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