1986; and Pauline Watts , "Prophecy and Discovery; on the Spiritual Origins of Christopher Columbus's 'Enterprise of the Indies ,"' American Historical review, February 1985.

My compliments on your continuing production of the best forum for sea history and contemporary maritime news!

W. JEFFREY BOLSTER Baltimore, Maryland Mr. Bolster has since written us a note regarding recent media attention given to Kirkpatrick Sale's new book The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Co-

lumbus and the Columbian Legacy. It is his feeling that Sale may have crossed the line from a "necessary corrective" on Columbus to "Columbus-bashing."

He adds that Sale may be "a better businessman than historian. Sensationalism sells books!"-Eo An Award Well Earned!

Let me join with others in expressing my great congratulations and thanks to Jack and Peter Aron for their many contributions over the years to the South Street Seaport, as recognized this year by the NMHS American Ship Trust A ward.

It is certainly clear that without their support the four-masted bark Peking, now safe in South Street, would be just one more decrepit hulk in some maritime graveyard. It is also probable that the entire Seaport would not be extant in its present form without the Arons.

It's not too difficult to deal with popular institutions that have no problems. But it's quite another thing to deal with the obstacles and vicissitudes that have faced South Street Seaport Museum in Lower Manhattan. That a corner, however modest, has been turned is in no small way due to their efforts.

ROBERT W. HUBNER Darien, Connecticut Bravos All Around!

Please send me a copy of the Guide to American and Canadian Maritime Museums at the pre-publication price to NMHS members of $7.75.

Such a project has long been needed.

Bravo for doing it!

FREDA M. ABRAMS Yellow Springs, Ohio And Bravo to Texaco Inc.fo_r making this publication possible! Ms. Abrams, author ofTall Ships of Newburyport, is one ofsome2,000NMHSmemberswhohave ordered copies of the Guide as we go to press.-Eo Fresh Light on Lightships The brief coverage provided on lightships in the Summer Sea History was indeed a refreshing change from your customary preoccupation with squarerigged sailing vessels.

Managing Editor Norma Stanford's observation regarding thirteen of the surviving lightships that " it has been argued that we have saved too many-a number disproportionate to their historical significance" appears naive. In view of the fact that nine of these thirteen SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

vessels have been designated as National Historic Landmarks , a designation denoting national significance in the history of the United States, there does not appear to be much room for argument!

WILLARD FLINT

Rockville, Maryland Just-Barely-Managing Editor Norma' s point was, ofcourse, that what the public (who saved these vessels) feels about them is what counts. Finally it is old humanity, not the experts, who determine what is historically important.

On the point of covering lightships better, see our note on Mr. Flint' s book Lightships and Lightship Stations in "Reviews," page 41 .-ED.

and she sheered to one side, we saw the Stars and Stripes. Then she asked us who we•were, etc., etc.

This was fine. The Americans were neutral, but with a great bias and it was very useful to Britain often enough. But they should not have made us break radio silence. Only the previous day we had picked up a call from a British tramp called the Southgate in the Mona Passage, saying she was being chased by a sub. Then it was cancelled, as the sub was American. The point of this story is that it was one of the 4-stackers that came after us-I think of the same vintage, but not in the deal. OK, we needed those destroyers, for all their faults - but it was a price to pay!

Let Us Share a Bouquet!

Congratulations on your magazine Sea History , and my deepest appreciation for your opinion of my studies about Columbus's ships. The article "Columbus Rediscovered" is excellent, with good information reflecting deep knowledge of the subject.

Please send me some copies of this issue of Sea History for my colleagues and interested institutions.

JosE MARIA MARTINEZ HmALGO Y CERAN

Barcelona, Spain These words will mean much to NMHS members as they do to your editors, comingfrom Commander Martinez Hidalgo , whose studies of Columbus' s ships are considered the best extant today-ED

ALEX. A . H URST

Four Stackers Forsooth!

As to the 4-stacker destroyers we got for bases , Yes, I did come across them, mainly when they were escorting convoys. But I have nothing whatever of interest to add to that so far as they were concerned.

I do recall an incident, however, concerning a destroyer of the same vintage under the US flag. I was in a large, first war vintage Shaw Savi II coal-burner -the Raranga-and we had had a horrible passage as she had been loaded badly and was very tender, giving long, slow rolls on each side, right over, and then stopping and thinking about it before she started to come back and repeat the performance. Very tiring, even in one ' s bunk, and this had gone on all the way from Dover to the Sam bro Channel.

Once in the Caribbean, though, the sea was wholly flat-I never saw such a calm and the horizon was rather hazy.

Sunday morning, and all hands about, a warship was sighted on the port beam.

Impossible to make her out at all in the distortion of the haze-might have been anything. Then a tanker was seen ahead of her, so the presumption was a refuelling operation. We had turned to put both ships stem on. Old man and mate very jittery-both had been prisoners of the Graf Spee and signed a document that they would not go to sea again in the war!

Then the warship came after us . As we zig-zagged, so did she, and she gained fast. As she got closer we could see she was adestroyerorthe like, and finally , in desperation, the Old Man broke wireless silence and sent out a distress signal, with our position. No signal, or aught else from warship till , when very close, SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

Brighton, England We US Navy types try to make friends wherever we go. But please try to get the name right! Those destroyers were called "four-pipers. " -ED.

End of a 2,000-year-old Trade The man in this photograph is shovelling what is almost certainly the last shipment of copper ore from Cornwall , a shipment made from Penzance in 1986.

The ore came from Geevor mine, about six miles north of Land ' s End. The modem copper mining trade in Cornwall started in the 16th century.

Before that, the export of the alluvial tin took place in Roman times It has been suggested that in Roman times Cornwall may well have produced copper as well as tin from lodes outcropping in the cliffs.

The Romans later turned to northern Spain for tin and caused the first Comish slump. Today mining in Cornwall seems ended forever.

JOHN CORI N

Penzance, Britain

QUERIES

The famous bark yacht Sea C loud--one of the few ships on the face of the seas that carried a main skysail-will be 60 years old next year. She sails today with an international crew who maintain high standards of seamanship under former USCG Eagle skippers Ed Cassidy and Red Shannon, and NMHS is among the organizations that sponsor cruises aboard her. To celebrate her 60th, members are invited to write in their memories, of this tall ship, sending photos, etc. where available.

NMHS, PO 646, Croton-on-Hudson NY 10520.

ERRATA

In the "Rediscovering Columbus" series, we mentioned the 1964 replica of the Santa Maria which visited our old East River headquarters in the late 1970s.

Peter Spectre of WoodenBoat reminds us that this was a second version of that replica. The first capsized and sank in the Mississippi in 1969. The second, built in Floridas in 1976, burned in I 979-that's the one that visited us.

Andin Sea History 55, to our chagrin, we found ourselves saying that three of Columbus ' s crew were sprung from jail to make the voyage of 1492. It was four people, not three: Bartolome de Torres of Palos, sentenced to death for killing a man in a quarrel, and his three pals who rescued him from jail. Under the laws of the day that put them under sentence of death as well.

All four were at large when they learned they could secure royal pardon to sail with Columbus-and as we said: "They were not jailbirds in any useful sense of the word."

5

Commission Your Favorite Ship S1il or

Stum ~-

New or Old

ORIGINAL OIL PAINTINGS OF THE SHIP OF YOUR CHOICE

* Postpaid MCNISA Accepted

The Nautical Clock Co. P.O. Box 253, Dept. 517, Bristol, CT 06010

RENOWN SHIP PORTRAITURE ARTIST

Why settle for a print when you can have an ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING. The ship you really want for about half the Gallery cost . All ship portraits are on fine artist canvas, only the best oil paint is used BUY DIRECT FROM THE ARTIST AND SAVE THE DEALER COMMI · SION OF 40/60% .

Your Broker Will Tell You: Todays best Investment Is original art.

Call or write:

HERB HEWITI 10-R Druid Hill Ave., Dept. SH Wakefield, MA 01880 (617) 245-5242

HANDWOVEN HISTORY

Call or write for 12-page full color brochure of Charles Vickery collector prints

CLIPPER SHIP GALLERY 10 West Harris Ave. La Grange IL 60525 1 (708) 352-2778 6

Based on an I 8th century sailors knot design, 40 strands of sterling wire are handwoven to create this beautiful crew bracelet. Strong lobster cl aw c lasp prevents loss .

Special Introductory Price

$99.00 postage & tax included send wrist size & check or m.o. to: Maritime Heritage Jewelry P. 0 . Box 649 Bolinas Bay, CA 94924 {Allow 3-4 weeks delivery. Made in USA) Full satisfaction guaranteed

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

s.~n.bl~tory AND HISTORIC PROGRAMS ACROSS AMERICA

NMHS Mission: Art, Literature, Adventure, Lore & Leaming

by Peter Stanford

When we started out with the magazine Sea History in 1972 friendly advisors said: "Stay away from the word ' history! ' Call the thing 'heritage,' or 'patrimony' or some fat-sounding word like that. The word ' history ' does not appeal to people."

This did not sit well with Editor Frank Braynard, or with the late Leonard Rennie or Norman Brouwer or myself, who sat in on this first issue. No, we did not like thi s well meant advice one bit-and the more we thought about it, the less we liked it.

We arrived at the simple, and to us more pleasing formula: "We don ' t ask whether you are interested in history; we ask whether you are interesting to history."

By this we meant, I guess, people who get out and contribute something to life don ' t need to be " interested" in history , they have enlarged their lives to become part of the human story (which is history), and so the interest is there.

* * * * *

Thi s past October, after 18 1/2 years of the Sea History experiment (the terms of which we 've never altered), I found myself by happy chance in a scholarly colloquy of the University of Exeter in England. The gang met in a storybook setting of Dartington Hall (I mean real storybook: a foundation set up to restore the native ways of Devon, by a cultivated Engli shman married to an American heiress, bless 'em both!). There was Nicholas Rodger, author of that wonderful book The Wooden World (see SH 44, p. 44), which violates Gresham 's law through its sterling research and lively insights driving out the debased currency of revi sioni st hi storians who miss the animating principles and therefore the meaning of what those British tars achieved at sea in their wooden walls. And also present was Andrew Lambert, author of Battleships in Tran sition, a splendid account of the Victorian navy 's transition from sail to steam-a navy that did not steam so badly after all!

And let me content myself by saying it was a stellar group of scholars young and old, with a salting of grizzled veterans like Alec Hurst (see "Marine Art," thi s issue) who brought me there.

When it came my tum to say why I was there I said ouroutfit published Sea History, which some of them knew , of course.

I said the briefest way to describe our mission was to say what we did not do: "We do not popularize history!"

These words seem to be well received, and in subsequent discussions I was glad to find unanimous interest in the function of a magazine that draws the concerns of sea literature and sail training and marine art and scholarly research together, and lays these bundled interests before the people.

People, mark you-not "a mass audience," or "a discriminating few" either, or people sorted out in any other condescending, manipulative terms-just people, in their essential quality as human beings. We are all alive and if we are SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

involved in the wider world around us we are involved in history-which is the story of that world, past, present and future. (The briefest reflection on the nature of time in its passage will show that none of its compartments-past, present, future-has any real meaning or actually any real existence without the others, an elephant of a fact of life that walks invi sibly by historians who are mere antiquarians and futuri sts who are-well, futuri sts).

Alec practically tore hi s remaining hair out listening to discuzioneon these topics with all and sundry, but he patiently took me to a gaggle of marine art shows, ranging from the American expatriate Mark Myers' superb one-man show in his now-native Devon, to the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of Marine Artists in London-and of course, marine artists being what they are, the conversations here ranged from shiphandling in the late 1700s (when you had to come upon the wind fast you let all sheets fly forward-all at once!) to the glamor that for some of us (I do not say all!) clings to small craft working amid estuarine mudflats, a glamor that can be caught and transmitted in a gleam of oil paint.

Other meetings I sat in on in this late-October visit were directors ' meetings of our affiliated World Ship Trust, and the Sail Training Association which serves in loco parentis to the American Sail Training Association and likeminded bodies around the world. Great things are afoot with both organizations, things which, in reporting, your Society will have some role in shaping-as will be clear in coming issues of Sea History next year.

NOTE: There will be more if) future Sea Historys on every item above, which I could only mention here. I've tried to cover a tremendous sweep of ground here seeking to explain how the words in the subtitle on our cover got there.

7

GEORGE

B.

DOUGLAS:

by Robert B. Streeter It began in an attic where most things usually end, lurking in the shadow, lost among the treasures of another time. The paint peeled from the model ships the old man 's hands had crafted; the sails were soiled and tom . Hi s writings were yellow and brittle, remembered by only a few and read by practically no one.

Decades had passed si nce my greatgrandfather, George B. Douglas, had lived and breathed the salty air, when my grandmother took me as a boy up the ladder and into the attic.

Unshaded light bulbs hung from the rafters, projecting a light much brighter than the kerosene lamps the old spirit once knew. A couple of ships, roughly three feet long, shone in the light and we touched them with caution. We picked them up. Somewhere the spirit stirred.

My grandmother and I each cradled a ship in our arms, moved toward the door, and the three of us climbed down the ladder. George B. Douglas had come out of the attic.

George Douglas was a well-known authority on ships and ship modelling during the first three decades of this century. He wrote for The Rudder and for such publications as Mode/maker, Shipmodeler, The Mode! Yachtsman and Science and In vention. In the 1920s he wrote Ship Model Book, published by the Rudder Publi shing Company. He also sold hi s plans of famous ships so modellers could depict "the vessel as it should be."

Indeed, he was a master at making models as they should be. Science and Invention awarded him their Trophy Cup for his model of a Chinese junk, calling it "exceptionally accurate" and a San Francisco newspaper said his model of the famous down easter Shenandoah was "perfect in every detail. " But of all the ships that George Douglas studied , it was the Benjamin F. Packard that stole hi s heart. She was hi s princess of the sea. He describes the ship and his voyage aboard her from New York to San Francisco in 1894 in The Rudder: "Where is anything afloat handsomer than one of those fine three-skysailyarders that trade between New York and San Francisco, thence to England with wheat, and back to New York again in ballast, also making an occasional voyage to China with case-oil, and then home with a cargo of tea, matting or jute?

"S uch a ship is the Benjamin F.

8

Packard, she hav ing been in all the voyages mentioned many times. This ship was built of oak and yellow pine

by Messrs. Goss, Sawyer and Packard at Bath, Maine , in 1883 , for Mr. John R. Kelly and is now owned by Messrs. Arthur Sewall & Co. of Bath.

She is 244 ft long, 43 ft beam, 26 ft deep and registered as of2026 tons."

He went on to recount how he shipped out in the Packard. The captain was a friend and invited him, but he shipped as ordinary seaman, observing that he had "been out to Frisco before in the Shenandoah, one of Sewall's large four-masted barks, so knew what I had to expect."

"We left the dock at the foot of Maiden Lane early Sunday morning, April 22, 1894, and lay off Liberty Island until the next morning, when we were towed out to sea, and we did not see land again until we saw the Golden Gate on September 27th, 157 days later, having in the meantime sailed nearly 16,500 miles.

"There were three boys aboard, two of them being sons of wealthy men, who had sent them to sea to try and break them of sundry bad habits and to give them a little experience.

They got it before we arrived."

He notes that he himself was "fat and stuffy" at 210 pounds when he signed on; when he arrived in San Francisco he was "strong and healthy" and weighed 175 pounds. He records the bill of fare en route to Cape Hom: "Either mush or oatmeal with molasses, or crackers, hash or Iri sh stew , with two pieces of hard tack or two pieces of dry bread, and coffee sweetened with molasses and no milk for breakfast. For dinner, bean or pea soup, with three slices of salt beef or salt pork, potatoes and dried bread, with a piece of dried apple pie for dessert on Sunday and Thursday. For supper, tea sweetened with molasses, two slices of cold beef or pork, two slices of dry bread and on four nights a week either dried apple sauce or a piece of ginger bread. I could not eat salt beef, so with that cut off I sometimes had a rather slim meal. If one is on good terms with the cook or steward you may get an extra piece of ginger bread, a couple of cold fishcakes or a couple of cold pancakes from the cabin leavings.... " And he notes how the Cape Hom winter kept all hands on the go: "We were off Cape Hom in July, and

we had a hard time of it. Ice, snow, rain and spray contrived to make it miserable for us, to say nothing of gales and head seas. In every watch for thirty days we wore oilskins to try and keep as dry as possible, but they did not do much good. Our boots leaked, and to stand around for four hours on a dark, cold, rainy night with wet feet and damp clothes and then to go to a small room with damp bedding and three to four inches of water to be bailed off the floor before you tum in, is no fun . And then you might get called out in a hurry in the middle of your watch below. It is an old saying at sea that you are always sure of your watch on deck but never sure of your watch below."

In 1925 , thirty years after that voyage, a newspaper reporter found George Douglas, then age 61, admiring the Packard as she lay at dock in New York City, never to sail again. The old salt shared thi s story with what JllUSt have been a gleam in his eye: "When we neared southern waters the 'old man,' as sailors call the captain, said we could round the Hom in twenty-four hours if the breeze kept up. But the winds roared like a cyclone and the waters boiled like a maelstrom. For thirty days we battled with the elements before we rounded the treacherous cape.

"In the Pacific we shipped a bad sea. The Packard stuck her nose into it and the waves went completely over her. We were lucky that no one was washed overboard. The sailor on watch on the forecastle head near the knightheads was thrown back to the maindeck,*a distance half the length of the ship!

"Yes, the Packard is some ship. It is my ship and I love her. One' s ship is like one 's sweetheart or wife.

Women are very much alike, as ships are, yet all are really different. Each has distinguishing features which only the lover remembers. The fact that there have been faster ships than the Packard does not matter. The fact that another vessel may have been a better boat in some respect does not matter. " The Packard was the last of her kind in New England waters, and only a few others like her survived on the West Coast, most of them employed in the *Probably Douglas said "mainmast" and the reporter wrote it down wrong. -Ed.

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

A

Passion for the Packard Alaskan salmon fishery as the Packard had been for her final active years. While she lay at dock when George Douglas mused about her in 1925, it seemed she was destined for conversion into a barge for coastal trade. But then Theodore Roosevelt Pell, a wealthy New York yachtsman, purchased the ship for less than $10,000 and made plans to tum her into a floating marine museum . But he could not find support for his efforts and he soon lent the Packard to the Junior Naval Reserve for a training vessel. The Reserve used her for a year or so, then she lay aground in Manhasset Bay, Long Island. There, after purchase by an art collector named Max Williams, she lay abandoned for a few years, bleached by the summer sun and hammered by winter storms. Eventually she had dug herself a bed in the hard sand which would have to be dredged before she ever moved again .

In December 1929, the dying ship which cost $250,000 to build, was sold to a Boston antique dealer for $1,000.

The new owner declared her "the largest antique in the world," then sold hera few months later to the Clipper Ship Corporation, formed to take over the ship , reconstruct her, and permanently preserve the Benjamin F. Packard.

Steamshovels dug her from her bed of sand in March 1930, and she was towed across Long Island Sound to City Island , where she was completely restored for $50,000. Boatswain Charley Muller skillfully supervised thirty seamen in the re-rigging. Perhaps now she could have tried another voyage around the Hom, but she was sent to the Playland Amusement Park at Rye Beach, New York, where she was used as a museum, dance hall and restaurant. For nine years the people of Play land danced across her decks, watched fireworks and ate food prepared on the Packard that George Douglas only dreamed of at sea.

But with little upkeep, she slowly weathered to a condition which by 1939 was considered unsafe by the proprietors, and the decision was made to scrap her before someone was injured. On March 16, 1939, thePlaylandParkBoard advertised for bids for removal of the ship. The following day, Carl Cutler, Secretary of the Marine Historical Association in Mystic, Connecticut, sent a letter to Clifford Mallory, the Association's President, describing what was at SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

The Cape Horn sailing ship Benjamin F. Packard (above) rests her sea-weary but still graceful hull in Manhasset Bay in the late 1920s. The photo below was taken a few years earlier when she was docked on M anhallan' s West Side, where Douglas talked with a reporter about sailing days now ended fo r th em both. Photos by George B. Douglas, courtesy of Corrie Douglas.

fjh~Ket.-.

NAUTICAL GIFTS

MAJ\INE ANTIQUES

We are specialist suppliers for all aspects of the model boating scene.

(Not cars, trains, planes.) We can start you off with basic kits or provide you with plans and materials.

Our range also covers working or static models, and we carry an extensive selection of fittings for all types of ships and boats.

P.O. Box 369 258 Delaware Ave. Put-In-Bay, Ohio 43456 Tel: (419) 285-4231

Send for our newest Catalog

One-of-a-kind items only.

$6 postpaid

$7 outside the U .S.

Sorry, no catalogue.

The Dromedary

WANTED: Fine quality Great Lakes marine antiques!

Historic, antique U.S. Coast Surve~ maps from the 1800s Most Ameri can seaports and coastal waters . Repri nts , too. Unique framed , great as gifts . $1 bri ngs illustrated lists. Specify area.

CHARTI FACTS, IJSH, Box 8954 Richmond VA 2 22 . 804 2 2- 1 20

6324 Belton Drive El Paso, Texas 79912 (915) 584-2445

CAST IRON LIGHTHOUSES - DOORSTOPS • BOOKENDS • COLLECTIBLES :8 60 DESIGNS ONLY $69.95 EA. ~ g.~

..l. .,

Hand · painted museum quality replicas.

,, U

::t

7" · 10".6- lOlbs. AddS5S/H. ~

FREE COLOR LITERATURE! Original Lig hth ouse Collection® I 096 Davis Street

I Monroe, GA 30655 .

Guaranteed

1-800 -633 -8149

"'~ ~~

..e

.

~."'''.'.'._'."';

~

:±!

