Albatross (1920 schooner)

Albatross, originally named Albatros, later Alk, was a sailing ship built as a schooner at the state shipyard in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 1920, to serve as a pilot boat in the North Sea.

The Albatross spent two decades working the North Sea before being purchased by the German government in 1937. She served as a radio-station ship for submarines during Second World War. In 1949, Royal Rotterdam Lloyd bought her for use as a training ship for future officers of the Dutch merchant marine. Her smallness made her ideal for this kind of work and the dozen trainees could receive personal attention from the six or so professional crew. While under Dutch ownership she sailed the North Sea extensively, with occasional voyages as far as Spain and Portugal.

The American aviator, filmmaker and novelist Ernest K. Gann purchased the Albatross in 1954 , rigged her as a brigantine, and she cruised the Pacific for three years. According to Charles Gieg ("The Last Voyage of the Albatross"), the Albatross survived a tidal wave in Hawaii during this time. She was also used in the 1958 film "Twilight for the Gods" (starring Rock Hudson and Arthur Kennedy) whose script and the underlying novel by the same title were written by the Albatross' owner Gann. In the adventure film she was portrayed as an ostensibly sinking and burning ship. In 1959, "Ocean Academy, Ltd.", of Darien, Connecticut, acquired her to use her for trips combining preparatory college classes and sail training. Over the next three years, Christopher B. Sheldon Ph.D. and his wife, Alice Strahan Sheldon M.D., ran programs for up to fourteen students in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Ocean.

From fall 1960 to spring 1961, a crew of four instructors (including the Sheldons), a cook and 13 students sailed the Albatross from the Bahamas through the Caribbean to the Galápagos Islands and back to the Caribbean; a fourteenth student had been on the ship for the first part of the voyage, but had left in Balboa, Panama. At the beginning of May, the Albatross was en route from Progreso, Mexico, to Nassau, the Bahamas. On 1 May, skipper Christopher B. Sheldon decided that they would make a stop at one of the Florida keys to refill fuel. Briefly after 8:30 am on 2 May 1961, however, the Albatross was hit by a white squall about 125 miles west of the Dry Tortugas and sank almost instantly, taking with her Alice Sheldon, the ship's cook George Ptacnik, and students Chris Coristine, John Goodlett, Rick Marsellus, and Robin Wetherill (John Goodlett was on deck in the last minutes, but probably became entangled in some of the ropes or a sail of the sinking ship while freeing a lifeboat, and Christopher Coristine reportedly went below deck in an attempt to save someone else).

Refittings of The Albatross over the years by her various owners had made her top heavy, and she keeled over suddenly. There wasn't time to send out a radio distress signal before she was lost, so the remaining crew used her two lifeboats to sail towards Florida. Around 7:30 a.m. on 3 May, the two boats were found by the Dutch freighter "Gran Rio", who took the survivors to Tampa, Florida.

The loss of the Albatross prompted the United States Coast Guard to undertake a thorough review of the stability and design requirements for sailing school ships. The new rules were codified in the Sailing School Vessels Act of 1982.

A fictionalized version of the ship's tragic loss starring Jeff Bridges appeared in the 1996 film "White Squall". More accurate narrations were given in the books written by two of the crew members on the last voyage of the Albatross.

In 1932, the German training vessel Segelschulschiff Niobe had suffered a similar fate, killing 69.

Further reading

* Charles "Chuck" Gieg & Felix Sutton (1962). "The Last Voyage of the Albatross." Duell, Sloan and Pearce: New York. (Gieg was one of the students on the last trip.)
* Richard E. Langford & Jerry Renninger (2000). "White Squall: The Last Voyage of Albatross." Bristol Fashion. (ISBN 1-892216-36-1) (Langford was the English instructor on the last voyage.)
* Daniel S. Parrott (2003). "Tall Ships Down." International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press. (ISBN 007143545X) (an in depth study of 5 modern tall ship tragedies including that of the Albatross)

External links

* (starring the Albatross)
* (about the last voyage of the Albatross)