This year the Treworgy Planetarium introduced a new class, “Introduction to Coastal Weather,” taught by Lt. Walter O’Donnell, a former navigation instructor for the U.S. Navy. We met Walt during classes and shows we hosted for sailors. The class, held in the early spring, was so popular that we have scheduled a second one for June (sign up here).

We asked Walt to take a few minutes and answer five questions so we could get to know him a little better.

1. Tell us a little about yourself, your career and educational background (including where you grew up and where you live now).
I was born in Boston and raised in Massachusetts. My parents took us sailing when we were young, and my grandfather always had a couple of boats that he kept at his house in Sag Harbor, N.Y. I have been sailing ever since, mostly coastal waters. I attended Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and graduated with a B.A. in History. I joined the U.S. Navy in 2011, and in six years, I lived in Newport, R.I., Norfolk, VA, San Diego, CA, and finally Newport, again. I was assigned to a 9,000-ton, 505-foot guided missile destroyer (DDG) in Norfolk, and deployed to the Mediterranean Sea. In San Diego, I was assigned as Navigator on a 25,000-ton, 685-foot amphibious landing platform dock (LPD), and we took her through the Pacific and Indian oceans to the Gulf of Aden in the Middle East for my second deployment. I spent my last two years in the Navy training future Navigators at Surface Warfare Officer School in Newport, specializing in weather and celestial navigation. I am currently attending Fairfield University in Fairfield, CT, pursuing my Master of Arts in Teaching for Secondary Education, Social Studies, and plan on being a high school history teacher. I live with my wife and 1-year-old daughter in Milford, CT.

2. How did you become interested in weather?
Weather is an inescapable part of going to sea, and I was always intrigued by how powerful Mother Nature can be. I had to brief my ship’s commanding officer every day on the weather forecast while in the Navy, so there was a necessity to becoming an expert on weather. I also love historical fiction, especially the “Master and Commander” series, and those books helped me appreciate how much a “weather eye” is the mark of a mariner. What really sealed the deal for me was when we were transiting across the Indian Ocean and encountered 20-foot waves and 60 knots of wind. I would never underestimate the importance of weather knowledge after those few days of pitching, rolling and yawing aboard a massive Naval ship.

3. Do you have a favorite kind of weather?
I would have to say relatively heavy weather. Ten to 12-foot seas, 30 knots of wind could rock my Navy ships pretty well, but we could handle it. There is a peace to trusting your equipment, because there is no way to “outrun” the storm at that point. And if I have done my job well up until then, then we knew that this weather was headed our way. After all, “a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”

4. What do you think are the most important aspects of weather that laypeople should understand?

How to “read” Mother Nature’s signs about what is headed your way when you’re already out on the water. Reading a weather forecast is pretty straightforward, but if you’re already sailing around on Long Island Sound, then you have to keep an eye to windward. If you understand how the barometer works, and combine it with a basic understanding of cloud types, you can keep yourself and your boat safe. We spend a good portion of the class going over these visual cues because they are so important to safe boating.

5. What’s the best part about teaching a class such as this?
Probably at the end of the class when we listen to the NOAA weather forecast on the VHF radio. At the start of class, many participants could not understand some parts of this vital report on what their current local weather is and what it will be. But at the end of class, they understand what every prediction means, and how it will affect their next trip out on the bay. Now they’ll have more fun out on the water because they have peace of mind about the weather!

Bonus: What is your favorite song, book and movie that involves weather?
Favorite song about weather would be “What Fortunes Guide a Sailor” by Matthew Byrne; it’s a great folk song about a long voyage.
Favorite book would be “Tying Down the Wind” by Eric Pinder because it makes weather fun, not too scientific.
Favorite movie is definitely “The Perfect Storm” because my grandparents lived in Gloucester, MA, the quintessential sailor’s town where the Andrea Gail came from, so we spent a lot of time up there.

On Tuesday, May 1, Mystic Seaport launched its new brand identity, strengthening its roots as an organization devoted to maintaining a strong connection to the American maritime experience while also moving confidently forward as a major 21st century cultural institution.

