Sea cloud
 The Sea Cloud on September 10, 2007 in front of the port of Porquerolles
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The Sea Cloud is a luxury cruise sailing ship with a four-masted barque rig . In 1931 she was built by the Germania shipyard in Kiel under the name Hussar V as the largest and most luxurious private sailing yacht ever built with the rigging of a four-masted barque on behalf of the US multimillionaire and stockbroker Edward Francis Hutton (1875–1962) . After military operations as a US coast guard ship , more than six changes of ownership, long lay times and the threat of being demolished, the luxury rooms were subjected to restoration work. Today it is operated and managed under the name Sea Cloud by the company "Sea Cloud Cruises GmbH" for cruises .
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Originated as a hussar
Edward Francis Hutton was a successful Wall Street stockbroker. Together with his wife Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887–1973), a wealthy heiress and successful business woman , they owned the food company "General Foods Corporation" and had considerable fortunes. According to plans by the American design office Gibbs & Cox , New York, the two had the barque built in Germany to save costs.
Edward Francis Hutton, who was the official owner of the yacht until after the divorce, named the Bark Hussar (referred to by ship historians as "Hussar V" because Hutton had previously owned four luxury yachts called "Hussar"). The "Hussar" had a black hull with a long, flat yacht stern ( Plattgatt ). The ship was an absolute superlative. All decks were planked with teak. Four diesel electric generators with 3,200 hp drove the two screws to travel independently of the wind at all times. The four-masted bark rig was not a standard rig with six yards per mast, but with only five yards on the fore and cross mast. In addition to split topsails, the yacht had simple slab sails and royal sails. The mainmast originally had split slab sails and a royal sail (standard rig). Today he also wields simple slab sails such as fore and cross mast, plus a sky sail over the royal sail, which makes little difference from a distance. The ship was used exclusively for the appropriate trips, meetings and celebrations of the owners.
During the first few years, his wife took great care to furnish the yacht to her taste. The cabins were equipped with every imaginable luxury. To do this, she rented a warehouse in Brooklyn and initially built the interior layout there to scale. Among other things, bathtubs made of Carrara marble, fittings made of solid gold and open marble fireplaces were built into the luxury cabins, as well as valuable wall coverings, furniture made of fine fabrics and precious woods, and the most precious accessories. The Hussar V was the largest and most luxurious private yacht that ever existed. After the maiden voyage to New York in 1932, the Huttons undertook numerous private cruises with prominent guests from the aristocracy, film and business until 1935. Preferred destinations were the Mediterranean , Monaco , the Galápagos Islands and Hawaii .
In diplomatic circles as Sea Cloud
In August 1935, the couple divorced. One day after the divorce, Edward Hutton signed the Hussar in the name of his ex-wife, who loved the ship above all else. Since Edward wanted to use the name Hussar for his next yacht, Marjorie renamed the Hussar , whose owner she was now officially, to Sea Cloud and had the hull painted white.
In the same year she married the American lawyer Joseph Davies . Joseph E. Davies, who was also economic advisor to US President Woodrow Wilson , was appointed ambassador to Moscow . The Sea Cloud was berthed in Leningrad . During this time, Marjorie made many contacts with diplomats who liked to use the tap-proof Sea Cloud for meetings. This period was filmed in the Hollywood film Ambassador to Moscow . Later Jos. E. Davies moved to Belgium and the Sea Cloud relocated to Antwerp .
War effort
During the Second World War , the Davies tried to sell the yacht, but could not find a buyer. When the United States entered the war in 1941, it also requisitioned private yachts. Davies also offered the Sea Cloud for military service to President Franklin D. Roosevelt . He initially rejected the offer, but accepted it in 1942.
For the symbolic charter price of one US dollar , the US Coast Guard took over the Sea Cloud on January 7, 1942 . For more than 341,000 US dollars, the entire rigging including masts (except for the main masts ), bowsprit and figurehead was removed, the furniture was placed on land and the hull was painted gray. The ship came under the name USCGC Sea Cloud (WAG-284) (USCGC = US Coast Guard Cutter - Coast Guard cutter of the United States) in the Coast Guard and from 9 April 1943 as USS Sea Cloud (IX-99) in the US Navy at on the American east coast. A crew of 72 soldiers fought underwater forces south of Greenland and the Azores and collected weather data.
After its military decommissioning on November 4, 1944, Marjorie Post Davies received the Sea Cloud back along with a sum of 175,000 US dollars to restore it to its original appearance. In 1946 the hull was painted white again and the golden eagle was attached to the Galion . Still without masts and sails, the Davies couple and friends used the ship again for cruises as a motor yacht. In 1947 the rigging was restored and two years later the yacht received a full set of new sails. During these years the costs for the 72-person crew and the maintenance increased more and more. The marriage to Joseph Davies also got into a crisis, whereupon the Sea Cloud was offered for sale after 1952. The marriage eventually ended in divorce in 1955 .
