When the book A History of Turtlers and Schooners of the Cayman Islands launched at the Cayman Turtle Centre in July 2023, it brought together 312 pages of stories that had been scattered across family memories, colonial records, and the wreckage of a hurricane. The project nearly collapsed in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan destroyed the Cayman Catboat Club’s clubhouse, along with its fleet of catboats and stored materials. Suzy Soto compiled and fact-checked the text and historical photographs, and Jerris Miller, chairman of the Cayman Maritime Heritage Foundation and president of the Cayman Catboat Club, wrote the introduction. Grants from Cable and Wireless, Caribbean Utilities Company, and later HSBC kept the project alive.
This article traces what the turtle schooner era reveals about Caymanian identity: a society that built ships from local materials, traveled thousands of miles across open water in vessels under 100 feet, and survived losses that would have ended smaller communities. It’s for readers curious about how small-island societies develop maritime cultures — not just for travelers planning a trip, but for anyone interested in the relationship between necessity, risk, and identity.
Cayman’s maritime heritage is not a single story of heroic seafaring. It’s a history of economic necessity, environmental pressure, and extraordinary risk — and it’s still being pieced together from archives and oral histories that survived a hurricane and decades of neglect. The book documents 299 sailing vessels registered in Cayman between 1850 and 1951, but the full picture remains incomplete.
| Vessel | Type | Key detail |
|---|---|---|
| R.L. Hustler | Schooner | Built in Grand Cayman, launched 1931. Lost in a hurricane on 18 October 1940 with all 13 aboard. |
| Nunoca | 110-foot motor schooner | Built in George Town, 1932. Sank after an engine explosion and fire in 1936. All 22 crew and passengers lost. |
| Horace M. Bickford | Schooner | Rescued the crew of the schooner Campania after both ships were wrecked, then was itself wrecked later. |
| Campania | Schooner | Wrecked; crew rescued by the Horace M. Bickford. |
| Artemis | Turtle schooner | Nearly lost by Captain Benny Bodden en route to Tampa one month after the Bickford encounter. |
The vessels listed above represent only a fraction of the 299 ships registered between 1850 and 1951. Each one carried crews who spent months at sea, far from the islands’ shores. The stories that survive — in archives, in family memory, and in the pages of Soto’s book — offer a window into a world that has all but disappeared.
The Turtle Schooner Economy
Turtling was the economic mainstay of the Cayman Islands for generations. Men sailed to the Miskito Bank off the coast of Nicaragua, where green turtles were abundant, using catboats carried on larger schooners. The catboats were launched from the mother ship to hunt turtles in the shallow banks. The catch was brought back to Grand Cayman, where turtle meat and shells were sold locally and exported.
By the 1930s, overharvesting had forced fishermen to travel further to find turtles. The same pattern repeated across the Caribbean: abundance led to overexploitation, which pushed the fishery farther afield. Caymanian turtlers became some of the most experienced seafarers in the region, simply because they had to go farther and stay longer to bring home a catch.
If you want to understand the scale of the turtle fishery, visit the Cayman Turtle Centre in West Bay. The facility includes exhibits on the history of turtling alongside its conservation programs. The book launch was held there in 2023, and the centre’s context helps connect the maritime past with present-day efforts to protect green turtles.
From the 1930s to the 1950s, most Caymanian men were employed in shipbuilding and later as merchant marines. Young men joined merchant ships from age 17, gaining experience that attracted shipping agents to the islands. This shift from turtling to wage labor on foreign vessels reshaped the economy and the culture. The skills that had been developed over generations — navigation, boat handling, endurance — became exportable commodities.
Shipbuilding from Island Resources
Caymanians built ships using materials the islands provided. Silver thatch palm was used for rope, which had to withstand saltwater and heavy loads. Coral fans served as sieves for flour. Fish skins were used for scrubbing. The washwood plant provided a natural soap. These innovations reflect a society that had to make do with what the islands offered, far from the ship chandlers of larger ports.
The 299 vessels registered between 1850 and 1951 were built largely from local timber, and the skills were passed down through families. Two great-grandsons of pioneering schooner families — the Arches and the Millers — navigated the final publication of Soto’s book, a direct line of transmission from the shipbuilders of the 19th century to the historians of the 21st.
Shipbuilding was not a romantic craft — it was a survival skill. The same silver thatch palm used for rope was also used for roofing. The same timber used for hulls was used for houses. The line between building a ship and building a home was thin, and both required knowledge of the island’s limited resources.
Survival and Loss on the High Seas
The maritime heritage of the Cayman Islands is defined as much by disaster as by skill. The stories that survive in Soto’s book are often tales of what went wrong — and what people did when it did.
Andrew Powery swam 11 miles to get help after being shipwrecked in the 1932 hurricane off the Miskito Cays in Nicaragua. The exact distance is still debated in local accounts, but the feat itself is uncontested: he reached shore, found assistance, and saved lives. Captain Arnold Conolly manned the wheel for two straight days in 1940, refusing to leave his post in storm conditions that would have forced most crews to heave to and wait.
The R.L. Hustler, built in Grand Cayman and launched in 1931, was lost in a hurricane on 18 October 1940 with all 13 aboard. The Nunoca, a 110-foot motor schooner built in George Town in 1932, sank after an engine explosion and fire in 1936 with all 22 crew and passengers lost. Among the dead was Aneza, the grandmother of Loxley Banks, whose husband Captain Lorrine Henning commanded the vessel. Their 10-year-old son Sam had remained on Grand Cayman.
