This stalwart reminder of the grand age of sail survived a World War, three very different careers, four cataclysmic hurricanes, and numerous groundings only to be abandoned and left to rot in a teeming jungle far from the land of her birth lipping down the builders’ ways in inter-war western Europe, the schooner St. Christopher survived World War Two while flying a German flag, lost all her masts along with her original name and

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worked as a tramp steamer for decades, changed names again, sailed the Caribbean as a tall ship under a host os swashbuckling owners, and finally survived being grounded by a hurricane - twice.

BEGINNING LIFE AS THE HENIZ BREY In 1932, at the Scheepswerven Gebr. Niestern & Co. in Delfzijl Holland, Hamburg shipping company owner Johannes Brey ordered Niestern bow number 190 for use as a twin-masted coastal shallow-draught schooner. The ship was named Heinz Brey after Johannes father. Curiously, she appears twice in the Lloyds Register and is in both the sailing and steamer listings for the year she was completed as entry LR5145984. The vessel is the same in each as she has the same signal code (RFJN), year of build (1932). Builder (Gebr. Niestern & Co.) at Delfzijl, Netherlands, listed as owner by J. Brey, and has Hamburg as Port of Registry. She was issued and maintained a Germanischer Lloyd certification until 1955. In the steamer listing, she was described as a steel vessel with one deck, an auxiliary screw propeller and oil engine. She is also described as Galleas (or galleon), which means she was primarily propelled by sails). She was listed as 116-tons gross, 93 under deck, and 67-tons net. Her dimensions in feet were length in the steamer listing The Heinz Brey in 1932 is 88.5; breadth, 18.9; and depth 7.3 (but in the sailing list her dimensions are given as 85.6 x 19.1 x 7.3 and her tonnage as 121). Photo’s of her at the time show that she carried a minimum of nine sails when both her masts and her bowsprit were rigged. In the steamer listing, her engine details are given as a German DeutschWekeKei 74kw Type M42 two cylinder, forced air, four-stroke, single-acting engine that generated 22 nominal horsepower and 100-shp. Under power of this engine, the ship would cut blistering 6-kts. Two sister ships, constructed alongside the Heinz Brey to the same general specifications (save for a smaller engine) and for Hamburg based ship-owners were the Allegro (Niestern bouwnr. 188) and Franziska (Niestern bouwnr. 189). All three ships carried general cargo during the Great Depression era in the Baltic area.

SERVICE IN WORLD WAR TWO The Heinz Brey’s service in WW II has been lost to history. It is known that the vessel was pressed into service with the Kreigsmarine. Her original owner, Johannes Brey, recovered the ship in poor condition in Wilhelmshaven in November 1945 and

returned her to service. Her sister ships, the Allegro and Franziska, served alongside her. The Allegro (Kreigsmarine pennant number V.1010) was brought to France to support Operation Sealion, the aborted invasion of Great Britain in 1940. Allegro was sunk just off Dieppe harbor in 1944. The Franziska used her shallow draft to good advantage transporting supplies to German troops in Norwegian fjords and evacuating more than 100 refugees from East Prussia ahead of the Soviet Army before the end of the war.

POST-WAR RENAMING, CONVERSION AND TRAMP STEAMING Following her wartime service, the Heinz Brey was sold in 1950 to Dietrich Mangels, who renamed her Aeolus and removed her after mast and bowsprit. Within half dozen years, she was sold at least twice more before winding up with Heinrich Behrmann at Krautsand in 1956. Behrmann had decided to convert the then 24-yr-old now-single-master schooner to a traditional coastal freighter. She was lengthened to 116-ft at the waterline, her final mast and sailing equipment was removed, and her overall weight ballasted to 240-DWT. (Coincidentally her surviving sister, Franziska, was converted and lengthened at about the same time.) Painted with a black hull and buff superstructure, the converted ship, now renamed the Heinz Heino, sailed from Hamburg under a German flag carrying general cargo all along the North Sea and Baltic Coast The schooner dockside in Holland, 1979. A large closeuntil 1979. During this period, hauled vessel, the schooner had a penchant for running aground in unfamiliar waters. Considering the hurricanes she carried a Bureau Veritas and tsunamis she has miraculously survived, the ship has certification. Being too small and had nine lives. impractical for continued profitable service, the owner intended to sell the small freighter for scrap in 1979.

