M/V Ena K. carried mail, cargo, passengers Miami-Nassau over 1,000 times, late 1920s to mid 1940’s

by Eric Wiberg

Ena K. photographed at the dock in Nassau, 1937. This is the only known photo of this hardworking ship, though she plied between the capital and the US for some 20 years, 1927 to c.1947

Photo source: http://www.oldbahamas.com/id53.html, Bob Davies of the www.rumelier.com

MAILBOAT NAME: M/V Ena K.
PAST NAMES: none – she appears under the same name from 1927 to at least 1968

DIMENSIONS: 87.5′ LOA, 22.5′ beam, 9′ draft, 116 tons, listed as a schooner (later motor vessel) registered to Nassau, N.P., official number was 154264. Call sign in 1940 was VPRF,
CONSTRUCTION: wood – described as an “auxiliary motor schooner” in the 1920s to 1940s
YEAR BUILT: 1927
BUILDER: Harbour Island – exact builder not known
EARLY CAREER: supplanted the Isle of June on the Miami-Nassau run in late 1927
BAHAMAS CAREER: three weekly round trips from Miami to Nassau (no time for inter-island)
CAPTAINS: Capt. Charles A. Pettee
FATE: still sailing 1968, supplanted by the Betty K. on the Miami-Nassau run (see court case below)
OWNERS: Ena K. Company Limited, Nassau, Bahamas – Agents Albury & Co. of Nassau
NOTES: The Nassau papers in Spring 1942 made much of the Ena K.’s one thousandth round trip between Miami and Nassau, so she was a veteran of that route. Surprising more photos than the above are not available.

By 1930 her owner was listed as “Mrs. Maggie A. Kelly of Nassau, N.P.”

Author Kevin Griffin provided the following invaluable background information (comment below):

“Of Nassau’s freight services, the Ena Steamship Line provided a basic year-round passenger and summer mail service to and from Miami. Although the Windsors did not use it, the Duchess wrote a letter to her aunt in July noting that there were “shortages due to too few ships.” By September, she was writing that “the two little boats are gasping for breath – leaping back and forth between Miami and here – and things are difficult to have.”

Historian Kevin Griffin kindly provided the following:
 
“Of Nassau’s freight services, the Ena Steamship Line provided a basic year-round passenger and summer mail service to and from Miami. Although the Windsors did not use it, the Duchess wrote a letter to her aunt in July noting that there were “shortages due to too few ships.” By September, she was writing that “the two little boats are gasping for breath – leaping back and forth between Miami and here – and things are difficult to have.”

Of “the two little boats,” the 116-ton Ena K, built in 1927, could carry a dozen passengers and that January carried 15-year old Sidney Poitier to Miami to live with his older brother. A round trip in the Ena K cost $17.50, compared to $24.50 in the New Northland before the war. In the spring of 1942 the Ena K celebrated her 1,000th crossing to Miami. The other was the 164-ton Betty K, built in 1938. The “motor boats,” as the Duchess called them, offered sailings every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday in each direction between Nassau and Miami. Before the war, they had sailed from Miami at Noon and from Nassau at 2 pm but now they moved back and forth as cargo offered.

The vessels were named after the two daughters of Trevor Kelly, owner of the Kelly Lumber Company, who had started the service in 1920. The Miami agents were Saunders & Mader, who had also represented the Queen of Nassau and a number of other small ships in this service, and Nassau agents were Albury & Company. More than eighty years later, Betty K Agencies Ltd of Nassau would introduce the sixth and seventh ships of that name, the 1,457-ton Betty K VI in 2004 and 2,028-ton Betty K VII in 2006.”

 
Source: Mr. Griffin’s kind post on the “Ena K” entry (below), June 2014


During World War II she carried the officers and crew of O. A. KNUDSEN, CYGNET, KOLLSKEGG, ATHELQUEEN and DAYTONIAN to Miami from Nassau (the POTLATCH men flew). Probably she took the survivors of the ANGLO SAXON in 1940 too.

Source: http://collections.mun.ca/PDFs/mha_mercant/MercantileNavyList_1935_0866-1045.pdf

Ena K. certainly carried mail, as evidenced from the fact that today you can still buy stamps with the following lettering: “Seapost Mail British mv ‘Ena K’ Nassau, Bahamas”.

