OSWEGO COUNTY – The H. Lee White Maritime Museum welcomes Bill Emerson to present “Operation Sail, 1964” on Sunday, Sept. 22 at 1:30 p.m. The event takes place at the museum, located at 1 W. First St. Pier, Oswego.
Six decades ago, the brigantine St. Lawrence II, out of Kingston, ON, participated in Operation Sail in New York Harbor. It was the first gathering of sail training craft from around the world.
On its way there, St. Lawrence II sailed across Lake Ontario to Oswego where a waiting crane pulled the masts out and rigged them in a stand on the deck for the boat to make its way on the New York State Canal System to Albany. There, the masts were put back in and the vessel sailed down the Hudson River for New York.
Bill Emerson was aboard St. Lawrence II for Operation Sail and will share his experience of the trip and his first visit to the Port City, along with photographs and other memorabilia, as part of the lecture.
He will also discuss his scale model construction of Oswego’s own Elisha K. Henson, or the LT-5. The tugboat is a veteran of and one of the last remaining Allied vessels from the D-Day invasion of Normandy, which marked its 80th anniversary this year. Emerson’s model is currently on display at the maritime museum.
Bill Emerson is a retired engineering manager and ship model enthusiast who lives in Rochester, N.Y. His early interest in naval ships was fostered by his father, who worked closely with Admiral Hyman Rickover in the development of the first atomic submarines. His ship models are researched using plans, photographs and even ships’ logbooks from sources such as the National Archives and the Naval History and Heritage Center.
His work has appeared in over 20 publications, including the annual chronicle “Warship,” the quarterly journal “Warship International,” and a variety of ship modeling magazines. Five of Emerson’s models have appeared on the front covers of publications such as “Model Ship Builder” and “Scale Ship Modeler.”
Seventeen of his other models are in museums across the nation, including the Naval Academy Museum, (Annapolis, MD) the National Museum of the U.S. Navy, (Washington, DC) National Naval Aviation Museum, (Pensacola, FL) the National Civil War Naval Museum (Columbus, GA) and the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum (Washington, DC).
The H. Lee White Maritime Museum’s History Lecture Series is a free program open to the public. The museum and Treasure Chest Gift Shop are open daily from 1 to 5 p.m. For more information on this event or other programs, contact the museum at 315-342-0480 or visit https://hlwmm.org/.
Discover more from Oswego County Today
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.