A Meeting of Minds: Alan Olson and Murray Hunt

By Steefenie Wicks
“A Yachting Party:
Captain Mathew Turner, a well-known shipbuilder of Benicia, recently extended to his friends, an invitation on board his brigantine the GALILEE.  The guests had a delightful cruse for a week, visiting many points of interest. As fine entertainers, Captain and Mrs. Turner cannot be challenged.”
 The above is from a newspaper article printed in Benicia in the late 1890’s.  The ship GALILEE, finished in February 1891, made her first runs to Papeete, Tahiti in 22 ½ days and averaged 28 ½ days in 21 consecutive trips.
A few years ago I was able to bring together two men with one thing in common, their personal love and respect for the ship builder Mathew Turner. They were Alan Olson of the educational Tall Ship Society and Murray Hunt, the great-step grandson of Mathew Turner.  Recently, I sat down with Murray and Alan to talk about Mathew Turner and the new tall ship that is being built by Alan’s organization.
Murray Hunt, a very sharp and witty 95 year old, is the great step-grandson of Mathew Turner.  He has for the last few years complied a book on Turner and has filled it with family information and photos of Turner in both Benica and his home in San Francisco. Murray explains that Captain Turner was the second husband of his great grandmother, Ashbeline Mary Smith Rundle: “I grew up with stories of Captain Turner and I wish I had taken more interest in them but he was kind of like the family ‘hero’.  A family man, he married my great grandmother after her husband died. He raised her children as his and made sure they each had a fine education and even named ships that he built after them.”
Murray recalls that the schooner DOLLY was named after his grandmother Charlotte Jane Rundle in 1897 and in 1882 the schooner EVA was named after his great aunt Eva Turner Rundle.  Then in 1889 Turner built another schooner called EVA and this one was named after his mother, Eva Turner Chapman.
I asked Murray what he thought of Alan’s new project, the building of the ship GALILEE, and he said, “It’s wonderful and I’m just glad that I’m alive and can be part of this wonderful piece of maritime history.”
Later, I asked Alan, why the GALILEE?
His response was straightforward:  “When the idea of building a tall ship came about, my organization and I looked around at all the ships that had been built in this area and we kept coming back to the most prolific ship builder of that time, Mathew Turner.  Once we started looking into the Turner boats, he built and designed over 240 wooden sailing ships in his lifetime; it became clear that our choice would be to build the GALILEE.”
Murrayt went on to say, “In her day the GALILEE was the fastest ship designed for transport. Her speed made her a natural for the U.S. Postal service, cargo delivery service and just plain good and safe sailing.  We hope to bring her back and achieve some of that old history that the vessel became known for.
“This GALILEE, will be built from scratch and we hope it will only take between 18 to 20 months, with the help of students and volunteer carpenters.   Currently, my organization, Call of the Sea, takes out around 4,000 students on the Bay in a year.  We are hoping we can take out between 10 to 12 thousand students to teach them about the most important feature of where we live, the water.”
Olson’s plan is to design, build and rig the ship with the same material and methods that Turner used, although the new vessel will have a motor, new electronics and many modern features to help make her journeys a little more comfortable.  Sailing and comfort do go together and Olson, who has skippered the 40 foot cat AWAKENING, the 70 foot brigantine STONE WITCH,  the 54 foot schooner MARAME and numerous other vessels, seems to know what he talking about. Currently, he’s captain of the 100-year-old ocean going tug MIRENE, Stewart Brand’s liveaboard home.
He built his first boat when he was 22 in Minneapolis.  She was a 40-foot catamaran and he sailed her down the Mississippi and into the Caribbean.  He says he always had a calling that seemed to lead him to the sea.  He and Murray start to differ here because when I asked Murray Hunt if he had the same love of sailing he shook his head in reply; it seems he gets seasick.
Hunt goes on to say, “My first water experience was mostly fresh water kayaking.
I joined the Sierra Club River Touring section on the Peninsula when I was living in Menlo Park.  We had a small group that liked to kayak together and we called ourselves the Loma Prieta Paddlers.  We did kayak trips on all the coastal and Foothill Rivers and even did some kayak surfing in Santa Cruz and Bolinas.
 “I envy Alan and what he has accomplished but I’m glad to be a little part of this project. It’s such a great tribute to my great step-grandfather Mathew Turner and for our families. “
Alan adds, “This project helps to maintain the maritime history that we are not only part of but share a duty in keeping this art of ship building alive for our future sailors.”
The brigantine keel-laying ceremony takes place October 19 from 1 to 3 pm at 2330 Marinship Way.


Murray Hunt (front) and Alan Olson.
Photo by Steefenie Wicks