Historic Ships and the People that Work on Them

The recent sinking of the Victory Chimes in New York City was a loss that got me thinking about all the fine historic vessels that I’ve seen deteriorate into oblivion. I’ve written about going out to see the Western Union in Key West, but there’s many others: the General Stone in Florida, the Quinnipiac in Maine, …etc. A friend and I had helped with the Quinnipiac’s crew up rig one year when she was in New London, CT. Now she’s gone too, having slipped her mooring and broken up on Maine’s rocky coast in a storm.

The Victory Chimes was the last of the so-called “Ram” schooners of the Chesapeake Bay. My wife and I sailed on her as passengers when she was in Maine, but she apparently fell on hard times and was sold at auction to a NYC firm. She operated as a restaurant in Brooklyn, but sank this year tied to her dock in the Henry Street Basin. A friend commented on social media that blaming the current owners was pointless, that years of neglect by people and organizations who had once loved her had led to this outcome. I think that’s true of many historic boats, which are perpetually in some state of disrepair.

My experience with historic ships started on the schooner Pioneer at the South Street Seaport Museum in NYC. I found my tribe with that group of volunteers, and I think that volunteer program serves as my bell weather for how they operate. One thing I learned is that there’s a lifecycle to any program; the core group (and there’s always a core group) eventually moves on. The Pioneer’s program endures because of organization by the Museum, but also because there’s a larger group of volunteers that love the boat but aren’t going to spend every waking moment on her. That’s the trick to success, developing a large pool of motivated volunteers, with a core group that knows how to do everything. The more experienced one teaches and draws from the other.

On my current boat / love affair, I’ve watched the program go through many iterations. I started volunteering on the Claud W. Somers more than ten years ago. The ship is owned by the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum and is one of only a few Chesapeake Bay skipjacks still sailing on the Bay. A fully volunteer crew, the program though is necessarily dependent on the captain, who is a volunteer themselves. This is both a blessing and curse, because the program is dependent on the knowledge and activity of the individual.

When the previous captain retired from the boat, a few of us decided to try again, Captain Steve Heare and I “leading” the effort. Trying to take a page from the Pioneer’s volunteer playbook, the captains are a part of the crew, leader’s to be sure but working members among the volunteers. Our goal is to build a volunteer base that can survive the loss of one of the “core” group, or even Steve and I.

Will it work? Who knows, but the Claud W. Somers was built in 1911 and is still around. She’s been owned by the Museum since 2000 and this is third crew iteration, I think there will be another to keep the old girl afloat.