The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-07-19
AN OLD SEA GREYHOUND.


Hard times the old sea greyhounds fall
upon in their old age" a sailorman said,
looking over the morgue in the Erie Basin.
There is an old-timer in port now, not
very speedy one, but, reconstructed, good
for many years yet She came into port
though under very different conditions
from those under which she left il. way
back in '84
Then the Clara Clarita was new and
strong and swift as the best of EN- They
built her over in Brooklyn to help the Union
naval commanders in catching blockade
runners, and she sailed out then, long and
narrow and slick, in gray paint, to join the
fleet in Southern waters. But the war
was almost over then and there wasn't
much for her to do.
After peace was proclaimed she wasn't
needed, so they sold her and for years she
was trim pleasure yacht in Southern
waters. She passed from hand to hand
and next she did duty as a swift passage
carrier between yinalhaven and Rock
land in Penobscot Bay up in Maine.
She put in many years at that work.
Then she became too old for that job, was
condemned sold. rebuilt and Capt. Alfred
Sorensen got her. With new and stronger
engines in her, he made towboat of her.
La st week she came back to New York
harbor, a trifle battered and in coat of
dark paint, more than a trifie shabbier
than when she sailed away in the old days
nearly forty years ago She hauled in
a clumsy, bluf-bowed craft, relic like
herself. 1t was once ferryboat in Boston
har Dor ana now, stripped of its engines
is called a lighter
The two brought from Maine two of
the l5O-ton pillars which are to be set up
in the sanctuary arch of the new Protestant
parted to bring the rest.
1t takes stout craft to bring down dam
gerous coast costly and risky freight
like this, but they don't risk the new ones
in the job. 1t is work for old-timers,
and maybe the ex- greyhound and passenger
boats felt the degradation of their fall
from high estate.
But then the Clara Clarita could find COM
fort in her owner and captain. He is an
old sea dog. too. and three times Congress
has honored him for life saving
Nine years ago Capt. Sorensen dived
overheard in his clothes and fought rough
sea of Minot'a Light for the life of an anna
side when he could hardly swim in calm
water. He swan $50 yards with the dazed
fisherman before they fshed the.pair out
Secretary Carlisle sent the ca, .ain the
Congressional gold medal of honorior that.
A gold bar was added 10 the medal last
November for second brave rescue. made
in Boston harbor two years before, when
the captain was master of the steamer
Philadelphia. The people on the Phila-
delphia gave him a gold watch, too, as
reminder of that feat
Then last year Capt. Sorensen earned
third honors. This time the Standard Oil
steamer Astral had gone ashore off Mount
Desert Rock in a December gale. Her
crew of seventeen were left clinging to the
| wreck. over which the seas washed con-
tinually. A revenue cutter tried to get to
the wreck, but was beaten back and had
to give 1t up.
o n the fourth day Capt. Sorensen and a
volunteer crew did what the revenue cutter
had failed in. They got to the wreck in n
dory. and in three trips took OFF all of tho
seventeen men. Ore died of exposure
afterward. and all of the rest were badly
frcstbitten, but the captain has the sixteen
lives to his credit
He Is able and willing to try Just such
another feat, ard he backs the Clara Clarita
to buck any sea that a rev harbor tug
dare tackle SO the cld-tirers haven't
lost any of their spunk if the days of their
CAV and buoyant youth are past.