~

~ iiih.ri•

Marine Art Shipmodel Construction & Restoration Nautical Antiques Marine Prints

Captain P.L. Warburton Ltd. 205 Seaview Avenue Palm Beach, Florida 33480 407-832-6800 10

NORMAND IE

.--~·.·.-···:·.····-~-. ·.tq

f Antique Shipmodels Museum Quality

" RMS TITANIC

It ? "" '''"' '·'"·"" " '"' ' ~ ( 2'

~--

J\ ri

-· ·

LUSITANIA

.'3

j

~ Mey QUEEN ELIZABETH

iddcidii&d!S '.~~ .

,,

..

·.

.

Cloisonne Lapel Pin $8.00 each - 3 for $20.00 NY. Residents Add Sales Tax Satisfaction Guaranteed Dealers Invited

NAUTICAL NOVELTIES P.O. BOX 622 NORTHPORT, N.Y. 11768

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

THE PACKARD stake. After personally inspecti ng the Packard, Cutler reported: "It seems to be a fact that the Packard is the so le surviving American wooden ship which has her spars and is in a condition to be saved. You will see instant! y the tremendous edge that gives us in any appeal we might make for help in saving the vessel. If she is destroyed, it means the final curtain for the old ships. Personally, if she were in twice as bad shape as she is, I would want to do something to preserve the last relic of the old merchant marine .... There is, of course, the old whaler Charles W. Morgan , but her significance is much more localized than the Packard's, which is national in scope.

"When the fact is made known that this is the last chance to save for posterity a genuine example of the old wooden merchantmen , I would be inclined to think that we would not only find it fairly easy to get the necessary funds, but the indirect results would be most beneficial to our Association."

Cutler's efforts failed. The wrecking firm of Merritt, Chapman & Scott completely stripped the Packard where she lay , and dragged her from her berth at Play land to a dumping ground off Stamford, Connecticut, where in the fading evening light of May 19, 1939, the plugs were knocked out of her bottom and the Benjamin F. Packard went down in 190feet of water.

A few artifacts found their way to what is now the Mystic Seaport Museum , including the captain 's after cabin and stateroom .

F. H. Jaeger, manager of Play land 's inventory and ex-sailor on the Packard epitomi zed the feelings of many an old salt when he wrote Cutler in 1944: " I loved the old ship and still do; she should have been taken over by your, or some other, museum at the start, rather than spending her last remaining years at an Amusement Park as a Pirate Ship, with a lot of rowdys coming aboard and destroying things sacred to all sailing men ."

ORIGINAL

ANTIQUE MAPS & SEA CHARTS U.S. & WORLDWIDE

Length: 57", Height: 39", Beam: B"

aGRACE GALLERIES, INC. 75 Grand Avenue

~·

Englewood, N.J. 07631 (201) 567-6169 Call or write for listings Mon.-Fri. 9:30-5 p.m.

Sat. 10-4 p.m.

MARINE PAINTINGS • PRINTS

FOLLOW YOUR STAR • • • • • • • • •

Marine Sextants Aircraft Sextants Astra Compasses Chronometers Calculators Star Finders Plotting Tools Computer Programs Books

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

Fully rigged, Hull and decking planked.

All parts made by hand.

The AMERICAN EAGLE, like all ship models handcrafted by the Inland Mariner, is artistically unique and historically accurate. Many other models available for immediate delivery. Prices from $695.

Custom contract models will be built according to your specifications.

The Inland Mariner c,tTechnical Supply Company

P.O. Box 39055, Edina, MN 55439 (612) 881-1237 FAX: (612) 884-3756

HMS PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

''the new tab(e. of a!! the names of the principal parts and "99"19 of a man-of-war canyin9 96 9uns/I c.a. 1720

funitd editioll prints Oil museum quafuy paper, siu approx. 23"X26". seruf $75. pCus $5 for s&li to HMS PRODUCTIONS

* * * * *

George Douglas spent hi s final years at hi s Upper Montclair, New Jersey, home, studying ships, writing about them, drawing plans and building models. Before hi s death in 1933 , he likely assumed that the Packard was safely preserved at Playland, only thirty miles away. D

SHIP MODELS FOR COLLECTORS

1

416 S. PERSHING WICHITA, KS 67218 PHONE : 1-800 -727-9785 FAX : 316-686-8926

3711 W. Grau St., Tampa, IL33607 We fuwe a microji(m arcliive of more tfuut 1251000 11e9atives Oil Mariti.m£ History to assist you in research atUf 1U19ment your c:Offu:tiollS of Historica£ prints atUf maps.

Write for detai!s.

11

THE SUMMER OF 1940: Britain Stands Alone in World War II Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of England in May 1940, just as it seemed Great Britain would join the list of nations that had gone down before the German avalanche of fire and steel that Hitler had loosed on Europe. He later made this observation about the summer of 1940, when England stood alone: "It is odd that, while at the time everyone concerned was quite calm and cheerful, writing about it afterwards makes one shiver."

No wonder. The British government had to be convinced by its new leader that the fight was worth continuing, and then the British people-and then the watching world. Speaking to Parliament onJune4, Churchjl] warned that Dunkirk was a deliverance but not a victory: "Wars are not won by evacuations." He ended with this expression of resolve, and suggestion of how the tide of war might ultimately be turned: "Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight in the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing-grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were

subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until , in God ' s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.'' The events of the summer then came pounding one on top of another. The United States supplied half a million rifles to arm the British populace to resist invasion on the lines Churchi ll had set forth-and which the War Cabinet planned in deadly serious detail. Workers put hours that would have seemed incredible a few months before, to rearm and re-equip the army saved from Dunkirk, and above all to build up the strength of the Royal Air Force fighting for Britain's very life in the skies over southern England.

The French Navy had to be kept out of Hitler's grasp. The ships at Alexandria in the Mediterranean consented to be disarmed; at Oran and Mers-el-Kebir they resisted British takeover and Churchill gave the harsh order to sink them, resulting in heavy loss of life.

Only afterthe war was it learned thatthis act, more than any other, convinced President Roosevelt in Washington of the war resolve of the British and their leader.

As a direct result, the canny President worked out a formula whereby fifty World War I destroyers could be turned over to the Royal Navy in exchange for bases in the Caribbean, Bermuda and Canada's Maritime Provinces. Churchill was able to report to the House of Commons on September 5: "There will

be no delay in bringing the American destroyers into active service; in fact, British crews are already meeting them at the various ports where they are being delivered. You might," he added, "call this the long arm of coincidence." The foundations of the coalition that won the war were being laid.

And , most important, while these moves were taken at sea, in the summer skies over England, the Battle of Britain was being won, as Spitfire and Hurricane fighters inflicted mounting losses on the Luftwaffe's bombers. First the English, then the Germans, then the Americans, and ultimately the world realized this. For the first time in World War II, a Nazi attack had failed.

Danger, acute danger, sti 11 threatened in the Mediterranean. At least one German general, Guderian, author of the blitzkrieg, saw the importance of the Mediterranean opportunity in forcing Britain to the peace table; his colleagues and their master puppeteer Hitler did not. Here, however, Germany's Axis partner Italy held a commandi ng position backed by a large air force and modern navy outnumbering the Royal Navy by 50percent. But here, in November, a critically important victory upset the balance of sea power in Britain's favor: Taranto!

PS Further Reading: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War; Vol. II , Their Finest Hour(Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1949) is a remarkably balanced account of this period of the war by its most important leader; for the Battle of Britain and the sea war, see "The Book Locker," pp. 37-38.

The first flotilla of US destroyers transferred to the Royal Navy enters Plymouth on September 28-still bearing their US pennant numbers, which the censor has marked for deletion. This is the future HMS Chelsea. The able but venerable four-pipers each received the name of a town common to the US and Britain. Photo: Imperial War Museum.

12

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

TARANTO: Britain's Royal Navy Sinks Half the Italian Battlefleet in One Blow, November 1940

by C. P. O'Connor One year before Pearl Harbor, carrier-based aircraft executed a successful surprise attack upon an enemy fleet thought to be safe inthe shelter of its home port. The planes were British, the ships Italian; the battle took place at Taranto, the magnificent harbor located in the heel of the Italian boot. The attack on Taranto played a key role in keeping the Mediterranean a contested sea rather than an Italian lake, toward the end of the fateful year 1940 when it seemed the Axis partners, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, were sweeping all before them.

From Italy's entry into the war in June 1940, Italian convoys were run from Italy to Africa with regular success. The British were not able to stop these convoys, which were run under the shelter of shore-based air power and the powerful modem warships of the Italian Navy .

Admiral Andrew Cunningham, Commander-in-Chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet based on Alexandria (in Egypt, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean), turned to his aircraft carriers to extend the range of his firepower and upset Italian dominance of the central Mediterranean. In the late summer and early fall of 1940, planes from HMS Eagle and HMS Illustrious began to attack Italian targets all over the eastern Mediterranean. British pilots gained valuable combat experience in these forays.

The British Navy had contemplated an attack on Taranto for years, working up staff plans for such an attack in 1935 and 1938. In 1940, Admiral Cunningham had the means to implement such a plan. His force included 2 aircraft carriers and 4 old battleships to match Italy 's 6 battleships (2 brand new), which relied on shore-based planes for air support. The British, with no bases but tiny Malta in the central Mediterranean, relied on the aged carrier Eagle and the powerful new Illustrious. Her top-secret radar enabled her to detect enemy planes as much as 70 miles away. If her fighter planes could not use this warning to beat off the attack, then Illustrious with her armored flight deck and heavy anti-aircraft armament could defend herself handily , as she was to prove on future occasions-no carrier in the world in 1940 possessed her defensive power. Her offensive punch was embodied in the unlikelylooking Fairey Swordfish, a fabric-covered biplane capable of no better than 150 mph. The Swordfish, outdated when it joined the fleet 1936, had been schedu led for de-commission in 1940, but proved to be ideally suited for the low and slow flying required for dropping aerial torpedoes.

A reconnaissance squadron flying American-made Martin Maryland medium bombers out of Malta made daily flights over Taranto from mid-September on, photographing the harbor, shore installations, and the ships at anchor. By late September, Admiral Cunningham concluded that all the elements were present for a successful attack: a good plan, an experienced and combat-tested group of pilots, reliable intelligence, and a predictable opponent. Accordingly, the date for the attack was set: October 21, Trafalgar Day. This was later postponed to mid-November.

Beginning on November 4, British warships and merchantmen departed Alexandria and Gibraltar to launch a complex series of movements extending throughout the Mediterranean.

The ships closed on Malta, passed reinforcements of planes and men to the Malta garrison, and on November 10 departed the Malta area headed east and west, apparently returning to the bases of Alexandria and Gibraltar. Italian reconaissance planes atempted to shadow the fleet units but were driven off by fighters from the British carriers. Attacks on the British SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

Wind whistling through her struts at J50MPH, looking like a throwback to an earlier age-which , in effect, she is-a Fairy Swordfish sweeps in to launch her torpedo against ships of the Italian battlefleet. The ships are lit up by flares dropped by other Swordfish and by their own intense anti-aircraft fire. Fear of hitting other ships inhibited AA fire against planes skimming the water al the point ofdrop. Some gunners just fired into the air, hoping to hit anything up there.

ships did no damage despite six attempts in four days.

Cunningham spent November 11 getting into launch position for the Taranto attack. The fleet moved east from Malta in the morning, then at noon turned northeast. At 6:00 PM Illustrious, with an escort of four cruisers and four destroyers, broke off from the fleet to speed due north. By 8:00, this strike force was at the launch point, west of Cephalonia, 170 miles from Taranto. The Italians had lost contact. Receiving a vague report of east-bound ships during the day, they sent out bombers which returned without finding a target.

The twelve planes that constituted the first wave of the attack were launched after the autumn night had closed in, between 8 and 8:30. Under the command of Lieutenant Commander N. W. Williamson, the open-cockpit planes climbed to nearly 8,000 feet on the flight, the crews enduring bitter cold. The attack opened at two minutes past eleven, when Lieutenant L. J. Kiggell began dropping flares above the eastern shoreline of the larger of Taranto' s two anchorages, the Mar Grande. The attacking planes appproached from west to east, with the target ships back-lit by the flares. In single file, the torpedo planes glided silently down to 1,000 feet before restarting their engines and flying down to 100 feet or less forthe final run-in. Having seen excellent photos of the harbor in the pre-flight briefing, they avoided the barrage balloon cables.

Williamson, the flight commander, was shot down leading the attack. His plane splashed into the Mar Grande, but not before he had launched his torpedo, set for a depth of 33 feet. It ran true and hit the battleship Conte di Cavour below the forward gun turret. Five other torpedo planes came on in succession: Two obtained hits on the new battleship Littorio (the most powerful surface warship in either fleet) and one got a near miss close enough to dent Littorio' s hull. Four bomb-carrying 13

TARANTO: NOVEMBER IMO planes rounded out the first wave, obtaining hits on a seaplane hangar and a destroyer.

The first-wave attack was over by 11 :30, and the secondwave attack began at 11 :50. Once again, flares were dropped to silhouette the target ships. Of eight planes that made it to the target (one was forced to return to the ship), five carried torpedoes . The first, flown by flight commander Lieutenant Commander J. W. Hale, put the third torpedo of the evening into Littorio. Another scored a hit on the battleship Caio Duilio. The other pilots missed their intended targets, and one of them, Lieutenant B. W. Bayley, was never heard from again . Three bombers, including the primary and back-up flare droppers, made diversionary attacks on scattered targets, while the torpedo bombers did their deadly work. The secondwave attack was over by 12:30AM on November 12.

* * * * *

In 90 minutes, twenty aircraft had wrought havoc on the Italian Fleet and flown away with only two aircraft lost. Eleven torpedoes were dropped, of which five were hits and one was a damaging near-miss. Three battleships out of six had been hit: Cavour would sink and never sail again. Littorio had been holed three times and damaged by the near miss. Caio Duilio, badly damaged, was beached by her captain to prevent her sinking. One cruiser and two destroyers had been damaged by the impact of unexploded bombs. The seaplane hangar and other shore installations were left as smoking ruins. The Italians had just two prisoners-Williamson and his observer, Lieutenant N. J. Scarlett-to show for their efforts. Over 12,500 rounds of AA ammunition had been fired at the British planes.

The planes, minus Williamson's and Bayley's, flew back to Littorio, who with her sister Vittorio Veneto was one of the two newest, strongest and fastest battleships in the Mediterranean, is sustained by supporting craft after taking three torpedo hits in the attack on Taranto . She , with other survivors of the debacle , crept north to bases farther up the peninsula, weakening Italy's grip on the central Mediterranean. And that was the object of the exercise--to keep the vital seaway in contest.

the Illustrious with the aid of a homing beacon on the ship, landing between 1: 15 and 2:50 AM. The Illustrious sailed south, rejoining the Mediterranean Fleet by 7:30 AM. A repeat attack was planned, but bad weather forced its cancellation.

The British ships were at last found and attacked by Italian bombers on the afternoon of November 12, but fighters shot down three Italian planes and no damage was sustained by the ships. The fleet turned for Alexandria late in the day, and at 8:00 PM received the first reports from Malta that photo reconnaissance backed up the pilots' claims of extensive damage . Admiral Cunningham radioed to Illustrious: "Maneuver well executed."

News of the Taranto attack spread quickly, making headlines in London and New York. In Cairo, a special correspondent began on the November 14 to prepare his own story of the Taranto attack: Lieutenant Commander John Newton Opie, III, USN, Assistant Naval Attache, London. Since August he had been assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet as a "neutral observer." A State Department official who observed him on the deck of a RN vessel fired off an angry memo to Washington in protest of this "unneutral" action. Nonetheless, there he was, filing reports all through the summer months on British ships, weapons, tactics and strategy. Prior to the Taranto attack, his reports had emphasized the value of the advanced British radar to the fleet, and also the weakness of anti-aircraft fire in the face of determined aerial attack. His placement was one of the few pre-war successes of the Office of Naval Intelligence. He was aboard HMS Illustrious from start to finish of the Taranto attack cruise. Opie filed a four-page report and appended to it the 13-page report written by Captain Boyd of Illustrious.

The opportunity presented to the US Navy by Opie's onthe-scene report from aboard HMS Illustrious was wasted.

The US Navy command at Pearl Harbor did not believe that torpdoes could be made to run in the harbor's shallow water until the Japanese proved the point by their overwhelmingly successful surprise attack, which virtually wiped out the US battleship fleet on December 7, 1941.

The same was not true of the Japanese. An officer named Naito Takeshi, who served as an attache to the embassy in Berlin, travelled to Italy specifically to study the Taranto attack. Lieutenant Commander Fuchida Mitsuo, who four years later flew the lead plane in the Pearl Harbor attack, said of Taranto: "I learned very much from this lesson in shallow water launching." D

A Note on Sources The war in the Mediterranean is well covered in I. S. 0.

Playfairetal, The Mediterraneanand the Middle East(HMSO, London, 1954), Raymond DeBelot, The Struggle for the Mediterranean (Princeton University Press, 1951 ), and Michael Howard, The Mediterranean Strategy in the Second World War (Praeger, New York, 1968). See also Don Newton and A. C. Hampshire, Taranto (Kimber, London, 1959) andB. B. Schofield, The Attack on Taranto (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1973). For the Italian side, see Franco Maugeri , From the Ashes ofDisgrace (Reyna! & Hitchcock, New York, 1948) and M.A. Bragadin, The Italian Navy in World War II (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1957).

Primary sources for the attack itself include the reports of Captain Boyd of HMS Illustrious and Lieutenant Commander Opie, both found in Record Group 38 at the National Archives.

14

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

Gaze la Under Sail

by ROBERT C. SEMLER

MARINE ART

Member: Societ y of Illustrators Am eri can Societ y of Marin e Arti sts

FINE SHIP PORTRAITS and MARINE SCENES by

JEFF ELDREDGE ASMA

Call or write: J eff Eldr edge PO B ox 8 A limited edition print of the Gazela, former 1883 Portuguese square-rigged Barkentine, berthed at historic Penns Landing, P hiladelphia, PA. Edition: 500 SI N Image Size: l 7 1/zX23 1/z Reproduced in full color on neutral PH paper Price: $45.00 plus $5.00 Shipping (Shipped flat) NJ residents include 6% sales tax

Send Check or M.O. payable to: Robert C. Semler 308 Highland Terrace, Pitman NJ 08071

North Carver, MA 02355 5 08-9 4 7-055 7

Windjammers from; Maine, Boston, Mystic CT, Greenport & NYC New York, Caribbean, Galapagos Islands and South Pacific Build lasting memories sailing a tall ship. Take a turn at the wheel, lend a hand with the sails, make new friends, enjoy hearty meals, relax and rest. One day to two week sailing adventures. Write or call today!

Or for Full Color AdCard and order form send SASE to above address NAME .......... ..... ............................................ .

STREET ADDRESS... ..... ... ... ............... ..... ... .............. .

CITY ......... .................... STATE ... .... .... ZIP .............. .

Thank you for your order.

Established in 1935

DIRIGO CRUISES39 Waterside Lane, Clinton, CT. 06413 1·800-845-5520, in CT. 669-7068

Capt. Ray & Ann Williamson .. . .

K EEP THE TRADITION ALIVE ENJOY A 3 OR 6 DAY CRUISE ABOARD AN HISTORIC VESSEL

Departing each Monday-Friday. Rates from $275-$545 Group rates available Tune & September.

For information: Box 617-SH , Camden Maine04843 • (207) 236-2938 • l 800 736-798 1.

Thanking all our hosts in New York City, Elizabeth, Stamford, Kingston, Albany, New Rochelle, Fairfield, Milford, and Fa ll River for a great summer of '89.

Now planning an exciting 1990 schedule.

The new Coast Guard Certified"HMS" Rose , largest operational wooden sailing ship in the world, embarks on educational voyages. Diverse programs range from grade school age through executive development workshops for business and industry.

For information write or call:

" H .M .S:'

R~E

I Bostwick Ave . • Bridgeport, CT 06605 • 203-335-1433

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

London, Moonlight over Lower Pool 1897

FREE SWEEPSTAKES A $1500 John Stobart print will be given away to publicize the fihh annual Sea Heritage Marine Art Contest.

Stobart prints hang in museums, corporate offices and fine homes.

86 prints have been Issued since 1974.

Many sell for more than 20 times their original price in the current art market.

Everyone has a chance to win: Send business card. Write on the back, "/ w/// talk up the Art contes t ".

Bernie Klay will put your card in the raffle.

Artists enter the Sea Art Contest: Send a self addressed stamped envelope for an entry blank and rules.

SEA HERITAGE Box 241HI, Glen Oaks, NY11004 (800)247-3262/(718)343-9575

15

REDISCOVERING COLUMBUS

by Peter Columbus was at sea, fortunate man. Heading south and east for the Canary Islands, 660 miles away, he evidently began writing his famous lost Diario, or journal. We know this document by an abstract compiled by Bartolome de las Casas a Spanish bishop and not uncritical admirerofColumbus who also wrote a history of the West Indies in which he sharply took his hero to task for his attitudes toward the Indians. There are also rather loose casual references in the biography of the Navigator written by hi s second (illegitimate) son, Ferdinand, who sailed with his father in his later voyaging, and who had a copy of the original, probably later sold off by improvident heirs.

The passage from Spain to the Canaries, off the bulge of West Africa, is typically a lively, windy one, and it is reasonable to imagine Columbus bracing himself to his writing in his swaying cabin high in the poop of the Santa Maria , with a certain sense of mi ss ion , prohahly writing in the night hours.

