Muffled Drums for Albany-Potomac by Thomas A. Larremore "Washington, May 16 [1949] – (AP) – The Potomac River Line announced today its 69-year-old excursion steamer, The POTOMAC, is headed for the scrap heap. The ship, built in Wilmington, Del., and originally known as the S.S. ALBANY, served until 1933 on the New York-to-Albany Hudson River Day run. The POTOMAC, with a passenger capacity of 2,400, will be scrapped at Baltimore. It will be towed there sometime next week, officials of the line said." Another oldster is gone, suddenly and unexpectedly. This time is it MARY POWELL's side-kicking ex-side-kick of happy years ago on the Hudson River, the ex-Day Liner ALBANY, since 1934 running excursions out of Washington, D.C., for the Potomac River Line, as POTOMAC. Almost 69 years ago, on July 3, 1880 ALBANY made her first regular trip from New York up-stream to her namesake city. Save for a few years "on reserve" for the Day Line, she performed regularly, earning her living quietly, dependably, surely, safely – recalling, in this respect, PRISCILLA, COMMONWEALTH and the rest of the Fall River liners. Only last summer, at 68 plus, the POTOMAC completed another annual tour of duty and was ready to resume this coming season. Just when the decision to end her career was made is unknown. Only as recently as Feb. 3 [1949] Her Captain, SSHSA member Harry E. Slye, told the writer that had been no suggestion that she was about to be replaced by BEAR MOUNTAIN a WILLIAM G. PAYNE b BRIDGEPORT c HIGHLANDER, despite the transfer last fall of the latter to Washington. Fearing something of the sort was in the air the writer devoted several hours of a business trip to the capital to photographing POTOMAC tied up alongside BEAR MOUNTAIN. Now he is happy indeed to have done so, although the need for rewriting this essay, begun in a different vein, makes his present task sorrowful. Perhaps his feelings can best be gauged by the fact that he had been trying to organizing an excursion anniversary trip on POTOMAC this coming July 3, [1949]. Instead she is off to the wreckers, to join METEOR a CHESTER W. CHAPIN (SB 29;18) and to go the way of those other Hudson River titans: NORWICH (87 when taken off her run) and MARY POWELL, who lived to be 63. Note that ALBANY-POTOMAC’s near-69 years rank her ahead of the famous MARY in the longevity tables. Let there be hats off and muffled drums. A great steamer has passed, and the writer feels as if he has lost a close relative, overnight, for reasons that will presently appear. According to A.V.S. Olcott, president of the Old Day Line, ALBANY’s hull was built in 1879-1880 by Harlan and Hollingsworth, Wilmington, Del., and her machinery and joiner work were put into her iron hull (first of its kind for the line) in 1880. At that time her length was over 295’, her beam (moulded) 40’, and depth 11’6”. Launched in Jan. 1880, she was christened buy Mr. Olcott’s uncle, Charles. T. Van Santvoord. Her paddle boxes, then, were ungainly and semi-circular. In 1892-1893 she was rebuilt and lengthened to 325’6”, with the same beam (accounting for her lanky look), and her gross tonnage became 1,415.42, with net of 815.03. Feathering paddle wheels were added at the time, and her paddle boxes assumed the oblong, streamlined shape that set the fashion. In 1916 she had new boilers, replacing the “3 lobster back boilers” of the early days. Her passenger capacity became 2000. Her original cost, according to Book 23 of the Day Line Journals now at the N.Y. Historical Society, was $187,318.58, including fittings, dry dock fees, cost of towing and customs charges. When HENDRICK HUDSON appeared in 1906, ALBANY was transferred to the Poughkeepsie run as a special boat and when WASHINGTON IRVING came out in 1913, ALBANY replaced MARY POWELL on the run to Rondout. ALBANY was laid up at Athens in 1931 and was sold at public auction on March 6, 1934 at the new County Court House, N.Y. City, to B.B. Wills. On April 19 she left West 42nd Street Pier at 2:50 p.m. for Washington, D.C. After taking ALBANY to Washington Mr. Wills changed her name to POTOMAC, registered her there, put a dance floor on main deck from the forward gangway to the lower deck housing, and installed a band stand. Later a second dance floor was added, on the saloon deck, and the band stand was raised to enable the music to suffice for both floors at once. POTOMAC was converted to oil burning and so remained save for one year during World War II when the oil shortage compelled temporary reconversion to coal. Captain Slye said her registry had recently been transferred to Baltimore, as is evidenced by the current leg ending on the stern. So much for the strictly statistical indispensables. Let us turn to more personal traits. In physical appearance ALBANY, the older and rebuilt CHAUNCEY VIBBARD and the later NEW YORK set a contemporary “new look” for Hudson River boats. The most conspicuous features of this were the three tall funnels set transversely; the ungainly, high, top-heavy-looking, semi-circular paddle boxes; and the general color scheme, perhaps borrowed from