George E. Klinck - Schooner
Identifier:
3466 
Title:
George E. Klinck - Schooner
Type:
Description:
George E. Klinck was a three masted schooner built at the Michael B. McDonald Shipyard in Mystic, Connecticut in 1904. She was a 152.6' centerboarder weighing 560 gross tons.
"George E. Klinck" was a three masted [152.6' centerboarder, 560 gross tons] schooner built at [the Michael B. McDonald Shipyard in] Mystic, Connecticut in 1904. Lennox Ledyard "Bink" Sargent (1916-1989) [and Jay Bushway of Marblehead] acquired her circa 1937 when he found her laid up in Rockland. He brought her up to the coal dock on Clark Point in Southwest Harbor and restored her. They worked on her from a float in the water and replaced her transom, among other things. Ralph Merrill Grindle (1915-2005) spliced her rigging. [Ralph Merrill Grindle was later a partner with Roger C. Rich in the Rich & Grindle boat shop where he specialized in rigging.]
Captain Lewis McFarland of Trenton took her down to Camden and from there she went south to pick up a load of hard pine. On her return north she took a pounding and a beating around Cape Hatteras in North Carolina and broke up. Her crew was rescued by the aircraft carrier "Wasp." - Ralph Warren Stanley 10/26/10
"George E. Klinck" had been in difficulties before "Bink" brought her back to life.
“On April 15th, 1915 two three-masted vessels, the "George E. Klinck," bound from Long Cove, Me., for New York, with a cargo of stone, and the "Roger Drury," bound from St. John, N. B., for City Island and, with a cargo of laths, struck on Hawes shoal, in Nantucket sound, during heavy weather in the night, the latter being ashore only a short distance outside of Cape Poge. The crew from Muskeget station boarded both vessels early in the morning and later the coast guard cutter “Acushnet” came down and succeeded in floating the "Klinck." The "Drury" remained fast until the 17th, when a wrecking outfit from New London succeeded in floating her, after lightering several hundred bundles of laths.” – “Wrecks Around Nantucket Since The Settlement Of The Island, And The Incidents Connected Therewith, Embracing Over Seven Hundred Vessels” compiled by Arthur H. Gardner, published by the [Nantucket] Inquirer and Mirror Press, c. 1915 - First published in 1877 under the title: “A List Of The Wrecks Around Nantucket”
This is the rescue Ralph Stanley describes:
“During “USS Wasp’s” passage to Norfolk [Virginia] in 1941, heavy weather sprang up on the evening of 7 March. “Wasp” was steaming at standard speed, 17 knots. Off Cape Hatteras, a lookout spotted a red flare at 2245, then a second set of flares at 2259. At 2329, with the aid of her searchlights, “Wasp” located the stranger in trouble. She was the lumber schooner “George E. Klinck,” bound from Jacksonville, Florida, to Southwest Harbor, Maine.
The sea, in the meantime, worsened from a state 5 to a state 7. “Wasp” lay to, maneuvering alongside at 0007 on 8 March. At that time, four men from the schooner clambered up a swaying “jacobs ladder” buffeted by gusts of wind. Then, despite the raging tempest, “Wasp” lowered a boat, at 0016, and brought the remaining four men aboard from the foundering 152-foot schooner.
Later that day, “Wasp” disembarked her rescued mariners and immediately went into dry-dock at the Norfolk Navy Yard. The ship received vital repairs to her turbines. Port holes on the third deck were welded over to provide better watertight integrity, and steel splinter shielding around her 5-inch and 1.1-inch batteries was added.” - “USS Wasp (CV-7) – Definition”, WordiQ site, 2010, Accessed online 10/16/10; http://www.wordiq.com/definition/USS_Wasp_(CV-7)
“A Jacobs ladder is a portable ladder used on ships and having, typically, wooden rungs and rope or wire sides” – YourDictionary.com 10/26/10.
The ships plans for "George E. Klinck" are Mystic Seaport in the Daniel S. Gregory Ships Plans Library, Miscellaneous Commercial Sail Collection.
See Look Magazine, May 20, 1941 for a contemporary account of the rescue of the crew of "George E. Klinck."
See page 93-96 “The Last Sail Downeast” by Giles M.S. Tod, published by Barre Publishers, Barre, Massachusetts, 1965 for more about “George E. Klinck.”
