MERRY CHRISTMAS 2021

Click to enlarge and maybe you can
see what has been served for Christmas Dinner. 
Photograph dated 1911 from 63 Co. C.A.C. 
Port Townsend, WA.

And from the good ship, S.S. Snohomish 
decked out with ca. six evergreen trees and 
one officer at the pilothouse, greetings to you.
The photographer of this gelatin-silver print
inscribed the negative with date of 1916.
Both these originals are from the archives of 
the Saltwater People Historical Society.©

          

"May Happiness Come Sailing Home to You
from the Puget Sound Navy Yard."
Undated. Click to enlarge.

And from S.S. Commander 
on the Washington Route
Christmas Day 1932 and
not least, 
the crew of Puget Sound Pilots.
These greetings from the archives 
of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

Mt. BAKER WITH MARGARET ATWOOD FOR THE SOLSTICE , WINTER 2 0 2 1

Codfish Schooners at Winter's Rest.
The Charles Wilson and the C.A. Thayer
alongside Nordic Maid.
Near Poulsbo, Washington.
Dated 28 November 1953,
Click image to enlarge.
Low-res scan of a silver-gelatin original photo from  
the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

Majestic Mt. Baker,
ready to lend us some white for the holidays.
Eagle Bluff on Cypress Island, WA.
Twenty December 2021.
A photograph courtesy of  L.A. Douglas,
Blakely Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA.

"This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight,

the year's threshold and unlocking,

where the past let's go of and becomes the future;

the place of caught breath, the door

of a vanished house left ajar..."

Margaret Atwood

Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965-1995

SAILING THE ISLANDS WITH JUNE

Apologies to readers who are fond of the writing of June Burn, it has been too long since we've enjoyed her cheerful words. Here she comes sailing through the islands she loved so well.

Several of the San Juan Islands in view  
from a vantage on Orcas Island, WA.
Silver/gelatin photograph by J.A. McCormick
an early photographer who set up his studio in 
the drugstore, Friday Harbor, WA.
Dated 11 June 1933.
Low-res scan from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

     On the way to Friday Harbor in the Pawnee, chugging into the first southeastern of the season. The steel-blue waves come rolling up the channel towards us, our little boat climbing them merrily. What fun to feel the lift and drop, lift and drop of the light boat over waves at right angles to our keel. If they were coming side-on the heavy rocking wouldn't be at all pleasant. One might even condescend to get seasick in that case. But to go galloping over waves, up and down, is great fun. The splash of the fine spray into the face, the difficulty of keeping the footing, the delight of feeling oneself so close against the very breast of raw life––it isn't hard to understand why old sailors pine away and die when they retire!
        The islands sail by in stately procession––Speiden and the Cactus group, Flat Top, Jones, Yellow Island, McConnell, Orcas, and the shores of San Juan. Around the last point of San Juan, before the boat slides into Friday Harbor Bay, we see the new home of Dr. Frye, director of the biological station. It extends high against the sky on a grassy, rocky bluff. You will know it by its isolation, its pale rose color, and its location. Snug, sunny little houses, it looks with its many windows.
        Beautiful Friday Harbor with its wide curving bay front and the hills rising soon behind it, the white houses swarming over every hill. There are few seafront villages prettier. The waterfront has not been allowed to grow shabby. Nothing is untidy. The effect is one of freshness and charm. Even on a gray day, the village looks shining and lively.
        On the left of the entrance is the fish cannery, surrounded on any Saturday in season, by a fleet of purse seine boats home for the holiday of no fishing. I went to the cannery first thing to ask Captain Willy how many cases of salmon he had canned this year.
        A hundred thousand, he said, and called it an average year. If that is average I wonder what a bumper year would yield? I've bought Friday Harbor canned salmon in Washington, DC to California, in Florida, and wherever else I've ever lived. I dare say if one went to Hindustan, one could buy Friday Harbor salmon. Some of the fishermen out on the traps say that it has been better. Captain Willy's average is pretty likely to be nearest the truth.
        Salmon canning started in Puget Sound back before 1887. The peak was reached in 1917, with forty-five canneries running. There were fourteen in 1928. The biggest year was in 1913, with a total catch of spring, sockeye, coho (silvers), chums (dogs), pinks (humpbacks), and steelheads of a little over two and a half million fish with a total value of thirteen and a third million dollars. The total catch in 1917 was 892,244 fish, valued at $7,957,330. The next best year was in 1917 when there was a big run of pinks.
        On the extreme right of the entrance to Friday Harbor stands the pea cannery. Mr. Henry tells me that they canned 6 4,000 cases this year. The best year they have ever had, he says. The cannery itself plants 200 acres on San Juan Island, supplying itself with peas for about half the pack. The rest of the peas are bought from farmers who sell the hulled (they call them "vined:) peas to the cannery and feed the vines and hulls to their stock, thus realizing two profits from their crop. They get something like $70 a ton for the vined peas, which is the average yield from an acre. Thy hay and hulls are worth five or six dollars a ton for the four or five tons to the acre. But the cream which is produced by the hay and hulls is worth a great deal more than that so that the farmer who raises peas harvests a "right smart" crop. Moreover, the peas enrich the land they grow on.
        The quality of the peas was better this year than ever before, too Mr. Henry says. Sunny Isle and Saltair are the world's best. Sweeter, juicier, tenderer, and fuller of piquant flavor than peas grown inland. There is something about the salt air that does improve the flavor of peas, they say.

The upper view looks northeast 
towards Bellingham and Mt. Baker. 
A cruise on the mailboat route
 to various islands, from June's 
homeport in Bellingham,
  Whatcom County, WA.
Click image to enlarge.
Original photos from the archives of 
the Saltwater People Historical Society©

        The cannery employed about a hundred workers this season, with nearly fifty more vining in the fields.
        Up the steep main street which overlooks the water, I met Captain Scribner of the Medea. That is the boat in which the biological students go afield hunting red algae and dogfish, snails, and sea urchins, sand dollars, and a thousand and one other sea plants and animals with long Latin names, most of them so little familiar that they have never been given pet names at all. If any of you want to spend a profitable and delightful summer learning things about this wonderful country of ours, take a summer course at the U of WA biological station at Friday Harbor. You will be compelled to study and work hard. I tell you, but it is the best way to get acquainted with your land. See you tomorrow. June.

Author/journalist June Burn.

SEATTLE'S FORTY NAVY VESSELS MOVED TO PIER 41.

