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The interest in the maritime past of
the San Francisco area has always been of interest to the inhabitants of
that city. There have been many exhibitions and displays over the years,
but no actual museum was evident until real progress was made in 1949.
An old casino located on the waterfront was refurbished and became the
first West Coast Maritime Museum in May 1951. The National Maritime
Museum of San Francisco (now known as the San Francisco Maritime
National Historical Park) has thousands of artifacts, paintings and ship
fittings along with many fine ship models. They also have a great
collection of books, records, blueprints and logbooks devoted to the
maritime past of San Francisco and the West Coast.
One of the main features of the National Maritime Museum of San
Francisco is the large fleet of ships that are part of the museum. The
beginning of this fleet was the Cape Horner Balclutha. She was purchased
by the Museum Association, refurbished, and rechristened on July 19,
1955. The Museum had here first ship. This has since grown to one of the
largest fleets of floating historic vessels in the world.
The ship Balclutha is a floating museum all by herself. You can walk her
decks and get some idea of her past. Charles Connell and Company of
Glasgow, Scotland originally launched her in 1886. Her early days were
spent as a merchant ship. As such, she sailed around Cape Horn 17 times
making voyages throughout the world, 4 of which lead her around Cape
Horn to visit San Francisco delivering wine and spirits, hardware and
coal, and taking away California grain. The next chapter in her life saw
her hauling lumber from the sawmills of Puget Sound to Australia from
1899 to 1902.
Her story almost ended before it began as far as San Francisco is
concerned. She signed on in 1904 to be part of the Alaska salmon trade.
Nineteen days out of San Francisco on her way to Karluk, Kodiak Island,
to deliver cannery workers and supplies to the Karluk canneries,
Balclutha ran into trouble. On a misty moonlight midnight of May 16,
1904 as she was racing through the strait between the Trinity Islands
and Chirikof Island Captain Bremer realized something was amiss and
ordered a reduction of sail. The order came to late, however, as she hit
land while they were trying to take in the sail. Pandemonium immediately
broke out on the ship. Order was restored, however, and throughout the
night and into the next day all of the crew and passengers were ferried
ashore, followed by supplies off the ship. It was a mile to shore. The
ship was perched on a reef and heeled over with sails flapping. Captain
Bremer had been 50 miles northeast of his course and had entered the
almost unnavigable Sitkinak Strait.
The wreck of the Balclutha was not the disaster it might have been. No
lives were lost. The seas at the time of the accident were calm and
remained so throughout the next several weeks. Although Captain Bremer
described her as a total wreck, the Alaska Packers Association thought
otherwise. The Balclutha was only 18 years old and worth in excess of
$50,000 in operating condition. Their operating agent offered Captain
Bremer $500 for the ship, which he accepted. The Balclutha was then
salvaged, an operation which dragged into July of 1905. In the spring of
1906 she again set sail for the Alaskan salmon trade, this time as the
Star of Alaska. She would serve her new owners for the next 24 years in
this capacity. In 1929 she made her final voyage in this capacity.
Thus her working career ended, but like many “lucky” ships, she found a
new lease in life through an unlikely source. In 1933 she was purchased
by Frank Kissinger and given a new name, Pacific Queen. She was garishly
painted (brilliant red masts and spars for starters) and toured the West
Coast as a “pirate ship.” If you paid 50 cents you could go aboard and
see the stuffed scarecrows that represented pirates, etc. She did play a
small bit in the movie Mutiny on the Bounty in 1934. The one thing
Kissinger did do was save the ship from the scrape pile during WWII, as
most of her sisters were taken apart for scrape metal.
She went from port to port until her welcome was exhausted. Tex
Kissinger continued to live aboard her with his wife. They finally were
forced to beach the ship on the Marin mud flats, but they continued to
live aboard her. In 1952 the ship could be seen from the museum’s third
floor slowing being battered to death on the mud flats. In 1953 efforts
were made to purchase the ship. After a lot of effort put forth by a
number of people, she was finally acquired by the museum in 1954. A lot
more effort was expended restoring her to her original condition. Labor
unions gave 13,000 hours of free labor and firms kicked in over $100,000
in goods and services. On July 19, 1955, Balclutha was towed to pier 43
at Fisherman’s Wharf and rechristened. In her first 12 months she
brought in $93,000 in admission revenues, solidifying the museum
financially and opening up the possibility of further ship acquisitions.
A fine scratch built model of the Balclutha is at the museum. If any
single model should represent the National Maritime Museum of San
Francisco I think it should be this one. The model is 1/8” to the foot
and was built by Captain Christian A. Halverson about 1940. Captain
Halverson was a Senior Master of the Alaska Packers Association, who had
sailed the ship north to Alaska every year between 1906 and 1913. He
left a detailed record of the ship as he knew her prior to the extension
of the poop deck in 1911. Thus the model itself is a document of part of
the life of the ship.
There is an effort to obtain ship models of all the ships that the
museum currently has (see accompanying article). Other ships now on
exhibit are the sailing schooner C. A. Thayer, ferryboat Eureka, liberty
ship Jeremiah O’Brien, WWII submarine Pampanito, steam tug Hercules,
paddle-wheel tug Eppleton Hall, schooner Alma, and the steam schooner
Wapama.
Many other excellent ship models along with artifacts from ships and the
sea are on display in the museum. There is a very fine collection of
modern ship models including warships and merchant ships. All in all, a
very enjoyable day or two can be spent at the National Maritime Museum
of San Francisco. The John Lyman Reading Room provides a pleasant
setting for research or recreational reading. For those interested, more
information can be obtained from the internet.
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