"George E. Klinck" was a three masted [152.6' centerboarder, 560 gross tons] schooner built at [the Michael B. McDonald Shipyard in] Mystic, Connecticut in 1904. Lennox Ledyard "Bink" Sargent (1916-1989) [and Jay Bushway of Marblehead] acquired her circa 1937 when he found her laid up in Rockland. He brought her up to the coal dock on Clark Point in Southwest Harbor and restored her. They worked on her from a float in the water and replaced her transom, among other things. Ralph Merrill Grindle (1915-2005) spliced her rigging. [Ralph Merrill Grindle was later a partner with Roger C. Rich in the Rich & Grindle boat shop where he specialized in rigging.]
Captain Lewis McFarland of Trenton took her down to Camden and from there she went south to pick up a load of hard pine. On her return north she took a pounding and a beating around Cape Hatteras in North Carolina and broke up. Her crew was rescued by the aircraft carrier "Wasp." - Ralph Warren Stanley 10/26/10
"George E. Klinck" had been in difficulties before "Bink" brought her back to life.
“On April 15th, 1915 two three-masted vessels, the "George E. Klinck," bound from Long Cove, Me., for New York, with a cargo of stone, and the "Roger Drury," bound from St. John, N. B., for City Island and, with a cargo of laths, struck on Hawes shoal, in Nantucket sound, during heavy weather in the night, the latter being ashore only a short distance outside of Cape Poge. The crew from Muskeget station boarded both vessels early in the morning and later the coast guard cutter “Acushnet” came down and succeeded in floating the "Klinck." The "Drury" remained fast until the 17th, when a wrecking outfit from New London succeeded in floating her, after lightering several hundred bundles of laths.” – “Wrecks Around Nantucket Since The Settlement Of The Island, And The Incidents Connected Therewith, Embracing Over Seven Hundred Vessels” compiled by Arthur H. Gardner, published by the [Nantucket] Inquirer and Mirror Press, c. 1915 - First published in 1877 under the title: “A List Of The Wrecks Around Nantucket”
This is the rescue Ralph Stanley describes:
“During “USS Wasp’s” passage to Norfolk [Virginia] in 1941, heavy weather sprang up on the evening of 7 March. “Wasp” was steaming at standard speed, 17 knots. Off Cape Hatteras, a lookout spotted a red flare at 2245, then a second set of flares at 2259. At 2329, with the aid of her searchlights, “Wasp” located the stranger in trouble. She was the lumber schooner “George E. Klinck,” bound from Jacksonville, Florida, to Southwest Harbor, Maine.
The sea, in the meantime, worsened from a state 5 to a state 7. “Wasp” lay to, maneuvering alongside at 0007 on 8 March. At that time, four men from the schooner clambered up a swaying “jacobs ladder” buffeted by gusts of wind. Then, despite the raging tempest, “Wasp” lowered a boat, at 0016, and brought the remaining four men aboard from the foundering 152-foot schooner.
Later that day, “Wasp” disembarked her rescued mariners and immediately went into dry-dock at the Norfolk Navy Yard. The ship received vital repairs to her turbines. Port holes on the third deck were welded over to provide better watertight integrity, and steel splinter shielding around her 5-inch and 1.1-inch batteries was added.” - “USS Wasp (CV-7) – Definition”, WordiQ site, 2010, Accessed online 10/16/10; http://www.wordiq.com/definition/USS_Wasp_(CV-7)
“A Jacobs ladder is a portable ladder used on ships and having, typically, wooden rungs and rope or wire sides” – YourDictionary.com 10/26/10.
The ships plans for "George E. Klinck" are Mystic Seaport in the Daniel S. Gregory Ships Plans Library, Miscellaneous Commercial Sail Collection.
See Look Magazine, May 20, 1941 for a contemporary account of the rescue of the crew of "George E. Klinck."
See page 93-96 “The Last Sail Downeast” by Giles M.S. Tod, published by Barre Publishers, Barre, Massachusetts, 1965 for more about “George E. Klinck.”
Citation
“George E. Klinck - Schooner,” Southwest Harbor Public Library, accessed January 14, 2025, https://swhpl.digitalarchive.us/items/show/8494.Item 3466