The Four-Masted Barque Lawhill
The Schooner Bertha L. Downs
(Anatomy of the Ship series) , by Kenneth Edwards , Roderick Anderson and Richard Cookson (Conway Maritime Press, London UK , 1996, 128pp, illu s, appen, biblio, ISBN 0-85177-676-0; ÂŁ25) The Lawhill, not known as a fast or handsome ship, was noted, the a uthors observe, for her " remarkable consistency of performance and unfai 1ing capac ity to secure fre ights with more than average luck along the way." She was known, in fact, as " Lucky Lawhill," and he r large size (nearl y 3,000 tons) and simplified "jubilee" rig (w ith nothing above the topgallants) made he r an effic ie nt and reliabl e cargo carrier. Built in Scotland in 1892 to carry jute from India to Dundee, she was edged out by steamers and went into the case oil trade, carrying kerosene in cans from New York and Phil adelphia to the Far East. Driven out of that trade in turn, she was lucky eno ugh to be acquired by Gustaf Erikson of Finland for hi s fleet of sq uare riggers in the Australian g ra in trade between the wo rld wars. Seized as a war pri ze in England when Finland jo ined Germany in the war again st Russia, she sailed briefly under the South African flag and was ultimate ly scrapped in 1957 after long lay- up. In her final yea rs she had her g reatest stroke of luck- Ri chard Cookson, a person with a pass ion for sailing ships, made innumerabl e sketches and notes of thi s vanishing breed in British po rts in the 1930s, recording every aspect of the ir gear and structure. Hi s freehand sketches have been compared with photogra phs, checked aga inst survivi ng sa il ors ' memories, and pain staki ng ly redrawn by Capt. Ross McLean. These e legant drawings plus a variety of photographic studi es, make poss ibl e the authors ' rivet-by- rivet reconstruction of the vessel. Noted Australian master mariner Ke n Edwards and mod e lmak e r Roderick Anderson (both veterans of the Cape Horn passage under sa i1) have done a superb job of pullin g this materi al together, memorabl y conveying the reality of the Lawhill and her story. A colorful (and typica ll y outrageous) foreword by sq uare-ri g ve teran A lex A. Hurst gives some feel for the me n and ships of the grain trade, and the a uthors provide a we ll reasoned hi story of the ship and the trades she sail ed in. In all , thi s work exceeds the hi gh standards set in Conway's distinguished "A natom y of the Ship" seri es. PS
(Anatom y of the S hip series), by Basil Greenhill with drawings by Sam Manning (Naval In stitute Press, Annapolis MD, 1995 , 128 pp, illus, appen , notes, ISBN 1-55750-790-2; $37.95 hc) The Bertha L. Downs, a four-masted, 175' schooner launched at Bath, Maine, in January 1908, is handsome ly presented in this additi on to Conway's " Anatomy of the Ship" series. This volume informs on three leve ls: through Basil Greenhill ' s exce llen t essay tracing the development of the American coastwise schooner from the mid- l 800s to its fin al form in the early 1900s; in superior hi storic photographs of the Bertha L. Downs and various multi -masted schooners; and with superb drawings by Sam Manning illu stratin g the sc hoo ner ' s structure and rigging. The author takes us through the peregrinati ons by which the American sa iling schooner evolved-affected by such variables as maneuverability and crew size. It is ironic that the same techno log ica l development whi ch doomed the sa il ing vessels- the steam engine-also direct ly contributed to the creati on of multi-m asted schooners around the turn of the century. By eq uipping schooners with a steam donkey engine to raise the large gaff sa il s, owners could minimize costs, running with eight to a dozen crew, even though some of the five- and six-masted schooners measured over 300' in length. A bark or a ship req uired two or three times the crew . Sadl y, the day of the schooners as efficien t carriers ended with the motorization of fl eets after WWI. Detail s abound in the discussion of the building of these elegan t schooners. Dr. Greenhill di scusses the chi selin g and sanding of a baul k of timber until everyone was satisfi ed with the schooner's ernerg ing lines. From this half-model, the schooner' s lines would be set out on a building shed floor wi thout "drawings" as we know them. The Bertha L. Downs became the Atlas in 19 17 when she was so ld to Danish shareholders, and then served under the fl ag of Estoni a fo r a few years until World War II. Sailing in the Baltic Sea, she must have been of interest to the re now ned traditional wooden boatbuilders of the Aland Islands! She served out her term as an accommodation vessel as late as 1947 on the River Elbe. Manning's inspired draw ings truly revive the body and spirit of the schoo-
SEA HISTORY 79, AUTUMN 1996
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MILITARY J, HISTORY J, BIOGRAPHY STRATEGY & TACTICS J, REFERENCE
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