A TALL-SHIP AGAIN WITH A YET ANOTHER NAME Dutch shipping investor A. P. Bakker said in a 1980 interview to a Dutch paper,

“We more or less accidentally saw the ship in a harbor close to Hamburg. We were not really looking for a ship like that, but something must have been in the back of our minds. We travel all over Europe, and you keep your eyes open.” With that, Mr. Bakker bought the Heinz Heino for 60,000-marks in September 1979 and sailed her to Bolsward, Holland, for conversion back to a tall ship. She was reworked in a year-long one million guilder ($500,000) conversion at Vooruit Shipyard in Bolsward. To the hull a bowsprit was added, lengthening her to 44.20m (145-ft) overall. Three new masts were installed with the top mast being 27m from the deck. The masts held 510-sq-m of sail, divided over five headsails, including the inner and outer jibs, and the foresail, two mainsails as well as the mizen sail equipped with topsails. Her gross tonnage overall was increased to 14911-tons. Her holds, no linger to be used for cargo, were The St. Christopher in 1980 transformed into cabins for up to 24 passengers. A total of eight luxurious two-passenger and two four-passenger cabins were installed as well as a new galley and a full bar and, for the first time, air conditioning. The ship, after completing her transformation back into a sailing ship, was christened Sint Chrisstoffel (St. Christopher) after the patron saint for seafarers. Dr. Sicco Mansholt, former President of the European Commission (the executive branch of the European Union) christened the ship. It set sail for the Caribbean under the command of 24-yr-old Dutch Capt. Jan Fred van den Heuvel from Den Bosch and a five-man crew consisting of a helmsman, machinist, two cooks, and a deck hand in November 1980. Before sailing, Bakker said in an interview when asked about his hopes for success with the ship in the Caribbean, “There is always plenty of wind, there is sunshine and it has a warm climate. Sun, beaches and palm trees, my love, what more do you want?”

TROUBLE IN PARADISE The St. Christopher found her way across the Atlantic to the warm Caribbean island of St. Martin and a busy schedule. The ship’s owner A. P. Bakker, intended to sail her with up to 24 passengers for an average fee of $400 per berth on one-week cruises. The large ship, with a hand-cranked windlass and the original 1930s power plant required a crew of a dozen experienced sailors to man her but with the small six-

man crew embarked it was instead planned to have the passengers sign on for “working cruises” where each would be expected to work so many hours per day while on their week-long sail to keep the vessel moving. Within a year the ship, undermanned and with a less than ideal sailing rig, soon found herself in trouble. She grounded on Great Bay Beach off St. Martin’s southeast coast under unknown circumstances. St. Martin Ministry of Shipping director Mike Staam remembers the incident well. “They couldn’t get the ship off and started selling beer to onlookers. It was so successful that they rented a cottage across from the ship and started a little bar called Het Anker Bar (The Anchor Bar).” By 1984, the ship had been pulled off the beach but was non-functional and was impounded at harbor for back slip fees. She was officially dis-classed by Bureau Veritas at about this time. In December 1984, Oklahoma City jeweler Darold Lerch (incorporated as Caribbean Cruising Co.) purchased the unlucky St. Christopher at public auction for $45,000 as the famous Bobby’s Marina on St. Martin. The ship was in “floating condition but not much more.” Lerch sailed her with a scratch crew to Venezuela where the ship’s hull was scraped for the first time since leaving Holland. From there, he sailed the ship to Jamaica where a holding tank ruptured and the Caymans where the ship lost an anchor. Lerch, interviewed in 2010 complained about her initial sea keeping abilities while rigged. “She was always breaking anchor...She was beautiful but sailed horribly. You had to keep her 100-deg off wind and for every mile you gained forward, she would drift two sideways.” In 1985, Lerch found out just how the St. Christopher would sail in a hurricane.

