What Do You Want To See When The Charles Morgan Visits New London?

Spencer July 20, 2012 at 05:11 pm

I think the staff members who drive and work the ship being dresed in 1841 uniforms would be pretty cool!! Especially if they know anything at all about the very first crew members that they might be able to entail??

Spencer July 20, 2012 at 05:12 pm

Of course--the actual first crew members themselves would be pretty cool too. But I am relatively sure that can not be pulled off.

Clark van der Lyke July 20, 2012 at 07:32 pm

I don't think they had Whale Ship uniforms, probably smelly canvas pants and shirts. Unless they took a side trip to moonlight in the slave trade, killing, gutting whales and cutting the blubber up to boil down for the oil was a real messy business. They say a whaler could be smelled 12 miles out to sea if the wind was right. Probably wore the same clothing for the whole voyage too, short on washing machines and fresh water. As anyone who has served on a ship will tell you, soap and salt water don't clean much. Better they to just to try and dress in simple clothing of the era. By the way, you sail a ship...you drive a car.

Clark van der Lyke July 21, 2012 at 01:55 pm

However, for those that subscribe to the myth that whaling was a romantic industry, let us imagine that the crew wore blue and white seersucker pants and white middies and ball caps with the ships name on them. Of course they all sang cute sea chanties as they hauled in Mrs. Moby Dick and her unborn calf to be cut up live and melted down for lamp oil. I remember watching a group of children viewing a painting of a whale being cut up that hangs a local art museum. They viewed it with silence until a little girl asked the docent if "that hurt?" The guide was not ready to address that question and moved on to landscapes.
I look forward to the Morgan visit. My first visit to the ship was the late 1940's. It is a national treasure. But let's not romanticize whaling, even here in the Whaling City, It was what it was. Better than clubbing baby seals and bull fighting I suppose. Wouldn't want to be known as the "Baby Seal City" or the "Bull City."