Don Stoltenberg Ocean Liner Paintings at Simplon Postcards

Donald Stoltenberg Wikipedia Biography

”Art is a corner of nature as seen through a temperment.” Oscar Wilde

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AUREOL in the Bay Of Biscay. Photo and copyright Peter Knego 2009.

When I am at home, I take a moment out of each day to stop and gaze upon one of my favorite, most cherished oil paintings. The depiction of Elder Dempster Line’s majestic little 1951-built AUREOL is magnificent for what it is as much as for what it is not. Instead of a fussily-rendered photographic study with every porthole and guy wire “just so” and each hull plate and rivet slavishly recreated in a painter’s medium, it evocatively captures the essence and spirit of a hard-working colonial liner in her oceanic element. Of course, all of the underrated AUREOL’s balanced proportions and curvaceous features are true to form but a fine, salty mist diffused in prisms of light stings the eyes; faint whiffs of diesel hover over her stout, buff funnel and a stylized sea threatens to swallow the observer into a thickly-textured turquoise trough off the ship’s starboard bow.

Don Stoltenberg in his Brewster, MA studio, December 2007. Photo and copyright Peter Knego 2007.

The gifted mind and skilled hands behind this and countless other maritime masterpieces belong to Don Stoltenberg, a man who has dedicated his life to capturing the often unsung art and beauty of ships and other man-made structures.

QUEEN ELIZABETH (for cover of “RMS QUEEN ELIZABETH: The Ultimate Ship” by Clive Harvey).

His works grace the permanent collections of museums and galleries as well as the covers of many books, including the recently released tome by Clive Harvey, “RMS QUEEN ELIZABETH: The Ultimate Ship”.

Winter haven at Brewster. Photo and copyright Peter Knego 2007.

The sleepy Cape Cod community of Brewster, Massachusetts has been home to Stoltenberg and his partner, Ken Swallow, for nearly 42 years. They bought their 1860 Greek Revival style house, which sports a loft and a studio, initially as a summer and weekend getaway in 1959.

Petaled prism by Ken Swallow. Photo and copyright Peter Knego 2007.

No stranger to the creative process, Ken fashions exquisite lead and stained glass medallions, many of which dangle in front of the home’s myriad of windows.

Don was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 16, 1927. His mother died in childbirth and his father, a CPA, remarried when Don was three years old. In 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, the family lost their home and moved to Chicago to be closer to Don’s maternal grandmother.

Don recently reflected that the family’s residence, a stylish Arts and Crafts villa, was among the finest in their Northwest Chicago neighborhood. It was around this time that he first became interested in clipper ships, having read about them in grade school. He had also grown fond of building ship models. Favorite books that piqued his curiosity further were Henry B. Culver’s ”Forty Famous Ships” and “Book Of Old Ships”, both illustrated by Gordon Grant, whose drawings of MAURETANIA (i) and the brand new QUEEN MARY, had a big effect on him.

In the 5th or 6th grade, he took to drawing subjects of interest, such as ships and architecture (Frank Lloyd Wright was an early favorite). His kindly Uncle Herman, who happened to be an established Chicago art director, bought the young prodigy a set of watercolors and showed him still life painting techniques. From this point onward, the pursuit of art would be Don’s calling.

A fond grade school pastime was to take the excursion steamer THEODORE ROOSEVELT from Chicago to the Michigan ports of Benton Harbor and South Haven and every summer, Don would head to a farm near Manitowoc, Wisconsin to spend a couple months with his maternal grandparents.

The SS CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. Peter Knego collection.

The nearby Manitowoc shipyards had formed a lasting impression, although he admits being somewhat frustrated about having missed the demolition of the unique 1893-built whaleback steamer CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS there.

NORMANDIE stern view at night.

Ultimately one of Do
n’s most passionate and oft-painted subjects, French Line’s NORMANDIE, was far less renowned to him at this developmental time than the QUEEN MARY, although a prescient uncle had sent him and his cousins a French Line brochure with “What do you boys think of this boat?” handwritten across the cover.

NORMANDIE elevated bow view.

Don recalled finding the NORMANDIE a bit too severe in all the black and white images he had initially seen and that she looked so much richer in color.

NORMANDIE aerial view.

It was not until the ship caught fire and capsized in 1942 that he really began to understand and appreciate all that was the NORMANDIE.

NORMANDIE bow view.

A radio broadcast by Gabriel Heater gave the ship’s destruction (one year after the fall of France, itself) particular gravitas.

NORMANDIE at LeHavre.

