Three boats
I've always been a bit interested in maritime things, the oceans, the seas, the Great Lakes and the ships that sail on them. My younger brother was in the Navy and I remember envying him his travels and the far-away places he'd visited during his tour. I remember being in the U.S. Air Force and being stationed in the Panama Canal Zone back in the late 60's and how I spent many hours of my non-duty time sitting in the observation area of the Miraflores locks of the Panama Canal watching the ships lock through, some heading inland on their way to the Caribbean Sea and ports bordering the Atlantic Ocean, and the others, having just finished their transit of the “Big Ditch”, were on their way out to the Pacific and to other places with names that sounded so deliciously foreign. The big boats have always fascinated me with their foreign-sounding names, their massiveness and their appearance of having been to many intriguing ports of call all around the world. Exotic and fascinating places in countries I'd only visited in books or in flights of my imagination.
So the activities of this past weekend played right into those long-held interests.
My son had some vacation days coming up and wanted to spend them with his mom and dad doing something “interesting”. He asked if I would look around and give him some ideas of some places we could visit not too far from home, as these would be day trips and we would return home each evening. I made a list up and presented it to him and he made some selections. I was pleased to see that his choices were close to what I would have picked myself. What was a little odd about them, though, was that we were going to see three ships over the weekend and they were all, in their own way, representatives of their eras.
On Saturday we traveled to Columbus, Ohio and, after walking around the zoo for some hours, we toured the replica of Christopher Columbus's ship the Santa Maria. It's moored in the Scioto River in downtown Columbus and was presented to its namesake city on the 500th anniversary of Columbus's trip in 1492. It's an exact replica of the first one and was created using the original blueprints which were obtained from Spain by the shipbuilder. The ship is 98 feet long and 89 feet from the keel to the top of the main mast. The first Santa Maria was originally just a cargo ship and was slow and not very stable. Not really the kind of boat you'd pick for a historic ocean voyage. I found many things interesting about it when we visited. For instance, it had no ship's wheel, like you might see in a movie about pirates. It was made before ship's wheels were invented and was steered by a large tiller which controlled the rudder. During the 1492 trip, Columbus kept two journals on his voyage across the Atlantic, the real one and the one he presented to his crew. They were assured before signing on that the trip across the ocean would only take a week or two and wasn't that many miles long. He was afraid that if he told them the truth they'd become frightened at how far from home they really were and might actually consider mutiny. As you walked the decks of the reproduction ship you realized how small and primitive it actually was and marveled at the audacity of the sailors. Those men crossed an entire ocean in this crude, tiny vessel. It amazed me as to the bravery (or foolhardiness) of the sailors to have crossed that much water in such a small, primitive craft. Or maybe it was just the steadfastness (or again, foolhardiness) of Columbus that allowed them to make this historic journey.
I was impressed.
On Sunday we drove to Cleveland and visited our second ship for the weekend, a WWII submarine, the U.S.S. Cod. This boat (subs are boats, all other boats are ships) is 312 feet long and 1,525 tons in weight. She was launched in March of 1943 and commissioned in June of that year. She is credited in sinking more than 12 enemy vessels totaling more than 37,000 tons and is the only U.S. submarine to perform an international sub to sub rescue mission in history. Cod returned to her Perth, Australia base on August 13, 1945 and was met at the dock by members of the Dutch submarine she had rescued the month before who invited them to a “thank you” party. During that party they learned of the end of the war.
Today, the Cod is one of the finest restored submarines on display and is the only U.S. sub that has not had stairways and doors cut into her pressure hull for public access. Visitors use the same vertical ladders and hatches that were used by her crew when she made her war patrols.
