ROOSEVELT polar ship

[aukepalmhof]

The Monaco Postal web-site gives the vessel depict on the polar exploration stamp as the THEODORE ROOSEVELT, but her name is ROOSEVELT.

Built as wooden hulled polar expedition vessel by McKay & Dix, Bucksport, Maine, USA for the Peary Arctic Club, New York.
15 October 1904 keel laid down.
23 March 1905 launched as the ROOSEVELT, named after President Theodore Roosevelt, christened by Josephine Peary.
Tonnage 614 tons, displacement 1.500 tons full load. Dim.56.4 x 10.8 x 4.9m.
Schooner rigged.
One auxiliary compound steam engine ?hp., three steam boilers. Coal fired. Speed 8 knots.
The crew and expedition member’s quarters were above deck, below deck was used for the engine, boiler room and coal bunkers.
Complement 20.
July 1905 delivered to owners.


Designed by Robert E. Peary specifically for Arctic operations, ROOSEVELT was built along the lines of Fridtjof Nansen's FRAM. Basically a three-masted schooner, her egg-shaped, ice-strengthened hull was designed to rise with the pressure of ice, while her high-powered engine was built to carry her through the floes of Baffin Bay and Smith Sound.

On 16 July 1905, the Roosevelt Expedition, sponsored by the Peary Arctic Club, departed New York. Captained by Robert Bartlett, ROOSEVELT carried Peary and his party despite fire, fog, icebergs, and rudder damage - to Cape Sheridan in the north of Ellesmere Island. Made fast to the ice on 5 September, she remained there through the winter but broke out on 4 July, prior to the return of the expedition.

Carried 20 miles south, she crashed against an ice foot a few days later, losing propeller blades, her rudder and stern post. On the 30th, Peary returned to the ship after a 6-month absence and on the 24th of August ROOSEVELT broke free and turned southward. By mid-September she was far enough south to assure her escape and in December she sailed into New York.

On 8 July 1908, ROOSEVELT, again captained by Robert Bartlett, cleared New York Harbor and began the hazardous trip north - to Baffin Bay, Smith Sound, Kane Basin, Kennedy Channel, Hall Basin, Robeson Channel, and finally into the Arctic Ocean. In early September she again made fast to the ice at Cape Sheridan to wait out the winter as Peary and his party tried for the North Pole.

Departing in February 1909, Peary accomplished his dream in April and returned to ROOSEVELT, whose power and ice-resisting qualities had cut down on the time required for his over-the-ice run to the Pole. For that run Peary received a vote of thanks and was promoted to rear admiral by Congress.

In July, ROOSEVELT began the return voyage. In mid-August she left the ice-clogged waters of Smith Sound. In September she rounded Cape Breton and steamed home. A year after her return.
1911 ROOSEVELT was sold by the Peary Arctic Club to John Arbuckle, New York.
1913 Transferred to the Estate of J. Arbuckle, New York, who, in turn, sold her to the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries in 1915.
1917 Sold to Roosevelt SS Co., Chicago.

On 18 March 1918, she was transferred to the Navy, given the Identification No. 2397, armed with 3 3-pounders, and placed in service in the 13th Naval District, headquartered at Seattle. Converted from a coal to an oil burner prior to her acquisition by the Navy, ROOSEVELT served on section patrol in the 13th Naval District through the end of World War I. She was returned to the Bureau of Fisheries on 11 June 1919.

Sold by that agency the following month to M. E. Tallackson, engine removed.
April 1923ROOSEVELT sold to the West Coast Transportation Co., Seattle she were the owners to November 1924.
She was then sold to the Washington Tug & Barge Co. of Seattle, and used as a tug. Last inspected in 1936, she was beached and abandoned on 21 January 1937 in the harbour of Balboa, Panama Canal.

Monaco 2008 0.87 Euro sg 2872, Scott 2521c
Canada 2009 54c sg?, scott?

