Gilbert Klingel facts for kids

Gilbert Clarence Klingel (1908–1983) was a truly amazing person! He was a naturalist, boat builder, adventurer, photographer, and author. He wrote for the Baltimore Sun and worked with the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He was also a curator for the Natural History Society of Maryland. Klingel is most famous for his book about the Chesapeake Bay, called The Bay. This book even won a special award, the John Burroughs Medal, in 1953.

Gilbert Klingel's Adventures and Books

Shipwrecked on Inagua: The Ocean Island

Gilbert Klingel loved building boats. When he was 20, in the early 1930s, he built a special boat called BASILISK. It was a 37-foot yawl, which is a type of sailboat. He named it after a lizard that can run on water! Klingel wanted to use BASILISK as a floating lab to study rare animals, especially lizards, in the West Indies.

In November 1930, Klingel and his friend W. Wallace Coleman set sail from Maryland. They planned an 18-month trip. But a big storm hit their boat. Their navigation tools broke, and they got lost. On December 10, 1930, they were shipwrecked on Inagua island in the Bahamas. Even though they lost most of their equipment, Klingel decided to stay. He used his salvaged cameras to take pictures and explore the island.

This exciting adventure became his first book, Inagua (also called The Ocean Island). It tells the story of his voyage and what he discovered about the island's flora (plants) and fauna (animals). The book was so popular that it was translated into many languages!

Exploring the Chesapeake: The Bay

Klingel's second book, The Bay, is all about the Chesapeake Bay. He wrote it based on articles he had published in the Baltimore Sun. The book describes the Chesapeake Bay from his childhood memories. It also includes a detailed look at the animals and sounds both above and below the water's surface. In 1953, this book won the famous John Burroughs Medal.

Chesapeake Wilds and Boatbuilding

Klingel also wrote Seeing Chesapeake Wilds. This book is a Photo-essay about the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. It features beautiful photographs by Byron Parker Shurtleff and poetic text by Klingel.

His final book, Boatbuilding With Steel, was published in 1973. It's considered a very important book for anyone interested in building boats out of steel or aluminum.

Articles and Underwater Discoveries

Gilbert Klingel wrote many articles for magazines like National Geographic and The Baltimore Sun. Most of his articles were about the Chesapeake Bay.

One famous article was "One Hundred Hours Beneath the Chesapeake" in National Geographic (May 1955). It featured amazing color photos taken underwater by Willard R. Culver. These were some of the first photos ever taken from inside a special diving vessel invented by Klingel! This vessel was lowered into the waters off Gwynn's Island in the Chesapeake Bay.

Klingel also wrote for Natural History - The Journal of the American Museum of Natural History. His articles included "Lizard Hunting in the Black Republic" and "Shipwrecked on Inagua." Another article, "The Edge of the Edge of the World," described a dive he took with a diving helmet near a coral reef off Inagua. He explored the edge of a very deep drop-off, about 1,200 fathoms (over a mile!) deep.

In 1928–1929, Klingel filmed silent black and white movies of rhinoceros iguanas. He found these lizards on a small coral island off the coast of Haiti. He also helped discover new species of geckos and a new subspecies of lizard on Great Inagua Island.

Boat Builder and Inventor

During World War II, Gilbert Klingel worked for ARMCO Steel Corporation in Baltimore. He became the Chief of Metallurgy there, which means he was an expert in how metals work.

Even while working, he built his first steel boat at home on weekends in 1947. He loved building boats so much that in 1953, he bought land on an island off Virginia's Middle Peninsula. There, he started the Gwynn's Island Boat Yard. He built his own workshop and slipway (a ramp for launching boats). When he retired from ARMCO in 1963, he moved to the island permanently.

Klingel built about a dozen steel sailboats, including the 31-foot FREYA and PLEIADES. He also built larger boats like the 42-foot ketch D'VARA and the 51-foot schooner PIPISTRELLE. For his own retirement, he built a 30-foot steel scow motorsailer called GREEN HERON in 1977. It was nicknamed CREEK CRAWLER and was the last boat launched from his yard.

Besides these boats, Klingel also built two special diving bells. These were called BENTHARIUM and AQUASCOPE. He used them for his research in the Chesapeake Bay. The AQUASCOPE is now on display at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland.

Gilbert C. Klingel passed away on May 16, 1983, in Virginia, at the age of 74. You can learn more about his life and work at a permanent exhibit at the Gwynn's Island Museum in Gwynn, Mathews County, Virginia.