10-05-2025
Where have S.F.'s historic ships gone? Not too far, actually
Very quietly, almost without notice, most of the ships in America's floating national park are sailing off from San Francisco to a new home port. They will be gone for a while — three to five years — until the National Park Service rebuilds the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco.
It was a bit of a shock to see the big old sailing ships missing from their berth when I drove by the northern edge of Fisherman's Wharf the other day. But it was a pleasant sight to see them tied up, flags flying, on the waterfront at Mare Island in Vallejo a few days later. It was as if a bit of San Francisco had moved out of town.
These ships are all part of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. The historic vessels docked at the foot of Hyde Street at the end of a cable car line make one of those classic scenes that define San Francisco: two tall ships, two tugboats and a big white ferryboat, the Golden Gate on one side, Alcatraz on the other. It's the ships that launched a thousand tourist photographs.
But the photographs don't show the problems that are inherent to places where the land and the sea meet. The historic fleet is based around the edges of San Francisco's beautiful Aquatic Park. Two piers enclose a lagoon, like bookends. On the west side is the concrete Municipal Pier, which acts as a breakwater. This pier has been crumbling away for years and is closed to the public.
On the other side is the Hyde Street Pier, where the historic ships were berthed. Hyde Street Pier had its origins as a ferry terminal a century ago. But time, the wind and the salt water weakened the pier; it must be totally rebuilt and the ships have to be moved. It was a bit like relocating senior citizens from an old house. It has to be done slowly and carefully.
The big old sailing ship Balclutha and the lumber schooner went first, along with the sidewheel tugboat Eppleton Hall. Later this month, the National Park Service expects to move the tugboat Hercules and the ferryboat Eureka to Mare Island.
It will be a new day for Mare Island, which has a complex history of its own. It has been the home port for everything from wooden gunboats to nuclear submarines.
The Navy base on Mare Island closed in 1996, and the island has been redeveloped for other uses — a shipyard, a college campus, training facilities, housing and the oldest golf course in the West. Mare Island has trees, lawns and a nice view of Vallejo across the channel.
And now it has historic ships. The Sailor Girl, my companion in small adventures, went to Mare Island with me to see the ships the other Sunday.
We couldn't go aboard, not yet. The National Park Service, which cares for the ships, has not gotten them settled in yet. But the Thayer and the Balclutha are tied up close to the dock and easy to see. Best of all, the two ships are berthed right next to the Mare Island Brewing Co. They used to store coal there in the Navy days. Now they make beer.
So we sat in the sun having lunch and a craft beer with a big old sailing ship in the background. Not a bad Sunday adventure.
We were surprised at how naturally the Balclutha fit in at the Mare Island shore. The old ship comes with stories, and one of them is its maiden voyage. The ship was brand new, 256 feet long, a full rigged ship with a hull of iron and steel, three masts and no engine when it sailed from the Port of Cardiff in Wales on Jan. 15, 1887, carrying 2,650 tons of coal bound for San Francisco. The trip took more than four months. Once the coal cargo was unloaded, the Balclutha was towed up San Francisco and San Pablo Bay to anchor in Carquinez Strait to load a cargo of grain for England.
So it should not have been a surprise the old ship looked comfortable on Mare Island. It had been that way before.
We talked a bit about the schooner I'd brought a book about the ship along. The Thayer had different stories.
It was a workhorse of a schooner. Built by a Dane named Hans Bendixen in his own shipyard near Eureka, in 1895 it carried lumber for years. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Thayer brought redwood lumber from Mendocino County to rebuild the city. The lumber company's dock was on Mission Creek, near where the baseball park is now. A San Francisco story.
After that, the ship sailed to Australia and the south seas. The ship was owned by 'Whitehead Pete' Nelson, one of those old time waterfront characters. 'His office was in his hat,' the author Harlan Trott said.
In later years, the Thayer operated in the codfish trade, working out of Puget Sound to Bristol Bay in Alaska, five months at sea on each voyage. When it arrived from its last season it carried 190,000 salted codfish, the final voyage of American flag commercial sailing vessels. In 1957, the state of California bought it for a new maritime park.
The Thayer had many close calls, and was nearly wrecked three times. The old ship was almost done in by old age and dry rot at least twice more over the years. It was rebuilt by craft workers at Bay Ship and Yacht Co. in Alameda not long ago and had some more work done in the past year, and when it was towed up to Mare Island last month it looked brand new, a 130-year-old survivor.
The park rangers are careful about what they say in these tough government times. But they couldn't hide their enthusiasm for the temporary berth at Mare Island. 'It will be good here,' one of them said. 'We'll be able to show these old ships to a whole new audience.''
