The "CLYDE A. PHILLIPS" , AKA " A.J. MEERWALD"

[bob mitchell]

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Time to tie these schooner threads together. As most of you probably know, Captain Clyde was a foreman at the boatyard that built Newporters. The Stowman and Sons boatyard also built the schooner A. J. Meerwald around 1928. During the war the coast gaurd removed most of her rigging, and used her as a fireboat. After the war, in 1947, Clyde's dad aquired the Meerwald and renamed it the "Clyde A Phillips". Our Captain Clyde was on her papers as captain right after high school, and oystered with her. He describes her as the "Best sea boat I’ve ever been on."

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Clyde writes "The “A. J.” (as we called her) was built 1927-8 in the Charles Stowman Shipyard in Dorchester, NJ. This yard was one of several side by side yards on the Maurice (pronounced MAR-is)River which is the center of the oyster industry here in South Jersey. This yard eventually joined with the other yards and became, as a single yard, Stowman Shipyards (and still later Dorchester Shipyard). The older photo above was taken when "A. J. Meerwald" was probably in her first spring oyster season, May and June of 1929 (my guess; I wasn’t there). A. J. is short for Augustus J. Meerwald, the oysterman here on our bay (Delaware Bay) who had the boat built way back when. That’s old Gus at the wheel in the picture. I’m assuming you got the picture from the Bayshore Discovery Project’s website. My connection is simple. As Megan (the big boss at BDP) and I were discussing last Thursday, that schooner has been the “A. J. Meerwald” for less time than she was the “Clyde A. Phillips.” In fact, when Megan started an organization to put her back in commission as a sail boat again she called it the “Schooner Clyde A. Phillips Project.” I told her at the first public meeting that she should change the boat’s name back to the AJM because the boat “Clyde A. Phillips” was never a schooner. “Schooner” refers to a sail rig and as the “Clyde A.” (as we called her) she was always a power boat. Dad bought her after WWII after the Navy sold her back to the Meerwald family. We got her about 1946 or 7. I was on her papers as captain right after high school and oystered with her. Best sea boat I’ve ever been on."
The other picture is a fairly recent one showing her on one of her two and a half hour “cruises” from her dock in Bivalve, NJ. For a good look at her and to see why she is still under sail, check out http://www.ajmeerwald.org/index.htm .