Monmouth County Museum, NJ

Mary A. Whalen

1966 from collection Dave Boone

1978 from collection Dave Boone

1980s photo by Barry Masterson

1968 Mary A. Whalen aground

History of tanker Mary A. Whalen
(originally named the S.T. Kiddoo)

News
The historic Supreme Court case involving the Whalen is in the news again.  See a superbly written piece in Professional Mariner.

Monday 2/24/09. Most of the parts needed to fix the Whalen’s engine arrived in Red Hook after being trucked from Seattle.  The back story will roll out in installments on the blog  We got 6 cylinders, 6 heads, 6 pistons, 1 connecting rod, a whole fuel pump assembly, the lower half of the engine block with a crank (to be inspected) and flywheel, and 2 davits. What we lack now are 5 connecting rods and 1 davit, and we need more research to determine the crank repair strategy. Our new acquisitions include stuff we didn't need, so we can sell some parts to defray costs.  If you want to help us find more, we need 5 rods for a Fairbanks Morse 37E12, six cylinder, direct reversing engine. 

Fixing the Whalen's engine will happen down the road. Right now, we are focused on finding a home, program development and fundraising.  Engine parts like these, however, need to be acquired when found (if cheap) as they are scarce as hen's teeth and disappearing fast when old boats get scrapped. 

Ship plans
thanks to the Independence Seaport Museum
Mathis 124-135-1 -- Hull 124 Tonnage offsets (5.3 MB)
Mathis 124-203-1 -- Hull 124 Molded lines (9.6 MB)
Mathis 124-480-1 -- Hull 124 Plan of elevation for main engine room (11.8 MB)
Mathis 125-207-1 -- Hull 125 General arrangement (12.4 MB) 

The Whalen is Mathis hull #124. The F.A. Verdon was hull #125 and had 38' longer cargo tanks.  During the 1940's, Bushey considered adding 30' to the Whalen's cargo tanks, and we have several blueprints from this period. The expansion was never completed.  We'd like plans to the Whalen. The Verdon was scrapped in 1976.

Background
The Whalen was built for Ira S. Bushey & Sons and is 172’ long.  For context, see harbor videos from 1938, the year she was built:

• Manhattan working waterfront

• ride on Alexander Hamilton from Albany to NYC- shows all vessel types on the river

Bushey's was a shipyard and fuel terminal at the foot of Court Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn. They did not build the Whalen, though she appears to be one of their designs. She was built by Mathis in Camden, New Jersey, a builder of many fine yachts, naval vessels and workboats.  Two Mathis links: ship list and history.

The Whalen delivered fuel products up and down the Atlantic Coast, as far away as Maine and Maryland, and up many rivers.  In her last years, she stayed close to home and often worked the Gowanus Canal or delivered fuel to ships. She went out of service in 1993.  Eklof cannibalized the engine so competitors could not put her in service. In 1995, she came back home to Red Hook where she served in Erie Basin as a dock and office for Hughes Marine, a sixth-generation firm self-described as "the clearinghouse for marine difficulties."

The Whalen made history
Mariners today benefit from a legal case "United States v. Reliable Transfer Co" involving the the Mary A. Whalen.  She went aground on the Rockaways, here in New York, on Christmas Day 1968.  (see old Daily News clipping at left)  A Coast Guard light was out and the Whalen's owners blamed the Coast Guard.  The case went to the Supreme Court, which split the blame between both parties but - for the good of all of us - ruled in 1975 that in the cases of marine accidents, damages should be apportioned according to blame.  Sounds logical, but prior to this lawsuit, damages were split 50/50 regardless, and those at fault could shirk the financial consequences of their actions.

This 1975 decision overturned US maritime law in effect since 1854 and had the USA finally join maritime practice common in other nations.  The ruling begins "The precise origins of the divided damages rule are shrouded in the mists of history;" and Judge Learned Hand dismisses U.S. admiralty law on this issue as an "obstinate cleaving to the ancient rule which has been abrogated by nearly all civilized nations." 

November 2008, during a cocktail party, we learned that Charles Cushing went aboard the grounded Whalen as a young naval architect to figure out how to get the boat afloat.  The Whalen's grounding was one of the first jobs taken by C.R. Cushing & Co which subsequently grew into an international firm of note.  Charles remembered the event well!  More info to come from that quarter.

Unusual original name
The Mary A. Whalen began life with an odd name, S.T. Kiddoo.  We had no idea who Kiddoo was until the day before her 70th birthday party in December 08, when Mary Habstritt, President of the national Society of Industrial Archeology, emailed us this info: "I was boning up on history of Whalen and saw that her old name S.T. Kiddoo was a mystery.  I searched just the last name and got several threads about the surname on www.Ancestry.com that mentioned A history of the Kiddoo family in the United States, 1780-1981 which is full text on the Brigham Young University libraries digital collections site.   On p. 188, it tells of a Solomon Thomas Kiddoo (1883-1965) who, after a career in banking in, of all places, Wall SD, became Secretary-Treasury of Fairbanks Morse.  Hmmm.  I think it cannot be a coincidence that the ship had the same name as an officer of Fairbanks Morse and the ship has a FM engine."  We also know that Bushey was a distributor of Fairbanks Morse engines, so we are quite sure this is the person for whom she was first named.  The Kiddoo family has been in touch as a result of this webpage.

Other Bushey tankers

A.C. Dodge, collided, exploded & sank 1952, from collection Dave Boone

Bushey YO-4 trial photo from Gerry Weinstein, Archive of Industry

R.J. Perry, later John J. Tabeling 1966, Patricia N. Gellatly 1992, then Nemo and scrapped 2005, from collection Dave Boone

George Whitlock II, later Reliable II 1990, scrapped 2005, from collection Dave Boone