Thu 10 Nov 2011
Recently Read: Fly Rails and Flying Jibs
Posted by Nathan Lipfert, Senior Curator under Publications
[2] Comments
This great picture book is a Mystic Seaport publication from this summer (2011), subtitled Coasting Schooner Photographs by Robert H. I. Goddard. Bob Goddard was an extremely tall gentleman who frequently attended this Museum’s annual Maritime History Symposium. It turns out he took sailing vessel photographs for all of his long life, and this book contains 180 of his pictures of coasting schooners from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.
The authors are given as two of Bob’s children, Thomas P.I. Goddard and Caroline Hazard Goddard, who wrote the foreword and the introduction, describing their father’s early life and the opportunities he had to take these pictures. They also talked about their own painstaking work digitizing their father’s original negatives and reproducing them for publication.
The photographs are wonderful, showing the daily lives of these working schooners, carrying lumber and granite and coal up and down the coast. They are accompanied by lengthy interpretive captions by Captains Douglas K. and Linda J. Lee. These wonderful pieces of text bring the images to life for folks who are not sure what they are looking at, and enhance the reading experience of even experienced mariners. Doug and Linda are the builders-owners-operators of the big windjammer schooner Heritage sailing out of Rockland, Maine, and their personal experience on the water is obvious in reading their text. They have also been studying the history of coasting schooners for a lifetime, so these are not the first old pictures they have cast an eye at. The result is a book which will advance our understanding of the early 20th century coasting trade in a way that few books have. I heartily recommend it.
Nathan R. Lipfert, Senior Curator 11/10/2011
super book , my father owned the lucy evelyn , last owner . i worked on the ship for years . and have many photos and movies of her , movies of beaching her ,tales etc. i would like to contact mr goddard and ask some guestions about the ship .. i am building a 7 foot scale model of her and would like to get it as corect as possible .. will be glad to share any info with you .. i am a marine artest and acomplished wood worker . retired 50 yr. private licenced capt thank you for your time nat
Well, that is very interesting. The Lucy Evelyn was built in 1917 in Harrington, Maine, and became the last active three-mast schooner in commercial service, carrying cargoes into 1948. Later, of course, the Victory Chimes ex Edwin & Maud, an older schooner, began operations as a cruise vessel, what we here in Maine call the windjammer fleet. Carrying passengers in the summer is a very different kind of commercial service. According to Giles M. S. Tod’s book The Last Sail Down East (1965), N. T. Ewer of Beach Haven, NJ bought the Lucy Evelyn in June 1948 for $1550, and turned her into a store on the beach there. I have seen brochures for her there, so I know a lot of interested people visited her in later years there in New Jersey. I am sure Mr. Goddard would have been interested to talk with you about her. Unfortunately, he has been dead some years now. That is why Captains Douglas K. and Linda J. Lee had to write the extensive captions in the book. They are now the greatest living experts on East Coast schooners, and you might want to contact them through the website for their schooner Heritage. You can ask questions of me at lipfert@maritimeme.org. Or you can contact Mystic Seaport, who published the book, and I believe now hold Mr. Goddard’s pictures. Nathan Lipfert