And the series of images in Coronet Magazine showing the before and after fire images of various public spaces drove it home for the budding artist.

Of the many Great Lakes ships Don regularly saw on trips to Detroit, the CITY OF DETROIT and her sisters were “so powerful looking with their towering hulls and the way those three funnels were grouped together.”

In 1941, Don’s father was transfered to Grand Rapids, Michigan. He recalls his high school art class: “It was terrible. All we did was draw posters for basketball and football, so I switched to a typing class, which was far more useful.”

SS MILWAUKEE CLIPPER. Peter Knego collection.

At the time, George Sharp’s ultra streamlined MILWAUKEE CLIPPER had debuted in cross lake service from Muskegon, Michigan to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Stoltenberg was stricken by her streamlined profile, which was billed as “Moderne” or “Modernistic” in the years before the term “Art Deco” was born.

CITY OF MIDLAND 41. Peter Knego collection.

Don also recalled crossing from Luddington, Michigan to Manitowoc, Wisconsin several times on the rakish, coal-fired CITY OF MIDLAND 41, which was the world’s largest train ferry when built in 1941.

In junior college, Don’s art teacher, Freida Wordelman, introduced him to the works of Cezanne. There was no turning back.

Art School

Industrial Still Life. 1950. Oil on wood plank.

“Art was not a job but a way of life. I learned to see things for their form, to analyze their shape, volume and structure and get away from their function — familiarity makes you half blind.”

At the urging of an aunt, Don headed to the Ray-Vogue School in Chicago and studied fashion and advertising art. One professor provided a useful tip in encouraging Don to look to the masters for inspiration in lieu of following the current illustration trends. He attended classes at the Institute of Design, where a New Bauhaus movement was led by teachers who had fled Hitler’s Germany. He ultimately obtained his bachelor’s degree in visual design from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

While studying, Don was able to support himself with scholarships and part time graphic and illustration work for Marshall Field, the Ditto Corporation (where he learned gelatin print skills) and Raymond Loewy (where he was involved in catalogue design).

LIBERTE.

In 1953, Don’s grandfather died, leaving him a small inheritance that helped fund a trip to Europe on the LIBERTE. “Everyone who was interested in art had to go to Europe. I spent four months there sketching and taking photos.” He recalls his first transatlantic voyage: “It wasn’t the happiest cr
ossing. It was the end of March, a real tourist class adventure. I was in a very spartan cabin with four bunks and a wash basin, very communal. I remember the exposed pipes and wires coated in cream colored paint on the ceiling.”

When he returned to the states, Don took up residence in the Wharf along the Boston waterfront. It was at this time that he met Ken, who was in bank management. While pursuing his freelance art, Don was employed three to four days a week at the Container Corporation, designing cartons and packages. For many years, he taught oil painting, watercolor and printmaking a day or two per week at the DeCordova Museum School in nearby Lincoln, Massachusetts. More teaching gigs, gallery and museum exhibitions followed, leading to numerous awards (click here for a comprehensive list of credits as well as Don’s contact information).

NOBSKA in drydock.

In 1959, they bought their Brewster house, first as a weekend and summer getaway. Don recalled crossing frequently on the steamer NOBSKA, “a wonderful, classic steamer and a real work horse. She sailed year-round between Cape Cod and Nantucket except on the rare occasions when the harbor froze over. Years later, when she was in drydock awaiting restoration, I sketched her.” {Sadly, the funding never came through and NOBSKA was demolished on the spot.}

In the mid-1960s, on a return trip from Europe with Don, Ken decided to give up banking and pursue his interest in glass-making. Largely inspired by the Victoria and Albert glass collection, the self-taught Ken began making colorful glass medallions that often incorporated patterns Don designed. In return, Ken helped Don with the arduous task of producing thousands of maritime prints. Don recalled, “It was very labor intensive. The ink had to be repeatedly applied and wiped in a certain way.”

The 1970s were particularly busy and successful for both artists, whose works were represented by agents and sold throughout New England at the time.

Stoltenberg in his studio, circa 1975.

Although his art has been featured in many volumes, Don penned two of his own instructional books during this prolific time. The first, “Collagraph Print Making”, a skill he taught at DeCordova, involved a then experimental technique of applying layers to a printing plate in lieu of the more traditional etching. “We sort of invented it as we went along.”

The second was “The Artist and the Built Environment”.

”The Artist and the Built Environment” by Don Stoltenberg.

