Sailing through Disneyland

When I started researching The Stowaway, I became aware of tall ships everywhere. It's been fun to see how much sailing lore still exists in modern culture (as well as annoying to note the inaccuracies in everything from TV shows to video games--oh my, video games).  I recently spent a couple of days in Disneyland, which unsurprisingly turns to be a splendid place for ship-spotting.

Peter Pan's flight was the obvious first stop. There's something rather marvelous about "sailing" over London and Neverland in a tiny ship.

Donald Duck's home is a little ship too, the Miss Daisy, moored in Toon Lake in Mickey's Toontown.

My companion and I were impressed with the full-sized, three-masted replica of the sailing ship Columbia, which turns out to have a link to my research for The Stowaway (as do so many things). In 1790, the Columbia was the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe, accompanied by Washington state's own Lady Washington on the first part of the voyage. Captain Robert Gray was the first recorded European to enter the mouth of the Columbia River, which takes its name from the ship.

Columbia has been a Disneyland attraction since 1958. It runs on a gas engine along a track, but does have rigging and sails, though they're rarely unfurled. It now plays the role of the Black Pearl in the Fantasmic! evening show, but for twenty-four years before that played the part of Captain Hook's Jolly Roger. I am, of course, sorry to have missed that.

Belowdecks in Disneyland's version is a galley and officers' quarters, added in 1964, all looking quite accurate to me. The twelve-minute ride around Tom Sawyer's Island doesn't provide quite enough time to examine every detail, at least if you also want to see the "shipwreck" on the island.

The Storybook Land canal boats take riders past Prince Eric's castle and ship from The Little Mermaid,

and also a tiny Kensington Gardens complete with golden Peter Pan statue.

Night falls with a glimpse of a pirate flag beyond the trees.

Here's one last ship from my favorite window on Main Street:

a diorama that rotates from the interior of the Darling children's house to their flight with Peter Pan over London.

I almost missed that transition. It's worth taking a second look at everything at Disneyland, probably, if you get the chance.

Down to the sea in ships (and wooden boats)

Every summer since starting The Stowaway, I've made a point of sailing at least once on the brig Lady Washington and seeing as many other ships as I can. But this year I not only missed the Wooden Boat Festival at Seattle's Lake Union, I was perilously close to missing a sail on the Lady as well. Luckily, the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival was a chance to remedy both.

A day that broke cool and cloudy turned blue and bright by midday. Fortunately, a boat festival is an easy place to buy a hat.

.

The festival is a showcase for over a hundred boats, large and small, motored and paddled and sailed.

And there she was--the Lady Washington.

 A perfect place from which to watch the parade of sail that ends the last day of the festival, and a chance to remind myself of those small sensory details of being aboard a ship that are part of Vivian Drew's story. (Of course, a fully-booked sail is not quiet, and not the place to hear the wind in the rigging. Cannon ball "booms" are another story.)

Our pirate nemesis! Luckily, she was not very large.

And so the summer's boat quest ended successfully, with not only a fun experience but with a few nautical observations I should have probably made before. There really is nothing like first-hand research if one can manage it.

Unavoidably detained

Anyone who's read this blog or talked for me for longer than fifteen minutes knows I love research. Yet it's a project that expands and apparently has no end, and it's slowing my progress on The Stowaway considerably. So why am I so insistent on absorbing every bit of information about sailing that I reasonably can? Because of people like me.

Exhibit #1. Assassin's Creed IV, Black Flag.

I laughed when I saw this. It's a historical video game (more or less--there are some real missed opportunities here), it's about pirates, it's set on a brig--the same type of ship helmed by Captain Hook. But I've learned that a ship, unlike a car, does not swing immediately to the side as soon as its wheel is turned, and a sail does not drop instantly--flump!--when it's unfurled. (As a former crew member of the Lady put it, it can take ten minutes just to muster the crew to get started.) And as I watched this very pretty game, I wondered, "Where is all the rigging?"

I know the game's depiction isn't right because of--you guessed it--my research, from sources I've found to be accurate. For instance, here's a photo of mine from a battle sail on board the Lady Washington, which is also a brig. Note the difference. I realize accuracy in this case would interfere with the game play of "Black Flag," but leaving it out altogether is a mistake I don't want to make in The Stowaway.

By further comparison, here is an illustration from Seamanship In the Age of Sail,

which was recommended to me by a captain of the Lady Washington as his favorite resource for general ship knowledge. It's readable and clear and will be even more helpful to me once I spend more time with it--time being the resource I am most in need of these days.

I have this as well, though I find it denser and harder to parse.

I am also reading Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander whilst taking notes and looking up every term that could possibly apply to The Stowaway in this companion volume, A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion to the Complete Seafaring Tales of Patrick O'Brian, by Dean King with John. B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes. This process is not helping me enjoy the pace of the book as the adventure story it was intended to be, but it's tremendously helpful in giving me an idea of how life was conducted at sea and what words were used in directions and commands.

Exhibit 2: Master and Commander, page 164
The brig was the obvious choice and they set a course to cut her off, keeping closest watch upon her the while: she sailed on placidly enough under courses and topsails, while the Sophie set her royals and topgallants and hurried along on the larboard tack with the wind one point free, heeling so that her lee-channels were under the water; and as their courses converged the Sophies were astonished to see that the stranger was extraordinarily like their own vessel, even to the exaggerated steeve of her bowsprit.

