Documentation Projects
Project: Snow Squall
SNOW SQUALL Remains
Launched at Cape Elizabeth, Maine, in 1851, the American clipper Snow Squall served in the Pacific and South American trades, carrying general cargo out of the U.S. and tea, spices, and coffee back home. Sunk in the Falkland Islands in the 1880s, documentation of her surviving pieces began in the 1980s with a final archeological expedition by the Spring Point Museum, from South Portland, Maine, retrieving the 36-foot bow section in 1987. The ensuing recordation project was awarded the first Sally Kress Tompkins maritime intern, Karl N. Bodensiek from Roger Williams College, in the summer of 1992.
Snow Squall’s bow survives today as the sole remaining example of the hundreds of American-built clipper ships which made record-setting voyages until economic conditions in the late 1850s favored slower ships of greater cargo capacity and smaller crews.
For more on Snow Squall, visit Maine Maritime Museum’s website.
