During the Cold War, Calvin Mehlert traveled across the Pacific from Taiwan to San Francisco on the Free China. Now he’s trying to salvage it from the junk graveyard
CALVIN MEHLERT POINTS to the painted eye of the 150-year-old Chinese sailing junk. “This is so the boat can see where it’s going,” he explains. At the moment, its prow is pointed into thorny bramble on the edge of a shipyard in the Sacramento River Delta.
The boat, which historians believe is the oldest intact Chinese sailing vessel in the world, is on the verge of being destroyed. The shipyard’s owner, frustrated by years of unpaid storage bills, is threatening to chop the boat into firewood if it’s not moved in the next few months.
“So sad,” says Mehlert, 80, a former US State Department officer in Taiwan. “We have to get it out of danger.”
In 1955, the 20m Free China became a bit player in the Cold War between the US and Mao’s China, when five young men in Taiwan – all of whom had escaped from mainland China in 1949 – asked Mehlert for visas to sail the boat to San Francisco in order to enter a yacht race. Although the junk originated in the mainland, the Free China would soon become a symbol of US-Taiwan solidarity. When the vessel arrived at the Embarcadero in San Francisco, crowds came out to greet the crew, who took newsmen out for a victory lap around the harbor. (You can view newsreel footage at www.chinesejunkpreservation.com)
The vessel is also a rare record of traditional Chinese shipbuilding. A small group of volunteers is trying to raise enough money to save it from the chainsaw. “It is a wonderful artifact and very significant,” says maritime historian Hans Conrad Van Tilburg, author of Chinese Junks on the Pacific. Dione Chen, whose father Reno was a member of the six-man crew that sailed to San Francisco, has established a foundation called Chinese Junk Preservation and is trying to raise US$50,000 to move the boat and document its construction for posterity. A full restoration of the boat for a public exhibit will cost about $500,000, says John Muir, curator at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. “There are no sailing junks left in the world,” says Muir, “so it is important to history.”
Mehlert was a 27-year-old vice consul at the US embassy in Taipei in 1955. “I was intrigued,” he says, when five fishermen his age walked into his office and asked for visas to cross the Pacific.
So intrigued, in fact, that Mehlert ended up joining the voyage.
Were you suspicious that they just wanted to migrate to the US?
Well, let’s not say suspicious. Let’s say that in those days young people, everybody, would like to go to the United States to continue studies or have wider opportunities. But you want to know how clever they are in figuring out their rationale, their reasons for obtaining a visa.
And these guys?
They wanted a visitor’s visa to take the junk to San Francisco, and then they wanted to go down the coast through the Panama Canal, sail up to Rhode Island and from Rhode Island enter a yacht race across the Atlantic.
It was a once-every-hundred-year yacht race across the Atlantic from Rhode Island to Sweden and that sounded like an interesting idea and a pretty good project. So I said let’s look into this. I found out they actually did have a junk. I went to look at it. And it needed some repairs.
You had to check it out?
Of course. Also, there was the question: Were these actual mariners? They certainly were. They were experienced fishermen who had taken 100 tonne fishing vessels down to the Philippine Sea, to the waters off Singapore, off Thailand. They knew storms. They knew navigation. They knew all about navigating difficult, typhoon-ridden waters. But they had never actually sailed any boat whatsoever. And that was interesting.
They were totally confident that the important thing was to know navigation, to know weather, to know the sea itself. Then you could learn the mechanics of sailing. And it turned out they were quite right.
Did they have proof that they were actually intending to enter into a sail boat race?
Yes. They had a letter of admission to the yacht race. So finally I decided yes it’s worth a gamble. It’s a good project. How often do you meet five young men with this much verve and ambition and vision?
How did it come to you to ask them to go along with them?
I realized it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. And I knew they were short one hand. They were six in the beginning and one fellow had to drop out.
Did you tell them you would give them a visa if you could go along with them?
Heavens no. That’s a no-no. That would be criminal, actually. But when I knew that they needed a sixth crewman, I gathered my audacity and nerve and I went down to see the junk in the town of Keelung. I said, “Well you know, I’d really like to go.” They apparently voted on it that night. And I imagine there was some hot discussion about whether they wanted a non-Chinese foreigner to go along.
What did the State Department say?
Of course, I had to apply for leave. And the State Department was of two minds. The administration personnel people said, “No, there is no place in the regulations for you.” On the political side, the division of Far Eastern Affairs said, “Oh, we think it’s a good idea. This shows Chinese-American goodwill, cooperation, friendship, whatever.”
And at that time we were still in a very confrontational state with Red China. The Communists had just taken over mainland China five years earlier in 1949 and 1950. And we were still very closely allied with Taiwan. It was the only China we recognized. And there was a great deal of tension between the two, although no chance of real warfare.
How did the boat end up being called the Free China?
The boat originated from the coast of the mainland. It was a Fuzhou sailing junk. And some fishermen had brought it over to Taiwan. They were bringing some fish over. The boys heard about it, and they decided that might be a good junk.
So even in 1955 a sailing junk was rare thing to find on the seas?
It was very rare. There were still some sailing around, but it was in the transition state to motorized vessels, metal vessels, refrigerated hulls. That was the only future for fishing. But there was still a little bit of cargo work going up the coast. The other members of the crew sold everything they had to buy it. They didn’t have much but they had bicycles and typewriters and things like that. But they were still short so they went to the government. In fact, the governor of Taiwan. He said, “How much do you need?” And they needed about $1,000, and he said, “Okay, but I would like you to name it the Free China.” Originally, the crew had another name in mind, Dragon Seed. They were quite willing to surrender the rights for the name. And that helped a great deal in many ways. It helped the government approve the departure of the junk. They had to get exit permits to leave Taiwan. It made everything easier.