Las Casa gives us a verbatim transcript of his introduction to the voyage. Addressed to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, it begins: "Whereas, most Christian and Very Noble and Very Excellent and Very Powerful Princes, King and Queen of the Spains and of the Islands of the Sea, our Lords: Thi s present year 1492, after Your Highnesses had brought to an end the war with the Moors who ruled in Europe and had concluded the war in the very great city of Granada, where this present year on the second day of the month of January I saw ... the Moorish King come out to the gates of the city and kiss the Royal Hands of Your Highnesses and of the Prince my Lord; and later in that same month, because of the report that I had given to Your Hi ghnesses about the lands ofindia and about a prince who is called ' Grand Khan,' which means in our Spanish language ' King of Kings' ... you thought of sending me, Cristobal Colon, to the said regions of India to see the said princes and the people and the lands, and the characteristics of the lands and of everything, and to see how their conversion to our Holy Faith might be undertaken ."

The exalted language (somewhat abbreviated here) was customary in addressing sovereigns, of course, likewi se the conventional dedication of the effort to the advance of the Christian faith. But hold on, reader, and reflect with me: Columbus really felt this exalted purpose in hi s sailing, as is evident in everything he said and did . And he believed conversion to the Christian faith was a necessary step in what we would call the progress of mankind. And beyond these very evident things in hi s message, note his desire to learn " the characteristics of the lands and of everything."

In this practical vein, he observes: " And you commanded that I should not go to the East by land, which is the customary way to go, but by the route to the West, by which route we do not know for certain that anyone previously has passed."

It is typically a boi sterous passage to the Canaries, as we've noted, and this passage was no exception. It was to try ships and men in minor ways that showed up some strains within the fleet-strains quickly patched over, however.

In rough seas the Pinta' s rudder became unshipped, "jumping" (as Columbus's journal puts it) out of its gudgeons.

Columbus brought the Santa Maria over to the helpless caravel to consult with Martin Alonso Pinzon. He could not lay the Santa Maria alongside to help with hoisting the heavy 16

Stanford rudder back into place, due to the sea that kept both ships leaping about. So he left Pinzon to deal with the problem, observing in his journal that "Martin Alonso Pinzon was a man of energy and ingenuity"-the last praise he was to give thi s able but difficult man.

While Columbus was aboard the Pinta , Pinzon told him a curious story-that he believed Pinta's owner, Cristobal Quintero, had disabled the rudder out of resentment at having hi s ship taken for the voyage. To any sailor thi s seems a most unlikely tale; if the rudder couldn't be repaired, the owner risked losing his vessel and perhaps his life-and if it could be made good, the voyage would simply continue. But the story did shed li ght on some underlying tensions in the fleet.

By the following day, August 7, the Pinta had her rudder repaired and the fleet bore off again for the Canaries. The Pinta 's rudder gave more trouble, however, and she began to leak. By dawn on August 9, the main island, Grand Canary, was in sight. But it was calm and remained so for the next few days-a little frustrating after the fine passage that they ' d made so far. At evening on the third day a breeze canie in.

Columbus had Pinzon take the Pinta into Las Pal mas on Grand Canary, the main port then as it is today . There she could best make her needed repairs. The Nina and Santa Maria proceeded on to Gomera, further east in the island chain. On the evening of August 12, they came to anchor at the port of San Sebastian in Gomera, where Columbus hoped to find the spirited young Beatriz de Pereza y Bobadilla, widow of the island 's governor, a noted beauty said to have been sent away from the court in Spain because of King Ferdinand's excessive interest in her. She was away on business in Lanzarote at the other, eastern end of the island chain. They waited nine days for her, then sailed back to Las Palmas in Grand Canary.

The shipwrights of the fleet now set to work with a will, rebuilding Pinta's rudder with the help of the iron foundry in Las Palmas, which forged the very heavy iron fittings. The rudder is the most vulnerable part of a ship. Modem ocean racers use stocks and fittings of titanium , the strongest metal known , but sti ll rudders break and are carried away. Columbus had thought of exchanging the problem-ridden Pinta for a ship ofDofia Beatriz, but now he put this thought aside, concentrating on getti ng the Pinta ready for the westward push into an unknown ocean. Pinta was recaulked and overhauled, and Nina got a new rig with a new rigging plan. Using the masting, cordage and gear of the three-masted lateen rig she 'd had up to then , they set up a conventional square rig, with powerful main squaresai l amidships, preceded by a smaller square foresail and followed by a small lateen mizzen . This meant switching all the masts aro und and stepping them in new locations-no small task! As Columbus aptly observed, it was done " that she might follow the other vessels with more tranquillity and less danger."

"More tranquillity" puts it nicely. The soaring lateen mainsail with its 100-foot free-swinging yard tended to drive the ship up into broaching with a strong wind, and using the helm to fight this tendency not only put undue strain on the rudder, but ri sked instantly gybing the ship if there were a flaw in the wind. And because stays on a lateen-rigged mast can be set up only on the windward side, a bad gybe can take the mast right out of the ship. By contrast, her new sq uare mainsail was set right across the wind, with no tendency to drive the ship up into it. And the mast was permanently and strongly stayed on both sides.

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

IV:

Romping Across the Unknown Atlantic With this great change accomplished, and the Pinta' s injuri es made good , the fleet sai led on to Gomera, where Columbus at last met Dofia Beatri z. Re liable report has it that a strong attraction was felt between these two imperious people. But now the fa ir winds ca ll ed and the mariners had to be off. There had not been one desertion among them, a remarkable record for Jack shore in such idyllic surroundings .

Before daybreak on September 6, Columbus heard mass at the Church of the Assumption and went aboard hi s ship.

Anchors were weighed, we may ass ume, with the usual song and ribaldry, and the fl eet set sail.

* * * * *

The first days out were difficult and uncomfortable, as is so often the case at the start of an ocean passage. First, there was no wind, and the fleet bobbed abo ut in the lee of the Canaries for several days. Then Columbus reported the Santa Maria shipping water forward , in the jumbled sea formed by the ocean currents that sw irl around the underwater mountain range whose tops are the steep, rocky islands. She can't have put her huge bow under-she would be in parlous state indeed to do that!-but perhaps the sea shoved her down forward enough to submerge the lap-straked pl anking that ships of thi s era used to fair the ungainly fo'c'sle structure into the hull proper. Lap-strake (overlapping) planks can ' t be caulked properl y (the pressure of tight caulking merel y forces them apart), so here, perhaps, is where the problem lay. But it was an annoyance, rather than a threatening problem, and Columbus ' s great biographer, Samuel Eliot Morison , feels Columbus got rid of it by stowing cargo further aft to lift the ungainly vessel ' s bow hi gher out of the water.

It 's a mi serable spot, downwind of these islands, south and west the way you have to go to pick up the reliable Northeast Trades. One fine day I watched a sunri se there, aboard a 61foot ocean racing yawl, admiring the way the montainous seas heaped up with their occasional snowslides of foam g littering in icy greens and pinks in the making light- until one slid aboard and momentarily overwhelmed the vessel ' s slender hull as she dawdled along in the fitful breeze that was blowing.

The doghouse hatch was open , so the owner' s wife, sleeping below in the after cabin , jumped out of her bunk into wate r knee-deep over the cabin sole, and bounded up on deck to find my watchmate and me sprawled in ludricrous poses abo ut the deck where the receding flood had left us. Fortunately we were wearing lifelines or we would have been splashing about in the ocean.

At three in the morning of Saturday, September 8, Columbus records with ev ident relief, " it began to blow from the northeast." By evening of the next day, Sunday, Columbus records the fleet making 7 1/2 knots-not a bad tum of speed for a modern yacht of similar size under crui sing canvas in these conditions. But Columbus understated hi s day 's run to the crew, "so that the men would not be frightened if the voyage were long. " Throughout the voyage before them, Columbus was to keep up this difference between what he judged to be the actual distance run and what he told the crew. By the end of the voyage, the di screpancy between what he thought he 'd done and what he gave out to his people amo unted to some 9 percent of the total distance. But he was over estimating his days ' runs.

The distances he gave out were just about the di s ta n c~s the ships were actually covering.

This raises the whole question of how Columbus found hi s SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

A new Santa Maria ventures out in the broad Atlantic this past summer, on a day like those Atlantic days of which Columbus said, "the savor of the mornings was a great delight. " After his voyage of 1492 , indeed, the Dark Ocean was dark no more. Photo courtesy Spain ' 92 Foundation.

17

REDISCOVERING COLUMBUS IV: Romping Across the Atlantic way across the trackless ocean. He had compasses aboard , of course, and paid carefu l attention to the courses steered, re proving the crew several ti mes (by his own account) on the firs t days out because the he lm smen, under direction of the sail ing master, kept letting the ship ramp up to the north of the due west course he'd set.

It was all too easy to let the ship run up thi s way in quartering wind and sea, but Columbus rightl y fought to keep the course steered as close as possible to what he' d laid outfor he had only the crudest means of determining his latitude, perhaps onl y by "eyeball ing" the height of the Pole Star above the horizon at night, or the sun at noon. Further on in the voyage, his two attempts to get the he ight of the Pole Star by observation through an astrolabe were disastrous fl ops, putting him at about the latitude of the future Boston rather than the Bahamas which lay across his path . The astro labe was vi rtuall y impossible to use fro m the heaving decks of a ship under way at sea.

Mori son fee ls that Columbus' s only notion of where he was deri ved fro m the compass course steered, with hi s estimate of how far along the course he'd come each day. Thi s is the bas ic, traditional way of keeping track of where you are at sea, called "dead reckoning" by Engli sh-speaking sailors. The nav igator and Columbus scholar Robert Fuson differs with Morison. He be lieves Columbus had some way of determining his latitude approx imately-and I agree. It' s simpl y too much to believe he could find hi s way back home or for that matter out to the Americas again to pick up where he left off, without thi s knowledge. The Polynes ians in the wide Pacific watched fo r a star ri sing or dipping beneath the horizon to get on the latitude of the island they were headed fo r. And closer to home the Norse nav igator for hundreds of years had fo und hi s way back to home port along the long north-south coast of Scandinav ia by holding up a notched stick and sailing north or south until the Pole Star or the sun at noon (at a specified season) matched the notch on his stick. Then he had only to run east along that latitude to arri ve home from the reaches of the Western Ocean.

Columbus believed he was sailing through a sea pretty thickl y sown with islands. He knew the Azores, Made ira and the Canaries-and Martin Bahaim 's globe showed to the westward beyond this the mythical St. Brendan 's Island (I am calling the island mythical here, not the saint who lived around SOOAD). Brendan 's Island wandered up and down the broad Atl antic reaches until finally removed fro m Briti sh Admiralty charts in the mid- l 800s. And there was Antill ia, equally mythical, though not of such ancient origin, where seven Portuguese bishops were said to have fl ed from the invading Moors about 700 AD. People were quite sure of the shape of Antillia, as it was copied from map to map.

Martin Alonso Pinzon actually wanted to turn aside to the northward to land on one of these islands. Columbus said no, he wanted to get on to Cipangu, the last great island in the ocean sea before Cathay, or China. Cipangu, our modern Japan , had a real ex istence of course. The western Pac ific is indeed crowded with big islands-Japan, Okinawa, the Phil ippines, Borneo, the Celebes, New Guinea, etc., etc.,-as Columbus knew from reading Marco Polo ' s account of his res idence in China with the Grand Khan . But everyone (not just Columbus, as is too often said) vastl y underestimated the extent of the Pacific, and there seems to have been no inkling 18

in the European mind of the Americas, " islands" big enough to be cl assed as continents--or as a new world . Columbus himself fin all y understood he had come upon "another world" when he saw a branch of the mighty Orinoco Ri ver pouring eno ugh water out of the heart of the mainland mass of South America to make a freshwater lake of the Gulf of Paria, behind Trididad, through which hi s ships were sailing, on an occasion years after thi s first voyage.

The fac t that the Americas first offered to the European ex plorers a fringe of island s not unlike the islands of the China seas confirmed the oceanic picture Columbus had in hi s head.

Thi s was the same picture, it might be added, that prac ticall y every educated person had in hi s or her head; most learned persons and others thought the ocean wider than Columbu s did , but all gross ly underestimated the di stance to China through the prevalent exaggeration of the size of the Asian land mass-so that China was thought to be not much beyond where the Americas actually are.

So what Columbus first thought was the East Indies became settled in hi s mind as the West Indies, in other words the fringe of the Indies you reached by go ing west across the Atlantic.

Antil lia, which had such a strong grip on people's minds, came down to earth as the Antilles, the name given the island chain Columbus explored. And the name St. Brendan was fin ally ass igned to a rock in Nova Scoti a.

You reall y have to get a picture of thi s coag ulation of dream and fa ntasy into the geographical realities as they came to light in the European mind, if you want to give Columbu s a fa ir shake as a navi gator and explorer. The pi cture of a gold-crazed boob bumbling about the ocean and bumping into islands by mistake doesn ' t bear any relation to reality at all.

Well ,if we've cleared the decks a bit, it' s back to sea with our imperfect but dedicated nav igator. He knew what he was doing, sailing west. Robert Fuson reconstructs an entry in Columbus's Diario upon hi s arrival in the Canaries, which he chose as a jumping-off point to catch the prevailing fair winds, as follow s: "These winds blow steadil y from the east or NE eve ry day of the year,... We will return from the Indies with the westerly winds, which I have o bserved firsthand in the winter along the coast of Portugal and Galicia. When I sailed to England with the Portuguese some years ago, I learned that the westerlies blow year-round in the higher latitudes and are as dependable as the easterlies, but in the opposite direction ."

Here we have a clear statement of the wind system that was to determine the patterns of the North Atlantic crossings under sail for centuries to come. The standard abstract of the Diario

by Las Casas, the nearest thing to the original, does not include the very interesting reference to the westerlies that blow in the more northerly latitudes. Fuson added that from a comment by Columbus recorded by his son Ferdinand in his biography of his father.

The westerly winds do prevail to the north, of course; that's why the Portuguese expeditions sent out from the latitude of the Azores had been beaten back without finding anything. But as Atlantic sailors know well , the westerlies, though strong and prevalent, are nowhere near as steady as the Northeast Trades. As one who has spent a dark, wet day hove to in midAtl antic facing a full gale how ling and spitting out of the east, spang in the middle of the westerlies belt, I can attest to thi s!

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

PHOTO: SPAI N '92 FOUNDATION

The Magic Carpet The Northeast Trades, however, roll on like a magic carpet.

Columbus, in understandable ignorance, was sailing along their northern fringes , but they bore him along splendidly.

Morison describes the first ten days out: "During the first ten days (September 9-18 inclusive) the trade wind blew as steadi ly as it ever does, the westerly course was constantly followed , and the fleet made J 163 nautical miles. The least twenty-four hours' run was 60 miles , and the best 174, which for sai ling vessels of their burthen was very good sa iling indeed."

These are corrected numbers that Mori son is citing here, the actual miles run after allowing for Columbus's overestimate.

But no mere numbers can convey the realities of thi s Trade Wind sai ling. Morison , who had sailed this route, puts it into words thus: "That was the honeymoon period of the voyage, the sort of sailing that old salts dream of. Wind and sea on the stern gave the caravels a regular lift and roll that sea legs take in their stride; no making and setting of sai l or hauling on sheets and braces; seascape of surpass ing beauty (and don't imagine, you esthetic snobs, that common seamen don't appreciate it), brightest of blue seas, fat puffy trade-wind clouds constantly ri sing up from astern, deliberately passing overhead, and setting under the western horizon; weather warm and balmy but always fresh from the blessed trades.

Nothing to do but keep the vessels clean, ¡observe ship routine, watch for birds and flying fi shes, and spend the gold you are going to pick up in Cipangu."

They saw great whales, and tiny petrel s making a mewing SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

A 20th century foe ' s' cle crowd manhandles the Santa Maria' s great mainsail. The yard has to be lowered to the deck to stow the billowing canvas . This could make for wild and wooly sail-handling-but still much more under control than a lateen sail ofthis size would be, on its free-swinging I 00-foot yard!

PHOTO: SPA IN '92 FOUNDATION

19

"It's hard to believe they crossed the Atlantic in these."

GHOSTS OF HONOR: Sea Trials for Columbus's Ships

by Randall Edwards

Three ghost ships emerged from the mists of maritime hi story to crash a party at the public dock in the Spanish port city of Huelva one evening last August. A hu ge crowd rocked and swayed to the rhythm of a salsa band while the ships stood sil ent at the quay , their rigging and masts bathed in spotli ghts.

The three specters hadn ' t come uninvited. T hey were the "ghosts of honor. " The replicas of the Nina , the Pinta and the Santa Maria were to set sail the next day, August 3, 1990, for a shakedown crui se in the Mediterranean. The ships are be ing readied for a repri se, in 199 1, of Christopher Columbus's first Atlantic cross ing to the New World . The ships will spend 1992, the quincentenni al of that voyage, touring US ports.

Huelva, a grim y industrial seaport given the lowest marks in the tour guides, was most exci ted. The Admiral has lost a little of hi s old World charm , hi s image tarni shed by recent publications that detail hi s grasping gold lust and treatment of native populations in the Americas. Butthathasn' t stopped Hue lva from giving him the hero treatment. All day long, for two days, people stood in long lines in the hot sun , waiting fo rfree tours of the ship 's decks. Many seemed to doubt that the shipyards had created these replicas to the proper scale. "It' s hard to believe they crossed the Atlantic in these.

They are so small ," said visitor Isabel Horrill o.

Indeed, it was hard to imagine men willing to face the fury of the North Atlantic in such ships . The hemp rigging seemed so frail and the ships so ungainly by today ' s standards, with so much freeboard for such small boats. At 77 feet in length , with 50 feet of mast above deck, the Santa Maria is the largest of the three, but she seemed tiny.

Santiago Bolivar Pineiro , a descendant of South American liberator Simon Bo livar, has become, by hi s positi on as commander of this voyage, the successor of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea. The ta ll Spanish naval officer was casually confident and smiled eas il y through hi s thick beard while showing a group of reporters through the ships. He promi sed hi s crew would be safe. " What worries us least is cross ing the Atlantic; what worries us most is nav igating along the coas ts," Bolivar expla ined through an interpreter. He re20

the US when the ships arrive.

It was from Palos, not Huelva, that Columbus sailed on August 3, 1492. He floated down the Rio Tinto to sea, but that river is now blocked by sedimentation and a low bridge, so this summer's departure took place at the mouth of the river. Thousands of Spaniards gathered on the shore and on the bridge to watch the crew drop flowers into the water at the base of a brooding statue of Co lumbus staring out to sea.

It was well past noon and the sun was The new Santa Maria, latest in a long series hot over the Costa del Sol by the time the of replicas of the world' s most fam ous ship , fl eet finally got underway, and the scene makes sail in August 1990 on the waters by that time was just short of pandemowhere the original ship set sail in 1492. nium . He licopters buzzed overhead and watercraft of al I shapes and sizes crowded minded us that Columbus lost the Santa about the ships. The replicas left under Maria on the coast of Hi spano lia. Boli- the power of their modem motors, bevar does not want to lose hi s Santa cause maneuvering under sail would be Maria-she cost some $2.5 million. tricky in such a crush of boats.

The ships, Bo livar said , have been There were a few ex hil arating mopainstakingly constructed to be as au- ments when the Nina loosed her sa il s thentic as possible, both in des ign and and wheeled qui ckly abo ut, heading out material s. Oak frames are planked in to sea to a cacaphonous farewell of boat pine taken from trees that were cut in the whistles, car horns and the clanging of Pryenees during a full moon in winter. church be ll s in Palos. The crews had Bolivar explained that this was on old little to do. They climbed the rigging, tradition based on the belief that the took photographs of one another and moon influences the fl ow of sap, and that waved to the bikini-clad women in the wood cut at the wrong time will split. pursuing boats. They didn't seem nervThe ships carry no names on their ous. stems because sailors of the period be"Of course, there is some apprehenlieved that, by changi ng the name of sion ," said Rafael Mazarrasa, President each ship for each voyage, they could of the Spain '92 Foundation. "B ut these thwart the "evi l eye." people are traditional Spaniards. We re ly Some of the gear, however, would on luck and God's he lp." And the comhave raised the eyebrows of a 15th pany of the Spanish Navy , which will century mariner. The Sa nta Maria 's accompany the ships across the Atlantic. eq uipment inc ludes inflatable lifeboats Since August the ships have been tucked away in cani sters, life jackets, visiting Spanish ports, inc luding Sevelectric bil ge pumps (wood and leather ille, where more that 400,000 visitors rep I icas of those Co lumbus used are also came over a five-day period to see the o n bo a rd ) , communi cat ion radios, ships docked in the Guadalquivir River. weather radar and a small jet propul sion They will set sai l from the mouth of the motor to he lp guide the ships through Tinto Ri ver again on October 12, 199 1, crowded harbors. Many of these items to trace Co lumbus ' s voyage to the New are required by the US Coast Guard, World. They will visit 12 to 15 of AmerBolivar said with the air of a schoolboy ica's princ ipal ports between landfall ex plaining to hi s friends that hi s mother and October 12, 1992, when they are made him wear galoshes to school. scheduled to visit San Francisco. The The Santa Maria will carry a crew of following two years will be spent tour26, the largest. The Nina' s crew is 16, ing more than 50 ports in the Americas and 17 will crew the Pinta. The ships are so that students of hi story-young and commanded by Spanish Navy officers old-can meet these ghosts from Spain's but the crews are volunteer, many com- golden age. D ing from Spain ' s amateur sailing clubs.

The crews wi ll rotate, and the sponsors Mr. Edwards is a reporter for the Cowill probably accept volunteers from lumbus Di spatch.

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

REDISCOVERING COLUMBUS IV: Romping Across the Atlantic sound as they fish for bits of microscopic nourishment in the hurrying ship 's wake, and dolphins. And on the deck in the mornings, if the ir experience was like mine on this run, they found fl ying fi sh that make a lovely sight skimming the waves ahead of their pursuers, but are awfully appealing in the frying pan as well.

