TWELVE DAYS OF WINTER

Hatch Off the Archives
22 December 2014

Knots by Spike©
Photograph 22 December 2014.

Spike Africa knot work on whiskey bottles from the Saltwater People collection.
"Spike did decorative pieces for a chain of California restaurants with a nautical theme. In addition he made frequent trips from Seattle to install the macrame and also act as something of an official greeter." 
Those fortunate restaurant customers enjoying Spike stories, while waiting for their table.
Quote above from a four page color splash by Tom Stockley for The Seattle Times 1976.

San Juan Islands connection: At one time Africa maintained an Orcas Island client's sailboat, and owned land on one of the islands in the group.

❖ TWELVE DAYS OF WINTER ❖

Winter Solstice 2014

Day One

Ephemera from Saltwater People Historical Society archives
Click photo to enlarge.

Custom designed, enamel pin to honor the day, inscribed for Good Ship SPITFIRE.
Private invitation to the commissioning of Ketch SPITFIRE on Orcas Island, WA.
Location: Lat N 48˚ 39.20' Long W 122˚ 52.90'
Date: 4 July 1994
Vessel Owner: Woodson K. Woods
Builder: Bent Jesperson Boatbuilders
Designer: Russell D. Hohmann
For photograph and article on SPITFIRE please see Wooden Boat magazine Number 136:64.
It's true, the piper piped, the cannons boomed, and the Spitfire flew overhead.

❖ PAMIR and PASSAT ❖

Barque PAMIR
Martin Treder working on a model
of the ship PAMIR (1905-1957)
then plowing between Germany and South America.
The model was a year in the making; constructed with a
steel hull containing 40,000 rivets, 32 sails, 4,000 pulleys,
and cost about $9,000. It will be placed in cases
showing the evolution of water travel.
Original 1931 gelatin-silver photo from the archives of
the Saltwater People Historical Society ©

BUILDING A MUSEUM 1931

"Natural History Museums are the result of decades of painstaking collecting and the institutions are classed according to the number of genuine specimens they contain. However, in Chicago, a museum is literally being manufactured, and the fact detracts none from its worth. Scores of artists, wood-carvers, machinists, and electricians are at work building models for the Museum of Science and Industry founded by Julius Rosenwald. The Museum aims to portray the evolution of man's mechanical and scientific knowledge, and while every attempt is being made to get genuine exhibits, it is necessary that many be in miniature. Wherever possible the models will work; by pushing a button a student may see a gas engine, in section, in operation, or watch wheat being ground into flour and put in sacks. Similar working models will cover all fields of man's activities. The museum will be the only one of its kind in the Americas, and one of the few in the world. It will be housed in the rebuilt Fine Arts Building in Jackson Park, Chicago."

Publication unknown; incomplete news clipping from the archives of the S.P.H.S. 

Barque PAMIR
Suspected to be 1946 when she was sailing
out of Vancouver, BC, under the New Zealand flag.
Original photo postcard from the archives of S. P. H. S.©

Barque PAMIR
Builder: Blohm & Voss, Hamburg
For: F. Laeisz Line

Launched: 29 July 1905
375' x c. 46' x  23.5'

Carried: 40,000 sq. ft of sail

Speed: the top was 16 knots/ regular speed c. 8-9 knots.

One of 10 near-sister ships used by Laeisz Co in the South America nitrate trade.
Fate: caught 21 Sept. 1957 in a mid-Atlantic hurricane.
Captain Johannes Diebitsch
86 aboard/ 6 survived.

Gunter Hasselbach
Kiel, Germany, 25 Sept. 1957
Radio telephoto (UP) from the archives of 
the Saltwater People Historical Society©

The Coast Guard has identified the sixth survivor of the ill-fated German bark Pamir as Gunter Hasselbach. They reported that Hasselbach was the lone survivor of 22 men who abandoned ship in a lifeboat. The other five survivors were en route to Casablanca aboard the American transport ship Geiger. Of the 57 crewmen aboard the Pamir, only the six are known to have survived when the ship was lost in the mid-Atlantic hurricane. 

Many false reports have been published. For further reading from this source, including her ownership and past masters here is a Link

Update 2 February 2015

There is an 8-page in-depth article by Captain L. Gellerman on the colorful, 4-mast barque PAMIR with some of her life spent in the PNW; it can be found in  The Sea Chest, June 1985 published by the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society, Seattle, WA.
There is a chance they may have a back issue of the journal.  
For membership information in that society please see this link.

