Mayflower crew recall laughs and thrills of '57 trip
Monotony had settled in. It had been weeks since Stuart Upham and his 34 shipmates had set sail in spring 1957 from Plymouth, England, bound for Plymouth, Mass., aboard a replica of the Mayflower. Once the initial excitement of the trip wore off, with only the unchanging Atlantic ahead, Upham and the crew had grown restless.
And so Upham took a bit of a social risk to provide some impromptu entertainment.
One night after dinner, he ducked below and began rummaging through a bag of clothes he had found earlier. Moments later, he emerged on deck wearing women's lingerie and began to dance.
"Stu really just broke us up," said Mayflower II crew member David Thorpe. "There we were in the middle of the Atlantic, and he comes up dressed like a woman, prancing around."
Captain Allan Villieres, who prided himself on running a proper ship, was not amused and sternly chastised Upham, which only heightened the drama and "caused some sparks," Thorpe said in a recent phone interview.
That story is sure to join hundreds of others when the eight surviving crew members from that 1957 voyage of the Mayflower II gather this weekend at Pilgrim Memorial State Park in Plymouth.
They will join the ship's current crew of 26, and 49 fortunate ticket holders Sunday for a sail around Cape Cod Bay on the 106-foot-long replica.
It will be the ship's first passage since 2002, and part of Plimoth Plantation's golden anniversary celebration of the Mayflower II.
For Englishmen Thorpe, Adrian Small, Fred Edwards, Joe Powell, Peter Padfield, and Mike Ford, as well as American Joe Meany, and Australian John Winslow, it will mark the first full reunion in decades.
"I'm really looking forward to this reunion," said Meany, a lifelong resident of Waltham whose role as cabin boy for the 55-day journey was the result of being named the Boys Club of America's Boy of the Year in 1957. "It's still a wonder I was part of it all. It was a great time."
Reproducing the Mayflower was the idea of Englishman Warwick Charlton. A journalist during World War II, Charlton had long wanted to thank the people of America for their role in aiding his country during the war. In 1954, he contacted officials of Plimoth Plantation with a proposal to build a replica of the famous 17th-century merchant vessel on the promise that the plantation would oversee its upkeep, berthing, and exhibition. The sides agreed, and Project Mayflower was born.
Using detailed plans drawn up by naval architect and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor William A. Baker, the ship's keel was laid at a shipyard in Devonshire, England, on July 27, 1955.
With Baker painstakingly overseeing every detail of construction, the egg-shaped hull was finally on Sept. 22, 1956. Seven months later, on April 20, 1957, the ship began its solitary voyage across the Atlantic, taking a more southerly route through the Caribbean than its 1620 predecessor.
"The route, some electrical lighting, and a radio guy, which was insisted upon by the British maritime officials, were the only real differences between the two voyages," Meany said. "The clothing, the food, the wind power, that was all the same."
While the Pilgrims' voyage included births, deaths, and frigid temperatures, the only nautical nightmare to face the 1957 crew was delivered by Mother Nature. A severe storm off Bermuda pushed the crew to its limits of seasickness.
"When it blew up very rough in the Gulf Stream, and things were not looking too good," Winslow wrote in an e-mail from his home outside Sydney, Australia, Danish crewman Jan Junker "calmly remarked: 'In weather like this, we always served apricot soup. It always tastes the same coming up as it does going down.' "
Winslow, too, said his fondest memories are the moments that fueled laughter. He recalls vividly the London Daily Mail journalist who, just before the ship set sail, wrote that it "had a 50-50" chance of making it across.
The next day, reporter Stanley Bonnet walked aboard for a tour. "He was apprehended, hands tied, and blindfolded," Winslow wrote. "The crew noisily prepared a 'plank' for him to walk. He was prodded along, only to step off -- on to dry land -- to his great relief."
On many nights during the trip, hungry crew members raided the mess area, prompting cook Wally Godfrey to switch food labels so the fruit-seeking thieves would nab only turnips and potatoes.
"I'll also remember how the Mayflower II under sail in a fair breeze was a thing of incredible beauty," Winslow wrote. "The wonderful curves of the sail filled the ship. The sounds of the hull driving through seas and the hum of the wind through the rigging all came together to provide an experience few will ever know."
Meany said that after five decades he can close his eyes and picture himself up on deck steering the ship at night.
Commotion, Meany said, occurred on June 13, 1957, when the ship bobbed into Plymouth Harbor, where thousands of well-wishers, including Vice President Richard Nixon, awaited. "We were treated like heroes," Meany said.
No such celebration awaited the crew of the Mayflower in 1620.
Wrote Winslow, a relative of Mayflower passengers Edward and Gilbert Winslow: "I remain flabbergasted as to how 120 men, women, and children endured such a voyage."
