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2 The TELESCOPE Published every month by the Great Lakes Model Shipbuilders Guild, Belle Isle, Detroit 7, Michigan. Joseph E. Johnston .......... Editor Robert H. Davison........ Publisher Chairman Publicity Coiranlttee 15 per copy; $1.50 per year; free to paid members of O. L. M. S. G. ________ THE MYSTERY OF CHARLIE NOBLE -- IS IT SOLVED? By Capt'n Joe For countless years, on ocean vessels, the galley smoke stack has been called "Charlie Noble", or "The Charlie Noble". In all ray 21 years at sea I could never find the origin of the custom. Just recently, in an old account book from a Great Lakes Vessel, of just 101 years ago, I came across an entry, repeated month after month "Paid in full, Charlie Noble, cook". Could this have been the original Charlie Noble who somehow came to have his name perpetuated in this way? It was once the duty of the watch on deck, to keep the galley smoke stack top, (a kind of elbow) trimmed away from the wind. Was this cook a particularly petulant soul, for whom the job was never promptly enough attended, and whose perpetual griping about it came to seamens' minds forever afterwards when they had to trim a stack? Of course we will never know the answer, but since so many items of ship equipment have taken their names from men, by association, it could be true. Bollard, and Spencer- raast, are examples of such deriva­ tions. ______________________________ !!! A T T E N T I O N !!! The October Meeting of the Model Guild will be held in the BRIEFING ROOM at the DETROIT HISTORICAL MUSEUM Friday, October 30, 1953. at 8: 00 P. M. BE SURE AND COME BRING A FRIEND___________ The first steel-hull steamer. to be brought to the Lakes from salt water was the "Campana" in 1881 . She was cut in two to fit the small locks on the St. Lawrence, and put together again after reaching the Lake Ontario level. She was the first "tunnel-- type" vessel ever built. THE LITTLE SHIPS: "MACKINAW BOAT" Second in a series of articles by Capt'n J. E. Johnston, curator of the Museum of Great Lakes History, the Marine branch of the Detroit His­ torical Museum. Perhaps there is no surer way of starting a heated, and protract­ ed argument than by describing a Mackinaw boat. By some persons this type of craft is held to be a double-end, lapstrake boat. By others it is said to be carvel built, with oval or heart-shaped transom, and as for the rig, the differences of opinion vary even more widely. Undoubtedly the type name has been applied to variations that may more accurately called by such names as Escanaba boat, Drummond Island boat, Goderich boat, Huron boat, and other names derived from builders who, in matters of rig, or hull lines, departed from practices of his predecessors. However, all agree that the Mackinaw was a sail boat, and since sailing craft are usually given type names according to their rig there is some reason for the confusion. The earliest Mackinaw boat has been clearly described and plaus­ ible reasons given for its special features. First, it was a flat- bottomed, planked boat, slightly resembling a Cape Cod dory, though generally wider, especially aft of amidships. The reason for the flat bottom is as follows. With only imperfect knowledge of the shores of the Lakes the crews of these boats were frequently caught by storms when far from any known harbor of refuge. To escape the danger of foundering they would run their boats ashore on a gently sloping beach, remove the cargo to a place of safety, then place rollers under the boat and haul it ashore. The rollers were carried as part of the boat's equipment, and poles for them to run on were quickly slashed from the thickets along the shore. So, in the original Mackinaw the flat bottom was an essential part of the design. The original Mackinaw rig was essentially that of a two-mast schooner, with both masts about the ____________________ cont. p. 6_______