As Angelita and Patria in the Dominican Republic
Joseph Davies was friends with the dictator of the Dominican Republic Rafael Trujillo . Trujillo had been a regular guest on the Sea Cloud for the past several years . When the barque was up for sale, he bought the ship in 1955 and named the yacht after his daughter Angelita , precisely Yate Angelita ( Yacht Angelita ). He used it as a floating government center. Trujillio's son Ramfis Trujillo (Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Martínez) and other prominent people also used them for their purposes during these years. After several unsuccessful overthrow attempts, Trujillo was ambushed and shot on May 30, 1961. His family left for Cannes with Angelita , Trujillo's body, and a sizeable fortune in cash . At the height of the Canary Islands they received a radio message from the new Dominican government, which ordered them back. Renamed there in Patria , opened (decommissioned) and offered for sale, it finally found a buyer five years later.
Antarna
John Blue, President of "Operation Sea Cruises Inc." bought the Patria in 1966, registered it in Panama and had it thoroughly overhauled and equipped for charter trips in Naples from 1967 to 1968 . In 1969 it was sold to Antarna Inc., Miami, and renamed Antarna . During the transfer to the USA there were problems due to unpaid bills and the Antarna was put on the chain by the authorities.
The then 26-year-old Stephanie Gallagher and her husband Charles developed the idea of using the Antarna as a supplement to university education for students. The project should be called “Oceanic Schools”. She paid all outstanding bills and fees and took possession of the Antarna . John Blue still had the ship's papers. Gallagher ran out with the Antarna anyway and was followed by Blue through several contact points. In the home port of Colón in Panama, John Blue finally managed to get the Antarna back into his possession. It then lay there unused for eight years and rotted away.
Sea Cloud restoration
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The German captain Hartmut Paschburg discovered the barque in Colón and formed a syndicate with a group of Hamburg merchants, which acquired the ship in 1978. The yacht was renamed again to Sea Cloud . Paschburg gathered a 40-person crew around him and temporarily repaired the Sea Cloud in Colón for several months so that the ship could be transferred across the Atlantic to Hamburg. In the following year, the Sea Cloud was brought to its place of origin through the Kiel Canal to Kiel in order to carry out further work - Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG was now located on the Germania shipyard site . There she was overhauled and expanded to include an aft deckhouse (spanker deck) and an additional deck on the middle superstructure and a total of 22 additional cabins (captain's and lido deck). The original furnishings of the cabins below deck with the marble bathtubs and wall coverings, gold faucets and fireplaces were still preserved. In the same year, the Sea Cloud of Cayman , as it was called for a short time, was again used for passenger cruises under the flag of the Cayman Islands with George Town as the home port .
From January 1981 the German captain Hartmut B. Schwarz (formerly “Gorch Fock”) took over the command and took care of the restoration of the old silhouette by installing a higher main mast with the sky sail. He made a significant contribution to the sailing training of the crew. In 1987, double inflatable boats were brought on board instead of the rigid lifeboats and she crossed the Pacific . Among other things, the Galapagos Islands , Easter Island , Pitcairn , Henderson and Ducie Iceland were visited and passengers disembarked on land (not on Pitcairn). Then French Polynesia was called and the Sea Cloud got a big reception in Papeete / Tahiti. The journey continued over the Cook Islands and Fiji , over the Trobriand Archipelago and Rabaul in the Carolina Archipelago. On the voyage, a number of untravelled sea areas were covered with rows of plumb lines , so that the Sea Cloud was mentioned in the British sea guides (Admiralty Sailing Directions).
The Sea Cloud has belonged to the Hamburg shipping company "Sea Cloud Cruises" since 1994 and continues to be used for cruises.
Trivia
In the episode “Thailand” (1986) of the ZDF series “ Das Traumschiff ”, the “Sea Cloud” is the focus of one of the storylines. Klaus Wildbolz plays an alleged sailor of the ship, who later turns out to be its owner Mike Vanderbilt.
literature
- Eric C. Abranson, Frank William Beken: Sailing Ships of the World . 2nd Edition. Ed. Maritim Delius Clasing Verlag, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-89225-314-5 .
- Hans-Jörg Furrer: The four- and five-masted square sailors in the world. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1984, ISBN 3-7822-0341-0 , p. 106 (Hussar)
- Kurt Grobecker, Peter Neumann Sea Cloud - Legend under white sails. Edition Die Barque / DSV-Verlag, Hamburg 1991, ISBN 3-455-08692-6
- Conversion at the MWB shipyard in Bremerhaven. The four-masted barque "Sea Cloud" shines in new splendor. In: HANSA . Issue 6/2011, p. 21
- items
- Rolf Bökemeier , photos: Gert Wagner: Much wind about an old love: The Sea Cloud is flying its flag again. In: Geo-Magazin. Hamburg 1980,7, pp. 60-77. Informative experience report about the Sea Cloud, ISSN 0342-8311
Web links
- Photos and description as a warship
- Internet presence of Sea Cloud Cruises GmbH
- History of the Sea Cloud
- The four-masted barque Sea Cloud
- Video clips about the Sea Cloud
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sea Cloud Cruises website: History of the Sea Cloud ( Memento of the original from April 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Accessed January 2, 2009)
- ↑ Hans-Jörg Furrer: The four and five mast square sailers of the world. Koehlers Verlagsg., Herford 1984, p. 106 (Hussar)
- ↑ NavSource: Sea Cloud