the famous “White Squadron” of pre-Spanish War days, i.e., overall whiteness, relieved principally by yellow or buff, most notable on the later-period smoke pipes. ALBANY and VIBBARD looked very much alike, with smokestacks abaft both walking beam and paddle boxes, while in NEW YORK these relative positions were reversed. ALBANY, always a quiet, efficient, dependable, unsensational performer, got away to an appropriately inconspicuous start. After a trial trip to Yonkers on July 2, 1880, to test her machinery, she opened her regular career the next day replacing DANIEL DREW and paddled upstream to her namesake city. New York newspapers paid little attention, being preoccupied with five ocean liners starting trans-Atlantic voyages the same day and commenting on the possibility that they might encounter summer icebergs. Some journals didn’t mention the new river steamer, and only one, the New York World, paid reasonable attention. Perhaps the big city had already become sophisticated enough to take such trivia as the inauguration of another Day Liner too completely in stride to bother about. But there well may have been another reason. In June and July 1880, passenger steamers around New York had suddenly become non grata, recalling very pointedly the earlier days around 1825 when frequent boiler explosions had forced definite recourse to trailer passenger barges. An incredible series of mishaps had taken place. On June 11, 1880, NARRAGANSETT, bound east up L.I. Sound, had collided off Cornfield Point with STONINGTON and burned with the loss of 30 lives. On June 17, two girls had drowned when their rowboat was struck by ELIZA HOWARD, and ugly rumors persisted that adequate efforts to rescue them had not been made. On June 19 GRAND REPUBLIC had engaged in a spectacular collision with ADELAIDE, and an acrimonious investigation of the crash was starting. On June 28 had come the most frightful catastrophe of all. SEAWANHAKA, steamboat for Glen Cove’s commuters, had caught fire passing through Hell Gate and, although skillfully beached broadside to, not five minutes later on Sunken Meadows at Randall’s Island, had notched a toll of 44 or 45 fatalities. On June 29 the stage had been set for a ghastly foreshadowing of the holocaust of the GENERAL SLOCUM (1904) when LONG BRANCH with some 700 passengers, mostly Sunday school children on a picnic, had her bows (openly alleged in the newspapers to be quite rotten) crushed by the oil barge HOP - fortunately, however, without the loss of life. On July 2, 1880, the very day ALBANY made her trial run, the New York Daily Tribune, reporting another accident the day before, had struck the current keynote by writing: “The daily steamboat accident shifted its longitude, yesterday. The boiler of a pleasure boat on one of the Minnesota lakes exploded, killing three persons outright, wounding one fatally and several others seriously.” On the same day the New York Herald announced, as the tragicomic climax to all this: “A barrel of beer exploded on the steamboat STONINGTON, fracturing the leg, arm and collar bone of a sailor named John McCarthy.” Perhaps because of such episodes the Day Line owners preferred to soft-pedal advance publicity about their new boat until they could see how she behaved on the job. At any rate, off she steamed out on the mild blue yonder, as planned, July 3, and that afternoon made a happy landing at Albany, sans fire, sans collision, sans explosion, without even a beer barrel bursting in the air. The New York World gave her this passing mention, July 4. “The new steamer ALBANY, of the Albany day line, made her first regular trip up the Hudson yesterday. She took about one thousand five hundred passengers….She was due at Albany at 6:10 p.m. and was received with fifty guns and a display of bunting. There was a crowd at the wharf to greet her…” Apparently they ordered such things better upstate, for, according to John H. Flandreau, Assistant Archivist, New York State, a clipping from an unidentified newspaper in the Hallenbeck material at Albany reads in part as follows: "On Saturday the ALBANY left her landing in New York nine minutes late, with over 2,000 passengers aboard and against a strong head wind and ebb tide, made West Point and Newburgh on time. Ny the time the boat reached Rhinebeck (then the port of call of Rondout, reached by ferry, and the Southern Catskills), she was about an half hour late, caused by some slight difficulty with her new machinery. By this time the crowd of people had swelled to immense proportions and at this landing fully 500 disembarked, and when Catskill was reached. Fully as many more got off there. From Catskill to this city tows and other hindrances caused the vessel to lose time, and she did not reach here until half-past seven o’clock. All along the river, residents had their houses decorated, and with cannon and other explosives welcomed the advent of the ALBANY. “At Hudson, the dock and hills were crowded with people despite the fact that quite a rain prevailed at the time. When she hove in sight of the city, the greatest excitement prevailed, and, amid the booming of cannon, the screeching of steamboat whistles, the ringing of bells, the playing of Austin’s band, and the shouts of a thousand people assembled on the docks and piers, the ALBANY steamed into port and touched her dock. AuthorThis article was written by Thomas A. Larremore and originally published in "Steamboat Bill of Facts" Journal of the Steamship Historical Society of America issue of June 1949.. The language, spelling, grammar and references in the article reflects the time period when it was written. Thank you to HRMM volunteer Adam Kaplan for transcribing the article. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
