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Home from the Sea An tour of America's most storied battleships. 
By Judy P. Sopronyi
In historic Boston Harbor, the grand dame of them all is the frigate U.S.S. Constitution, better known as "Old Ironsides." Commissioned by President George Washington, she was launched in 1797. Still a U.S. Navy ship, she's the oldest commissioned warship in the world still afloat. In Charlestown Navy Yard across the harbor from Boston, Navy sailors in 1812 uniforms man her decks. Once a year, on July 4th, she glides out into the harbor and fires a 21-gun salute, then turns around and goes back, like royalty putting in an appearance. More than a celebration, this turnaround puts her in her berth heading a different direction so her aged hull and rigging wear evenly.
Docked at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut, the Charles W. Morgan is the sole wooden whaler afloat in the world and the last survivor of a U.S. fleet numbering 736 in 1846. She was launched in 1840 in Bedford, Massachusetts, when that city was the greatest whaling port in the world. Typical of her kind, the Morgan can carry along her rail five six-man whaleboats, once sent out to catch the mighty mammals. On her starboard (right) side is a cutting stage—a platform suspended near a removable section of bulwark and rail where a crew stood to cut huge slabs of blubber from a whale lashed to the side of the ship. The blubber was rendered into oil in an onboard furnace called a tryworks. The ship also functioned as an oil tanker, carrying thousands of gallons of whale oil rendered during the months or years of a whaling voyage. For information, call (888) 973-2767. The days of the lightship are gone, done away with by automated beacons to warn of hazards, but the Lightship Chesapeake at the Baltimore Maritime Museum survives to tell the tale. From 1933 to 1971, she guided ships on the Chesapeake Bay and then the Delaware Bay, with a break in 1942-45 when she was armed and drafted for harbor patrol duty near the entrance to the Cape Cod Canal in Massachusetts. As a lightship, her crew of 16 was charged with providing weather information and helping with rescues as well as warning of navigation hazards. Crewing on a lightship—two weeks on, two weeks off—was routine and often boring but sometimes dangerous, as when a 1962 hurricane hit the Chesapeake with a 20-foot wave that damaged her fittings and steel pilot house, swept her lifeboats away and tore her from her anchor. The ship limped back to her base in Norfolk, Virginia, and was back on duty in 24 hours. Also at the Baltimore Maritime Museum is the Coast Guard Cutter Taney, the only survivor still afloat of the 101 warships attacked at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Tied up at Pier 6 in Honolulu, the Taney was ready to fire just four minutes into the Japanese attack that brought the U.S. into World War II. For information on the Chesapeake or the Taney, call (410) 396-3453. Survivor of the Spanish-American War of 1898, the U.S.S. Olympia was one of the nation's first steel warships, launched in 1892. In 1921 the Olympia closed her military career with a trip to France to bring the body of the Unknown Soldier home to Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. Now the Olympia is at Philadelphia's Independence Seaport Museum, (215) 925-5439. On the West Coast, the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park has a whole fleet of history at Hyde Street Pier. Their flagship is the Balclutha, a three-masted riveted-steel ship built in Scotland in 1886. In the days of sail she carried California grain around Cape Horn to Great Britain and Pacific Coast lumber to Australia and worked Alaska's salmon-fishing grounds. Sister ships are the Alma, an 1891 scow schooner designed to move the kinds of goods now carried by truck; the Eureka, an 1890 steam-driven paddle wheel ferryboat working in San Francisco as late as 1957; the C.A. Thayer, an 1895 three-masted schooner that carried lumber from the Pacific Northwest; the 1907 steam tugboat Hercules, designed for ocean operation and still steaming around San Francisco Bay now and then; and the 1914 steam paddle tug Eppleton Hall. Call (415) 556-3002. Down the West Coast, San Diego has a flotilla of three at their maritime museum, led by the Star of India. A merchant ship launched in 1863 and one of the earliest to have an iron hull, she's the oldest iron sailing ship in existence. The Berkeley, an 1898 ferryboat, rescued San Franciscans from their burning city in 1906. Rounding out the group is the Medea, a 1904 steam yacht built for a wealthy Scotsman. It yo-yoed from leisure to military use as World Wars I and II came and went. Call (619) 234-9153. On the Gulf Coast at the Galveston Historical Foundation's Texas Seaport Museum, you can see the Elissa, an 1877 iron barque. Constructed in Scotland, she sailed under British, Finish, Swedish and Greek flags, over the years refitted and updated until she looked like just another cargo ship. Ugly and unkempt, she was used for smuggling cigarettes between Italy and Yugoslavia in 1966, then was nearly scrapped. San Francisco Maritime Museum founder Karl Kortum and marine archaeologist Peter Throckmorton bought her at the eleventh hour and after five years found a place to take her in; Galveston, seeking a sailing ship to commemorate the city's maritime history, mounted an enormous campaign to bring back and restore the Elissa—and succeeded admirably. Under glorious full sail, the Elissa goes out for sea trials once a year. Call (409) 765-7834 for information.
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Copyright © 2001: Primedia Enthusiast Publications, Inc. and Away.com. All Rights Reserved Photo: Tom Huntington Image: Photo: Tom Huntington | |
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