In 1980, Davis Publications of Worcester, MA published “The Artist and the Built Environment”. It utilizes a number of works from VanGogh, Canaletto and Mondrian to Stoltenberg and his peers, to illustrate different painting techniques and architecture.

Demonstration from “Artist and The Built Environment.”

Particularly nice are the pages demonstrating how some of the works were rendered. Here, Don begins with an application of acrylic gesso to a blank 36 by 48 inch canvas.

Demo from “Artist And The Built Environment”, ctd.

The acrylic “under painting” is completed before switching to an oil medium. The use of stencils and other tools to achieve various shapes and effects is also detailed.

The Railway Station. 1978. Acrylic and oil.

The end result is breathtaking. This is but one of many works whose secrets unfold in “The Artist and the Built Environment”.

Airliner. Watercolor on canvas 1978.

“It is the artist’s function to examine, digest and interpret our surroundings, to give us ways in which to react to them, evaluate them and, in various ways, to come to terms with them.”

LEONARDO DA VINCI bow view at Port Everglades, May 12, 1978.

“I got so carried away with drawing the LEONARDO DA VINCI upon our arrival at Port Everglades, that we were too late to secure good dining arrangements. Ken was not happy about that….”

LEONARDO DA VINCI Boat Deck, May 13, 1978.

“It was a very short cruise. I remember we had a very nice Boat Deck cabin with a tiled bathroom.”

LEONARDO DA VINCI stern view at Nassau. May 13, 1978.

“Well, I have to admit that I liked the (LEONARDO’s predecessors) ANDREA DORIA and CRISTOFORO COLUMBO’s exteriors a bit better — they were so well balanced — but I’m so happy we got to experience the LEONARDO DA VINCI.”

LEONARDO DA VINCI starboard mast and foredeck. May 13, 1978.

LEONARDO DA VINCI funnel from top of house. May 13, 1978.

LEONARDO DA VINCI forward Lido Deck. May 15, 1978.

LEONARDO DA VINCI aft Lido Deck. May 14, 1978.

“Even though it was really at the end of the ship’s career, the food and service were quite good although the crowd wasn’t so great. It was really our last chance to sail in a ship built for Italian Line, a fantasy I had held since looking at the glamorous ads depicting the REX’s Lido Deck in “Fortune” magazine as a child. When I was sun tanning in Grand Rapids, that is where I imagined myself.”

Boat and davit.

“Right now, I’m particularly interested in details. On ships like MONARCH OF THE SEAS, the detailing is especially good. Functioning things like davits, life boats and pulleys have been recent subjects. Mechanical things, machinery.”

AMERICA

AMERICA.

“If any ship should have been saved, it is the AMERICA. From Eleanor Roosevelt’s christening (which was sadly overshadowed by the start of World War Two the following day), her war service and wonderful careers. She was so warm and beautiful, both inside and out. It is so sad about her fate, first losing the forward funnel, then what followed…”

COSTA RIVIERA starboard sun deck.

“We enjoyed a nice cruise in COSTA RIVIERA from Savona to Egypt and Israel. Of course, she looked better as GUGLIEMO MARCONI but she definitely held her own against the other Italian ships at that time (2002).”

Southampton docks in the 1930s: EMPRESS OF BRITAIN (right), EUROPA (center) and COLUMBUS (left).

“I’m a big fan of the EMPRESS OF BRITAIN (1931). You know, when people ask what my ultimate fantasy cruise would be, I tell them it’s simple: the 1933 world cruise on the EMPRESS OF BRITAIN.”

FRANCE.

“One of the most beautiful ships ever constructed. Even better than the NORMANDIE. Perfection. Every line matched and every feature went together.”

Various studies of FRANCE and as NORWAY.

“When she came to New York on her maiden voyage, I was so impressed with her exteriors. Less so with the interiors, which were a bit too angular and, I thought, at the time, anyway, lacking grace.”

ILE DE FRANCE

“Admittedly, I thought she looked her best with two funnels but the (three funneled) ILE is what I believe inspired LeCorbusier to comment just how splendid a steamship’s architecture can be. She had wonderful detailing, although I never liked the big box aft of her funnels.”

“The Quincy, MA-built INDEPENDENCE and CONSTITUTION were so beautiful in their original form. I loved their counter sterns but must admit their interiors were not my favorite. Not at that t
ime, anyway.”

LEVIATHAN stern view.