Do you think that the name of the boat helped on the US side as well as a good endeavor for you to be apart of?
I would think so. Definitely.
And was there some propaganda motives on the State Department side?
Well, not in the sense of overt propaganda. It didn’t enter our information service stuff, no. We didn’t touch that. They weren’t interested in that. It was just unspoken. As a project, politically it was good.
Could you describe the atmosphere in Taiwan at the time you were getting ready to depart on the sailing trip?
The situation in Taiwan was very tranquil. It was very quiet. Everybody knew that the government was training its army and its navy to hopefully retake the mainland. But there were no air raids from Communist China on Taiwan. The only military activity that occurred, you will remember the offshore islands, the Quemoy (Kinmen) islands, which were shelled by the Communists regularly. The Nationalists, the Taiwan side, would periodically send raiding parties to the mainland. They would send small groups of guerillas to do some type of sabotage or spread propaganda leaflets just to keep the hope alive that someday there would be a real attack, a real landing and a real retaking of the mainland. But those landings were real small stuff.
Reports since that time have said that those landings had US support.
Probably they did. I wasn’t involved in that end of things, but knowing the way things worked, I assume that our intelligence services at least knew what was going on and perhaps provided some support, if they could.
In 1955 did you feel like there was a possibility that the Taiwanese government, the Republic of China, would be able to retake the mainland?
No. It was pretty well understood, I think even by the government itself, the government of Chiang Kai-shek. I think they well understood that they didn’t have the military power to effectively assault the mainland. What they did count on was that disaffection would grow so great on the mainland under the rather unwelcome policies of the Communist government. As long as the people on the mainland had the hope that someday, yes, the Nationalist government could make a successful landing, then you would keep the hostility to the regime alive and even maybe create guerilla movements in the remote areas.
Was sailing on the Free China a politically motivated move for you?
No. It was the last thing I ever thought of.
What was the reason?
How many chances in your life would you have to go on any trip like this? Where you don’t have to do any of the planning. It’s all done for you? You don’t need any money. And you feel you’re in good hands. You’re with experienced seamen. And to sail across the Pacific in a junk!
What was your role on the boat?
I did everything everybody else did. We were four hours on and eight hours off. So two of us stood duty for four hours together. The four hours were divided into two parts. On one two-hour stretch, you would be on the tiller. You would hold the tiller under your arm and you’d look at the compass beneath your feet and you would adjust the rudder to keep the heading, which was decided by our navigator. And I did that like everybody else. It was not a particularly challenging job. You just had to stay awake. And the other two hours you would just have to stand by and watch the man at the tiller and you’d check the rigging for wear and tear and just watch for ships bearing down on you.
How long did it take you to cross the Pacific?
We were on the junk 65 days. The actual non-stop crossing from Japan to San Francisco was 53 days. Otherwise, we had two stops from Taipei sailing north: we stopped in Okinawa for a week, and we stopped in Japan for a month. In both cases we needed to do some refitting and repairs.
That seems like a long time to spend on a boat.
Time passed very easily and very quickly.
What did you guys eat on board?
We had rice almost every day. We had flour that we made into noodles and steamed Chinese bread because we had yeast.
Mantou?
Mantou, you betcha. And we made our own noodles, and for meat and vegetables, it was canned. In Taiwan they make very fine canned meat and vegetables. The canned duck was particularly good. We ate quite well actually. And of course we had to take turns cooking, so I had to cook.
What did the crew think of your cooking?
Well, they were very polite.
You had chickens on board?
We had two chickens. The reason is that one of the crew, Huloo, was a very traditionally minded Chinese person. He’s now an expert in tai chi, a guru actually. He pointed out that you don’t want to go to sea unless you have eight crew, or a multiple of eight, onboard. He wanted to add two more people and there was a big argument among other crew. So finally Huloo was persuaded to accept six, but he had the last word. He insisted we have two chickens to round out the number.
Those chickens did very well. They laid eggs. One expired on August 1st. Not of its own volition. It was sacrificed for Paul’s birthday, and we ate Chinese long-life noodles.
Was there any danger?
One week after we left we ran into typhoon Anna. That caused us some anxious moments. We broke seven tillers – all we had. We had no way to steer the boat and we were at the mercy of the storm. At that point we radioed for help. A Taiwanese merchant vessel towed us. We never felt too frightened because a junk of that size and weight – forty tonnes – is so huge and so well-built it just rides through everything beautifully. If you were in a standard mechanized boat you would roll enormously. And you don’t do that in a sailing junk. It was probably 100 years old, and therefore it had been through many typhoons in its life running up and down the coast of China. It was a survivor.
That’s the issue now: survival.
The boat has been here over 55 years and during that whole period we have been hoping to find a permanent home for it. And nobody has succeeded. Paul Chow, our navigator, worked indefatigably on this project and it’s been very difficult.
Why has it been so difficult?
It takes money. It’s 24m long, it weighs 40 tonnes, and you’ve got to find a place. It has to be out of the water. If it’s not out of the water it is going to decompose and sink.
You and I recently visited the boat and you can see some of the planks rotting away. The stern has been sawed off. What does it feel like to see it in that state?
Of course it’s sad. But this is far beyond me personally; it is the whole history of sailing internationally. This is the last remaining example of an old style sailing junk that is still viable. It is still in one piece. Most of them after the World War Two were abandoned. What happened to the sailing vessels? Dumped along the estuaries of the rivers of China and the rest of Southeast Asia because nobody wanted them any more. This is probably the last surviving example of its species and that, to me, is the important thing.