A quote from that great piece:
" 'Then', writes Mr. MacNeil,  'we witnessed a drama reminiscent of that age, long past when the clippers reigned supreme. As we stood spellbound, PAMIR, came racing toward us. Huge seas boiled over her bow. Her sails, billowed out to the full, were a scene of grandeur––heeled well over in the terrific wind, she swept by majestically at a good 14 knots. SNOHOMISH's flags ran up, spelling 'Bon Voyage,' and her whistle hooted farewell to one of the last great wind ships. Soon she disappeared hull down on the horizon.'"

PASSAT, 
dated 25 July 1960.
Permanent anchor at Luebeck, Germany.
The vessel was purchased by the city
with hopes she could become a museum. 
The PASSAT is a sister ship of the PAMIR. 
The two vessels were caught in the same storm
that sank the PAMIR, but one managed to
escape with severe damage. Since then the
PASSAT has not been in regular use. 
Original silver-gelatin photo from the archives of 
 the Saltwater People Historical Society©

 

This 137 pg book describes the three voyages that the PAMIR made to Vancouver and Vancouver Island, BC, and records the careers of the tugs that towed her to and from the open ocean. Included are many unpublished photographs of the actual voyage tows, and illustrations by the author (a crew member on the tugs at the time) showing the PAMIR under tow and the rendezvous off Cape Flattery.
The Vancouver Voyages of the Barque PAMIR
Author; Richard Wells.
  

❖ ❖ The CAPTAIN with the Handlettered Parchment ❖ ❖

Captain Alan Villiers (23 Sept 1903- 3 March 1982)
In command of the MAYFLOWER II
sailing to Plymouth, MA., 1957.
Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

"Captain Alan Villiers, native of Australia but resident of England for c. 50 years, and oft-times visitor and occasional resident of the US, died in Oxford.
      Alan Villiers was that uncommon mixture of author and seaman, who had the skill and ambition to write contemporary books of the life that he knew in the last years of commercial deep-sea sail. He was born in Australia in Sept 1903, and as the WW years came to an end, young Villiers, not out of his teen years, went off to sea in Tasman Sea barks, then into deep-water square-riggers and occasionally into steamers. His talent for writing led him into journalism, but a career in the newspaper business was soon brought up short when he was lured back to sea in the late 1920s, with the urge to document in film and by writing the last deep sea voyages of Cape Horn square-riggers.
      The success of his numerous books and his affiliation with the National Geographic Magazine in the 1930s brought him world wide recognition as a seafaring author whose books and articles created an intense interest in what had hitherto been a nearly forgotten industry, that of the stubborn but inevitably dying commercial sailing ship. During WW II he served in the British Navy and retired with the rank of Commander. In the nearly 35 years that followed WW II, Captain Villiers continued his seafaring career but in a field of endeavor that was peculiarly suited to his style and experience.

Commander Alan Villiers, Master of MAYFLOWER II,
held a reception in London for members of his crew. 
Commander Villiers (R), lst Mate, Godfrey Wicksteed, in costume, 
viewing the personal accident policy for the voyage, 
which is handwritten on parchment and sealed in 17th c. fashion.
Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

He commanded the 1957 vintage replica MAYFLOWER on a trans-Atlantic voyage, and served a master and advisor (and occasionally as a small bit player) in moving pictures, when authentic ships were available for real deep-sea and off-shore filming.
      Capt. Villiers made a least three trips to Seattle as a lecturer under the sponsorship of World Cavalcade, and was awarded an Honorary Membership in the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society.
      His ambition, before the beginning of World War II, was to sail in every type of sailing craft still in service world wide. Beginning this determined and rigid schedule in 1938, he spent nearly a year sailing with Arabs in their dhows in the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and along the African Coast. It was his intent, as he once told this reviewer, to sail in the Indian Ocean rice barks still plodding between Burma and the Maldives and Indian Ocean islands, then work his way around to sail in the East Indian, Chinese and Japanese junks and sailing sampans that were numerous and continually engaged in commercial voyages in the Far East. World War II ended this scheme, though his ventures in the Portuguese bankers and replicas provided him with ample writing opportunities and experiences in the post-war years.
      In his latter, shore-bound years he continued a prodigious program of research and biographical writing, focusing his attention on outstanding historical seamen such as Capt. James Cook and Joseph Conrad. The last unpublished biography of Conrad may have been a fitting sort of monument to Capt. Villiers, himself a seaman-author as was Conrad.

20 pg booklet on the 75th anniversary of the
JOSEPH CONRAD (ex-GEORGE STAGE).
Silhouette from woodcut made for Villiers
by Ulmica Hyde for the Bruce Rogers Prospectus
of the original circumnavigation of the
JOSEPH CONRAD.
Printed at Mystic Seaport.
1957
From the library of the S.P.H.S.

