American Racer on her way to the scrap yard Photo: daver6@sbcglobal.net

Bernard Cornwell‘s introduction to his review of  Sam Willis’s book, “The Fighting Temeraire,”  is as dramatic as it is sadly accurate. He writes:  At Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia, the battle-cruiser USS Olympia lies glorious and doomed. The oldest steel warship in the world today, she has a poignant history.  In 1898, during the Spanish-American War, she was Adm. Dewey’s flagship at the battle of Manila Bay, and in 1921 she carried the body of the first officially designated Unknown Soldier, felled in World War I, back from France to the U.S.  The Olympia is magnificent.  If nothing is done to save her, she will be towed offshore and sunk as an artificial reef.”

He goes on to write, “Sam Willis’s “The Fighting Temeraire” is an elegant lament for the vanished warships of the world and an eloquent plea for the preservation of those still afloat.”

On the same day that I happened to come across Cornwell’s review, I also happened to see photographs of the American Racer being towed out of Suisun Bay toward a scrapyard in Beaumont.   The American Racer is a C4 class breakbulk cargo ship built in 1964.   Her biggest claim to fame is that she was the first ship to carry containers on a trans-Atlantic voyage.   There is a certain irony and poignancy about that claim, as containerization was what would make the old break bulk cargo liners with their kingposts, booms, rigging and winches, obsolete within a few years.

The American Racer, even rusting and under tow is still, to my eyes, a beautiful ship.   She has what you never see on more modern ships – a subtle yet graceful shear line and a lovely clipper bow.  Her deckhouse was streamlined in a wonderful late 1950s aerodynamic style.

When I was a young naval architect I was lucky enough to work on these old ships.  (I was never involved with the American Racer but did spend some time on her sister ship the Mormacmoon.)  They were  not tall ships, but they  had no shortage of rigging.  The American Racer had twenty two swinging booms and almost as many kingposts, served by miles of steel cable and dozens of winches.  Watching drums, pallets, and boxes being hoisted off the string piece and swung through the air in perfect parabolas, to disappear into the hatch, as a skilled hand at the winches operated the burtoning gear, was a joy to behold.

The American Racer is a beautiful ship which played a small part in shipping history.  Should she be saved? Of course not.   If we saved all beautiful but obsolete ships we would start running out of ocean, or at least dock space, before too long.    As much as we may love them, ships are just tools of our civilization.  We build them, use them, wear them out, then build anew.  The best we can hope for with a fine old ship like the American Racer is that her steel will be recycled and one day used to build a new ship.  A toaster may be the more likely use, but one can dream.

So which ships should be preserved? I don’t think that there is an easy answer.  And perhaps the verb should not be “should” but merely “can.”   Which ships can be saved?  From a strictly practical viewpoint, a lot has to do with the history and condition of the ship,  the availability of funding, the enthusiasm of local volunteers, good timing and a large portion of luck.

Unlike the American Racer, the Olympia deserves saving.  She played a significant role in the history of this country and through both happenstance and luck has survived this long.  She deserves her spot at the berth a bit longer.

Cornwell ends his review of Willis’ book with final comments on the Olympia:

Turner’s painting and Mr. Willis’s book remind us that fame and glory are not sufficient protection against an empty budget, and it will be tragic if we allow the Olympia to follow the Implacable to a watery grave. It is not too late. At Penn’s Landing, in the impecunious care of the Independence Seaport Museum, we possess a precious fragment of America’s naval history, and we can only hope that, 170 years from now, no one who writes the Olympia’s biography will have to end it with the tale of her destruction.