My friend and colleague, Capt Jan Rautawaara, is an expert on old sailing tall ships, coasters and cruise ships. It doesn't matter what ship picture you show him, he'll tell you the name and a short history of the ship in question, the answer usually comes like Doctor's orders, straight off the cuff. After having had many discussions about ships it was mentioned in passing that ship experts like these are called affectionately 'boatologists' (translated from Swedish, the made up word 'båtolog' combining the words 'boat' and '-logist').
This is loosely inferring to persons with extensive knowledge of trivia in various fields of shipping and also without having an academical degree but because of their interest and hobby of collecting and researching data in their chosen subjects or maybe because of their work involvement and passion. They also exist in other fields, e.g. for cars, trains and airplanes. I would not consider myself a 'boatologist' although I do possess a bit of trivia about ships, I merely dabble a bit here and there but many 'boatologists' may also be established academics and historians in their own right but these should not be confused to mean the same.
The difference from an academic is that you will get a load of factual figures of specifications, where a ship has visited, what cargo it carried and where it foundered or broke up but from a boatologist you can probably also get some academically irrelevant tidbits that the ship had a crazy deckhand who stood on top of the mainmast for fun as he had no fear and a superb sense of balance.
By having gone so far to mention academics I thought to list some famous personages in the maritime sphere that may interest readers to pursue further in finding out about their achievements and publications. Many of these chaps have been very productive and e.g. Alan Villiers has published some 44 books alone. Also by listing all these maritime scholars below I don't mean that this is an exhaustive list but a summary of distinguished academics in maritime subjects, I'm sure there are several more that could easily be included in this 'Hall of Fame', not to mention all the unmentioned 'boatologists' that may qualify as well.
Famous archaeologists, these experts lead the world in discovering and studying historic shipwrecks:
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credit: Wikipedia
Robert Ballard: Perhaps the most famous underwater archaeologist, best known for discovering the wrecks of the RMS Titanic, the battleship Bismarck, and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown.
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Credit: Daniel Fiore
James P. Delgado is a prolific researcher and author who has led investigations into famous vessels like the USS Arizona and the slave ship Clotilda. Lately also the survey of Falls of Clyde.
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Naval Architects & Designers, that shaped many iconic boats and ships of the world:
Credit: Giornale della Vela
Nathanael Greene Herreshoff: Known as the "Wizard of Bristol," he designed five consecutive America's Cup defenders between 1893 and 1920. His most famous designs include Vigilant, Defender, Columbia, Reliance (the largest single-masted yacht ever), and Resolute.
Credit: Wikipedia
Olin J. Stephens II: A giant of 20th-century yacht design whose firm, Sparkman & Stephens, produced more winning racing yachts than almost any other in history. He built Dorade and Stormy Weather, and carried through countless small-boat designs, the influential J-Class America's Cup yacht Ranger and a number of the most revered early 12-Meters including Columbia, Constellation and Intrepid.
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Credit: Abeking Rasmussen
Espen Øino: The most prominent contemporary designer of "mega-yachts," responsible for massive iconic vessels like Octopus and Flying Fox. I actually had the honor of working with him on the Silver project launch in Australia (73m aluminium motor yacht).
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Credit: Wikipedia
William Fife III: A legendary Scottish designer whose yachts are still considered some of the most beautiful and elegant ever built. He's celebrated for creating "fast and bonnie" yachts, including iconic vessels like Tuiga, Mariquita, Altair, and Latifa. His career spanned the golden age of yachting, designing America's Cup contenders Shamrock I and Shamrock III. I believe I saw Shamrock (assuming it is the same) in summer 2025 off Cannes.
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Credit: Wikipedia
Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Designer and builder of Great Britain and Great Eastern as well as many other constructions and tunnels on land. One of his great achievements was the Great Western railway and many of the auxiliary buildings along the route. In marine history he launched the balanced rudder and propeller that is still in use today as he did not believe in patenting.
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Credit: Vanity Fair
Sir Philip Watts: The naval architect responsible for designing the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought, which changed naval warfare forever.
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Maritime Explorers & Historians, The Great Chroniclers, while Frank Carr saved the ships, these men saved the technical history through exhaustive research.
Credit: Wikipedia
Nicholas A.M. Rodger: Widely considered the preeminent naval historian of the current era. His monumental series on the Royal Navy, including The Safeguard of the Sea and The Command of the Ocean, is a masterclass in combining ship technicality with social history.
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Peter Kemp: The editor of the original The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. He was a "walking encyclopedia" in the most literal sense, overseeing a work that defines nearly every maritime term and historical event. The late Peter Kemp (general editor of the first edition) was educated at the Royal Naval Colleges of Osborne and Dartmouth. Invalided from the Navy after service in sub-marines, he joined The Times as sporting and yachting editor, and was for many years on the editorial staff of that newspaper. During the Second World War he worked in the Naval Intelligence Division, and subsequently became Head of Naval Historical Branch, Ministry of Defence. He published widely on naval, military, and yachting subjects, and wrote several children's novels. Definitely a boatologist.
