Norma & Gladys: The Famous Newfoundland Knockabout Schooner

Index

Foreword

THIS BOOK IS A HISTORY of Newfoundland’s last famous schooner, from the day she was launched amidst the cheers from the townsfolk of Monroe in Trinity Bay, to the dark night she foundered in Placentia Bay: A wooden boat with an iron heart that for almost forty years sailed upon the oceans of the world, manned by ordinary men from an island in the North Atlantic, where a cruel sea has snatched away thousands of her sons in the past five centuries.

This is the story of the sailing vessel Norma & Gladys, of her passage through history, her cargoes, her masters, her crews, and her voyages under a variety of owners who willed her out over the briny deep to seek the elusive codfish. It is also the tale of a burdened tramp freighter delivering the lifeblood of existence to villages as far as northern Labrador and the story of a government who snatched this tired hulk away from the breaker’s yard. With glorious intentions it refitted her to sail the seven seas to promote the nation’s will to manage the breadbasket of the oceans: the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

Norma & Gladys was not a Cutty Sark, a Victory, nor even a Bluenose. She had no speed over the waves, carried no guns to defend her country from the foreign foe, nor was she the biggest, fastest fishing boat in the North Atlantic. She was only a homebuilt knockabout schooner, lacking a jib-boom, topmasts, and the racy lines of her American and Canadian cousins. She couldn’t boast of her speed, her ability to sail close-hauled to the wind, nor even of her size, for she only measured out at 93.3 feet long.

So, why write a book about our ordinary boat manned by ordinary men? The answer will be obvious only to those who read this book. How lucky will be the few thousand who buy this tale of a boat and her crews. Luckier still, the thousands who in the twenty-first century will find this dog-eared record of the past.

The book would not exist except for the sole efforts of the author. He and he alone has spent the past ten years seeking out tales of past voyages, prodding dim memories, and hardest of all, sorting fact from fiction. And after all these years of research, does the inside cover bear the name of a world-class publisher? Sorry, he had to publish it himself. So, will Dickens and Hemingway have to worry about the competition? I doubt it.

When the author asked me to write the foreword I felt honoured to be a part of this book and its record of such as pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions. I also wanted to applaud his determination to see his manuscript printed so that his labour will not die with only one copy left forgotten to gather dust before damp and decay erases the typewritten pages.

I also welcomed this chance to put pen to paper as I also desired to record my voyage on Norma & Gladys, but unlike the author, I lacked the determination to carry my dream through to its final, printed conclusion. I have settled for the inclusion of some of my favourite tales of the voyage and the writing of this foreword.

Unfortunately, when I joined the vessel at Clarenville in May of 1975, prior to her world tour, I discovered I had been hired against the wishes of the captain. I did not have the same background as the rest of the crew, which made me a misfit and an outsider. My first weeks aboard were a bit of an anticlimax, as I was given the hardest of tasks: cleaning the toilets, chipping paint, and, of course, repainting what I had chipped away. As the weeks passed I laboured alone, and it became obvious that the sooner I gave up, quit the crew, and returned to St. John’s, the better. So, very slowly I decided that I would try to beat the odds. A quiet determination began to build up inside me, to outlast those against me. Five months later, I was the only one of the original crew left. And so, on it went throughout the voyage. Crew members would come and go, captains would quit and be replaced, mates would appear and just as quickly leave, and it seemed that we would never get a balanced crew with a common goal.

This changed on the island of Barbados at a time when morale was lowest. We had no captain, no mate, no cook, no engineer, and what remained of the crew had lost direction. Then, in the space of three or four days, events would occur to put the voyage back on track. The first was my promotion to mate; the second was the news of a new captain; and the third being the arrival of two mainlanders. They had crossed the Atlantic from Africa in a catamaran built from half-inch plywood.

Thus began a transformation. Newly arrived Radio Operator Alan Sylvester Hooper, the two Upper Canadians from Ottawa— Len Taylor and Lili Wagner—and I discovered we had common goals and ideals. A friendship that lasts to this day was forged among the four of us.

From Barbados we sailed across the Atlantic to Spain and into the Mediterranean and then out again, with a little adventure in each port. Into Lisbon, then Vigo, on to St. Malo, Amsterdam, and Hamburg through the Kiel Canal, into the Kattegat, up Oslo fjord to Oslo and down again to Gotenburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Helsinki, and then the sad news that we would not be going to Russia. So it was back down the Kiel Canal and on to England and Ireland, and across the Atlantic to arrive home in St. John’s a little better than a year after leaving.