Captain Benny Bodden, known as “Red Head Benny,” left Cayman at 17 and sailed on the schooner Campania and the Horace M. Bickford. The Horace M. Bickford rescued the crew of the Campania after both ships were wrecked, then was wrecked itself. One month after that encounter, Captain Bodden nearly lost the Artemis, a Cayman turtle schooner, en route to Tampa. He survived, returned to Cayman, and his story is one of the more detailed accounts in the book.
The question of how many vessels and lives were lost during the turtle schooner era remains unresolved. The book lists 299 ships, but the records are incomplete. Hurricane Ivan destroyed materials that might have filled gaps. Some families have oral histories that have never been written down.
Context and Comparison
The Cayman Islands’ maritime tradition sits within a broader Caribbean pattern of small-island seafaring, but with distinct features. Unlike the larger islands, Cayman had no plantation economy to speak of — emancipation in 1835 and geographic isolation created a relatively homogenous society that depended on the sea for survival, not for export agriculture. This shaped a different kind of maritime culture: one focused on fishing and shipbuilding rather than on the carrying trade between colonies.
| Aspect | Turtle schooner era (1850–1950) | Modern Cayman (post-1960) |
|---|---|---|
| Primary economy | Turtling, shipbuilding, merchant marine | Tourism, financial services |
| Relationship with the sea | Subsistence and livelihood | Recreation and transport |
| Vessel technology | Sailing schooners, catboats, early motor schooners | Air travel, cruise ships, recreational boats |
| Labor force | Young men from age 17, family-based crews | Expatriate workers in tourism and finance |
A common misconception is that Cayman’s maritime heritage is exclusively about turtling. In fact, shipbuilding was equally important, and by the 1940s and 1950s, most Caymanian men worked as merchant marines on foreign vessels. The turtle schooner was the starting point, not the whole story.
The shift from sail to motor changed the economics of the fishery. The Nunoca, built in 1932, was a motor schooner — a hybrid that could rely on engine power when the wind failed. But the 1936 explosion that sank the Nunoca and killed all 22 on board highlighted the dangers of early marine engines. The transition from sail to motor was not straightforward, and many Caymanian captains continued to prefer sail for its reliability.
- Cayman’s maritime heritage was driven by necessity, not choice — the islands had few other resources to exploit.
- The 299 vessels registered between 1850 and 1951 represent a shipbuilding tradition that used local materials and passed skills through families.
- Losses like the R.L. Hustler and the Nunoca were community-scale disasters that shaped collective memory.
- The heritage is still being reconstructed from archives and oral histories, and the record remains incomplete.
Questions Readers Ask
What exactly was a turtle schooner?
A turtle schooner was a sailing vessel used to hunt green turtles on the Miskito Bank off Nicaragua. Schooners carried smaller catboats that were launched to chase and capture turtles. The catch was brought back to Grand Cayman for local consumption and export.
The schooners themselves were typically under 100 feet in length and carried crews of 10 to 15 men. Voyages could last weeks or months. The Cayman Compass article on the book launch provides additional context on the scale of the fleet.
How did Caymanians build ships with limited resources?
They used local timber for hulls, silver thatch palm for rope, and improvised tools and materials from whatever the islands provided. Coral fans became flour sieves, fish skins became scrubbing pads, and the washwood plant was used for soap. Shipbuilding was a practical skill passed down through families, not a formal industry.
The 299 vessels registered between 1850 and 1951 were built in small yards around Grand Cayman, often by the same families who would sail them.
What happened to the turtle schooner fleet?
Most of the fleet was lost to hurricanes, shipwrecks, or simple obsolescence. The R.L. Hustler went down in 1940 with all hands. The Nunoca exploded and sank in 1936. Others were sold, abandoned, or repurposed as engine power replaced sail. By the 1960s, the era of the turtle schooner was effectively over.
The Catboat Club’s fleet was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, a loss that nearly derailed the book project. The maritime heritage now lives on in archives, photographs, and the pages of Soto’s book.
Can I still see a turtle schooner today?
No original turtle schooners are known to survive in Cayman waters. The vessels that remain exist only in photographs — many from the UK National Archives and Colonial Office photographic collection — and in the historical records compiled by the Cayman Maritime Heritage Foundation.
The Cayman Catboat Club maintains small catboats, and the Cayman Turtle Centre includes exhibits on the maritime past. But the schooners themselves are gone.
What the Schooner Era Leaves Behind
The turtle schooner era lasted roughly a century, from the 1850s to the 1950s. In that time, Caymanians built hundreds of vessels, traveled thousands of miles, and lost dozens of ships and hundreds of lives. The economic return was modest — turtle meat and shell, later wages from merchant ships — but the cultural return was immense. The islands developed a reputation for skilled seafarers that outlasted the fleet itself.
What remains is not a museum of preserved ships but a collection of stories, photographs, and the resilience of a community that survived the loss of both its vessels and its way of life. The book that nearly didn’t survive Hurricane Ivan is now the definitive record of that era. The Cayman Maritime Heritage Foundation continues to document and preserve what remains. For a deeper look at how Caymanian identity has evolved, Modern Cayman, Ancient Roots: Preserving Cultural Identity in a Globalized Island traces the thread from the schooner days to the present.
Sources and further reading
McKenzie-Cahill, Hilary. “New book tells of heroism and hardship on the high seas.” Cayman Compass, 2023. 🔗
“The Seafaring History of the Cayman Islands.” Cayman Enterprise City. 🔗
Related reading on IslandHopperGuides
Beyond the Beaches: Exploring Cayman’s Artistic Heart in George Town — Traces how Cayman’s visual arts scene reflects the islands’ maritime and environmental history.
Traditions in Tune: Cayman Islands Folk Music in Everyday Life — Examines how seafaring songs and shore traditions continue in Cayman’s folk music.
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