In Profile—Melbourne Smith

“I have been trying for 15 years to build the Sea Witch” says Melbourne Smith, from his original 1815 Federal- period farmhouse in Arnold, Maryland. “Years ago, we tried to put together one idea that might have involved the Navy, but that didn’t work out. Now I think we have a proposal that will sail.”

If Smith succeeds with his plans for an exacting (rather than exact) replica of the legendary full-rigged clipper ship, it would be the culmination of 30 years as a marine architect and wooden shipbuilder—the chance of a lifetime. At least, that’s how some people might look at it. Actually, for Smith it’s just one of many irons in the fire.

“In this business, you can’t count on any one project to get launched,” notes the silver-haired artist, designer, and builder of craft from the past. “Sometimes you get paid for research, or for research and design, sometimes you get to build the vessel yourself, or you might just end up doing all the preliminaries on speculation, and then it sinks without a trace. I’m the only one I know who (sometimes) gets to do it all—the research, design, and construction of the ship.”

At age 62, Smith is more interested in the future than the past, even his own. But his personal story is a fascinating journey. As Peter H. Spectre wrote. Smith is a “whirling dervish of activity—an artist, a sailor, a designer, a boatwright, a raconteur, a marine surveyor—’’and the consummate pragmatist, even though his travels at times seem romantic.¹ Bom in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, he left school at age 14 and joined the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets. After two years in the merchant service as a deckhand, he jumped ship and began a life working various jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. “You know, anything to keep up with your bar bill.”

For many years Smith worked as an art director and free-lance designer for ad and art agencies, producing everything from Seagram’s labels to junk mail. His love of the sea remained with him, however, and he sailed as much as possible in the summer. In 1959 he bought a Brix- ham trawler ketch and sailed into the English Channel with his wife and crew, intending to haul out and prepare the two- masted, 72-foot Sans Panel in Cherbourg for a voyage to the West Indies.

The vessel never made it; a storm smashed her on the rocks on the French coast. Though Smith, his wife, and crew soon were ashore and recovered, the trawler was a total loss. Also lost were some 300 paintings Smith had on board—everything was gone. Shortly thereafter, his wife died of polio in Spain.

But within a year the 29-year-old Smith had acquired another sailing vessel—the three-masted, 105-foot schooner Annyah—had sailed her across the Atlantic to Antigua with an eight-man crew, and had started a charter business. For two years he lived on board the Annyah, until he chartered her to the Guatemalan Navy and found himself training naval cadets in celestial navigation. He was commissioned in the Marina de la Defenca Nacional de Guatemala. In 1961 he refitted the training schooner Quetzal-

Run out of Guatemala by a coup in 1962 (“Thank God!”), Smith and a partner began building and selling boats in British Honduras (now Belize). He sailed up and down the coast, delivering tugboats, trawlers, and other working boats. He also built and sold yachts, sloops, and schooners for U.S., Canadian, and Caribbean customers.

It was in the 1960s that he got into “tall cotton,” starting with the sale of a painting of the Baltimore clipper Rossie to Skipper magazine for $100. That sale was fortunate and prophetic, leading to 48 works and $10,000 in published illustrations as a marine artist. His work has appeared in numerous Naval Institute Press publications, including American Sailing Frigates and American Sailing Naval Schooners', in Sailing Craft of the Chesapeake, Brigs and Sloops of the American Navy, in U.S. Revenue Cutters', and in America’s Cup Defenders, to name a few. He later worked in the U.S. Naval Institute art department and as art director for Skipper magazine.

He also worked as a book designer and writer for Greyhounds of the Sea (Naval Institute Press, 3rd ed., 1984), Sea History, Nautical Quarterly, Wooden Boat, and Baltimore Sun Magazine', the list of published credits goes on and on.

Smith settled in the Annapolis area in 1966, after having skippered the research vessel Fitzgerald from Chicago to New Orleans via the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Over the next few years, he navigated the Australian yacht Apollo in Newport-Bermuda and transatlantic races and worked as a compass adjuster for the Coast Guard and the Navy, installing and adjusting the compass on board the U.S. Coast Guard bark Eagle.

The next major phase of Smith’s career began in 1976, when he was awarded the contract to build Maryland’s official tall ship, the clipper topsail schooner Pride of Baltimore, ca. 1812, of 121 tons. Captain Smith was the Pride’s master on her maiden voyage to Bermuda and Halifax. This first Pride of Baltimore was lost in a Caribbean storm with her captain and three crew in May 1986.