Within weeks, the four friends of the voyage had departed Norma & Gladys to go their separate ways. And so ended a chapter in my life. I have divided my life into two distinct eras, before Norma & Gladys and after Norma & Gladys, with the dividing line being the 400-day voyage that I still remember as an excellent adventure.

I have entertained many groups with stories of the voyage and have enjoyed telling the sea tales, especially to landlubbers who listen intently and try to understand the words that are foreign to them: reef in; close-haul; deck head; belay; and run free. These words I have not just learned, but used as a matter of course, and my life has been richer for it.

The easiest thing to do when recounting a past event is to exaggerate and to make yourself a hero. I have tried over the years to keep most of my stories in perspective with a degree of honesty in giving credit to those who deserved it, and have tried not to savage those who, for reasons I never asked, did things that they probably regret today.

My own regrets are few, since I believe I did my best to make sure that we kept uppermost in our minds the job we were trying to do, and that in all my dealings with the others involved in this voyage I have been fair and honest.

I wish the author great riches for his thousands of hours of research and the hundreds of hours cross-checking his information to make sure this book is as accurate as human memory can make it.

Speaking of memories, I am blessed with hundreds: Hooper with his Tower Power sweatshirt, and for the most horrific ten seconds in my life when I thought he had been washed overboard in Hurricane Candace, and for his hundreds of elephant jokes, and the imaginary Harley-Davidson with the seagoing balloon tires.

Of Len: with the big feet, the Len who fixed the radio in ten minutes flat, whom I hauled half frozen back onto the deck after he cut away the rope wound around our propeller, and for calling out the fathoms under our keel as we entered St. Malo.

And of Lili: that look I got when I said I couldn’t sign on a woman as part of the crew, her hiding in the dory in Barbados, leaving her behind in the mutiny, and coming alongside the jetty in Ponta Delgada, to see that red dress and the engine parts.

And so on, the memories pass before me, of a small schooner with stout timbers, of sunrises a thousand miles from the nearest land, of gales and calms, of tempests where a wall of water smashes into you with the force of a runaway train, and when the wave has passed, that greatest of memories: being alive, looking to the heavens beyond the screeching of the wind through the rigging, and saying to yourself, I wonder what the poor people are doing today?

Enjoy!

Charles E. Parsons

Lcdr. RCN (R) CD ADC

The Labrador Floater Fishery

You ask for the reputations of the Tucker fishermen on the Labrador. They were good fishermen, seafaring men, hard workers, and good captains on schooners.

Herbert Meadus, crewman on Norma & Gladys

THE STORY OF NORMA & GLADYS has its beginning in the Labrador floater fishery. It was this industry that directly resulted in her construction for Captain Allan Tucker of St. Jones Within, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. He had her built on the premise that he would fish in the same manner as his brother and father before.

From the time of the Napoleonic Wars to the middle of the twentieth century, the Labrador salt cod fishery was a very important element in Newfoundland’s economy. Previously, it had been an English migratory fishery. By 1775, a hundred vessels sent from England spent the summer months on the Labrador coast. During the European conflict, England’s mercantile fleet was requisitioned for her war effort, and those ships that dared to sail west were subject to harassment by enemy forces. In response to a growing shortage of protein, British subjects were paid bounties on fish produced. The now substantial resident population of Newfoundland, relatively free from obstruction by Britain’s enemies, began to look northward for new sources of cod. The cessation of hostilities brought an end to the short period of great prosperity, but the Labrador fishery had gained a foothold in the Island’s trade.

In northern waters, the Newfoundlanders were divided into two distinct groups: stationers and floaters. The stationers set up shore bases and fished the same berths year after year, curing their fish on the beaches and shipping it out by coasters sent to collect the finished product. Floaters, on the other hand, led a nomadic existence, living on board their schooners, and fished wherever the cod could be found. As floaters, the Tuckers returned their catch to the Island to be dried on flakes at villages around Random Sound, Trinity Bay. The cultural and social impact of the Labrador fishery on the colony’s salt cod production is clearly illustrated in 1907 statistics. More than 8,300 Newfoundlanders were toiling down north, engaging nearly 1,200 schooners. This fishery peaked around the turn of the twentieth century but was nearly extinct by 1955.

Before having Norma & Gladys built, Allan Tucker had spent twenty-seven seasons on the Labrador, twenty-two with his brother and shareman, Silas. The Tucker involvement with the Labrador fishery out of Trinity Bay had begun with Allan’s father, John Tucker, who graduated from shareman to schooner owner and fished with his sons as they came of age.