Without A Sea of Words, I wouldn't know what half of that meant or if it was useful to me. Now the challenge is to make sure I get my own terms right.

Research can become a labyrinth, and soon I may need to break out heavy tools and hack my way through the side. But it matters to me that I make the effort. Every writer may not find it important to give the reader a vivid and accurate rendering of their setting, but it matters to me when I'm reading, and I want to give my readers that respect. I know to my sadness that it's not possible for me to get every detail right, but I'm going to get as close as I possibly can.

A boat festival and research too

To no one's surprise, I've discovered I love the wooden boat festivals of the Pacific Northwest. To find one in Port Townsend--one of my favorite towns to begin with--with the Lady Washington and Adventuress in attendance...yes, this may in fact be where I was last weekend. 

Because one of the classes offered at the boat festival was on celestial navigation, I was able to get some critical research done for The Stowaway. I've been making a point of learning alongside Vivian Drew as she becomes part of the crew of the Jolly Roger, and using a sextant is an important element of that. I've got my book and my video, and yes, my sextant, but getting an actual lesson in how to use it was an unexpected joy.

The basic math wasn't bad--trigonometry was the only math class I liked in high school, so I knew I'd likely be all right in that regard. Actually taking a reading the sextant was more of a challenge, though. Once I figured out what I was supposed to be doing, I had it. Getting there was harder, especially with other people standing about waiting their turn, but I absolutely could not give up until I saw what I was supposed to through that eyepiece. And I did. And now Vivian can too.

Now I also get to find out if my brass display sextant works for more than display. Although I now know all my readings will be 48 degrees, if they're correct. Possibly that's not a problem.

The festival ends with a several-hour parade of about 300 boats and ships. It's possible (if pricey) to be on board the Lady Washington during the sail-by, my sources tell me---something to consider for next year.

An afternoon at sea

Two weeks ago, my friend and I went on an Evening Sail on the brig Lady Washington out of Anacortes, Wash. I can't imagine letting a summer go by without at least one sailing now that I've discovered there are tall ships so close to home, thanks to the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority, and I had the excuse of needing to refamiliarize myself with exactly what it's like to be on board a brig.

I'd been wondering when the crew of the Lady Washington would start to recognize me. The answer is "now." They not only recognize me, they remember that I'm working on this book. I found this more than a little gratifying.

Tall ships in Anacortes, WA
--the Indian Chieftain
and the Lady Washington

While I think of the Jolly Roger as being slightly larger than the Lady, she's still not a huge ship. A brig is not an enormous vessel like the galleons I've seen in numerous (inaccurate) interpretations of Peter Pan. Spending time in a similar space helps me understand what it would be like to live there alongside a handful of people one considers friends, a few others who don't take sides, and some who can only be considered enemies. It's pretty close quarters for a crew with an average size of fourteen, even if Vivian Drew does have the captain's cabin and often the state room to take refuge in.

As I'd hoped, I found the ship familiar enough now that I could easily imagine what daily life is like for Vivian once she's part of the crew. I wanted to make special note of the background details--the squeak of the pulleys, the sound of footsteps running on the deck, the quality of the wind on a calm day--so that her experience would be real to me (and, I hope, to the readers of her tale). I walked about the ship and thought about waking every morning to realize this was now my home. How I would become accustomed to the intricacies of the rigging and the dimensions of the decks. How I would feel to have a position of value among the pirates of the Jolly Roger.

Even though our sail wasn't a Battle Sail, we got a bonus cannon shot, which was as fun as I remembered from my first sail on the Lady. And I got a good look at the ordnance locker this time, which will prove useful to my story.

The wrong Jolly Roger

Whatever I may say about the accuracy of character portrayals on "Once Upon a Time," I applaud the show regularly for getting Captain Hook's ship right.

You may also recognize the Lady Washington as the Interceptor from Pirates of the Caribbean.

The producers are using the Lady Washington as their Jolly Roger (some of the filming has been done on the actual ship, the rest on a full-sized replica). And the Lady is a brig, as is the Jolly Roger, according to J.M. Barrie. You will note she has two masts. I know right away when artists haven't done their research, or have chosen to dispatch with Barrie's vision, the moment I see three masts. 

A brig has two masts, square-rigged.

I call Disney as the original instigator of this travesty.

Yes, maybe I'd like to have one of these models, but that does not mean I think this is accurate.

James Coleman, "Moonrise Over Pirate Bay," current fine art for Disney by one of its animated film landscape artists. Beautiful! But not a brig.

I suppose Disney's version has become the popular default.

Nadir Quinto, 1982

But it's hardly just Disney.

Model for the ship in the 2003 film of Peter Pan. Looks to me like a clipper, maybe, not a brig

I don't know why it's hard to get this one right. It's easy enough to do the research, and a brig is a lovely ship--it's not as though it weren't just as pretty as a clipper or a frigate, even if less imposing.

A brig! Robert Ingpen, 2004

Of course, it's not as if I'm not also confronted regularly with the placement of the Captain's hook on the incorrect hand. I just realized even one of my favorite Peter Pan artists' renditions has that issue.

Gwynedd M. Hudson,  1931. It is almost impossible to find biographical information about her online, and I was sorry to discover this may be because she died at the age of 26.  Hudson studied at the Brighton School of Art, and is also remembered for her illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

At least I know artists have used the play as their inspiration at least as much as the book as regards the hook, which is an element that has changed from one production (and actor) to the next. I don't think they have as good an excuse for ship inaccuracies.