[MR] Drake's Golden Hind and Her Doppelgangers

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends,

On this date in 1580 Francis Drake (not yet "Sir") sailed his ship the
Golden Hind into Portsmouth harbor. He had just circumnavigated the globe
in an almost two-year voyage of exploration, adventure, laying claim to
part of California, and yes, some really lucrative piracy against the
unsuspecting Spanish in the Pacific. Queen Elizabeth requested the Golden
Hind be put on permanent display at Deptford (on the south bank of the
Thames) as the world's first museum ship. By 1650 the little ship had
pretty much rotted away, and was broken up. A few of her timbers are
thought to have been resawn and made into furniture. So much for the
original.

Such a famous ship has had several imitators in modern times.

>From 1947 to 1997 a replica was an attraction at an amusement park in
Essex. It was replaced by a replica of Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge.

>From 1963 until she sank in 1987 a prop version of the Golden Hind, rebuilt
from a fishing vessel, was moored in Brixham, Devon. The fishing boat had
been converted for the television series *Sir Francis Drake* (a show I
remember fondly as a summer replacement in the US in the early 1960s). The
Brixham Golden Hind was replaced by another ersatz ship built on a
steel-hull barge, and is still there.

In 1973 an extremely accurate replica Golden Hind was launched. It has
sailed to the New World several times, and visited San Francisco in 1975.
Later that year when I was undergoing basic training at Coast Guard
Training Center Alameda, I frequently saw the Golden Hind moored across the
estuary in Oakland. I was too busy marching and doing push-ups to pay close
attention to the ship. By the time I finished my training and joined the
permanent garrison at Alameda, the ship had moved elsewhere. (Sigh!) She is
now moored at Southwark, London and is open to the public.

For those of you who would like to know more about the Golden Hind,
Wikipedia offers this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Hind .

More about Sir Francis Drake is at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Drake .

And the TV show? It is at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Francis_Drake_(TV_series) .

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆
Continuing the crusade to keep Merry Rose relevant and in business.