HURRICANE ELENA On Labor Day weekend 1985, Hurricane Elena’s winds forced the St. Christopher ashore on Ft. Desoto’s North Beach near Tampa, Florida, in Pinellas County. The ship had been forced from her Bayboro Harbor moorings near the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg at the last moment before the storm. Her 24yr-old South African master, Michael J. Matter, had unsuccessfully fought against 40- to 50-kt winds and flood surge tides more than 6-ft above normal to keep her at sea. For the next nine-months, the whitehulled schooner sat impaled on a sandbar - and luckily just out of the jurisdiction of

The St. Christopher after Hurricane Elena

just about any state or local organization. The ship’s owner, Darold Lerch, drained his bank accounts attempting to free the vessel before he was approached by a group of investors, including Cliff Henderson and Jerry Cross, to buy the vessel and turn her into a cruise ship in Cancun. The group of investors incorporated under the name “Tall Ship St. Christopher,” then later “Blue Water Cruising,” and managed to finally free her in may 1986. This was not before one of the investors, ironically a German, drowned in an attempt to free the vessel during Tropical Storm Juan. She was taken to Pensacola and there refitted with both new sails and rigging and rewired. From there, the schooner sailed to New Iberia, Louisiana, where her original 1932 Deutsch WekeKeil engine (remarkably similar to the same model used by Nazi Seehund type midget submarines) was replaced by two new Detroit Diesel M671 engines. Remembering how badly the ship sailed when he first obtained her, Lerch and his partners installed a new generator, bow thruster with a 14-inch bronze prop, new hydraulics, and a new hydraulic windlass. For the first time since Roosevelt was president, the St. Christopher could raise her sails without the manual labor of a dozen men. She was re-flagged with a British ensign and a Cayman port of registry, number 710614, call sign ZHEP8. Her name was Anglicized from the Dutch Sint Chrisstoffel to St. Christopher’s time in Florida, “She’s a beautiful old ship. With 10-yrs ahead of it as a charter ship out of Cancun, it is unlikely the St. Christopher will return to the bay area anytime soon. We’ve had our ups and downs here. Now it’s time to move on.”

CANCUN AND MORE MISADVENTURES

St. Christopher Cancun 1989

After spending three-mounts and some $150,000 to modernize and refit the St. Christopher, the ship set sail for Cancun in November 1989. The original plan was for the ship to take up to 60-tourist passengers on short 2- to 3-hr cruises in local waters for $30 a head. With morning, afternoon and moonlight cruises envisioned, investors planned to run her on as many as three cruises per day. The main impediment to the plan was a number of complaints and lawsuits from local vendors who brought pressure on Mexican agencies that withheld granting permits and licenses. At one point, with all of the paperwork seemingly squared away and passengers accommodated for two-months, Mexican officials threatened arrest of the crew and owners for flying the Mexican flag illegally and shut the operation down. Indeed, the 1991 edition of Lloyds Register lists the St. Christopher, registry number

5145984, call sign PGXY, still flagged in Phillipsburg, Netherlands, Antilles. In 1992, she was dropped from Lloyds Register altogether as “continued existence in doubt.” In newspaper articles of the time, she was referred to as registered in the Cayman Islands although the Caymans had deleted her from their registry in November 1988 as her holding company had struck. With the ship costing some $3,000 per day between the expenses of her 13-man crew’s wages, dock fees, chandler costs, et al, to operate in the tourist hotspot and no income flowing back in, the program seemed doomed. Eventually the St. Christopher was prevented by the local harbor master from even leaving port due to the amount of dock fees assessed against the craft. Finally in 1993, one of the more colorful ship owners bribed a harbor master with a pair of 50 peso gold pieces (worth about $2,000 in gold) to be able to leave port, in the dead of night never to return. To this day, the ship owner in question is still known to wear a pirate hat to social events.

