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''Moshulu'' is a four-masted steel barque, built as ''Kurt'' by
William Hamilton and Company William Hamilton and Company was a British shipyard in Port Glasgow, Scotland. The company was bought by Lithgow Ltd., which later became Scott Lithgow and was nationalised as part of British Shipbuilders in 1977. During the Second World War th ...
at
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in Scotland in 1904. The largest remaining original windjammer, she is currently a
floating restaurant A floating restaurant is a vessel, usually a large steel barge or hulk, used as a restaurant on water. The ''Jumbo Kingdom'', formerly located at Aberdeen in Hong Kong, was at one time the world's largest floating restaurant, until it sank at s ...
docked in Penn's Landing, Philadelphia, adjacent to the museum ships USS ''Olympia'' and USS ''Becuna''.


History

Originally named ''Kurt'' after Dr. Kurt Siemers, director general and president of the Hamburg shipping company G. H. J. Siemers & Co., she was, along with her sistership ''Hans'', one of the last four-masted steel barques to be built on the Clyde. Constructed for G. H. J. Siemers & Co. to be used in the
nitrate Nitrate is a polyatomic ion A polyatomic ion, also known as a molecular ion, is a covalent bonded set of two or more atoms, or of a metal complex, that can be considered to behave as a single unit and that has a net charge that is not zer ...
trade, at a cost of £36,000, she was launched in 1904. Her first master was Captain Christian Schütt, followed by Captain Wolfgang H. G. Tönissen in 1908 who made a fast voyage from Newcastle, Australia, to Valparaíso with a cargo of coal in 31 days. Between 1904 and 1914, under German ownership, ''Kurt'' shipped coal from Wales to South America, nitrate from Chile to Germany, coal from
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
to Chile, and coke and patent fuel from Germany to Santa Rosalía, Mexico. On the outbreak of World War I in 1914, ''Kurt'' was sailed to Oregon under the command of Captain Tönissen, then laid up in Astoria until being seized when the United States entered the war in 1917. She was first renamed ''Dreadnought'' ("one who fears nothing"), then, because there was already a sailing ship of that name registered in the US, she was renamed the ''Moshulu'' (which had the same meaning in the
Seneca language Seneca (; in Seneca, or ) is the language of the Seneca people, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois League; it is an Iroquoian language, spoken at the time of contact in the western portion of New York. While the name ''Seneca'', attested as ...
) by the First Lady of the United States and wife of President Woodrow Wilson, Edith Wilson. Between 1917 and 1920, ''Moshulu'' was owned by the U.S. Shipping Board and carried wool and chrome between North America, Manila and Australia. From 1920 to 1935, ''Moshulu'' was in various private hands based in San Francisco. From 1920 to 1922, it was owned by the Moshulu Navigation Co. (Charles Nelson & Co.), San Francisco; in 1922, it was sold to James Tyson of San Francisco; and, in 1922, it was repurchased by Charles Nelson. The big four-masted barque ran in the timber trade along the U.S. west coast to Australia and South Africa from 1920 to 1928. After her last timber run to Melbourne and
Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...
, Australia, in 1928, she was laid up in Los Angeles; later on, she was kept in places in or near Seattle, Washington:
Lake Union Lake Union is a freshwater lake located entirely within the city limits of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is a major part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which carries fresh water from the much larger Lake Washington on the east to ...
, Winslow on ( Puget Sound), and Esquimalt in British Columbia, Canada north west of Seattle. In 1935, the ''Moshulu'' was bought for $12,000 by
Gustaf Erikson Gustaf Adolf Mauritz Erikson (1872, Lemland – 1947) was a ship-owner from Mariehamn, in the Åland islands. He was famous for the fleet of windjammers he operated to the end of his life, mainly on the grain trade from Australia to Europe. Eri ...