See http://stampauctionnetwork.com/zg/zg721524.cfm

After the hurricane of 1932 citizens in Miami chartered the Ena K. to bring supplies to Abaco (another ship mentioned in the same context was the Lady Cordeaux). See The Great Bahamian Hurricanes of 1899 and 1932: The Story of Two of the Greatest and Deadliest Hurricanes to Impact the Bahamas, By Wayne Neely, p.169

See http://books.google.com/books?id=vC38rhPM5A4C&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=Bahamas+ship+%22ena+K.%22&source=bl&ots=W2WvuBdP3q&sig=O1g-0_53WurkFA9UucUdDAAZ9R4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DJjTUYSmDMPK0wGl5YGoBw&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Bahamas%20ship%20%22ena%20K.%22&f=false

Ena K. was skippered in 1935 by Capt. Charles A. Pettee and agents were Saunders & Maden of Miami. She carried passengers, mails and freight from the P&O Docks in Miami to Nassau on a regular bases (over 1,000 round trips).

On August 28th 1938 the Bahama Brass Band from the Church of God of Prophecy voyaged from Miami to Nassau aboard the Ena K.

See The Making of A Band: A History of the World Famous Bahama Brass Band, By G. Sean Gibson, pp.26-27

http://books.google.com/books?id=Oj5j2NcG83YC&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=motor+vessel+%22ena+k%22+bahamas&source=bl&ots=r6y0-AMeHa&sig=Qmb2nM03GPioKlyEw1E_eXWzhPk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=i6LTUaTNOJO-4AP_mICgAQ&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=motor%20vessel%20%22ena%20k%22%20bahamas&f=false

In 1941 several American cyclists took the Ena K. from Miami to Nassau, as reported in “Our National Prexy Went Down South, When Polly Meets Polly”, by John S. Allen, League of American Wheelmen, Vol. III, Issue 4, April 1941.

See http://john-s-allen.com/LAW_1939-1955/LAW%20Bulletin/LAW_Bulletin_1941.pdf

A 1940 article in Miami states Albury & Co. of Nassau were the agents: “Albury & Co., Agents, Ena K. 28th March due 9 am with passengers and freight from Nassau / sails 29th”

SOURCES: Harbor Highlights, by Grover Theis – Waterfront Reporter for the Daily News,  The Miami News, March 27, 1940, page 4 A
The Miami News Aug 28 1938, By Cecil R Warren Staff Writer
“Isle of June, first to ply City-Nassau Route, to retire’
On Dec. 8, 1943 Ena K. was reported by US military officials and the RAF from Nassau to have been in distress 15 miles Northwest of Bimini. Its lighting of flares while it awaited a tow by a rescue vessel sent out from Miami was mistaken for military activity.

See http://www.fold3.com/image/270947826/ but there may be a pay wall.

In the early 1950s Ena K. evidently made calls at Tarpum Bay, Eleuthera, along with other vessels. According to this 2008 obituary for Ms. Olevia Allen of Tarpum Bay:

“In the early fifties she was the agent for the M/V: Priscilla, Ena K and the Alice Mable which docked out at sea and they board the dingy boat called the wagon and they came to the dock in Tarpum Bay every two weeks. She didn’t like the sun therefore she collected the freight in the evenings where she greeted and sold tickets to the community.”

See http://emeraldridgemortuary.com/memsol.cgi?user_id=817911

On October 8, 1964 the Ena K. was reported down-island in Dominica, offloading 10 tons of frozen fish and general cargo.  See the Dominica Herald, Harbour Log:

http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00102878/00086

In a 1968 legal case the Ena K. crew were found negligent in towing a fishing vessel named Tuna III from Florida to the West Indies – it sank in the first hour. See 391 F.2d 277: M/v Ena K and Blue Ribbon Shipping Co., Ltd., Appellants, v. Donald A. Monplaisir

See http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/391/277/133855/

In a “fictional” book the length of the “rustbucket” Bahamian freighter Ena K. is given as 200′ and her holds were 60′ X 20′ – seems large compared with the above photographs. It is after all fiction;
Adventures of a Pirate from Savannah: Memoirs, Exaggerations and Downright Lies, By J. Paulsen Helmken, see http://books.google.com/books?id=lAIAQZjMrbIC&pg=PA146&lpg=PA146&dq=freighter+ena+k+bahamas&source=bl&ots=PGcAH7Pr2a&sig=15OyFH0MGShoE6okValCgMYBn3I&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RJfTUfudNuXN0wGE-YCoAQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=freighter%20ena%20k%20bahamas&f=false