As part of the rebranding, Mystic Seaport Museum unveiled a redesigned logo, website, and large-scale ad campaign on Tuesday, kicked off with the unveiling of new signage along Greenmanville Avenue. The launch is a key element of the Museum’s strategic plan to position itself as a more modern and relevant cultural center that continues to inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.

The organization’s new logo, in the color nautical orange, presents a sharp, bold visual identity in a shape that references the planks of a ship with the cascade of stacked vertical text representing waves approaching shore.

“Today’s audiences value the community that a museum creates,” said Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport Museum. “By restoring the word ‘Museum’ to our name, we celebrate and showcase history while making a space for people to talk and think about issues that matter to them. Museums are contemporary centers of community and discourse and we are updating our identity to reflect that role.”

Mystic Seaport Museum’s new tagline, “Radical Craft.  Get Into It.” will anchor its new advertising campaign debuting this month. It is an action-oriented statement that shines the light on the Museum as a place that celebrates immersive experiences, craft and the evolution of seafaring innovation that was radical in its time. The ad campaign will feature the outstanding imagery created by the Museum’s photography staff.

“This new direction signifies the commitment of the Museum’s Board of Trustees to connect with, and inspire, the broadest possible communities, and to communicate the freshness and relevance of the Museum’s programs and exhibitions,” said J. Barclay Collins, chairman of the Board of Trustees of Mystic Seaport Museum.

Carbone Smolan Agency, an independent design-led branding agency that has worked with organizations such as Musee de Louvre, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, and Christies served as the agency of record for the Museum’s rebrand and launch.

 

A modern-day fascination with Vikings and Viking culture will be satisfied by the Saturday, May 19th opening of The Vikings Begin: Treasures from Uppsala University, Sweden, at Mystic Seaport. The exhibition will bring artifacts from one of the world’s finest early Viking-age collections outside of their home in Sweden for the first time. It will be the international debut for the exhibition.

Priceless treasures, including helmets, shields, weapons, glass, and other artifacts dating as early as the 7th century, are included in this collection from Gustavianum, Uppsala University Museum in Sweden, Scandinavia’s oldest university.

“The Vikings Begin is a wonderful opportunity for people to tap into their fascination with all things Viking, and be able to expand the scope of understanding about Viking and pre-Viking cultures and how they influenced the rest of the world,” said Mystic Seaport President Steve White.

The exhibition includes a number of exquisite, more-than-1,300-year-old original artifacts from the centuries leading up to the Viking Age, held in the vast archaeological collections of Uppsala University. Normally kept in the vaults of the University Museum, these rare objects have never before traveled across the Atlantic.

The exhibition will be divided into thematic sections on Viking warfare, trade, the Baltic Sea, a ship burial, Norse gods, and geo-political relationships to other cultures. It will employ remarkable archaeological finds in the exploration of how this storied maritime society lived more than a millennium ago. Additionally, it will offer up an often overlooked female perspective of Viking culture, including some possible surprises.

“The exhibition includes magnificent weapons, both for attack and defense, and also smaller treasures such as jewelry and objects with magical importance,” said Dr. Marika Hedin, Director at Gustavianum, Uppsala University Museum. “The finds come from both male and female graves, as both sexes played important roles in society. Recent finds even indicate that women sometimes actively participated in battle; however, their power resided primarily on the spiritual and magical sides of life. To understand the story of how the Vikings began, the exhibition examines their relationship with the outside world, their spiritual beliefs, the role of warfare, the importance of water and waterways, and how trade routes influenced their world.”

Mystic Seaport is the first stop on a U.S. tour for The Vikings Begin. The exhibition was born out of a 10-year research project at Uppsala University that began in 2016. “The Viking Phenomenon,” as the project is known, aims to closely study the emergence of Viking society by looking at the developments within the Scandinavian Iron-Age culture that existed before the Vikings. The rich archaeological finds from graves in eastern Sweden—treasures held by Gustavianum—tell a new and compelling story about why and when Viking society actually began.

Mystic Seaport has additional programming planned around the exhibition, including Viking Days on June 16 and 17. During this two-day festival, the Museum will be transformed in celebration of Viking culture, complete with trade demonstrations, performances, and on-the-water activities. Visitors can explore the exhibitions, sample Scandinavian fare, watch traditional faering sailing, and see a Nordic boat-building demonstration. There will be hands-on activities and games for children and adults throughout the day, and a special Planetarium show on Viking navigation.

