Windjammer Finale T By Jane Eppinga he windjammer period spanned only about sixty years from the end of the nineteenth century to the first third of the twentieth. Lineal descendants of the midnineteenth-century wooden clipper ships, the windjammers were sailing ships with hulls built of steel and iron. These ships reached their peak in numbers and cargo transport just when steam-driven passenger liners and cargo carriers were coming to rule the sea. Like any revolutionary technology, steamers took time to catch on. Many shipowners believed sailing ships could still turn a profit because the wind was free and coaling stations were expensive. Thus in the final decade of the nineteenth century, Europe's shipyards turned out a magnificent fleet of sailing ships known collectively as windjammers.1 These huge ships carried tons of cargo at impressive speeds over long distances on routes where the strong trade winds blew with fair reliability. They survived treacherous Cape Horn passages, where winds lashed vessels with a succession of westerly gales. Squalls and dense fog concealed jagged rocks from the island tips of the Tierra del Fuego, while icebergs from the Antarctic threatened many a hull. At the turn of the century, Europe needed copper and nitrate fertilizer. North American lumber was also in demand, as were coal and grain from Australia. The French-owned Compagnie du Boleo copper company in Santa Rosalía, Baja California, Mexico, needed European coke for its smelter. Windjammers provided the cargo transportation link between these two interdependent markets. 112 John Steinbeck wrote, "A Mexican town grows out of the ground. You cannot conceive its never having been there. Santa Rosalía looks built." And "built" it was, by French mining engineers. The serenity of the town belies its more than one hundred years as an international seaport and global copper producer throughout the turbulent eras of the Mexican Revolution and two world wars. Before I visited this town about ten years ago, George Potter, a Tucson mineralogist, told me to "be sure and look for the picture of the sailing ships that were interned in Santa Rosalía during World War I." I found the picture. Potter then introduced me to Capt. J. Ferrell Colton, a maritime historian, and Pierre Mahieux, the last French manager of the Compagnie du Boleo. Colton directed me to Capt. Harold Huycke, who had interviewed many of the German seamen who had been caught in the vicissitudes of a global war. Lawrence Barber, former marine editor of the Portland Oregonian and maritime historian, was able to provide pictures and information on the Tango's final journey around the Horn. For Santa Rosalía's history as a seaport, we must go back to 1868, when José Rosa Villavicencio, owner of Rancho Santa Agueda, saddled his mule and set out to find a shorter route to the port of Mulegé, where he sold and shipped cowhides, beef, and ranch produce. They plodded north to Arroyo Purgatorio and climbed to the top of a mesa, where Villavicencio's mule stumbled and dislodged some blue-green nodules along the trail. Villavicencio called these copper balls boleos, and the area came to be known as the Boleo District.3 Villavicencio tried to mine the area himself, but in 1872 he sold out to two German businessmen in Guaymas, C. Blumhardt and Julio Muller, for sixteen pesos. The Germans, with Sonoran Yaqui labor, mined the rich pockets of pure copper. In 1884 the district came to the attention of the Paris House of Rothschild through a report by French geologist E. Cummenge. On May 16, 1868, Compagnie du Boleo was set up under the joint control of the Paris House of Rothschild and Bank Mirbaud, which provided the twelve-million-franc capitalization. The company acquired all claims in the area. 4 The first order of business was the construction of a townsite and a harbor. Everything and everyone was brought in by ship. From Washington State came timber. From Pennsylvania came miniature Baldwin locomotives. From Belgium came railroad cars. From Paris came bakery machines that are still in use today. Offices, a hospital, a school, living quarters for management, and a hotel to receive those who were involved in the copper industry were built. Laborers. made do with tents.5 Under Madame Laforgue, wife of the French manager, a