. On 14 March 1935, when the contract was signed, Captain Gunnar Boman took over the ship and sailed it to Port Victoria. Gustaf Erikson had her operate in the grain trade from Australia to Europe. In 1937, John Albright sailed on her as a young seaman. During the period of Erikson ownership the working language of the ship was Swedish, even though it sailed under the Finnish flag. The ship's home port at the time,
Mariehamn Mariehamn ( , ; fi, Maarianhamina ; la, Portus Mariae) is the capital city, capital of Åland, an autonomous territory under Finland, Finnish sovereignty. Mariehamn is the seat of the Government of Åland, Government and Parliament of Åland, ...
, is in the Swedish-speaking autonomous Finnish area Åland. At the end of 1938, the ship left Belfast for Port Lincoln and Port Victoria, in South Australia, under the command of Captain Mikael Sjögren and with 18-year-old Eric Newby as an apprentice seaman; Newby later became a famous travel writer. Moshulu arrived in Queenstown (
Cobh Cobh ( ,), known from 1849 until 1920 as Queenstown, is a seaport town on the south coast of County Cork, Ireland. With a population of around 13,000 inhabitants, Cobh is on the south side of Great Island in Cork Harbour and home to Ireland's ...
, Ireland) on June 10, 1939, after 91 days at sea, winning the last race of square-rigged sailing ships between Australia and Europe. The ship was seized by the Germans in 1940 when she returned to Kristiansand, Norway, again under the command of Captain Mikael Sjögren and with a cargo of wheat from Buenos Aires. She was derigged step-by-step in the 1940s, and, after having capsized in a storm close to shore at a beach in Østervik near
Narvik ( se, Áhkanjárga) is the third-largest municipality in Nordland county, Norway, by population. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Narvik. Some of the notable villages in the municipality include Ankenesstranda, Ball ...
in 1947, she was demasted by a salvaging company to be re-erected, stabilized, and towed to Bergen in July 1948. The ship's hull was sold to Trygve Sommerfeldt of Oslo. A few months later, the ship was transferred to Sweden to be used as a grain store in
Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
from 1948 to 1952. Then she was sold to the German shipowner Heinz Schliewen, who wanted to put her back to use under the name ''Oplag'' as a merchant marine training ship carrying cargo. Schliewen already used the four-masted steel barques '' Pamir'' and ''
Passat The Volkswagen Passat is a series of large family cars manufactured and marketed by the German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen since 1973, and now in its eighth generation. It has been marketed variously as the Dasher, Santana, Quantum, Mago ...
'' (both former
Flying P-Liner The Flying P-Liners were the sailing ships of the German shipping company F. Laeisz of Hamburg. History The company was founded in 1824 by Ferdinand Laeisz as a hat manufacturing company. He was quite successful and distributed his hats even in ...
s) for that purpose, but before ''Moshulu'' was re-rigged, Schliewen went into bankruptcy. In 1953 ''Moshulu'' was sold to the Swedish Farmers' State Union (''Svenska Lantmännens Riksförbund'') of Stockholm, and again it was used as a floating warehouse beginning on 16 November 1953. In 1961, the Finnish government bought the ship for 3,200 tons of Russian
rye Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe (Triticeae) and is closely related to both wheat (''Triticum'') and barley (genus ''Hordeum''). Rye grain is u ...
; she was towed to Naantali, a town near Turku, and she continued to be used as a grain warehouse. In 1970, the ship was bought by the Specialty Restaurants Corporation, who rigged her out at
Scheveningen Scheveningen is one of the eight districts of The Hague, Netherlands, as well as a subdistrict (''wijk'') of that city. Scheveningen is a modern seaside resort with a long, sandy beach, an esplanade, a pier, and a lighthouse. The beach is po ...
in the Netherlands with replica masts, yards, and lines and towed her to South Street Seaport Museum, New York. The United States Coast Guard 3rd District Band rode on the Moshulu as she was towed from Brooklyn to the museum and played for the arrival ceremony on the Manhattan side of the river. She was later towed to the Penns Landing waterfront in center city Philadelphia PA. Other sources have it that The Walt Disney Company bought the ship but soon transferred it to the American "Specialty Restaurants Corporation". Since 2003 she is operated by SCC Restaurants LLC.


