Phoenix of Hiroshima

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The Phoenix of Hiroshima (foreground) in Hong Kong Harbor, en route to North Vietnam, 1967.
History
Japan
NamePhoenix of Hiroshima
BuilderMr. Yotsuda in Miyajimaguchi
LaunchedMay 5, 1954
Maiden voyage1954
General characteristics
Typedouble-ended ketch
Tonnage30 tons
Length50 feet (15 m)

The Phoenix of Hiroshima was a 50-foot, 30-ton

nuclear weapons, was declared a Japanese national shrine, and ended up offered free on Craigslist, gutted and stripped of masts, phoenix figurehead
and every identifying mark but the words "Phoenix of Hiroshima."

Construction and launch

Full-sized pattern for ribs, 1952

Named for

atomic bomb on the physical growth and development of surviving Japanese children (1951–1954).[1] In Oriental mythology the Phoenix
is a bird which appears only in time of universal peace.

Dr. Reynolds patterned the 50-foot (15 m), double-ended

second World War
.

The boat was originally constructed entirely of native Japanese woods. (In 1956, the mainmast became infested with borer-type insects and was replaced in

cherry, chestnut and Japanese cabinet woods.[2]

Voyage around the world, 1954–1958

When Dr. Reynolds finished the first three years of what was intended to be a longitudinal study[3] interrupted by a one-year sabbatical, he and his family (wife Barbara Leonard Reynolds, second son Ted, 16, daughter Jessica, 10, and three Hiroshima yachtsmen) sailed the Phoenix around the world. Ted navigated the 30-ton vessel, using calculations from sun shots made with a hand-held sextant. The trip extended past the one year allotted and for a number of reasons, Reynolds did not resume his job in Hiroshima.

Figurehead of phoenix, carved of camphor wood

The first leg of the circumnavigation, from Japan to Hawaii, took 48 days, most of which were rough and stormy.

Tahaa and Bora Bora in the Society Islands; Rarotonga, American Samoa, Fiji. From there they sailed to New Zealand (Auckland and Wellington); Australia (Sydney, the Great Barrier Reef, Cairns); Indonesia (Bali, Java
).

They weathered a

Osaka, Japan
, the zoo's first Galapagos tortoise. The Reynolds family expected Jonathan to outlive them but he died in the 1980s.

Hijacking of the Valinda

In the Galapagos the Phoenix just missed being hijacked by escaped convicts. The Historical Chronology of the Galapagos, 1535–2000 records in February 1958 that "The Phoenix, with Earle Reynolds, his wife Barbara, their children, Jessica and Ted and a Japanese crewmember arrived at Wreck Bay." They went on to Academy Bay where they found the French yacht Cle Du Sol, and just missed a previously arranged meeting with the American yacht Valinda. Convicts living in the penal colony on Isabela Island were asked to prepare a celebration on February 12 but on the 9th they revolted with stolen weapons and took the guards prisoners. The convicts boarded two fishing boats, the Teresita and the Ecuador. At Punta Moreno they took possession of the Viking. They then went to Santiago Island where they captured the Valinda belonging to William Rhodes Hervey Jr.[5] They reached the continent on the 17th and abandoned ship at Esmeraldas but were eventually captured by the police.

The Phoenix and Valinda had scheduled a rendezvous in James Bay on

Life Magazine[6] that the Valinda had arrived in James Bay the night before ("while we were all asleep aboard the Phoenix, five miles away around the point") but was then hijacked by the 21 escapees from the penal colony who forced the crew to sail to Ecuador.[7]

Unaware of their close call, the Reynoldses proceeded on to the

Marquesas and back to Hawaii. Two of the three Japanese men flew back to Japan from Panama. First mate Niichi (Nick) Mikami remained with the Phoenix. After 645 days, 1222 ports and 54,000 nautical miles (100,000 km), the Phoenix once again sailed into Honolulu harbor.[8][9][10]

Voyage to protest nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific, 1958

Reynolds and daughter Jessica taking sextant readings, c. 1958

Technically this completed a circumnavigation of the globe but the trip had started in Japan and the Reynolds family intended to culminate it there. A change in plans delayed their return for two years. Their route back to Japan was blocked by the

U.S. Coast Guard.[11] The example set by the Golden Rule and her crew was also the inspiration for all the modern environmental and peace voyages, and craft that followed in her wake.[12]

Impressed by the reasoning and character of these men, Earle and Barbara joined the

Kwajalein, escorted by the Navy destroyer
Collett and from there they flew him, with Barbara and Jessica, back to Honolulu for trial.

Barbara returned to Kwajalein to help Ted (then age 20) and Mikami sail the Phoenix back to Honolulu, a trip of 60 days (August 15 – October 14) against the wind,[13] while Earle was being tried and convicted for entering the off-limits zone.[14][15] When Earle's conviction was overturned on appeal, the family sailed back to Hiroshima and Nick Mikami became the first Japanese yachtsman to sail around the world. The Phoenix was declared a Japanese national shrine, and city buses were re-routed past its dock so bus conductors could point it out to passengers.