The Vikings Begin will run concurrently with Science, Myth, and Mystery: The Vinland Map Saga, which also opens May 19. A new exhibition produced in collaboration with the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, the show explores the controversial history of the map that purportedly proved the Vikings reached the New World before Columbus. The map ignited a firestorm of debate as scholars, historians, and scientists across the globe argued over its meaning and authenticity. This exhibition will put the map on display for the first time in the U.S. in more than 50 years.

The Vikings Begin: Treasures from Uppsala University, Sweden is open through Sept. 30, in the Collins Gallery of the Thompson Exhibition Building.

On December 1, Mystic Seaport will open the exhibition Death in the Ice: The Mystery of the Franklin Expedition. The Franklin story is well known in Canada and the United Kingdom, and carried with pride, but the events are not familiar to many in the United States. To increase public awareness prior to the opening of Death in the Ice, the Museum is increasing visitor and social media awareness of the new AMC series, The Terror, which premiered March 26.

As part of the Museum’s efforts to raise awareness, AMC will lend the Museum video from The Terror, as well as virtual reality software, that will be shown in the Pilalas Lobby of the Thompson Exhibition Building. This will allow visitors to gain an additional sense of what it would be like to be stranded in the ice aboard one of Rear Adm. Sir John Franklin’s ships.

“When visitors come to Mystic Seaport in December to see the Franklin exhibition, they will discover long lost artifacts only recently recovered from Franklin’s ships,” said Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport. “In the meantime, AMC’s 10-part series The Terror will bring awareness to this great mystery, serving as an example of where a fictional account can excite the public’s interest in gaining a better understanding of history. We are honored to be the venue for the Franklin exhibition, which premiered at the UK’s Royal Museums Greenwich and is presently at the Canadian Museum of History, and we are excited to be joining with AMC as we excite interest in Death in the Ice: The Mystery of the Franklin Expedition.”

Although The Terror is at its core a fictionalized account, Executive Producer Ridley Scott speaks of the authenticity and accuracy that was carefully woven into the presentation. To this end, in filming The Terror, the production crew needed to create a likeness to the lost Franklin vessels (the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus). The production team recreated the interior of the two 19th-century ships on a soundstage in Budapest, Hungary, where initial filming took place. In order to create an authentic feel for the viewer, the producers also hired a team of shipwrights to construct a replica of the ship, which was used for filming on the Island of Pag in Croatia.

Mystic Seaport visitors will have the opportunity to gain a strong sense of the size of these vessels as they are surprisingly close to the proportions of its own exhibition vessel, the Charles W. Morgan. The HMS Erebus was launched in 1813 with a length of 105 feet and beam of 29 feet and the HMS Terror was launched with a beam of 102 feet and a beam of 27 feet, both built as military vessels. In comparison, Charles W. Morgan, a commercial ship launched in 1841, is 113 feet in length and 27.5 feet in beam.

Students of American History will also find interest in the fact that the HMS Terror played a role during the War of 1812 when the British blockaded the Atlantic coast. In fact, the HMS Terror participated in the bombardment of nearby Stonington, Connecticut, and later joined in bombardment of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry.

The Terror airs Mondays at 9 p.m. (or watch it online) – be sure to prep for the December 1 opening at Mystic Seaport of Death in the Ice: The Mystery of the Franklin Expedition.

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An exhibition developed by the Canadian Museum of History (Gatineau, Canada), in partnership with Parks Canada Agency and with the National Maritime Museum (London, United Kingdom), and in collaboration with the Government of Nunavut and the Inuit Heritage Trust.

Laura Hopkins grew up sailing on the Great Lakes, racing 420s and Sunfishes. In the summertime, her family would head from their home in Buffalo to her grandmother’s house in Woods Hole, and there Laura would sail her dad’s Herreshoff 12 ½.

She learned at an early age that “Boating out on the water, whether by sail or motor, with the wind, the spray of the sea, and the distant horizon, is magical.”

