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I t could have been a scene fromWoodstock, or a dozen othersixties rock festivals: thousands of

spectators sprawled on the grounds ofNewport's Fort Adams Park with theireyes and hearts fixed on the performerabove them on the scaffold stage.

But the performer wasn't the RollingStones or the Jefferson Airplane — itwas a 73-year-old sailor, the last livingman to have led the crews of the tallships of yesteryear in the work songsand chanteys that raised sail andanchor and propelled the great shipsacross the rolling oceans and aroundthe world.

From the ovation the crowd gave toWelshman Stan Hugill, it might wellhave been the Beatles or the Stonesthat were up on stage. And judgingfrom the teeming crowds that packedNewport, R. I . , it might have been ascene from the bygone sixties when

rock, folk, and jazz brought musicfans from across the country to

swell that sparkling seasideresort.

The scene is similar,but the focus is new.

What broughtso many

thousands of people to Newport forthree days during the last summer ofthe '70's was the National MaritimeHeritage Festival and its array of tallships, sea songs, nautical crafts, andmaritime history. Marine experts andnautical afficionadoes from all over theworld gathered to sing, party, andexchange knowledge and lore with thepublic in what was the largest of aseries of sea happenings spawned bythe great Bicentennial tall shipsgathering.

It's always risky to predict trends,but it's a safe bet that there will be a lotof similar festivals happening in thenear future all over the country. Thetall ships have infected America withsea fever, and the songs and lore ofour maritime past, much neglected forso long, are seeing a nationwiderenaisance that may rival the folkboom of the sixties.

At nearly every seaside town thatever called itself a port, maritimemuseums, replete with residentsquare-riggers, are materializing andstirring interest in the memories ofAmerica's great days of sail when ourclipper ships ruled the oceans andmade us the foremost trading power inthe world. Tall ships, large and small,are sprouting at places like Mystic,Philadelphia, Boston, New Bedford,Baltimore, New York, Hawaii, SanDiego, Newport, and evenMenominee, Michigan. Andeverywhere the great yardarms areraised, people are flocking to the

accompanying exhibits of sea lore andcrafts such as scrimshaw, macrame,boats in bottles, tattoos, sailors' knots,chanteys, and tall tales.

It may seem like an overnighthappening since the Bicentennial tallships sailed into New York harbor, butit's not — it's something that's beennurtured by the love, care, and moneyof a few devoted sea lovers for a longtime and which only now, is cominginto its own. While the folk and rock ofthe sixties held the country's attention,a handful of sea dogs and chanteysingers were carving out thebeginnings of today's sea revival.

The sea revival's seeds weresown at New York's SouthStreet Seaport, cradled

under the Brooklyn bridgeand downwind of the Fulton FishMarket. There, in 1969, as thebeginnings of the restoration of NewYork's old seaport were gettingunderway, a few sea singers gatherednightly aboard the fishing sloop LettieG. Howard to trade sea chanteys andfoc'sle songs with anyone who wantedto come aboard and join in.

Dozens of singers and sea buffscrossed that deck, and by the early1970's a regular singing group hademerged from the experience calledthe X Seamen's Institute. Through theensuing years, during which sea musicand lore were relatively unknown, thisgroup of salty singers continued to

When this sloop sailed the seven seas, singing chanteys was as usefula tool as a winch or a hawser.

The British Frigate, HMS Rose

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Bernie Klay and the X Seamen

hold forth all summer on the docks ofSouth Street and anywhere else theycould find an ear for their rollingrhythms and often X-rated (hencetheir name) lyrics. By the time thebicentennial celebrations were in themaking, several hundred people weregathering every Tuesday night on thepiers to sing along with the rousingchoruses of chanteys, ballads, anddrinking songs native to sailors aroundthe world.

But it was, of course, the tall shipsparade in 1976 that really put seaconsciousness on the map on anational scale. The sight of dozens ofthe huge, graceful square-rigged shipsmade an indelible mark on thememories of all of us, and was thespark that set off the current searevival.

In the year following theBicentennial, a flurry of new seaactivity got underway. The year

before, the "X" were the only residentchantey group at any seaport in thecountry — but before a year hadelapsed since the Bicentennial, therewere suddenly groups in Mystic,Boston, San Francisco, and even anall-female group of sailor singers inPhiladelphia! And along with the

music came a host of other sea-relatedactivities, so that the practically lostarts of scrimshaw, macrame, andboat-in-bottle building found newyoung artists and craftspersonsflocking to their trades.

Still, it was all an undergroundmovement in the wake of theBicentennial until the summer of 1978when Seattle held its first harborfestival and with it a tall ships chanteyfestival. Featuring singers from as faraway as Britain, Canada, and the EastCoast in a week of workshops,concerts, and public gatherings, thefestival brought formal organization towhat had been only a loose movementof sea fanciers. The success of theSeattle festival, loosely organized as itwas, was bound to be only thebeginning.

