Scan the skies today for a seagull, and when you spot one, spend a couple of seconds thinking about Frank Clements, who devoted his heart and mind to the ships that sailed the seas across the centuries.
The Nahant resident and master model shipbuilder died on Monday after spending more than 50 years of his life carefully crafting replicas of vessels ranging from Viking ships to fishing boats and World War II battleships.
He knew the USS Constitution like the back of his hand and his devotion to studying and celebrating the oldest commissioned warship in the United State Navy knew no bounds. He could describe every lee gun, spanker and topgallant mast on the ship.
Any sailor’s ghosts roaming the Constitution’s decks surely knew Frank and considered him an honorary crewmate. Clements understood the central role seafaring vessels and the people who sail them play in American history.
The first American history story children learn includes the words, “sailed the ocean blue.” The country’s economic expansion and its first test as a rival to European powers occurred on the sea. It’s formative history includes trafficking in humans tied to the rum and sugar trades along transoceanic routes.
When he showed you a ship model, Clements didn’t lecture you about ships or overwhelm you with his wealth of nautical jargon. He pointed out the carefully-crafted rigging or tiny portholes and oars and transported you onto a rolling ship’s deck awash in salt water with the roar of the sea competing with sailors shouting in the rigging or the blasts of big guns.
A volunteer for years at the USS Constitution Museum/Boston National Historical Park, Clements knew the place ships occupied in history and he had a gift for opening a door into history every time he showed one of his models.
Clements co-founded the Model Shipwright Guild of New England and won award after award for his creations in juried shows that pitted his meticulously-crafted models against master builders from around the world.
His model of the ill-fated Swedish warship, Vasa, was displayed for a year in the Stockholm museum devoted to the ship’s history.
The little house where Clements and his wife, Helen, raised their big family was an example of ingeniously-used space within sight of the sea.
He gifted me with a Viking ship model and it sits in a glass case feet away from a photograph of my father, a son of Norway and self-styled Viking who would have appreciated the tribute to his heritage and lust for life.
I was one among many people to be gifted with a Clements model. But Frank Clements’ true gift was the abiding love for the sea and sailors that he gave the thousands of people who marveled over his models.