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Capt Mikkola on Cutty Sark (credit: himself)
Captain Jukka Mikkola, Finnish boatologist that as a hobby maintains a website cataloguing all Finnish flagged tall ships with a short chronology of each and extensive sources.
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Credit: himself
Captain Hannu Vartiainen, accomplished Master mariner with decades as an active mariner and educator, as his last job before pension he was offered the position of curator of the Rauma maritime museum which he took. During his tenure he wrote a historical book of the sailing ships of Rauma. Not to mention he digitized some 40.000 photographs and 80.000 documents into a researchable database. Still today a walking repository of old ships (wind and motor) that nobody would ever think of.
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Credit: his LinkedIn profile
Norman J. Brouwer, compiler of the International register of historic ships. He is a distinguished American maritime historian whose career spans over 50 years, moving from active service as a deck officer to becoming a leading global expert in historic ship preservation and restoration.
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Credit: britannica.com
Basil Hall: A much earlier "encyclopedic" figure whose 19th-century accounts of life at sea were so detailed they served as primary sources for historians like Villiers and Lubbock.
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Credit: Wikipedia
Thor Heyerdahl: Famous for his Kon-Tiki expedition, where he sailed a hand-built raft across the Pacific to prove ancient transoceanic contact.
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American Technical Pioneers, these men focused on the construction and operational minutiae of American vessels.
Credit: The Marine Collection, the Canadian collection
Howard Irving Chapelle: A peer to Karl Kortum and arguably the most important American maritime historian of the 20th century. His books, such as The History of American Sailing Ships and The History of the American Sailing Navy, provide the definitive technical plans for almost every significant US vessel. He was the Curator of Maritime History at the Smithsonian and a primary influence on ship restoration.
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John B. Hattendorf: The editor of the four-volume The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History. He is one of the world's most published maritime scholars and has spent decades at the U.S. Naval War College as a living repository of naval knowledge.
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Modern Preservationists and Researchers
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Ian Friel: A specialist in medieval and early modern ships who uses shipwrecks to reconstruct how historical societies functioned. His book Britain and the Ocean Road is a key text for those who enjoy the "human story" of seafaring.
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Credit: The Times
Dr. David Prescott: A leading figure in modern UK ship preservation, responsible for compiling the National Register of Historic Vessels, an inventory used to evaluate and save surviving historic ships.
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The Technical Chroniclers, Germany’s maritime heritage is defined by the high-speed "P-Liners" and complex naval engineering, with experts renowned for their meticulous documentation.
Siegfried Breyer: A preeminent expert on German naval design and technical history. His encyclopedic photographic albums and essays on German capital ships are essential for understanding the technical evolution of 20th-century warships.
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Credit: Wikipedia
Heinz Burmester: A legendary maritime historian specifically focused on the "Age of Sail" and the Flying P-Liners. His deep research into the handling and logs of ships like the Preussen and Potosi mirrored the work of Alan Villiers, providing a German perspective on the final days of commercial sail.
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Jürgen Rohwer: A world-renowned naval historian and director of the Contemporary History Research Center in Stuttgart. He was a leading authority on submarine warfare and naval history databases, often collaborating with international experts to verify historical ship records.
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French Experts, masters of Naval Architecture, they often lean toward the "archaeology of the ship," with a focus on how vessels were constructed from the inside out.
Credit: Wikipedia
Jean Boudriot: Perhaps the most famous "walking encyclopedia" of French naval architecture. He dedicated his life to reconstructing the plans of 17th and 18th-century warships. His multi-volume work on The 74-Gun Ship is considered the most detailed study of a single ship type ever published.
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Credit: Christoph Gerigk
Franck Goddio: Renowned for locating the sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion and several of Napoleon’s fleet ships from the Battle of the Nile. Also the pioneer in modern underwater archaeology. He is famous for applying rigorous scientific mapping to discover entire sunken Egyptian cities and lost French naval fleets, bridge-building between history and high-tech exploration.
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Japanese Experts: Scholars of the Imperial Fleet, Japanese experts have provided the world with the most detailed records of the massive engineering feats of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN).
Asian Ship Historians, asian experts often focus on the massive scale of regional trade and naval power that predated European expansion.
Shizuo Fukui: An IJN constructor and historian who is considered the ultimate authority on Japanese warships. He spent decades collecting photographs and technical data, much of which was almost lost after WWII. His multi-volume illustrated works on Japanese naval vessels remain the definitive technical reference.
