Broom at the Masthead: Schooner Days MLI (1051)

by C. H. J. Snider

NOBLE at his own first name, a friend of Schooner Days sends a clipping about "USNS Barrett slipping proudly into her berth with the brooms of victory prominently display from her masts fore and aft."

Now doesn't that beat the Dutch?

It would be hard to display anything from her masts athwartships, or any other way fore and aft, unless the masts were staggered offset, like an aircraft carrier's bridge and superstructure. But let us not be captious. The Barrett had won the speed laurels of the 65-ship fleet of the Military Sea Transportation Service, attaining a speed of 21 1/2 knots or 1 1/2 knots more than expected, and stopping at full speed, not on a dime, but about 8 times her own length, of just under three-quarters of a mile.

It took three minutes and 35 seconds to slow her down to a dead stop and start her going astern. Stopping going astern at 10 knots, maximum speed, and starting full speed ahead took less than one minute, and was accomplished in her own length, given as 433 feet. This is very good of a ship of 17,600 tons.

Incidentally it emphasizes the warning so often given to sailing craft, to allow steam plenty of clearance, for power-driven vessels cannot be stopped or backed up like motor cars; or row boats.

For passing these and many other exacting tests satisfactorily on a 1,200-mile cruise the Barrett berthed "with brooms of victory prominently displayed ...the traditional nautical symbol for outstanding performance under stress."

To us, always, the broom at the masthead has meant that the vessel was for sale. In 1891 we three boys made our way down to Coghill's Don dry dock in in Ashbridge's Bay. A solitary weathered mast, showing high above the withered bullrushes, had long intrigued us, but we had never been able to find our way to it before. When we reached the dry dock there lay a great bluff-bowed schooner, her faded green and red paint bleached almost to a monotone background for her name. It was in great yellow letters on her quarter - "GLENEIFFER."

All her spars were gone, except the solitary weathered mast which had piqued our curiosity. This was her mainmast. Lashed to its head, from which the topmast had been removed, was what we had supposed at a distance to be a small flag. It wasn't. It was a broom, bottom up.

"What's that for?" We asked an old tar.

"Well, if it's green you must be kidding to ask that," said he. "That's a sign she's for sale. They always put a broom to the masthead to show a vessel's for sale.

"This'un lost her foremast comin' around Gibraltar Point two years ago last fall, and drifted across Humber Bay in the gale, and fetched up at Long Branch. Same night the Annandale went ashore in the snow at Lorne Park. Pat McSherry salvaged this'un next spring and got her to the Don drydock, and here she's lain ever since, with the broom at the masthead, waitin' for some'un to buy her."

When we got home mother told us that Martin Tromp, a Dutch admiral, in 1639 had swept the English Channel of the Spanish squadron and captured thirteen merchantmen there, richly laden for Portugal and Spain, and so came home with brooms at the mastheads, signifying his cleanup. But when Robert Blake, the English Parliamentary admiral defeated both the Tromps, father and son, in a three-day battle in the Channel in 1653, he came home with long whiplash pendants aloft, signalizing the whipping he had given, and towing the Dutch ships he had taken with brooms at their mastheads, showing that they were for sale as prizes.

Since then I have seen a picture of the "Battle of the Whip and the Broom." I have also seen the broom at the masthead of more than one sailing vessel - in Toronto and Halifax and the harbor of Cork, and either in Palermo or Messina. It seems that it had been used often to advertise that the vessel was for sale by court order. But I have seen pictures of vessels laid up with brooms at their mastheads and for sale because there was nothing for them to do.

This Gleneiffer was built at Port Robinson in 1873, for James Norris of St. Catherines. She was 140 feet long, 23.7 beam and 11.3 feet deep, 367 tons register. Her broom brought a customer by 1892. She was refitted as a barge for the Reid Co. of Sarnia, and was sunk in a collision in the Southeast Bend two years later. Capt. George Robinson of Port Hope sailed her when she was wrecked at Long Branch.

The Barrett's initials USNS are new to me. United States Naval Ship? How long has this been going on? USS used to be good enough. I've been so immersed in Schooner Days and in the HMS's of His Majesty's Provincial Marine, and its great-granddaughter the Royal Canadian Navy, with its HMCS's that I hadn't noticed Uncle Sam's four posters before.

To end with the beginning, the clipping was kindly sent by Noble E. P. Wilson, of 847 Manning ave., Toronto 4.