Yesterday I made my monthly trip to Beaufort for our ship model club's meeting. As usual, I stopped by the little nautically-oriented bookstore down the street, where I found a couple of new books that I hadn't seen advertised. Both are relevant to topics we've been discussing here in the Forum.
The first is A Race for Real Sailors: The Bluenose and the International Fisherman's Cup, 1920-1938, by Kieth McLaren (Boston: David R. Godine, 2006). This is a beautifully-illustrated, handsomely produced account of the races between the great U.S. and Canadian fishing schooners. It contains more than fifty contemporary photos, including some spectacular action shots and quite a few deck and rigging views. Anybody contemplating a Bluenose, Elsie, or Gertrude L. Thebaud model would find this work extremely useful. The author is a sailor himself, with two cruises on board the Bluenose II under his belt.
The second book is The Cruise of the Sea Eagle: The Amazing True Story of Imperial Germany's Gentleman Pirate, by Blaine Pardoe (Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2005). It's a biography of Count Felix von Luckner, the captain of the German commerce raider Seeadler during World War I. The jacket blurb doesn't say much about the author's credentials, but a quick look at the text establishes that he spent an enormous amount of time digging through archival sources.
One interesting detail of the story is described on p. 252. In 1959 the count, then 78 , was invited to appear on the American TV show "This Is Your Life." The guests included Lowell Thomas, who had written a book about the Seeadler's adventures, and several of the ship's former captives. "At the end of the show, Ralph Edwards [the host] announced that the Revell model company was going to make a model kit of the Seeadler. A percentage of the profits from the kit would be donated in the count's name to the Boy Scouts of America, one of his favorite charities. Once more, the count would be inspiring young men to think of boldness and daring - and perhaps remember the days when a single man could run away and become the captain of a grand sailing vessel."
I remember buying the kit when I was in grade school, and being impressed by the count's message "to the youth of America" on the instruction sheet. The kit was, as we've noted several times, a modified reissue of Revell's U.S.C.G.C. Eagle. I do wonder whether the count knew what the contents of the kit boxes actually looked like.
The book contains quite a few photos, many of which I hadn't seen before. There are several views of the Seeadler. They're small and (not surprisingly) rather murky, but they make it clear that she didn't look much like the Eagle - or the Revell kit.
One point puzzles me. In some of the photos she has single topgallants, and in others double topgallants. In one shot she seems to have double topgallants on her mainmast, and single ones on the fore and mizzen. Also in the book are a couple of drawings of the ship made, on the basis of interviews with repatriated prisoners, by the U.S. and French navies. Both of them show her with double topgallants. I wonder if they were changed from single to double when she was converted from merchantman (with the original name Pass of Balmaha) to raider. Or is it just conceivable that she was equipped to get rerigged in a hurry at sea, as a means of changing her silhouette.
I haven't seen the Revell kit in many years, and I don't have a photo of it. The boxtop painting reproduced in Dr. Graham's history of the company shows her with double topgallants. Revell may well have added the additional yards. (The Eagle has single topgallants.) Quite a few pieces had to be added to the Eagle kit to change it from a bark to a full-rigged ship. Unfortunately the hull and deck components remained unchanged - including the row of portholes that provide ventilation to the cadets' quarters.
It's a shame there's no genuine scale model Seeadler kit. She was an attractive, fascinating vessel - and Count von Luckner appears to have been one of the last of the true gentleman naval warriors.