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Keiichiro Nakagawa: Founder of the International Maritime Economic History Association, he was a "walking encyclopedia" of maritime business and economic history, detailing how Japan’s shipping industry shaped its modern global status. Keiichiro Nakagawa (Japan): A "walking library" of maritime business history. He wrote the definitive works on the strategy and structure of the Japanese shipping and shipbuilding industries.
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European Masters, these experts represent the world's most intense maritime cultures outside the UK, focusing on the transition from Vikings to global shipping conglomerates.
Credit: IMHA
Franklin J.A. Broeze (Netherlands/Australia): Widely considered one of the most influential maritime historians of the late 20th century. He redefined the field by focusing on the "relationship between man and the sea" globally. His work, The Globalisation of the Oceans, is the definitive text on how containerisation changed the world.
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Credit: Springer nature link
Jeremy Green (Australia/UK): A pioneer who established the Department of Maritime Archaeology at the Western Australian Museum. He is a world authority on Dutch East India Company (VOC) wrecks, having led the seminal excavation of the Batavia.
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Credit: seaceramic.org
Sten Sjöstrand: A modern "shipwreck guru" who discovered and excavated nine historic trade ships in the South China Sea. His work provided the world's most detailed look at maritime trade ceramics from the 10th to 19th centuries.
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Mediterranean & Middle Eastern Authorities, these scholars hold the keys to ancient and classical seafaring knowledge.
Michael Katzev
Susan Katzev (Womer)
Michael & Susan Katzev (Cyprus/USA): This husband-and-wife team conducted the world-renowned excavation of the Kyrenia shipwreck. Michael was the first scholar to see ancient hull remains through to full restoration for public display, setting the global standard for Mediterranean shipwreck archaeology.
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Credit: INA
George Bass: Often called the "father of underwater archaeology," he pioneered the use of scientific methods to excavate shipwrecks, such as the Late Bronze Age Uluburun wreck. He founded the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA). His encyclopaedic knowledge spanned from Bronze Age wrecks in Turkey to the deepest reaches of maritime history globally.
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Lincoln Paine: While based in the US, his work is the preeminent global maritime encyclopedia. His book The Sea and Civilization is a monumental scholarship that retells human history through our relationship with the sea, covering everything from the Indus Valley to the Polynesians.
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The "Sailing Ship" Chroniclers, these figures are the closest peers to Villiers and Kortum, often working directly with them to preserve ships or document their technical handling.
Harold A. Underhill: Perhaps the greatest technical "encyclopedia" of the group, Underhill was a master marine draughtsman and historian. His books, such as Deep-Water Sail and Masting and Rigging, provided the highly detailed architectural plans used by modelers and restorers worldwide. He provided the essential technical diagrams for Alan Villiers’ most famous works.
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Credit: Phillip Townsend, Getty Images
Frank Carr: A contemporary of Villiers, Carr was the director of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and a key figure in saving the Cutty Sark. He was known for his vast knowledge of British "sailing barges" and small craft, ensuring that these "common" workboats were given the same historical weight as great tea clippers.
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Credit: seahistory.org
Peter Stanford: A close ally of Karl Kortum, Stanford founded the South Street Seaport Museum in New York. Like Kortum, he was a "maritime evangelist" who used his encyclopedic knowledge to advocate for the preservation of iconic vessels like the Wavertree. Sea history no 155, p10- has a long eulogy for him when he passed in 2016.
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Professional "Masters Under God", these men were the actual practitioners whose brains were picked by historians like Villiers to record the "lost arts" of sailing.
Credit: Alan Villiers
Ruben de Cloux: The legendary Finnish captain of the four-masted barque Parma, whom Villiers considered one of the greatest sailing masters to ever live. He was a primary source for much of the practical "how-to" knowledge found in 20th-century maritime literature.
"One of the last great sailing-ship captains, Reuben de Cloux (1884-1949) commanded four different Finnish deep-water sailers between 1919 and 1933. Captain de Cloux's first command was the four masted barque Lawhill, in which he had previously served as first mate. de Cloux made two fast and profitable Europe-to-Australia voyages in the Lawhill. His success enabled owner Gustaf Erikson to expand his fleet, and in 1921, Erikson sent Captain de Cloux to look at the German four-masted barque Passat, laid up in Marseilles, France, with an asking price of 11,000 pounds. On his way to Marseilles, Captain de Cloux saw the four-master Herzogin Cecilie, also German, and bought her for 4,000 pounds instead.
Obituary of de Cloux (credit Alandstidningen)
De Cloux assumed command of the Cecilie, and won two of the unofficial yearly "grain races" from Australia to England in her, in 1927 and 1928. The 1928 race was highly publicized, as the Cecilie under Captain de Cloux and the Swedish four-master Beatrice left Port Lincoln, Australia, on the same day. A group of Swedish businessmen put up a silver cup, and sailor-journalist Alan Villiers sailed on the Cecilie as an able seaman. De Cloux won the race, beating the Beatrice and the several other square-riggers that made the voyage that year, with a time of 96 days. Villiers' book Falmouth for Orders is an excellent account of that trip.
