Freedom Calling - The LADY GREY based on the Real-Life Ship, TRUELOVE
A Real Ship and A Real Live Sea Captain!
The ship and the captain in FREEDOM CALLING were inspired by a real ship, the TRUELOVE, & her captain, John Parker. I thought they should be immortalized!
The Truelove was in service for 130 yrs! - the longest of any other wooden hull ship. She was built in 1764 in Philadelphia and was used by America to fight the British during the American Revolution. She was captured by the British, taken to England, and sold as spoils of war. She became a whaling vessel!
Her design was "tumbling home" style, which meant her sides curved up and inward which made her especially seaworthy. She sailed to the Artic on whaling sojourns under Captain Parker, and because of her design, she never got stuck in the ice like so many other vessels. When the ice began freezing around her, because of her hull-shape, the ice just pushed her up, instead of crushing her (many ship that sailed the Arctic were stove in and broken apart by the ice, like the disaster in 1871 when thirty-three ships were lost,... but that's another story, I'll save for later!). As the ice melted Truelove had the habit of being able to set herself gently back down into the sea!
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Book Excerpt: "She was a beautiful ship, the way her bow cut the sea-the feel of her deck under your feet with the sea moving beneath her; the way her rigging sang in the wind; how she would shrug a rough sea off her beam. Some ships have a soul, and to be aboard one like that is to know majesty."
NOTES:
AH! The romance of the sea,.... and the free spirits of brave, intrepid sea captains,.... I LOVE IT! Hope you find this as fascinating as I did! (see links below).
More about the real ship that inspired the creation of the fictional LADY GREY:
http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Truelove_(...
https://www.kcomhome.com/hull2017/new...
PICS: https://www.facebook.com/CivilWarHist...
Freedom Calling BOOK Link: https://amzn.to/2MfiMiW
Freedom Calling: A Civil War Slave Escapes by Sea
The ship and the captain in FREEDOM CALLING were inspired by a real ship, the TRUELOVE, & her captain, John Parker. I thought they should be immortalized!
The Truelove was in service for 130 yrs! - the longest of any other wooden hull ship. She was built in 1764 in Philadelphia and was used by America to fight the British during the American Revolution. She was captured by the British, taken to England, and sold as spoils of war. She became a whaling vessel!
Her design was "tumbling home" style, which meant her sides curved up and inward which made her especially seaworthy. She sailed to the Artic on whaling sojourns under Captain Parker, and because of her design, she never got stuck in the ice like so many other vessels. When the ice began freezing around her, because of her hull-shape, the ice just pushed her up, instead of crushing her (many ship that sailed the Arctic were stove in and broken apart by the ice, like the disaster in 1871 when thirty-three ships were lost,... but that's another story, I'll save for later!). As the ice melted Truelove had the habit of being able to set herself gently back down into the sea!
**********
Book Excerpt: "She was a beautiful ship, the way her bow cut the sea-the feel of her deck under your feet with the sea moving beneath her; the way her rigging sang in the wind; how she would shrug a rough sea off her beam. Some ships have a soul, and to be aboard one like that is to know majesty."
NOTES:
AH! The romance of the sea,.... and the free spirits of brave, intrepid sea captains,.... I LOVE IT! Hope you find this as fascinating as I did! (see links below).
More about the real ship that inspired the creation of the fictional LADY GREY:
http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Truelove_(...
https://www.kcomhome.com/hull2017/new...
PICS: https://www.facebook.com/CivilWarHist...
Freedom Calling BOOK Link: https://amzn.to/2MfiMiW
Freedom Calling: A Civil War Slave Escapes by Sea
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Edward
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Oct 02, 2018 06:03AM
The Lady Grey now has my interest. Thanks Dana, Ed
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Great, Ed!!! I found the ship, the Truelove, (Lady Grey is based on), to be a fascinating vessel! Well-built, she was used in the Revolutionary War, survived it! She had a Letter of Marque and was fitted with cannon! Then later made into a whaling ship! Her design was ingenius since it was nearly impossible for her to be iced in even in the Arctic where flash freezes doomed many a vessel! She was paired with an amazing captain! Captain Parker, of Hull, England, who was just as memorable as his ship! In his whaling travels, he was so moved by the plight of the Inuit of the Arctic that he brought 2 of them, a husband and wife, back to England with him in efforts to secure aid by the British government to help them survive! He must have been a person one would willingly trust with one's life, because that is exactly what those two Inuit did! They sailed with him back to Hull and stayed the winter in his home. They were met by government officials and interested citizens who took up a donation fund for the Inuit people! The next spring Captain Parker returned the couple to their home in the Arctic!
I was so taken by this adventurous, good-hearted, and fear-less man! I researched anything that had even a tidbit of information about him! He is someone I think should be memorialize and revered, not forgotten! That is how my story turned to including a majestic sailing ship and sea captain!
The sequel to Freedom Calling is going to focus even more on the ship adventures and sea-faring!
Dana
Freedom Calling A Civil War Slave Escapes By Sea
FREEDOM CALLING is a page-turner packed with action, emotion, romance and adventure - vibrantly painted with powerful characters, vivid imagery and factual details of the Civil War era.
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