The Cape Horn Road Part II: How the Sails of the Square-rigged Ship Got Their Names
cross the watery avtry to learn something of the vessel's working career on enu e of th e E as t the ir waterfro nt, I gradually Riv er , a pellu cid by Peter Stanford noticed that they did not call morning sky gleamed above the hou ses of Brookl yn her ponton, or barge, as they Heights. I had lived there till ca lled other hulks, but el age thirteen, and I cherished gran velero-the great sailthe look of the roofto ps ing shi p. She spoke coheretched against that sky, as ently to them, all right! perhaps primitive man cherAnd she and her breed ished the landmarks of his speak to others today. Once, home territory, where every waking earl y one morning in old tree, every spring, every San Francisco, I went to visit notable feature was presided the Cape Horner Balclutha on the waterfro nt there-a over by a tutelary spirit. From the far side of the river, ship similar (but differe nt, a dazzling path of molten reader, different!) to the Wasilver flowed out between vertree. The early morning the hull s of the great sailing sunlight gilded her spars and ships in South Street, Pewavered in watery patterns king a nd Wavertree, as on the curved grey-painted This classic portrait of the Wavertree in her prime was taken though the local god had plating of her bows, rising in the 1890s in San Francisco by T. H. Wi lton's Elite Studio. Photo: courtesy San Francisco Maritime Nat' l Historical Park. spilled it out to show what from the sa lt water that he could do when he was clu cked and mu r mu red feeling generous. tree, and kno w why we so desire to see around it. As I stood with my head thrown A frowning Jakob lsbrandtsen ap- her re-rigged. back, tracing those fire- ti pped lances of peared, hurrying down Pier 15 to turn The fact is that these old ships have her yards and mast trucks aspiring to a the corner and head past me to some immense appeal, not just to Jakob and limitlessly prom ising heaven, !felt someitem he' d left behind in hi s car. me, but to people of every imaginable one pass by. It was a young mother wheel"God, what a morning!" I sai d. Jakob walk of life, including scholars, offi ce ing a wicker pran1 with a very young child paused in hi s headlong progress and workers, millionaires, school children, inside. She turned around after a bit and looked at me suspiciously. "It 's beauti - and dock wallopers. wheeled it back across the disused railfu l," I ex plained, sweeping my arm toPart of the reason fo r thi s fasc ination road tracks and asphalt of the wate1fro nt. ward the ri ver. Jako b turned to look at may be that an oceangoing sailing ship is A little embarrassed to approach her as a the li ght fl ooding upon us between the a depository of an amazing variety of stranger, I asked her what she was doing ships and said very seriously: "All morn- inherited ideas and practices. Her design there. "Walking my child," was her spirings are beautiful , Peter. " is an amalgam of things that worked at ited rep Iy. I looked at the warehouse buildSo began another day's work on the sea, arrived at largely by shedding those ings, the wide sweep of the deserted ship. For what had drawn us to the city that didn ' t. This goes fo r the arching Embarcadero, and then at the yo ung waterfront at that early hour of a Satur- bows, the sweeping sheer and the slightly woman standing against the gaunt, chalday morning was, of co urse, the work on crowned deck, the raised poop deck aft lenging shape of the ship, under the farthe ship Wavertree, which we scratched and the neatly tucked-up stern . And this seeing gaze of the white-robed wooden and scraped away at, while dreaming of extends to a tho usand detail s, like the fig urehead borne by theBalclutha. "It's a the money needed to see her full y re- he ight of the topmasts compared to the good place to be," she concluded, smilstored. And , of course, where we were lowermasts, and the fac t that fore mast, ing. "Don't you think so?" wasn ' t just anywhere; it was the Street mainmast and mi zzen are each made up I di d think so. That you ng person she of Ships, as South Street was known of three separate pieces; lower, topmast was wheeling up and down over the around the world , until the ships de- and topgallant, with royal mast and sky- ro ugh tarred roadway was being brought parted, a half century before. I am not sail pole separately named but integrated up in a way to soak in , fro m the very going to debate with you whether it as one piece of wood with the tall taper- outset of his own life's course, the chalmade any sense to bring back the great ing topgallant. lenge and the beauty of a high endeavor hulk of the Wavertree, object of our These things make up a whole that a pursued by peop le before his time, who attenti ons; thi s was a matter of primor- sa il or can recognize fro m a mile away . helped build the worl d he will inheri t. dial instinct with us and with the people Even when shorn of the top hamper that How fa r back do those efforts go, we had enlisted in the project under the makes her a sailing ship, serving out her beyond these surviving Cape Horn sailrecrui ting slogan: " Dirty work, long post-sailing ship days as a sand barge in ing shi ps? And what was the sailing the refu se-cluttered, stygian estuary of about-w hy did people make thi s huge hours, no pay." I have invited you thus far into thi s the Ri achuela in Buenos Aires, the extended effort that brought mank ind act of restoration, reader, so that you can Wavertree kept her fo rm and wholeness, ultim ately to Cape Horn and that built join in the learning to be got out of a her integrity. When I went to visit her the Cape Horner, the ul timate sea chari ot, Cape Ho rn sailing ship like the Waver- there and spoke to waterfront people to to make the voyage?
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SEA HISTORY 71, AUTUMN 1994