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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. NOTE: This week's post is a guest post from the Royal Museums Greenwich in the UK about the Cutty Sark, one of the most famous of the Tea Clippers. To learn more about the Cutty Sark check out the Royal Museums Greenwich website.  CUTTY SARK in her current state at Royal Museums Greenwich. PetraDraha, 2017. Cutty Sark is the sole surviving tea clipper ship in the world. It wasn’t the first or the biggest; it wasn’t the fastest or most successful; it wasn’t even its owner’s favourite. But it is the last one left. And it is because of its survival that it has become one of the most iconic ships in the world: a symbol of the romantic ‘age of sail’; of the peak of clipper ship design; of Britain’s identity as a nation of tea-drinkers; of the exploitation and wealth of the British Empire and vital importance of merchant shipping to Britain, both then and now. Cutty Sark was launched in 1869, in Dumbarton, Scotland. It was built exclusively for the China tea trade, in which a fashion had developed for consuming the first of the season’s fresh tea. Thus it paid to be fast and as one of the last tea clippers to be built, Cutty Sark had some claims to be the pinnacle of a design, already at its apex. It is an ‘extreme clipper’, having all the design characteristics of clipper ships but with extra abundance. Clippers, typically, have three main design traits: a long, narrow hull; a sharp bow at the front of the ship for cutting through the waves rather than riding atop and a huge sail area. By the 1860s, composite construction, combining wood and iron to make a ship strong but lighter and with greater cargo space, was the favoured method of construction. Cutty Sark was one of these composite ships.  S1717: A painting of "Cutty Sark" by Frederick Tudgay in 1872, commissioned by owner John Willis. Courtesy of Royal Museums Greenwich. Clipper ships were pioneered by the Americans in the early nineteenth century. These small, fast and agile ships, able to zip along ‘at a clip’, put an emphasis upon speed rather than cargo space. The gold rushes in California and then Australia in the middle of nineteenth century meant that orders for vessels flooded the American market. Spurred by the need to obtain even a slight advantage in speed, American designers were bold and inventive, developing clippers which seemed to turn ship design on its head. Across the Atlantic, British shipping was at risk of stagnation. A series of reforms, including the end of the East India Company’s monopoly on trade in the east prepared the scene. The first British clipper ship, Stornaway, was built in Aberdeen in 1850. Tea first came to Britain in the middle of the seventeenth century. Initially hailed for its medicinal qualities, it was mainly enjoyed by the wealthy. But thanks, in part, to an extensive smuggling network, tea soon became a popular beverage for all. Little more than one hundred years after its introduction, tea was embedded in the very fabric of British life. As a tea clipper, Cutty Sark played its role in converting tea from exotic leaf to national staple. It would deliver over 4.5 million kgs of tea to Britain in just eight years. Yet it never lived up to its promise. In a somewhat poetic twist of fate, the Suez Canal was opened just five days before Cutty Sark was launched. These two feats of engineering, one which would seal the fate of the other were inextricably linked, providing a marker in time, almost a ‘before and after’ in the world of shipping. The canal provided a ‘short-cut’ out to China and back. Rather than having to sail all the way around the continent of Africa, ships could now cut through the Mediterranean and Red Sea reducing the voyage by over 3,000 miles. But the challenging navigation of the Mediterranean and relative windless conditions and expensive tolls on the canal itself meant that it was only viable for steam ships. Ships like Cutty Sark would have to stick to the long route. In 1870, the year of Cutty Sark’s maiden voyage, there were over fifty other sailing ships heading out to China and back. By 1878, there were just nine. Unable to compete, Cutty Sark was forced from the trade for which it had been built after just eight voyages, a tea clipper without any tea.  E8980: The Suez Canal in the early 1880s. Courtesy of Royal Museums Greenwich. After leaving the tea trade, Cutty Sark spent the next few years tramping: taking whatever cargo it could from port to port. It is not without irony that in this period the ship regularly transported coal for steamships’ coal stations. In fact, in total it transported more coal than tea in its career. While the network of coal and water stations required for the efficient passage of steamers developed around the world, the quickest and most reliable method of getting their fuel to them was by sail. When John ‘White Hat’ Willis, the ship’s owner, elected to place Cutty Sark in the Australian wool trade, it was as if Cutty Sark had found its calling. The trade, at the time, too far away for steamers to contend in, suited Cutty Sark. The route home took the ship around Cape Horn and the ‘roaring forties’, the fastest trade winds in the world, allowing the ship to make full use of its impressive spread of canvas to surge home. Under the confident leadership of Captain Richard Woodget, the ship’s longest serving and most successful master, Cutty Sark consistently broke records. Its best passage was just 73 days back to London, racking up speeds of up to 17.5 knots an hour and enjoying a new reputation as one of the fastest ships afloat.  