Not long after, De Cloux left the Erikson line, and became part-owner of a small iron barque named Plus. When the Plus's captain proved unsatisfactory, de Cloux replaced him. A chance meeting on the London docks with Villiers led to both men purchasing another German four-masted barque, the Parma, for only 2,000 pounds. De Cloux captained the Parma, and Villiers was second mate. Parma won the grain race in 1932 and 1933 under De Cloux-- the only two voyages he made in her. In 1932 she beat Gustaf Erikson's Pamir by a matter of hours, and in 1933, set the post-WW1 record with an 83-day voyage from Australia to England.
After a short run taking Finnish timber to London, de Cloux left sailing ships for good. He did some farming, and commanded a steamer which he eventually lost on the coast of Norway. It was reputed that De Cloux could control the winds, and he did compile an impressive record of good passages with ships that were not clippers by any means, and often were woefully undermanned." Credit: everything2.com
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Credit: Wikipedia
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Born 31st July 1852 in Schiebenhorst of Pomerania; died 4th February 1937 in Hamburg
The pioneering achievements of Robert Hilgendorf - How the Cape Horner became the fastest Captain of his time
The P-Liner Captain Robert Hilgendorf was the greatest and most famous sailor of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among other things, "the Devil of Hamburg" shipped saltpeter from Chile to Europe on the Laeisz ship "Potosi," then the largest sailing ship in the world. And the whole world wondered how he not only managed to reliably stick to his schedules but also set various records.
Hilgendorf, for example, achieved a sensational daily distance of 376 miles with the five-masted barque at an average speed of 15.7 knots – no one had ever achieved this before. He also completed the voyage from the English Channel to Chile in 58 days, also an incredible record at the time. His secret to success: Hilgendorf was one of the first to collect scientific findings and draw conclusions from them that are commonplace today. One such thing is that the fastest route to a destination is not always the most direct.
After studying his records and those of other captains, he was able to "read" the weather like no other. Hilgendorf, the shrewd Cape Horner, mastered this skill masterfully, not to mention that he was an outstanding sailor. With his collected weather data, he laid the foundation for the previously unknown tool of forecasting. Between 1883 and 1898, he submitted 16,500 observation records to the German Maritime Observatory in Hamburg – the basis for a methodical approach to meteorology.
Hilgendorf was clever, proud, and energetic. A captain of the old school, always open to new ideas. And a great charismatic. When the "grandmaster of our proud sailing ship industry," as Kaiser Wilhelm II called it, died in 1937 at the age of 85, he was laid to rest in accordance with his last wishes – beneath a painting of his beloved "Potosi." The painting was a gift. The owner of the shipping company, Laeisz, had given it to him in recognition of his life's work.
Credit: YACHT Delius-Klasing Verlag
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Villers and Miethe
Credit: Sea History
Captain Robert Miethe: A master of the famous Laeisz "P-Liners", such as the Potosi and Preussen. Villiers frequently cited Miethe as the ultimate authority on driving massive five-masted ships through the world's most dangerous waters. In Sea History no 32, p24 is an article and there is Captain Miethe pictured with Alan Villiers.
Robert Karl Miethe born 28th July 1877, in Lippe, on the Baltic Sea Germany; died 7th April 1975, in Quilpué, Chile.
Robert Miethe was born in a village on the Baltic Sea, the fishing port of Lippe on Hohwacht Bay. By the age of nine, he already knew how to handle a rowboat or sailboat. Since the school was located on the other side of a lake, the shortest route in summer was by boat and in winter by skis or sled. Later, he also practiced these sports. He often accompanied the fishermen on their trips to neighboring ports. He loved life by the sea and was already familiar with the sailing ships that plied between Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and even Russia by the age of 15.
In early 1892, he embarked as a cabin boy on one of these Baltic schooners. After two years of hard living and learning on these schooners, he extended his voyages: he reached British, Dutch, and Belgian ports but did not venture beyond the English Channel. He wanted to go deep sea and he boarded the barque Pamelia of the F. Laeisz shipping company. His first voyage took him to South America, Chile, where he reached the port of Valparaíso in April 1894.
Until 1899, he sailed continuously on various sailing ships until, at the end of that year, he enrolled at the navigation school in Hamburg. In mid-1900, he obtained his mate's certificate and sailed as second mate, now behind the mainmast, on the Elsfleth bark Apollo between Cape Town and Australia.