Hopkins started as senior vice president for Advancement in early January, as the Museum prepared to launch its Era of Exhibitions. She brings with her that same sense of wonder and appreciation of what Mystic Seaport is and does that she has for being on the water, be it salty or fresh.

“I revel in the history of this organization, the wealth of knowledge here, the grittiness of the shipyard,” she said in a recent interview in her sunny office on the second floor of 75 Greenmanville Ave., where she hasn’t yet finished hanging the (largely nautical) art on the walls. “We have resources, institutional knowledge, an incredible staff, and a sense of teamwork and collaboration.”

Hopkins’ other passion besides sailing is painting. She primarily paints abstracts with oils, and also draws and sketches. She has a studio in the Velvet Mill in Stonington Borough.

A career in museums

Her love of art led her to study art history at Vassar, and when she graduated she moved to San Francisco and landed a job at the M.H. de Young Museum running group tours for the blockbuster show, Treasures of the Vatican.

“I had to squeeze a thousand people an hour into the museum before it opened, and make them feel special,” she said. “That was my first job.”

She took that job as she was deciding whether to go on to graduate school and become an art historian/curator.  “But I got distracted,” Hopkins notes. “I moved into managing a small nonprofit, and I was hooked. I enjoyed working with a board, interacting with philanthropists and the process of going from vision to execution.”

She moved to Seattle after San Francisco and spent 17 years at Seattle Art Museum in a variety of positions, advancing from grants manager to associate development director. She specialized in raising the contributed revenue necessary to support exhibitions and education programs, using her grant writing expertise to work more effectively with foundations and government agencies. During her tenure there the museum tripled in size and successfully completed a $200 million capital campaign.

She also directed advancement departments at two smaller nonprofits, building major giving programs, running annual fund campaigns and adding to membership ranks. Working as a consultant to non-profits for several years has raised her awareness of the critical importance of having an engaged Board of Trustees. “Mystic Seaport has one of the best boards around,” she said.

A life and career change

While all this was going on, Hopkins got married, raised two children, and went through a divorce. She decided to return to Buffalo for her 35^th high school reunion, not having been back since she graduated. At the party, she bumped into a classmate named John Farmelo. They dated long distance, and then she moved back East and they married. After a couple of years in Buffalo, John left the investment field and decided to work in the yacht brokerage business. Laura was consulting with museums at the time, and together they moved to Mystic with their two dogs.

“We moved to Mystic in April of 2017, and became members of Mystic Seaport the first week we lived here,” Hopkins said. “We appreciate the culture here – it’s a boating community but it’s not a beachy vacation place. It’s authentic to its history.”

“I was contacted by a recruiter last September,” Laura recalled. “When I mentioned to her that I had moved to Mystic, she said, ‘Are you kidding me? I have this amazing job at Mystic Seaport that just opened up’.”

Arriving just as the Era of Exhibitions is launching gives Hopkins a sense of certainty that Mystic Seaport is on the cusp of its next transformation. “The organization is in such a great place and I believe I will make an impact. I am excited about the future of Mystic Seaport. It has so many strengths, and so much potential. I come home from work every day excited and charged up. It seems as if it was meant to be.”

Artist John Grade will return to Mystic Seaport March 20-21 to add pieces to his kinetic sculpture Murmur: Arctic Realities, currently on exhibit in the Collins Gallery at the Museum.

Grade will add panels to two of the steel spines that support the piece. Murmur: Arctic Realities is an intricately carved sculpture (15’ x 38’ x 42’) that represents a pingo, a hill of ice that grows over centuries in the Arctic’s highest latitudes, then collapses, pockmarking the tundra. This sculpture simulates a pingo in Alaska’s Noatak National Preserve that Grade saw when he was exploring the tundra two years ago.

Just as a pingo grows over time in the natural world, so Grade envisioned his piece would evolve as it toured museums and galleries before its final stop at Anchorage Museum. And even there, Murmur will again change as it will hang upside down from a ceiling in a gallery, offering visitors an entirely different experience.