delegation of women returned to Paris to see about getting a church. When they arrived, someone remembered the Gustaf Eiffel church in storage at Brussels, which was destined Madame Laforgue, wife of the French manager of Compagnie du Boleo, led the movement to transport the Gustaf Eiffel church (foreground) to Santa Rosalía. for French Equatorial Africa because its iron construction made it termite proof." The ladies decided the Eiffel church would do nicely and arranged for it to be shipped to Santa Rosalía, where it was reassembled and still stands. Compagnie du Boleo was the world's ninth largest copper producer between 1885 and 1914. Its smelter had a ravenous appetite for coke, and German coke was best suited for this operation. German sailing-ship owners were interested in, indeed eager for, this cargo for two rea Looking south from the west bank of the Panama Canal, May 1913. The canal meant less work for the windjammers. sons. The death knell was sounding for the sailing ship because most shipowners were steadily converting to steamers, which were faster and more economical. Also, with the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, there would be less work for the Cape Horn windjammers, which depended on consistent tradewinds. Although some sailing ships did traverse the canal, the frequent calms in the Bay of Panama presented serious problems for these vessels. Ships bound for Santa Rosalía from Europe came up from Cape Horn on the Pacific side and sighted their first land at Cabo San Lucas on the southern tip of Baja California. After three or four months at sea, the crew hoped for a fair wind to make the final run. After discharging their cargo, the ships would proceed in ballast to Newcastle, Australia, for a cargo of coal to Chile. In Chile they loaded up with nitrate before returning to Europe. An alternate route was to proceed to the United States for grain or lumber cargoes. Santa Rosalía's open roadstead put every ship at the mercy of the elements. Occasionally a small steamer in port could be hired as a tug, but usually the captain had to do his own pilotage. It was a risky business getting a ship close enough for beaching. Word got around that if a ship got in trouble, she had little chance of being salvaged. After several wrecks, Lloyds of London established an agency in Santa Rosalía. In addition, Boleo had a practice that was roundly cursed by seamen. Because the company did not provide longshoremen, the ship's crew had to unload cargo onto lighters in an open roadstead. When the Adolf Vinnen, Egon, Hans, Harvestehude, Helwig Vinnen, Lasbek, Orotava, Reinbek, Schurbek, Thielbek, Walküre, and Wandsbek left Germany for Santa Rosalía in 1914, no one could have known that Germany and France would be at war by the time they reached port. Seamen at Hamburg's United Shipowners' Hiring Hall heard the watershout bellow, "All you fellows want steamers! I want ABS [able-bodied seamen] and ordinaries for the Hans." She was loaded with five thousand tons of coke bound for Santa Rosalía "further and back," which meant Capt. Wilhelm Burmeister of the Wandsbek made the trip around the Horn in under nine days. Members of the crew of the barque Hans were recruited at the United Shipowners' Hiring Hall in Hamburg. They sailed for Santa Rosalía on March 11, 1914. the seamen did not get paid until they food for the rest of the passage, but no returned home.7 one minded because Cape Horn was behind and warm weather ahead. The Hans, under Capt. Jürgen Kuelsen, left Hamburg for Santa Rosalía on March 11, 1914. She was a four-masted barque, and her full suit of thirty-four sails covered fifty-six thousand square feet. Capt. Luepke Beckmann set sail on the Lasbek for Santa Rosalía on January 25, 1914. In the Bay of Biscay she started leaking. The crew complained, but Beckmann insisted "Pump or drown." She made it to Santa Rosalía, where the French officials tried to rush the discharge, but Beckmann stuck to unloading one hundred tons per day. He might have hurried had he known that just before his cargo was unloaded, France and Germany had declared war. The Lasbek, first of the twelve German ships to enter Santa Rosalía, was the last to leave, twelve years later. 