“There was nothing wrong with her design, but she had two feet of freeboard and a lot of top hamper. You can’t handle a vessel like that the way you handle a modem sloop. She was like a racehorse, and you need a lot of monkeys—12 on the Pride—to run up and strip that top hamper down fast. There were only four trained able seamen on board. She should have had her topmasts lowered before heading North, where white squalls or microbursts often hit. And you have to decide quickly whether to bear up and heave to or head down and run off. If you don’t take down the top hamper, God will take it down for you. Things are going to break sometimes in 30 knots of wind. But never lose headway. The Pride ended up broadside to the wind and on her beam ends, and in a few minutes too much water had entered through the after hatch.”

Nevertheless, the Pride of Baltimore was a great success and launched Smith’s career as one of the most successful “replica/interpretation” builders. He has taken an active part in creating a fleet of traditional sailing vessels. He also designed the official Massachusetts tall ship, the 136-ton Gloucester schooner Spirit of Massachusetts (vintage 1910), which launched in 1984.

“We could have built the Spirit of Massachusetts for $750,000, but our plans weren’t true enough to the original construction methods, they said. 1 wanted to build her using laminated frames, but they insisted on double-sawn frames. So they ended up spending $ 1.4 million, and they’ll have more trouble with rot. But I guess they got what they wanted.”

The delightful 15-foot Federalist—the world’s smallest full-rigged ship—on display in Maryland’s state capitol building, is a Smith design. Launched in 1988 for the Maryland Federalist Commission to commemorate the bicentennial of Maryland’s ratification of the Constitution, she was based on Smith’s research on the original vessel, which was used in a parade in 1788 and presented as a gift to President George Washington.

Another exciting project for Smith was the research, design, and building of the U.S. brig Niagara, Pennsylvania’s official tall ship, for the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission. Commissioned in 1990 at Erie, Pennsylvania, she is based on Commodore Perry’s flagship (after he transferred from the Lawrence with his battle flag “Don’t Give Up The Ship”). “It was a thrill to sail in the sea trials for the Niagara with Captain Bowman. Now, they’re afraid of her.”²

One ongoing project is providing materials and consultation for the building of Captain Cook’s Endeavour, in Fremantle, Western Australia, a $12 million project. Smith also is president of the American Clipper Trust, a Maryland not- for-profit corporation, and president of the International Historical Watercraft Society, Inc., a group of designers and builders of historic sailing vessels.

How does Smith succeed in such a rarefied field that is “nutty enough even with a track record?”

“When I was building the Pride,” he says, "they asked me to give them a bid on replacing the fore-topmast of the Constellation [an 1851 sloop-of-war, or corvette, not a 1797 frigate, as many believe], I thought in my mind, about a week and about $3000, because it would be easier for me than for most people to get the wood for a spar of about the right scantlings. Then I said, that will sound too low, I’d better double it, so, $6000 was what I was going to tell them. Somehow, when I got into the meeting, the figure $12,000 actually came out of my mouth; I’d doubled it again.

“When they got back to me, they said they’d given the contract to someone else—because my price was too low! No one could do it for that, they said. So it ended up taking a year and costing $62,000!”

This theme would continue with future projects; but always Smith’s focus is on precise calculation for exacting specifications; cost-saving, innovative, longer-lasting methods and sources (such as factory laminated pine for lower masts and laminated instead of double-saw-cut frames); and getting the job done on time. Thanks to his contacts in Belize, he could deliver the materials— including forged iron and wood (such as sopadillo, and the nine tons of granadia in his backyard, used mostly for fittings)—as well as the necessary shipwrights, caulkers, riggers, and carpenters.

“We make literally everything for the ships, right down to the compass, deadeyes, blocks, and rigging,” he says, showing me beautiful rosewood fittings. How did he learn all of this? “Everything is written down somewhere,” he says, more than a little disingenuously. “You just have to find the right books, and read them.”

It’s an experimental approach to marine archaeology and architecture: if you don’t have the original, or reliable plans or half-models, you must research, build, and deploy. The “real” ships did not last long; clippers were good for 10-20 years at the most, thanks to rot and countless other factors. Today, a truly authentic vessel is out of the question, especially if you want to sail it. The Niagara was a good compromise between authenticity and practicality, though the project wasn’t without its problems.

“I could have included an engine in the Niagara for $120,000 with a single screw. But they wanted no auxiliary. Then later, they realized they wanted engines, so they were added at great expense, tearing out the original bulkheads and captain’s cabin. The total cost was then $700,000.”

But Melbourne Smith the historian, artist, captain, and master craftsman does have a hero: John W. Griffiths, who designed the legendary Sea Witch.