Villiers' special devotion to the life of Conrad was epitomized by his act, in 1934 of renaming the small Danish full-rigged ship GEORG STAGE (after the famous Polish author), when he bought the aging training ship from the Danes and named her JOSEPH CONRAD. Today the ship lies at permanent moorings at Mystic Seaport, Mystic, CT., a monument to the seaman author for whom she was renamed, and for twentieth c. seaman-author, Capt. Alan Villiers who saved her from oblivion.
      Capt. Villiers wrote at least thirty books and probably more, to say nothing of un-numbered articles for the National Geographic Magazine and many historical and maritime publications. He was a strong, firm and vocal advocate for the values of sail-training, and his voice was heard world wide. He was a friend of royalty, the great and near-great, and the fo'c'sle hands and un-named Atlantic fishermen, Arab dhow sailors and land-bound aficionados who read his books.
      Alan Villiers thoroughly documented the dying age of sail and preserved forever his insight and knowledge of all classes of seamen. A half-century of his contributions to the literature and history of the sea and the ships he knew is his memorial."
Above text written by Capt. Harold D. Huycke; for The Sea Chest, September 1982. Quarterly journal published by the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society, Seattle, WA. 
To receive the journals as a benefit of member support of the PSMHS, see this link

❖ ENGLISH CAMP ❖ ❖ 1946

Mary Crook Davis, 1946
English Camp, San Juan Island, WA.
Original photo from the archives of the S. P. H. S.©

"This day's story is a guided tour with Mrs. Davis, whose Englishman-father William Crook, homesteaded this land while it was still warm from the tread of soldiers marching up and down 12 years from 1860 to 1872. Mrs. Davis was a very small girl then, but she has lived here all her life; she knows the story by heart.
      First, you come down a long private road, through woods and pasture, into the yard where the house is. You knock on the door, pay your 10 cents that Mrs. Davis reluctantly accepts, and then this strong, well-preserved pioneer woman takes you into her front room to see pictures and a few relics she keeps there. You ask about Jim Crook, the brother you have heard so much about––how he makes his own clothes from the sheep's back to his own.

Jim Crook,
San Juan Island, WA.
Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

      "Oh, you won't see Jim today, he's out with the wheat. He's busy––yes, he did spin some wool once, and weave himself a suit of clothes. The old loom is still here and the clothes, too, if you want to see them; he's had a lot of notions. His latest is a sawmill and an electric plant run by a windmill..." Mrs. Davis says.
      Now, you go out into the grounds along a road made by the soldiers in the 60s. The trees are planted along the sides in even rows as the English always do things, native firs transplanted in two long rows.
      Ivy grows thick up the trees and all around, Mrs. Davis says. It was brought from England by Mrs. Delacombe, the second officer's wife, who was very homesick here.
      The winding switch-back trail down the hill from here soon arrives at the old blockhouse on the  beach. This building is in better repair than it was when I saw it 15 years ago. Mr. Crook has shingled and mended and whitewashed it afresh. The old frayed shingles from the days of the occupation are neatly piled in heap for souvenir hunters.
      There is a sturdy new stair-ladder up to the second story where the gun holes ring the low wall. If you peep through one of the holes you see Garrison Bay, Henry Island, Vancouver Island across Haro Strait and nearby green points hemmed in blue.
      The blockhouse sits right down on the beach. High tide laps it. Low tide leaves it at the edge of a wide mud flat––the same mud that prevented our coming here by water today and that prevents our going on to Mitchell Bay and Yacht Haven. If anyone but the Crooks owned this place, the blockhouse might itself be part of this mud by now.
      From the blockhouse, you cross the parade ground that is now an orchard. The old barracks building still stands over at the edge where orchard meets woods.
      When you are ready to go, your guide comes with you part of the way back up the hill to the public road again, explaining as you walk together between the Queen Anne's lace, how to get to the little English cemetery where 10 boys are buried. You cross the road and go over a stile and up a hill, or you go through the cows' underpass below the road. Beyond, you follow an indefinite almost-road for a quarter of a mile up the hill to a grove of trees on a knoll of its own overlooking Canada's waters around Vancouver Island.
      The 10 graves are enclosed with a green picket fence. You climb another stile over it to read the inscriptions. Some of them were apparently composed and ordered by the boys themselves, the spelling all their own.
      "In memory of JOs Ellis and THOs Kiddy, Private R.M.LI. who whare accidently Drowned JANy 4th 1863. This Tabblet is Erected by their Comrads...In the midst of life, we are in death..."
      Back at Roche Harbor, tired and dusty from six miles of walking that morning, we said goodbye to the pretty village and rowed away. The flood was running now. It would take us as far as Limestone Point on Orcas. We'd put up our oars, ride that tide, and have a cold lunch in the boat as we slid along.
See you tomorrow. June."
Day 73 of 100 Days in the San Juans, Burn, June. First published by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 1946.
The June Burn book in reference library of the Saltwater People Historical Society, SJC.