Source: Register of Merchant ships completed in 1905. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. (partly downloaded)


The following is given by Canadian issues by the Canadian Post.

“The truth was I could not stop myself in pursuit of adventure. I was committed to the Arctic. I’d got the poison in my veins.”
Captain Bartlett (from his journals & Encyclopedia of Exploration 1850 to 1940 – The Oceans, Islands and Polar Regions by Raymond John Howgego, ISBN 1-875567-44-0)

In the golden age of Arctic exploration, there was only one “Captain Bob.” Deemed the greatest ice captain of the 20th century, Bob worked as a sealer, Arctic explorer, ice captain and scientist. In more than half a century at sea, he sought high adventure and fresh discoveries in some of the wildest, remotest corners of the world.

Robert Abram Bartlett was born in Brigus, Newfoundland, on August 15, 1875, into a family of renowned seal hunters and sailing masters. His mother hoped he would enter the ministry, but, alas, the sea was in his blood.

His uncle, John Bartlett was captain of a ship which had been used to ferry Robert E. Peary to the Actic and he signed up a mate on this ship.

In 1898 Bartlett took the renowned American explorer Robert E. Peary to the Kane Basin and having to spend the winter there learnt much about survival in the Arctic. He took Peary on his two other attempts in 1905 and 1908 reach the North Pole. During the third voyage, he led the expedition to 87°48' N latitude, some 150 miles (240 km) from the pole, farther north than anyone had reached before him.

He later captained the Karluk one of the ships taking VILHJAMUR STEFANSSON’S expedition to the Canadian Arctic via the Bering Strait. When the ship was crushed in the Arctic pack ice, Bartlett and an Inuk made a 700-mile journey to land and down the Siberian coast and then to Nome, Alaska to raise the alarm. Ships were sent to rescue the stranded crew. During the last two decades of his seafaring career, Captain Bob captained his ship the Effie M. Morrissey (better known as the Morrissey) on scientific expeditions to Greenland, Iceland and the high Arctic.

In 1937 he went to rescue the Crocker Land expedition, under the command of DONALD BAXTER MACMILLAN, which had been stranded at Etah, northwest Greenland for four years.

In 1925, he was part of the aircraft base survey of Alaska and the Arctic Ocean.

He took RICHARD EVELYN BYRD and his co-pilot Floyd Bennett to Kings Bay Spitzbergen for their flight over the North Pole. Bartlett died of pneumonia in New Yok in April 1946.

In 1969, Bartlett was designated a person of national historic importance by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.

Icy blues and snowy whites make a fitting backdrop for the commemorative stamp issued to mark the 100th anniversary of Captain Bob’s legendary attempt to reach to the North Pole. The issue features Bartlett holding a sextant, an instrument used to measure latitude and longitude at sea. “We chose the photo because it represents the navigational expertise for which he was renowned,” explains designer Karen Smith. The top-left corner of the stamp features an outline of the globe from the North Pole downward, which bleeds onto the stamp’s frame. The background features an image of the ROOSEVELT (the ship that Bartlett both skippered and captained on the Peary Polar Expeditions) superimposed onto a recent photograph of the Canadian Arctic. Smith adds, “We opted for a newer photo because the vivid colours capture the cool, harsh conditions of the region.” Scattered between the on-looking Captain and his ship are the Inuit people whose knowledge of the region ensured the survival of the explorers in the harsh Arctic climate.
Those involved with Bartlett’s legacy are thrilled with this postal tribute. “Captain Bartlett brought the Arctic to the world,” says the Honourable Edward Roberts, Chair of the Celebrating Bartlett 2009 Steering Committee and former Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador. “His accomplishments and popular lectures changed the way the world looked at Canada’s Arctic lands. We are delighted that Canada Post is putting its “stamp of approval” on his legacy.”

Hungary 1978 2f sgMS3197, scott2534d.

aukepalmhof & Richard Hindle

[Arturo]

Roosevelt

Hungary, 1978, S.G.; 3197, Scott; 2534d.