Columbus lived this life to its full, and loved it. He said in hi s journal fo r September 16 that " the savor on the mornings was a great delight. " That day, a Sunday, must have particularl y delighted him , fo r he went on to observe that " nothing was lack ing but to hear the ni ghtingales, and the weather was like that in April in Andalusia."

That same day they ran into the begi nnings of the Sargasso Sea, that vast bouyant plain of vegetation that floats about in mid-Atl antic. This put the sail ors all in mind of landfall , particul arl y when, on the following day, they found one of the tiny crabs that thri ves in this oceanic vegetation . But, Columbus told the men that they were not near a large land mass, "Because I think the mainl and is further ahead." In thi s, at any rate, he was correct. Later that week, they ran out of the Trades, into calm and variable winds and drizzling rain. The men 's spirits held up, and seeing unfamili ar seabirds they continued to imag ine themselves near land . Stationary in a calm one day, Columbus ordered the lead hove to to take a sounding, and found no bottom at 200 fathoms-at a point where Mori son calcul ates the depth to have been well over 2,000 fa thoms!

A contrary wind set in, fo rc ing the fleet to sail westnorthwest, close-hauled. Thi s cheered the men, who had been wondering whether they could ever beat their home against the ever-blowing northeast wind. A heavy swell coming in after the wind dropped cheered them aga in- i t must have been stirred up a strong wind to the south ward. And undoubtedl y it was a hurricane far to the south that sent in thi s swell.

On September 25 there was a fa lse report of land , launched

by Martin Alonso Pinzo, who had been agitating to stop and explore fo r islands. Once Martin Alonso saw it, everyone saw it, a common enough phenomenon at sea, where the imagination work s directl y on c loudscapes, so yo u can see all kinds of things in them.

Discontent brewing up among the ships' people did not seriously di sturb Columbus , who went on as in a dream . "The sea was like a river; the breezes sweet and soft," he noted on September 26. The regular chang ing of the watches, the three hymns sung to greet the morning, the afternoon, and nightfall , and the seemly routines of sai ling the ship and maintaining her gear, an endless round of patching, whipping, splicing and chang ing the nip where a line passes through a block-these things minister to the soul on an ocean passage under sail.

Toward the end of September something like incipient mutiny seems to have been brew ing among the men. But the first week of October brought a rev iva l of the full-throated Trades. Columbus had run out the time in which he expected to reach the Indies, and he cracked on sa il for all he was worth to make westing before the men's obviou s concern , or Martin Alonso's constant prodding to stop and find the islands they were (supposedl y) sailing through, made it impossibl e to continue to the west.

On Tuesday, October 11 , Co lumbus notes that they took seas aboard , more than in the who le voyage. They saw worked timber in the water and vegetation that thi s time did come from the land . At ten that ni ght, in a ri sing wind, with the ships SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

touching nine knots in their wild moonlit rush, Columbus thought he saw a light, something like a di stant candle "so faint that he did not wish to affirm that it was land ." He called a steward, who saw it too, he says, and he called to the fleet comptroll er, an officer of the Crown, to verify, the sightingbut the man called out that he could not see it, from a position from which he could not have seen it, says Columbus.

We can't know what Columbus saw-it can hardl y have been Indians fishing forty miles offshore in high wind and sea with a fire in their canoe! Mori son points to the tenseness of high ex pectations after a month at sea as the source of thi s fli ckering light; all sailors have seen that tenseness generate unreal sightings. To Columbus, of course, it was real. Four hours later, Rodrigo de Triana, lookout on the Pinta 's forecastle head, sighted real land at last, a light strip of sandy beach in the moonlight athwart the ir path. Martin Alonso Pinza dropped back in Pinta to announce hi s di scovery, but Columbus was, perhaps understandably, offended at his charging ahead to cop the prize and he saw to it that Rodrigo never received the purse of 10,000 marevedi s promi sed to the first man to raise land.

And so, with gold , glory and human rivalries at stake, the ill s of the shore reached out to affect the sailors in their ships at first sight of land on the far shore of the ocean the y had just crossed.

With the beaches of what turned out to be an island the Indians called Guanahani gleaming before them under the moon , the fleet rounded to and jogged back and forth under reduced canvas until the making of the new day, October 12, 1492. D A ship of Santa Maria's period trundles off with a fair wind sitting in her swelling mainsail, a great chariot to ride the Trades and open a new world!

MUSEUM QUALITY

SHIP MODELS

MIRROR OF EMPIRE:

"If you Appreciace che Difference"

Dutch Marine Art of the Seventeenth Century Edited by George S. Keyes The Dutch Golden Age, voyages of discovery and naval battles that shaped history are reflected in this exquisite catalog of paintings, drawings, prints, sea charts and maps. Mirror of Empire accompanies an ex hibition sponsored by the Minneapolis Institute of Art that will open there and then travel to the Toledo Museum of Art and to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It stresses the relationship between marine art and Dutch history, commerce and the tremendous significance of Dutch ship design.

The book also provides biographies of Dutch marine artists and offers discussions of related topics that help explain these works of art within the larger historical context of their time period. $65.00

Cambridge University Press 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011 Call toll -free 800-872-7423 outside NY State. 800-227-0247, NY State on ly.

Illustrated Catalogue $10°0 R epresencing che finesc work of incernacionally acclaimed Mode!

Makers . All models fully docu m enced. Priced from SJ, 500 .

American Marine Model Gallery 12·SH Derby Square Salem, MA 01970 USA (508) 745·5777

13th Annual Exhibition and Sale MARINE PAINTINGS January 19-February 28 catalog ten dollars

_,.('\\\h Ga;;0

William P. Tubbs

0~~ ~

Samuel H. Nickerson

1045 Madison Avenue New York, N.Y. 10021 (212) 744-6171 22

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

MARINE ART NEWS "Dutch marine art of the seventeenth century," says George F. Keyes, Curator of Paintings at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in Minnesota, "has remained the stepchild of the Dutch 'Golden Age."' Landscapes, portraiture and still-life painting of the period is much admiredbut marine art has never been the subject of a major exhibition.

Never, that is , until now. In a remarkable new exhibition, "Mirror of Empire: Dutch Marine Art of the Seventeenth Century," Keyes has sought to redress this anomaly and capture the spirit of Holland 's golden age, when Dutch merchant ships plied their profitable trade routes and Dutch warships fought to protect them. The Dutch led in developing a tradition of marine painting in this period, and they also produced marine drawings and prints and incomparable maps and charts. For this full-scope exhibition Keyes has assembled 140 of these items, drawn from 40 collections in 12 countries.

"Virtually all of the large-scale marine paintings produced in Holland during the seventeenth century represent historical facts," explains Keyes, and the imagery served the Dutch Republic as visual reminders of power, communal purpose and national aggrandizement.

The selections also allow viewers to trace the transformations that took place in the tradition. The commissioned works of Hendrick Vroom of Haarlem (15661640), depicting naval battles, ceremonial arrivals and notable voyages, such as "Return of the Second Dutch Expedition to the East Indies" (1599), set the standard for the early phase of Dutch marine art. By 1620 however, younger artists like Jan Porcellis, with a different vision of the sea, dispensed with hi storical narrative and began painting smallscale seascapes, featuring sailboats plying the rivers, lakes, and estuaries.

This tradition continued into the late 1640s, when another significant shift occurred. Jan van de Cappelle established a more serene and sublime image of the sea, capturing the subtle, changing relationships between vast cloud formations and the calm seas, as in his "Shipping off the Coast." Dutch marine art reached its zenith and golden age shortly after 1660 and Willem van de Velde the Younger is considered the most famous painter of this school. His "A State Yacht Running Down to Some Dutch Ships in a Breeze" shows his special ability to convey the effects of wind on both sea and ship.

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

"The Whaler Prince

William ," by Lieve Pietersz Verschuier (approximately 1675 ), shows a Dutch flute adapted for Arctic whaling, lying in the river Maas with Rotterdam in the background. Small craft cluster about to lift her casks of blubber ashore to the whale oil refinery, at extreme left.

If you can't catch this fine exhibit in Minneapolis look for it at the Toledo Museum of Arts and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the coming year, or get a copy of the impressive Cambridge University Press hardcover catalogue, Mirror of Empire ($65).

There are tall ships and there are small ships, but then there are also some extremely small ships, and Russell Jinishian of Mystic Maritime Gallery cannot be far wrong when he describes Lloyd McCaffrey of Mill Valley , California, as "simply the finest miniature ship model maker in the world." He is speaking in reference to McCaffrey 's miniature models featured in the gallery' s "Four Distinguished Artists" exhibition. Specifically he is speaking of the artist's model of the 100-gun British warship Prince of 1670, which incidentally saw service in the trade wars with the Dutch. Built on a scale of 1 inch to 64 feet, with carved faces on the hull l/32of an inch high and guns with bores ranging from 0.004 inches to 0.01 inches, the model is an amazing 3 1/2 inches long.

"That's getting awfully small ," says McCaffrey, who labored one and a half years to complete the miniature masterpiece. The exhibit, which runs through December 31, also features the work of marine artists John Atwater, William R. Davis and Richard Loud.

In January , Mystic Maritime Gallery will feature new selections from additions made in the last year, and Thomas Hoyne fans might find the models currently exhibited in the Mystic Museum ' s Stillman Building of interest. The 3/8inch scale models of Gloucester fishing schooners were made by Eric Ronnberg as a basis for Hoyne 's paintings.

Still on the subject of ship models, superb models from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston can be viewedat"TheAgeofSail: Ship Models and Marine Arts." Included in the exhibit are models representing American

and European warships dating from the late seventeenth century.

KH Exhibitions November I-December 31, 1990, Four Distinguished Artists. At Mystic Maritime Gallery, 50 Greenmanville Avenue, Mystic CT 06355 .

November20-March 10, 1991 , TheAge of Sail: Ship Models and Marine Arts.

At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 465 Huntington A venue, Boston MA 02115.

January 19-February 28, 16th Annual Marine Show. At Smith Galleries, 1045 Madison Avenue, New York NY 1002 1.

January 27-April 28, 1991 , Mirror of Empire: Dutch Marine Art of the Seventeenth Century. At the Toledo Museum of Arts, 2445 Monroe Street, Box 1013, Toledo OH 43697.

LloydMcCaffrey' s "miniature masterpiece," the Prince, at Mystic Maritime Gallery.

23

The golden era f J l la•s \ll'en as Ct F I ~ d a Men: eigh ve·PS 'r JM l' \() t t ri yacht< wer' b t to tr >IX If \ nenul n ('y W <' 1mp "1 i other d s at n0 otnn t !l'f publk 111agmat10n TOM '-.opwtth,

aeror autic•

t

wm'

c:;ll' 'Thomas Lipt0n's C,HAM1.C LK V

s 1

•or h•s new boat. The pa1rtirig sl ows t':lc~ two stablemates meeting fo •hE ftr ,t tiJnE 1 ( owes [{Dads ENDEAVOUR in 1934 w , p ob~ JIV t'te fastest I afloat, certain!} she wa. tnc flL •t 1t Her famous de< gner, C . \, d ol c 1 1 c 1 on th de• k'lc>·1se as Sopwith, at h h Irr f power d ths great rEw gcevhou-i ot tie se

t

copv'1ght 199<' Frank H \,'; .,,.. r

4x sO 18x' ' x 4

[:1110~

!00 SN 6::i0 c N 950 N

Fnc $.100. $200 '00.

Acclaimed as the finest family boat and the best d-around sailboat of her sizP ever developed, generations of sailors have acqmrt>d their skill and love for sailing at her helm. The best loved of all of NGH's designs, as many as 250 of the approximately 440 wood 121/2 footers built between 1914 and 1948 are still actively sailed.

I.

The paintmg catches C.aptain Nat in a moment of relaxation, totally ill control yet totally at ease in his element. Sailing ROBIN from his family home nestled along the Bristol village shoretme past the stern of his magnificent Cup Defender RESOLUTE, the crew is seen in unconscious salute in their attention.

So many seasoned sailors of big boats attamed their feel for sail ng and love of the sea m a small boat, dnd dre rquvenated by the mt•!T'acy and essence of their return How fittmg thE tribute of the giant RESOLUTE dnd crew to the legendary genius and his classic 12 112 footer C.ommissioned to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Herreshoff 12 V2 Foot Class, this beautiful pamting is as much an affectmnate portrait of the ultimate master of yacht design and construct10n.

Thf 21 x 26 mch image area of the prtm1er edition 1s exact to the original painting. c co~nght 1990 Yankee Accent, Inc.

.7h Ort<Juwl %rrorhf#'t2 ~,?Voter {i,ptam • \ntAanael ll <#bw.rAf//'m (9IS

Image Size 21x26 • Edition 300 SIN 14x18" 650 SIN 8x10" 950 N

Great care has been taken to assure print editions unusually faithful to the original art, with artist and publisher present at every step of the reproduction process. Printed on archival paper using light-fast inks. From original paintings in gouache by celebrated marine artist Frank. H. Wagner.

YANKEE ACCENT· 23 Wianno Avenue Osterville, Massachusetts 02655 508-428-2332

To order: Please define print by title and size.

Provide personal check, or MasterCard or Visa account number and expiration. Please add $12 for delivery of any number of prints to one location in the continental US. Massachusetts residents please add 5% sales tax to the print price. Conservation framing to museum standards is available from Yankee Accent. Please call or write for details.

Price ~250. $150.

SSO.

Derek Gardner, Marine Artist

by Alex. Hurst

Above,"Enterprise and Boxer, September 5, 1813 ." The British brig being taken off the New England coast. Oil, 24 x 36 inches. Below, "The Battle of Quiberon Bay ," one of the most dramatic of battles.fought in 1759 in a gale on a lee shore in a bay alive with shoals and sandbanks. Illustrations reproduced by courtesy o/The Polak Gallery, King Street , London.

26

Like many of his peers, Derek Gardner had no formal art training. He was born near London and , after leaving school , spent nearly eight years on the Clyde with Barclay Curle, builders of some of the most beautiful wool clippers in past years. Hi s father was the Chief Engineer of the Clyde Trust, and Derek spent much of hi s spare time sailing those splendid waters.

He joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a midshipman and, when war broke out, found himself in armed trawlers at Scapa Flow. There was a certain amount of time spent in port, so he bought paper and water colors and started painting with almost as much aplomb as Pallas Athene when she sprang fully-armed from the brow of Zeus. Someone suggested that he sell his work, so he took an assortment to a Glasgow gallery. They were snapped up immediately, one of the first buyers being the Lord Provost of the city. In those days they sold forÂŁ3 , or some $14 at the then rate of exchange.

From trawlers he passed to destroyers in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Arctic, doubtless absorbing the colors

SJEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

1-

and the run of the seas in these disparate waters. Latterly, he was on the staff of Admiral Sir Max Horton, Commanderin-Chief of the Western Approaches and, subsequently, Assistant Chief Staff Officer to the Flag Officer in Colombo. In 1942 he was mentioned in dispatches for Distinguished Service when the destroyer Broke was sunk. In the course of the war, he lost the hearing of one ear and left the Navy with the rank of Commander.

When peace came, he went to Africa as a civil engineer in the Colonial Service, painting a lot in both water colors and oils, though mainly landscapes of the splendid scenery of Kenya, which he exhibited and sold in Nairobi. However, he contracted typhus, which sadly attacked the nerves of his other ear, rendering him totally deaf. He then returned home and became a full-time marine artist, again meeting with immediate success. He was elected to membership of the Royal Society of Marine Artists in 1966 and, more recently, an Honorary Vice President for life. Today, Derek lives in Dorset with his wife, Mary, and works in a studio detached from their house.

Derek 's work combines marvellous seascapes with accurate ships, carefully researched and meticulously rendered.

If a brave man passes him a note quesSEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

Above, "Independence Day, 1815." A United States squadron crossing the Atlantic under Commodore Bainbridge in the Independence to deal with Algiers, after insulting treatment to the USS George Washington. Oil, 24 x JO inches. Below, "West Indies Days." The 18-gun Forrester ahead of six shipsof-the-line in 1809. Astern in the weather line are the 74s York, Belle Isle, Captain and the 64 Intrepid. / n the lee line are the 74 Pompee and the 98-gun Neptune. Oil, 30 x 40 inches.

27

MARINE ART In the best European tradition, accurate, evocative, atmospheric shipping scenes for corporate and private collectors.

This first class limited edition is produced to the highest standards.

Price including postage $160.

Limited edition illustrated "The schooner Vagrant". Built 1910 by Herreschoff, New York; famed for successful America's Cup defenders. Her first race was to Bermuda.

From: Gordon Frickers, Lakeside Studio, 94 Radford Park Rd. Plymouth Devon PL99DX ENGLAND. TEL (01144) 752-403344

DEREK GARDNER

The 'Defence', 74 guns, 1794.

R.S.M.A

Watercolour 13 by 19 inches

A signed limited edition of the above watercolour is available for $175 including post and packing

We are the sole agents for the Artist.

Details of Paintings, watercolours and other publications available will be sent on request.

POlAK 28

21 KING STREET, ST. JAMES'S LONDON SWlY 6QY, ENGLAND TEL. 071-839 2871 TELEX. 885991 HYDE G. FAX. 071-283 2968

tioning some item in a painting, he will almost certainly be unhorsed. Gardner has all the answers and will quickly produce proof to justify his picture. If portraying a battle, that battle is correct as at that instant in time-if a ship, then that ship is just as she was at that date.

Yet such accuracy is merely a bonus, for the pictures appeal for their very composition-for the movement of the clouds, the look of the sea in all its motion, and for all the play of light and shadow.

Sometimes he shows a vessel emerging from a mist as the strengthening sun di ssipates it, with , as often as not, another craft in the foreground lit by weak sunlight. Sometimes we see Napoleonic ships in a fresh wind, a little distant, in quite marvellous contrasts. Though it is seldom exploited by Derek Gardner, artistic license must be accepted. His big oil of the Battle of Quiberon Bay is a sheer masterpiece. Perhaps one of the most dramatic of naval battles, it was fought at sea in a full gale on a lee shore.

There was driving rain for much of the action and I sometimes wonder how much could really be seen at any one time. Yet it is useless to paint a virtually invisible subject, and so we have a dramatic scene when there is a break in the sky and rain . Indeed, in the days of cannon, both land and sea battles were often so obscured by smoke that no one present had a clear idea of what was going on in the main battle! Artists arrange things rather better.

Gardner nearly always paints particular ships and scenes, and what a sweep of history and shipping he has provided: Camperdown, Aboukir Bay, Copenhagen, Trafalgar, the frigate actions in the American War of Independence, Thorot' s last fight, Bainbridge 's squadron crossing the Atlantic towards Algiers, ships in the Channel, the Clyde, in the Atlantic, in every condition of wind and weather, lighting and sail. There are splendid reflections of hazy suns glistening on the swell s; lights caught in the troughs; the great might of grey battleships or the lightness of a cutter bucking through the water. Whatever and wherever the subject, one not only feels the personality of the ship but the reality of the moment and the sense of actually being there. D

Alex.Hurst, ofBrighton, England, is coauthor of The Maritime History of the World and author of several books on marine art.

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

THE CUTTY SARK TALL SHIPS RACE 1990:

Aboard a ''Handy Little Yacht''

by Morin Scott For those whose sailing experience is limited to yachts of not more than fifty feet in length, I have for many years been advocating a voyage in TS Royalist. Not that it is better under square-rig, just that it is different-a new and broadening experience.

Over the last sixty years I have been 1ucky enough to sai I in a variety of craftoften in command and sometimes even racing. Amongst the boats I have actually owned, I recall with pleasure a 12-ft National dinghy, a Dragon , an International six-meter, a catamaran and a Foil dinghy only 7 1/2 ft in length . Others in which I sailed include a i 00-ton Brixham trawler, a 54-ft ex-Bristol Channel pi lot cutter (in which I competed in the Fastnet Race, where we set her square sail, square topsail and stunsails!) a cargocarrying barkentine, the German barks Gorch Fack and Alexander von Humboldt, an international twelve-meter, and an 800-ton bark, to name a few .

But " the handy little yacht" in which I sailed on the Plymouth/La Corunna leg of the Tall Ships Race and the subsequent cruise to Bordeaux was indeed something else. It was with great pleasure that I accepted an invitation to sail aboard Esmeralda, the Chilean Navy ' s magnificent and most beautiful fourmasted barkentine, with her crew of three hundred and forty-two, plus me.

A comparison of dimensions with the Russ ian four-masted bark Sedov shows there was little difference in size. The main differences lay in the fact that Esmeralda Length on deck Beam Tonnage Crew Sail area

Sedov

109.00 meters 14.60 meters 5,300 displ.

Not quoted .

Not quoted. Ca 3,000 sq m (All figures taken from Otmar Schauffelen 's Great Sailing Ships .)

94 meters 13 meters 3,500 displ.

342 2,852 sq m

Esmeralda was designed by a yacht designeras a sail training ship, whileSedov was designed as a cargo carrier, and, due to the difference in rig, Esmeralda carries three very large fore-and-aft gaff sail s. The mizzen alone is around 500 sq m (5000 square feet) an area larger than the total sail area of TS Royalist!

After the start of the race at 1500 on Saturday July 7 in very poor visibility (to the disappointment of spectators and cameramen), we rapidly passed Astrid and Henry Rutowski and settled down to SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

When the wind reached Force 9, it took 40 men to stow the mizzen.

a beat to windward to Ushant. Initially we found that we were not pointing as close to the wind as Sedov, owing to the fact that the forecourse yard would not brace round nearly so far as the upper yards. This necessitated sailing further off the wind to keep the forecourse and lower topsai I fi I led , or furling these sails.

At first I thought it was due to the usual problem of not having a long enough crane to take the yard well clear of mast and shrouds, but later it became obvious that it was the poor lead of the course lifts that was causing the trouble.

The Chief Boatswain managed to alter this lead and from then on we could sail more or less as close as Sedov, but not any closer. It is interesting to note that Royalist, Asgard, the new Polish-built Russian full rigged ships, and thePolishbuilt barkentines all point a lot closer than the older square riggers and all to about the same angle.

