What a thrill it was to be a yo ung boy being thrown her bow line and hauling it over the creosoted bollard to make her fast to the pier! Summers of barefooted indolence unde r the s un we re made more important when we could be part of the precious trade of delivering passenge rs and occasional ca rgo and mail to our littl e corn er of the world where on the hori zo n to the north co uld be seen the towe r of the Empire State Buildin g and so uth , the head of th e New Je rsey Hi g hl and s . Thanks to Captain Wort for preserving thi s bit of history and bring ing pl easure to thi s reader! RAY BOYLAND, LT USN(RET) Director of Weather Services WSOC-TV Charlotte, North Carolina
Toward an
Oc~anic
Destiny
I apprec iate yo ur interest in the address I gave at the US Navy Memorial in Washington DC on 2 September, the fiftieth anniversary of the Japanese surrender on the decks of USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. As I mentioned in my talk, thi s high point in American hi story came when the United States enjoyed the respect of nations worldwide, as the foremos t maritime power. Hopefull y, through our concerted "Cresting the Fourth Wave" effort, we can recapture this vantage. Yet, the half century celebration of the surrender aboard Missouri came at a moment when our government is doing its utmost to drive the nation off the world ocean. I agree completely with yo ur page 6 justification for the celebration of our impress ive victory in the maritime war in the Pacific. You have ex pressed this most convincingly; and in a way that suggests that the nation ' s maritime heri tage must be understood in its entirety to guide our nation to its oceanic destin y. GILVEN M. SLONIM Falls Church , Virginia
A Four-Square Approach l have just been through Sea History 75 and I cannot rest until I express my appreciation . Your comments about the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II and the use of the atom bomb in Japan are a welcome rarity, a fresh breeze of truth in a world gone mad with hi storica l revisionism. Thank yo u. Thank yo u, too, for having the courage to write unabashedly and with good cheer about the way it really was. Thank SEA HISTORY 76, WINTER 1995-96
you for refusing to descend into hostility while doing so. And thank you fo r setting a similarl y high tone for the content of the entire magazine. The recent Columbian 500th celebrations and the Smithsonian Enola Gayex hibit come to mind as examp les of how yo u've steered a straight course in matters where hi story intersects modern polemicism. On another line, I app laud your Cape Horn Road series as we ll. You have the enviable ability to treat hi story as an attractive story, drawing the reader along with interest through events which were current I 000 years ago. Even yo urobituaries read well! I am th ankfu 1 that you haven ' t let Sea History become an organ for a faddish homage to political correctness: congratul ations on a mature and four-square approach to hi story. TIMOTHY MURRAY Dublin , New Hamps hire Captain Murray' s observations speak for many members who tell us they share these concerns. This year we hope to reach many more Americans with a message of the rewards of sane historiography .-ED.
An Endangered Maritime Resource? I grew up on the banks of the Hudson Ri ver; as a teenager I be longed to a Sea Scout Troop in Edgewater, New Jersey, where I learned basic seamanship, navigation and boat handling. After high school , I enli sted in the US Navy for six year s. Following some working stints as hore, I jo ined the US merchant marine and have been at it ever since, sailing as an able seaman and a licensed mate. Presentl y, I sa il for Mari tran s, one of the larges t tug and barge companies under US flag. I like my job, as I have always enj oyed be ing on the water. Today, though, my j ob as we ll as thousands of others are in peril , due to attacks on the Jones Act by vario us spec ial interest groups. One of the big bones of contention seems to be seamen's wages, indicating that we are gross ly overpaid and underworked. Nothing could be further from the truth . Here at Maritrans, and I believe thi s to be typi cal, we work 2 1 days on and 2 1 days off. We stand six and six watches fo r a twelve-hour day, an eighty-four hour week . My yearly salary comes out to be $37,980. I support my wife and two ch ildren on thi s money; my wife works also and I try to catch a couple of extra weeks, as it helps out. As I said , I like working o n the water and I am not
compl aining, but I don ' t understand these attac ks on working me n a nd women. I would ask you and your fine organization to help put our side of the story out, before we get added to the li st of Endangered Maritime Resources. HARRY T. SCHOLER Tug Honour/Ocean States
The Hutton Hussar While the 193 1 Sea Cloud was not E. F. Hutton's g ift to hi s wife Marjori e Post for their 1920 wedding, a schooner named Hu ssar, launched in Copenhagen in 1923, might hit closer to the mark. In 1934 the Yetlesen Foundation purch ased her and renamed her Verna. Columbia University bought her about 1953 as a researc h vessel for Lamont-Dohe rty Geological Observatory. Verna has since sa iled more than a million miles researching the oceans. In 1982 it was so ld to Windjammer Barefoot Cruises Ltd. and she sa il s today as Mandalay. STANLEY M . HARRISON Hill sdale, New Jersey ERRATA Marine arti st Os Brett writes to te ll us of an error in the capti o n for " Robert Pulsford arriving in the Mersey, 183 1" (Sea History 75, page 26): "The hands aloft [on the vessel at left] are stowi ng the royals, not the topgallant sail s as stated. The vessel as shown at right is not stowing the upper topsail s as stated but rather her t'gans' ls. There are no upper topsail s. Just single tops ' Is. I know , should Andy Nesdall read these, you'll be hearing from him! " Well, Andy, we wo uld love to hear from you, of course (as a charte r member of our Nitpickers Guild), but know that we have already been so undl y ad moni shed by Os and we are doing penance. We do not know how it slipped through our nets, but thi s error wi ll sting fo r a long time. Os Brett suggests, as well, that the sai ls in the image on the left are set for the wind on the port quarter, rather than " hauled 'round ... indicating an imminent change of course," as the caption said. W e believe that thi s point is debatabl e as the vessel, preparing to change cou rse would have braced the yards round to prepare for the new wind direction . A lert member Nicholas Roman of Florida noticed that we incorrectly located Cambridge Bay, Victoria Island , in British Co lumbi a, rather than the Northwest Territories.
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