‘Golden Rule’ sailboat aims to retrace 1958 anti-nuke Pacific voyage

In 1958 a group of mostly Quaker peace activists sailed the 39-foot wooden sailboat “Golden Rule” from California to Oahu with the intention of sailing on to the Marshall Islands to protest and disrupt U.S. nuclear weapons testing.

It was a spirited and audacious plan — but the four-member crew never made it any farther than Hawaii.

The Golden Rule made no secret of its goal to sail to Enewetak, and the Coast Guard was there to stop the boat — twice — as it attempted to leave Ala Wai Boat Harbor.

The crew members made their point anyway when they were arrested, jailed and tried in Honolulu — generating international news in the process.

A protest was held outside the federal courthouse seeking a stop to bombing tests by the United States, Britain and Soviet Union and the release of the crew.

Sixty-one years later, the Golden Rule is back in Ala Wai Boat Harbor and again trying to reach the Marshall Islands — with plans this time to carry its anti-nuke message all the way to Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. 6, 2020 — the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing.

Among the goals of the organization Veterans for Peace, which owns the Golden Rule, is ratification of the United Nation’s 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons — which lacks signatures from nuclear- armed nations, including the United States.

“We’re working toward worldwide ratification of the treaty,” said Golden Rule project manager Helen Jaccard. “As soon as 50 countries ratify it, it becomes international law, and we’re working (on that) now, as we voyage around.”

In Hawaii, the group is seeking to build county and state Legislature support for the treaty, and for that to be passed to the federal government, Jaccard said while on a visit to the Golden Rule.

So far, 33 nations have ratified the treaty — which likely wouldn’t be followed by nuclear-armed states anyway.

Jaccard acknowledges that’s probably the case, “but it’s also a way to educate people that nuclear weapons are still here and we still need to get rid of them before they accidentally or intentionally get rid of us.”

She calls it the “other existential threat” in that “we have climate change and the possibility of a nuclear exchange.”

The white and blue wooden sailboat — with a big peace sign on its rear sail — is a natural conversation starter for the group’s anti-nuke and anti- militarization message.

Its 1958 mission to the Marshall Islands was intended as an attempt to halt atmospheric nuclear testing. America detonated 67 nuclear weapons at Bikini and Enewetak atolls between 1946 and 1958, with the 15-megaton Castle Bravo test in 1954 raining fallout over 6,800 square miles, according to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Organization.

Castle Bravo was the biggest thermonuclear detonation ever by the United States. Scientists miscalculated the yield, which turned out to be 1,000 times more powerful than the bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Coconuts on Bikini are still radioactive because palm trees absorb cesium 137 from the soil which is passed into the fruit, the test ban group said.

A 2004 U.S. government report estimated a 9% increase in cancer rates for Marshallese who were exposed during the testing.

Altogether, the United States conducted 1,032 atmospheric, underground and undersea nuclear tests between 1945 and 1992 at a number of mainland and Pacific locations, according to the test-ban organization. The last U.S. nuclear weapons test was underground in Nevada in 1992.

The historic anti-nuke sailboat — which may have been named after the Golden Rule of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — was rescued and restored after it had been neglected and sank twice in Humboldt Bay in California.

The Golden Rule is a small boat — making its latest sailing plan seem that much more outsized in comparison.

The bathroom is minuscule. There is no shower “and we don’t have refrigeration, either. But that’s fine,” said Victoria Southwell, who is helping take care of the boat. The vessel has a tiller rather than a steering wheel.

Retired Navy submarine captain Tom Rogers, who eventually became a nuclear weapons abolitionist, was one of four crew members on the July 11-31 voyage from California to Hilo.

The boat initially sailed in May, but came back with an engine full of seawater. More repairs were made and the Golden Rule sailed again with a professional sailor from Poland at the helm.

On day three at sea, a large wave launched Rogers, 73, against a life raft container, causing a rib injury.

“The motion of the boat was constant,” Rogers, who lives in Washington state, said in a phone interview. “It was pitching and rolling and corkscrewing 24/7. There was always movement and it was always a lot more than what you wanted.” The trip was an unrelenting core workout with all the constant balancing, he said.

The Golden Rule arrived at Oahu Sept. 28 and will head out Monday to circumnavigate the island, with educational stops along the way.

Plans are for the sailboat to leave toward the end of December for the Marshall Islands to interact with people there, and then head on to Guam and Japan.

Jaccard said the little wooden boat with the peace sign on its sail draws a lot of curiosity seekers. It’s been in four wooden boat shows.

It all adds up to thousands of people getting introduced to the Golden Rule “and then they hear the story and hear about the nuclear issues that are still alive today,” she said.

“This is an icon for peace,” she added. “And there aren’t that many of them, and that’s part of why this boat just needs to be preserved — so it can continue to sail and physically bring a message of peace.”