After tacking at 0200 on July 8 and again at 1700 (when we could steer 170° to clear Ushant by going the inshore route) , the wind gradually veered, enabling us to steer as high as 220° and thus sail down the appropriate traffic route, which we entered at 0300 on the 9th and exited three and a half hours later.

Course was then for a straight reach with wind abeam, as we hoped, to La Corunna. But, during the next forty hours the weather became warmer and the wind continued to veer until it was northeasterly. Then it began to increase in strength reaching a recorded level of Beaufort 9 with occasional gusts of Force IO-

strong gale, rising to full storm.

Esmeralda kept to the west of the course line until the last twelve hours when, with every one of her twenty-nine sails set, she romped home to cross the finish line only five minutes behind Sedov, who owed us some seven hours on handicap.

In the final result, Esmeralda was second overall to Asgard II by a small margin of forty-two minutes and gained first place in Class A by a comfortable seven hours over Sedov, with the two small barkentines Kaliakra (Bulgaria) and Iskra (Polish Navy) being respectively one and a half minutes and fifty minutes astern of Sedov .

It was a marvellously close-fought race for the six square riggers of Class A and Class A II. Even the seventh boat (Henry Rutowski) was only another six hours later with a placing of 29th overall in a fleet of 51 finishes . (Five retired and eleven vessels failed to start).

The last few hours of the race, when we were overhauling Sedov at sixteen knots with every sail set, will remain in my mind for the rest of my life as a fantastically exciting sail.

I will admit that it did get a trifle hairy at one point when one of the unoccupied chairs in the wardroom fell over, but I am glad to report that I did not spill a single drop of my gin and tonic! D

Morin Scott, of Bognar Regis, England, is Managing Director of Square Rigged Services Ltd and author of War is a Funny Business (see pp 37 and 39) .

29

Sail Amsterdam 1990 For five days the harbor and canals swarmed with every type of vessel

by Patricia and Robert Foulke Imagine a week-long nautical festival in one of the greatest port ci ties of the world with thousands of participants and four million spectators, and you' ll get some idea of the scope of Sail Amsterdam 1990.

The harbor and the intricate network of canals throughout the city were swarming with every type of vessel that had contributed to the distinguished maritime history of the city, as well as everything that floats there now . The classic sai ling workboats of Holland- aaks, boeiers, bols, botters, grundels, hoogaars, klippers, loggers, schoeners, schockkers, schouws, tjalks, and all their local variants- were joined by modem sea tugs, river barges, cruising sloops, classic motorboats, sailing dinghies, and a full range of rowing boats, from cutters and shell s to Dragonboats, a Chinese import. All gathered for a week of strenuous competition and processions, including formation sailing in the Admiral's Race, floral decoration of tugs in the Aqua Flora Parade, and Rube Goldberg inventions in the Crazies ' Parade. But the centerpiece of it all was the Parade of Sail, a grand procession of tall ships, from the North Sea to the centerof the city.

They had just finished the final leg of the 1990 Sail Training Association series of races from Plymouth to La Corunna, Bordeaux, Zeebrugge, and IJmuiden , where they were locking through the sluice into the North Sea Canal on the early morning of August 9th.

To see them we were joined by other sleepy-eyed sailors at 5:30am, waiting for taxis that screeched through early-grey misty streets to the harbor. We climbed on board an old traditional two-masted clipper, "tweemastklipper" in Dutch, for our voyage on the North Sea canal to meet the tall ships at IJmuiden.

She was the 89-ft, 26-ton De Hoop Geleidons, under the command of an extremely competent young woman who was beginning a 12-hour day of maritime dodgem in a spectator fl eet estimated at 1500.

Flag-flying vessels of all sizes and shapes made a ~ steady stream of traffic heading west from the harbor ~ S~l:.~~ "'°?~~~~!ji~;!~~~ into the relatively narrow Noordzee Kanaal. In our b ~. ,__ , ,~- Iii;~ wake were more traditional sail cargo carriers con- ~ verted to the vacation trade and packed with passen- ;;:: b::.-.-=~.~-.111!!!!11:5'.::'.::_~~~~~z,;;_:;_~:;;:;;~~=::~~~!I! gers antique motor launches bustling along with ge- With sail set to a beam w111d, the German Alexander von Humboldt towers over rani~ms and lace curtains fluttering, fi shing boats, the spectatorjleet. Her main skysail is the loftiest sail in the Amsterdam fl eet. tugs, and modem ocean racing yachts. A few geese flew past awake and eager to see the first of the tall ships. Three varour shrouds and ducks and swans dodged the huge flotilla of nished motor launches filled with gold-braided officials, one boats. A dog snoozed on the cabin top of one boat, waking of them a classic American Hackercraft, passed to take thei r positions marshalling the parade. A ferry croaked a warning as enough to answer the bark of a large shaggy dog on shore.

Along the banks of the canal people sleepily stared from it steamed across the unbroken stream of vessels moving their lawn chairs, bending elbows to take sips of coffee. Some westward. A dull green army vessel chugged along with guns of them had stayed overnight in tents or campers to get an angled. On board charter boats, several groups were singing, unobstructed view in the front line of spectators. More arrivals sometimes competing with a loudspeaker ashore. A ship 's carried theirtables, umbrellas, wind screens, lunch coolers and cutter passed rapidly, the crew smartly stroki ng as their beercameras on tripods into posi tion. Cyclists pedalled out along bell y bosun puffed on a cigarette. A flotilla of small runabouts the dike looking for more space and arranged their gear on and Zodiac rafts buzzed around larger boats, and kayaks plaid blankets. One man was setting up a beverage shop under played on one wake after another. Above, a blimp drifted on a green awning. Faint calliope tunes mixed with distant church the light sea breeze, and helicopters filled with news photogbells. A crane like a tall mast went about its busi ness of unload- rap hers hovered over the spot where the parade would begin. ing a gravel barge, oblivious of the tall ships to come.

Three planes flew back and forth trailing banners and fading Quite suddenly, everyone on land and sea seemed full y in and out of the clouds..

g

30

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

"The classic sailing workboats of Holland-aaks, boeiers, bols, botters, grundels, hoogaars, klippers, loggers, schoeners, schockkers, schouws, tjalks, and all their local variants-were joined by modern sea tugs, river barges, cruising sloops, classic motorboats, sailing dinghies, and a full range ofrowing boats, from cutters and shells to Dragonboats .. . "

..

of the "Golden Age" in a long Dutch maritime heritage. As we watched, a tug began to ooze her out into position in the center of the canal to lead the parade into Amsterdam.

Behind her the first tall ship to sail into view was the Libertad, a 328-ft three-masted full-rigger from Argentina.

Her fifteen yards were dressed with flags, and the clews of her squaresai ls were unbrailed to catch the light breeze. Waves of whistles and bells from the spectator fleet passed with her down the canal towards Amsterdam. Next in line the 266-ft three-masted barque from the Soviet Union, Tovarisch, sailed by with some of her crew lean ing on the stem rail to watch the Festooned traditional craft . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - , spectator fleet surrounding her. She was also dressed with flags and had four topsai ls and three staysails set to catch a line the canals ofAmsterdam, freshening sea breeze. above.

In fourth position we could see a Portuguese cross on the sails above the spectator fleet and knew the ship was the 292ft three-masted bark Sagres fl from Portugal. Her officers Fourth in the parade of sail, stood on bow and stem with their hats on, waving to the crowd.

Sagres II goes by with "a She sai led by with a pyramid of sail set, course and topsail s on pyramid of sail set." the foremast, topgallant and royal on the mainmast, and spanker on the mizzen . Next came the 331-ft three-masted full -rigger from Italy, the Amerigo Vespucci , with ornate gold ~ scro ll s on the bow and transom gleaming in the sun. Her graceBelow, Amsterdam II being ~ ful tapered rig, with each yard shorter as one looks up the towed at the lead of the parade of sail, "handsome ~ masts, makes her particularly photogenic. Sailors on the bow with her high stern castle ~ beamed when our captain blew a horn in salute and we all and red open gun ports." ~ shouted " hooray" three times. Fire whistles and sirens intenShe is the newly launched ~ sified their blasts as she went by. replica of a 17th century ~ Sixth in the procession was the 200-ft three-masted full Dutch merchant ship of the g: rigger from Norway, the Christian Radich II . Men were on the same name. mizzen topsail and fore topsail yards, leaning over to loosen gaskets prior to setting sai l. As she was passing we were treated to a dance band on board a nearby charter boat, and the next ship, the Captain Miranda, a 197-ft three-masted schooner from Uruguay, was also lively with a rhythm band on board. Sailors were making music with castenets, drums, gourds, tambourines and clackers.

In eighth position was the Kruzenshtern, a 343-ft fourmasted bark from the Soviet Union, with topsails, topgallants and staysails in between each mast set. The crew was dressed in ivory dungarees, and several of those off watch were playing at what looked like a billiard table on deck. Close behind was another four-masted bark from the Soviet Union, the 384-ft Sedov, largest ship in the parade. The sea breeze had filled in by this time, and she boomed downwind with all sails After sunri se the crowd gradually thickened to six or eight set except courses.

After most of the largest tall ships had passed, we got deep on both banks. Several tall ships were moored near the shore waiting patiently to assume their proper ceremonial po- underway again and followed them into Amsterdam. By the sition in a carefully structured procession. As we neared the time we reached the Het IJ, the inner harbor, we were in the prearranged turning point for the spectator fleet, vessels were midst of the heaviest maritime traffic jam imaginable, but the closing in and passing eight or ten abreast.

Dutch captains seemed not at all flu stered as they wove their Then the 157-ft three-masted full-rigger, the flag ship Am- way through vessels moving in all directions and found sterdam, came into view on our starboard bow , handsome with moorings by rafting five or six rows deep along the quayside. her hi gh stem castle and red open gun ports. Her stem is By this time most of the tall ships had berthed and were ornately carved and gilded to represent the status of the preparing for a week of visitors eager to talk with some of the prosperous merchants who built this type of tradi ng galleon sai lors and bring the past into their own lives. 0 during three centuries of Dutch maritime dominance. She is a replica of the famous merchant ship of the same name which Patricia Foulke is a full time travel writer and Robert is a sai led from Amsterdam to the East Indies in the 1700s. The writer and professor of English at Skidmore College. Their original Amsterdam was wrecked in 1749 on the British coast maritime interests include operating the Lake George Sailing near Hastings . Now her replica will help to revive memories School in New York.

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

31

Amsterdam by Rowboat A Boston Rowing Team Meets the Dutch On Their Own Terms

By Ed McCabe "Fixed Seat/Open Water" rowing is the name adopted by the U.S. Rowing Association to differentiate the use of traditional vessels with their oars on their gunnels from the sleek racing shell s and the somewhat sturdier "ocean shell s."

Open-water boats are lifeboats and wherries, dories and gigs , c urraghs and peapods, cutters and whitehalls. They reflect thousands of years of maritime evolution married to particular coastlines, different materials and many experiments that set forth and failed to bring their crews home. Natural selection occurs much more at sea than on land. Today, the various threads of that evolution are bei ng drawn together as American and European and Pacific Rim rowing clubs meet each other in competition , try out each others' boats, learn each others' sty les and beg in a homogenization that hopefully assures the transfer of the best of many traditions. One such exchange began in 1988 at the festival in Douamenez, Brittany where some American crews raced some Dutch crews in a French version of a Comish pilot gig. The Dutch and American psyches seemed to mesh and an invitation to come and row at SAIL 90 in Amsterdam became a journey into 300 years of Dutch maritime hi story.

The fifty crews who make up the circuit in Holland were gathering at SAIL 90 to add a dynamic aspect to what often is a static display. After all , once the Class As are tied up to quay, a Tall ship celebration is often endless rounds of visits to mass ive vessels with a bewildering array of gear. But leaning over the side, cheering on a rowing boat with a promin ent Rotterdam or Harlingen painted on the side is as exciting as watching a field of thoroughbreds at the clubhouse turn. For a group of greater Bostoni ans, alighting at Central Station in Amsterdam , it would take a while to reach that point. First we were given two boats. One was thought to be about 150 years old , a 36-ft cutter with twelve oars, double banked, and a 27-ft double ender with eight rowers. The two crews, one made up of women from greater Boston aged 14 to 32 and a men 's crew aged 15 to 45 (yes, old gents race too) met the 19 to 23 year old " hard bodies" from the national electronics school, ETS, not unlike our MIT. The first thing they did, perhaps to inject a bit of humility was to lead us on 32

a wild chase through the gatheri ng darkness through the canals of Amsterdam.

Now the canal system is made up of four major semi-circu lar large canals with endless smaller connectors and landmarks familiar to natives onl y. I would estimate that there are at least 100 bridges spanning just the inner city ' s canals, each having its own particular configuration of arches through which a lowslung tour boat can fit but which necessitate the art of "slipping" fo r a rowing boat that is 22-ft from oar tip to oar tip.

"The first thing they did . .. was lead us on a wild chase .. . through the canals of Amsterdam."

Lil

:J o

""2 .......,_,_...,__, if. ~ il: ~-----~~~-~---~

"Should the cox not slip both sides when necessary, one or both banks of oars smash the walls of the tunnel-like arch ... " Slipping is for one or both banks of oars to swi ng inboard , hard up against the sides of the boat, allowi ng the craft to slide under the bridge on accumulated momentum. Now some bridges require both sides to slip and others allow a crew to keep one bank rowing and the coxswain to crab the rudder and make it through under greater power. Each time the boat approaches a bridge. the cox must make that calculation ancf there are a number of issues of "face ." Should the cox not slip both sides when necessary, one or both banks of oars smash the walls of the tunnel-like arch "crabbing" the entire side and possibly breaking borrowed oars. This is bad enough, but

to call your slip too soon, before it is absolutely necessary , is to invite a look of withering scorn from the bow oar who sneaks in another stroke or two while making di sparaging remarks in Dutch.

The trick is to delay the slip until the bow oar is scraping the entrance to the bridge and to look totally unconcerned.

The true val ue of this came not at a bridge but in the-endless confrontations with power boats. Imagine if you will a vik ingesque vessel bearing down on you in a space definitely too small to fit both your boat and it. As you brace for the collision and the oars disappear under your bow, nothing happens and yo u lean over the side to see the boat unconcerned ly sliding by you with inches to spare.

It was this sort of shenanigans that marked a wi ld race through the canals our first night in to wn, with crews from a ll three boats mixed up for navigation reasons on our way to a Chinese restaurant on the banks of the Amster Ri ver. There the wi ld emotional style of row ing that characterized the US crews was matched against the si lent, almost dour style of Dutch rowing with few terse commands and few power and stroke changes. The sleek fiberglass boat Trochdriuwer, the new boat that made ETS the pre-eminent crew in Holland, always was able to draw upon another gear as we flashed down the canals to maintain its lead, but wil y boatdriving, sneaking out bursts of speed while screened by a bridge or old lock, calling for power from the crew to never break contact and generall y acting like a pit bull in a 150-year-old boat gai ned the first tiny measure of respect.

Brig ht and earl y the next morning we boarded a 32-ft steel hulled Dutch Naval cutter. There were three identical boats with twelve rowers that lent themselves to a series of match races over a 500meter course in the basin next to the National Maritime Museum . Three crews raced the boats three times, each time switching into a new boat. A tricky start/ finish line contributed to our losing the first two races, but the third we won! The faces of the Dutch rowers quickly put to rest the thought that thi s was a courtesy win . Though the ETS crews won two out of- three with the American crews coming in second and the Rotterdam crew a firm third , the victory may have been a Phyrric one for the next day was the "Marken Race."

Marken is a former island village, connected after the war to the mainland by a long causeway. The shape vaguely SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

resembles a flexed arm with Amsterdam at the shoulder some 17 miles away. Sixteen rowing vessels gathered in the small keyhole harbor to await the staggered start on a bright hazy morning. Here perhaps was the most evocative example of the Dutch philosophy of rowing and maritime preservation. They have made a conscious decision to restrict the types of vessels racing in the Netherlands to either original lifeboats and sh ip 's boats or true copies of the same. There are no high tech, hotshot development boats. All of the rowing vessels are either originals with massive scantlings made forthe North Sea or faithful reproductions made with modem materials. The Dutch rowing hierarchy has handicapped their boats according to length , weight, number of rowers and bow profile in such a way that in the Marken race, five waves of boats left at intervals slowest to fastest that said in effect that all boats would draw together over the course of the race and would have an equal chance of ending the race in a head-to-head dash for the finish. Suffice it to say that over a 15-mile, 2 1/2-hour race with a wide disparity of crews, this was not quite the scenario. However, in our 150-year-old cutter, as we neared the finish, we proceeded to reel in two boats from the first and slowest wave but had to settle for a boatlength interval , 20 seconds apart after 2 1/2 hours. This lent some credence to the handicapping theory.

We rafted up in a gradually growing double line of superb traditional craft behind a 70-ft barge tug and waited for the stragglers. The sight of the cream of the last 150 years of Dutch small boat architecture strung out in double line was wonderful but as we were cast adrift and blistered hands and seats were brought back into action, the groans were enormous. The pace of the Dutch crews toward a tiny bridge opening however suggested that something was up. Suddenly the shuffle for spots in a "line ahead" got vicious and we grabbed the second place in line with the ETS crew ahead of us. As we "slipped" under the bridge, we were assaulted with a view not soon to be forgotten. We had come in the back door of the basin containing all of the Class As and most of the other sailing vessels at SAIL 90. We began a parade up along the assembled tall ships and watched as literally thousands of people, aboard all of the visiting ships crowded to the rails to cheer the best of Dutch rowing. Rowers usually operate quietly in a very self-contained world, and here we were acknowledging the approbation of the maritime world, very heady stuff. As we neared the end of the basin, the ETS crew slowed and smartly "tossed oars" in salute. Never a crew to be caught lacking in the protocol realm, we did the same and then looked around wondering why. I yelled to ETS asking to whom we were saluting and they said "to the Queen." I responded "Beatrix?" and they said no , pointing at the beautiful replica of the East lndiaman, the Amsterdam.

Monday , the last day of the festival, dawned hot and hazy.

We once again and for the last time plunged off into the now deeply crowded canals for one final swoop to a canal side bistro favored by all the crews and then a three mile caravan to the campsite where most of the rowers had lived for the past week next to where the godfather of Amsterdam rowers, Jimi Dienaar hosted a rib bar-be-que Dutch style. Prizes were awarded, coaches thrown in the pond and the wrap-up took place. We were able to tell the rowers of Holland how much we enjoyed their city and what top notch rowers and sportspeople we thought they were. To ice the cake, we offered them the same hospitality in Boston that they offered to us, during the Tall Ship celebration at Op Sail in July of 1992. The rush to SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

Oar meets sail in Terschelling , Amsterdam.

t:: c5 ~

;;:. ~ ~

The Hull Lifesaving Museum women's crew make steady progress in the 15-mile Marken Race.

t:: c5 ~

;;:.

The American team found the canals of Amsterdam a tight flt .

sign up was gratifying. Watch for the first international championship for "fixed seat/open water rowers" and contact the Hull Lifesaving Museum's Marine Skills Workshop if you or your organization are interested in ocean rowing programs for youths and adults. D

Ed McCabe has for the last ten years been Director of the Marine Skills Workshop at the Hull Lifesaving Museum, PO Box 221, Hull MA 01930.

33

SHIPNOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS NMHS Annual Awards At the Third Annual Awards Dinner of the National Maritime Historical Society, held November 16 at the New York Yacht Club, Commodore Henry H. Anderson, Jr. , was presented with the Founders' sheet Anchor A ward for his distinguished service to the cause of sea history. "Commodore Anderson is Vice Chairman of NMHS, and Chairman Emeritus of the American Sail Training Association," saidNMHS President Peter Stanford in presenting this award. "He has also played a leading role in efforts ranging from the University of Rhode Island sailing program to the sailing of a medical service ship in the remote Pacific islands, and from exploring the maritime museums of Yugoslavia to the formation of the National Maritime Alliance, which brings together all interests in our field."

The NMHS American Ship Trust Award was presented by Commodore Frank V. SnyderoftheNew York Yacht Club to Jack and Peter Aron, the father and son team that had done everything to build South Street Seaport Museum as a center worthy of the maritime heritage of the seaport city which has contributed so much to America and the world. Peter Aron now serves as Chairman of the South Street Seaport Museum. The award specifically recognized the Aron s' monumental act in bringing the great bark Peking to safe harbor in South Street, a major step in recreating South Street's glory as "the Street of Ships." Commodore Snyder, in making the award, read aloud a letter from South Street trustee Robert W. Hubner, saluting the Arons, in which he said: "It is also probable that the entire Seaport would not be extant in its present form with out the Arons." (See "Letters," this issue.)

"Those Far-Distant, Storm-Beaten Ships" The issues of total commercial development versus slower-paced development controlled by cultural sponsors has now arisen in the time-honored bastion of British sea power, Portsmouth Harbor.

Here three great warships, the Mary Rose of Tudor times, the Victory of the Georgian era, and the Warrior of the age of Victoria illustrate compactly what Alfred Thayer Mahan called "the influence of sea power on history. " Indeed, Mahan 's famous line recalling "those far-distant, storm-beaten ships" was specifically written about HMS Victory and her 34

consorts.

