PICTURES OF THE MONTH - June 2009
Eppleton Hall - Last Paddle Steamer to Cross the Atlantic
2009 is the fortieth anniversary of the epic voyage under her own steam of the paddle tug Eppleton Hall from Newcastle in the north east of England to San Francisco on the west coast of the USA. What a voyage for what was basically a harbour and short sea tug with an overall length of just 100ft, 10ft shorter than Kingswear Castle.
As ever with these things it was people who made it happen. And in this case the two key people were her captain, Scot Newhall, a deep sea yachtsman, former naval officer and journalist in San Francisco and her chief officer, Karl Kortum, another keen amateur sailor and director of the San Francisco Maritime Museum for the day job.
When they found the Eppleton Hall she was pretty much a wreck made worse by a recent fire aboard. But, never daunted, they organised getting her back together and seaworthy, had her re-classified for the voyage as a yacht, against some opposition from the British Board of Trade, and on Thursday 18th September 1969 set sail from Newcastle on their spirited adventure to cross the Atlantic.
The map shows the route, down the east coast of England, across the Bay of Biscay to Lisbon, then to Madeira, the Canary and Cape Verde Islands before setting off across the south Atlantic to the north coast of South America, through the Panama Canal and then up the west coast of the USA to San Francisco. Wow!
Although originally coal fired, by this stage in her career the Eppleton Hall burned Diesel. Here she is topping up her tanks and spare oil drums in Mindello on the Cape Verde Islands before venturing west across the Atlantic itself.
Each day drums were emptied into the ship's main bunker tanks before being being chucked overboard.
Eppleton Hall had an antiquated echo sounder and radio direction finder but it was traditional navigational skills using the sextant , here in the hands of second officer Kip Waldo taking the noon sun sight, which took her safely on her voyage. Scot Newhall decided at the outset that he didn't want any professional mariners aboard for the trip so all the crew were amateurs, albeit highly skilled amateurs.
Capt Newhall on the bridge passing through the Panama Canal which at that time was filled with driftwood and clumps of floating jungle grass, not very good for paddle wheels. The barge ahead in the picture is sort of clearing a passage.
I love this superbly atmospheric shot showing the desolation of some of the outback ports at which the paddler called. Here she is at anchor in Turtle Bay, by the small town of San Bartolome in Mexico. Whatever became of these two young citizens of this tiny harbour? They would probably be nearing fifty now.
Six months after setting off from Newcastle and having covered eleven thousand miles, the Eppleton Hall steamed under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, her voyage almost over.
All the pictures have been taken from the most excellent book The Eppleton Hall written by Scot Newhall and published in 1971 by Howell-North books in Berkeley, California. If you can find a copy buy it straight away. It is a real nugget, a fantastic tale of a voyage the like of which is never likely to happen again on a paddle steamer.
Scot Newhall has a quiet self deprecating charm in his writing which underplays his huge achievement. On arrival at San Francisco he was asked by a journalist "How on earth did a ship like this ever make it all the way from Newcastle to San Francisco?" His reply was modesty itself. "Well, it is really very simple you know. All you have to do is sail out of the Tyne and turn right. Six months later, when you arrive off the Golden Gate, turn right again and you're in San Francisco."
Scott died in 1992 aged 78. Karl Kortum died four years later aged 79.
The Eppleton Hall is now owned by the National Park Service in San Francisco and is no longer in steam.