 

25 October 1941
Navy's Pier 41, Seattle, Washington.
New to the Navy are the two gate vessels
shown in the foreground getting cloaks of 
battle-gray paint, the barges will operate
the harbor-net gates.
Click image to enlarge.
Original gelatin silver print from the archives of 
the Saltwater People Historical Society.©

"The throb of dance music and the smell of corsages used to be in the air of Pier 41 on days when ships like the President Grant and President Jackson sailed out of Smith Cove for the Orient.
        Miles of bright confetti draped like filmy mooring lines, linked travelers at the rail to the crowd below on the dock until the whistle's bellow drowned out the shouted, frantic farewells and started a transpacific liner backing ponderously from her berth.
        There was something impressive about such scenes, with so many emotions checked or loosed by so many people. Tears, whispers, embraces, smiles, the dabbing of handkerchiefs were parts of the picture and so was the massive, solid expanse of the great pier itself.
        All that is gone now. War has shrunk the Oriental trade, the Grant and Jackson have lain in quiet water across the bay at the Todd Dry Docks, stripped of their luxurious furnishings, refitted and today, ready for service as armed transports.
        Until a few months ago Pier 41, too, was almost lifeless. A single watchman patrolled the $2,000,000 wharf which thousands of Seattle school children since 1919 had been told was the largest on earth.
        Occasionally an American Mail Line sailing for the Phillippines would create a brief bustle, but most days the terminal that was built to handle 1,800,000 tons of cargo a year was all but empty, with its transit sheds littered, its paint peeling, its trackage rusty and its planking rotted.
        Then, last May, the Navy moved in.
        Straining to expand itself into a two-ocean fleet, preparing to meet any crisis in the Pacific, and rushing the development of its Alaskan sector, the Navy had need of a base in Seattle. Since 1920 its blueprints for national emergency had contemplated occupation of one or both Smith Cove piers, and last spring, it was busy translating such contingencies into fact.
        The Navy opened conversations with the Port of Seattle Commission, and 1 May leased the east half of Pier 41 for a year. Three months later it leased the rest of the 2,560-foot long, 345-foot wide strip of piling, concrete, and ballast rock.
        Things began happening the day the first lease was signed.
        Lieut. Comdr. Arthur H. Middleton, USNR, a submarine-chaser captain in WWar I, moved in the next day to take command. With him arrived officers, yeomen, seamen, carpenters, signalmen, and others.
        Pier 41, rechristened the 13th Naval District's Naval Operating Annex, once more is a place of hustle and bustle, playing a part in the maritime end of defense.
        It is a dual and increasingly vital role. As the Naval Section Base, the annex is providing berthing space--a whole mile of it––for little boats and big ships, providing maintenance and operating facilities for forty Navy vessels.
        As the Naval Supply Pier, the annex is keeping a large flotilla of ships supplied with the thousand and one things they need and is equipped to furnish supplies to 40 percent of the Navy's seagoing ships on the Pacific Coast.
        Huge stocks of food and other supplies are being built up in the Naval Supply Pier's two transit sheds, to care for the Navy's flock of small craft operating as the 13th Naval District Inshore Patrol, for ships plying between Seattle and the Alaskan sector, and for Navy activities within that sector.
        Piles of canned goods and staples are mounted around wooden posts still bearing the scrawled names of Kobe, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and other Oriental ports for which commercial cargo once was assembled at Smith Cove.
        One project is the signal tower at Pier 41's outboard tip. Part of an elaborate radio and communications center being installed at the base, it will be equipped with the latest visual-signal devices and will be able to signal to all points on Elliott Bay, acting partly as a traffic-control station for arriving and departing ships.
        The vessels this ambitious program is designed to serve are so numerous and of so many types that Pier 41 really has a navy all its own.
        The biggest and grimmest is the battle-gray gunboat Charleston, not actually based in Seattle, but berthed at the annex whenever she is in port.
        Built in 1936 with a sister ship, the Erie (they are the only two of their kind in the Navy), the gunboat is the largest patrol craft––3,000 tons––authorized by the London Naval Treaty of 1922. Four destroyers, the Kane, the Gilmer, the Brooke, and the Fox, call Seattle Section Base their home.
        Tied up near them when the Section Base "fleet" is in port are five auxiliary coastal minesweepers. Converted halibut boats, that bear the symbol "A.M." in white on their bows, and have been christened the Nightingale, the Pintail, the Crow, the Frigate Bird, and the Phoebe.
        There are mine-layers, nettenders, tankers, repair ships, patrol boats...Some, the "YP" type, are patrol vessels formerly with the salmon fleet, such as the Catherine D. before she joined the Navy as a floating repair shop and tender, ending a long career as a cannery tender.
        The locally famous "pickle boat," the Eagle No. 57, is there, and so is John Barrymore's former yacht, the Infanta, now as the U.S.S. Amber, with the most glamorous, if not aristocratic, the background of them all. Racks of mines rest on her stern deck, where Barrymore and his profile and his guests used to relax. The Navy calls the Amber a patrol yacht, and for some sentimental reason has left on the bridge her silver bell, inscribed as a gift to Barrymore from Delores Costello.
        Some of the forty ships of the Seattle Section Base will take part in the navy and Total Defense Day parade from Seattle to Tacoma and back. As ships are considered these days they are not big ships, but they are just as important to the Navy as its Lexingtons and North Carolinas. Pier 41, a peninsula with 40-ft of water around three sides, can berth the longest and deepest ships in the world, and its staff can handle them.
        Neat as a pin since the Navy men removed the equivalent of 127 railroad gondola carloads of trash and timbers, Pier 41 has come to life in a big way this year. As one of Seattle's most famous "world's biggest assets, it is ready to do a bigger and bigger bit for national defense."

Text from the Seattle Times, October 1941.

❖ Oh–Oh, Where is the Captain's Ship?

L: Captain Otto Johnson, 
master of the real RELIANCE tug,
with a scale model he crafted.
R:  Churchill Griffiths, V-P of 
Washington Tug & Barge.
Photo dated June 1952.
Tap image to enlarge.
Low-res. scan of an original photo from the 
archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©
Photo is back-stamped from the
Marine Salon /Williamson Collection.

This site has had archived photographs posted of finely crafted scale models of a sternwheeler, a ferry or two, and a few sailing ships. One of the latter class was a model of the Arthur Sewall three-master Henry Villard (1882-1929) eventually owned by James Griffiths and Sons. Keeping it in the family, we can now sponsor a tug boat model.

        This was a long time ago; we hope the story had a happy ending.

        The scale model of the Seattle tug Reliance went missing during dinner, much to the consternation of her owners and the committee which handled the Maritime Day Tug Boat Races.        