A5473: Crew and guests on Cutty Sark in Sydney in 1887. Captain Richard Woodget is in the back row, third from right wearing a Tam O’Shanter hat in honour of the ship’s name. Courtesy of Royal Museums Greenwich. In 1895 an aging Willis, with no heirs to pass his fleet onto, sold Cutty Sark to a Portuguese firm. Renamed Ferreira, the ship became a general cargo carrier – carrying anything from coal to whale bone and fish guano - traversing the Atlantic between Portugal, the West Coast of Africa and the continent of America. In 1922, after departing London, Ferreira was damaged in a storm, had to call in at Falmouth for repairs and experienced astonishing good luck. There was probably not much more working life left in the ship, so when the local retired sea captain Wilfred Dowman, spotted Ferreira, the ship’s fortune was changed forever. In 1895, Dowman had been a 16 year old apprentice, who watched as Cutty Sark surged past his ship, leaving a lasting impression on the young man. Twenty-seven years later, Ferreira was a shadow of its former self yet Dowman’s memory had not dimmed. He knew it was a special vessel. Together with his wife, Catharine, the pair were committed philanthropists who paid well over the odds to bring the ship back to Britain, restore it and rename it Cutty Sark once more. Two years later, it reopened as a cadet training ship and visitor attraction. Following Dowman’s premature death, the ship was given to the Incorporated Thames Nautical College to serve alongside HMS Worcester as a cadet training ship in Greenhithe on the Thames. With the outbreak of the Second World War, the cadets were evacuated and Cutty Sark suffered from a terrible lack of maintenance. By the end of the war, sail-training was no longer deemed necessary and Cutty Sark’s future looked bleak. But befitting of the ship’s story, it was thanks to a passionate individual and a stroke of good luck that it is here today. HMS Implacable had fought at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 but by the late 1940s, like Cutty Sark, it was in very poor condition. Recognising the ship’s significance, a place in Greenwich was offered to it but its restoration costs were soon deemed to be too expensive in an age of austerity. Instead the ship was scuttled. Understandably, this caused an outcry which Frank Carr, then director of the National Maritime Museum, was able to utilise to save Cutty Sark. He persuaded the London County Council to give the Greenwich site to Cutty Sark; he engaged the support of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and together they formed a society which raised public funds to restore the ship and create a new dry dock for it. They were also keen that Cutty Sark adopt yet another identity: that of memorial to the Merchant Navy, the days of sail and the 44,000 from the merchant service lost in both world wars. In 1954 the ship was floated into its new dock and final resting place. Three years later, after an extensive restoration, the ship was opened to the public by HM The Queen. In total, more than 650 men from 30 different nations served on Cutty Sark during its years as a British ship. Most would do so only once. On average, just 28 men would serve per voyage but it could be as few as 19. The oldest to serve was 54 and the youngest 14. These men had eleven miles of rigging and 32,000 square metres of sail to contend with in some of the most challenging conditions imaginable. The ship has visited nearly every major port in the world and transported millions of kgs of goods around the globe. Built to last just 30 years, it now sits in Maritime Greenwich, more than 150 years old and an inspiration to a new generation of sailing cargo ships. To find out more, please visit: Cutty Sark AuthorLouise Macfarlane is the Cutty Sark Curator at Royal Museums Greenwich, UK. 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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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.  Sketch of "Cagidonu" from "Proceedings of the regional conference on sail-motor propulsion," Asian Development Bank, 1985. 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.  Photo of "Na Mata-I-Sau" under sail from "Proceedings of the regional conference on sail-motor propulsion," Asian Development Bank, 1985. 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."  Sketch of "Na Mata-I-Sau" from "Proceedings of the regional conference on sail-motor propulsion," Asian Development Bank, 1985. 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.  