After two years, he returned to Germany and completed his military service in Kiel at the naval garrison. He went back to the navigation school in Hamburg and in April 1904 obtained his captain's certificate for deep-sea voyages. He undertook two voyages for the Laeisz shipping company on the bark Promt as first mate. During this time, he moved to Hamburg and married his wife, Margarethe, née Benrath, in 1905.
Maritime Career
1906–1908 Full-rigged ship Pampa
Launched in 1905 at the Blohm + Blohm & Voss shipyard
He was appointed captain at the age of 28 and completed two round trips to Chile.
1908–1912 Four-masted barque Pitlochry
Under his command, the ship completed four round trips to Chile. A year later, after 19 years of service, a circumnavigation of the globe, and 23 round trips to Chile, she collided with another vessel on November 28, 1913, southwest of the Isles of Scilly in the Atlantic Ocean and sank. The entire crew was rescued.
1911–1912 Four-masted barque Pamir
She was the smallest and sturdiest of the last eight four-masted barques built for F. Laeisz, and Miethe commented on her: "The ship was perhaps a bit over-engineered and therefore harder to maneuver through the water, but it was strong in all its construction."
1912–1914 Five-masted barque Potosi
During her 28th voyage under Captain Robert Miethe, the ship arrived in Valparaiso on September 23, 1914, where it was interned due to the outbreak of World War I, and he left the ship.
In 1919, he obtained the Chilean patent Capitan de Alta Mar, and on January 26, 1920, President Emilio Sanfuentes granted him Chilean citizenship. He then lived with his family in Valparaíso. Until 1922, he sailed as captain on various ships off the Chilean coast. After rounding Cape Horn more than 45 times, he ended his maritime career and subsequently took up a position on land as Jefe de Bahía at the Soc. Muelles de la Poblacion Vergara in Valparaíso.
In December 1942, he lost his position and consequently retired.
As a successful sailing ship captain and Cape Horner, he became a member of the International Brotherhood of Cape Horners (A.I.C.H.). Albatros has been active since 1956 and in later years also internationally.
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Key Literary Encyclopedias, if you enjoy the writing style and depth of Alan Villiers, these authors were considered the definitive "walking libraries" or boatologists of their time:
Credit: Wikipedia
Basil Lubbock: A prolific historian who wrote "The Clipper Ship Era" series. His books are considered the gold standard for ship biographies, detailing the daily logs, speeds, and fates of almost every major sailing vessel of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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Credit: his own website
Brian Lavery: A more modern "walking encyclopedia," Lavery is Curator Emeritus at the National Maritime Museum and has written over 30 books, e.g. "Ship, 5000 years of maritime adventure". He was the chief technical consultant for the film Master and Commander, ensuring the ships were historically perfect.
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The Library, essential books, these works are considered the gold standard for technical detail and historical narrative.
Alan Villiers on Grace Harwar
(credit: Royal museum of Greenwich)
Alan Villiers:
The Way of a Ship: The definitive book on the technical handling and history of the last square-riggers.
Falmouth for Orders: A firsthand account of the last great "Grain Race" from Australia to England.
Harold Underhill:
Deep-Water Sail: An exhaustive technical survey of sailing ship types from the 18th to 20th centuries.
Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier: The "bible" for understanding how tall ships were actually put together.
Basil Lubbock:
The China Clippers and The Colonial Clippers: These are essentially dense ship biographies, tracking the daily logs and speeds of famous vessels.
Brian Lavery:
Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation 1793–1815: Widely regarded as the most comprehensive work on the Georgian-era sailing navy.
Karl Kortum:
Kaiulani: The Story of a Great Ship: Kortum’s account of his own voyage on the last American-built square-rigger.
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The Fleet:
Ships saved by these experts, these vessels exist today primarily because of the direct intervention of men mentioned above.
Karl Kortum Balclutha (1886 Square-rigger), C.A. Thayer (1895 Schooner), Eppleton Hall (Paddle tug) San Francisco Maritime NHP
Frank Carr: Cutty Sark (1869 Tea Clipper) Royal Museums Greenwich
Peter Stanford: Wavertree (1885 Full-rigged ship), Peking (1911 P-Liner—returned to Germany 2017) South Street Seaport Museum
Alan Villiers: Mayflower II (1957 Replica—he served as Captain and technical advisor)
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I started this post because of Karl Kortum and Fred Klebingat cropping up in my research of many of the old tall ships, especially those in the Americas, so I tallied a bit of history of Karl and what I could find on old Fred but it'll be in another post, meanwhile here are their eulogies, may they rest in peace.
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Karl Kortum
Credit: San Francisco maritime museum
Having come across the names of Karl Kortum and Fred Klebingat in various connections when looking for info on tall ships across the pond on the American continent I became curious as to what these chaps where in their days and I found out a bit, many pieces of their writings are in museums and not available online but some it can be found in Kortum's founded magazine, the Sea History. It served as his and many others mouthpiece about historical items and events happening in USA and also other ship news from around the world. I would definitely count Karl Kortum as the American leading boatologist and tall ship enthusiast of his time. Capt Fred Klebingat was also a boatologist as an expert in sailing tall ships and their operation. Both were material in saving a few historical ships in their time.
