Spring 2008
Hard to believe but 2008 is the 10th year of "Projects & News" about the Kimberlys, the Brigantine ROMANCE and the crew and guests that sailed with them. It has been a very special and rewarding project. Spring 2008 brings more news:
The HIGH SEAS SCHOONER documentary by SEA-TV Productions about the Harvey Gamage won double Platinum Awards at the 41st annual Worldfest film festival in Houston, Texas. The video features interviews with Skipper during the 3-week voyage from the Virgin Islands to Gloucester. Worldfest is one of the oldest and largest film festivals in the world, with over 4,000 entries received from 37 countries.
BOB WALLACE was in touch about the feature film produced by Randy Jones, 3rd mate on the '75-'77 circumnavigation. He received a DVD copy and was surprised that so few of the places they visited weren't included in the film. He hopes someone will gather together the 16mm footage that Gloria shot on the trip and put together a film, done in a 'properly' way! Bob has a cassette of some of the native music recorded on the cruise that could be used. Bob's Father, who recently passed away, was in the merchant marines '43-'46 and went to some of the same western Pacific islands visited by the ROMANCE. They were able to watch and enjoy the DVD together.
SEA HISTORY MAGAZINE, the quarterly publication of the National Maritime Historical Society will be honoring Captain Kimberly next fall with the Karl Kortum American Ship Trust Award. It is actually being awarded to him, along with, posthumously, Mrs. K., and their legacy from their days in Romance. Hopefully Skipper will be able to attend the awards dinner at the New York Yacht Club in NYC next October. Dee O'Regan, Editor, Sea History, will be writing several articles about Capt. & Mrs. K. The first, to be published in the next issue of SEA HISTORY and written by Dee and Dan Moreland, is on Skipper's PRE-ROMANCE days. Planned additional articles will include the ROMANCE era and the Kimberly's legacy to the maritime heritage community. Dee and Martha Rheinhardt, whose grandfather was Skipper's Sea Scout Mentor, met with Skipper recently for a few hours to discuss the early days.
Winter 2007 - 2008
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Skipper traveled to St. Thomas in February and stayed with Peter Wholihan and his wife, Nicole. He visited 6 islands in 7 days: St. Thomas, Water, Tortola, Hassel, St. Croix, & St. John. He was able to catch up with an old shipmate from his Burke Line days, Manfred Dittrich who has been the VI's premier sailmaker for over 40 years. Manfred opened his home island and sail loft to students from St. Thomas. He and skipper shared tales of their sailing adventures and imparted skills including sail making and knot tying. Skipper and Manfred were able to catch up in visits, meals, and of course a few occasions to splice the main brace.
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Skipper was also able to visit some of his old haunts from his days in the Virgins; the shipyards in West End, Stanley's at Cane Garden Bay on Tortola, and the Greenhouse on St. Thomas. It has been 20 years since his last visit. According to him things have changed so much, but still seems so familiar.
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Capt. Kimberly visited with students from 4 schools on 4 islands. This included flying on the sea plane over to St. Croix, where he met with students aboard the Roseway, sharing his experiences of sailing the Romance and Yankee around the world, he gave students an understanding of navigation, hard work, and heartfelt dedication to carry out such endeavors.
It was great having him aboard!
Winter 2007 - 2008
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Chip Croft just sent me a copy of "High Seas Schooner", a story of a voyage of the HARVEY GAMAGE when Capt. Kimberly was aboard. Skipper is interviewed. A "Thank You" goes out to all who sent Chip photos. This documentary was produced by SEA-TV; check out their other sea-going videos.
Katie Sloan emailed. She was aboard ROMANCE on a school trip in Feb. of 1981. Then David Stricker wrote; he had crewed on the ROMANCE in the Spring & Summer of 1971. His photos here include one of himself(left) and also one of "Dutch" (right). He recalls other crew including Joe Rivedi and possibly Roger Conrad. At a recent Beloit College reunion he met several other ROMANCE alums: Arthur Trexton, Ken Bryant, John Reichert and Tom Dudley. Read his
recollections and details about the "American Adventure" film about ROMANCE.
Fall 2007
A number of people stopped by inquiring about Capt. Kimberly and reminiscing about their time aboard the ROMANCE. Ruth Helmich was aboard in the early 70's, sailing in the B.V.I., with David Stricker, Joe Rivedi and Bill Turnbill. There was a film crew aboard and she was wondering what happened to the film - if it ever really got
produced.
Also received several of the Cape Windjammer Newsletters. If you are interested in their sail training activities, visit them at their Cape Windjammers website.
Chip Croft, executive producer at SEA~TV Productions is working on a documentary about a voyage on the schooner Harvey Gamage back in 1991. Capt. Kimberly was aboard and there are great shots of him aloft and working on board. The documentary should be out by the end of October.
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In September, Clyde Sanadi and Skipper visited Carl Friberg in Melbourne, Florida. Clyde writes, "Skipper & Carl talked of old Captains and tankers they were on and other stories. Skipper refers to Carl as a "nautical genius" and when Carl was out of the room, he remarked "Carl Friberg... I can't believe it!". The level of respect Carl has for Skipper is hard to describe. Carl retired as Captain of 22 different ships."
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Bruce Cameron was in touch. He's currently searching his old photos for Rick Perras and may be visiting FLA soon.
Is anyone working on Gloria's book? She mentioned many times about working on editing, pulling the best stories out of the Logs and how much work there was still to do. Sure would be great to pull all of that together, get the 16mm films on DVD and come up with a great coffee table book. Please let me know if you are actively working on completing her book, if you need any help, or have a date in mind for publication. Skipper mentioned some limited materials he had, but did not seem to have a manuscript...... That project deserves the best effort and would be a wonderful way to commemorate the era of the ROMANCE.
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