        The Reliance model was seen the evening of 24 May at the Seattle Yacht Club, during the awards dinner. She was on display along with winners' plaques and other mementos connected with the annual race.
        When the event was over, the Reliance was gone.
        Committee members suspected a joke and were confident she would soon turn up in some ludicrous situation as a "topper" for the gag.
        But, more than two weeks later, the whereabouts of the Reliance was still a nautical mystery.
        The two-foot, scale model was made by Capt. Otto Johnson, master of the real Reliance, which was owned at this time by the Washington Tug & Barge Co.
        The model had considerable sentimental value to Captain Johnson and other officials of the tug company. Churchill Griffiths, vice-president of the company, joined in a plea for the return of the small ship.
        Hollis Farwell was general chairman for the Maritime Day events and remarked "Let's just say the joke's over."

News source: The Seattle Times newspaper. 

A MODEL MAKER DOES HIS MOSQUITO RESEARCH

The S.S. Bailey Gatzert was an important sternwheelin' gal who caught our attention and yours with a lengthy post in 2016. Her looks also caught the attention of the skilled craftsman, Ralph Hitchcock, who has written below about the requirements needed to see her fine lines come to life again.

S.S. BAILEY GATZERT
Built by the J.J. Holland Yard, 
Ballard, Washington & launched in 1890.
Her first master was Capt. George Hill.
Out of service in 1925.
Original photo from the archives of the
Saltwater People Historical Society©

"The sternwheeler Bailey Gatzert was a very historic vessel known around the nation. She so impressed the author that a special file of information was started over 30 years ago with additions being made from time to time. She was certainly a mosquito fleet vessel of special interest.
      The Bailey Gatzert was built in Ballard in 1890 for the Seattle Steam Navigation & Transportation Company. Her registered dimensions were 177.3' x 32.3' x 8'. These remained her dimensions until 1907. Her steam machinery was supplied by James Ross & Sons, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The popper valve engines were 22" diameter by 84" stroke. She was non-condensing. It is assumed that her boiler was built in the Pacific Northwest.
      The Gatzert operated on the Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia run until 1892, when she was acquired by the Columbia River & Puget Sound Navigation Co and transferred to the Columbia. There she engaged in the excursion trade until 1895 and then operated on the Portland-Astoria run.
      Apparently, her hull became unserviceable, for in 1907 a decision was made to build a new hull and to transfer the passenger cabin, texas, and pilothouse, from the old hull to the new. According to The H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest, the engines were transferred to the Gatzert from the Telephone at the time of her rebuild. The hull design was by J.H. Johnson, whose Portland shipyard built the new hull. The new registered dimensions were 194.3' x 32.8-ft x 8'.
      Many photographs show the second Bailey Gatzert running excursions to the Cascade Locks after the 1907 rebuild. No specific reference has been found stating that she ran from Portland to Astoria, but it seems likely that she did.
      In 1917 the Gatzert was purchased by the Navy Yard route affiliate of the Puget Sound Navigation Co, and in 1918 she was towed by the tug Wallula to Puget Sound where she served on the Seattle-Bremerton run starting 18 April 1918. In 1920 she was sponsoned out for additional hull stability, and an elevator was installed on her forward deck, allowing her to carry 30 cars of that day. She was the first car ferry on the Seattle-Bremerton run.
      In 1922 the Gatzert was stripped of her machinery. In 1926 she was taken over by the Lake Union Drydock & Machine Works in Seattle and converted into a floating ways and machine shop. At that time her hull was found to be well-preserved.
      The Bailey Gatzert was a fast sternwheeler. She participated in races on Puget Sound with the Greyhound and the T.J. Potter. The "hound" won two, the Gatzert a third. In the two races with the Potter, each vessel won one race. According to the Railway and Marine News of October 1909, though they never raced against each other, the Hassalo, Telephone (number 2), and Bailey Gatzert were the fastest sternwheelers on the Columbia. The same article quotes Mr. Marcus Talbot, general manager of the Alaska Pacific Steamship Company, as saying, 'The Gatzert is the fastest sternwheeler in the world.'

      Surely such a historic and photogenic vessel deserves to be presented to posterity by an accurate and representative model. However, such a model must be preceded by precise scale drawings showing all external details just as they were on the original vessel. Experience dictates such a procedure. The author prepared detailed drawings to the scale of 1/4" - 1'0" before building models of the Flyer, North Pacific, and J.M. White. The first two of these are in the Washington State Historical Museum in Tacoma, the latter in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. It is interesting to note that 150 detail drawings were prepared and needed to construct the J.M. White model.
      Drawings for the Bailey Gatzert are well underway. One very fortunate basis for these drawings is a drawing of the new (1907) hull for the Gatzert prepared by John H. Johnson, builder of the new hull. The photocopy of this drawing was procured recently from the Oregon Historical Society. As usual, detailed photographs are indispensable to such work. Photos being used for the Gatzert model drawings include twelve from the PSMHS Williamson Collection, eight from the Oregon Historical Society's files, one each from Bill Somers and Bert Giles, as well as numerous photo reproductions from books.
      It is expected that the Gatzert model drawings will be completed by the time this article is in print. Thus a model of the Gatzert could be initiated in 1989 and presented to PSMHS upon completion. The author solicits proposals from one or more experienced model builders to proceed with the Bailey Gatzert model."
      Words by Ralph Hitchcock. The Sea Chest, published by the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society. Seattle, WA.

And the Bailey Gatzert model was completed
by Ralph Hitchcock.
Is this the one he built and but do you know
of her whereabouts? 
Tap image to enlarge.
This photo is dated March 1995.
Original photograph from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

      

FOUR-MASTED SCHOONER SCOTTISH LADY, San Juan Island 1942

Teak figurehead of the Scottish Lady,
 (ex-La Escocesa,
ex-Coalinga, ex- Star of Chile,
ex-Roche Harbor Lime Transport)
1868-1960
202' x 34.2' x 21.8'
1,001 tons
Iron 3-master
Site: Roche Harbor, San Juan Island, WA.
Dated 1942.
The vessel ashore in the background
is the 50-ft steam tug Roche Harbor,
built in Tacoma in 1888. With a crew of 4
she did a lot of heavy work for the
Roche Harbor Lime Company.
Original photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

"When the four-masted schooner Scottish Lady, like a nautical phantom out of the past, spreads her sails to the winds of the Pacific and begins a voyage halfway around the world, the picturesque vessel will have a golden figurehead under her bowsprit.
      In a Pacific coast shipyard, where the old windjammer, which sailed as a proud unit of the fleet of the Alaska Packers Association, is being converted from a three-masted bark to a four-masted schooner, the teak wood figurehead has been lifted to the deck of the vessel and will be covered with gold leaf before it is returned to the bow of the ship.
      Built in Dundee, Scotland, in 1868, as the La Escocesa, the vessel became the Coalinga and after her purchase by the APA, was renamed the Star of Chile. Now she has been christened Scottish Lady.
      For ten years, the vessel was ideal at Roche Harbor where she was moored in a setting framed in trees and foliage. 