“Of the three Ballin-designed ships, I most prefer the IMPERATOR/BERENGARIA because she had a much nicer bridge. The VATERLAND/LEVIATHAN and BISMARCK/MAJESTIC were a bit too blank in front, so I tend to paint them in stern views. I remember when Frank Braynard began his series of books on LEVIATHAN (Don was one of the many sponsors who helped get it published). I don’t think a more detailed account of any ship’s career has ever been written.”

COSTA ATLANTICA class ship, Celebrity MILLENNIUM class ship and an RCCL ship at Barcelona.

“With modern ships, it’s often the details I enjoy so much more than the overall shape but if the lighting and setting are right, I find them beautiful, too.”

Carnival FANTASY class ship with tug.

“The lighting and tug were wonderful. Certain parts of the ship have an appeal and the funnels are distinctive.”

NAUSHON deck view.

“The NAUSHON (originally NANTUCKET) replaced the NOBSKA as the major ferry running between Cape Cod and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket year around. She was a lovely vessel, a sort of miniature liner and in steam. She was replaced by the current diesel boats some years ago. And she had such a nicely sculpted funnel — it was definitely not an afterthought.”

PRINCIPE PERFEITO aerial view. Photo and copyright Peter Knego 2009.

“I like these somewhat smaller, lesser known ships. Their features weren’t lost or diluted by great dimensions.”

QE2 collage.

“I’ve had a long relationship with the QE2, from first gazing at various renderings of the ‘QUEENs’ (MARY and ELIZABETH) replacement’ in the Illustrated London News to seeing her on the stocks from a passing train in Scotland. I followed her progress through engine troubles and various breakdowns, then crossed on her in September of 1969 when she still had all of her original features intact, including that wonderful forward lounge. It was such a thrill to experience her at that time — she was truly cutting edge. Her various superstructure additions just
ified the larger, thicker funnel. I missed the notorious Magrodome phase but did experience most of her changes and took her last crossing. It is wonderful that she did so well over so many years after such a troubled start.”

SAVARONA at Vittorioso, Malta. Photo and copyright Peter Knego 2009.

SAVARONA at Vittorioso, Malta detail. Photo and copyright Peter Knego 2009.

“She is very graceful and somewhat unusual for her yacht-like lines. I loved seeing her in the backdrop of Malta underneath that great arch.”

UNITED STATES at speed.

“So sleek! I spent a few hours on the UNITED STATES on one of her rare calls at Boston toward the end of her career. It seemed as though they were desperate for passengers and the crew members were urging people to support the ship in what must have been a trying time. She was particularly beautiful from the outside.”

VISTAFJORD in Cunard livery.

“Those two NAL ships, the VISTAFJORD and SAGAFJORD, were such classics, although they were unfortunately altered over the years. The extra deck installed above SAGAFJORD’s wheelhouse bothered me, although VISTAFJORD’s bridge was already a deck higher than her sister’s. Externally, I also liked the row of dining room windows underneath VISTAFJORD’s promenade deck. We sailed on VISTAFJORD in her Cunard era and she was still in very good form.”

CARONIA (iii).

“I later saw VISTAFJORD as CARONIA and might have even preferred her in the black hull. I was sorry to see her afterdecks expanded (when she became SAGA RUBY) but at least they kept the curve.”

Don Stoltenberg, Brewster, MA, May 30, 2009.

Special thanks: Martin Cox, Ken Swallow

by Peter Knego

MaritimeMatters OCEAN LINER ODYSSEY and OCEAN LINER TWILIGHT Order Page

Ted Scull podcast interview on Cruise Talk by Barry Vaudrin

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Ted Scull at the London Ship Show in October of 2007. Photo by William J. Mayes.

SS ORSOVA at Honolulu, July 1972. Photo and copyright Ted Scull 1972.

On a cold, sleepless night this past December, winds howling outside my bedroom window, I hitched an imaginary ride with Theodore W. Scull as he stepped aboard P&O; Line’s 1954-built ORSOVA on a fine San Francisco day in 1972.  Across the slip from the streamer-dripped liner lay her near sister, the 1951-built ORONSAY, both fading remnants of a shipping empire that tenuously linked the world. 

OCEAN LINER TWILIGHT 1968 — 1979

I read the restrained prose of Ted’s latest book, OCEAN LINER TWILIGHT 1968 — 1979, slowly, hoping the adventure would never come to an end.  To have been on board that particular liner on one of her final transpacific crossings, encountering other soon-to-disappear vessels such as PRESIDENT CLEVELAND in Honolulu, the ENNA G in Nauru and ARCADIA in Sydney, was just one of many firsthand glimpses of the fascinating, final days of the ocean liner, long before the cruising boom that we enjoy today.