At issue is a plan supported by the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust, which was set up by the British Ministry of Defence to manage the site, to allow American shipping millionaire Mr. James Sherwood a 25-year lease of the three warships together with the Royal Navy Mu seum and other storehou ses and boathouses. The theme park plan is expected to provide considerable funds but some of the trusts governing these historic treasures fear that the plan may put the fabric and atmosphere of the ship and dockyard at ri sk.

lation placed it with the ship Osage, 344 tons, which was under construction by David Williams when British marines from the blockading ship Boer rowed upriver from Long Island Sound to burn the entire fleet of twenty-eight vessels in Essex harbor in 1812. Athough she was launched in an attempt to save her, Osage was fired anyway and burned to the waterline. This writer believes it unlikely that the building yard for Osage was at the head of Fall River Cove. The narrow mouth of the cove might have been easily defended and it seems that protecting the ship on the ways would have been easier than launching it into the stream where boat-borne British marines could come alongside. The planned excavation of the shipyard site for 1991 will help reveal the extent, nature, and dates of activity at the Williams shipyard.

Wesleyan students along with Pfeiffer and Malcarne will be making further studies of every aspect of the site including mapping and additional archival research. They plan to concentrate on the building yard in 1991, and the Connecticut River Museum hopes to assist again as a headquarters for the dig, as a research center, and as one of the interpreters of the excavated material.

Archaeology Reveals Essex Shipyard Site At the entrance to Falls River Cove, Essex, Connecticut, the only sounds are the hum of insects. The si lence conspires with the visible landscape to obscure a past that was discovered here by archaeologists in thi s summer of 1990.

Wesleyan University archaeologist John Pfeiffer and assistants worked for six weeks to uncover a 19th century industrial complex at a dam site at the mouth of the falls river.

Armed with the archival research of Boston historian Donald Malcarne, the archaeologists unearthed the gristmill, sawmill, lumber yard, an apparent founB RENDA MlLKOWSKY Director, dry, and a shipyard all owned and operated by Samuel Williams and his six Connecticut River Museum sons.

Lady Elgin and Seabird: The shipyard site is near the head of Falls River Cove, some three quarters of First Test of New Law a mile from the outlet into North Cove on A US District Court judge has upheld the the Connecticut River. Essex is six miles consti tutionality of a new federal law north of the mouth of the Connecticut that gives the Illinois Historic Preservawhere it empties into Long Island Sound. tion Agency (IHPA) jurisdiction over The village was home to as many as ¡ abandoned shipwrecks in Illinois waeleven shipyards that built brigs for the ters. The opinion upholds the Abandoned West Indies trade, ships for the Euro- Shipwreck Act of 1987 and is being pean packet service and schooners that hailed as "a victory for archaeologists plied the stone trade. and preservationists" by Dr. Michael J. The first record of shipbuilding by Devine, Directorof the IHP A. The events the Williamses is the schooner Polly in surrounding the case began in the spring 1794. A small vessel of 52-ft and some of 1989 when diver and salvage com45 tons , the 6-ft draft could easily have pany operator Harry Zych claimed he been launched from the Falls River Cove had discovered the wrecks of Lady Elgin yard. David Williams built two vessels a and Seabird in the spring of 1989 in Lake year beginning in 1799, all under 150 Michigan. He then asked District Court tons. As shipbuilding activity increased Judge Ilana Rovner to grant him ownerafter the War of 1812 the tonnage and ship of the wrecks under the general required draft also increased. provisions of Admiralty Law, but the The most exciting find in the ship- IHP A intervened in the case under the yard site was what appears to be a large Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987. sawn futtock. Apparently unused, this Because of the national importance of timber has a decayed section around an the case, the first test of the Federal ill-placed knot on the curve. Early specu- Law's constitutionality, theIHPA asked SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

that the National Trust for Historic Preservation assist in the case, and according to Michael Naab, Maritime Director for the National Trust, it is very gratified with the result. The federal law and the state law require IHPA approval before any historic resources in Illinois territorial waters are disturbed. If funding can be secured in the future , IHP A hopes to record the shipwrecks and make them available for viewing by divers.

The sinking of the side-wheel steamer Lady Elgin on September 8, 1860 was the worst disaster in the history of the Great Lakes. A total of 287 people died in the catastrophe. (IHP A, Old State Capitol, Springfield IL 02701; 217 7850348)

quarterly of mant1me hi story. The Nepune is published at the Peabody Museum in Salem MA, and is celebrating its fiftieth year of publication this year. Runyan had been serving on the Neptune Editorial Advisory Board prior to his new appointment.

BRIEFLY NOTED

Off the coast of Plymouth MA, on September 5, spectators enjoyed a rare sight indeed. Out there under full sail, her first sailing in open waters in almost thirty years, was Mayflower II. The reproduction of the merchant ship that brought the Pilgrims to the New World was completed in 1957 at the Upham Shipyard in Brixham, Devonshire. Skippered by celebrated sailor and historian Alan Villiers, she sailed to Plymouth MA that same year, arriving June 13. Recently the Plimoth Plantation repainted the vessel according to what research indicated as truer colors. (Plimoth Plantation, PO Box 1620, Plymouth MA 02360; 508 746-1622)

The National Maritime Alliance has a new voice-a quarterly newsletter called Maritime America. The Alliance, a coalition of maritime museums, professional societies, sea experience and maritime skills organizations, historical and preservation groups, maritime unions and maritime industry associations, was proposed by NMHS in the summer of 1987 and formally organized in 1988.

Copies of Maritime America are circulated free of charge by member organizati.ons of the Alliance. The Sea History Ga zette, published bi-monthly by NMHS, will continue to be the official journal of the Maritime Alliance bringing timely notices of people, organizations, publications, events, and activities of interest to the maritime world. For information contact the Office of Maritime Preservation, National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1785 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington DC 20036; 202 673-4127.

Stephen Barnes of Bremen ME, a naval architect and project manager with Washburn and Dougherty, East Boothbay shipbuilders, has been named Director of The Rockport Apprenticeshop.

A graduate of MIT in naval architecture and marine engineering, Mr. Barnes's boatbuilding and sea experience includes saltwater farming, and inshore and offshore fishing. Recently he was project manager for a 135-ft prototype scallop vessel launched by East Boothbay Shipyard.

Timothy J. Runyan, PhD, President of the Great Lakes Historical Society, has recently been named editor of The American Neptune, America's oldest SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

What's next for the peripatetic designer and shipbuilder Melbourne Smith?

Fresh from the recent reconstruction of the brig Niagara in Erie PA (see SH 55, p33), Smith is now building a Great Lakes lumber schooner for the City of Milwaukee. (Wisconsin Marine Historical Society, 814 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee WI 53233-2385)

avenue to the sea during the bustling Erie Canal days. She looked like a black swan of the river lying off-shore in full view of the thousands of spectators and participants.

Peter Aron, Chairman of the Board of the South Street Seaport Museum, is excited about the Museum's recent acquisition of the magnificent maritime art and artifact collection of the Seaman's Bank for Savings. Amassed over a period of 150 years, the collection documents the rich maritime history of the City of New York with more than 2,000 oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, ship models, prints, posters, rare books and other artifacts. The bank was founded in 1829 when New York was the foremost seaport in the nation. When the bank failed in 1990, the Seaport began its campaign for custody of the collection.

The acquistion by the Seaport Museum of the Seaman's Bank Collection could not be more appropriate or timely, said Aron. "With the completion of work on the A. A. Low Building, and substantial progress on the renovation of Schermerhorn Row and the creation of the permanent "Port of New York" exhibition, New York's maritime history has truly found safe harbor."

The 1904 four-masted bark Moshulu was removed from her Penn's Landing site in Philadelphia earlier this year, and is now undergoing restoration in Camden, New Jersey. The 394-ft bark suffered a disastrous fire in 1989. There are plans reported! yin the works to make her a museum ship or sail training vessel.

NMHS Advisor Ray Wallace is the architect for this restoration.

As promised last Spring, the historic fishing schooner Evelina M. Goulart has returned to Essex MA, the only such vessel to return to a town that built some 4,000 in a 300-year period. The 93-ft schooner was towed up the Essex River on the November 2nd high tide. Raised from Fairhaven harbor in November 1989, the 1927 Goulart will now be in the safekeeping of the Essex Shipbuilding Museum which has plans to make her an onshore shipbuilding exhibit (see story Sea History 54, page 37).

Reviving the former glory of the Hudson River as a premier competitive rowing venue, the 26-year-old environmental organization Scenic Hudson sponsored its first annual Hudson River Rowing Regatta on the river at Peekskill NY, October 26. Joining the rowing crews that included the US national men's and women's teams, were NMHS volunteers and the brigantine Black Pearl, up from South Street Seaport, Manhattan. While it is not usual to have a salt-watersquarerigger at these river events, the presence of the Black Pearl was a reminder of the former role of the Hudson River as an

To stay in touch with what's coming up, subscribe to the Sea History Gazette, PO Box 646, 132 Maple Street, Croton-on-Hudson NY 10520-0646$25 to NMHS members, $35 to others.

35

~\\Ii'''' 'iii'''' 'iii''' ''iii'''' 'iii' 1111 Will~ ~

~

~~NCEJt

~~

~

"Make Sure It's Done . ... "

!>~

La11na11 Na11tiq11cs has 1no1/f:d.

~

W· are now

LANNAN Smr Mmm1, G.uu:Rl' 58 Thayer Street Boston , MA 02118 (i17-45 l-2(150

OrJt'Y 200 a11tsta11dir(I! ship 111odl'ls i11 i111J('llf<>ry.

~r111mu,, i'IMI,,,, i'IMI'''' '""',,,, m ,,,,1'1\~~ FREE Nautical Catalog RARE & OUT-OF-PRINT Books-Manuscripts-Prints-Maps BROADFOOT PUBLISHING COMPANY Route 4, Box 508-C • Wilmington, NC 28405

fine Frcsia food nrcc Meals a D1y Seven Days a Weck On 1hc Hubor

in Vineyard Havu

soS -693-9123 ~~~iii;g,;,~~

Mirth•' s Vineyard

ANTIQUE & MODERN

MARINE CHRONOMETERS Bought, Sold and Serviced

J.P. Connor & Co. "The Chronometer Specialists" P.O. Box 305, Devon PA 19333 (Near Philadelphia) Tel: 215-644-1474

36

REVIEWS Excerpted from the new book by H.F. Morin Scott, War is a Funny Business

Christmas 1943 was celebrated a little late aboard HM Frigate Moyola, so that all hands could sit down to lunch when she came in from her wartime patrol.

This turned into a combined ChristmasNew Year's lunch alongside at Gibraltar on January 3 , 1944. Everyone was required to make speeches, and things were still going strong at half-past three in the afternoon , when a LieutenantCommander McKendrick showed up. His required speech follows, as recorded by the inimitable Commander Scott-one ofa bevy ofsuch yarns appearing in War is a Funny Business.

A few months ago, while driving a Hunt class destroyer in UK waters, the wardroom had "a quiet run ashore. " On the way back we happened to sight a set of golden pawnbrokers balls hanging from a bracket above a shop. The temptation was too great, and in no time at all a pyramid was formed to lift a sub-lieutenant up to the necessary height where he quickly unscrewed the bracket .... It was not long before we decided that it would look well screwed to the mast above the bridge and there during the forenoon the carpenter duly mounted it.

At sea a few days later the Captain (D) of the flotilla ranged alongside to converse over the loud-hailer during which he apparently observed the trophy, and curiosity got the better of him.

"What are those spheres on your mast, McKendrick?" I hardly liked to say "pawnbrokers balls"-it sounded a bit rude-so I said airily, "Oh, that ' s Type 297 , sir."

Captain (D) not daring to show ignorance in hearing of both ship's companies, said, "Oh yes, of course" and I forgot about the who le thing.

Unfortunately Captain (D) did not.

He was incensed that a ship in his flotilla had been fitted with a new gadget before his own-so incensed, in fact, that on return to port he hurried to the Base Headquarters, breathing fire and brimstone, and headed for the Base Radar Officer's office.

"Why has a ship in my flotilla been fitted with Type 297 when my ship has not?" he demanded.

The poor bemused Base Radar Officer had, of course, never heard of Type

Morin Scoff (center) gets the word in another incident in his book.

297 , but being unwilling to admit to such ignorance he stammered out, "Er, Type 297, sir-I am afraid that is not in my department. Ifl recall correctly it's Huff Duff-Lieutenant Smithers, sir, in the next office. " Captain (D) stormed next door and was directed in the same manner to the Base Wireless Officer, who suggestedwith explosive results-an enquiry to the Base Radar Officer.

In desperation Captain (D) went to the headman-the Admiral-who personally denied a ll knowledge of any such device or its fitting to any ship.

However, to pacify Captain (D) he sent for all his staff officers who all with one voice admitted that while they had all heard of Type 297 it was not actually the responsibility of any one of them and none of them had actually ever seen one, nor could they give any details as to its precise purpose.

Crustily the Admiral demanded to know the name of the ship fitted with this tiresome new gadget and duly instructed his Flag Lieutenant to make a signal asking for details of Type 297 fitted.

Very unfortunately when this signal arrived with me I had forgotten the loudhailer conversation of ten days previously and replied, "Type 297 not fitted."

Then the fat was really in the fire and eventually I had to don sword and medals and explain the whole story to the Admiral. Fortunately he had more sense of humor than the Captain (D) and gave me a large gin before sending me back to my ship with his final word on the matter: "Well, McKendrick, it seems to me there will be just enough time for you fellows to transfer Type 297 to Captain (D)'s ship before you sail this evening.

Make sure it's done, my boy."

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

THE BOOK LOCKER The Battle of Britain, the unlooked-for triumph of Britain's Royal Air Force in turning back the hitherto all-conquering German Luftwaffe over the peaceful countryside and ill-prepared cities of southern England fifty years ago, in the summer and early autumn of 1940, is well remembered in The Battle of Brit-

ain; The Greatest Air Battle of World War II, by Richard Hough and Denis Richards (W.W. Norton , New York & London, 1989, 413p, illus, biblio, index, $29.95). As Prime Minister Winston Churchill said of the climactic day of the battle, September 15, 1940: "The odds were great; our margins small; the stakes infinite."

On September 15, the day now rembered as Battle of Britain Day, the British believed they had shot down 180 German aircraft for a loss of only 30 of their own. Due to overlapping claims and the natural confusions of split-second combat in the skies, the actual figures were just 60 to 30---but as the authors observe, this was enough. Incredibly, British aircraft production, plagued by class conflict and the managerial inefficiencies of a decaying imperial economic system, soared ahead of wartime goals and exceeded the total production of the mighty German war machine in these critical months.

Once again, as in the repulse of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the gate to future had been held; the West could go on to win the most terrible war of modem times. People were conscious of a great deliverance at the time, one whose true shape and meaning, amid the dayto-day unfolding of events, is brought back before us in this excellent work.

The whole history of that war is compactly and authoritatively recounted in

Struggle for Survival; The History of the Second World War, by R.A.C. Parker (Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, 1989, 328p, illus, biblio, index; $00.00). This remarkable book gives a balanced view , with full attention paid to the mammoth tank battles between Russian and German forces after Hitler surprised his ally Stalin by crashing across the Russian frontiers in June 194 l. The author deserves credit for his handling of difficult subjects like the English general Bernard Montgomery, who on the one hand re-instilled discipline and confidence in the British forces that had been kicked out of Europe by the triumphant Germans, but who subsequently became a serious drag on Allied SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

operations, as Anglo-American armies drove from their Normandy beachhead, opened in June 1944, to meet the advancing Russians in the heart of Germany in April 1945. The dire consequences of Monty's failure to clear the approaches to the great port of Antwerp for three months in the fall of 1944, while advocating an adventurist thrust into Germany thatdemanded the logistic support the seaport was needed for, is well discussed here. American di visions that could have attacked the upset German forces were stripped of their transport to provide trucks to bring in supplies from the Normandy beaches, now far to the rear, because Antwerp was not available. Such major "details" of the military conflict are fully and frankly treated here. The terrific warmaking capability of the Germans, even when fighting a world in arms, with their cities in ruins, also receives due attention, together with the growing warmaking capability of the English-speaking nations and the Russians, who ended up inflicting the most damage on their erstwhile Nazi allies.

John Keegan, former lecturer Sandburst Academy (England's West Pains) who added depth to our understanding of the experience of war by the individual combatant in his classic Face ofBattle, has recently written two books which embrace the experience of World War II. His The Second World War, (Viking, New York 1990, 607p, biblio, index $29.95) takes an unusual thematic approach, presenting the events of the different theaters in terms of the strategic challenge facing the war leaders, German's Hi tier, Japan ' s Tojo, Britain's Churchill and America' s Roosevelt. He explains his hope that this scheme "imposes a little order for the reader on the chaos and tragedy of the events I relate." The book is gripping reading, making clear, as it does , the developing response of the Allied leaders to the totalitarian onslaught.

Keegan's The Price of Admiralty; The Evolution of Naval Warfare (Viking, New York, 1988, 292p, illus, biblio, index , $21.95), sheds brilliant light on the shape of sea battle in the recent centuriues of rapid change. From Nelson's "band of brothers" to the more divided and confused command of the British battle fleet at Jutland, the develO.Jment of sea conflict in modem times is accurately portrayed, and with real feeling for the ships and the men who served in them. Not incidentally, this is

8l0-809't$ Kenwood IS

"THE STOBART STORE"

eio1109',, the Midwest's Premier Marine Art Gallery Call Ted Gardner (513} 891-5531 7866 Montgomery Rd. Cincinnati, OH 45236

FOR SALE Old, Scarce, & Out of Print

MARITIME BOOKS at reasonable prices Send for bi -monthly lists .

ten pound island book company 3 Center St. Gloucester, MA 01930 (508) 283-5299

OVEB 700 NAUTICAL VIDEOS FOR SALE & RENT FOR FREE CATALOG CALL

Seven Oceans Video 23 Warner Street, Newport, RI 02840

( 40 l) 846-000 l

Our Advertisers / are our Standing Rigging

37

GRISWOID INN Serving Neighbors and Travelers for Two Centuries LUNCHEON AND DINNER DAILY FAMOUS HUNT BREAKFAST EVERY SUNDAY OVERNIGHT ACCOMMODATIONS

ll

I ti -

ffO I - · ,

;1y; .~ ~~~-- -

~

.

ESSEX, CONNECTICUT Reservations Suggested, Ring (203) 767-1812

MARINE OIL PAINTINGS OF HISTORICAL SHIPS AND HARBORS

a work of considerable literary merit; Mr. Keegan looks back to hi s own childhood interests and experience in boats to recount here what is clearly a central interest of his life, Those who love to roam old seaports will share the terrors and tribulations nobly borne (for the most part), in the siege of London from the air and sea, under the overhanging threat of invasion in the early years, in The Thames on Fire; The Battle ofLondon River, 19391945, by L.M, Bates (Terence Dalton Ltd, Lavenham, Suffolk, 1985, 189p, biblio, index,£ 11,95), The culture of the port of London comes through loud and clear under the exigencies of operating

CALL OR WRITE FOR VCR TAPE

~ ~

ROBERT W YOUNG 411 ELLIOTT ST BEVERLY MA 01915 TEL 508-922-7469

::E

~ ;;!

ffi ~

MARITIME VIDEOS

SS JEREMIAH O'BRIEN - LASTOP1HELIBERTIES HANNIBAL VICTORY BIRTH OF VICTORY AMERICA SAILS 1HE SEAS SAGA OF A SHIP AMBASADORS OF HOPE PACIAC HORIZONS WORID CARGOES

Wrtite for catalogue, VHS - Beta

HISTORIC FILM DISTRIBUTORS 840 Battery St., San Francisco, CA 94111

The Official Journal of the Maritime Alliance

Sea History Gazette To stay abreast of maritime heritage news and events, subscribe to the bimonthly newsletter published by NMHS 26 issues yearly $25 to NMHS members $35 to others National Maritime Historical Society PO Box646 Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520

38

A Heinke/ Ill bomber over the heart of the Port of London-Isle of Dogs in the bend of the Thames , buildings of the Naval War College and National Maritime Museum across the way at lower right.

outmoded, bomb-stricken facilities under the stressful demands of total war. We encounter a separate nation of fiercely independent people, with their own customs and their own language, coming through what the author calls " the most searching test the Port of London has ever had to endure in its long history,'' The early days of the war in the Mediterranean , centering on the strategically critical siege of Malta, are vividly recalled in a stirring narrative by Gordon W, Stead,ALeafUpontheSea;A Small Ship in the Mediterranean, 1941-1943 (University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 1988, 185p, illus, biblio, index , $27,95), The under-powered, under-armed wooden British Fairmile launch which this young Canadian volunteer drove through desperate days and shell-shot nights was, with her sisters, a small unwarlike fleet-but as the author remarks: "We were now the very, very tip of British sea power in this historic

sea,'' Because the little ships hung in there, because the Maltese hung on under incredible pounding from the German and Italian air forces , and because the British battle fleet, whose nearest bases were a thousand miles distant in this landlocked sea which Italy 's dictator Mussolini had proclaimed as Mare Nostrum-"Our Sea"--contested sea control with remarkable verve and elan (see one instance of this, pages 13-14 of this Sea History) , the British and Americans were enabled to win through to victory, The "on deck" quality of Stead 's narrative and his feeling for his ship and the men he served with shine through this tale of bombs dodged , mines swept, and songs sung in crowded wardrooms, makes this slim volume a memorable contribution to the literature of the sea, A quite different saga of "make do" in the desperate days of World War II at sea is H.F Morin Scott's WarlsaFunny Business (Square Rigged Services Ltd, Bognor Regis, UK, 1990, 237p, illus, £ 10.95 or $25 from NMHS, ppd), Commander Scott, author of articles on "Square Riggery'' and other topics in Sea History (see page 29 this issue), started out as a 17-year-old in charge of a pre-World War I 6-in gun aboard a liner converted to war service, was sunk aboard a corvette in the Indian Ocean, and did a mort of growing up meanwhile, ending up in charge of a Lascar crew in Burma, who taught him thatafter all you can get things done with everyone talking at once, It is the lighter side of these adventures that Scott dwells on with amiable ferocity vis a vis the pompous, the pretentious and absurd-and with unrepentant wit that must have helped him and others keep at arm's length the horrors , fear and sadness of war. His inimitable story-telling style is well illustrated by a typical anecdote from this work, reprinted on page 36, PETER STA FORD

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

REVIEWS NORTHEAST LIGHTS: LightTo California by Sea; A Maritime History of the California Gold Rush ,

by JamesP. Delgado(UniversityofSouth Carolina Press, Columbia SC, 1990, 237p, illus, biblio, index, $25.95) This compact, well researched volume tells the story of people and goods flooding into California by sea during the Gold Rush of 1848-56. Delgado, mari time historian of the National Park Service in Washington DC, moves sure-footedly through thi s exciting era. He rightly points out that due to the maritime nature of the Gold Rush, "California was never actually a frontier in the true sense of the word." The buying power of California gold and the daily stream of vessels from Europe and the East Coast coming in the Golden Gate meant that the news and fashions of the world were current in San Francisco--by water transport- soon after they were current in Paris, London , and New York. San Francisco was , thus , from the first, a world-involved city, and this well wrought work tells you why, in fascinating factual detai I. The author and William N. Still,Jr. ,editoroftheStudies of Maritime History publi shed by the University of South Carolina Press, are to be congratulated on adding another important volume to this invaluable series.