Roche Harbor Lime Kilns,
San Juan Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA. 
Schooner Scottish Lady at the dock.
Tap image to enlarge.
Original photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©
Photograph by Brady. Undated.

Then came the demand for ship tonnage resulting from the war and she was towed to a shipyard to be made ready for sea. Her heavy iron hull, built in Dundee, was found to be five-eighths of an inch thick.

      A.B. McCollum, a Chicago businessman, is the new owner of the old windjammer. He was represented in the purchase of the vessel from the Roche Harbor Lime Co by H.F. Mowry, shipbroker of Newport Beach, CA.
      The Scottish Lady will be taken to sea by Captain John Bertonccini of Seattle, who sailed the ocean lanes before he was 12 years old and survived fourteen ship accidents.
      Captain Bertonccini has had some narrow escapes, but his ship always made port. In 1921 he and his two-man crew drifted for 39 days in the cargo and fishing vessel Baldy which became disabled at sea. The crankshaft of the 57-ft vessel broke while she was 500 miles south of Unimak Pass, AK, leaving her at the mercy of wind and wave.
      The Baldy was sighted by the N.Y.K liner Heian Maru, which notified the Coast Guard by wireless at Capt. Bertonccini's request. A Coast Guard cutter was unable to find the helpless vessel, but the steamship Yaquina sighted the Baldy and again notified the USCG. A cutter was sent to the vessel and towed her into Grays Harbor. The Baldy was repaired and returned to service.
      'I was in the motorship when she burned 500 miles south of Unimak Pass, AK,' said Capt. Bertonccini as he paused from his work on ship tackle aboard the Scottish Lady. 'The Kamchatka was on a fur-trading cruise for Hibbard & Swenson of Seattle. We were 86 hours n a motor launch and finally reached Unga, AK, where we spent two weeks. The Catherine D, of the Pacific American Fisheries took us to Bellingham. I was on the ship Santa Clara for eight years and two years in the Star of Alaska, windjammers sailing in the Alaska cannery trade for the APA. This ship, the Scottish Lady, was the Star of Chile of the APA at that time, sailing out of San Francisco to the Alaska canneries.'
      Captain Bertonccini, a hard-working skipper who dons old clothes and toils long hours getting his ship ready for sea, was born in Sweden of an Italian father and a Swedish mother. He first went to sea in 1884 in the Swedish brig Anna, sailing out of Stockholm."
      The Seattle Times featured several articles about this vessel during the early 1940s. The above is dated Feb. 1942.
      The Scottish Lady had her beautiful figurehead tucked away in the safety of a warehouse in Seattle, when she was undergoing a refit. Owner McCollum planned to return the carving to the bow of the old ship when she again voyaged the sea lanes under sail. Before her planned blue water sailing the government requisitioned her to serve as a barge for hauling supplies to Alaska for the Alcan highway, in June 1942. Did the figurehead survive? (See the update below by H.H. Huycke.)

Below is an early photograph with the Star of Chile stranded in the ice, still in her youth in 1918.

STAR OF CHILE,
with early rig of three masts, 
inscribed as stranded in the ice of the Bering Sea.
Rescued by the USS Roosevelt in June 1918. 
Tap image to enlarge.
Original photograph from the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

1947:

History of the Scottish Lady was published in the American Neptune in 1947, Vol. 7, No.4. written by the late mariner/historian/author Captain Harold D. Huycke. He extends thanks to Rick James and Bruce Lundin for good assistance in documenting the final segment of the old ship's history. In 2002, the captain submitted the history to The Sea Chest journal, June 2002, (13 pages) a membership publication under the Puget Sound Maritime Society, Seattle. Lots of "bio" of that lady can be viewed there. 

      At that time Scottish Lady was laid up in the lower end of Lake Washington, apparently still owned by Mr. A.B. McCollum of Newport Beach, CA. For the previous five and subsequent seven years, she lay idle, tied to stumps on the lakeshore. 

      "Very little attention was given to Scottish Lady during those postwar years. A moving-picture company in Southern California made inquiries, but they wanted a 'bark' and not a schooner.

      Negotiations were established between Karl Kortum, the director of the San Francisco Maritime Museum, and Mr. McCollum for the acquisition of the fo'c's'le-head capstan and a few other significant, removable items. On 4 September 1954, a work party consisting of Walter Taylor, Gordon Jones, Ed Kennell, Kenny Glasgow, Karl Kortum, and I boarded the schooner Gracie S in Portage Bay and motored down to Kennydale and boarded Scottish Lady. The capstan had originally been fitted to the old down-easter Tacoma, one of the Alaska Packers cannery ships, but in years gone by it had been shifted to Star of Chile. Now it was heading home to the Maritime Museum in San Francisco.
      It was a day's work removing the capstan in sections, unbolting the foundation from the deck, and hoisting it aboard Gracie S.

      Sometime during this period, the figurehead was also acquired by the San Francisco Maritime Museum and shipped to San Francisco. The new sails, cut and manufactured in 1941-42, have not been traced.

1954: The ship was sold to Vancouver Tug and Barge Co of Vancouver and towed out of Lake Washington bound for a shipyard in British Columbia.

1955: Scottish Lady made one appearance in Puget Sound late in this year. She tied up in Duwamish River, but no further details were recorded of her cargo, coming or going."

An incomplete listing of past officers and crew:

David Evans, master, and son D.T. Evans, chief mate.

Olaf C. Olsen, master

Charles Hasse, master

Carl Peterson, master

John Bertonccini, master

Bob Fulton, master

LEAVING HOME ON THE MAILBOAT

Mailboat M.V. CHICKAWANA
Arriving Orcas Island, WA.
Click image to enlarge.
Original photo from the archives of 
the Saltwater People Historical Society©
Photograph by Mr. Geoghagen of Orcas Island.

Chickawana in 1933.