My wife and son and I walked aboard the Cod late that morning and walked down her deck to the entrance hatch in the bow area of the boat. To enter, you have to climb down a ladder about 15 feet long through a tight hatch, kind of like being born through a steel birth canal only backward – you're going in, not out! My son and I made it, but my wife decided that she would enjoy the air on the deck much more than squeezing through that hatch and down a ladder. So my son and I toured below decks and were amazed by the cleanliness of the interior and how much work had gone into making the boat look as close to the way it was back during the war. The people who took care of this proud ship had outdone themselves in the restoring efforts and the day-to-day cleaning and polishing that it so obviously entailed. We saw the torpedo rooms, sleeping quarters, mess, engines, batteries and control room. It was quite impressive. She looked like she was only waiting for the captain to say “full steam ahead” for it to start moving out into the lake and commencing to dive. The exit, in the stern, was, of course, another ladder/hatch you had to ascend and, even though I'm not very claustrophobic, I was glad to ascend back into the open air. We learned that on later cruises in the war this boat had a crew of 97! That's not a typo – 97 sailors and officers. I was dumbfounded! It seemed crowded with a dozen or so visitors. How they did their jobs with that many men aboard is unbelievable! My hat is definitely off to the men who sailed on her.
Our second ship for the day and the third for the weekend was the Steamship William G. Mather, a retired Great Lakes bulk freighter. This ship was also docked on the Cleveland Lake Erie waterfront and is now a museum. She was built in 1925 as the flagship of the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company. She was active in the Cliffs fleet until the end of the 1980 navigation season. She's a straight deck bulk carrier with a 14,000 ton capacity, is 618 feet long, 62 feet wide and 32 feet deep. The Mather was one of the first commercial ships to be equipped with radar in 1946 and in 1964 she was the first American vessel to have an automated boiler system. She was donated to the Great Lakes Historical Society in 1987 to be restored and preserved as a museum ship.
What was immediately apparent when we boarded this ship was its size. Compared to the two ships we were on earlier, this guy was big! Not as big as the 1,000 foot monsters that chug across the Great Lakes nowadays, but plenty big for landlubbers like us. The self-guided tour took us all through the ship including the galley, sleeping quarters for crew, officers and guests, bridge, engines and holds. Since this was the flagship for the line, the guest quarters were quite nice, with marble fireplaces and all the luxuries expected in a steamship of that time period. I had a long conversation with a gentleman on the staff of the ship on the bridge about Great Lakes steamships in general and the Mather in particular. He told me a number of fascinating stories about them. In one he talked about how a career on steamships was actually a good choice for a young man. Everyone started at the bottom and worked their way up – there was no favoritism or nepotism – you had to work the positions and learn them before being promoted. There were extremely comprehensive examinations for each rank up so there was no question about a seaman's qualifications for their present position. He said some of the exams were 8 hours long and held for 2 days. He talked about how the big ships would flex and “work” during storms, how some of the below decks passages on the big 1,000 footers would look like the inside of a snake when you 'd look down them in a storm. He told a story about how teenagers in some of the ship's home ports liked to work as deckhands during their summer vacations and how one year, during a depression, the ships weren't hiring summer help. One of the teens “pulled some strings” and got hired anyway. The other teens were furious at his finagling. On his first voyage he got tangled up in some ropes and fell into one of the empty holds 35 feet down and killed himself. The teens that were so jealous of the other guy's luck suddenly were thankful that they didn't get the deckhand job that year. He also talked about some of the idiosyncrasies of the captains of this particular ship – how some made models of ships, some had other hobbies and how one of them, nick-named “screwdriver”, would prowl the ship with a screwdriver in hand, tightening every screw he would see. (There's a lot of screws on the Mather!) He mentioned the comparison of the Cod with the Mather – the Cod had almost 100 crewmen for a number of their cruises where the Mather never had more than 35 at any one time. I found that quite interesting also.
We finished our “maritime” weekend with a nice meal at a Mexican restaurant on our way home and some conversation about the similarities and differences in the three ships we'd toured that weekend. And I thought about the urge, over the centuries, of men to go “down to the sea in ships”. What was it that made men leave the security and stability of dry land to go on board vessels and make their living on the great waters of this planet? For some it was simply what was done – their family had done it for uncounted generations, so they did it also. For others it was the quest for reward, whether it was for treasure and booty back in the early years of wooden ships and iron men or just a rewarding career and a good paycheck in more recent days. But whatever the rationalization might be, there is definitely an urge among many men to measure their strength and mettle against the sea, to prove themselves on the oceans of the world.
The call of the sea is there in most men who've gazed upon the big waters.
Some days I wish I'd answered when I heard that call.
But then, when that urge strikes, I usually just roll over, pull the blankets a bit tighter around me, and go back to sleep.
