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For these attempts, the Japanese government expelled Reynolds from the country in which he had lived 13 years (1970). He and Akie sailed the Phoenix to San Francisco and settled at Quaker Center in Ben Lomond, near Santa Cruz, California with the boat moored at nearby Moss Landing. During that time, after all three of his grown children turned down the offer of the boat for free, Earle sold the Phoenix to another American family intending to sail around the world and gave the $20,000 from the sale to the Quaker Center in exchange for a lifetime right to live in one of the cabins at the center.
For these attempts, the Japanese government expelled Reynolds from the country in which he had lived 13 years (1970). He and Akie sailed the Phoenix to San Francisco and settled at Quaker Center in Ben Lomond, near Santa Cruz, California with the boat moored at nearby Moss Landing. During that time, after all three of his grown children turned down the offer of the boat for free, Earle sold the Phoenix to another American family intending to sail around the world and gave the $20,000 from the sale to the Quaker Center in exchange for a lifetime right to live in one of the cabins at the center.


After Akie's death in 1994 and Earle's in 1998, the Phoenix, gutted and minus both masts and Phoenix figurehead, an ad showed up on Craigslist in March 2007 which began, "FREE: 50-foot yacht. . ." <ref> craigslist date?</ref> John Gardner of Lodi, California, then 31, took possession of the Phoenix for the cost of back dock fees and had it towed up the Sacramento River, wanting to restore it to its original condition and purpose. <ref>[http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070324/A_NEWS0802/703240322]</ref> Peace activists are currently (2010)trying to find Gardner and the Phoenix in order to have the boat saved and restored as a historical monument. <ref>[http://peace.maripo.com/p_boats.htm]. </ref>
In March 2007, the Phoenix, gutted and minus both masts and Phoenix figurehead, showed up in an ad on craigslist which began, "FREE: 50-foot yacht. . ." <ref> craigslist date?</ref> John Gardner of Lodi, California, then 31, took possession of the Phoenix for the cost of back dock fees and had it towed up the Sacramento River, wanting to restore it to its original condition and purpose. <ref>[http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070324/A_NEWS0802/703240322]</ref> Peace activists are currently (2010) trying to find Gardner and the Phoenix in order to have the boat saved and restored as a historical monument. <ref>[http://peace.maripo.com/p_boats.htm]. </ref>




Revision as of 06:24, 21 February 2010


Phoenix of Hiroshima

Named for the mythological bird which rises from the ashes of its own destruction, the yacht Phoenix, built near Hiroshima and launched May 5, 1954, was designed by Dr. Earle L. Reynolds, an anthropolgist who had been sent to Hiroshima by the National Academy of Sciences to research the effects of the first atomic bomb on the physical growth and development of surviving Japanese children (1951-1954).

Reynolds patterned the 50-foot, double-ended ketch on the Colin Archer design used for sturdy Norwegian fishing vessels. "Where I had a choice," Reynolds said, "I opted for the sturdiest, most rugged design."

The boat rose symbolically from the ashes of the city destroyed by the first atomic bomb but it also rose, over the period of a year and a half, from the small unprepossessing shipyard of Mr. Yotsuda in Miyajima-guchi, across the Inland Sea of Japan from the famous island of Miyajima. Until approached by Reynolds, Yotsuda had only built sampans and was struggling to recover financially from the second World War.

The boat was originally constructed entirely of native Japanese woods. (Later, in New Zealand, the main mast was infested with borer-type insects and was replaced with one of native kaori wood.) It was double-planked, mahogany over hinoki (cypress). The hull was hinoki above the water line, sugi (cryptomeria cedar) below. The cabins below decks consisted of mahogany, camphor, cherry, chestnut and Japanese cabinet woods. [1]

When Reynolds finished the first three years of what was intended to be a longitudinal study and began a one-year sabbatical, he and his family (his wife Barbara, second son Ted, daughter Jessica and three Hiroshima yachtsmen) sailed the Phoenix around the world. The trip continued well beyond the single year allotted (1954-1958) and for a number of reasons Reynolds never resumed the job in Hiroshima. They logged () nautical miles and visited () ports. Ted, 16 when the family left Japan, navigated the 30-ton vessel. The first leg of the circumnavigation, from Japan to Hawaii, took 48 days, most of which were rough and stormy.[2] It was followed by ideal sailing weather to Tahiti, Moorea, Raiatea, Tahaa and Bora Bora in the Society Islands; Rarotonga, American Samoa, Fiji and New Zealand (Auckland and Wellington); Australia (Sydney, the Great Barrier Reef and Cairns); Indonesia (Bali, Java); a typhoon off Keeling-Cocos Islands; South Africa (Durban, Cape Town); the east coast of the United States from New York south; through the Panama Canal; Galapagos Islands; Marquesas and back to Hawaii. [3] [4] [5]