"I had lived above the bay since childhood and was familiar with its beaches and nearby islands, but I never had to venture farther than could be seen from the tallest hill in the city.
      That was to change, however, when I first met the Chickawana, a mailboat that served the San Juan Islands in the 1930s.
      It was early on a cool misty morning in September when we arrived at the dock where she waited.
      She was due to sail at seven, and while we waited, I watched in fascination as the freight and produce were loaded, swinging beneath the tall derrick to be deposited on the deck to the hoarse commands of the deckhand.
      I studied the Chickawana, a typical mailboat of the time. Thirty-five feet long with an open deck behind the wheelhouse in the bow, she carried a crew of three.
      Other than a covered engine well in the center of the deck the only part below decks was the low-ceilinged passenger cabin, lined with benches below the portholes, entered by a short stairway at the stern.
      Since there were no other passengers that morning I would occupy it by myself until, getting bored, I ventured forth to view the scenery and visit the crew on the bridge.
      Eventually, all was in order and I made my way across the gangplank, which was then hauled aboard.
      Lines were cast off, the boat gave a shrill whistle, and we were underway. It would be the first time in my 19 years to live away from home.
      The Chickawana plied the Sound between Bellingham and the San Juan Islands, making three round trips weekly and laying over each second night in Friday Harbor.
      My destination was the next to the last stop, which would take seven hours to reach as we sailed into inlets and harbors among the islands, delivering and picking up freight and mail and an occasional passenger.
      Some of the ports of call were indistinguishable villages above a single dock, but the names linger in my memory like a litany: Eastsound, West Sound, Orcas, Deer Harbor, Roche Harbor. All in exquisite settings.
      Eventually, we rounded a small island and entered beautiful little Prevost Bay, in the most northwesterly corner of the contiguous US.
      As the motors slowed and we drifted up to the dock I could see a small group of curious strangers, some of the thirty-odd residents of Stuart Island who had come to see the new schoolteacher.
      The landing was without incident for the tide must have been just right so that the 
gangplank reached across to the level of the dock.
      If the boat lay a few feet below the dock I might have to perch precariously on the rail and be helped across the narrow gap, clutching strong hands extended for support.
      If the tide was completely out the gangplank could be laid from the roof of the wheelhouse, but I had to clamber up there to get it.
      Sometimes I started the trip in the passenger cabin but was careful not to be caught there after the time we carried a young heifer to one of the islands.
      I watched her being lowered to the deck, her legs dangling below the sling, until she was set down on the slippery surface where her hooves tended to slide out from under her.
      It must have been a frightening experience, for she responded during the long hours by making frequent and copious deposits that spread from port to starboard.
      I was unaware of this state of affairs until I came up on deck and found my way completely cut off.
      I was held hostage below until we reached the port where the cow was to be delivered and the crew had sluiced the deck clean enough to walk on.
      I imagine the Chickawana was old in 1933, and probably she has retired now for many years, but she will always have a special place in my memory."
      Words by Esther R. Ditmer. Guest column Friday Harbor Journal, 8 February 1987.

The Chickawana was lost to fire in 1948.

 

HENRY T. CAYOU, "A Builder of Good Faith and Friendship"

HENRY THOMAS CAYOU
Deer Harbor, Orcas Island,
San Juan Archipelago, WA.
From the archives of the
Saltwater People Historical Society©
Click image to enlarge.
 A gift from Cliff Thompson,
retired mariner of Deer Harbor, Orcas Island, WA.

The name Cayou, belonging to a long-time San Juan county resident, has been nominated to the Washington State Board of Geographical Names as a more deserving person to represent the name of the body of water between Orcas Island and Shaw Island, long on the charts as Harney Channel.
      Petitions have been signed and the application made with good words of the success in the life of Henry T. Cayou (ca. 1869-1959). Much emphasis has been made on his fishing career from the age of nine, reefnetting at Flat Point while learning from his uncle Pel Ell, and then his pioneering of trap fishing. He always remained an independent operator of his traps.
      But his life could be judged more noteworthy for his dedication to  serving his community. Mr. Cayou was a San Juan County commissioner for at least 27 years, a long-serving trustee of Orcas Power and Light Company since its founding, and an Orcas Island School board trustee for 33 years, as he stated on his business card. 
      Henry Cayou spoke to members of the Orcas Island Historical Society in 1953 and among other things he told of how he engaged in the island's first agricultural enterprise. The Cayou family grew strawberries and Henry recalled that when they ripened he loaded them into a dugout canoe and set out for Vancouver Island, B.C., about 12 miles north of Victoria to find a buyer. The berries were served on Victoria tables in honor of the Queen's birth anniversary.
      It has been noted recently that he had traveled the channel many times in his lifetime. Actually, it could be said he "survived" the channel in a Christmas Day storm of 1896. He and his wife, baby, and other family members were capsized in a gale off Point Hudson when sailing to Decatur Island for Christmas dinner. Cayou held his baby's head above the cold water until help reached them clinging to the overturned vessel. Lee Wakefield and George Fowler of pioneer Shaw Island families pulled hard on their oars and managed to get all the wet mariners safely back to the Orcas landing.
      The last paragraph is sourced from "Almost Fatal Accident," 
the Islander newspaper of January 1896.
Archived by Saltwater People Historical Society

❖        ❖        ❖

"Captain Henry T. Cayou [ca. 1869-1959] was born at Deer Harbor on Orcas Island, where he has built a beautiful waterfront home which is to be the sanctuary of his and Mrs. Cayou’s declining years.

      In the early days when Henry was a young man, he was successful in the fishing game (as he called it,) which eventually developed into an industry of no mean proportions. Being on the ground floor with the coming of the fish traps, Henry secured a pile-driver outfit and tugboats and went about the business of building fish traps for himself, and also for many others.

      He also was a wharf builder, contracting for many of the wharves in and around the San Juan Islands. There were individuals and a small group of home folks in the islands who could ill afford a wharf or boat landing and were forced to use rowboats to meet the mail and freight steamers. By seeing their need and supplying it, furnishing the materials and building them wharves for a nominal sum, then letting them pay for them if and whenever they could. Henry was a builder of good faith and friendship.
      Henry nearly lost his life in an explosion aboard his boat, the Standard, several years ago, which slowed him down for a few tides.
      

Cannery and trap tender, the STANDARD
In for repair after the explosion in Mar. 1911..
Click image to enlarge.
Digital image from J.R. Paterson.
Williamson Collection; Neg. # 839.

MARY C.
Steam tug built on Decatur Island. 
Oil painting donated to the
Saltwater People Historical Society
by retired mariner/historian, J. Robin Paterson.

FEARLESS
210192
80-ft L x 17.4-ft B x 8-ft D
Built by Wm. H.F. Reid, 1912,
Decatur Island, WA.
For Henry T. Cayou,
Source: Master Carpenter Certificate, on file.
from the National Archives, Seattle, WA.

