A Texas criminal defense lawyer has begun working to save Baltimore's 1853 sloop of war Constellation from a death sentence threatened by time and the elements.
The Constellation Foundation has hired Louis F. Linden, a Houston lawyer and accomplished sailor, to serve as its executive director and lead a fight for political support and at least $10 million in public and private money.
"We have to acquire the funding to bring the ship to a point where she's not sinking," he said. The Constellation was closed to the public in October. Its pumps now remove 900 gallons of water a day from the bilge, and the flow jumps 30 percent every time a sizable ship pulls up to the nearby Light Street bulkhead.
"It's a precarious situation," Mr. Linden said. "To some extent, people have never known the truth of the condition of this vessel. . . . The truth is as grim as it gets."
The Constellation is the last all-sail fighting ship ever built for the Navy. It intercepted a slave ship off West Africa in 1861, ferried food aid to Ireland during a famine in 1880, served as a training ship and as relief flagship for the U.S. Atlantic Fleet during World War II.
Mr. Linden has already begun meeting with members of the General Assembly, asking the state for a $3 million capital bond issue.
Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, who was to announce Mr. Linden's appointment at a news briefing today, has promised to seek voter approval for a separate $3 million city bond issue. Any other money will have to come from corporations, foundations and individuals.
"I anticipate I would be at every Kiwanis and Rotary luncheon between now and forever," Mr. Linden said.
The Constellation Foundation itself is nearly broke. It has promised Mr. Linden a paycheck for just four months, at $4,500 a month.
"I am here until the end of May or until the money runs out, whichever happens last," he said. "I assume if we acquire more money, I stay longer. . . . It's real performance-oriented budgeting."
Nevertheless, he has signed a 12-month lease for a house in South Baltimore. "I didn't come into this to be a loser," he said.
The foundation board liked Mr. Linden's background in law and sailing, combining a "passion for the project and an ability to analyze it," said board chairman Gail Shawe, former executive director of the Pride of Baltimore. It also appreciated "his willingness to take the job under very peculiar conditions, with the full knowledge it may all end."
Bearded and graying at 47, Mr. Linden's time in Texas and its courtrooms is reflected in his blue pinstripe suit, faint Texas drawl, western hat and cowboy boots. But they all belie his boyhood in Minnesota, where he read and dreamed about going to sea under sail.
His resume is eclectic: an undergraduate education heavy in the Great Books; two years organizing migrant farm workers; 15 months as an Army medical corpsman; one year training VISTA volunteers for community-based projects in New England; a law degree from the University of Texas.
After four years of criminal defense work in San Antonio, he moved to Houston, and later to Washington while serving as executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
He worked on the Galveston Historical Foundation's $6 million restoration of the 1888 iron-hulled bark Elissa, doing manual labor and serving on the board to help raise money. He eventually earned a berth and sailed as a crew member after the square-rigger had been restored.
Hooked, he left the law in 1986 and began six years of crewing on sailing vessels, "fulfilling a childhood fantasy," he said. Later, he sailed the Atlantic and the Caribbean with his wife, Nancy, in their own 35-foot sloop. They named the boat for their friend, Barry Duckworth, one of four crew members lost in the sinking of the original Pride of Baltimore in May 1986.
Mr. Linden earned his master's license and commanded sailing charters and yacht deliveries in the Caribbean. In 1992 he and his wife returned to Houston, where he ran a political campaign for a friend, then resumed his legal practice.
He began talking with Ms. Shawe as early as last summer, but was not hired until late last month.
He knows he faces an uphill battle winning public support. "Everybody knows what the Constellation is, but I sense there's a lack of connection," Mr. Linden said. He blames poor "interpretation" -- explanations of the ship's importance, structure and details for those who visit -- and the absence of a well-directed volunteer program.
The foundation needs a clear, quantifiable set of goals against which it can measure its progress, he said. It also needs an endowment and more aggressive programs to make maximum use of the ship as a cultural asset. But "our most immediate goal has to be to save the ship," Mr. Linden said.
The foundation favors a $10 million proposal by Pride of Baltimore builder Peter Boudreau to replace the Constellation's hull planks with a rigid, watertight shell of laminated wood that would support new masts and rigging as well as the vessel's failing timbers.
Authorities from the U.S.S. Constitution in Boston are preparing a $265,000 survey of the Constellation and will make recommendations to the Navy. It is unclear whether the Navy will endorse Mr. Boudreau's plan, or insist on far more costly traditional repairs.
Mr. Linden expects no other federal aid. "The Navy has no plan for saving this ship. Their only contingency is to tow it to Curtis Bay, tie it up and let her sit there until she dies," he said.
That leaves the Constellation's fate in state and local hands. "Even should we fail in the [state] legislature, we have to make an effort to keep the project alive as long as the ship is alive," he said. "It would be morally reprehensible to lock the door and walk away."