Lloyd Bergeson, 89; shipbuilder warned early of global warming
By Bryan Marquard, Boston Globe Staff, March 22, 2007
Lloyd Bergeson sailed his sloop, Cockatoo II, to Norway in the late 1970s. His company explored ways for wind to propel cargo ships.
Tracing in reverse the ocean passage his grandfather made immigrating from Norway to North America, Lloyd Bergeson was within sight of his ancestral home in 1978 when he realized the northern fulmar that had flown alongside his sloop had disappeared.
"He had seen me through my travails in the North Sea," Mr. Bergeson wrote in the ship's log on his solo voyage. "He had been a stalwart companion and a bolster to my spirits. And I had gained a new respect for the Hindu belief that the souls of humans are transplanted to birds and animals after death. Could this bird have borne the soul of some ocean-cruising Viking, or perhaps even that of my grandfather Ola?"
Guided by ancestry and ambition, Mr. Bergeson spent more than 50 years as a shipbuilder. He planned the construction of nuclear submarines, managed the General Dynamics shipyard in Quincy, and founded a company that created ways for sails to propel modern cargo ships. He also was an early voice in the global warming debate, though his warnings in the 1960s were too prescient and perhaps too insistent to sway many he hoped to influence.
Mr. Bergeson died Feb. 20 in Valley Terrace, an assisted living facility in White River Junction, Vt., where he moved a couple of years ago when his health began declining. He was 89 and previously had lived in Norwell for about 30 years.
"I think he had probably the highest standards of integrity of anybody I've ever met. He expected everybody to respond with that same degree of integrity, both in the workplace and everywhere he went," said his daughter Eliza of Cornish, N.H. "When he became interested in global warming back in the mid-'60s . . . he just felt that if you knew about something, you needed to do something about it. It was very challenging for everybody around him because not everyone has that degree of pragmatism."
He grew up in Newton Centre, the youngest of three children. His grandfathers were physicians, as was his father, who died when Mr. Bergeson was 10. The legacy of family achievement emboldened him to seek a grand career of his own and he enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"He told me one time he was just inspired by his grandfathers, who were both doctors, to take on things that were larger than himself," said his son, Henry of Conifer, Colo.
While in college, Mr. Bergeson worked summers as a shipfitter's helper at Bath Iron Works in Maine. He graduated from MIT in 1938 with a degree in naval architecture and marine engineering, and two years later began work at Cramp Shipbuilding in Philadelphia, rising to become head of production control as the company built vessels for use during World War II.
By the early 1950s, Mr. Bergeson was working at the General Dynamics electric boat division in Groton, Conn., helping plan and build nuclear submarines. He became a consultant during the 1960s before rejoining General Dynamics in 1969 to head the Quincy shipbuilding division.
After leaving the company, he helped lead an unsuccessful attempt to create a new commercial shipyard in Boston, then returned to consulting. In 1978 he founded Wind Ship Development, creating a sailing rig that cut fuel costs for cargo ships by more than 24 percent. In 1994, the American Society of Naval Engineers gave Mr. Bergeson the Harold E. Saunders Award for his contributions to the field.
His concerns about climate change began when he was living with his wife, Carol, and children in Noank on the Connecticut coast.
"The water temperature was changing and the wind patterns were changing, and he found it alarming," his daughter said. "He collected every article he could. I have boxes and boxes of articles he collected over the years."
Mr. Bergeson began writing letters to everyone from family members to world leaders, trying to direct attention to what he saw as a looming crisis.
"I got my first letter from my Dad about global warming in '65," his daughter said. "He was aware of the dire changes that would be coming along very early. He's been right all along."
In 1978, Mr. Bergeson decided to sail his sloop, Cockatoo II, across the Atlantic Ocean from Maine to Norway -- an homage to his Norwegian grandfather, who sailed with his own family from Norway to Montreal in the mid-1800s. While the solo trip had its eventful moments, nothing compared to the return journey the following summer, when he and his son tried to sail the sloop home.
On July 12, 1979, a little past 4 a.m., father and son were in their bunks.
"We sailed off the back of this wave," Henry said. "The weight went out from under your feet and then it came slamming down."
The impact when the boat hit the waves damaged the hull. The two spent about 40 hours pumping water and attempting repairs until the boat's radio distress signal drew assistance from a cargo ship. During rare moments of rest, they had time to contemplate what might happen next.
"I think it was pretty life-changing for both of us," Henry said. "It sort of sounds weird, but I would sit there and rest for a while and go up on deck and watch these humongous waves and think, 'Well, it's going to be a month before anyone knows something is wrong.' I wasn't really concerned about dying. It sort of gave me some affirmation of God out there."
Rescued and brought aboard the cargo ship, they left the sloop to its fate in the waves.
"Cockatoo II had never looked more lovely," Mr. Bergeson wrote. "It was but a snapshot. By midnight the last pinprick of light from her had vanished into the dark night."
For the past couple of years he still turned his thoughts toward boats on walks with his daughter to the Connecticut River, which flowed near his home in Vermont en route to the sea.
"We went down almost every day it was warm," Eliza said, "and we'd watch the water and think about the shipping that must have happened there."
In addition to his wife, of Lebanon, N.H., his daughter, and his son, Mr. Bergeson leaves two other daughters, Kathryn Jensen of Captain Cook, Hawaii, and Edie Griffiths of Kimberton, Pa.; a granddaughter; and a grandson.
A memorial service will be held at 1:30 p.m. on May 12 in First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church in Bedford.
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