Yacht BUFFALO
 Built Reed Shipyard, Decatur Island, WA.
Location here, Eastsound, Orcas Island, WA.
From the archives of the
Saltwater People Historical Society©

Trap and cannery tender
SALMONERO 
201957
54.4-ft x 11.3-ft x 4.3-ft D
Launched 1905.
One-time owner, Henry T. Cayou
Original photo from the archives 
of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

At one time he and the late Billy Reed [brothers-in-law] built the Decatur Shipyard and owned jointly the following boats: Osprey, Skiddoo, Standard, Helen T, Fearless, and the 78-ft steam tug Mary C, which passed into the hands of the American Tugboat Company and was operated by them for many years. Captain Cayou owned the Hillside and later purchased the Salmonero, better known as the Sammy, later selling her to the San Juan Fish Co. She is now doing duty at Bristol Bay, Alaska.

Henry has always been very active both in business and social life, always ready to help a neighbor, and that means anyone in the San Juan group of 172 islands. “They are all my good neighbors,” he has been heard to remark many times. In case of sickness, death, or pleasure he was always ready to go, and if it were not possible for him to go personally, he would send his boat to make the rush trip for the doctor, and for many years the nearest doctor was at Friday Harbor.

      He is an expert navigator and can hit the center of any channel in the islands in a dense fog—one of those pilots who can run up to a dock in such a heavy fog that you can’t see a thing. They tell the story of how one day in a regular pea-soup fog, “Cap” Cayou stopped his boat and shouted to the deckhand to make fast. The bewildered deckhand shouted back, “Yes, sir, but where’s the dock?” To which “Cap” replied, “Put out your hand there, me lad, and you’ll feel it.”
      He is also an expert on tides and always takes advantage of them. One day he was watching two of the crew on one of his boats, with a tow, bucking the tide and making no headway. He stood and watched them for a while and was heard to remark, “If those lads would only feel around a little they would find some water they could travel in.”
      A school director for 33 years and County commissioner for 26, Cayou is president of the Orcas Power & Light Co, a position he has held since its formation in 1937. With all his interests he has never neglected any of these and makes frequent trips to his home at Deer Harbor during the fishing season each summer and fall.
      For a number of years, he was outside manager for the Columbia River Packing Co., at Point Roberts, in charge of the construction and operation of their fish traps. At one time he owned an interest in the George and Barker Packing Co. of Point Roberts. As it is impossible for Henry to be satisfied away from the fish industry and his boats, he moved some of his equipment to the Columbia River about four years ago, where he put in some gear and is supplying the Columbia River Packing Company during the packing season.

A set of reefnet gear moved to this more
southern location for a brief visit  
on the Columbia River.
Click image to enlarge.
Original photo from the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

He and Mrs. Cayou make their home at present in Columbia City, OR, where you will find him ever on the alert to help someone who is less fortunate than himself.”

Pacific Motorboat, September 1943.
From: Saltwater People Historical Society archives.
https://saltwaterpeoplehistoricalsociety.blogspot.com/2021/11/henry-t-cayou-builder-of-good-faith-and.html

❖ HENRY FOSS ON EARLY TACOMA

 Notes of Early Days of Tacoma

Tacoma Harbor, Washington
Click image to enlarge.
Postmarked 1913.
Original photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

"It comes to my mind that perhaps it would be of interest to Tacoma of today to know something of the past.
      It was my good fortune to have lived in Tacoma since 1891, living for many years on a float home at 11th and Dock Street.
      At that time we found enough pasture to feed a cow, but what comes to my mind now is that the cow really was 'in clover' directly after the Spanish-American war. It is hard to realize that we did not have the trucks, jeeps, and automobiles of today, but then the transportation and movement of material were by mule, and some hundreds of mules were shipped from Tacoma to Manila for use by the American army.
      Accordingly, it was necessary to accumulate these mules and have them ready for shipment, and in so doing they were "warehoused" on the sand track between the Eureka Dock and 11th Street, which area became one huge, wonderful oat field.
      It had been my daily task to take the cow to various places where she could eat grass, but after the oat field came into being our cow was 'living in clover.'
      One sad event, however, was that this good cow and eaten too many 'green oats,' became bloated and died.
      Thus a waterfront man learned something about feeding animals!
      Again going back in memory, Pacific Avenue, of course, was the main street in town and originally was covered with wooden planks. A great improvement came along in that the planks were replaced with creosoted wooden blocks. I might say also that 11th Street hill was 'paved' with wooden planks set at an angle, and the drainage of the rain was taken care of by wooden troughs on either side of the street.
      It appears to me that we had at least double the amount of rainfall during this period than we have at the present time!
      It was my good fortune to attend Central School at South 11th and G Stree, and believe me, it was a great day when we could slide down the hill in these drain troughs to my home on the waterfront at 11th and Dock Street.
      Tacoma at that time was the real shipping center of Puget Sound, and particularly of the wheat that came from Eastern Washington that was shipped in here on the Northern Pacific Railroad.

Loading wheat ships
Tacoma, WA.
Undated. 