Aid so it was. Shortlythereafter, Bernie Klay, theleader of the X Seamen's

Institute, decided that it wasNew England's turn to take thelead and organized the beginnings ofthe Newport Sea Heritage Festival.Joined by the American Sail TrainingInstitute's Barclay Warburton andJohn Sheehan, the concept wasturned into reality — and the resultswere startling. Newport found itselfjammed with festival-goers, despiteminimal publicity and the sudden gascrunch.

Crowds in the tens of thousandsreveled with the Morris dancers,bagpipers, and chanteymen at FortAdams Park and joined hands-onworkshops to learn sea crafts and eattraditional sea meals just as sailors didon the clipper ships in the South ChinaSea. Adults and children alike sathushed to hear the harrowing tales ofstorms off Cape Horn, shipwrecks, seaserpents, cruel captains, and narrowescapes told by old sailors whose facesreflected the experiences they hadbeen through so many years before.

Concert-goers brought home notjust memories, but albums, paintings,carvings, and sculpture that were livingreminders of the life, joys, andhardships of the seamen of the age ofsail. There was a feeling of really

having participated in that hardy life asyou sang the songs, felt the roughwood of the capstan aboard the shipsdocked at the festival, and heard thetales of gales, flash girls, and foreignports from sailors, chanteymen, andcraftsmen.The success of the Newport festival isan indicator of things to come. Alreadysea festivals are in the works for SanFrancisco, San Diego, Boston, NewYork, and Baltimore, as well as arepeat of the Newport gathering. Thesea fever is spreading across theoceans as well, as tall ship ocean racesspark sea festivals as far away asEurope and the Pacific Ocean. Clearlythe tall ships and the life that went withthem are an idea whose time has comeagain.

But is it just another pop fad, likethe fifties revival or roller disco? Notlikely. Maritime museums arereceiving commitments from local andfederal sources that will ensure theirendurance for a long time to come.The supporters are a broad range ofAmericans who are awakening to avery special part of their country'shistory that evokes both pride andunderstanding of the part we still playin the world today. The sea has alwaysbeen one of our greatest resources inour national lifestyle. This sea revival ishelping many to deeply understand itshistorical and contemporary effectupon us.

In fact, the current tall ships revivalmay be more pervasive than we think.

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For Han Francisco ?

It's unlikely that there will bemuch use for heaving andhauling chanteys aboard

sailing vessels in the future, for seamusic on land. There are literallydozens of sea chantey groupsabout, following in the mold of the XSeamen's Institute, and there are likelyto be as many more in the near future.Contemporary artists such as GordonLightfoot and Gordon Bok are still

Calitimiut!

Since the energy supply has begun todwindle, major shipping companiesare reconsidering the possibility ofusing the wind to power long-range cargo vessels. Plans arealready on the drawingboard for giant supertankers

and yet stay in perfect tune with hisenvironment, the sea, in order toreach lands foreign or unknown.Enclosed in his vessel and dependentupon his skills and ability to traversehostile winds and weather, the sailorhas far more in common with theastronaut than does the cowboy. Inthe sailor's eyes, we see the reflectionof ourselves, not only as we were butas we are yet to become. The courage,the loneliness, the comraderie of theYankee tar may be as much a part ofour future as our past.

So as the sea revival continues toflourish, take the time out toparticipate and perhaps mentally relivethe experiences of the seamen of yore.Sing along with a sea chanty, try yourhand at a sea craft, even if only for amoment. Put yourself in the place ofthose children of fortune who,increasingly like ourselves, willingly or

unwillingly found themselves at sea.Their courage, originality, and cheer isthe spirit that will carry us all throughand land us safely on the shore. D

with huge, computer-controlled sailsthat will use the trade winds to pushthem around the world, just as theclipper ships of a century ago didbefore the oil-powered engine tookover. These giant sea birds of the

future will use nature's own freestresource — the wind — to replace theever-decreasing undergroundresources we have come to dependon. And, oddly enough, sailing shipsmight actually get there not onlycheaper but faster — world speedrecords for cargo ship routes are still,to this day, held not bysteam-powered ships but by theirpredecessors, the Yankee clippers!

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writing songs of the sea — and evengetting hit records out of them! It maynot pay to be a sailor anymore, but itcan certainly pay to sing about them.

What is it that is causing this newupsurge in the song, lore, and lure ofthe sea? What is happening toAmerican consciousness that hasrevived an empathy with the peoplewho made America the world'sgreatest seafaring nation under sail.?

In a way, it's very similar to the greathero cult of the cowboy, so dear to ourown generation in years past — therugged individualist, meeting everychallenge of a hostile environment andmaking an indelible mark upon theworld. But there's something muchmore wistful, and more modern, aboutthe sailor. Like most of us, the sailorhas run out of more land to conquer.Instead, he must endure hardships

Bernie Klay

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