PS

Clyde River Steamers, 1872-1922, by Andrew McQueen (Spa Books Ltd, PO Box 47, Stevenage, Herts SG2 SUH, England, 1990, 139p, illus , ÂŁ12.95hb) This book, first publi shed in 1923 under a slightly different title , has been amended in order to define the 50 years in question precisely. It contains the original text and illustrations complete and unabridged, going back to the Clyde steamers of the early 1870s. Th is was very much a new fleet, since many of the fast ships of the 1860s had been sold en masse as blockade runners in the American Civ il War. The author reviews in detail the history of each individual ship with many contemporary illustrations, covering the fine fleet of paddle steamers on the Clyde in the days when more value was attached to the speed races, the skipper' s object being to get his boat there first, whether full or empty, the passengers being merely a sideline! The book recalls vividly the great days of the paddle steamers, with pictures of many famous ships, up to the coming of the screw-driven and later turbine ships, which appeared in the early 1900s. In 1922, there were still 28 passenger steamSEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

Major Forsythe is Chairman ofthe World Ship Trust and President of the No1folk Wherry Trust, in England.

houses and Lightships, Rhode Island to Cape May, NJ,

by Robert G. Bachand. A look into the colorful history of the 133 light stations that operated between Rhode Island and o' Cape May, NJ. 422 ~? pages, 153 b&w photographs, 30 charts and illustrations.

Hard cover. $19.95

The Captains Watson and the Empire Line, by David P. H. Watson (Deepwa-

SHIPWRECKS OF NEW JERSEY, by Gary Gentile.

ers at work, despite the coming of rail links and automobiles. This book gives a fine cross-section of the latter days of steam on the Firth and is recommended to all interested in the Clyde (virtually the birthplace of the steamship), in the heyday of its fleet of fine paddleboats and later steamers.

JAMES FORSYTHE

ter Publishing Co., Ridgefield CT, rev. ed . 1990, 170p , illus, appendixes, $15.95pb) In May 1843 John T. Watson, then 14, was apprenticed to go to sea aboard the small local bark Elizabeth, in the North Atlantic trade between Scotland and Nova Scotia. By age 26 he had achieved master's status, thus founding a family dynasty that endured at sea while there were ships to sail- to sai l, not steam!from 1843 to 1904, when John's son David gave up the sea.

In an extraordinary act of research, David Watson, who recently retired from the practice of maritime law in New York, has reconstructed the lives of John and his son David, and the incidents of their sailing, from the small wooden ships that John set out in to the great steel barks of the latter days.

This finely detailed narrative was first printed in 1977, and circu lated for study among a wide co llegial circle from Massachusetts's Andy Nesdall to Gordeon Champman in Australia, to expand and verify the story. Our author has brought to life a remarkable seafaring fami ly. He notes: "Throughout these pages we have encountered again and again the losses of sh ips at sea." But neither John Watson, 45 years at sea, nor David Watson, at sea 40 years, ever lost a ship through sinking or grounding.

Training, seamanship, and careful navigation had something to do with this proud record, together perhaps with "that extra allotment of good luck which the laws of chance reserve for those who have tru ly earned it."

The saga of the Indian Empire , knocked down and dismasted on passage from Australia to Peru in 1895, is told in masterly detail , with an extensive portfolio of photographs recordings the terrible damage the ship suffered, underlining what the men had to go through to

ISBN 0-9616399-3-8

Gives history and exact location (LORAN) of many of New Jersey's shipwrecks. 168 pages, 42 photos. Paperback. $14.95 ISBN 0 -9616399-2-X $2. 00 shipping one book; .SO eachfor each additional. Ct res, add 896 sales tax.

Sea Sports Pu[J[ications PO Box 647, Belden Station Nonvalk, CT 06852-064 7 (203) 866-5376

FREE BOOK CATALOG: Shipwrecks, pirates, voyages, sunken treasure p least write to:

BOOKS of ADVENTURE/ SH 120 Howard St. , Suite B-754 San Francisco, California 94105

J. Tuttle Maritime Books 1806 Laurel Crest

Madison, WI 53705

Catalog upon request of out-of-print books on the sea, 11hlp and the saUor.

39

REVIEWS get her into port. Only one man was lost in this trauma, the steward Doig. But as the author notes: "Many years later in the 1930s Capt. David Watson still spoke sadly of the loss of Tom Doig, and it was obvious that a high degree of mutual respect and friendship had developed during their many years together aboard the Indian Empire."

Who wouldn't want to be remembered like that? The book is full of such deeply realistic senes which make it rewarding reading for landlubber and old salt alike.

PS China Tea Clippers, by George F. Campbell, illus by author (International Marine Publishing, Camden ME, 1990, 156p, illus, $24.95). This classic work, first issued in 1974, features Campbell's stunning scratchboard drawings of the fine-lined, beautiful racehorse ships whose history and construction details he sets forth with authority and verve. PS Caribbean, James A. Michener (Random House, New York, 1989, 667p, $24.95hb) Although Michener didn't begin his writing career until the age of 40, he has enjoyed long success as a best-selling author, beginning with Tales ofthe South Pacific, which won a Pulitzer prize and was the basis for the hugely popular Rogers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. He followed that, over the next 40 years, with 28 additional novels, including Hawai , Iberia , Chesapeake , Texas , and Space. Surely, few authors have mixed so successfully history and fiction.

Michener's approach is to select an area, assemble all available facts and history of that area for the chosen time period (in the instance at hand , over 500 years of recorded history and about 200 pre-Columbian years), then invent plausible fictional characters to fit the historical framework. He provides a chapter-by-chapter guide to which places, events, and people are historic and which are fictional. In the earlier chapters all of the characters are fictional, but the general progression of events is historically correct. The peaceful Arawak islanders were indeed overrun by the cannibalistic Caribs, and the decline and fall of the great Mayan empire is historically accurate, though the characters are fictional.

Curiously, this book includes but little of Christopher Columbus 's efforts to persuade King Ferdinand and Queen Isa40

bellaofSpain to sponsor a voyage to fi nd China and Japan by sai ling west.

By the device of a series of dialogues between a fictional representative ofKing Ferdinand and vario us res idents of Hispaniola two years after Columbus's death, the author covers the Admiral's subsequent voyages. After the triumphal first voyage, the Sovereign gave-him a fleet of 17 ships to transport 1500 colonists to the New World, most of whom were sons of wealthy Spanish families, and most of these proved to be rather arrogant and lazy. For his third voyage the monarchs assigned a large contingent of convicts as colonists. Columbus took up his duties as govemorof Hispaniola, but apparently made many enemies, and was not conspicuously successful. Within two years, Francisco de Bobadilla arrived, armed with letters from the king giv ing him absolute governing power over the colony, and he sent Columbus and his two brothers back to Spain in chai ns. T he three were immediately released, but it was 1502 before Columbus was able to put together another expedition, this time with four ships.

Still hoping to fi nd Asia (and resurrect his reputation), he sailed past the islands to what is now known as Honduras and then, in heavy weather, followed the coastline south as far as the Gulf of Darien, between the modem nations of Colombia and Panama. Attempting to sail back to Hispaniola, he was stranded on the island of Jamaica.

There was little hope of rescue because no ships called at Jamaica, so Diego Mendez, one of the ship 's company and a member of Spanish nobility, built a small canoe and paddled some 200 mi les to Hispaniola, where he got a ship to rescue his shipmates. Columbus returned to Spain , where he died, in nearpoverty and neglect, in 1506.

As the story moves on into the latter part of the 16th century, Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins pl ay their historic roles as slave traders (with the financial backing of Queen Elizabeth I) and staunch, if somewhat piratical, defenders of the English crown.

Because the English were disrupting Spanish colonial power as well as endangering the fleets carrying si lver from Peru to Spain, King Philip ordered a massive armada, comprising some 130 ships, including transports and merchantmen, and 30,000 men, to sail to Flanders, pick up the army of the Duke of Parma,

and invade England.

After some delays the Armada anchored off Calais in August, 1588, having suffered some long-range attacks by Eng li sh ships. With Drake as Vi ce Admiral , the Engli sh fl eet caught them there, sent fire ships into the anchorage and then attacked at close range as the huge fleet sailed. The Armada was badly damaged, but a change of wind enabled most of the ships to escape to the north, hoping to return to Spain by sailing west around Ireland and Scotland. Short of prov isions and battered by heavy weather, only about half the fleet made it. Thus ended the Armada.

The book moves on to cover the slave/ sugar development of Barbados, the rise and fall of Oliver Cromwell in England, piracy, the manipulation of the English market by a sugar cartel in Jamaica, the rise of Horatio Nelson, Victor Hugues and his traveling guillotine on Guadeloupe during and after the French Revolution , the domination of the French in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) and subsequent revolt by its Afri can slaves, the Briti sh domination of the slave- based economy on Jamaica and , into modem times, Cuba and Fidel Castro, Rastafari ans, and the flow of refugees to the US .

Throughout thi s panoramic novel, much attention is paid to sex and violence, especially the latter. People are burned at the stake, broken on the rack, hacked to death , hung, strangled, run through, shot, blown up, beaten to death, or have boi ling water poured down their throats. In the second chapter the reader is even treated to a detailed account of the ritual cutting out of a still-beating human heart as a sacrificial offering to the rain god: "Bolon remained alive just long enough to see his own heart placed reverently in the waiting saucer of Chae Mool. " The history of the Caribbean, like the hi story of the world, is undoubtedl y a brutal story. The history of human ideas, however, is the more important story. Caribbean, by its sweeping scope, does a creditable job of interweaving the two, and makes a good yam of it all.

D ICK R ATH

Mr. Rath is a former editor-in-chief of Yachting magazine -and an Advisor to NMHS.

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

REVIEWS

MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM

New and Noted Lightships of the United States Government; Reference Notes, by Willard Flint (US Coast Guard, Washington DC, 1989, unpaged, no price) This massive data base documents the construction, cost and life of every known US lightship, including the early ships of varied provenance and design. In all, 116 lightship stations were established in the period 1820-1983-the maximum number of stations is detailed in a separate, overlapping listing. Hints of the excitements of the service came through in these data. Diamond Shoals was sunk by gunfire from a German submarine in 1908; five others were sunk by accidental ramming, and another five through stress of weather. No lightships are in service now , making the thirteen survivors the last of their breed, and of a vital service. This book is available only on request to the US Coast Guard, unfortunately.

Northeast Lights; Lighthouses and Lightships Rhode Island to Cape May, New Jersey, Robert G. Bachand (Sea Sports Publications, Norwalk CT, 1989, 422p, index, biblio) The Pequots in Southern New England: The Fall and Rise of an American Indian Nation, ed. Laurance M. Hauptman and James D. Wherry (University ofOklahomaP-ress, Norman OK, 1990, 288p, illus, mapS: index, biblio; $24.95hb) The Old Steam Navy, Volume I; Frigates, Sloops, and Gunboats, Donald Canney (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD , 1990, 288p, illus, glossary, index , biblio; $49.95hb) Cunard; 150 Glorious Years, John Maxtone-Graham (David & Charles, London , 1989, I 28p, index , biblio; $39.95hb-distributed by Sterling Publishing, New York) The Aquitania, Mark D. Warren (Patrick Stephens, Northamptonshire, England, 1988, 128p, illus, maps, plates; $39.95hb-distributed by Sterling Publi shing, New York) 73 North, Dudley North (Naval Insti-

tute Press, Annapolis MD, 1989, 320p, illus, index, appendex; $ 18.95hb) SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

...Tells the story of Maine and the Sea. • • • • • •

Historic shipyard Boatride Apprenticeshop program Grand Banks schooner Three sites in Bath Open year-round .

For more information, write: Maine Maritime Museum Bath, Maine 04530 or call 207-443-1316

Dine in relaxed elegance in the heart of the South Street Seaport.

Yankee Clipper's Wavertree Room The Yankee Clipper, one of South Street Seaport's finest restaurants, recently dedicated an opulently refurbished room to honor the historic Wavertree, a tall ship now berthed just outside the restaurant's multipaned windows. The dedication of the Wavertree Room goes beyond its physical proximity to its namesake, however, for the room actually once served as the office of Baker, Carver & Morrell, general agents who represented the Wavertree in the 1800s. -VIA PORT OF NY-NJ, March 1986 ~

,4:.

::f_,,"::.'o by JeHy Rosen. counesy Pon Aulhmily of NY & NJ

170John !~~:~5959 Major creditl:ards

acte¢'ed.

An authoritative, richly illustrated history of the sport of yachting This splendid history presents all aspects of the sport of yachting: the establishment of yac ht clubs, offshore and ocean racing, the different types of hull s and rigs, famous races and record s, and the growth of crui si ng. Also included are a wealth of illustrations and artifacts connected with the sport- paintings, yachting equipment, nav igational instruments, and trophies, as well as pictures of famous yachts and yachtsmen. This lavish and beautiful book will delight all those who enjoy the thrill of the yachts and the sea. $39 .95 /0-688-0999 1-2 120 illustrations,('() in color 168 pages

Hearst Marine 41

Limited edition of 850 signed and numbered by the artist

Stolt-Nielsen 'Britannia and Her Sisters' by David Brackman

Spanning the Seas.

Serving the World.

The Kings beloved 'Britannia', seen here in the company of 'Shamrock' 'White Heather 2' and 'Westward' competed for 43 years latterly beating the more modem yac hts of the day. She sailed 635 races gaining 231 first places and 129 seconds and thirds.

To secure your copy of this stunning limited edition direct from the heart of British yachting send £99 (Sterling please) or send for information of other editions from the works of top British marine artists to:

Stolt-Nielsen Inc. 8 Sound Shore Drive Post Office Box 2300 Greenwich, CT 06836 (203) 625-9400

THE MARINE GALLERY BATH ROAD, COWES P03 I 7RH ISLE OF WIGHT UK TEL (0983) 200124 FAX (0983) 297282

Trade enquiries welcome

·. ~-

Great Ships,

~ Gr~a::~!ors, -

Video!

Around Cape Hom: Spectacular 1929 Irving Johnson film on the 200ft. bark Peking sailing around the Horn. A true classic! 30 min.~­ Two Against Cape Hom: Hal Roth, famous sailor/author survives grounding on a Chilean island to make it around the Horn. 60 min . ~ Tall Ships '84-'86: John Biddle's film about Quebec & Liberty rendezvous'. 45 min . ~ Tall Ships 1976: Biddle sails from Bermuda to New York for bicentennial. 60 min.~

Free brochure with more nautical videos!

To order call 1-800-323-SAIL Jn CT, 203-624-0470 Mail orders: SEA-TV, PO Box 8968 New Haven, CT 06532 Add $3.50 shpg for 1, $2.00 each add.

42

New York Harbor and Philadelphia based tugs, barges and tankers.

Shipside bunkering a specialty.

....

EKLOF MARINE CORP.

~--MARINE TRANSPORTATION OF PETROLEUM & CHEMICAL PRODUCTS 3245 Rk:hmond Tenace, P.O . Box 030316. Slaten Island, New York 10J03.0003

New York Tel. (718) 720-7207 Phil. Tel. (302) 798-8981 SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

CLASSIC YACHT

NEW for SUMMER from NMHS ...

and

Caps , roya l or navy, one size fit s all. Cool mesh back $6.

Solid fabri c bac k $7.

SHIP MODELS

Sweatshirts, white on roya l blue. Children's sizes (6-8, 10- 12, 14- 16) $ 13. Adult (S, M, L, XL) $16.

*MUSEUM QUALITY *

Collar shirts, wh ite on roya l blue. Adult sizes only (S, M, L, XL) $16.

HA LF - HULLS, REPAIR & RESTORAT ION

Charles R. Slocum 2718 lolani Pukalani Hi. ZIP 96768 (808)572-1888

Shipping and handling inc luded . Send order and check to:

NMHS, 132 Maple St., Croton NY 10520 Or phone in your charge card order to

914-271-2177.

Join Peter Stanford Ona "Historic Ships Cruise" Aboard The Legendary Delta Queen

RIDING SAILS YACHT SAILS COTION FLAX AND DACRON

Box 71, Lincoln Streec, East Boothbay, Maine 04544 (207) 633-5071

Commemorate Your Service In the Merchant Marine

Relive the Great Steamboat Race of 1870 between the Natchez and the Robt. E. Lee as the grand paddlewheelers Delta Queen and Mississippi Queen make the same race from New Orleans to St. Louis.

Eleven days of excitement, June 23rd to July 4th, 1991!

Includes accommodations, gracious dining for all meals (plus late night buffet and Captain's Champagne Dinner) and live entertainment daily. AND participation in all the competitive events along the way!

PRICE INCLUDES ROUND TRIP AIR FARE STE.\\lllOATI'.\' FARES Per l'~rson, Double Occupancy Category

With a distinctive hand-painted plaque bearing the stack markings of the ship on which you sailed.

Send your name , rating , company and dates of service to be engraved on a brass plate. Enclose a check for $95.00 plus $5.00 shipping & handling .

Smooth Sailing P. 0 . BOX 22303 HOUSTON, TEXAS 77227 713 622-1705

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

B C D

Accommodations Outside Deluxe Staterooms Outside Deluxe Cabins Outside Staterooms

$3366 $3062 $2651

*Prices shown reflect a National Maritime Historical Society group discount of 10% off of full fare. Fare includes a donation to the NMHS. A $10 per person Port Charge/Federal Passenger Vessel Fee will be assessed prior to debarkation. Deduct $100 without air fare.

THE CALLIOPE'S CALLING! FOR RESERVATIONS & INFORMATION, CONTACT: Michelle Shuster National Maritime Historical Society P. 0. Box 646, Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520

Hotline: (914) 271-2177 43

With U-53 to Alllerica: Part II

by Thomas J. Hajewski

Having surprised the neutral American fleet by appearing at Newport, Rhode I stand, Kapitanleutnant Rose proceeded to carry out the more bellicose phase of U-53's orders Rose's own war log best describes the events which unfolded the following day: 05.35-"Nantucket lightship two nauti ca l miles off the port bow.

Stopped the American steamship Kansas with a shot across her bow. Gave the order to have her (registry) papers brought aboard U-53 . After some initial difficulties the steamer sends a boat, her papers identify her destination as Genoa, with a stop in Boston.

Her cargo, primarily soda-no contraband.

06.15-Steamer allowed to proceed. Move on a southerly course toward the main shipping lanes ...

06.53-Stopped British steamer Strathdene out of Glasgow (4,321 Brutto Register Tons) with several bowshots and ordered her to bring papers. Only after the sixth shot did she tum and stop.

07 .09-Signalled "Leave your ship! ," since the steamer was an enemy vessel. Course and distance to Nantucket lightship given the lifeboats. These sai l off.

07.43-Torpedo hit on stem cargo area three meters below waterline. Ship begins to go down without sinking. Steer toward another target.

08.03-Stop the Norwegian steamer Chr. Knudsen (3,936 BRT), by signal. Her captain arrives (by launch) with papers.

Ship subject to siezure because she is loaded with diesel oil for London. Her captain is ordered to follow (U-53) to theStrathdene, there to leave his ship and await my return . Strathdene sunk by cannon fire.

09.53-Chr. Knudsen approaches to a distance of around four nautical miles of the U-boat, where her crew abandon ship.

Torpedo hit astern at a depth of four meters. The vessel does not sink. Arti llery fire commenced. No success, as the heavy oil is released through each shell hole and the steamer actually becomes more bouyant.

10.54-Chr. Knudsen sunk with a second torpedo, because a third target was approaching from the east.

11.30-Stopped British steamer West Point (3,847 BRT) with two shots and semaphored: "Leave your ship! " Steamer continues transmitting S.O.S. signals by wireless, signals scrambled by us.

11.40-Wireless transmi ssion halted by two artillery rounds in the forecastle. Crew leaves the ship in two boats. After carefu l checking (with high-power binoculars) for concealed cannons, steamer is approached and taken under artillery fire.

Steamer (boarded and) sunk by explosive charges.

12.35- Practice dive. (My) crew is informed that after the steamer's crew are dropped off at the Nantucket lightship, U53 will set course for home.

14.45-At the Nantucket lightship a tanker approaching from the direction of New York turns away, apparently warned (of our presence).

15.05-Large steamer heading east (spotted) off Nantucket lightship.

15.39-The West Point's boats (being towed by U-53) re44

leased; the lightship can be clearly seen and the wind is favorable. Distance to the lightship: approximately four nautical miles.

15.40-StoppedNorwegiansteamer Kapama (ex Gesto, ex Bifrost) with bowshot and flag signal. Captain co me s with ship 's papers, and steamer released, since her destination is a Norwegian port. Cargo primarily grain.