In popular culture

''Moshulu'' was made famous by the books of Eric Newby. At the age of 19, he apprenticed aboard the ''Moshulu'', joining the ship in Belfast in 1938 and sailing to Port Lincoln in Australia with a load of ballast stone in 82 days, a good passage for a windjammer. ''Moshulu'' took 4,875 tons of bagged grain on board in Port Victoria and began her return voyage to Ireland in the spring of 1939. She reached her destination in 91 days, a faster passage than that of any of the other sailing ships making similar passages that year. During the entire voyage, Newby took part in all the work required to maintain the ship, such as constant chipping of rust, painting and polishing brass and copper and overhauling the standing and running rigging – all of this on top of the day-to-day tasks required to sail the ship, such as changing from fair weather sails to storm sails and back again as storms rose and abated. The crew at the time was predominantly Finnish and
Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
, and nationality was a source of friction amongst them throughout the voyage. The journey was documented in Newby's books ''
The Last Grain Race ''The Last Grain Race'' is a 1956 book by Eric Newby, a travel writer, about his time spent on the four-masted steel barque ''Moshulu'' during the vessel's last voyage in the Australian grain trade. Background to the book In 1938 the 18-year-o ...
'' (1956) and ''Learning the Ropes: An Apprentice in the Last of the Windjammers'' (1999). The title of the former book refers to the last grain race before the outbreak of World War II. The latter contains more than 150 of the photographs Newby took while aboard. Whilst windjammers exist and sail the seas to this day, the last windjammer carrying cargo was the Peruvian '' Omega'' (ex ''Drumcliff'') which was in use until her loss in 1958. ''Moshulu'', like all grain ships, was lightly manned; during Newby's time on the ship the total crew numbered only 28, including 4 officers, the cook, the steward, and 8 sailors in each of the port and starboard watches. Routine tasks such as wearing the ship required every crew member to be involved, meaning lost sleep for the free watch. If a sailor became ill or injured, chances were slim that he would receive treatment ashore, especially since ''Moshulu'' made no stops between Europe and Australia during Newby's voyage. When a man like Newby applied for a position in the crew, an officer had him climb to the top of the mainmast, pointing out that at sea, he might have to climb it while it was swaying wildly. For many applicants that was enough; they were never seen again. The ''Moshulu'' was seen in the movies '' Rocky'' (shown during one of Rocky's workout sessions along the waterfront) and '' The Godfather Part II'' (seen as the young Vito Corleone arrives in America in 1901, three years before it was built), as well as in the end scene of the movie ''
Blow Out ''Blow Out'' is a 1981 American neo-noir mystery thriller film written and directed by Brian De Palma. The film stars John Travolta as Jack Terry, a movie sound effects technician from Philadelphia who, while recording sounds for a low-budget sl ...
''.


See also

For examples of other large sailing ships: * List of large sailing vessels


References

*Sven-Erik Nylund: Inte rädd för någon, Vasa 2001, Schildts (in Swedish)


Further reading

*Newby, Eric, ''The Last Grain Race'', Secker & Warburg, London, 1956; Penguin Books, New York, N.Y., U.S.A., 1986. (pbk.) *Newby, Eric, ''Learning the Ropes – An Apprentice in the Last of the Windjammers'', John Murray, London 1999.


External links


History of the ship from the restaurant web site
{{Restaurants in Philadelphia Barques Windjammers Grain ships Individual sailing vessels Tall ships of the United Kingdom Tall ships of Germany Tall ships of Finland Tall ships of the United States Four-masted ships Ships built on the River Clyde Restaurants in Philadelphia 1904 ships Restaurants established in 1975 Penn's Landing 1975 establishments in Pennsylvania Floating restaurants