SEA HISTORY for kids Everyday speech from sailors of yesterday

u The Swiss team Above Board Today we say that someone is Listless “Listless” means that someone is dull or from Alinghi holds up “above board” to mean he or she is honest. This phrase lethargic. This word originated in the days of sail. A ship in The Cup after their comes from the days when ship captains were always calm waters rides on an even keel or level with the horizon, The America’s Cup victory in 2003. worried about running into pirates. Pirates would often- without heeling or listing to one side or the other in a strong The America’s Cup—that go-fast modern sailing race times hide most of their large crew below deck or below wind. Therefore, a vessel that has no wind or list is “list- where millions are dollars are spent on boats and gear, the wooden bulwarks (the extension of the ship’s side up- less” and slow moving. where the sailing crew are muscu-lar tanned guys (and wards past the deck to the railing) when they approached an unsuspecting ship. When the two ships would get close Spic and Span When the age of exploration some women too!), where national pride and rivalries OF CONGRESS LIBRARY enough that the potential victim wouldn’t be able to get took off in the 16th century, the Dutch built many new ships run high, and where most of the rest of us don’t know away, the crew would spring up, ready to fight the much for this purpose. Their word used to describe their brand- a lot about it. smaller crew of a typical merchant ship. An honest captain new boats was “spiksplinter nieuw,” which means new ©ACM 2003 / The America’s Cup is the oldest trophy in sports. PHOTO: THIERRY MARTINEZ would have his crew stand tall behind the bulwarks so in every spike and splinter (spike meaning the large nails It was originally called the “Hundred Pound Cup,” they could be seen easily and show the other vessel that used to fasten the ship together and splinter referring to and it was renamed the “America’s Cup” (named for his or her ship was “above board.” the wood used to build the ship). The British sailors called p Schooner Yacht America, 1851, Currier & Ives them “spike and spanew,” and American sailors warped America the winning boat, , not for the country) after that phrase to “spic-and-span” to mean clean and polished. a famous race in 1851 when the New York Yacht Club and took the Cup home to Australia. Since that time, From Dr. Martin Davis, Traditions and Tales of the Navy (Missoula, Montana: accepted an invitation by Great Britain’s Lord Wilton, the Cup has been won by New Zealand two times, Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., Inc., 2000) the Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, to send the US three times, and most recently by a Swiss over a boat to race against the British yachts. Think team. t This Dutch ship is becalmed and listless. about this—1851 was 45 years before the first mod- In the early races, the boats were one- or two- She would have been spiksplinter niew when she was new. Painting c. 1662 by Willem Van de Velde. ern Olympic games were held; the America’s Cup pre- masted, made of wood, and sailed to the race loca- cedes soccer’s World Cup, tennis’s Davis Cup, hockey’s tion across the oceans. There have been several evo- Stanley Cup, and golf’s Walker Cup. The actual cup, lutions of the rules and design of the boats in the or trophy, itself was one of three solid ewers (a last 150 years. Today, the race itself is a “match race” Kids in Sea History: , vase-shaped pitcher) made in 1848 by the Royal between just two boats, and the boats are very high- e lived and died more Boy Pirate— were dismasted and the ship sank. Jeweller in England. The Royal Yacht Squadron -ac tech both in design and materials used to construct than 200 years before Only two men survived out of a quired it in 1851 and offered it as a prize for a race them. About 50 years ago, rules were changed so that was even John King crew of approximately 145 people. around the Isle of Wight. the new smaller-class boats, the 12-meters, were not Hdreamed up by J. M. Barrie, who Today, we know about John King This was no small race. The course around the required to sail to the race locations across the oceans. wrote Peter Pan in the early 20th from the report left by the ship’s Isle of Wight was approximately 53 miles; throughout Today, competitors’ boats are transported across the century. Nevertheless, 10-year-old captain from which he was sailing the race, the lead changed hands plenty of times, but oceans in larger ships and even on airplanes. The Cup John King was enthralled with pi- with his mother. The shipwreck at the end, America trounced her competitors—8 cut- has been challenged by the US, England, Australia, rates even in his time. Just like to- was discovered in 1984 and many ters and 6 schooners. With her victory came the cup, New Zealand, Italy, and Switzerland. In 2003, the day’s kids who think it’d be fun to artifacts have been removed from which was brought home to the New York Yacht Club. Swiss team, sailing in Alinghi, brought the Cup back be a pirate, John King had no idea the seabed in the years since. John Since then, the Cup has been challenged 30 times and to Europe for the first time since that first race in what he was getting himself into King even threatened to kill him- King’s fibula (lower leg bone), shoe, will have its 32nd competition in June 2007. The win- 1851. Look for news of the 32nd America’s Cup in when the ship he was traveling on self and then he threatened to kill and silk stocking were among the ning boat’s home country (actually, its yacht club) gets June 2007. with his mother was seized by Cap- his mother if she stopped him! plunder taken from the site. No to take the trophy home and keeps it until another (For more details on the history of the race, tain , the famous Instead of going to a much- one paid much attention to the re- see article on pages 20-23 of this issue.) competitor challenges and wins it from them. The Black Sam, and his fellow pirates deserved time-out in his cabin, the mains of the very small pirate until New York Yacht Club held onto the Cup from 1851 in 1716 on the ship Whydah. The young boy went off with the pi- this past June when archaeologists to 1983 when the Australians upset the Amercan team boy demanded that he be allowed rates, never to see his family again. determined that the bone belonged to join the pirate crew, much to the A few months later, the pirate ship to a boy and not a small man. With dismay of his mother who tried to and crew, with John King onboard, only one boy onboard, it could