Voyage to protest Soviet nuclear tests, 1961

In October 1961 the Reynolds family, now living back in Japan, sailed the Phoenix on a second protest voyage, this time to Nakhodka, USSR, to protest the resumption of Soviet nuclear resting. As the Japanese government would not give Mikami a passport to travel to the Soviet Union, American citizen Tom Yoneda sailed with them.[16][17] They were stopped within the 12-mile (19 km) limit claimed by the USSR by a Soviet Coast Guard boat. The captain and several other officers jumped aboard the Phoenix. Although the Reynoldses were able to have a two-hour discussion about peace with him, Captain Ivanov would not accept the hundreds of letters from Hiroshima and Nagasaki citizens, begging for peace.

Voyages to North Vietnam and China, 1967–1968

Poster of the concert held at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco on March 12, 1967 to help raise funds for the ship.

After Earle and Barbara divorced in 1964, Earle and his new wife Akie Nagami, a citizen of Hiroshima, sailed the Phoenix in 1967 through the American battle fleet to

Red Cross Society of North Vietnam for victims of the war. They spent eight days visiting hospitals in Hanoi and Haiphong and observing the effects of American bombing on outlying villages.[19] This journey was recorded in the documentary film Voyage of the Phoenix filmed by William Heick for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.[20]

They also attempted two goodwill missions to China "from a Japanese and an American" (at that time neither country recognized

Chinese Coast Guard
.

Final Pacific crossing and retirement

For these attempts, the Japanese government expelled Reynolds in 1970 from the country in which he had lived for 13 years. He and Akie sailed the Phoenix to San Francisco and settled at

Moss Landing
. During that time, after offering the Phoenix to each of his three grown children and after being turned down, Earle sold the Phoenix to another American family intending to sail around the world and gave the $20,000 from the sale to the Quaker Center in exchange for lifetime residency there.

Peace activists are currently restoring the Golden Rule (2013) and plan to resume peace activities in it. They hope to raise funds to raise and restore Phoenix of Hiroshima next.[25][26]

References

  1. ^ Reynolds, E. L. Growth and Development of Hiroshima Children Exposed to the Atomic Bomb. Three Year Study (1951–3). Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission Technical Report 20-59, 1959. Cited in Joseph L. Belsky and William J. Blot, Adult Stature in Relation to Childhood Exposure to the Atomic Bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
  2. ^ Earle Reynolds, "We Crossed the Pacific the Hard Way," Saturday Evening Post, May 7, 14 and 21, 1955.
  3. ^ Sontag, Lester Warren and Reynolds, Earle L., "Ossification Sequences in Identical Triplets: A Longitudinal Study of Resemblances and Differences in the Ossification Patterns of a Set of Monozygotic Triplets." Journal of Heredity, 35 (2): 57–64. 1944.
  4. ^ Reynolds, 1955.
  5. ^ "Ecuador: Galapagos Pirates," Time Magazine, March 3, 1958.
  6. ^ Mildred and William Rhodes Hervey Jr., "The Yacht Valinda is taken over by 21 escaping prisoners," Life Magazine, March 10, 1958
  7. ^ "Hijacked by Escaping Convicts!"
  8. ^ Reynolds, Earle and Barbara, All in the Same Boat, New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1962
  9. ^ Reynolds, Jessica, Jessica's Journal, New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1958. Eleven-year-old Jessica's diary account of the first year of the voyage around the world in the Phoenix.
  10. ^ Reynolds, Barbara Leonard, Cabin Boy and Extra Ballast, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958. Fictional children's story of a family sailing from Japan to Hawaii., based on the Phoenix voyage.
  11. ISBN 9780815630036
    .
  12. ^ "Resurrecting the Golden Rule—Anti-Nuke Flagship," Latitude 38, March 2013, pp 100–104.
  13. ^ Barbara Reynolds, Upwind, unpublished.
  14. ^ Reynolds, Earle, The Forbidden Voyage, New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1961. Non-fiction.
  15. ^ Norman Cousins, "Earle Reynolds and His Phoenix," Saturday Review, 1958.
  16. ^ Reynolds, Jessica, To Russia with Love, Tokyo: Chas. E. Tuttle Co., (Japanese translation) 1962
  17. ^ Reynolds, Jessica, To Russia with Love, Wilmington, OH: Peace Resource Center, Wilmington College, due out in 2010.
  18. ^ "Quaker-sponsored American pacifists sail from Japan in yacht Phoenix of Hiroshima to bring medical supplies to North Vietnam," video clip.
  19. ^ Boardman, Elizabeth Jelinek, The Phoenix Trip: Notes on a Quaker Mission to Haiphong, Burnsville, N.C.: Celo Press, 1901 Hannah Branch Road, Burnsville, NC 28714 1985
  20. ^ Voyage of the Phoenix. Produced by Richard Faun; directed by William Heick for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Videocassette (56 min., 41 sec.); 1/2" VHS. UCSC McHenry Library Media Center, VT3693; UCSC Special Collections, VT3693 Santa Cruz.
  21. ^ "Lodi man working to turn historic ship into a vessel for second chances," March 24, 2007.
  22. ^ Michael Fitzgerald, "Pacifists' dream to recover Phoenix may be sunk," The Record, August 18, 2010.
  23. ^ "Phoenix of Hiroshima: Back in the Family," Aug 22, 2010.
  24. ^ Naomi Reynolds, "Open Letter to Friends of the Phoenix," Posted 4 September, 2010.
  25. ^ Salvage Efforts for the Phoenix
  26. ^ Peace Monuments Related to Boats or Ships

Bibliography

External links
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