Fitzgerald: Old sister ships meet again – Stockton Record

Michael Fitzgerald Record columnist @Stocktonopolis

Two sunken ships one raised and restored, another still on the bottom rendezvoused in the Delta on Thursday as the historic peace ship Golden Rule visited the spot off Tyler Island where The Phoenix of Hiroshima lies.

It was a reunion 59 years in the making. Crews from the two sailboats met in 1958. Both made international headlines by boldly protesting nuclear testing in the Pacific.

Its the symbolic reunion, said Helen Jaccard, manager of the Veterans for Peace Golden Rule Project.

Sacramento was on the itinerary of The Golden Rule, a 34-foot wooden ketch touring to support a United Nations nuclear weapons ban. A side trip to visit the Phoenix was a natural.

We might as well sail over her, just a symbolic good luck, and help her being raised, said Jaccard.

A Quaker crew sailed The Golden Rule into a military off-limits zone around the Marshall Islands in 58. Their goal was to interfere in the Cold War-era nuclear testing.

The boat was interdicted, the crew jailed in Honolulu. The Quakers became a cause clbre.

In Honolulu the Quakers met the Reynolds family, who were circling the globe for pleasure on their 50-foot wooden ketch, Phoenix of Hiroshima.

Phoenix Capt. Earle L. Reynolds had spent three years in Hiroshima at the behest of the U.S. government studying the poorly understood effects of radiation on Japanese children.

Appalled by what he saw, Reynolds and family became opponents of nuclear testing, which spreads radiation through winds and ocean currents. Reynolds also commissioned construction of the Phoenix.

Reynolds daughter/crewmate Jessica was a young teen then. Seventy-three now, a resident of Long Beach. Her married name is Renshaw.

Renshaw said meeting the courageous Quakers was life-changing.

They inspired us, she said. When they couldnt go, we went. We picked up the baton and went into the zone.

The Reynolds, too, were arrested, garnering international attention. Two years and much press later, they beat the charges. They went on to make other peace voyages.

By some accounts, the protests built support for the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963. The treaty banned nuclear testing in air, water or space but allowed it underground.

The Golden Rules exploit also reportedly inspired Greenpeace to acquire its first boat, Rainbow Warrior.

Both The Golden Rule and The Phoenixeventually were sold. Both passed through a chain of owners. Both fell into disrepair. Both, by coincidence, sank in Northern California in 2010.

The Golden Rule sank in Humboldt Bay. It was promptly raised and restored by Veterans For Peace.

The Phoenix and its owner vanished. Only later did it emerge the owner damaged the boat, which sprang a leak and sank where it was tied up. The historic boat rests in mud in 25 feet of water in the North Fork Mokelumne River off Tyler Island.

The hapless owner signed the boat back to the Reynolds clan.

At about 2 p.m. Thursday on a baking, 100-degree afternoon, The Golden Rule came around a quiet bend in the Mokelumne. On the banks Jessica Renshaw, her husband, a videographer and a spectator or two waited near the spot where years earlier searchers located the submerged Phoenix.

So these boats have not been together for 59 years, Renshaw said wistfully.

Renshaw seeks donations to raise and restore The Phoenix in time to sail it, alongside the Golden Rule, to Hiroshima in 2020 for the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing.

The pacifists say opposition to nuclear weapons is more timely than ever, what with tensions escalating between the United States and North Korea.

To me, it just touches a really deep chord from way back, Renshaw said as the Golden Rule dropped anchor. When we first met The Golden Rule I was 14.

Donate at phoenixofhiroshima.org.

Free tours of Golden Rule will be given today at Tower Park Resort & Marina, 14900 Highway 12, Lodi, at slips 37 and 38. Information at (206) 992-6364.

Contact columnist Michael Fitzgerald at (209) 546-8270 or michaelf@recordnet.com. Follow him at recordnet.com/fitzgeraldblog and on Twitter @Stocktonopolis.

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Fitzgerald: Old sister ships meet again - Stockton Record