❖ HOLY BOWSPRIT ❖

UNDAUNTED
221305
2,266 G.t./ 2,094 N.t.
267.5' reg. L x 46.4' x 23.9'
Blt. 1921 Portland, OR.
Cabin boy "Silvers" Hatchitt age 16
sailing Portland to Australia in 1922.
Original photo from the S.P.H.S.©

"The bowsprit is one of the principal spars of a sailing ship. Originally it was a foremast, but early sailors discovered that taking the foremast forward improved the sailing of their vessels, and a tendency once started did not end until the mast was nearly horizontal and forming what we called the bowsprit. It extends the sail plan beyond the vessel itself, providing support for the jibs, the hardest-working sails (per unit of area) in a vessel."
Above text from: the classic Fifty South to Fifty South by Warwick Thompkins, Sr.  W. W. Norton & Co. 1938. 

Bowsprit
The famous 32-ft Ketch SUHAILI
March 1966
Leaving Tanzania for London, with 4 aboard.
Keystone photo from the archives of S.P.H.S.©

Bowsprit,
TOLE MOUR, 1989
938740
Steel hull ship built on Whidbey Island, WA.
 leaving for the South Pacific.
Original photo from the S.P.H.S.©

Bowsprit
Etoile
Tall Ships Race 1964
from Plymouth, England to Lisbon.
215-tons entered  by the Naval School at Brest, France. 
Original photo from the archives of S.P.H.S.©

❖ TOLE MOUR Leaving for the South Pacifc, 1988 ❖

TOLE MOUR
ON 938740
156-ft sparred length
LOD 123-ft. / LWL 101-ft.
Beam 31.6-ft
Draft 13.6-ft
Sail area: 8,500 sq. ft.
Designer: Ewbank, Brooke & Assoc.
Builder: Nichols Brothers, Whidbey Island, WA

TOLE MOUR means 'gift of life and health' in the Marshall Islands and that's what the ship TOLE MOUR hoped to provide the Marshallese people when the floating health facility arrived there mid-December. On 4 October the 156-ft steel ship left Lake Union, Seattle, for the first leg of her journey to the South Pacific. The $2.5 million tall ship, launched in 1987 on Whidbey Island, and its 11-member sailing crew, were a part of the nonprofit Marimed Foundation, that aimed to bring American healthcare expertise to the South Pacific. The foundation was begun in 1984 by David Higgins and his wife, Dr. Lonny Higgins. With stops planned in Portland, San Francisco and Honolulu, the ship expected to take six weeks to get to the islands.

TOLE MOUR
There she goes,
headed out to the Pacific Ocean
1988 Photo from S.P.H.S.©

For an update on the tall ship TOLE MOUR and her life in higher learning in the Channel Islands of warm California, click here.