In many instances Karl Kortum has been accredited in the rescue of many historical vessels whereas I think in many cases he was just the catalyst for it to happen, like with e.g. Great Britain from Falklands. He was definitely there to look at wrecks and also Great Britain, he did arrange the towing out of Fennia (ex Champigny) from Falklands but she only made it as far as Uruguay and then the funds seems to have fizzled out for the remaining leg to San Francisco. I guess the plan was to do some temporary works to prep the hulk for the rest of the voyage.
Eventually Fennia was scrapped in Paysandu many years later. This is not much talked about, probably as it was a failure, or being the catalyst for a project that did not push through. She would have been a no1 exhibit had she made it to SF or Texas and been restored. Could be that the immense expense was realized and that's why she was abandoned. I understand that at the time he was looking for many boats to display at the San Francisco maritime museum and later on he did manage getting the Balclutha in there, among many others. I guess during his travels he did come across several potential targets to preserve but he must have also had to think of the budget he had at hand as well as the cultural value it would bring to the museum.
It seems Karl Kortum was not very productive in writing books but he was active in other areas and published articles in his mouth piece the Sea history magazine where he was one of the founding fathers. I get the impression that Karl was more of a 'doer' than a writer, nevertheless he had great passion for old ships and that energy he used to shape the San Francisco maritime museum. Among his literary accomplishments is Kaiulani: The Story of a Great Ship. Kortum’s own account of his own voyage on the last American-built square-rigger. Then are the memoirs of Fred Klebingat that Karl recorded and transcribed. He also did record other old timers but it seems Fred's noggin' was the one with best stories or working hard drive.
As a reminder - The eulogy for Karl Crouch Kortum I delivered at his memorial aboard Balclutha:
Karl Kortum: Friend and Mentor
Karl Kortum was a man of many talents and incredibly broad intellectual curiosity. He was a writer with a gift that makes written words come alive on the page, a photographer with an incomparable sense of aesthetics, a museum and exhibit designer without peer, a man so filled with the poetry of life that he was able to appreciate its every nuance. He was a fearless warrior who plunged into battle, perhaps a little too gleefully, in defense of his vision: but, most important, he was my mentor and my friend. The people at this gathering speak well to how many lives Karl’s life touched. I was fortunate enough to have shared some 20 years of Karl’s passion for maritime preservation and, I would hope, to have acquired some of his sense of vision as well. He truly was a visionary, but he was also much more –Karl was a man of planned, strong-willed accomplishment. We need only look around us today to see some of how Karl changed the world; the museum building; Ghirardelli Square; Victorian Park; Hyde Street Pier; and one of the world’s great collections of historic ships. And farther afield the same could be said for the Strand in Galveston, Texas, home port to Elissa, the Rocks in Sydney Australia, home port to the James Craig, South Street Seaport Museum in New York, home of the Wavertree and Peking and on and on, all the fruit of Karl’s declared policy of “sprinkling maritime museums around the globe.”
It was these ships and that man that focused my unfocused life, who gave me purpose and a direction for all my eclectic skills. One of Karl’s immense talents was to nurture the strengths of those of us who worked for him and to make our many weaknesses insignificant.
Through his efforts to save her, I was fortunate to be able to re-rig the sweet little bark Elissa, up from a hulk. She was perhaps Karl’s favorite of all the museum ships and her restoration became the most memorable accomplishment of my career. Karl’s leadership and shared vision provided something of substance for those of us who sailed in his wake.
I grew up inspired by Conrad and Melville, but it was Kortum who enabled me to sail as Chief Mate in Elissa and Second Mate in Star of India in this last quarter of the 20th century. And it is Kortum whose work will allow my young son Dylan to see the majesty of 19th-century sailing vessels and to experience that majesty first had, should he so choose.
Karl’s battles with the bureaucracy are legendary, but he was hard on those of us who were closest to him as well. He knew our capabilities and our limitations and in his never-ending search for excellence he often showed no quarter. Karl and I fought and argued with the bureaucrats alongside one another—and we fought and argued with each other as well. We understood that the language of museums and the arts is criticism. We knew that we must evaluate and re-evaluate what we did in order to build a museum or a ship into a “temple of excellence” and a “celebration of seamanship’ to use the words Karl used for these high goals.
I would be remiss, and Karl would never forgive me, if I didn’t take this opportunity to enjoin all of you to actively carry on the work of preserving these ships. Those legendary battles with the bureaucracy are not ended, only the opening salvos. Today, the ships in San Francisco are standing into danger. Without structural changes in their oversight and the installation of competent management they will be lost one by one. Your letters, phone calls, and your personal involvement with our elected representatives and the appointed officials of the National Park Service are vital to the survival of Karl’s dream.
