SHIPNOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS Ex-Soviet Tall Ships Share Uncertain Future A late arrival at Cadiz for the beginning of the Grand Regatta-sending officials scurrying for space in the congested port-was one of the world's oldest and largest sail training sh ips, Kruzenshtern, built 1926 as the German Padua. The four-masted bark was delayed by the need to build additional cabin accommodation for 52 paying passengers . A German organization, Friends of the Kruzenshtem, organized the trip, and a similar charter was arranged for theSedov. Although the maritime academies operating these and other former Soviet vessels were given responsibility for the ships, it is reported that they are receiving no direct cash from the Russian government, and are having to look to world-wide goodwill for support. At least one of the Soviet vessels required Red Cross emergency supplies in the Canaries to continue in the Grand Regatta '92. Winning and Losing on the Chesapeake The 1890 Chesapeake Bay round-sterned bugeye Sallie Bramble, deteriorated beyond restoration, was broken up last summer, reports member Ginger Martus. Fortunately, her lines were not lost. WoodenBoat magazine reports that Leavensworth Holden of Easton, Maryland, recorded her lines in April 1990 for the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. To help prevent the loss and to assist in the maintenance of other historic Chesapeake Bay vessels, a Save Our Skipjacks campaign has been launched by the Lady Maryland Foundation . Captains of the remaining skipjacks have formed a committee to decide the order in which the deteriorating skipjack fleet will be restored by students and shipwright/instructors of the Lady Maryland Maritime Institute. (LMF, SOS Campaign, 717 Eastern Ave. , Pier 5, Baltimore MD 21202) Getting Around the Ships On June 4th, the SS United States entered the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in 23 years, bound for Istanbul, Turkey. Purchased at auction on April 27 for $2.6 million by the Turkish company Maramar Marine, who plan to refurbish it for the North American cruise market, the53,000ton, 990-foot vessel now appears safe from an inglorious end on the scrap heap. "To date, Maramar Marine has spent over $3.8 million on the 'Big U' ,"says William 34
Howard Headlines South Street Seaport Anniversary Headlining the South Street Seaport's 25th anniversary year celebrations on May 30 in New York was a beautiful old lady who had taken her name Lettie G. Howard nearly a century before from a tall, slender fisherman's daughter, herself just turned 22 in the cold month of January 1893. The Seaport's anniversary celebrations marked the end.of the first phase of the fishing schooner's restoration , and now, refloated again after a year of hull restoration, she awaits new masts and rigging. Next year, returned as close as possible to her original condition, she will begin her second cen. . tury as a sailing school vessel at The Lettie G. Howard being launched at South Street. the museum . (South Street Seaport Museum, 207 Front St., New York NY 10038) DiBeneddetto of the SS United States Preservation Society. "This is the scrap value of the ship, so it appears the new owner's true intent is to renovate the ship." Restoration is expected to cost $140 million over three years. Commercial interests have also interceded to prevent the loss of another large passenger vessel, the 1948 steam turbine coastal liner Princess Marguerite . The former ferry has been purchased by Sea Containers Ltd. of Britain and will be towed to Singapore, where she will be restored for cruising the Northwest's Inside Passage. Although a public outcry derailed Japanese attempts to purchase the mothballed aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea , the Senate Armed Services Committee has given approval to a group of Japanese businessmen to lease the postWorld War II carrier, the USS Oriskany. She will become a cultural attraction in Toyko to be known as the City of America. Conversion work is to be done
in Portland, Oregon fo llowing final lease approval by the whole of the Senate. Five years after Columbus's historymaking voyage, John Cabot sailed west from Bristol in a ship named Mathew to make landfall at Newfoundland and claim it for the British crown. (The Englishsponsored Cabot was, like Columbus, of Italian origin.)TheEngli shjoumal Windjammer reports plans to build a replica of Mathew in Bristol, to bereadyforCabot's 500th in 1997. (Windjammer, 4 London Wall Buildings, Blomfield Street, London EC2M 5NT, England) Also in the replica/rebuild department, the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum in Savannah, Georgia, has initiated a campaign to raise $5 million for construction of a rep I ica of the steamship Savannah , which,onMay22, 1819, became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. When built, she will reenact the original voyage and be used as the Commodore's Flagship during the 1996 Olympics in Savannah. (SSMM,
Carrick Refloated Good news at last for the Carrick (ex-City ofAdelaide), the oldest sailing clipper in the world, built 1863, six years before the Cutty Sark. The Scottish Maritime Museum in Glasgow took overthe vessel in February and has since refloated her in the Clyde River, where she had sunk over a year ago. It's planned to take her to Irvine, Ayr- The refloating of the Carrick gets underway at Princes shire, for restoration. Dock, Glasgow. SEA HISTORY 62, SUMMER 1992