16.15-Boats from the C hr. Knudsen sighted west of the lightship. During the course of the day an unusually high volume of wireless traffic evident.

16.55-Dutch steamer Blommersdijk (4,835 BRT) stopped .

She raises the Dutch flag at several locations (on board); I signal "Bring your papers."

17 .15-Before the Dutchman can react, a destroyer is sighted, we dive. The destroyer is a U.S. vessel , steers off toward the Nantucket lightship.

17 .30-Surface. A large number of destroyers approach from the direction of Newport at irregular intervals. The first takes on the crew of the steamer sunk that morning. Blommersdijk

" ... a total of 16 (!)American destroyers had assembled around U-53 and the two stopped steamships ... " again ordered to produce papers. She sends over a boat.

17.40-Before the boat is alongside, a steamer approaches from the east. In order to prevent its approach (it may be armed and would therefore threaten the U-boat) the vessel is stopped at a distance of 6,000 meters with several bowshots. Steamer has passengers on board. American destroyers approach the steamer's position. Meanwhile theBlommersdijk's boat comes alongside. Her papers are checked. She is fully loaded with contraband. Her destinations are Dutch ports, although we suspect she is to stop at the Scottish port of Kirkwall. This is later proven to be the case after more careful examination of health certificates and other American-issued documents ...

I decided that Blommersdijk was in violation of international law and raised the signal to her crew to "Leave ship!" Preparations for this had essentially already been completed.

17.45-In the meantime a total of 16 (!)American destroyers had assembled around U-53 and the two stopped steamships, and caution had to be exercised during maneuvering. As Blommersdijk' s boat, which had brought over the officer with the ship' s papers, was towed back to her ship, U-53 came so close to American destroyer No. 53 that I had to reverse both engines to avoid a collision. We hardly cleared each other. I now proceeded toward the passenger steamer in order to check her papers, or, in the case that she had not yet lowered a boat and assuming that she was a neutral, to send her on her way.

I just ordered the signal " You may proceed! " to be given when I noticed that the steamer had already been abandoned by the crew, which was being picked up by the American destroyers.

The destroyers illuminated the steamship with their searchSEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

"One destroyer that lay in the vicinity of the steamer was requested in Morse to move off, so that the vessel could be sunk." lights and gave me an opportunity to make out on its stem the English ensign as well as the name Stephano-Liverpool (3,449 BRT according to Lloyds Register) . After proceeding between the steamship and the destroyers I steered back to Blommersdijk, which had, in the meantime, been offboarded by her crew. One destroyer that lay in the vicinity of the steamer was requested in Morse to move off, so that the vessel could be sunk. She complied with this request immediately.

19.50-Torpedo hit in cargoroom four, four meters below the waterline. Steamer goes down by the stem without sinking.

20.20-Steamer hit again in cargoroom three and slowly sinks.

21.00-Steamer goes down. The forecastle continues to remain above water. American destroyers approach the wreck. Gradually all destroyers except two steer for Newport; these follow U-53 toward the passenger ship. Boarding party sent aboard, explosive charges set and detonated. Steamer does not sink.

Artillery fire opened, without appreciable results.

22.30-The steamer is finally sunk with the last remaining torpedo. We head east. The two destroyers steer toward the west. Our boat heads out to sea. During the night we try unsuccessfully to contact the German ambassador in Washington by wireless regarding the past day 's events ... " The return trip was rather uneventful and an additional English vessel could not be attacked since U-53 had used up her torpedoes. Rose and his crew returned to their base at Heligoland on October 28, 1916, having destroyed five merchant ships totalling 20,388 BRT. Rose's summary of the mission, for which he was awarded the Knight 's Cross of Hohenzollern with Swords, seemed to underestimate the importance of U-53's America trip. He wrote: "Military goal only partially carried out, no enemy naval forces encountered, a longer search for them not possible due to fuel consumption. Our area of operations was, however, quite favorable for merchant targets because several major shipping lanes converged in the vicinity of the Nantucket lightship. It seems to have been pure chance that only unarmed steamships were encountered. With the good weather, however, there was no problem in dispatching their crews via lifeboats (toward the nearest land). After October 8 it was no longer possible to continue pursuit of merchant shipping due to lack of fuel . Food supplies, as well as the endurance of the crew, were likewise in question at this point. No supplies of USS Sampson (DD-63), a destroyer of the same class as those that surrounded U-53 off the East Coast on October 8, 1916.

any kind were taken aboard at Newport, including food. Our conclusion to leave that port the same day was made known to the American admiral. Length of the cruise: 41 days, eight hours . Distance covered: 7 ,550 nautical miles. Fuel remaining upon reaching port: 15 cubic meters. The engines performed exceptionally well."

To the German naval staff Rose 's accomplishment had made U-boat history. Never before had such a feat been carried out, and, in the event of war with the United States, the military significance of Rose's cruise would be profound. Reaction to the undertaking in America was mixed. On the one hand what the Germans had done was looked upon by the public as a kind of daredevil, sport-like affair, more akin to a contest than to a serious military undertaking. In government circles, on the other hand, the voyage was considered aggressive and threatening, and a repetition of it could only lead to an undermining of ongoing attempts at maintaining peaceful German-American relations. Other naval factions in this country failed to believe the Germans and insisted that a supply ship had accompanied the U-boat on the mission, an opinion supported by the fact that American subs at that time were only capable of maintaining themselves at sea for a maximum of ten days!

Kapitanleutnant Rose continued his career as a U-boat commander through to the end of the war, sinking a total of79 merchant ships and heavily damaging seven others (213,981 and 49 ,732 BRT respectively) during the course of 18 wartime sorties. He was presented with the coveted Pour le Merite, various other distinctions , and, by war's end, had been credited with sinking the fifth-largest tonnage of enemy merchant ships by a U-boat commander in World War I. During the Second World War he was active in a training and advisory role with Hitler's Kriegsmarine. In 1961 he was again able to visit America, this time under circumstances much different from those he had encountered on his earlier trip. It is to Rose's credit that he behaved in a gallant, compassionate manner toward the enemies of his country, destroying their vessels, yet at the same time providing for the safe evacuation and disposition of passengers, officers and crew. D

A professor of German at Edinboro University of Pennyslvania, Mr. Hajewski has published numerous articles on military related topics.

Kapitanleutnant Hans Rose, commander of U-53.

fNl IA [LJJ T ~ G 0

l

~ DISCOUNT NAUTICAL JEWELRY

CANADIAN RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS

SAVE

50 to 70°/o Rich people buy boats, poor people own them. Tired of paying triple retail because something says "nautical" on it? Here is a whole line of custom solid gold or silver nautical jewelry that even a deck ape can afford . Authentic miniature anchor chain braclets and necklaces , hundreds of nautical pendants, charms and earrings, and some custom pieces you have never seen anywhere ...at real DISCOUNT prices.

.l.lY.lY~ Jewelry 1617 Pacific Coast Hwy #205 Hermosa Beach, CA 90254

(213) 372-4848 Visa Master Card American Ex ress

Newfoundland seal hunt. Great Lakes commercial fishing. Soo Canal construction. North Atlantic whaling ...

For free catalogue: Research Publications, Parks Service, Environment Canada, 1600 Liverpool Court, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada KIA OH3

l+I

EnYironmeflt

c......

Parks Service

Golden Hinde

DAVIDS. MANGEIM NDUSTRIAL & MARITIME PHOTOGRAPHY

Sir Francis Drake's 16th century galleon

(718) 442-4095

Paid crew positions occasionally available 2030 Dexter Avenue North, Box A 151 . Seall le, Wa, 98109

•INTERNATIONALLY PUBLISHED COV ER PHOTOGRAPHER & TECHNICAL WAITER. • STOCK PHOTO LIBRARY MAINTAINED

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

BAY REFRACIDRY 164 Wolcott Street Brooklyn, NY 11231 Tel: 718-625-3844

46

custom flags; burgees, private signals

339 HART AVENUE STATEN ISLAND . NY 10310

the most travelled replica. touring USA as an educational museum.

s.mce des pares

2828 canon street san diego, calif. 92106 tel: 619 224-8118

CADDELL DRY DOCK AND REPAIR CO. SIX DRY DOCKS• 1500-7000 TONS CAPACITY Complete marine repair facilities servicing your needs since 1903.

Foot of Broadway, P.O. Box 327, Staten Island, NY 10310

Tel: 718-442-2112 SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

INTREPID

After decades of worldwide service, this historical vessel now rests peacefully in New York harbor. Today, Intrepid no longer makes history.

Instead, she is the storyteller for America's history and technology on the sea, in the air and out in space.

//

Se.a·Air· Space •. ; /

" Overlook;ng Woods and Sea"

• Five major exhibit Iheme ha lls"' Continuous mo vies &videos * Hundreds of a rtifacts. models and dioramas • more than 70 historic ai rcra ft, rockcts,capsules and sa tellit es • Uc"itO~' cr USS Edson • Guided Missile Subm a rine USS Growler

MUSEUM

Open Wed. thru Sun. year 'rou nd 10 :00 AM to 5 PM Adults $7.00. Children $4.00. Seniors $6.00.

Box office closes at 4 PM

NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK

C hildren under 7. uniformed military and Mu.,.cum members Free

131 marmion lDdy Rockporl. !Tldssachu sd l s 01966 (508) 546-22 11 Decidedl y sma ll - intentiona ll y quiet. Gracious hos pitality in luxurious surroundings wit h magnificent views. Our fa mou s co mplet e brea kfast in cluded. Spaciou s gro und s, love ly gardens and ample park in g. Sorry, no children o r pets. Read about us in BED & BREAKFAST AMERICAN STYLE, COUNT RY NEW ENG LAND I NS, BED & BREAKFAST IN N EW ENGLAND, MOB IL GU IDE AAA +++ . Featured as "Best or the Bed and Breakrasts," HISTORI C PRESERVATION, May/ June 1983. Voted 1988 " I N OF THE YEAR" by the readers or Pamela Lanier 's THE COMPLETE GU IDE TO BED AND BR EAKFASTS, INNS & GUESTHOUSES JN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA. Th e NEW YORK T IMES ca ll s thi s comprehe nsive li ke Fra nce's guide to over 4800 inns " .

Michelin . . . " May we send you our broc hure?

''

***

OPEN M ID-FE BRUARY T O M ID -DE CEMBE R You r Hosts:

Leighton T. Sa\i llc

*\IAINf

*

Dwight B. Maccormack. Jr.

WIND(A\IMERS* 1-800-648-4544

*

AMERICAN EAGLE . ~ ISAAC H. EVANS LEWIS R. FRENCH HERITAGE Weekly C ru i:>es

*

S265 . $515

* For Brochures write:

Schooner Captains, Box 482T, Rockland , Me. 04841 1-800-648-4544 or 207-594-8007

*

Oil Barging 20,000 to 115,000 BBLS Dry Cargo Barging 12,500 DWT World-Wide Service

*

Covering all ports U.S. East Coast U.S. Gulf Coast Aruba

BILL BLACK AGENCY GROUP INC.

Tugs - 1,500 to 4,000 HP Shipdocking -

New Haven, Bridgeport, Port Jefferson, Riverhead, Northport

1185 Avenue of The Americas

New York, New York 10036

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

212-536-3800

Sales/Inquiries : BBA Group Inc. 205 Worcester Court Falmouth , MA 02540 phone 508 540 6899 telex 413701 fax 508 540 4956

.. yours to count on 47

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY SPONSORS HENRY H . A J AMES

w.

JR.

DERSON ,

ALAN G. CHOATE

J. ARDN CHARJTABLE FOUNDATION

M ELVIN CONANT

GLANV ILLE

CAPT. P AU L R . H ENRY

&

H . THOM AS

MRS. D. H. H OARD

&

MRS. SPENCER

L.

M

Q UESTER M ARITIM E G ALLERY SETH SPRAGUE FOUNDATI ON JoHN WI LEY A D S ONS, I NC.

TH OMAS J. G ocHBERG

J AMES A.

&

B ERR IEN

BROOKLYN UNION GAS COMPANY

MORRIS

L.

J

R OBERT E . GAMBEE

W ALTER J . H ANDEL M AN

&

MR.

M R.

&

M AR I

JR.

TEXAC~ [ NC. ZELi SKY

BRI A

JR.

D . H ULI NGS

C.

J EFFERSON

GEORGE R . L AMB T uG

&

B ARGE

M OB I L OIL C OR P.

MRS. ALB ERT PRATT

ARTH UR J . S ANTRY ,

EDWARD G.

R.

ART K UDNER

D AV ID M . MI LTON TR US T

:JR.

A.

MRS.

J AC KSON H OLE PRESERVE

J AMES M ARENAKOS

'C.

JoHN F. S ALISBURY

Y ANKEE CLIPPER

FEDER

MR S. TH OMAS H A LE

CHRISTOS N. K RITIKOS

MRS. A. T. P ouctt.

G . R OGERS

EDM UND A. S TANLEY,

Y ACHTING

&

M ACDONALD F ou D A TIO N

P ACKER M AR I E JOH

P ETER STA FORD

W OODEN B OAT

G.

JAMES EAN

MR.

JR.

MIL FORD BO AT WORK S,

B RYAN 0UPH A T

LAURA NCE S. R OC KEFELL ER

ALLEN

JR.

CECIL H OWARD CHAR ITABLE TR UST

MRS. A . ATWATER K ENT,

H. R. L OGAN

NORMA

P ONCET D AVIS,

LCDR R OBERT IR VING USN, ( R ET.)

S CH UY LER M . MEYER , JR. RFEY, JR .

H ARRY BARON

D A LLA S

ELIZABETH S. H OOPER FOUNDATION

IR VING JOHNSON

E VELYN L ANGER T

M AR IT IME O VERSEAS CORP. M R.

T.

I NTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN

C. LI NCOLN J EWETT

&

R . B A RNETT

R EBEKAH

EVA G EB HARD-GO URGA UD FO UNDATION

I NTERNATI ONAL B USINESS M ACHINES TRUDA C.

JOHN C . COUCH

-J OHN P UREM AN

BAILEY A D P osy SMITH SH AN 0

W A LL

CAPT. R uss K

EELA D

D . W AKE

DONORS ATLANTIC C ORDAGE MR.

&

H AVEN

H ARRY K . B A ILEY

MR S. T.E. L EONARD

C.

ROOSEVELT

RI CHARDS. T A YLOR

KAR L

L.

B RIEL

CLAY M A ITLA ND

BRENT F oLLWEILER

H OWARD

EDM UN DS. R UMOW ICZ

c.

H ARRY W. GAR SCHAGEN

M c GR EGOR,

JR.

SANDY H ooK PILOTS, NY/NJ

D AN AND Au x THOR NE

C APT ALFR ED H ORKA

D AVID A. O ES TRE ICH

Do ALD W. P ETIT

H OWARD SLOTN I C K

STEPHEN P FOUTS

M ELBOURNE SMITH

J ACK B. SPRI NGER

WILLI AM G. WI NTERER

PATRONS J AMES D. AB ELES

WILLI AM K. ABEL ES

J AMES R . BARKER GEOR GE B UZBY

JoH N C ADDELL,

CHARLES E . COLLOPY JoH N H . DOEDE DR.

&

III

J AMES C. COOK

L.

CAPT

COL G EORGE M. J AMES P ET ER M AN IGAULT

F ARRIOR

B OYD CAFFEY JOHN

H AM ILTON

F LOYD H OLM

W. B AILEY K A HL

CARLETON MITCH ELL

MRs. G ODWIN J . P Eu ssERO MARCOS JoH N P SA RRO S A. H ERBERT SA NDWEN L ELAN F. SILLJ N B RUCE SWEDIEN

CAPT. AND MRS. P ETER W ARBURTON

M R.

&

L.

H ARRY N ELSON,

A ARON LEVI E

JR.

P ENNSYLVANIA S c HOOLSHIP A ssoc.

R EILLY , I NC .

G EORG E SIMPSON CARL W. TIMPSON, JR .

DR. I NG H. J. W ARNECKE

w.

CHARLES HI LL

C APT. JoHN W ESTR EM

CDR.

R OBERT W . J ACKSO

ARTH UR S. Li ss RICHARD D . M c

R. A

DERSO

VI CTOR B. STEVEN,

CLYTIE M EAD

H A RRY J . O TTAWAY

P Ew

CLYDE D . PHI L LI PS

L UDWIG K.

R UB I NS KY

SHIPS OF THE S EA M usEU M

JR.

J OHN C. V OLK

SIR GORDON WHITE, KB E

R ICHARDO LoPES ISH

H ARRY O AKES R AY R EM I CK

RI CHAR D P. V OGEL

F ARLEY

R OBERT J. H EWITT

C APT . R OBERT V. SHEEN, JR.

C APT . EDWA RD SK ANTA

M ALCOLM DICK

J AME S P.

R OLAND GRIMM

P. LI ND

C APT. D. E . P ERKI NS

J AM ES D. T URNER

Ill

LCDR B. A. GILMORE

BRUCE B . M CCLOSKEY

CoL. ALFRED J . R EESE, J R .

CR AIG BURT, J R.

CIR C L E LI NE P LA ZA

GEORGE M . [ VEY, JR.

M ERRILL E. NEWMAN

DR . W ALTER F. S c HLECH , III

D AV ID M. B AKER

P. D EFRANK

H ENRY F A IRLEY,

DR. AND MRS. D AVID H AYES

M AXWELL

L.

JOHN H . D EANE

J. E . FRI CKER J R.

P ETER L AHTI

G EORGE

P ETER A NSOFF W. J . B u RSAW, JR.

MRS . D ELOS B. CH U RC HIL L

MR. AND MRS. R OBERT W . H UBNER

PETER M AX

&

A N DERSO N

J AMES H . B RO USSARD

STAN D AS HEW

FREDERICK S. FoRD

FR EDER I CK H ARWOOD

Q u 1CK

J.

W ALTER

MR. A D MR S. S TUA RT EHRENREI CH

MICHAEL M URRO

R OBERTS B. OwEN

D AN IEL R . S UKIS

ALICE D ADOUR IAN

ELIOT S. K NOWLES

JR.

TH EORDORE P RATT CHARLES D . SJ FERD

C URRY

R ALPH W . H OOPER

WI LLIAM R. M ATHEWS,

RI CH ARD D . R YDER

c.

THOM AS AKI N J AMES R . B ENNETT

J AMES E. CHAPM AN

J OHN D USENBER Y

B E JAMIN B. F OGLER

WILLI AM H.

IJ

CARL W . H EXAMER

J. P AUL MICHIE

G EOFFREY BEAUMONT

R EYNOLDS D U P ONT

M RS. H UGH

C. B. G uy

CHARLES F. ADAMS

B ENJAMIN D. B AXTER

STOLT-NI ELSEN, I NC. R AYMONDE. W ALLACE

R. E. WILCOX

J AMES H . Y OCU M

'--.

PILOT BOAT NEW YORK

New York and New Jersey Sandy Hook Pilots Serving the pilotage needs of New York Harbor since 1694

201 Edgewater St., Staten Island, N. Y. 10305 â&#x20AC;¢ 718-448-3900 48

SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990

~

MODEL SUCCESS STORY' "The Maritime Prepositioning Ship program is a model success story, and I cou ldn 't be more pleased. MPS is on schedule and proving to be an extremely valuable strategic asset."

- General PX. Kelley Commandant U.S Marine Corps

* *

DISTRICT 2 MARINE ENGINEERS BENEFICIAL ASSOCIATION -ASSOCIATED MARITIME OFFICERS AFFILIATED WITH THE AFL-CIO MARITIME TRADES DEPARTMENT 650 FOURTH AVENUE BROOKLYN, N.Y 11232 (718) 965-6700

*

RAYMOND T. McKAY PRESIDENT

JOHN F. BRADY EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

The US Naval Ship COMFORT transiting the Panama Canal. Masters, Mates & Pilots Panama Canal Pilots ably guide the COMFORT and other military and commercial vessels through the Canal. MM &P Civil Service Licensed Deck Officers keep the COMFORT operating saf ely on a regular basis.

This is MM&P Country.

The USNS COMFORT and her sistership MERCY are two of the most unusual vessels sailing under the U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command. At 894 feet long, a 106 foot beam and 124 feet from mast to waterline, these former 90,000 deadweight ton tankers turned hospitals are the fourth largest vessels in the Navy's inventory. They have a range of 13,420 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 17.5 knots. These two vessels and most other MSC ships are crewed by Masters, Mates & Pilots Government Employees Division Licensed Deck Officers.

Currently, the COMFORT and the MERCY are engaged in exercises supporting Operation Desert Shield in the Persian Gulf region. They are operating smoothly with their Civil Service operating crews and a military medical detachment of up to 1,232. They are committed to ass isting our troops if the Iraq-Kuwait situation worsens.

The ships are larger than any shoreside naval medical facility. They each have a patient capacity of 1,000 beds-the average U.S. hospital has 300. Each ship's facilities include 50 trauma stations, 12 operating rooms, a 20 bed recovery room, 80 intensive care beds and 16 additional wards. Other facilities include radiological services, medical, optometry and dental labs, a pharmacy, a blood bank and two liquid oxygen-producing plants.

The MM&P Civil Service Mariners entrusted with the safe operation of these and other MSC ships, and MM&P members sailing aboard U.S. -flag merchant vessels, have unfai lingly placed themselves at risk to support the United States in every conflict since the MM&P's founding in 1880. They help reduce that risk by training and sharpening their skills at MIT AGS , the Maritime Institute of Technology and Graduate Studies, located between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. in Linthicum Heights, MD. MIT AGS is the most advanced maritime training school in the world. Adding to its comprehensive range of shipboard training courses, MITAGS features its own ARP A course-the first in the nation to receive U.S .

Coast Guard approval-and its cuttingedge Bridge Team Management course.

ROBERT J. LOWEN

F. ELWOOD KYSER

International President

International Secretary-Treasurer

International Organization of

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