See Our Want List

CONTRIBUTIONS NEEDED!

PHASE ONE (HULL
RESTORATION) COMPLETE!!
SEE PHASE ONE THERMOMETER
NOW PHASE TWO!
DECK, CABIN, AND
MASTS & SPARS 

BECOME A GOLDEN RULE "PLANK OWNER"!
CONTRIBUTION FORM

Contributions to help us see our project through are as welcome as they are needed.

Please send your tax-deductible contributions, payable to "Veterans for Peace Golden Rule Project" to:

Veterans For Peace, Inc.
Golden Rule Project
P.O. Box 352
Redway, CA 95560

Things We Need
GOLDEN RULE
WANT ADS

LETTERS AND RESOLUTIONS OF SUPPORT FROM VFP CHAPTERS

VFP RESOLUTION TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR POWER

Summer 2012 issue.
"Peace Boat Will Sail Again"
by Fredy Champagne
(Download article .pdf format)

War Crimes Times www.warcrimestimes.org

Times-Standard (Eureka, CA) "Remember the Golden Rule; Humbolt County veterans to put last plank on historical boat"

March 3, 2012: Two years after the Golden Rule sank in Humboldt Bay during a storm, the vessel that was once used to protest militarism during the Cold War is now one plank away from being watertight again... Read More!

Wilmington News Journal (Wilmington, Ohio) "Ship which sailed against nuclear testing being restored"

Sept. 26, 2011: On Aug. 27, 2010, life was proceeding as usual in Wilmington, Ohio. However, 2,500 miles away, in the small coastal town of Eureka, Cal., the remains of a ship called the Golden Rule were found... Read more!

Sacramento Bee: "Peace
rises again at Humbolt Bay..."

Eureka, California Times Standard

Jan. 30, 2011: Remember the Golden Rule... A 30-foot wooden boat rests in a boat yard at the edge of Fairhaven. Planks of wood are missing from its hull – some torn out by rough waters, others carefully removed by the hands of men who see the small vessel as a symbol of peace and activism...
Read more!

George Mason University
History News Network 

Dec. 20, 2010: The "Golden Rule," the legendary 30-foot ketch that once terrified U.S. government officials, will return to the seas again this coming summer...
Read more!

Redwood Times
Nov. 24, 2010: Veterans for Peace Begin Restoration of sailing Ketch
Read more!

North Coast Journal
BROKEN ARROW
Sept. 9, 2010: Humboldt Bay’s legendary anti-nuke ship puts in for repairs...
Read more!

Asia-Pacific Journal:
Japan Focus
Recently, when a battered, 30-foot sailboat, the Golden Rule, came to rest in a small shipyard in northern California, the event did not inspire fanfare.  But, in fact, the Golden Rule was far more important than it appeared...
Read more! 

DOWNLOAD OUR
BROCHURE

NOTE: Our brochure contains a convenient contribution form.

PLEASE SUBMIT COMMENTS
AND QUESTIONS TO:

GOLDEN RULE PROJECT
fchampagne@asis.com

CONTRIBUTOR INPUT
AND VISITOR COMMENTS
THE GOLDEN RULE PROJECT

SAGA OF THE GOLDEN RULE
from Aug. 1958 issue of
The SKIPPER magazine
by Peggy Reynolds

www.veteransforpeace.org

Grandmothers for Peace
http://www.grandmothersforpeace.org 

VETERANS' VIET NAM
RESTORATION PROJECT
http://www.vvrp.org

VIETNAM
FRIENDSHIP VILLIAGE PROJECT
http://www.vietnamfriendship.org/ 

Peace Monuments

Jessica Reynolds
Shaver Renshaw's blog

HELP SAVE THE PHOENIX
An Open Letter From
Naomi Reynolds

 VFP Iraq Water Project http://www.iraqwaterproject.org/  

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq

Relatives of Golden Rule

RESTORATION
PROGRESS PHOTOS

Aug. 2010
Before Beginning

Sept. 2010
Sitting Upright

CLICK TO GO TO
PHOTOS PAGE

The Golden Rule off Diamond Head, Hawaii, April 1958

THE GOLDEN RULE PROJECT MISSION

The mission of the Golden Rule Project of Veterans for Peace (VFP) is to repair, restore and renovate the famous sailing ketch, the Golden Rule. This little ship was sailed by four brave crewmen, led by Albert Bigelow, in an attempt to stop atmospheric nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands.  They were boarded by the US Coast Guard, arrested, and the boat towed back to Honolulu, twice.

Veterans For Peace, together with friends of the Golden Rule, will once again sail this vessel in opposition to militarism and the manufacture, testing, and use of nuclear weapons. Over a period of years, we plan for the Golden Rule to take its message of peace far and wide – on all three coasts, as well as the Great Lakes and inland waterways.

FOLLOW OUR PROGRESS HERE 

HISTORIC PHOTOS OF GOLDEN RULE
A vessel with a mission

Photos and drawing credits: The Albert Bigelow Papers, Swarthmore College Peace Collection and Hawaiian "Friends."

A TRIBUTE TO THE GOLDEN RULE CREW

There can be no greater honor than to carry on the legacy of the four very brave men who sailed the Golden Rule in 1958. In their challenge to nuclear weapons testing, these men set a very high bar for those future activists to follow in their footsteps. Our project to restore and sail the Golden Rule is in tribute to the memory of Albert S. Bigelow, captain, Orion W. Sherwood, William R. Huntington, and George Willoughby. We cannot let the story and record of men like these, and their deeds, pass from the memory of our younger generation of activists.   The Golden Rule will sail again in opposition to militarism. 

WHY THE GOLDEN RULE?

Lawrence S. Wittner, professor of history at  State University of New York/Albany, put it into context in his February 8^th, 2010 article entitled, "Preserving the Golden Rule," quoted here from the Huffington Post:

The Golden Rule is in danger. No, not the famed ethical code – though proponents of selfishness certainly have ignored it – but a thirty-foot sailboat of the same name that rose to prominence about half a century ago.

The remarkable story of the Golden Rule began in the late 1950s, as the world public grew increasingly concerned about preparations for nuclear war. In the United States, the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) was launched in November 1957, and polls showed rising uneasiness about the nuclear arms race – especially giant atmospheric nuclear weapons tests that spewed radioactive fallout around the globe.

Although SANE quickly became the largest peace organization in the United States, smaller groups, committed to civil disobedience, sprang up as well. One of them, Non-Violent Action Against Nuclear Weapons, drew the participation of Albert Bigelow, a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy during World War II. With the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Bigelow had concluded that "morally, war is impossible," and a month before he became eligible for his pension, he resigned from the U.S. Navy reserve. Joining the Society of Friends, he plunged into the growing campaign of resistance to nuclear weapons.

In January 1958, Bigelow and three other pacifists wrote to President Dwight Eisenhower of their plan to sail the Golden Rule into the U.S. nuclear testing zone in the Pacific. "For years we have spoken and written of the suicidal military preparations of the Great Powers," they declared, "but our voices have been lost in the massive effort of those responsible for preparing this country for war. We mean to speak now with the weight of our whole lives." They hoped their act would "say to others: Speak Now."...

Read the whole article here: 

Click to Download
Full Sized Poster (.PDF File)

FUNDING PROGRESS

$50,000.00 was raised during the first two years of the project to restore the Golden Rule. Restoration of the hull, the installation of a new engine, and completion of deck beams completed "Phase One." 

Now for Phase Two! which will hopefully bring us to the rigging and outfitting stage.