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Editor’s Note: The following text is a verbatim transcription of an article featuring stories by Captain William O. Benson (1911-1986). Beginning in 1971, Benson, a retired tugboat captain, reminisced about his 40 years on the Hudson River in a regular column for the Kingston (NY) Freeman’s Sunday Tempo magazine. Captain Benson's articles were compiled and transcribed by HRMM volunteer Carl Mayer. See more of Captain Benson’s articles here. This article was originally published November 28, 1976. One night back in the late 1930’s, I was pilot on the tugboat “Cornell No. 41” of the Cornell Steamboat Company. We were the helper tug on a tow in charge of the tug “Lion” headed for Albany. As was the custom in those days, the helper tug would take off and add barges for local delivery as the tow slowly moved up or down the river. When we were off Athens about 2 a.m., we went along the tow to take off two cement lighters to land them at Hudson. The cement lighters were alongside a big coastwise barge in the tow destined for Albany. My deckhand, the late William “Darby” Corbett of Port Ewen, had to climb up on the coastwise barge to cast off the lines of the cement lighters. As “Darby” was about to let the lines go, I saw this big dog come sneaking up the deck in the shadow of one of her hatches. He looked as if he was about to pounce, I yelled over, “Watch out ‘Darb’, here comes a dog after you!” With that, “Darby” turned quickly, caught the dog with his foot and raised him over the barge’s low rail almost quicker than the eye could see. Overboard the dog went, between the barges, without a sound. I thought sure the dog was a goner. We saw nothing of him as we pulled away from the tow with the cement lighters. The next morning as we lay on the other side of the tow, the captain of the coastwise barge came over and asked if we had seen anything of his dog. We didn’t have the heart to tell him what happened. Later that morning, when we were up off New Baltimore, there, to my incredible surprise, was the dog running along the shore, following the tow. When we landed the coastwise barge in the old D&H slip just below Albany, he was waiting for us. He sure was a tuckered out dog. Fortunately, we were bucking an ebb tide during the last part of the tow, which slowed our rate of progress overground. The dog must have swum to shore at Athens and followed the lights of the tow until daylight. How he ever lived after going down between the barges, no one but the dog ever knew. AuthorCaptain William Odell Benson was a life-long resident of Sleightsburgh, N.Y., where he was born on March 17, 1911, the son of the late Albert and Ida Olson Benson. He served as captain of Callanan Company tugs including Peter Callanan, and Callanan No. 1 and was an early member of the Hudson River Maritime Museum. He retained, and shared, lifelong memories of incidents and anecdotes along the Hudson River. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Welcome to Sail Freighter Fridays! This article is part of a series linked to our new exhibit: "A New Age Of Sail: The History And Future Of Sail Freight In The Hudson Valley," and tells the stories of sailing cargo ships both modern and historical, on the Hudson River and around the world. Anyone interested in how to support Sail Freight should also check out the Conference in November, and the International Windship Association's Decade of Wind Propulsion. The rotor ship Buckau was originally built as an auxiliary sailing schooner in 1920, she was converted in 1925 as the first rotor ship using Flettner Rotors. These modern sails are now being used as wind assist systems on dozens of ships, and are projected in some cases as the principal propulsion of a number of vessels currently in the design stage. Flettner Rotors work on the principle of the Magnus Effect, which is what causes baseballs to curve when thrown. Flettner Rotors also provide much more thrust from the same surface area when compared to traditional sails. The tests with Buckau were successful, and the idea caught on to a degree. While Backau was only 600 tons, thus a small ship, others were later launched after her tests, including the 3,000 ton Barbara. Anton Flettner wrote a book about his inventions which is now available on Google Books, and in it details that he had taken a sailing excursion as a young man to Australia, which