THE GHOST OF THE MARY WALKER BAYOU After plying Europe as a coaster, evading Allied bombers in WW II, surviving hurricanes, carrying passengers in the Caribbean, and escaping from Mexican harbormasters, the St Christopher of the Caymans found herself at Fletchas Shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, during the summer of 1998. Her interior spaces were gutted in preparation for the installation of new living quarters. The plan was for her to be refitted for use as a high-end private yacht when Hurricane Georges struck the coastal community. The eye of the storm passed over Belle Fountaine Beach on 28 September 1998, less than 10-mi from Pascagoula. The storm brought gusts of up to 125-mph winds, 16-in of rain and a 12-ft storm surge into the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Breaking from her moorings, the ship drifted across the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge and came to rest 7-mi away deep inside the swamps of the Pascagoula River’s Mary Walker Bayou in Gautier, Mississippi. The ship was high and, during low tide, dry in the muddy, snake-infested swamp grass but she was worse for wear above decks. She had lost most of her high rigging in the storm and water had entered the ship. Water-borne looters soon found her and her antique portholes and prop were removed. Uninsured and reluctant to salvage her, owners sold the ship to Bryan Leveritt, a 49-yr-old former chemist and insurance salesman from Creola, Alabama, for $10. Leveritt formed an LLC, St. Christopher Services, to salvage the vessel for use as a floating missionary ship. In 1999, the St. Christopher organization applied for a canal to be dug 530-ft long, 24-ft wide and 6-ft deep to accommodate the keel and remove the vessel. The permit expired 26 July 2002 but the organization, unable to raise enough funds for her salvage, asked for a series of extensions through 2005. The organizations, with volunteer labor had worked through tornadoes, hordes of yellow flies, conspirator clouds of mosquitos, alligators, and coyotes to enable the ship to be recovered. They were literally within feet of completing the canal and removing the ship from the swamp when Hurricane Katrina swept into the Bayou. Hurricane Katrina brought devastation and destruction on a near biblical level to the Gulf Coast in August of 2005. Storm surge in excess of 20-ft lifted the St.

Christopher from her muddy home in the swamp and pushed her another 50-yds deeper into the woods. Worst of all, when she was cast like a toy into the thick pine and oak forest, her hull was holed and crumpled in several places and her masts were destroyed. Reluctant to let the ship go, Leveritt and his volunteer organization came up with a new plan to continue the canal, lift the battered St. Christopher on a barge and float her to a shipyard in the Bayou La Batre, Alabama, for repair. Again, the Mississippi Commission on Marine Resources (MCMR), who had allowed so many extensions in the past for the canal dredging permits, extended it once again due to the new problems. Again the ship neared removal from her new home in the swamp. Again, events overtook her, as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill hit the Gulf Coast in April 2010. The Deepwater Horizon spill, maintains Leveritt, pulled the barge he had lined up to carry the ship out of the bayou just days before the ship was ready to move and the resulting cleanup stripped the organization of volunteers and equipment. The MCMR, its patience worn thin from a dozen years of extensions, refused to extend the permits any longer. The MCMR turned the matter of the canal dug in the coastal wetlands to the State Attorney General who in July 2010 began fining Leveritt $500 per day until the

canal is filled and the wetlands restored. Leveritt, now 63 remains determined to free the ship. The St. Christopher of the Caymans, a survivor of 79-yrs, a world war, three hurricanes, and the largest oil spill in US history, still rests today near Gautier Mississippi, and is the “Ghost of the Mary Walker Bayou.” Whether or not she will ever take to sea again, is not certain by any means.

FATE OF HER SISTER SHIPS The St. Christopher’s two sister ships who had been ordered at the same time and built in the same yard in holland both had interesting post-war histories. The Allegro, sunk by Allied bombers in a French harbor in 1944, was raised and used to some extent until 1970 when she was broken up by Capt. Joachim Kaiser. Captain Kaiser also found himself with the sister Franziska, in 1980. The Franziska had been

through no less than five owners and like the St. Christopher, had been de-masted and used as a tramp steamer. Kaiser shortened the vessel to nearly her original dimensions as a two-masted schooner and since 1999, the ship has sailed for the Gangway Foundation in Hamburg as a traditional sail training and cargo ship under the name Undine.