A True Ghost of the Ocean: The Morgan Pays Karma

…“Doesn’t she look beautiful?”, I looked at the moon. “Who?”. “The Morgan!”...She was talking about the ship...

An American maritime museum took its most valuable object, a 19th-century whaling ship, on a grand tour last summer.The Atlantic titled the report “a Priceless Museum Artifact, But in the Ocean”. A ghost of the past, a truly ghost ship with a past which speaks of global human society, the history of humans and their evolving relationship with the ocean and its resources. The ghost of the ocean seemed to be out on a mission… awareness, retribution of karma...its 14 sails restored to life, its wooden body wet and salted again.

Ocean Portal reported when the Charles W. Morgan set sail last year 2014 that “History and Modern Science” collided in the Morgan. Lisa Gilbert -Associate Professor of Geosciences and Marine Sciences at Williams College. with a Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of Washington reported from aboard the Morgan.

“Traveling aboard the Charles W. Morgan, a 173-year-old whaling ship on its 38th Voyage, I’m struck by its paradox: this vessel which spent years chasing and killing whales is now helping us to study these magnificent creatures,” Gilbert stated.

“It's remarkable that, before this summer, no living person knew what it felt like to sail a wooden whaling ship on the open ocean, More meaningful, though, is the example this set for other institutions dedicated to curating public history,” the Atlantic reported.

Mystic Seaport, “The Museum of America and the Sea,” which cares for the world’s largest collection of maritime history assuires that the Morgan is its prize artifact.

Mystic Seaport explains that with over 80 years of career, the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan sailed on 37 voyages to remote corners of the globe. In May of 2014, following a five-year, multi-million dollar restoration, the ship set out on her 38th Voyage — perhaps her most important — to raise awareness of America’s maritime heritage and to call attention to issues of ocean sustainability and conservation.

The Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA took part in the project of Mystic Seaport and the 38th Voyage of the Morgan.

The last time the Morgan had sailed was in the 1920s in the very ends and decline of the whaling Era. The ship lived out the entire whaling history today recognized as a grim period for whales and human society.

The last “Wooden Whaleship in the World” final voyage tried to pay its karma with an awareness voyage and proved to be a vision for the eyes.

“The Charles W. Morgan is the last of an American whaling fleet that numbered more than 2,700 vessels. Built and launched in 1841, the Morgan is now America’s oldest commercial ship still afloat – only the USS Constitution is older,” Mystic Seaport states.

Where is the Morgan today? On August 6th 2014 it was seen passing through Mystic’s Bascule Bridge on her way to Mystic Seaport.

With Captain Richard “Kip” Files at the helm, the Morgan departed Mystic Seaport May 17 2014 coasting the US.

“The nearly three-month journey was a commemoration of the role of the sea in the history of America and an appreciation of our changing relationship with the natural world,” said Steve White, president of Mystic Seaport.

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