inspired his maritime endeavors. There were a number of smaller experiments with Flettner Rotors in the early 20th century, but the collapse of shipping rates in the 1920s did not provide an incentive for building more ships. It wasn't until the Oil Crisis of the 1970s that more research was poured into the idea, and until the early 21st century not many Flettner Rotors were installed or used. However, they are now considered one of the best options for wind-assist retrofits on all kinds of modern vessels. Buckau proved that rotors are a viable form of propulsion nearly a century ago, and now they are being put to regular use in the pursuit of decarbonizing shipping. These types of pioneering efforts are not frequent, but they are capable of changing what the future of sail will, quite literally, look like. AuthorSteven Woods is a Contributing Scholar at HRMM. He earned his Master's degree in Resilient and Sustainable Communities at Prescott College, and wrote his thesis on the revival of Sail Freight for supplying the New York Metro Area's food needs. Steven has worked in Museums for over 20 years. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Welcome to Sail Freighter Fridays! This article is part of a series linked to our new exhibit: "A New Age Of Sail: The History And Future Of Sail Freight In The Hudson Valley," and tells the stories of sailing cargo ships both modern and historical, on the Hudson River and around the world. Anyone interested in how to support Sail Freight should also check out the Conference in November, and the International Windship Association's Decade of Wind Propulsion. The Schooner Wyoming was built at the Percy and Small Shipyard in Bath, Maine, in 1909, becoming the largest wooden ship ever built. An engineless 6-masted schooner, she carried almost 40,000 square feet of sail, with a crew of only 16 to move up to 6,000 tons of coal at a time. Wyoming was launched at the tail end of the Windjammer era, and was adapted for moving fossil fuels in the form of Coal. These types of bulk cargoes, for fueling cities, railroads, and steamships were the last cargo carried in large volumes by the Windjammers, and generally proved economically viable into the 1920s. However, the only way to maintain that economic competition was to get ever larger and use fewer and fewer crew to get the job done. To bring crew numbers down to the remarkably low number of 16, the Wyoming had mechanical winches for the running rigging such as sheets and halyards, run by a steam powered Donkey Engine, which also powered the pumps and anchor windlass. Although originally intended for coastal trade as a Collier, Wyoming also crossed the Atlantic during the First World War, surviving the U-Boat menace which devastated the Atlantic Windjammer fleet at the time. She returned to US coastal trade after the war, and was in service moving coal until she foundered in a Nor'easter off the Massachusetts coast in 1924. Wyoming is important because of her late date of construction and the innovations built in for conserving crew. She is a good example of the type of ship which was able to compete not on speed, but cost in an era of increasingly inexpensive steam propulsion: Fore-And-Aft rigged, partly automated, and designed for a low crew requirement, she was also built for bulk cargo which did not rely on speed for its value. Such ships would be built into the 1920s, before the economic situation for shipping started to decline and hundreds of vessels were laid up and out of use due to a reduction in international shipping, and the expansion of railroads took over from the coastal shipping trade. For more information on the Wyoming and the other Schooners launched by Percy and Small, you can visit the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine, or pick up a copy of "A Shipyard In Maine" by Ralph Linwood Snow and Douglas K Lee. AuthorSteven Woods is the Solaris and Education coordinator at HRMM. He earned his Master's degree in Resilient and Sustainable Communities at Prescott College, and wrote his thesis on the revival of Sail Freight for supplying the New York Metro Area's food needs. Steven has worked in Museums for over 20 years. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Welcome to Sail Freighter Fridays! This article is part of a series linked to our new exhibit: "A New Age Of Sail: The History And Future Of Sail Freight In The Hudson Valley," and tells the stories of sailing cargo ships both modern and historical, on the Hudson River and around the world. Anyone interested in how to support Sail Freight should also check out the Conference in November, and the International Windship Association's Decade of Wind Propulsion. The Thomas W Lawson was the largest schooner ever built, at some 475 feet long and 5200 Gross Register Tons. She was made of steel, sported no engines, and had seven masts, one of the very few seven-masted schooners ever built. Launched in 1902, she started her career as a Collier, but was converted to an oil tanker in 1906, serving mostly on the US East Coast. After her retrofit to a