Courtesy of Captain Brad Ives of SV Kwai. The SV Kwai was built in Bremen, Germany in 1950, and launched as the motor vessel Bayern. After a long career she was acquired by Captain Brad Ives in 2005, who added a sailing rig and started a service from Hawai'i to the Cook Islands and Kiribati in June of 2006. Kwai has a cargo capacity of 220 metric tons, or 300 cubic meters, and is about 142 feet long. She has a relatively small crew of 8-11 sailors, though she takes passengers from time to time. For 15 years, Captain Ives ran Kwai on this circuit, because the very high cost of fuel in these remote islands made it unprofitable for most similar cargo vessels to serve these islands. The Kwai's savings on fuel from the use of sails made her economically and ecologically viable, but her diesel engines also allowed her to keep a more steady schedule and maintain a higher level of safety than a pure sailing vessel.  Courtesy of Captain Brad Ives of SV Kwai.  Courtesy of Captain Brad Ives of SV Kwai. In 2021, SV Kwai was sold to the Marshall Islands, where she continues to be in service today as a training and cargo vessel. Since the same economic dynamics which made SV Kwai a good choice for her original run exist in the Marshall Islands, she is a good fit there. Her test case will be the backbone of future retrofits to gain the same benefits for other vessels in the Marshall Islands fleet.  Courtesy of Captain Brad Ives of SV Kwai. 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.  "Mayflower II" under sail after refit, 2020. Courtesy of Plimoth Patuxet Museums. 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.  William Avery Baker (Mayflower II designer), Stuart Upham (shipbuilder), and Alan Villiers aboard Mayflower II. Courtesy of Plimoth Patuxet Museums. 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.  Villers shaking hands with Plimoth Patuxet Museums' founder Harry Hornblower. Courtesy of Plimoth Patuxet Museums. 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!
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 Parma in full sail." Allan C Green, between 1921-1936. This week's Sail Freighter is of especial interest to those who like the 20th century story of sail powered trade, Parma made the fastest run on the Grain Races from Australia to the UK: 15,000 miles around Cape Horn in only 83 days. Originally named Arrow when she launched at Glasgow in 1902, she was renamed Parma upon her purchase by the F. Laeisz Line as one of the "Flying P-Liners" in 1912. Parma was a 4-masted Steel Barque typical of her time, with fast lines, 327 feet long on deck, and capable of carrying 5,300 deadweight tons of cargo. She served on a variety of trades through her eventful career, parts of which were well documented by a famous figure in maritime history who we will talk about a bit later. When she was launched, she went into the fossil fuels trade, under the flag of the Anglo-American Oil Company, but after a decade she was sold and renamed as a Flying P-Liner, where her reputation really starts to get established. Newly rechristened Parma and put to work in the Nitrates Trade between Chile and Germany, carrying Guano for making fertilizer and explosives.  "On the forecastle head of the 'Parma' in fine weather." Alan Villiers, 1933. When the First World War broke out, she was in Chile, and she was interned there as a belligerent ship in a neutral port. At the end of the war, she was given to the UK Government as Reparations, then sold to Belgium, before being repurchased by the Laeisz Line in 1921, returning to the Nitrates Trade. She racked up some impressive speed records on this run over the next decade. In 1931, Parma was sold to noted maritime historian and photographer Alan Villiers. She shifted from the Nitrates Trade to the Grain Trade from Australia. In 1933, Villiers was aboard when she made the fastest run recorded by a sailing vessel between Port Victoria, Australia and Falmouth, England, winning that year's grain race. In 1936, Parma crashed into a dock in Glasgow and was severely damaged. While repairs to her hull were made, she was sold, derigged, and effectively ended her career as a sailing vessel. She was scrapped two years later in 1938. The 1933 voyage from Australia to the UK in the Grain Races which had Villiers onboard is well documented, and his collection of photos from the trip are publicly available on Wikimedia Commons, courtesy of the UK's National Maritime Museum. Villiers was a major force in helping preserve the skills and history of sailing vessels, and wrote many books on the subject. Without these and similar efforts, we would likely not have the preserved vessels and skills necessary to revive sail freight today. 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.  "Herzogin Cecilie" Henry Mohrmann, 1907. This week we continue our series of Sail Freighters involved with the Great Grain Races, with likely the most famous of them all: The 4 masted Barque Herzogin Cecilie. Built in 1902 at Bremerhaven, Germany, and was named for the German Crown Princess. She was initially employed in the Nitrates trade between Chile and Europe for making fertilizer and explosives, as did the Parma, Passat, and Pamir. After spending the First World War interned in Chile, she was granted to France as war reparations, then quickly purchased by Gustaf Erikson of Finland. Erikson continued to employ Herzogin Cecilie for 16 years, in the Australian Grain Trade. Her speed and unique while paint made her stand out, and she became quite famous worldwide. Alan Villiers, a major figure in the end of the windjammer era and the preservation of sailing skills in the 20th century, was aboard for one of these grain runs, which inspired his book "To Falmouth For Orders." He would later purchase and sail the Parma in the 1933 Grain Race, one of the few Herzogin Cecilie didn't win in her era of competition.  