The Marshall Islands did issue a sheetlet of nine 25c stamps on 19 July 1988 which presented a pictorial guide to the writer Robert Louis Stevenson’s self-imposed exile to the Pacific during journeys undertaken from 1888 until 1893.
When the Stevenson arrived in San Francisco he chartered the yacht CASCO for seven months at $500 a month plus expenses from Dr. Samuel Merrit, a native of Maine, living in San Francisco.
The name CASCO comes from Casco Bay on which the city of Portland is situated.
She was built in 1878 by Mears and Havens at San Francisco, with a tonnage of around 70 tons, dim. 76 feet bpp., length overall 94 feet, beam 21.59 feet and a depth of 8.6 ft., draught 10 ft.
Two masts, rigged as a schooner.
Copper fastened throughout and built of mahogany, the same wood used in the cabin fittings, which where luxuriously carved.
26 June 1888 the Stevenson family embarked on board the CASCO and 28 June she sailed out under command of Capt. A.H.Otis. The CASCO sailed from the San Francisco bay bound for the Marquesas Islands.
The CASCO carried much canvas and was a swift sailer, the first 24 hours of the voyage she covered 356 miles.
28 July 1888 she dropped anchor in Anaho Bay in Nuki-Hiva in the Marquesas. After three weeks she sailed from there and cruised along the coral atolls of Tuamotus. Spent 4 weeks at Fakarava.
Arrived at Papeete, Tahiti in the first week of October 1888.
Due to Stevenson health she sailed to a milder side of the island to Tautira, where the Stevenson family stayed behind as guest of Chief Ori, and the CASCO sailed back to Papeete to repair the two dry-rotted masts.
Around Christmas 1888 the mast and some other repair were completed and the CASCO after picking up his guests at Tautira sailed out bound for Honolulu, Hawaii.
At Hawaii the charter was ended and the CASCO handed back to his owner.
Thereafter she was used mostly from Vancouver harbour, with long lay ups in this port.
1892 Sold to the Victoria Sealing Company, the mahogany moldings and other valuable items stripped out, and thereafter she was used as a sealer on the West Coast for the hunt for seals on the Arctic shores for 10 months a year, before returning to Victoria.
1898 The sealing was approaching exhaustion, and the CASCO was sold again, records of her ownership are vague, but she was famous for smuggling on the West Coast of the USA, crossing many times the Pacific to China, Japan and Hong Kong to load all sorts of contraband for the West Coast of the USA.
Around 1911 was she bought by J Sydney Smit of Vancouver and refitted in a fishery vessel, a gasoline auxiliary fitted in by the King & Winge shipyard at Seattle thereafter used for the halibut fisheries.
During 1913/14 she lay idle in Vancouver harbour, and thereafter used by the Vancouver Sea Scouts as a training vessel.
During the war used as a supply vessel.
1919 Sold to a group of investors who were looking for gold on the Siberian coast.
Under command of Capt C.L.Oliver, who had never been to sea before she sailed out with a crew 29 men of which only two were experienced seamen.
The CASCO reached the Bearing Strait, but by early September she was driven south by ice and storms. Then the captain decided to head for Alaska.
But when she met a severe storm on 9 September 1919 she was driven into the ice of King Island, and the hull was fractured and within minutes the CASCO sank, the crew was lucky they escaped to the shore.
Marshall Islands 1988 25c sg 176/7.
Source4: Log Book. Magellan Ship Biographies. http://www.rosslaird.info/essays/casco.php Watercraft Philately http://www.janesoceania.com/oceania_rls/