Crete Fleet Review
Though unnamed, this is likely the CAPTAIN BOOTES. This is the original configuration of both CAPTAIN BARKER and CAPTAIN BOOTES. Photo courtesy of Christopher Svehaug.
A specter might be haunting your breakwater…the specter of a concrete ship. You might think I’ve lost my mind talking about stone ships, but these delightfully steampunk anomalies of maritime history are hiding in plain sight all over the world. One (or more) might be driving (or rowing) distance from you. If you’re the curious type, I have a resource you might find useful.
While they are no longer in vogue, concrete ships were once very popular. Concrete floats for the same reason as steel and iron—displacement, and while heavy, it can be used to create a ship’s hull. Concrete boat building was popular in both World War 1 and 2, when the need for ships and limited resources meant that this novel building material was widely used. Concrete ships, if designed correctly, were fully functional and handled well. Though concrete ships proved themselves during wartime, they had a harder time in peacetime because their excessive weight meant they consumed more fuel. When the concrete used to build them was of high quality, their hulls remained durable, although deterioration of rebar or other steel structural components sometimes led to their demise. Unlike steel or wood that rusts or rots away, the old hulls of concrete boats are uniquely suited to a very long breakwater duty. Many are easy to spot if you know where to look.
I came across my first concrete ship a few years ago while perusing my home waters in Puget Sound on Google Maps. “The Cement Ship” was listed as a landmark, and satellite view showed a large, grey, ship-shaped mass at the end of a long sandspit. Curious about its origin, I began to dig. Surely something as bizarre and conspicuous would be well documented, but I was disappointed by a complete lack of information online.
The bow of CAPTAIN BOOTES in a breakwater in Everett, Washington
A year and a half later, I decided to visit the ship with a friend. I hoped seeing it in person reveal more clues to help search for its origin. We rowed out on a summer afternoon and pulled up on the sand spit where the remnants of a ship sat like a great dead whale. The hull was cracked in half, but much of the ship remained intact. As the tide rose, we were able to climb on board. We walked the stone deck and found the ships brass fuel cap and a few metal fittings but nothing in particular that hinted at its origin. With my interest renewed, I got back online and hoped that, in the time since my initial investigation, someone had done a bit of scholarly research.
Several websites I had covered popped up, but so did a new one. Not quite at the top of the search list was a website called “The Crete Fleet.” Its stated mission is “To chronicle the history of the Concrete Ships of the World.” Richard Lewis of Ireland and Erlend Bonderud of Norway, the site’s creators, describe themselves as, “under no illusions that we are extremely, compulsively and rather eccentrically, obsessed with this subject matter.”
If anything, that is an understatement. However, unlike a lot of niche history websites, these men are keen on credit and citations. Together, they have methodically found, labeled, categorized, researched, and documented concrete ships by year, war, and country. Between the two of them, they have written over half a million words on hundreds of concrete ships.
As it happened, these two men from the other side of the Atlantic had a 5,000-word article about the particular ship I was curious about. The ship named the CAPTAIN BARKER was one of five water ships built for the US Army Transport Corps in 1919 for World War 1. In 1920, four of CAPTAIN BARKER’S sister ships began an ill-fated maiden voyage. Three were lost. The only survivor was a ship called CAPTAIN BOOTES, which I learned was at another local Puget Sound breakwater that I had seen in person but never made the connection.
Richard and Erlend’s work inspired me to dig deeper into these local ships over the last year. With their help and hours of searching through old newspapers and obituaries, I have been working on some in-depth articles for the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society’s journal ‘The Sea Chest’ on the origin of CAPTAIN BOOTES and CAPTAIN BARKER. It has been an incredible odyssey that actually put me in touch with the grandchildren of the captain of the CAPTAIN BOOTES. She was the only ship to survive the maiden voyage that sank her three sister ships. I could never have discovered this incredible story of daring, skill and hubris without the work of The Crete Fleet to get me started.
CAPTAIN BARKER on the Nisqually Reach. In the foreground are the remains of an old schooner of a similar vintage, whose wooden remains are much worse for wear.
The inside bulkheads of the CAPTAIN BARKER show a crack in its side. Look closely, and you can see the grain in the wooden forms that they used to build it.
I’ve also found out about at least two more concrete ships in my local waters. One, a self-propelled oil tank barge from World War 2 is part of a marina breakwater in Tacoma, Washington. Then there is the 1919 barge Success that’s been the patio at the waterside restaurant in Seattle’s Lake Union, Ivar’s Salmon House. I’ve been rowing past that one for the last 26 years and never had any idea.
If you live in a place with a significant maritime past, there very well might be a concrete ship hiding in plain sight. Their characteristic grey color makes them easy to overlook, and you might have been looking at one for years and never known. If you’re curious about some funny-looking floating concrete in your waterfront or just like digging into quirky maritime history, then Richard and Erlend’s Crete fleet scholarship is a resource to explore. You might be surprised at what you dig up.