Allan was thirteen years old when he first sailed to the shores of Labrador in the forty-ton schooner Aileen E. G. Tucker, usually shortened to Aileen Tucker. This vessel had been rebuilt by Ezekiel Frampton, famed builder from White Rock in Smith Sound, Trinity Bay. Allan Tucker couldn’t have known it at the time, but the Frampton family’s skills at shipbuilding were to play a major part in his future plans. It was Ezekiel’s brother Alonzo who was foreman on Norma & Gladys.

Upon John Tucker’s death, Aileen Tucker became the joint property of three of his sons: Silas, John, and Allan. Fourteen years older than Allan, Silas took the place of his father as the skipper and leader of the family enterprise. He was an exceptional fish killer. We hauled a lot of fish, because Si never missed for forty-odd years, Allan recounts. He was one of the most successful fishermen who ever went on the Labrador. He was shrewd. I bet he never brought home ten hogs of salt not used. Not altogether! Considering it took about 180 hogsheads of salt to cure a full schooner load each year, it is easily understood why Allan could boast of his brother’s skill.

Allan Tucker fished on Aileen Tucker until 1944. His apprenticeship on and later ownership of this vessel illustrate the traditions of the Labrador floater fishery as it was practised, up to and including 1945, the year in which he commanded Norma & Gladys.

Each spring, Aileen Tucker was taken from her winter mooring to the family wharf, where the fo’c’sle and cabin were scrubbed clean, the canvas installed, and two boatloads of ballast transferred from shore into the hold. The stove was lit to dry the living quarters and food brought aboard. She would initially ship the family’s winter production of lumber to market before taking freight offering in nearby communities, then prepare for the trip to the Labrador. For this she was brought to the pier to remove the ballast and hove down. This was done by attaching ropes to her main head and the dock and pulling her over onto one side with block and tackle. The wharf was heavily ballasted so that it would not rise and break apart when the strain was put on it.

While the schooner was leaning on her side, the crew was able to inspect her bottom planks and keel, which had been lifted clear from the water. They used a small boat to manoeuvre around the ship’s hull to scrape off the barnacles before swabbing the planks clean. Any soft planking was replaced, the hull caulked where necessary, and the seams pitched or cemented. The bottom was then painted and coated with antifouling material. This procedure took a full day to complete, and the ship was turned around to repeat the process the following day. The topsides and rails were painted, and finally the deck was pitched and painted and the masts treated with preservative.

Sails also received a great deal of attention before proceeding to the Labrador. With usage, sails became spun bad, meaning the fabric had eroded under the stress of wind and rain to become thin and filled with microscopic holes through which wind escaped. Newer sails were treated, so that they kept their white colour and wind-holding properties, by applying a homemade paste made from boiled water into which lime and salt had been added. The sails were spread over the fish flakes and the lime mixture applied with crude swabs. When the sailcloth deteriorated to a point where there was a great deal of wind loss, a more durable solution was found. In this case the old sails were barked. A preservative fortified with cod oil and ochre was applied, which cured the wind-loss problem but resulted in what was, to many, a less picturesque sight: reddish-brown sails.

Fishing gear also required close scrutiny. The most important single item was the cod trap. This consisted of netting which formed four walls and a floor to outline a box, or trap, to contain fish. In one of the walls there was an opening, or door, from which a long net, called the leader, extended toward the shore or shoals. Cod encountered the obstacle formed by the leader and, to go around it, swam along its length and into the trap door opening. By hauling up the door opening first, the cod were penned and could be taken aboard a boat. In mending cod traps, care had to be taken to ensure that the new mesh was evenly spaced so that any strain, either from hauling or from tides pulling on the mooring lines, did not place too much stress on selected strands in the netting. If a few weakened strands began breaking, it started a chain reaction making the trap useless.

To preserve twine, it was soaked in a vat of boiling water into which patent bark was dissolved. Wearing protective gloves and clothing, the crew gradually worked the cod trap through the solution before placing it on fences or across flakes to dry. This method of preserving the netting was known as barking the twine.

Newly painted and equipped, the schooner was next subject to scrutiny by the insurance company. The inspectors were usually schooner captains delegated by the underwriters to survey the condition of the ship and her fittings. Such items as the size of ropes, the weight of the anchors, the size of chains, the dependability of the sidelights, the wheel, and the pumps were inspected. Even the galley stove was checked to ensure that minimum safety standards were followed.

The next major chore was to provision the schooner with consumable supplies for the summer fishery. Salt pounds were constructed and a deckload of freight taken on for the trip to the merchant in St. John’s. Here, Aileen Tucker took her place in the lineup of schooners waiting for fishery salt off-loaded from the salt boats in the harbour. No luxuries were provided for the Labrador journey; only the most basic requirements were met. Gasoline was requisitioned for the motorboat and two