MARITIME HISTORY
Putting Closure to the Goldfield
By H. E. Ross
We sailed with a slight heel, the wind comingfrom a little forward of the port beam on a loose close reachtoward Zihuatenejo Bay on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. The helmwas a softly touched spoke to windward every so often. We steeredfrom a cushioned couch placed athwartship before the big wheel.
The Goldfield's deck was awash in moonlight as she surged gentlythrough small Pacific swells at sixteen knots. Every so oftena ghost of spray would lay upon my face, a caress, the water beingthe same temperature as the air. The sails billowed, pulled andtwisted, a creak, a groan, a whirring in the rigging, all veryquiet, giving a sense of strength and push. She was a gracefullass.
My regulator would not stop the air, so I abandoned it. I pickedmy face mask and snorkel up from the cement sea wall at CanalPoint and put it on, moving backward with my flippers to jointhe others already down diving the Goldfield.
I saw Paul Lawrence at an entanglement of growth covered linesand wood in the green visibility off past the sunken barge. Helooked confused, even underwater, thumbed me up and asked wherewas the Goldfield. I looked back down and to the left where thevessel should lay and only saw more wreckage laying on the seafloor. I rose again to check my references and down again to acceptthe fact that the Goldfield had collapsed upon itself.
Simon Boxall was just barely visible videoing the ship up aheadand I could not see Kem Jackson except for his bubbles when Isurfaced again to check where everybody was.
The water was murky, visibility fifteen to twenty feet. Lots oflittle fish enjoyed our visit; it gave them something new to becurious about. Sergeant Majors and trumpet fish and edible lookingfoot-long, grey fish in and out of the wreckage, to us and awayquickly. The water was body temperature.
The wreck lay there before me. It would not regain the shape ofa ship, just lumps of wood, a skeleton set off by the darknessat the limit of visibility. Everything too flat, a slight tilthere and there with more bones of a dead ship jutting upward andsidewards.
I sorted out where the main cabin must be, but on finding a smallhatch opening there was no cabin to enter, just a marl floor withgrass waving toward me. I went over to the port beam, or whereI thought it should have been and saw that the hull did descendfive or six feet, meaning that there must have been at least threeor four feet of marl inside the hull.
I went to the starboard beam and saw the timbers reaching upwardfrom the marl, the side rising only a few feet from the floor.A fish apartment building of shadows and broken planks.
Away from the wreck I could not pull a picture in of the shipthat I had spent so much time aboard in Mexican waters, our goalthen to bring her back to the Caymans, no money in our pockets,no support seen for the future.
What a pleasure it was to sail her there in Acapulco, Puerto Marques,Zihuatenejo and Puerto Vallarta. She was so easy and graceful.This was so twisted and grotesque. This cannot be the same vessel.
Just six months ago she showed four inches of her main cabin'sforward port corner. She had a shape still, there were possibilities.There were people who would volunteer to aid her. That, at thattime, was sad. Now, she was dead. The Goldfield is dead.
For those who do not know her, the Arches completed constructionon the Goldfield in July 1930, launched her amongst music, fanfare,lots of white and amber rum. People came from all over the Islandto see what some considered the most beautiful ship ever builtin the Cayman Islands.
She had been commissioned for turtling by merchant, farmer andship owner, Mr. Conwell Watler from East End, then living in GeorgeTown. She had a novel spoon bow and when rigged carried almostthree thousand square feet of Egyptian Cotton sail in seven shapesas a gaff-rigged topsail schooner.
The Goldfield's crew were from West Bay, mainly named Ebanks,Bush. Farrington, Parsons. She broke speed records and was jealouslycalled a hussy for her yachty looks and ways. She did her workwith the class of not having an engine, but after twenty-odd yearswas sold to the Rankines of Providencia.
She was loved there and worked, carrying cargo between the Islandand Cartegena, the Island and other Caribbean Basin ports. Whenshe was sold again. The Island of Providencia virtually wept ata future without seeing her sails carve through the horizon.
Ed Englemann sailed the Caribbean in her as a cruising home, eventuallysettling on the Pacific side of Mexico in the Sea of Cortez ata desert port called Guaymas. She was sold again and taken upto the State of Washington to set royally upon Lake Union. Volunteerscame from all over to work on her and make her beautiful again.She was featured in movies, boat parades and shows.
Entrepreneur, Kent Eldemire and Attorney Charles Adams pulledtogether a concerned group and formed the Goldfield Foundationto buy her and bring her back to the Cayman Islands.
She was sold by Bradley Johnson to the Goldfield Foundation andthe Cayman Islands for $150,000. One-half to be paid before deliveryand a never to be paid one-half after. Johnson also made it apart of the deal that he be allowed to bring her to the CaymanIslands.
The return voyage to the Cayman Islands was a disaster. Alliesbecame enemies, the ship broke her boom, she was lost in a Tehuantepecer,dismasted and lost again, towed into Panama, then towed throughand to Roatan in the Bay Islands.
She was worked on at the Seth Arch Drydock with most of her porttimbers being replaced. Eventually, she was towed to George Townby Herbert Humphrey's research vessel, Beacon, with Bob Soto atthe Goldfield helm and her masts on deck. Her arrival was celebrated,though most attending did not like the condition of the arrival.
She seemed so small with her masts down. She seemed humble insteadof the essence of a proud memory. But, she was home now and shewould be cared for and soon would be sailing strong again. Orso Cayman thought.
After being towed around to North Sound she sank. Everybody turnedout to bring her back up and she was re-floated. Moving her toanother, more permanent location she started to sink again andwas brought to Canal Point and over to an abandoned barge to betied alongside.
She sank again. Fourteen years later we dove on her to see ifshe could be raised.