Behind the Scenes
at Plimoth Plantation

Current articles in this section:

1. Firing Up the Kiln

2. Ordinarie Technology

3. Notes on a Shallop

4. Archaeology at Plimoth Plantation: Key to the Past

5. Maritime Programs at Plimoth Plantation

6. Recreating the Material Culture of Mayflower II

7. Documenting Mayflower II

8. Hands Across the Bay: A 1957 Crewmember Sails Again

9. A New Furnace for Mayflower II

10. The Story and Crew of 1957's Mayflower II

11. Why P-l-i-m-o-t-h?

Hands Across the Bay

by David Thorpe, Mayflower II 1957 crewmember

Twenty-six miles across the bay from Plymouth, Massachusetts bound for Cape Cod’s Provincetown. Not much of a voyage, you might say, especially for a square-rigger. But when on Saturday July 29, 2000, Mayflower II unfurled her flaxen canvas to celebrate the 380th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ landing, there was much more in the air than a light southeasterly.

Mayflower II was built at Upham’s yard (now a sea-front housing development) at Brixham, England in 1955-57. Father and son Upham oversaw Devon craftsmen shaping Devon oak by adze to make frames. Her flaxen sails were hand-sewn by Bridge of Brixham. The Gourock Rope Company, employing techniques unused for 150 years supplied her cordage of lightly tarred Italian hemp. Unlike most replicas, she had no engine.

Not only was Mayflower II reliant upon her sails, she was of a very different design and her ways at sea were unknown. Would her sheets and braces effectively control the sails? How much would the hemp shrouds stretch and how could they be set up at sea? Would they support the spars or would the ship lose her topmasts in the first stiff breeze? Would the gammoned bowsprit, lacking any bobstay, stand?

Mayflower II had to be sailed by a crew competent in square-rig, and thus it was that Captain Alan Villiers, maritime photographer, writer and sailor of the square-riggers, took command of the vessel. Villiers had had a distinguished career in sail including numerous grain ships, and other replicas such as the Joseph Conrad.

Villiers chose Captain Godfrey Wicksteed as his first mate on board Mayflower II. Wicksteed was believed to have been the last man to hold a Board of Trade extra master’s ticket in sail. Second Mate was Captain Adrian Small who had commanded the replicas Nonsuch, Golden Hind and Bounty. He held a first mate’s ticket with square-rig endorsement. Danish ice pilot Captain Jan Junker went as third mate.

Why did the quarterdeck of little Mayflower II fill with such a bevy of Captains in their own right? Because no such Elizabethan ship had been built and sailed during the previous 250 years or so and the challenge was irresistible. If any crew could make Mayflower II work, it was this one.

The ship’s complement was 33 including Warwick Charlton, photographers and a Life Magazine writer. The working crew numbered 24.

Life on board Mayflower II was spartan. There was no refrigeration, and no running water, cold or otherwise; only the showers that deluged the ship from time to time in the doldrums. The ship’s heads? A gap in the slatted floor under the bowsprit at the beakhead. Mayflower II had few concessions to technology, such as the ship’s radio.

As she slid stern first from her Plymouth wharf berth, powered by a heave on her aft spring by the Jaguar, a party mood was in the air. This was a Plimoth Plantation day out, as well as a “hands across Cape Cod Bay” gesture to acknowledge the fact that Provincetown was the first landing place for the Pilgrims. So Executive Director Nancy Brennan was aboard, as were Marietta Mullen (for whom this voyage was the culmination of a ten-year dream), as many Plantation workers and supporters as could be carried, plus a group of disadvantaged youngsters from Boston. Last, but not least, came 12 crew members from the 1957 voyage.

Mayflower II’s voyage was redolent both of 1620 and of 1957. This was a sailing, too, of a vessel that is a square-rigged ship in her own right. For Mayflower II still lacks an engine, GPS, echo sounder or navigational aids and is without her 1957 radio. Below, she still boasts no conveniences such as water, other than what is there to sweeten the bilges. For this voyage, she was equipped with Elsans in canvas clad “comfort stations.” Well they did comfort one passenger: following a visit below, he announced he had previously thought he had lost his sense of smell.