8 On March 22 the Wandsbek, under Capt. Wilhelm Burmeister, set sail. She ran into rough weather, but then fair winds with occasional mild squalls kept the fresh water tanks full. A hard driver, Burmeister made the trip around the Horn in under nine days, but then the Wandsbek got caught in a gale that flooded the ship. Pots and pans and almost the cook were washed overboard. It was cold On July 19 Cabo San Lucas was sighted. Late at night on the twenty-fifth, Wandsbek anchored outside the Santa Rosalía breakwater. Hans put into port the next day. The Walküre, under Capt. Adolf Coltzau, had an uneventful trip and put into port a few hours after the Hans. The Kurt, sister ship to the Hans, had just finished discharging its cargo of coke and was ready to leave for the Columbia River to pick up a cargo of grain for Europe when war was declared. Capt. Wilhelm Tonissen left Santa Rosalía without telling his crew about the war and successfully evaded Canadian patrol craft, arriving safely in the Columbia River on September 11, 1914. Tonissen expected a short war with a quick German victory. However, the Kurt remained at Astoria, Oregon, until the United States entered the war and seized the ship. On April 4 the Reinbek, under Capt. August Kohnke, was loaded and towed to sea from Hamburg to make her fateful voyage. A day later, the Egon, under Capt. Carl Moller, was towed down the Elbe River. The Reinbek had frequent collisions with ice while rounding the Horn. Moller, just a day behind, pushed for fast passage, and the Egon arrived in Santa Rosalía on August 21, only to learn that World War I had broken out, and German shipping was being swept from the high seas." Capt. Hermann Wessel took the Helwig Vinnen out to sea on April 21. They rounded the Horn after receiving a fair share of problems with ice. At Cabo San Lucas she caught up with the Reinbek, and it was a race to Santa Rosalía. They put into port on the morning of August 30, first the Helwig Vinnen and a half hour later, the Reinbek. Captain Ruppert took the Thielbek down the Elbe on May 15. Tragedy struck when a young Dane scrambled to the mizzen rigging to help secure loose, flapping sails. A heavy halyard wire broke, and the Dane fell straight into a iron pin rail below, splitting his stomach open. Captain and crew did all they could, but the boy was dead within minutes. As fast as it had struck, the squall was gone, and the sails hung slack in the calm. Thielbek, isolated from the rest of the world, let go anchor at Santa Rosalía on the eve of September 14. It seemed strange to Thielbek's crew that so many ships were in ballast about a half mile apart. Then one of the vessels signaled, "the Germans are at the gates of Paris," indicating the onset of World War I. The Schurbek had made her maiden voyage to Santa Rosalía in 1902. Since 1908 she had been commanded by Capt. C. Christiansen, a native of Denmark. She made smart passage in 110 days and dropped anchor in Santa Rosalía on September 15. When Boleo's French doctor came on board, the crew was stunned by his words, "I should not speak to you. We are enemies." Capt. Max Prohn took the Harvestehude to sea on June 6. The trip was fairly uneventful until they entered the Gulf of California. Fair breezes died, and the vessel was dead in the water. Drinking water ran out, and the heat was oppressive. On the horizon loomed a column of smoke from the British cruiser Newcastle. A small boat with armed sailors and officers pulled alongside the Harvestehude. Officers with drawn pistols climbed on board and lined up the bewildered crew. They The four-masted barque Adolf Vinnen was one of the largest vessels of her kind. Big as she was, Capt. Willy Muller refused to load a cargo of large boilers destined for Boleo. Adolf Vinnen's holds were filled with coke, and on June 21 she was towed down the Elbe. On September 13 the Adolf Vinnen met the Potosí, commanded by Capt. Robert Miethe, who was bound for Valparaiso, Chile. Miethe signaled word of the European conflagration to Muller. On November 10 the Adolf Vinnen became the eleventh windjammer to enter Santa Rosalía's roadstead. On July 5 the Orotava set sail for Santa Rosalía under Capt. Frederick Dreier, who had the privilege of transporting the huge boilers to Boleo. Orotava was in the This photograph, taken after the Lasbek had gone to Guaymas, shows the Orotava, Thielbek, Egon, Reinbek, Adolf Vinnen, |