Technically this was a cicumnavigation of the globe but the trip had started in Japan and the Reynolds family intended to culminate it there. However, their return to Japan was delayed two years by a voyage into the an area of the Pacific near the Marshall Islands in which the United States was testing nuclear weapons (an area covering the possible routes by which the Phoenix could return to Japan). to protest the testing of nuclear weapons, an area declared off-limits by the American government. Reynolds' wife Barbara, son Ted (20) and first mate sailed the Phoenix back to Honolulu, a trip of 60 days against the wind, while Earle was being tried and convicted for entering the forbidden zone [6] [7]

In 1961 the Reynolds family and Tom Yoneda sailed the Phoenix to Nakhodka, USSR to protest Soviet nuclear weapons. [8] [9]

After Earle and Barbara divorced in 1964, Earle and his new wife Akie, a citizen of Hiroshima, sailed the boat to North Vietnam (1967) to deliver medical supplies to civilians injured by American bombing. [10] They also attempted two goodwill missions to China "from a Japanese and an American (at that time neither country recognized Red China) but were physically prevented to do so, the first time (1967) by the Japanese government and the second (1968) by the Chinese Coast Guard.

For these attempts, the Japanese government expelled Reynolds from the country in which he had lived 13 years (1970). He and Akie sailed the Phoenix to San Francisco and settled at Quaker Center in Ben Lomond, near Santa Cruz, California with the boat moored at nearby Moss Landing. During that time, after all three of his grown children turned down the offer of the boat for free, Earle sold the Phoenix to another American family intending to sail around the world and gave the $20,000 from the sale to the Quaker Center in exchange for a lifetime right to live in one of the cabins at the center.

In March 2007, the Phoenix, gutted and minus both masts and Phoenix figurehead, showed up in an ad on craigslist which began, "FREE: 50-foot yacht. . ." [11] John Gardner of Lodi, California, then 31, took possession of the Phoenix for the cost of back dock fees and had it towed up the Sacramento River, wanting to restore it to its original condition and purpose. [12] Peace activists are currently (2010) trying to find Gardner and the Phoenix in order to have the boat saved and restored as a historical monument. [13]



References

  1. ^ Earle Reynolds, We Crossed the Pacific the Hard Way, Saturday Evening Post, first of three parts: May 7,14 and 21, 1955
  2. ^ Ibid, second and third of three parts: May 7, 14 and 21, 1955
  3. ^ Reynolds, Earle and Barbara, All in the Same Boat, New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1962
  4. ^ Reynolds, Jessica, Jessica's Journal, New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1958. Eleven-year old Jessica's diary account of the first year of the voyage around the world in the Phoenix.
  5. ^ Reynolds, Barbara Leonard, Cabin Boy and Extra Ballast, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958. Fictional children's story of a family sailing from Japan to Hawaii., based on Phoenix voyage.
  6. ^ Reynolds, Earle, The Forbidden Voyage, New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1961. Non-fiction.
  7. ^ Norman Cousins, Earle Reynolds and His Phoenix, Saturday Review, (Date?), 1958
  8. ^ Reynolds, Jessica, To Russia with Love, Tokyo: Chas. E. Tuttle Co., (in Japanese translation only)1962
  9. ^ Reynolds, Jessica, To Russia with Love, Wilmington, OH: Peace Resource Center, Wilmington College, due out in 2010.
  10. ^ Boardman, Elizabeth Jelinek, The Phoenix Trip: Notes on a Quaker Mission to Haiphong, Burnsville, N.C.: Celo Press, 1901 Hannah Branch Road, Burnsville, NC 28714 1985
  11. ^ craigslist date?
  12. ^ [1]
  13. ^ [2].

library.ucsc.edu/content/earle-and-akie-reynolds-archive

http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/peace/DG001-025/dg017/dg017cnvamain.htm Swarthmore College Peace Collection: Committee for Non-Violent Action Records, 1958-1968

http://www.truthout.org/preserving-golden-rule-a-piece-anti-nuclear-history56895 February 14, 2010 article about the boats Golden Rule and Phoenix

books.google.com/books?isbn=0198275374. . .

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Radio National's, Radio Eye Earle Reynolds and 'The Phoenix' www.abc.net.au/m/arts/radioeye/reynolds.htm

Vietnam's Holy Week Ends on a Bloody Note "A Tass dispatch from Hanoi said Dr. Earle L. Reynolds' ketch Phoenix carrying $10,000 worth of American Quaker medical supplies to North Vietnam, sailed around Red China's Hainan Island and entered the Gulf of Tonkin. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19670326&id=3S4eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=JpsEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7092,4188697

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1069628/index.htm

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