tanker, she was one of the few sailing tankers ever in service. Like the slightly smaller Wyoming, the Lawson had modern winches, a donkey engine, and a small crew of only 18. With seven masts and only so much sail possible at a time, the Lawson was very much at the point of being too large to sail with the technology of the time: In GRT and displacement terms she was bigger than the Preussen, but carried only about two thirds the sail area. This made her ungainly to maneuver, and she was too deep of draft to enter many east coast ports. The Lawson did not have a long career. After launching in 1902, she served as a collier, though not at maximum profitability due to the small number of ports she could access. On a trip to London in 1907 she was wrecked in a gale off the Scilly Islands near the coast of Cornwall. This wreck caused the first large marine oil spill, and killed 16 out of the 18 crew. While the Lawson's story is mostly one of costly mistakes, it shows one of the same problems as the Preussen: You can only make a sailing vessel so large before it becomes hazardous to operate. While modern technology may increase the size of possible sailing vessels, these warnings from the past should be kept in mind for future windjammer developments. AuthorSteven Woods is the Solaris and Education coordinator at HRMM. He earned his Master's degree in Resilient and Sustainable Communities at Prescott College, and wrote his thesis on the revival of Sail Freight for supplying the New York Metro Area's food needs. Steven has worked in Museums for over 20 years. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Welcome to Sail Freighter Fridays! This article is part of a series linked to our new exhibit: "A New Age Of Sail: The History And Future Of Sail Freight In The Hudson Valley," and tells the stories of sailing cargo ships both modern and historical, on the Hudson River and around the world. Anyone interested in how to support Sail Freight should also check out the Conference in November, and the International Windship Association's Decade of Wind Propulsion. The West Country Ketch Hobah was an English vessel built in 1879, and is typical of her class: Ketch rigged, relatively small at around 80 feet and 60 Net Register Tons, and built with a wide flat bottom, she was designed for use in the South of England. She served as late as 1945, moving coal, general cargo, manure, and stone. The ketch's wide, flat bottom allowed for loading and unloading from beaches where no developed port was available, a common practice with small vessels. The photo above shows this process in action, with the Ketch tied up to the stake on the left, the tide was allowed to recede, while the ship settles into the sand and stays stable while discharging cargo. When high tide returns, the lines can be cast and the ship sails away unharmed. While very typical of her class, the Hobah's career is especially long, spanning 66 years. She was engaged on trade routes which were fully developed by the 17th century, and active through the early 20th. Those routes have been mapped by Oliver Dunn and a team of historians, and span the entirety of the British coast. Like many other late sail freighters, she carried mostly bulk cargos around areas with underdeveloped land transportation networks before the introduction of fossil-fueled trucks, and was quite successful. AuthorSteven Woods is the Solaris and Education coordinator at HRMM. He earned his Master's degree in Resilient and Sustainable Communities at Prescott College, and wrote his thesis on the revival of Sail Freight for supplying the New York Metro Area's food needs. Steven has worked in Museums for over 20 years. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Welcome to Sail Freighter Fridays! This article is part of a series linked to our new exhibit: "A New Age Of Sail: The History And Future Of Sail Freight In The Hudson Valley," and tells the stories of sailing cargo ships both modern and historical, on the Hudson River and around the world. Anyone interested in how to support Sail Freight should also check out the Conference in November, and the International Windship Association's Decade of Wind Propulsion. Today's Windjammer is the Preussen, the only five-masted full rigged cargo ship ever built, and the largest of the early 20th century windjammers. 