Kortum’s work is not done, he has simply turned over the helm in this long voyage he launched us on. In my last conversation with Karl he reminded me that it is up to us to carry on.
An eulogy written and delivered by Steve Hyman, at a memorial aboard the ship Balclutha for Karl Kortum who slipped his cable 12th September 1996
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By Armando Stileto (FB)
Karl Korturm and Harry Dring -
The San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
Harry Dring was an important figure in maritime preservation, eventually becoming responsible for the largest fleet of historic ships in the world at the National Maritime Museum in San Francisco.
Karl Kortum, whose love for the sea and old ships was legendary and who founded what is now the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, died in San Francisco at the age of 79. Mr. Kortum, had retired as curator of the park. Walter Cronkite, the broadcaster who shared Mr. Kortum's affection for ships, once called him "perhaps America's foremost marine preservationist and historian." Peter Stanford, president of the National Maritime Historical Society, said yesterday that Mr. Kortum was "the leader of the historic ships movement worldwide."
Harry Dring
Mr. Harry (Harrison) Joseph Dring was an important figure in maritime preservation, eventually becoming responsible for the largest fleet of historic ships in the world at the National Maritime Museum in San Francisco.
Harry was a foremast hand on the final voyage of the last American square-rigger, the bark Kaiulani. She left San Francisco in September, 1941, loaded lumber at Aberdeen, Washington, and sailed around Cape Horn to Durban, South Africa. When the voyage ended in 1942 at Sydney, Australia, Harry was second mate. He returned to America where in 1943 he married a girl he had met in Aberdeen, Matilda Tesia, and settled in that city after wartime service in the merchant marine.
His former shipmate on the Kaiulani, Karl Kortum, brought him to the Maritime Museum in 1954 to assist in the restoration of the sailing ship Balclutha. He subsequently served as the ship's manager and became the supervisor of restoration for the State of California's newly-acquired fleet of historic ships: schooner C.A. Thayer, steam schooner Wapama, scow schooner Alma, and ferry Eureka. Kortum recalls that Harry made a "priceless contribution" to the Museum, "he was full of energy, full of resourcefulness."
Harry remained in charge of the vessels after they were placed at Hyde Street Pier. When the fleet was acquired by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1977, Harry was appointed as the first Conservator of Ships for the National Park Service. "He knew as much as any man alive about preserving ships, he was a walking encyclopedia of the sea," according to William G. Thomas, park superintendent and long-time friend. "He was a man without pretense. He was known and liked from one end of the waterfront to the other. His life was saving ships."
His battles with bureaucracy were legendary. As a result of his bluff outspokenness in defense of the historic vessels, he became known as "Give 'em hell Harry." The San Francisco Chronicle: "He always thought of himself as a sailor above all, refused to wear neckties, scorned the praise of politicians, however well-meant, and never used his real first name--which was Harrison."
He died in Vallejo, California on January 20, 1989.
Karl Kortum
Frank Carr, chairman of the World Ship Trust in London, said he was "the world's leading exponent and expert on historic craft preservation." and "a genius."
Mr. Kortum was both a tireless historian and a dogged visionary. It was his idea for a maritime park that transformed the northern end of San Francisco's waterfront.
He conceived and developed the maritime museum at the foot of Polk Street, the Victorian Park at the foot of Hyde Street, the cable car turntable there and helped save the fleet of historic ships that have become the backdrop to thousands of snapshots.
Once, surveying the scene there, he put it simply: "I invented it."
Mr. Kortum also helped found a number of other museums and displays devoted to maritime history, a process he called "sprinkling maritime museums all over the globe." Among the historic ships he saved were San Francisco's seven historic vessels, including the 110-year-old Balclutha, the Falls of Clyde in Honolulu, the Great Britain in Bristol, England, the Wavertree in New York, the Elissa in Galveston, and the Moshulu in Philadelphia.
He also helped found the World Ship Trust and the National Maritime Historical Society.
Mr. Kortum was a descendant of a German family that moved to Calistoga, at the head of the Napa Valley, in 1871. He was born on a farm in Petaluma and became interested in the sea as a boy.
Later, he began frequenting the San Francisco and Oakland waterfronts and when he learned that an old sailing ship named Kaiulani was making a long ocean voyage he jumped at the chance to go.
He was an able seaman. The vessel sailed from Gray's Harbor, Wash., in 1941 and sailed east around both Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope to Australia. He eventually became acting mate, and gave the order to furl the sails for the last time. It turned out to be a bit of history -- the voyage was the last of an American merchant ship under sail, and when the Kaiulani's sails were furled it was the end of 300 years of American sailing history.