u Today’s America’s Cup boats are multi-million dollar enterprises warn him that that life was not all were struggling in a storm off Cape only be him. 32 and very high-tech. fun and games. Reportedly, John Cod, Massachusetts, when they 33 ©ACM 2005 / PHOTO: CARLO BORLENGHI CARLO 2005 / PHOTO: ©ACM In the next several issues of Sea History, historian and sailor Richard King introduces us to animals that have had an impact SEA HISTORY on maritime history in ways you’ve probably not considered. In this fi rst issue, learn about barnacles and why sailors hate for kids them (unless they were shipwrecked sailors—they have good reason to love them).

f you want to be a barnacle, you’ve got to turn upside down and catch food with your feet. IBorn from an egg, you fl oat around for a while as plankton, then you need to decide where to spend the rest of your life. You are fragile and squishy, so you need to build your- self a shell so you don’t get smushed or eaten. You’ll still and stalked barnacles. Acorns are the compact ones on Sir A.P. Herbert wrote in 1921: live in water, at least most of the time, but to keep from rocks that look like tiny volcanoes; stalked are the ones Th ousands of Barnacles, small and great, drifting all over the place you’ve got to attach to some- with soft stems and a shell casing at the tip. Stalked Stick to the jolly old Ship of State; thing with a powerful, waterproof glue. If you want barnacles are more common on fl oating objects So we mustn’t be cross if she seems to crawl— to travel, choose a boat bottom, some whale skin, a out at sea. It’s rather a marvel she goes at all. turtle shell, or even a penguin’s foot. Rather stay put? No one is certain of the origins for the Stick to a rock, a buoy, or a wharf piling. word barnacle, but it seems the Barnacle Not everyone dislikes you, though. For soups and chow- As a crustacean, your relatives are shrimps and Goose had the name fi rst. Th e story goes ders, chefs like to boil you up, especially your larger rela- lobsters. When water fl ows by, you open the hatch that medieval naturalists found logs washed tives that can grow almost as long as this sheet of paper or of your shell and catch food with your skinny, hairy ashore, covered with stalked barnacles. just as wide at their base. Shipwrecked mariners are over- Scientists like to study you. Before Charles Darwin wrote legs, called cirri. Th ere are about 900 barnacle spe- Th ey thought these creatures looked like joyed to fi nd barnacles to eat. Th e most famous example The Origin of Species, he spent eight years writing four vol- cies, but the best-known kinds are acorn barnacles larval geese because of their long necks and is after a whale smashed up the whaleship Essex in 1820 umes on barnacles. US Coast Guard biologists can deter- wing-like ends with feathery cirri poking in the middle of the Pacifi c Ocean. Some of the starving mine how long a vessel has been at sea, based on the ac- out. For hundreds of years, naturalists be- sailors survived in part by eating stalked barnacles growing cumulation of barnacles on the hull, and marine ecologists lieved that a type of tree existed that grew underneath their small boats. In Edgar Allan Poe’s novel study how ships deliver invasive barnacle species to ports these birds. In 1599, Richard Hakluyt wrote: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, shipwrecked sailors around the world. “Th ere stand certaine trees vpon the shore of the survive by eating barnacles, and Th or Heyerdahl and his Still want to be a barnacle? Before you decide, wait un- Irish Sea, bearing fruit like a gourd, which…doe crew enjoyed the barnacles beneath their raft Kon-Tiki on til next issue where you’ll read how men died for the sake of fall into the water, and become birds called Bernacles.” their voyage across the Pacifi c. Japanese farmers have raised the Sea Cucumber (no relation to the one in your salad). Today, stalked barnacles are also called goosenecks. barnacles for fertilizer. If you’re going to be a barnacle, I’ll be honest and tell you most mariners hate your guts (more your shells). You and all your buddies collect in amazingly large numbers on the hulls of ships. Th is slows a vessel down, adding more time to a voyage. So, the ship needs more supplies, fuel, and expensive paint to keep off more of your friends. is sponsored by the Even when you die, your shell stays glued tight to what- ever surface it’s on. Barnacles can clog the water pipes of engines and do other damage to ships. Sea History For Kids 34 James FoundationA. Macdonald35