Sloop Clearwater

​Pete Seeger and the Rebirth of the Hudson River
By Ron Cooke
It was Saturday, August 16, 1969. I was sitting in a field, listening to one great musician after another. It was a festival. For those who might recognize the date, that weekend was the Woodstock Music Festival in Bethel, New York, attended by approximately half a million people listening to a stellar lineup of musicians. I was not among them. The field I was sitting in on that day was in Castleton-on-Hudson, New York, and the music was being provided by Pete Seeger and a host of his friends, loosely known as the Sloop Singers. As magical as the music was, the real magic sat at the dock on the Hudson River right behind the musicians. It was the sloop Clearwater, which had just sailed up the Hudson River for the very first time. The construction of this sloop was both a minor miracle and a leap of faith—a faith that, if people would come to the Hudson River to see this gorgeous ship, they would realize the river was polluted and neglected, and they would want to care for it and clean it up.
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Pete Seeger’s inspiration for building a Hudson River sloop came in 1963 when he read the 1908 book Sloops of the Hudson, written by William Verplanck and Moses Collyer, two retired sloop captains. In the early 1800s, sloops plied the river, mostly ferrying cargo such as furs, flour, lumber, quarried stone, farm produce, and livestock up and down the Hudson River Valley. Tall-rigged sloops with shallow draft hulls and centerboard-fitted keels were able to swiftly navigate the river.

In January 1966, Pete and his friend Vic Schwarz met with naval architect Cyrus Hamlin at the National Boat Show in New York City. In April, Pete wrote Cy a $500 personal check to cover the naval architect’s “advance research” on the Hudson River sloop, and the project was underway.

The link between the sloop and the emerging environmental movement was cemented in a New York Times article written following the organization’s first major fundraiser on October 2, 1966. Pete is quoted as follows:
“Some people might think it’s the most frivolous thing in the world to raise money for a sailboat. But we want people to love the Hudson, not think of it as a convenient sewer.”

Construction of the sloop began in August 1968, but much more money still needed to be raised. There were informational meetings and slideshow presentations at rotary clubs, libraries, and coffeehouses. Numerous concerts were held, including a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall in April 1969.
Finally, on June 27, the sloop set sail and began a series of concerts at various ports-of-call between Maine and New York on the sloop’s maiden voyage. To that end, most of the sailing crew was made up of musician friends of Pete’s. Billed as the “Hudson River Sloop Singers,” the group included Pete, Capt. Allan Aunapu, Louis Killen, Gordon Bok, Don McLean, Jimmy Collier, Rev. Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and Tom Winslow. They made about 20 appearances, including at the Newport Folk Festival. The money raised made it possible to begin repaying the loans that financed the Clearwater’s construction.

As the Clearwater arrived in New York, Pete challenged people who came to the river: “Who’s going to clean up this river of ours? No polluter, no politician is going to lift a finger unless we insist on it. So, we have to make ourselves heard. We’re all in this environmental thing together. The idea is simple,” he continued. “We want people to come down to the river again. But the most important thing is to get together. Because we just won’t make it unless we can talk to one another and agree on what we have to do. All of us. Young and old, black and white, rich and poor.”

Don McLean was a member of the first Clearwater Sloop crew in 1969. He put it this way: “This boat is an example of the Seeger genius because it combines the fun of boating with the seriousness of environmental degradation and gets everyone involved at the same time, while also being a public relations dream.”
McLean’s work as the Hudson River Troubadour in 1968 and his experiences with the Clearwater Sloop in 1969 proved to be inspirational learning experiences for him. He is particularly proud of “Tapestry”, a song he wrote while aboard the sloop, which became the title track to his first album. The powerful lyrics remain relevant today as they provide a warning about the consequences of humanity’s exploitation of the environment: “If man is allowed to destroy all they need, he will soon have to pay with his life for his greed.”
https://youtu.be/3AGg_n5ijmQ?si=cF5TiRIkAnSkghhv

Building on the work of pioneers such as Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, Pete Seeger and the Clearwater community used the sloop and the music to bring people back to the river, back to their history, and back to the connection between nature, people, and community.