Mayflower II is a vessel still happily ignoring modern materials, comforts or safety equipment apart from the safety harnesses worn aloft by her crew. Perhaps with this in mind, the US Coast Guard permits her to sail only under the command of a master with a ticket in sail. Peter Arenstam is currently Mayflower II’s captain-elect but Captain Eric Speth from Jamestown took command for the voyage. Speth holds his ticket as a result of sailing the three Jamestown replica ships. Speth’s calm manner suited the occasion to perfection and he knew his business.

As mates, Arenstam was on the half deck, John Brewster took the mainmast, John Reed the foremast and Dave Wheelock (“I knew it would be just my luck”) the sprit. It has to be said that “brace the spritsail for a sharp port tack” did sound unconventionally informative to ears unaccustomed to being privy to what the Captain might intend. Captain Small, senior surviving officer of Mayflower II would have confined himself to a terse “lee fore braces” and “belay.” And one of the mates was even heard using the word “please” a rare occurrence on any square-rigged ship.

Captain Speth permitted all and sundry upon his quarterdeck and conversed most convivially. This reminded Fred Edwards, appointed fourth mate of Mayflower II during the voyage, that no one spoke to Captain Villiers in 1957 unless first addressed and that no one ascended to the quarterdeck unless instructed - and then only to leeward. But Villiers was a veteran of the last struggle for survival of the steel grain ships, when a vocation in sail was highly dangerous.

Speth, by contrast, stems from the subsequent nostalgia for square-rigged ships – a nostalgia for which Villiers’ books and photography may take much credit. Speth, too, is steeped in the educational and tourist dimensions of these ships and of their period – a dimension which both Jamestown and Plimoth Plantation are all about. So it was right that Speth should run a happy and educational ship.

Kat Zak, manning the tiller, or rather the whipstaff, was one of several women in the crew – a break from the tradition of the 1957 voyage and its all-male crew. The ship’s wheel had not been invented in 1620, and to keep the rudderpost at a reasonable length despite her high stern-castle, an Elizabethan ship was steered by a whipstaff from the main deck. The whipstaff levered the tiller which was, in turn, on the deck below. This was the one original feature which Mayflower II discarded for her 1957 voyage for fear of breakage. Since the whipstaff now installed did snap on one of the ship’s outings and permits only 15 degrees of movement each way, this was surely excusable.

Mayflower II slipped easily through the water at 2 to 3 knots and required little helm in the light southeasterly. Captain Speth was surprised at how easily the ship moved – a result of her cod’s head and mackerel tail shape.

It was a peaceful crossing. Mayflower II made the 26-mile crossing in six hours, only after hitching lift from her accompanying tug. The voyage started and ended under tow. For those on board (and especially to the survivors of the 1957 crew), the life restored to this historic vessel by being at sea was felt as soon as her bluff bows breasted the Cape Cod Bay wavelets.

Before concluding that Mayflower II is but a small and quaint addition to the world fleet of square-rigged ships afloat and ashore, consider what Warwick Charlton has to say: “Mayflower II is not just a special ship in the way in which the Cutty Sark is a special ship. Indeed, the original Mayflower was a vessel of absolutely no importance in her time. Mayflower II is a metaphor for all the people who, like the Pilgrims, went to America to escape tyranny. That is why I wanted her built. Her reception in America and the care now taken to maintain her are the result of this metaphor. ...To touch Mayflower II gives visitors a magical connection with the past. It literally puts them in touch with their ancestors who may well have reached America in comparable circumstances. This is why Mayflower II will exist indefinitely.”

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hours: Plimoth Plantation's Administrative offices, Education Department and Creative Gourmet are open 9 AM to 5 PM, M-F
address: 137 Warren Avenue, Plymouth, MA 02360 USA
telephone: 1 + 508 746 1622