A FLOATING CLUB

Evening Star, Issue 20030, 22 November 1928, Page 16

A FLOATING CLUB

USE FBR OLD CUPPER SHIP

Ji an agreement ou tho purchase price can ‘V reached, tho American clipper ship, Benjamin F. Packard, Mill become the clubhouse of more than 2,000 doep-sca and coastwise sailormen, members of Ihe Neptune Association, ul New York, and be jicrmanontly moored at, tlio Battery, New Dork City, so i.lmb visitors may see, and tread tile decks of one of tlio vessels that had a part in making “ Ihe clipper ship day s an important period in history. The lion jii in in F. Packard was built at Bath, Dlaine, in 18S-3, and is tho last of tho wooden full-rigged ships on the Atlantic coast. The only others sailing from an American homo jiort are, it is believed in shipping circles here, on the Pacific coast. Officials of the Guy ol New Turk have promised to provide pier room for the ship, and it only remains now to come to a price agreement with the owners.

Tho Benjamin F. Packard is one of tin; finest examples of clipper ships turned out of tho Dlaine yards, and'is in excellent condition after kiity-lour years of service. She is 2-14 it long, 45it beam, 18ft draft, and is of 2,150 gross tons register. Tho present_ equipment of sails, spars, and booms is complete and in perfect order. The Packard was built to round Capo Horn ou voyages between tile cast coast and San Francisco. Later she was in I bo world trade between Australia and Great Britain, and still later was operated in tho Alaska, salmon trade. Her last voyage was from Puget Sound, through flio Panama Canal to New York in. 1925. After her arrival in New York she was sold, and was to bo outfitted as a floating museum, but the plan never matured. Tlio Neptuno Association membership is composed of practically every master and first, second, third, and fourth mate aboard deep-sea and coastwise ships under the American flag.