British India’s SS DWARKA at Bahrain in July of 1974. Photo and copyright Ted Scull 1974.

Other amazing chapters include passages through the Indian Ocean on a variety of delightfully obscure vessels, ranging from British India’s DWARKA, KARANJA and KAMPALA to Shipping Corporation of India’s harrowingly-portrayed STATE OF MADRAS.

With the SS FRANCE at Southampton, June 27, 1968. Photo by David Hedges.

Arriving at Southampton on board RMS WINDSOR CASTLE, June 17, 1968.

MV RAJAH BROOKE at Singapore, August 18, 1974. Photo and copyright Ted Scull 1974.

A voyage in ORIANA, halted as she caught fire upon departure from Southampton; a line voyage on the RMS WINDSOR CASTLE; crossings in the FRANCE and QE2; and surreal romps around the Western Pacific in LAOS and RAJAH BROOKE help round out Ted’s excellent TWILIGHT adventures.

Although a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker today, Ted Scull’s ancestral roots are steeped in early Pennsylvanian culture. Driven from Britain in 1682 by the Quaker persecution, the Sculls settled in Philadelphia. According to Ted, “Several generations became Commonwealth surveyors, including two Nicholas Sculls as Surveyors General. They spoke some of the Native American languages which helped negotiations, sadly not always in the latters’ favor. In 1825, William S. Scull started a coffee business across the Delaware in Camden, NJ next to Campbell Soup, and it burgeoned into a successful firm with three locations (Camden, NJ, Rochester, NY and Dayton, OH) producing coffee, tea and peanut products under the Boscul brand and later Bosco, the chocolate sauce. The firm was sold in the 1960s to Coca Cola, so my generation was the first not to have this employment option — thank goodness.”

I asked Ted to recap his impressive schooling credits. “I first went to Haverford Friends, a Quaker School, then Haverford School (across Railroad Avenue) both on Philadelphia’s Main Line, and for high school, away to St. George’s, a boarding school overlooking the sea in Newport, RI where my father and brother went. My undergraduate work landed a history degree (BA) at Trinity College, Hartford, CT, then abroad to the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, for a Masters in History (MA Area Studies), and a Masters in Education (MS), specializing in guidance and counseling, at Bank Street College in New York.”

Ted utilized his degrees by first joining the faculty at two NYC independent schools, teaching grades 5-9 at St. Bernard’s School on the East Side, then grades 6,7,8,11 &12 at Trinity School on the West Side. He became Middle School principal at Trinity, where his Australian-born wife, Suellyn, is currently Acting Head (with plans for retirement following the school’s 300th anniversary).

Ted’s initial exposure to ocean liners was on his family’s annual summer pilgrimages (beginning in 1947) from Philadelphia to Nantucket, which included a drive along the Westside Highway past the prows of the great Europe-bound transatlantic icons.  Although he did enjoy short crossings from New Bedford to Nantucket on the ships of the The Steamship Authority, his first tangible “big ship” encounter was a visit to American Export Line’s SS INDEPENDENCE in 1957 to see his grandmother off on a Springtime cruise.  That December, his mother having already sprung for a first class crossing on French Line’s LIBERTE, took Ted and his brother to the Continent for the first time.  We owe a great debt to Mrs. Scull for leading her young son into a life of crossings, voyages and far-flung adventures aboard a wide range of celebrated and obscure liners and cruise ships.

As much as he would have loved to have crossed in ILE DE FRANCE, Ted counts
himself as lucky for having sailed in five French Line vessels. He officially donned the hats of maritime lecturer and travel writer in the late 1970s when he left teaching behind but his encyclopedic knowledge goes beyond the realm of ships, encompassing New York City as well as all things railroad.

The “Illuminator” aboard RMS QUEEN MARY 2, October 2007. Photo by James L. Shaw.

Even with the imminent retirement of QE2, you may still find Ted at the podium on one of her Cunard descendants, ships of other lines or even on solid ground (the latter category can range from a casual ship enthusiasts’ gathering to a gig at the Smithsonian). He particularly enjoys lecturing about New York on westbound transatlantic crossings, noting that audiences on these voyages are “really interested in coming, and I get to Britain and Europe before hand.” His favorite liner topics are those where he can share personal experiences “to bring them alive, whether it be transatlantic, around Africa, across the Indian Ocean or in Southeast Asia; ship poster, post card and brochure art; Cunard history and especially the QUEENs as I lecture mainly on Cunard ships.”

