Nav Problem - Ocean Navigator

Albatros, the adventure continues

In the last issue we began telling the story of the great sailor, aviator, writer, Ernest K. Gann, who converted the steel schooner Albatros (Dutch spelling with one s) into a brigantine sailing the South Pacific on and off for three years in the early 1950s. He was writing successful novels and movie scripts that were made into blockbuster Hollywood films. Of his sailing adventures, of which there were many, he wrote a book titled Song of the Sirens, an overlooked classic. Similar to the writings of Bernard Motissier, Gann is a master of the lyrical and poetic when writing…

Ernest K. Gann and Albatros

Of all the working pilot schooners built for service in the North Sea, perhaps the most famous is Albatros (the Dutch spelling has only one s). The American writer and aviator Ernest K. Gann bought Albatros in 1952. Built in Amsterdam in 1920 of riveted steel, the 117-foot LOA Albatros worked as a pilot schooner in the North Sea. Albatros was bought by the German government in 1937 and used by the Nazis during WWII as a U-boat relay station. After the war, Royal Rotterdam Lloyd, a Dutch shipping line, bought Albatros for a cadet training ship for future officers…

Schooner Coronet around the world

In the 1880s Rufus T. Bush was at the top of his game. Standard Oil had purchased his oil refining business and Bush now had a great deal of money and was retired. He had previously owned a steam yacht but now he wanted a schooner. One of the very best wooden boat builders in New York City was the C & R Poillon shipyard, located in Brooklyn at the end of Bridge Street, close to where the Manhattan Bridge is today. Brothers Cornelius and Richard Poillon were renowned for building fast and able Sandy Hook pilot boats and well-appointed…

Samuel “Bully” Samuels

For the past two nav problems, we have written about the 19th-century American master mariner, Captain “Bully” Samuels. When we last left Captain Samuels, he had just won the very first transatlantic race in 1866 aboard the schooner Henrietta. Captain Samuels was next aboard the schooner Dauntless. Four years after his transatlantic victory, Dauntless, with Samuels in command, raced across the Atlantic Ocean, from east to west against the English schooner Cambria. The race began off Ireland on July 4, 1870. Cambria was owned by Sir John Asbury. Built by Michael Ratsey, Cambria, at 188 tons, was a powerful schooner,…

Nav problem – March/April 2023 Answer

Answer: A. LAN is 16:36:40 GMT. B. Ho 26° 59.9’. C. Latitude N 39° 46’.

The Great Ocean Race of 1866

he origins of transoceanic yacht racing trace back to a cold October night in 1866 at the Union Club in New York City. On that night, Pierre Lorillard, George Osgood, and James Gordon Bennett — scions of different fortunes, Lorillard of tobacco, Osgood of finance, and Bennett of the New York Herald — were drinking and bragging about their respective schooner-rigged yachts. They had all raced against each other, short distances locally, and as the evening wore on they decided they should test the mettle of their ships by racing from Sandy Hook, New Jersey, to The Needles at the…

Speedy clipper Dreadnought

Dreadnought, was one of the most famous of all the clipper ships, built in 1853 in the shipyard of Currier and Townsend in Newburyport, Mass. Measuring 212 feet LOA with a 41-foot beam rigged as a barque, Dreadnought was built for the Red Cross Line of New York, one of the many packet companies that revolutionized passages across the Atlantic, usually from New York to Liverpool. Packets began as a business as early as 1817, carrying mail, goods and passengers, running on the first regular schedules. Dreadnought could carry as many as 200 passengers both in steerage and in cabins.…

Tornado: struck by a whirlwind

Given the history of superstition surrounding ships and the sea, one wonders why anyone in their right mind would name their ship Tornado. And yet, a magnificent clipper ship was launched in 1852 bearing that name. The fact that the ship was struck by what was described as a “whirlwind,” at two in the morning, far from land and available assistance, makes the story even more mysterious. Such was the case of the clipper Tornado, master Oliver R. Mumford, out from San Francisco and bound for New York via Cape Horn in August of 1852. Tornado was a clipper ship…

Clipper ship Sea Witch

Although it wasn’t the first clipper ship to be designed and built in New York, Sea Witch is one of the ships that marks the advent of the great clipper ship era in America. During a relatively short period of time, from the mid 1840s to perhaps a decade later, the rise of naval design, as evidenced in the design of clipper ships, transformed American shipping, propelling American ship design into world preeminence. All of this primarily occurred in just two places: Boston and New York. In Boston Donald McCay was making a name for himself with ships like Stag…

The Great Tea Race

From 1700 to 1834, the British East India Company held a monopoly in the colonization of Asia, competing only with the Dutch East India Company. It was founded in 1600 to trade in the Indian Ocean region, India, Southeast Asia, and China. The East India Company controlled basic commodities: silk, cotton, India dye, sugar, salt, tea, and opium. The tea monopoly was nullified by the king in 1834, opening up the China tea market. It was obvious that the faster ships could arrive in London from China, the higher the price of tea. This realization, along with the development of…