The Cape LaHave, the Vesta and the Great Ocean Yacht Race

In the summer of 1925 when Robert McClearn (my grandfather) was 15, he joined the three-masted schooner Cape LaHave for a trip from Nova Scotia to the West Indies. 

With no power or refrigeration, sailing vessels in the early 1900s were still limited in what they could carry to feed the crew. Presumably salted fish was a staple, or fish otherwise caught during the voyage. The Cape LaHave therefore carried a small allotment of live chickens to break up the monotony of fish. 

From my recollection of the story told to me by my grandfather, young Robert was given the task of building a chicken coop out of the available materials onboard, which was limited to some wooden slats and some nails. My grandfather did his best to fashion the chicken coop out of these basic materials, but the Cape LaHave soon ran into bad weather, and he very soon became seasick - so sick that the ship's captain apparently thought he was going to have to put him ashore. Although my grandfather recovered enough to continue on the voyage, the chicken coop fell prey to a wave that swept over the ship and smashed it to bits. The remains, along with all but a single chicken, were swept overboard. My grandfather said he remembered the single remaining chicken perched, soaking wet, on the leeward rail of the ship - that is, until a second wave swept it overboard as well. The crew was forced to fall back on salted fish for the rest of the trip, and young Robert was not very popular.

My grandfather made several models when he was a child, some of which our family still has. The finest of them (in my opinion) is a model of a Grand Banks fishing schooner.

Schooner model made by Robert McClearn.

When he returned from his West Indies trip, he built two models of the Cape LaHave using materials available around the house. Although neither model was finished, the family story is that he spent so much time on the finer of the two models (pictured below) that he had to repeat his Grade 11.

The model of the Cape LaHave. It is unfinished, and has seen better days, with some damage to the rigging apparent. As well, there are cracks in the deck from drying out.

A tweet from the Nova Scotia Maritime Museum of the Atlantic on Twitter this morning about a seemingly unconnected event prompted me to finish this blog post, something I started over a year ago.

On December 11, 1866, three yachts left the Sandy Hook light ship off New York behind and set sail for the Isle of Wight in what became known as The Great Ocean Yacht Race.

The Currier & Ives poster, sketched by Charles Parsons, of "The Great Ocean Yacht Race". It is also in the Library of Congress collection. 

The print itself is quite well known in certain circles, and Salvador Dali apparently created his own interpretation of the print in 1971. The 1866 race came about after the owners of the Fleetwing and Vesta were overheard at the New York Yacht Club discussing the various merits of each vessel, by the owner of the third vessel, the Henrietta. A race with a winner-takes-all $90,000 prize ensued: starting  the race off Sandy Hook, NJ, on December 11th of that year, the Henrietta arrived off the Needles, Isle of Wight, on December 25th after 13 days and 22 hours. Fleetwing arrived 8 hours later on December 26th, and Vesta arrived a mere 1.5 hours after that. Not bad for a trans-Atlantic race.

Many years later, immediately before or during 1916, my great-grandfather purchased a yacht named the Vesta (we assume the same vessel, though she would have been at least 50 years old by this time) for commercial use. Her yachting interior was stripped out and sold off - some pieces remained in the family's possession, including apparently a sideboard in my great-grandfather's house. For her first commercial voyage, she was loaded with lumber in her new home port of Liverpool, NS. On the Liverpool waterfront at Fort Point, she is captured in a photograph on an information display board.

The information display board on the Liverpool waterfront. Note the photo in the centre.

A schooner loading lumber in Liverpool, NS, in the summer of 1916. One of the boys sitting at the bow is my great-uncle Jack, roughly age 9. 

Looking closely, the schooner is revealed to be the Vesta.

Vesta's maiden commercial voyage from her new home port to New York wasn't exactly a success -  she was promptly wrecked near Cape Sable (the wreck database says "5 miles east of Seal Island") on 21 July 1916, a total loss. It being wartime, the lack of navigation lights may have contributed to the wreck. My grandfather recalled finding her wheel displayed in a front yard on Cape Sable years later.

Growing up in his father's house in Liverpool, NS, there would have been various bits and pieces of the Vesta lying around - including the piece of wood that he used for the base of his model of the Cape LaHave.