482 feet long and carrying up to 8,000 tons of Nitrates from Chile to Germany per voyage, she was designed to round Cape Horn and return at great speed, making up to 20.5 knots under up to 73,000 square feet of sails. She was the pinnacle of the sailing vessel, and was in service for 8 years carrying nitrates and general cargo. As part of the very large era of sail freighters, where crew were expensive, the Preussen had no engines for propulsion, but two "Donkey Engines" which powered winches, pumps, and ship's gear, meaning she needed a crew of only 45. Steel had been used throughout her construction, making her a strong and steady ship, able to take the stresses involved in running at high speeds in heavy weather. She circumnavigated the globe, and went around the Horn at least a dozen times. Preussen served until November of 1910, when she was rammed by a Steamer in the English channel. The collision caused significant damage, nearly tearing the bowsprit off the ship and flooding the forward compartments. Luckily, the ship had been constructed with watertight bulkheads, otherwise she may well have sunk. Three tugs attempted to tow her into Dover, but a storm drove her on the rocks and she ran hard aground, flooding with up to 16 feet of water in the holds. She was deemed unsalvageable, cargo was pulled off onto barges, and the Preussen's career ended far earlier than anyone anticipated. An account of the collision from the Preussen's Helmsman is available here. It includes a detailed description of the ship's equipment and accommodations, as well as the account of the collision and grounding. AuthorSteven Woods is the Solaris and Education coordinator at HRMM. He earned his Master's degree in Resilient and Sustainable Communities at Prescott College, and wrote his thesis on the revival of Sail Freight for supplying the New York Metro Area's food needs. Steven has worked in Museums for over 20 years. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Welcome to Sail Freighter Fridays! This article is part of a series linked to our new exhibit: "A New Age Of Sail: The History And Future Of Sail Freight In The Hudson Valley," and tells the stories of sailing cargo ships both modern and historical, on the Hudson River and around the world. Anyone interested in how to support Sail Freight should also check out the Conference in November, and the International Windship Association's Decade of Wind Propulsion. If you've been following Sail Freighter Friday, you'll have noticed last week was about a Fiji Government Vessel by the name of Na Mata-I-Sau. If you haven't read that article yet, you might want to catch up before you read this one. She was retrofitted with sails in 1984, but sank in January of 1985. Her rig was inherited by today's featured Sail Freighter, the Cagidonu. While the Cagidonu was larger than the Na Mata-I-Sau, the rig still proved useful, and the experiment in sail assisted propulsion continued. The Cagidonu was a similar ship to her predecessor, in that she displaced 338 tons (64 more than the Na Mata-I-Sau), and was on a similar route. However, the Cagidonu was originally designed as an auxiliary sail vessel. Due to lack of crew training and an overly heavy set of original rigging which destabilized the ship, her rig had been cut off soon after her launch in 1978. In 1985, she was equipped with a new, better designed rig and the crew training issue was also addressed. Logs from Na Mata-I-Sau were transferred to the new ship, and the experiment started earlier was continued with good results. Cagidonu used the modified rig for several years, saving around 21-36% on fuel, depending on her route and sail deployment. Since her engine-use strategy was to reduce port times, she rarely if ever sailed under wind power alone, so she wasn't a real Sail Freighter if we go by strict definitions. Despite pushing for the maximum speed instead of maximum fuel savings, she still performed well and encouraged research and expanded use of sail until the collapse of oil prices in 1986. However, she played a similar role to her predecessor, and proved that wind assist as a retrofit is effective in both cost and economic benefits on small vessels. This research and development can be critical to rapidly adopting sail freight in the present day, because many of the Pacific Island States are currently suffering from extremely similar forces to the Oil Crisis Era of 50 years ago: High oil prices, and an especially vulnerable exposure to the effects of climate change and sea level rise. The use of maritime transport in a nation defined by its dispersed island nature is non-negotiable and unavoidable, meaning the use of sail will be especially important to the survival of these regions for economic and ecological reasons in the coming years and decades. AuthorSteven Woods is the Solaris and Education coordinator at HRMM. He earned his Master's degree in Resilient and Sustainable Communities at Prescott College, and wrote his thesis on the revival of Sail Freight for supplying the New York Metro Area's food needs. Steven has worked in Museums for over 20 years. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Welcome to Sail Freighter Fridays! This article is part of a series linked to our new exhibit: "A New Age Of Sail: The History And Future Of Sail Freight In The Hudson Valley," and tells the stories of sailing cargo ships both modern and historical, on the Hudson River and around the world. Anyone interested in how to support Sail Freight should also check out the Conference in November, and the International Windship Association's Decade of Wind Propulsion. The Na Mata-I-Sau isn't strictly speaking a sail freighter, but she is important to the story of sail freight's revival in the Pacific during the 1970s Oil Crisis, as well as to some modern efforts such as the SV Kwai, so we're giving her the time she deserves in this blog. She was originally a motor vessel belonging to the Government of Fiji, but six years after her launch she was selected for an experiment in sail assist propulsion due to the extraordinary rise in oil prices which had crushed the economy of many Small Island States in the Pacific. As a result, she was equipped with a Fore-&-Aft sailing rig to reduce the amount of fuel she burned on a government-subsidized packet route to many remote islands. Displacing only 274 tons and carrying as many as 60 passengers, she was involved in a mixed trade involving mostly undeveloped ports, and had a large crew of about 18, to assist with loading and unloading cargo using ship's gear. She saved on average about 30% on fuel when using the rig as intended for assistance to the engine, and she saved up to 60% of fuel when she sailed by wind power alone even just 10% of the time. She became popular with passengers because the sails reduced rolling and other movement when underway. She was very popular, except for one bad review from a passenger on a voyage back to Fiji from Rotunga, which had a cargo of vegetables, fruit, copra (coconut husks), and one pig: As one of the best short academic footnotes ever written states, "The pig was very seasick." Na Mata-I-Sau served for about a year until she foundered in the height of Tropical Cyclone Eric. This resulted in the loss of two crew members. Remarkably, her engine had failed on the way to her destination in the face of the storm with the Prime Minister of Fiji, a full complement of nearly 60 passengers, and her full crew on board. She sailed under wind power alone to the island of Moala, which was a significant distance to windward. The crew was able to bring all passengers and the majority of the crew to shore before the storm struck, saving the lives of all the passengers involved. Without the sail power which had been only recently added, it is likely all hands would have been lost at sea. After the wreck, the rig was salvaged and placed on the Cagidonu for further experimentation, but that is a story for another blog post. The rig and the adaptation of a motor vessel to sail with dramatic gains in efficiency not only saved a number of lives, but provided the evidence and model for other ships such as the SV Kwai which is still operating today in the Marshall Islands. AuthorSteven Woods is the Solaris and Education coordinator at HRMM. He earned his Master's degree in Resilient and Sustainable Communities at Prescott College, and wrote his thesis on the revival of Sail Freight for supplying the New York Metro Area's food needs. Steven has worked in Museums for over 20 years. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Welcome to Sail Freighter Fridays! This article is part of a series linked to our new exhibit: "A New Age Of Sail: The History And Future Of Sail Freight In The Hudson Valley," and tells the stories of sailing cargo ships both modern and historical, on the Hudson River and around the world. Anyone interested in how to support Sail Freight should also check out the Conference in November, and the International Windship Association's Decade of Wind Propulsion. EDITOR'S NOTE: Today's Sail Freighter Friday biography is a guest post from Plimoth Patuxet Museums in Plymouth, MA. Since we have just finished out the Northeast Grain Race by talking about important ships involved in the original grain races around Cape Horn from Australia to England with grain, we're going to look at how those races, and the sailors involved in them, helped preserve the skills of working sail and wooden shipbuilding. Those skills are becoming important once again as the revival of Sail Freight gathers way. In 1620, the original Mayflower carried 102 English passengers across the Atlantic Ocean in search for a better life. The Pilgrims, as they would come to be known, braved 66 days in the stormy, cold North Atlantic aboard the merchant ship. For some, this was their first ocean voyage. They established Plymouth Colony at the Wampanoag site of Patuxet and forever changed the course of history. Each year their story is told in classrooms across the Nation and particularly remembered during the Thanksgiving holiday. Mayflower was an approximately 200 ton square rigged cargo vessel, armed for defense with light artillery, and primarily engaged in the cross channel and Canaries trade, before being chartered to cross the Atlantic in 1620. While her date of construction is unknown, average ship service lives were about 25 years at the time, and she was broken up in about 1624, meaning she was likely built between 1598-1600. The ability to carry freight was a major concern in the ship's design, and the rudiments of a Barque or Bark rig are evident in her Carrack rig: Three masts, two of which are square rigged and the aftermost (mizzen) mast rigged with a Lateen Sail, an early type of Fore-&-Aft sail. While she did carry over 100 passengers on her transatlantic voyage, cargo was just as important, as the new settlers would require sufficient supplies to establish themselves. As passengers were principally considered a type of cargo in the 17th century, and hammocks were only just being adopted in Navies at the time. Passenger accommodations were extremely simple because moving people was less common than moving goods, and there were a very limited number of ships available. After her famous voyage in 1620, Mayflower seems to have returned to her previous occupation for a short time before being broken up. Mayflower II, Plimoth Patuxet’s full-scale reproduction of the tall ship that brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth in 1620. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Mayflower II is where visitors learn about the journey that started a nation. Mayflower II was built between 1955 and 1957 in Brixham, Devon, England. The ship was always part of Harry Hornblower’s vision for Plimoth Patuxet Museums (formerly Plimoth Plantation). In 1951, Plimoth Patuxet contracted naval architect William A. Baker to research and design plans for a ship the size and type of the original Mayflower. Building on the work of previous scholars who tried to answer the question of what the Pilgrims’ Mayflower looked like, Baker scoured museums across Europe for period records that hinted at a design. As his research progressed, he published much of his work in a series of magazine articles. At nearly the same time, unbeknownst to Plimoth Patuxet, a similar project was developing in England. Warwick Charlton founded Project Mayflower Ltd. to honor the alliance of friendship forged between the United States and England during World War II. Inspired by William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, he decided to build a reproduction Mayflower as a memorial to the alliance between the nations and sail it to America. While researching, Charlton’s team came across one of Baker’s articles. Shocked that a different organization had the same idea and already had plans, Charlton called the Plimoth Patuxet office. The partnership was born. Plimoth would provide Baker’s research and plans while Project Mayflower would build and sail the ship to Massachusetts. The shipwrights under Stuart Upham at J.W. & A. Upham Shipyard built Mayflower II using traditional methods and tools familiar to 17th-century shipwrights. The adze, ax, and chisel shaped the ship from the keel up. When pressed to speed up production, Upham maintained that other than the occasional use of power tools, Mayflower II had to be built by hand. The construction of Mayflower II helped preserve nearly-lost wooden ship building skills. Older generations of shipwrights familiar with the craft shared their knowledge with the new generation working alongside them in the yard. Mayflower II set sail from Plymouth, England on April 20, 1957 with a crew of thirty-three men under the command of acclaimed square-rigged ship captain Alan Villiers. As they neared Massachusetts’ shores, Mayflower II ran into a violent squall. No one aboard had experience handling a 17th-century vessel in inclement weather. However, Villiers remembered that Bradford described how Master Christopher Jones steered the original ship to safety during the 1620 voyage by lying ahull. Villiers and the crew executed the same maneuvers and calmly rode out the storm. On June 13, 1957 Mayflower II arrived in her new home port of Plymouth, Massachusetts. A crowd of 25,000 enthusiastic spectators witnessed the historic moment. As with the construction of Mayflower II, the skills of square-rigged working sail (as opposed to leisure sailing) were also passed down through these projects by the last people in the Atlantic World to have moved cargo on similar ships. Villiers was a veteran of the Australia-UK Grain Races aboard both Herzogin Cecilie and Parma, having made many other sailing voyages in addition. These veterans were able to make possible a revival of working sail today, many decades after their deaths, as well as illuminating passages of historical documents which make little sense to those who have never worked with sail before. This story highlights the importance of maintaining Mayflower II as a sailing vessel and illustrates the broadening understanding of preservation. At Plimoth Patuxet Museums we learn by doing. We learn how a 17th-century ship sails by sailing her. Like Villiers, we learn more about the Pilgrims’ experience aboard ship in 1620 when we sail Mayflower II. Through this work we preserve the historic crafts and skills required in square-rigged sailing. Join Plimoth Patuxet Museums from June 11-13 to celebrate the 65th anniversary of Mayflower II’s transatlantic voyage. From games and crafts for the young ones to the Seaside Soiree for lifelong learners, there is something for the whole family. A special ceremony will be held on June 13 to honor the crew of the 1957 voyage. Learn more at www.plimoth.org. AuthorTom Begley is the Director of Collections and Special Projects at Plimoth Patuxet Museums. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
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