Page 31 - Rukert - 100th Anniversary

PART I THE RUKERT STORY
THE ABRAHAM RYDBERG ARRIVES IN BALTIMORE
THE BEAUTIFUL CLIPPER SHIP, BUILT IN 1892 IN GLASGOW, SCOTLAND, HAD NO ENGINE, BUT HAD FOUR MASTS REACHING 100 FEET. With four towering spars and a spectacular spread of sail, she was an inspiration to see as she passed Fort McHenry moving into the Inner Harbor. After dodging German submarines and bad weather on her way from Santos, Brazil to Boston, she docked at Jackson’s Wharf at 1:30 p.m. on March 15, 1942, to discharge her cargo.
The merchant sailing vessel had a steam donkey for auxiliary power that was used to raise her anchor and hoist the sails. The next day, a swinging boom was rigged with rope and, with the help of the steam donkey, the stevedores began discharging her cargo of 68,200 bags of cottonseed fertilizer. This was a long and tedious job as the bags that were beyond
the hatch opening had to be brought to the square of the hatch by hand trucks. They were then loaded in slings of eight bags each and lifted by the swinging boom onto the dock. The cargo was finally discharged at noon on March 31, 1942.
The Abraham Rydberg spent the next three years sailing between Portugal and South America until March 1945, when she was fitted with a pair of diesel engines in Philadelphia, ending her days as a sailing ship. In 1959, the 300-foot, steel- hulled beauty was sold for scrap, an impressive 63 years after her first voyage.
U-boats, the Captain decided to bring the ship into Baltimore instead of Boston. This was possible under the war-risk clause of the bill of lading.
The vessel docked at Jackson’s Wharf on March 15, 1942. Her cargo was fully discharged 16 days later, marking the end of the merchant sailing ship era on Baltimore’s waterfront.
When Harry Routson Jr. left the company
in February of 1942 to join the Navy, Cap hired William E. (Bill) Fleischmann to fill the void.
The next year, Norman was commissioned a Captain in the Army Transportation Corps and sent to the Philadelphia Port of Embarkation. Rukert Terminals survived the war years by stevedoring Army
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