The Mighty Moshulu: A Short History, Part I by Karl Kortum "The mighty Moshulu," she was called in her glory days, when she led the pack in the last grain race of big square riggers coming back to European ports from Australia, by way of Cape Horn. She is the ultimate Cape Horn sailing ship, a big four-masted steel bark built in Glasgow 88 years ago; withal she wore her great size lightly, and her remarkably graceful lines caught sailors' eyes as this century began, and as they do now toward its ending. Today Moshulu lies in the Delaware River across from Philadelphia,stillstrongandablebutbedraggled.KarlKortum ofSan Francisco, dean ofAmerican ship-savers, tells her story here with unique authority, having sailed in the Cape Horn trade himself.He challenges us with the open question of what lies ahead for this powerful and beautiful sea creature.
squaresail. The vessel proved to be everything desired by her designers, builders and owners . .. she made money for every owner whose flag she flew for the next half century and she was singularly free of accidents of any kind. " As the Kurt, the ship originally carried coal from Europe to the fuel-less ports of Chile via Cape Horn and returned to Hamburg with cargoes consisting of some 5,000 long tons of nitrate. This trade was followed by several voyages laden with coke and patent fuel for the vast French copper mines at Santa Rosalia on the equally fuel-less coast of Mexico. The Kurt, in ballast, would then sail down to Chile and return around the Horn after loading a full cargo of nitrate. In between, the great ship carried Australian coal across the Pacific from Newcastle, New South Wales, to Chilean ports . But she always returned to the work of bringing valuable This magnificent vessel is the four-masted bark now moored nitrate to Germany. Nitrate was used for both fertilizer and in the Delaware River opposite the city of Philadelphia. With explosives in this ominous period before the First World War. a length of hull of335 feet, Moshulu is the largest sailing ship In 1909, Moshulu had a run from Newcastle, NSW, to in the world. Valparaiso, Chile, of31 days, a modern sailing ship record. An As it happens, Moshulu has no historic association with the account of the Kurt's last German voyage by Dr. George eastern seaboard and it is currently proposed that she be moved Lauritz, then an able seaman on board, was published in the to San Francisco, where she was owned for riearly two de- German magazine Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft in 1974: With the signing of articles at the Seamen' s Bureau in the cades, more years than anywhere else in her long life. Moshulu has hoisted four flags-German , American , Finnish and Swed- Admiralitaets, Hamburg , we dedicated ourselves to service on ish-in the course of her career. Of all the flags , the Stars and the four-masted bark Kurt of the G. J. H. Siemers & Co .Jar a journey to Santa Rosalia, Mexico, "beyond that and back." The Stripes flew the longest. Moshulu was built by William Hamilton and Co.of Glasgow, date was February 14, 1914. German sailing ships were manScotland, in 1904 for the G. J. H. Siemers Co. of Hamburg, aged very economically by their owners. Adding to a small Germany, and her original name was Kurt. This state-of-the-art standby crew, which was on board during the ship's stay in port, sai ling ship was a culmination in design, fittings and gear of a the full new crew arrived (myself amongst them) shortly before long effort-more than 3,000 years- that saw man seeking to departure. None of us knew each other; we knew only-- in our harness the wind and efficiently carry cargo under sail. In talking back andforth that morninr some ofthe ships that some triumphant fas hion, she, and a handful of others launched after of us had sailed in. Our cabin boy was 15, hailedfrom Saxony, the tum of the century, brought to an end this long struggle. and the captain, 35 years old, was from the Isle ofFoe hr. With the exception of one 60-year-old sailor, none of us was of Moshulu is the ultimate deepwater sailing ship. The fo rests of the British Isles were exhausted in the building voting age (21 ). Our more than3,000 gross tons Kurt, clean as of the " wooden walls," the sailing men-of-war that had held off a whistle from stem to stern, was flying the Blue Peter, ready to depart with a cargo of the French during the Napoleonic Wars, which culmi - A painting ofthe Moshulu owned and probably commissioned in Australia by briquettes and anthracite nated in the triumph of Lord the bark' s last American commander, Capt. P.A. McDonald. Artist unknown. coal for the copper mines of Santa Rosalia. Nelson at Trafalgar. Britain In a ferryboat named Jolwas obliged to tum to her lenfuehrer, we were carried mines if she was going to out to the ship. Impressive continue building ships, and Kurt lay there revealing her the Kurt, like some 3,000 beautiful lines, telling us she iron and stee l deepwatermerhad the makings of a fast chant ships that preceded her, sailer.Her hull was black with was built of the new material . white imitation gunport stripShe has a steel hull , steel spars ing, and under that a section and steel rigging wire. painted white. Above all this In her early years, she was rose the more than 40-metercommanded by Captain highmastswith their precisely Chri stof Schlitt, " ... and a braced yards. We looked at tough nut he was ," in the her critically and then with words of the veteran Pacific joy. It might be said in perCoast sailing ship captain Fred Klebingat of Coos Bay, Oregon. Capt. Schlitt took her sonal terms we had signed "to gain or lose" and Kurt withstood four times around Cape Hom and twice across the Pacific from the challenge of our scrutiny. Without any time allowed f or shore leave, we departed the Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia, to Chile. In the words of J. Ferrell Colton in his book Windjammers next day. Our three hip-hip-hoorays at the Landingsbridges Significant (1954) devoted to Moshulu and her sister ship Hans: on Hamburg' s wate1front were heartily responded to by shore "So began a career almost without parallel in the annals of people who waved hats, canes and baby carriage covers as the SEA HISTORY 60, WINTER 1991-92
13