At that time sailing ships came from Europe in 'ballast' to receive their cargo.
      Tacoma was really the 'lumber capital' of the west coast, and we had lumber mills from the Smelter all along the north waterfront to the head of the bay, and even up Hylebos Creek.
      In those days we had the 10-hour workday, which really was a rugged existence, particularly with wages of only $1.00 per hour.
      When you realize that the average workman went to work at 7 o'clock in the morning and worked until 6:00 p.m., you can appreciate that one did not have much time at home––and this was a 6-day workweek. He had the automobile, but 'traveled' by streetcar at a 5-cent fare, including transfer.
      I remember when I went to high school I lived at 25th & Cheyenne, and it was 6 blocks from my home to the streetcar by just an ordinary dirt road. I remember well taking the streetcar to 26th & Proctor, which cost 10 cents and walking the distance to visit my girlfriend.
      During this time to try to make life a little more interesting, my father bought a horse and carriage, and one memorable event was picking up my girlfriend and driving to the Puyallup Fair by this horse and carriage over a dirt road.
       I might say that I do not think anything has changed as far as the fair is concerned, but certainly, there is a change by the now good roads and automobiles!
      In the early days of Tacoma, many Japanese men came to work in the fields in the Puyallup Valley, and also in the mills. When they had become established it was only natural that they would send for a Japanese wife, and the brides arrived in Tacoma on OSK steamships at the Milwaukee Dock. There were no roads to the Milwaukee Terminal at that time, and the only transportation to these vessels was by our small launches.
      I well remember upon arrival of an OSK steamship I would take these Japanese men to the ship where they would go up on the deck and proceed to find their 'bride' in the line-up.
      The Japanese brides would be lined up on one side, fore and aft, with a picture of the man they were to marry carried around their neck. The men would walk up the line, also with a picture of the girl they would claim for their bride in their hand. When they found the right one, off they would go––the bride following close behind her husband. There usually would be between 10 and 15 Japanese brides on each of these ships.
      This system of immigration was prevalent for a number of years, but eventually, the laws of the United States did not allow this procedure, and the law was effected to eliminate this type of immigration.
      However, I must say that the many Japanese who came to this country in this manner became admirable citizens. Their morals and respect for our government were beyond reproach.
      One of my very good friends and associates in grammar school was a Japanese, Henry Matsumoto, and we remained good friends for many years.
      Like all history, there is an 'inevitable chain of change.' The Panama Canal was built, and the many wheat ships that came to Tacoma in ballast were replaced by steamships.
      One of the great hazards in the early days of shipping was making it around Cape Horn in winter during the bad weather. However, I was very surprised during my early Naval Reserve days when we went around Cape Horn in December 1931. I had looked forward to seeing some really bad weather, but it was dead calm and did not get light until 9:30 a.m. and there was a 'thin' skin of ice on the saltwater. If I remember correctly, I had a 'rate' of Third Class Quartermaster at that time.
      The transportation from downtown Tacoma to the 'top of the hill' was by cable car. This started at 11th & Pacific, went to Kay Street, and then down 13th. The powerhouse in which the cable was activated by a huge drum was a thing of fascination to me, and I well remember watching this cable go into the cable house, then back out again––the mechanics of which was not clear to me until many years later!
      Incidentally, the cost of riding this cable car was 5 cents, and the conductor would collect the money, put it in his pocket and register the same by pulling a line that activated the registration of the money by ringing a bell. Students had a special ticket which cost 2-1/2 cents.
      I remember very distinctly walking down 11th Street to Central School, and one day in 1898 I was astounded to hear all the mills blowing their whistle. I was really rather frightened and didn't know what happened, so I ran all the way home and asked my mother. She told me that the Spanish-American War was declared.
      Later the 8-hour day came and really was a 'revolution' not only to industry but also to the working man who had not much time to himself in having to work a 10-hour day. One ordinarily had to walk to a streetcar, then take the streetcar to downtown Tacoma, and then walk from there to his place of employment on the waterfront.
      Accordingly, considering the time involved in going to and from work, it really would end up being a 12-hour day.
      Wages at that time were only about 25 cents an hour, and accordingly, it was a custom to augment the income by taking advantage of having a 'home garden' where one raised their own vegetables. I remember best the potatoes, strawberries, and of course, the raising of chickens.
      We were very fortunate to have a square block of property on 25th & Cheyenne, and so had ample room and good soil to produce much of our food, especially fruit (apples, pears, and cherries.) During my younger years, we also had a cow that had to be taken somewhere along the waterfront out to pasture, before school, and home again after school. However, I never did milk a cow! That was a task my folks would take care of, or possibly one of the hired help would assist at times.
      I do remember the 'cooling' of the milk by setting it in a pan of cold water. Of course, practically no one had electricity.
      One of the great desires of the early immigrants who had come from all over Europe as well as China and Japan were that they felt the necessity of education for their children. In my case, my father walked one Norwegian mile to school and home again, and a Norwegian mile is equivalent to 7 of our miles. So a student had 
much time to think about that which he had learned in school that day while walking home.
      Accordingly, the immigrants, who were the majority of the population in our state at that time were very adamant that their children should receive an education, and accordingly, they felt that walking was no problem because of the school that was made available to all.
      I went to the old Central School on 11th & G, and 'carried' my lunch. This usually consisted of left-over pancakes that had been prepared for our crew, spread with ample butter and jam. In reality, this was a good lunch, and I have often felt I should like to return home someday and ask for this particular lunch!"

Typed is his customary green ink and signed by Henry Foss, May 1975.
Verbatim for Saltwater People Historical Society.

 

KAIULANI CREW IN JAIL DOWN UNDER

Bark Kaiulani
(ex-Star of Finland)
Captain H. G. Wigsten
The last American built square-rigged
merchant ship still afloat, as she sailed 
from Aberdeen, Washington
in this photo of 1941. 
Two Seattle men were members of the crew,
 brothers Paul and Tom Soules.
Kenneth Glasgow was from Aberdeen, WA.
From the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historial Society©

A ship's logbook is a daily journal on the condition and location of the vessel, weather reports, and the daily activities of the crew. In some cases, accounts of a crew's insubordination and jailing are made. Captain H. G. Wigsten kept such a journal for a trip from Aberdeen, Washington to Durban, South Africa to Hobart, Tasmania as master of the Kaiulani, a three-masted sailing vessel built in 1899. The handwritten journal in two volumes as part of the recently donated Capt. Harold D. Huycke collection. Huycke was one of the foremost maritime historians with a special interest in the last voyages of commercial sailing vessels in the late 19th and early 20 centuries.

      The logbooks date from 1941-1942, very late in the century for a commercial sailing vessel to be operating. With the onset of WW II commercial vessels of any kind were in short supply and the Hammond Lumber Co of San Francisco had a load of lumber in Aberdeen, WA., that needed to be delivered to Durban, S.A. Kaiulani was pressed into service after having been idled for several years following a career in the Hawaii sugar trade and, under the name Star of Finland, in the Alaska salmon trade.
      Sailing under the flag of Panama, this was the last American crew to sail around Cape Horn in a commercial square-rigged sailing vessel. The 20 men included two notables who later were early pioneers of San Francisco Maritime NHP, Karl Kortum, founder, chief executive and curator; and Harry Dring, conservator of ships.
      In the logbooks, Captain Wigsten describes inclement weather, repairs to the sails and vessel, and a couple of medical emergencies including the Captain's contraction of a skin infection. He also describes with candor his increasingly acrimonious relationship with the crew that resulted in the men being jailed for desertion. Here are but a few entries from the 1941 log while the ship was at Hobart:

L-R: Tom and Paul Soules
Leaving Grays Harbor they didn't shave 
until they landed at Durban, South Africa.

~August 19, Wednesday, 6:45 a.m. "I went forward to crews quarters and informed them of the situation that ship had to be moved out to anchorage in the stream, which they all refused to do...Navy people came aboard and Navy vessel alongside...Ship's crew in meantime put all their baggage on to the wharf and deserted ship."

~August 24, Monday, 12:30 "All of the deserters taken into custody by the military and locked up."
~September 22, Tuesday "The 10 Deserters released by Court on grounds that I had not reported desertion in writing to Navy Commandant instead of to the military. So therefore it was not desertion, although crew threw all their baggage onto the wharf and walked off the ship at about 7:30 a. m. in front of Navy people and everyone else on the wharf."
~Septmember 23, Wednesday "About 11 a. m. crew with their baggage brought out to vessel by Navy launch."
~October 6, Tuesday 1:30 p. m. "American flag hoisted. all agreement with USA Army representative Major Lindsey signed up." 6:40 p. m. "Anchors away-departure" from Hobart, Kaiulani was towed to Sydney and converted into a barge.