“He knew how to make a faster ship,” says Smith. “He believed the future was wood, but in a sense he was right—the iron and steel technology available then required riveted plates, which meant deep and leaky bottoms. Griffiths’ patented steam box was a revolutionary way to produce more frames from half the amount of wood.”

U.S. ships were always faster than their foreign counterparts because their hulls were shallower and broader. Griffiths took the theory of speed to the ultimate by “adding the sharp bow” to the existing hull design, creating a longer waterline contact with no loss of cargo space. His masterpiece was the Sea Witch, launched in New York in 1846, perhaps the fastest and most beautiful clipper ship of her size. At 908 tons register and 180 feet stem to stern, she was substantially smaller than the later (post- 1849 gold rush) legend, the Flying Cloud. The Sea Witch would set many records during her career, but her candle burned brightly at both ends: she sank near Havana in 1856, fetched up short on a beach.

Captain Smith hopes to build an exacting replica of the Sea Witch, sail her around the world, and ultimately display her under glass for public viewing, a national ship for the country.

“The timing is perfect,” Smith says, “because of the Smithsonian’s new Philatelic Museum.”

Stamps? Actually, it makes sense.

“The U.S. Merchant Marine really began in 1845,” Smith says. “The U.S. government authorized American ‘packets’ [they didn’t call them clipper ships then] to carry the mail between the United States and foreign ports. Between government contracts and private enterprise in maritime cargo and the Gold Rush, U.S. commerce at sea took off. By the 1850s, the speed and numbers of American bottoms were the wonder of the world. It was the apex of ocean business, at least as far as sailing vessels are concerned. And the Sea Witch was really the first of her type, what would later be known as a clipper, the fastest thing ever under sail.”

If accepted, Project Sea Witch would begin construction in January 1993, near Washington, D.C., and culminate with the launch in Alexandria, Virginia, a little more than two years later. An educational, historic, and cultural program, it would be funded with the help of a U.S. Postal Service contract and Smith’s International Historical Watercraft Society.

The Sea Witch would carry commemorative stamps, cancellation marks, and special covers on actual ocean voyages and passages of the clipper ships, as well as a permanent maritime philatelic exhibit. She also would carry friendship letters from children of many countries, to encourage stamp collecting and relationships between children of the United States and other countries. There is vast— and lucrative—potential for public relations, trade, goodwill, and sales, especially among stamp and wooden-ship enthusiasts.

The Sea Witch would cruise the East Coast before circumnavigating the globe on a commemorative voyage. Then she would re-create the California Gold Rush voyages and a West Coast cruise before becoming a permanent exhibit in San Francisco in 2000.

The estimated cost for construction, maintenance, operation, and overhead is $24 million. The estimated return is more than $70 million, including revenue from stamps, souvenirs, passenger fares (there will be a few), sponsorships, licensing, media rights, memberships, admissions, and research charters. Smith is confident that investors and the U.S. Postal Service will enjoy significant profits and other benefits.

“I teamed up with a former Marine officer, Rocky Rosacker, who worked as a senator’s aide and who knows Capitol Hill,” says Smith. “We have 27 letters from congressmen supporting the project, including Patrick Moynihan and Mark Hatfield. They will help us see the Postmaster General. Our proposal also comes from the American Clipper Trust and the National Maritime Historical Society. This project will bring history alive.” 

Smith’s excitement and enthusiasm are obvious—but again, he doesn’t put all his ships in one basket. For example, there’s the San Salvador, flagship of the famous Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who discovered San Diego in 1542. Smith has been commissioned for eight months of research and design and hopes to receive the go-ahead in 1993 to build her. For $2 million, (“no cost overruns or time delays”) you get a galleon, a very unusual and archaic design, 102 feet long overall, displacing 150 tons. The research report is a fascinating look at historical nautical scholarship, comparing archaic measurements and terminology to more modem concepts to develop the best possible “guesstimate” of what a replica of the San Salvador would be like.

Of what accomplishment is Melbourne Smith the most proud?

“It’s just fun to be able to bring history alive, to work on these things. The wooden ship builders love what they do, and many do it for minimal wages. It’s hard to make a living this way because there are so few opportunities of this kind in the world. I hope that we will build the San Salvador as a truly indigenous ship of the West Coast and the Sea Witch as a truly American jewel. Most historical tall ships sailing in the United States were not built in America. The Sea Witch would be a national ship, part of our country’s pride and heritage. I treasure the beauty of these vessels, too. Someone once said the two most perfect art forms created in America were the ax handle and the clipper ship.”

What is his most exciting project?

“The next one. I’m interested in future challenges, not old news. Ships are like daughters after they reach 21. You have to let them go.”