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Copyright © 1998 The Seattle Times Company
Posted at 05:53 a.m. PST; Wednesday, November 4, 1998

Mitch claims historic schooner

by Ross Anderson
Seattle Times staff reporter

Amid the horrifying trauma delivered by Hurricane Mitch last week, Seattle may also have lost an artifact of maritime nostalgia.

After days of combing the Caribbean coast off Honduras and Guatemala, searchers have found only debris and one possible survivor from the 282-foot Fantome, a magnificent four-masted sailing ship that once was a Seattle landmark to rival the born-again ferryboat Kalakala.

The aging Fantome's last radio message, received Oct. 27, said the ship was battling 100-knot winds and rolling 40 degrees off the coast of Honduras. Officials at Miami-based Windjammer Barefoot Cruises, the owner, now fear the ship sank with a crew of 31 in the same ferocious storm that took thousands of lives across Central America.

The ship's loss would mark a tragic end to an odd, 70-year voyage that included 14 years' residence in Seattle's Portage Bay during World War II and its aftermath.

"She was a handsome ship," recalls Robert Odom, a Seattle native who grew up in the nearby Volunteer Park neighborhood. "She always reminded me of Old Ironsides, with that black, steel hull and white windows painted to look like cannon ports."

The Fantome's checkered history began in Italy at the end of World War I. Built as a warship, only the hull had been completed when the war ended, leaving the unfinished hulk to sit for years. In 1927, the rusting skeleton was bought by the English Duke of Westminster, who converted it to a sailing yacht - the Flying Cloud.

During the Depression, the ship was sold to Arthur Guinness, the Irish brewery tycoon who renamed it Fantome. In 1939, Guinness was sailing up the Pacific Coast, bound for Alaska, when Hitler invaded Poland, triggering World War II. Fearing that the ship would be commandeered by the British Navy, the captain tucked into Puget Sound and eventually anchored off the Seattle Yacht Club in Portage Bay.

There it stayed for 14 years, through the war and beyond.

The ship became a tourist attraction, Odom recalls.

"Everybody had to go down and get a look at her. In the summer, kids would swim out and climb up the anchor chain until the live-aboard caretaker shooed them off (and) made them swim back . . ."

Meanwhile, Guinness died and the ship became embroiled in legal disputes, including a city claim for back taxes. Some 80 cases of booze, including fine wines, 40-year-old brandies and bottles of Guinness Stout were still stowed in the bilges and sealed by U.S. Customs.

In 1950, the Fantome was bought for $50,000 by William and Joseph Jones, Seattle fish-cannery operators. They talked about opening a maritime museum, but ultimately settled for guided tours to benefit local charities.

The ship finally left Seattle in 1953, and was sold to Aristotle Onassis, the Greek shipping magnate. He planned to make it a wedding gift to Princess Grace of Monaco. But the present was never delivered because Onassis was not invited to the wedding.

Instead, the Fantome was towed to Germany and then to Spain, where she deteriorated for 17 more years.

In 1969, the Miami cruise company bought the ship and refitted her for cruising the Caribbean.

Last week, as Hurricane Mitch converged on Central America, the captain tried desperately to outmaneuver the storm, according to Stuart Larscombe, a Windjammer official who previously skippered the schooner. The ship dropped off its passengers in Belize, then headed north. The storm seemed to shift northward, so the captain turned back to the southeast. And so did Mitch.

"Unfortunately, every time we made the right move, the hurricane made a different move," Larscomb said at a news conference in Miami.

When the Fantome's last message was transmitted, the ship was hiding behind the island of Roatan, north of Honduras - and directly in the path of the storm.

In combing an estimated 120,000 square miles, searchers pulled one woman from the water who initially indicated she was a survivor from the ship. But officials said she was delirious.

Information from The Associated Press and Reuters is included in this report.

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