Mr. Kortum later sailed on steamships in the merchant marine during World War II but never forgot the voyage of the Kaiulani.
After the war, he became determined to found a museum in San Francisco dedicated to the maritime history of the Pacific. The museum was established in 1950 at Aquatic Park.
In 1953, he and some friends acquired the old sailing vessel Pacific Queen, then a derelict on the Sausalito mud flats. They organized community support, restored the ship and gave it its original name: Balclutha. The ship is the centerpiece of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.
Mr. Kortum and Scott Newhall, the late editor of The Chronicle, were key figures in expanding the ship collection later and establishing the national park. However, Mr. Kortum, who never saw a ship he didn't like, was a man with strong views.
He was a man of the waterfront: tough, stubborn and opinionated. "He was like a great bear," Stanford said yesterday. He often quarrelled with his nominal superiors, both privately and publicly. Once he called them "stumblebums and vulgarians," among other things. Once he was charged with insubordination by the National Park Service, but Mr. Kortum had a legion of friends, and survived it all.
At the end of his life, he was concerned that the ships he had saved in San Francisco were in danger from neglect and old age. Yesterday, Stanford, his old friend and ally, said he will continue to fight for preservation of the ships. "We feel challenged to live up to that heritage," Stanford said.
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Capt Fred Klebingat in 1963 in Honolulu for the rerigging of Falls of Clyde
Credit: SF Maritime museum
Captain Fred K. Klebingat (1889-1985) was a sailor throughout his life, a key figure in the drive to establish Falls of Clyde (built 1878; bark, 4m) as a museum ship in Hawaii in the 1960s, the author of many letters and essays about his seafaring life (including the series "Christmas at Sea") and a historian of the age of sail.
Friedrich Karl Klebingat was born near Kiel, Germany, on October 7, 1889. He started his seafaring career in 1905, working as a deck hand on the full rigged German ship D.H. Watjen (built 1892; ship, 3m) upon which he rounded Cape Horn to Chile. Next he signed on as an ordinary seaman (O.S.) on Bremen Watjen & Company's bark Anna (built 1893; bark, 4m). From 1912-1913 he worked as a carpenter on Chanslor and then her sister ship William F. Herrin (Klebingat and Tweedale 1982, 13-15). In 1914 he shipped out on City of Topeka (built 1884; merchant vessel) as a carpenter and in June of that year he became a U.S. Citizen.
Klebingat was chief mate on Falls of Clyde from 1916-1918. In 1918, he was chief mate of Star of Poland (built 1901; bark, 4m) and he survived its September 15, 1918 wreck in Japan. Klebingat's first command was in 1918, on the bark Chin Pu, carrying a cargo of empty gin bottles and carboys of acid on deck from Kobe, Japan, to Manila, Philippines. Her cargo of copra meal caught fire on her second voyage, and she was scuttled in Nagasaki, Japan. In 1919, Klebingat took command of the four-masted schooner Melrose (built 1902; schooner, 4m) and was her master for six years.
From 1925-1942, Klebingat was master of Zane Grey's Fisherman (built 1919; schooner, 3m: yacht) (ex Marshal Foch) and other sailing yachts such as Navigator (schooner, 2m: yacht) and Bali (yacht). While working on Fisherman, Fred was reunited with Phyllis Cramond Reid (November 26, 1905-June 5, 1980) in Whangaroa, New Zealand, after having met several years earlier. They were married on April 1, 1927, while Klebingat was still employed with Grey's fishing expedition. Mrs. Klebingat consequently traveled with the crew until they returned to the Port of Los Angeles on August 27, 1927. Four years later, Fred and Phyllis had a son named Frederick John Klebingat (December 2, 1931-August 17, 1970).
During World War II, Captain Fred Klebingat commanded Liberty ships (Oliver Evans, WM. Mulholland) and tankers (Apache Canyon, Harpers Ferry) in both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans. After the war, he returned home to San Pedro, California. Klebingat worked various jobs, mostly employed by lumber companies running goods up and down the Pacific coast.
Fred was a key figure in the 1963 drive which brought Falls of Clyde to Honolulu, Hawaii as a museum ship, helping to save it from becoming a breakwater in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also served as chief technical advisor and historian for the Falls of Clyde restoration project. Klebingat retired in the late 1960s. In 1969, at the age of 80, he skippered the motorship Coos Bay in the coastwise lumber trade.
Klebingat wrote many letters and essays about his seafaring life (including the series "Christmas at Sea"). He was friends with other maritime historians such as Harold Huycke and Karl Kortum, with whom he corresponded extensively. Captain Klebingat died on March 31, 1985, at the age of 95, in Coos Bay, Oregon.
Biography written by Amy Croft in 2012. Slightly updated by Amy Croft and M. Crawford in 2013.
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