“Evolution and change are what interest me most with my projects rather than arriving at a static state of completion or finish,” Grade said. “Rather than aiming to preserve a sculpture in an ideal state, I am also more interested in witnessing and understanding how it might change through interaction with time and the elements. As a project is exhibited in multiple venues, it is important to me that it relate to each space in a different and site specific way each time, ideally changing its configuration or orientation in some significant way as well.”

The evolution of the piece was part of what attracted Mystic Seaport to the idea of staging the exhibition in the Thompson Building, said Nicholas Bell, senior vice president for curatorial affairs at the Museum.

“When John set out to create his own Arctic landform, he knew it would evolve over time as it moved from museum to museum,” Bell said. “Visitors to Mystic Seaport have already enjoyed the installation’s international debut. Now they will be able to see the monumental sculpture change before their eyes when he returns this month to apply new wood panels to the form’s kinetic steel spines.”

The piece is carved from salvaged Alaskan yellow cedar. Grade will be adding panels to two of the eight spines that hold the piece. The top of the spines open and close, powered by hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders, to also mimic a pingo’s growth and collapse.

Murmur: Arctic Realities is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday-Sunday, through March 23. From March 24 to  April 22, Murmur is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week.

Mystic Seaport, in partnership with the New Bedford Whaling Museum, has developed  the world’s most comprehensive whaling history database and it is now available for all to use at WhalingHistory.org. Researchers, genealogists, students, teachers, and history buffs alike will find it to be the most robust and useful repository of whaling history documentation and scholarship.

The data presented combines many sources including logbooks, journals, ship registers, newspapers, business papers, and custom house records. Users will be able to find and trace whaling voyages and ships to specific logbooks, as well as the list of crew members aboard most of the voyages. The foundational fabric of Whaling History features three databases that have been stitched together – the American Offshore Whaling Voyage (AOWV) database, the American Offshore Whaling Log database, and an extensive whaling crew list database. All data is open to the public and is downloadable for any researcher to use with other tools and systems.

“We are so pleased to have been part of this project and so proud of the end result,” said Paul J. O’Pecko, Vice President of Research Collections at Mystic Seaport. “This information, gathered over decades, is invaluable to scholars, students, genealogists and others. And the fact that it is all available on one site with data that can be downloaded and manipulated is unprecedented in the world of maritime history.”

The American Offshore Whaling Voyage (AOWV) database, which was spearheaded by Judith Lund, scholar and former curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, includes information about all known American offshore (or “pelagic”) whaling voyages from the 1700s to the 1920s. It does not include the modern factory ship voyages of the mid-20th century. Information is most complete for the 19th century. The voyages included in the database sailed from, or were under the registry of, what is now the United States.

Extensive records of American whaling in the form of daily entries in whaling voyage logbooks contain a great deal of information about where and when the whalemen found whales. The second part of the database’s foundation is the American Offshore Whaling Log database, which includes information from 1,381 logbooks from American offshore whaling voyages between 1784 and 1920. These data were extracted from the original whaling logbooks during three separate scientific research projects, one conducted by Lieutenant Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury in the 1850s, the second conducted by Charles Haskins Townsend in the 1930s, and the third conducted by a team from the Census of Marine Life project lead by Tim Denis Smith between 2000 and 2010. The data file includes 466,134 data records assembled in a common format suitable for spatial and temporal analysis of American whaling throughout the 19th century.

The third database from which Whaling History is built is extensive whaling voyage crew lists from more than 5,300 voyages. Crew lists for whaling voyages recorded at the customs houses in Fall River and Salem, Massachusetts, and in New London, Connecticut, have been compiled as part of various projects and from various sources over the years. Crew lists for New Bedford voyages have been compiled using records kept by the chaplains of the New Bedford Port Society from 1840 to the end of whaling in New Bedford. These crew lists are now in a single searchable, sortable database.

In the next phase of the Whaling History Database, museums’ and other institutions’ collection items will be able to be linked to the database, giving researchers the ability to see a robust and dynamic picture of whaling history and artifacts.

“The future phases that will put linked objects, maps and images at the researchers’ fingertips, will give them the chance to find a particular voyage or person and read  journals or view images and sailing routes directly linked to that particular person or event,” O’Pecko said. “The information gathered here will be an obvious boon to research in social and business history, but also for those studying in such fields as climatology and anthropology.”