From the "Seaman's Journal" of June, 1931. Herzogin Cecilie was a fast ship, one of the fastest of the windjammers. At one point in her career she booked over 20 knots. She even beat the record of the Famous tea clipper Cutty Sark, while carrying 5000 tons of grain to the Cutty Sark's empty holds. This turn of speed let the Herzogin Cecilie win 8 of the 11 Great Grain Races she participated in. In 1936, under the command of a less experienced captain (after her previous skipper retired), she won the grain race in a mere 86 days, the second-fastest ever. A few days later, she departed Falmouth for Ipswich to deliver the cargo to its final destination, but she ran aground in a fog on the coast of Devon, UK. Despite a protracted rescue effort which involved hauling her ashore, a storm battered her on the beach and she capsized, then sank, rendering her unrecoverable. Thus ended the career of one of the most famous of the 20th century Windjammers.  The restored Captain's cabin of the four-masted barque Herzogin Cecilie, in the Maritime Museum of Mariehamn, Finland, 15 July 2012. Photo by KDHOX. Wikimedia Commons. Most of the vessel's fittings were salvaged, and the Captain's Saloon is now reassembled as part of the Mariehamn Aland Islands Maritime Museum, Finland. She is also remembered in folk songs. The Herzogin Cecilie was a very remarkable sail freighter, and a classic piece of the end of working sail in the Atlantic. While she is gone, her model is one to follow, and even with modern technology and knowledge, might be hard to beat. 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. .JPG) "Passat" under sail. Yasmina, 2015. In sticking with the major ships of the Great Grain Races while the Northeast Grain Race is going on, this week we're featuring the Passat, another of the Flying P-Liners of the Laeisz line from Hamburg, Germany. A Four-Masted, Steel-Hulled Barque, Passat was launched in 1911, and worked in the Nitrates trade like so many of the early 20th century windjammers, bringing Guano from Chile to Europe for making fertilizer and explosives. Like many of the other P-Liners, she was interned in Chile through the First World War, and granted to France as War Reparations in 1920. She was re-purchased by the Laeisz Line in 1921, and returned to the nitrates trade. In 1932 she was sold to Gustaf Erikson of Finland, who put her on the Australian Grain Trade, and she racked up an impressive 4 victories in the Grain Races. Her fastest run was in 94 days, an average of nearly 160 nautical miles per day, or 6.65 knots.  "Passat under sail" Swedish National Maritime Museums. Eventually, Passat and Pamir were the only two windjammers left on the Australia Run, and they raced each other for the last time in 1949, with Passat taking home the final victory of the Grain Races. After the 1949 race, regulatory changes made her operation economically impossible, when the 2-watch system was barred in favor of the 3-watch system used on motor vessels. The 3-watch system required more crew, which meant too much operating expense, and she was sold to be broken up in 1951. Passat had an eventful and long career, rounding Cape Horn 39 times in her 38 years. When you account for the 6 years she sat in Chile during the First World War, and sitting out 6 years of the Second World War, she rounded the horn more than once per year! Luckily, she was purchased and saved for use as a sail training vessel in the 1950s, and now serves as a youth hostel and museum ship in Lubbock, Germany.  "Passat" today. Photo by Peter Haas, 2011. 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.  "Pamir under sail." Michael Zeno Diemer, Pre-1939. Düsseldorfer Auktionshaus Collection. Today's featured Sail Freighter is the Pamir, built in Hamburg, Germany in 1905. She was rigged as a 4-masted Barque, with her three forward masts square rigged and her aftermost mast rigged Fore-&-Aft. The Barque rig was used in later sailing vessels as it saved slightly on crew, compared to a full ship rig which would be square-rigged on all masts. The Pamir had an eventful 52-year commercial career, and is worth studying as a classical early 20th century engineless Windjammer. Pamir was built as one of the Flying P-Liners, which were part of the Laeisz Line of Germany, all had names starting with a "P." They earned the name of "Flying" P-Liners because of their speed: Many made up to 16 knots, better than most steamers at the time. After being launched in 1905, she sailed under the Laeisz Line in the Nitrates trade between South America and Germany, moving Guano in loads of more than 3000 tons at a time. Guano, or bird and bat dung, is rich in Nitrates, and was used in the production of fertilizers and explosives in Europe. It could not safely be transported in coal-fired steamers due to the risk of explosions ignited by any leak from smoke stacks. Sailing vessels stayed in this trade for many years after steamers had taken over other routes due to this risk, but were eventually replaced by internal combustion engine propelled ships that had a lower risk of fire and explosion.  "Pamir At The Entrance to the English Channel" 1949. National Library of Australia Collection. After the First World War, the Pamir was granted to Italy as War Reparations, then a few years later was purchased again by the Laeisz Line. In 1931, she was acquired by Gustaf Erikson, a Finnish ship owner who had the last fleet of windjammers until his death in 1947. The Pamir was captured by New Zealand during the Second World War, and was only returned to the Erikson Line in 1948, when she had the chance to participate in the Last Grain Race from Australia to England against the Passat, another former Flying P-Liner. After her participation in the Last Great Grain Race, she was sold to two different German lines in the 1950s. She was the last windjammer in commercial service in the Atlantic World in 1957 when she made her last voyage. In 1957, she set sail with a load of more than 3,700 tons of grain, which had been stowed by her inexperienced sail trainees. The captain was also inexperienced in sail powered cargo operations, though he had experience in Sail Training ships before taking command of the Pamir. The cargo was stowed loose in the holds and ballast tanks, with only a small amount in sacks on top to keep it from shifting in heavy seas. En Route to Germany, she encountered a hurricane, which caused her to heel and the cargo to shift. When it did, the ship did not right herself, leaving the hatch covers exposed to the direct impact of hurricane-driven seas. The hatch covers gave way, water filled the holds, she capsized, then sank. Because she had been heeled hard over by the shifted cargo, half of her lifeboats were underwater, while the other half could not be launched because they could only be dropped onto the side of the hull, where they were damaged by waves. Most of the crew made it to the few lifeboats which could be launched. Only two of the unprovisioned lifeboats were found after a nine day search off the Azore Islands, and of the 86 people on board, only 6 survived. The combination of unskilled hands and rough weather sealed her fate. The Pamir's fate is tragic, but is the ending point of a career spanning more than half a century. She was a remarkably successful Barque, and the last commercial sailing vessel in the Atlantic. This is worth recognizing and celebrating, while we learn some lessons about how to handle cargo from her demise. 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 Friday! 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 tracks sailing cargo ships both modern and historical. 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.  Apollonia tied up at Newburgh, NY, 2021. Courtesy of Sam Merrett. Schooner Apollonia is one of our favorite Sail Freighters, because she's on the Hudson River right now. She has been carrying cargo for two years now, with a bit of a preview season in 2020, testing out cargos and becoming familiar with regional waterfront infrastructure. Apollonia is currently the only active sail freighter in the US. Apollonia is a 64' steel schooner built in Baltimore in 1946. Designed to carry cargo or operate as a pleasure yacht, she was purchased on Craigslist after spending 30 years on the hard and refitted as a cargo vessel. She was under restoration for four years before arriving at the Hudson River Maritime Museum in the fall of 2019 to build wooden blocks as she built out her full rigging. Her first official season was in 2021, when the vessel made 55 port calls at 15 ports on the Hudson River and in New York Harbor. Today she is homeported in Hudson NY, and often visits the Hudson River Maritime Museum docks as she works to connect the Hudson Valley and New York City. Captained by Sam Merrett, Apollonia carries a lot of malted grain for breweries as the main part of her cargo, but she also carries almost anything else: Solar panels, cider, hot sauce, beer, coffee, maple syrup, flour, honey, yarn, apparel, books, vegetables, red oak logs for a mushroom farm, were all on the list in 2021, and more will be involved in 2022. She can carry 10 tons (20,000 lbs) of cargo at a time, up to 600 cubic feet.  Loading logs into the hold of Apollonia at the HRMM Docks, June 2021. Courtesy of Sam Merrett. Apollonia is a critical link in relearning the craft and trade of working sail. Inspired by the Vermont Sail Freight Project's Ceres, the project is a combination of sail freight and localized food economy with many educational side benefits. Apollonia builds connections between people and the river, as well as between businesses shipping goods sustainably by wind power, with first- and last-mile on-shore aspects done with a solar-powered cargo bike and trailer. You can find out more about the Apollonia's Impacts from the 2021 season here, and check out her schedule and cargos for 2022 - and get involved as a "Shore Angel" or sail freight customer - at her website. If you find her at the docks anywhere on her route this season (there's a tracker on the website), she has a mobile component of our new exhibit aboard, which is worth checking out. Apollonia is also partnering with the Museum for the Northeast Grain Race and the Sail Freight Conference in November. 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!
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