      

Kaiulani crew members in old stone jail,
L-R: Paul Soules, Gordon Riehl, Harry Dring,
Bill Bartz, Jack Henricksen, 
Jim Walpole and John Newbuck.
Click photo to enlarge.
The jail was one built a century before to 
hold the convicts shipped from England
to populate Australia. 
Photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

 

The collection contains another Kaiulani logbook kept by Capt. R. Kabel during a 1900-1902 voyage from Bath, ME to Honolulu, HI. The logbooks are available for viewing at the Maritime Library in the Harold D. Huycke collection, HDC 1600; SAFR 22224, Series 3.01; files 100, 102. An additional reference source is at the Online Archive of California. Further information for this article was found in HDC 1600 Series 3.02, Kaiulani, Allan K. Hulme records.

The above report is from the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"A sea-going beauty of another day––a day not so long gone as some might think––is portrayed in these photographs. They show the Yankee three-masted bark Kaiulani (ex-Star of Finland) on a troubled voyage.

      The trim Bird of Heaven was resurrected from her Oakland layup by a second world war. Ships were needed to carry aid to Europe. More ships were needed to carry the normal flow of trade. So the Kaiulani left the dock she had been tied to from 1927-1941, to pick up a cargo of Douglas fir lumber destined for Durban, South Africa.

      She slipped slowly out of San Francisco Bay, in August 1941, her sails filling as her bow turned north. At Grays Harbor, Washington, she picked up her cargo and filled out her crew––eager youngsters and Embarcadero veterans.

      Thus began the year-long voyage, the last made by a Yankee square-rigger in the Pacific trade. 

      The ship sailed south into an equatorial calm that lasted a month. The sun beat down and pitch bubbled from the seams of the deck as the crew above sat mending sails.

      The Kaiulani crept farther south, and on a calm December afternoon, she rounded Cape Horn. There a crew member climbed high on the mainmast to rig an aerial for his tiny radio set. Through the static came the story of Pearl Harbor.

      The crew rigged blackout lanterns and watched for submarines. The ship sought treacherous waters to avoid German raiders. She ran through fogs and skirted icebergs.

      On January 29, 1942, 126 days out, the Kaiulani reached Durban breakwater and blundered through a minefield, disregarding frantic signals from shore, to anchor.

      There the crew exchanged lumber for explosives and sailed for Sydney, Australia, 5000 miles away.

      Midway, she hit gales. The wind lashed up waves 60 feet high. Sails blew out––40 times in all. All hands were set to helping the sailmaker.

      Then in the half-light of the aurora australis, an exciting message came through Sydney––Japanese midget submarines had attacked there and sat ready to ambush inbound ships.

      The crew elected to head for Hobart, Tasmania. They arrived on June 19, 43 days out of Durban, and promptly refused to sail further. They were jailed, then released to work for the US Army Transport Service.

      The Kaiulani, her sails furled, was towed to Sydney for conversion into a motorized cargo carrier. Her spars came down, and she served as a coal barge through the war at Finschaven, New Guinea. Two years later, a Manila firm made her a lumber storage barge."

San Francisco Chronicle. 9 March 1953. p. 11

HONORING OLIN (13 April 1908-13 September 2008)

L-R: Olin J. Stephens,
brother Roderick Jr &
 father Roderick Stephens Sr.
Photo Sept. 1931
at a parade up Broadway in New York,
 to praise their victory with yacht 
DORADE
on the Trans-Atlantic race to
Plymouth, Eng.

Olin J. Stephens II, America's preeminent yacht designer of the twentieth century was honored with the opening of a special exhibit at Mystic Seaport in 2008. He was a longtime friend and supporter of the Museum. It is housed in the Cruising Club of America's Olin J. Stephens II Reading Room in the Museum's G.W. Blunt White Building. It opened to the public in celebration of Stephens 100th birthday in 2008.
      Widely recognized as the most respected, admired, and accomplished yacht designer of the 20th century, Stephens once said, "I was lucky, I had a goal. As far back as I can remember, I wanted to design fast boats." And this is exactly what he did. He began his career at the age of 19 working as an apprentice for successful 6-meter yacht designer Phillip Rhodes. On 11 November 1929, the 21-year-old Stephens joined forces with well-known yacht broker Drake Sparkman and Sparkman & Stephens, Inc., was formed.

Winning Yawl DORADE

4 July 1931

Newport, RI, just before the start of

the Transatlantic Race to Plymouth, Eng.

Acme Photo original photo

from the archives of

Saltwater People Historical Society©

The naval architecture and yacht design firm's first major design — a yacht named Dorade — won the much-publicized 1931 Trans-Atlantic Race. She then went on to win the 1936 TransPac, finishing first in class and first overall. A new era of yacht design had begun.
      Stephens's name is most often associated with the prestigious America's Cup Race. In 1937, he collaborated with W. Starling Burgess to design the Super-J, Ranger, which was later selected to defend the Cup after only seven races. Sparkman & Stephens went on to design many of the most revered 12-Meters that raced for the Cup, including Columbia, Constellation, Freedom, Intrepid, and Courageous. In 1993, Stephens and his winning designs were honored when he was inducted into America's Cup Hall of Fame.
      When not designing yachts, Olin Stephens and his colleagues spent their time designing all other types of boats — from amphibious assault vehicles and patrol craft for World War II— to timeless vessels such as Mystic Seaport's own schooner yacht Brilliant. He also proceeded to give himself to the sport well beyond his professional activity. Stephens has been a member of the New York Yacht Club since 1930 and also a member of, or consultant to, the International Yacht Racing Union Keelboat Committee since 1963. He headed the committee which developed the International Offshore Rule and was active in the creation and maintenance of the International Measurement System.
      Stephens was honored with numerous awards throughout his career which have recognized his indelible contributions to sailing. On 15 November 2006, Mystic Seaport named him the first recipient of the Museum's prestigious America and the Sea Award — an honor that recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the maritime world. "This award honors and celebrates America's relationship to the sea and the spirit of exploration, adventure, competition, and freedom that inspires us all. Olin embodies everything this award symbolizes," said Douglas Tesson, Museum president and director.
      Stephens designed more than 2,000 boats throughout his career, many of which still grace the water today. After eight decades of brilliant work, he left a lasting impact on the maritime community. His numerous designs, contributions, and commitment to the worlds of yacht racing and cruising are cherished, as was he.
Newsletter from Mystic Seaport. Sept. 2008.

Olin J. Stephens wrote his autobiography, All This and Sailing Too, in 2000.

When the Stephens family sold Dorade, she came to the west coast of the US and kept sailing, very well indeed.