OCEAN LINER ODYSSEY 1958 — 1969

In 1998, Anthony Cooke’s Carmania Press published the first volume of Ted’s modern day Homeric quests, appropriately titled, OCEAN LINER ODYSSEY 1958 — 1969.  In its ten chapters, we are treated to transatlantic escapades aboard LIBERTE, BREMEN, KUNGSHOLM, HANSEATIC, SYLVANIA, QUEEN ELIZABETH, FRANCE, QE2, CRISTOFORO COLOMBO and ROTTERDAM and  Mediterranean musings on PRESIDENT DE CALAZET, VILLE DE MARSEILLE, SAN MARCO, and others as well as a Canadian coastal cruise in the obscure NORTHLAND PRINCE.  This must-read gave us a firsthand account of shipboard life from the eye and mind of someone steeped in it and not just along for the ride.  Ted not only observed his fellow voyagers but took diligent notes about the ships, the seas they plied and the ports they visited.  He began these journeys knowing that the era of travel by ship was coming to an end, which makes his observations all the more poignant.

With SS ORIANA at Quebec, August 1981. Photo by Marguerite O’Neill.

In 2007, OCEAN LINER ODYSSEY’s much-anticipated follow up, OCEAN LINER TWILIGHT 1968 — 1979, was published by Overview Press of the U.K.  For those of us who pored over the back pages of National Geographic for its colorful P&O;/Orient Line ads and expired ABC Shipping Guides procured from local travel agents, this book is equally delectable.  Ships until now only privy only to the pages of Laurence Dunn’s books are brought to life through the treks of the young Theodore, beginning in 1968 with a Yokohama to Hong Kong via Taiwan sailing of the ORIENTAL PEARL and ending in 1979 with a crossing from Southampton to New York on CANBERRA.  While OCEAN LINER ODYSSEY is largely transatlantic with a smattering of Mediterranean and Blue Water, OCEAN LINER TWILIGHT focuses on a netherworld of Blue Water ships rarely experienced or documented by the American ship historian.

On board MV HEBRIDEAN PRINCESS, August 1989. Photo by Suellyn P. Scull.
     
Although he’s seen the world many times over, with six years spent between his favorite hubs, London and Paris, and five years’ worth of sea time, Ted refreshingly maintains his enthusiasm for travel and transport. For him, it’s not just about dining in the Queens Grill of a glamorous Cunarder or donning a tuxedo at exclusive captain’s parties (not that he’d find those options objectionable). Bets are on, however, that you would sooner find him clinging to the rails of the QE2′s observation deck as she plunges through a stormy crossing or grinning from the front seat of a JFK Airtrain as it rattles along the VanWyck Expressway.

British India’s SS KARANJA at Dar es Salaam in April 1968. Photo and copyright Ted Scull 1968.

Fortunately, Ted can also handle a camera, which lends an added cachet to the content of his OCEAN LINER ODYSSEY and OCEAN LINER TWILIGHT. Some of the ships he covered have rarely been photographed. “I have no idea (how many photos I’ve taken) but (it would be) in the thousands, since snapping some three-funneled Canadian Pacific coastal ships in 1959 after driving down from Alaska. They are organized according to trips, with New York photos arranged chronologically.”

The author is currently working on several book projects, including the fifth edition of 100 Best Cruise Vacations, The Top Cruises Throughout the World for All Interests and Budgets, and an updated makeover of Hoboken’s Lackawanna Terminal. On the latter, the avowed train enthusiast notes, “It is under major restoration and this wonderful place is one of my favorite transportation structures.”

On board RMS QUEEN MARY 2, February 2006. Photo by Peter Knego.

Just as he was inspired by the brilliant, prolific Laurence Dunn, Ted Scull has been a great inspiration to those of us who were unable to join in on his early quests. Now with OCEAN LINER TWILIGHT and OCEAN LINER ODYSSEY, his journeys will be enjoyed by future generations.

Like most writers, Ted goes through a creative process. “I need to get active in the morning, then I write best from midday on. We do not have dinner until 8pm, so I stop at 7 o’clock when I am the cook, something we both like to do as it is a complete change of pace. I can really only write in my home office but I get lots of ideas walking the streets of New York, and of course when traveling.”

In 2008, Ted Scull will be lecturing on three Cunard crossings (including Q
E2’s final westbound in October), taking an expedition cruise along Australia’s Kimberley Coast, spending ten days in Belgium, and a week in Mexico’s Copper Canyon. “There are likely to be other assignments but I hope not too many as I am happiest right here in NYC.”

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