By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society
The recent announcement of the maiden educational voyage of the tall ship Matthew Turner marks the culmination of an ambitious project to recreate an iconic Sausalito vessel. But it reminded me that not all such projects succeed. Take the case of the historic steam schooner Wapama,
ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Poster commemorating the Wapama by Windgate Press
The last remaining ship of its kind, the Wapama once carried cargo and passengers up and down the West Coast. As the Historical Society’s Annie Sutter wrote in this paper 36 years ago: “In 1937 she went into service for the Alaska Transport Company, and, renamed Tongass. served the Seattle to Alaska route until being scrapped in 1949. After years of neglect, she became a part of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park and went on display at the Hyde St. Pier in 1963. As deterioration advanced, she was placed on a barge in 1980.” The barge and ship were first towed to Oakland, then to Sausalito. There was still a ray of hope for her survival, but in 1988 the National Park Service terminated restoration of Wapama and proposed to scrap her.
Two prominent Marin citizens, Admiral Tom Patterson and Ed Zelinsky, hastily formed a Save The Wapama Committee. Zelinksy told Annie Sutter: ““First, we must get permission from the National Park Service to stabilize the ship, get insurance for going aboard, and then get the volunteers back. I am starting a list of volunteers. Donations are also needed, and money is being banked now.”
The Sausalito City Council endorsed the efforts of the Committee to preserve and save the ship in 1996, but despite all the good intentions, the project eventually proved unfeasible. Historian Carl Nolte reported on SFGate: “By 1997, the maritime park's general management plan called for ‘minimal’ measures to slow the Wapama's deterioration, but it added, ‘The vessel's underlying structural decay will not be addressed.’ That, essentially, was a death sentence for the ship.”
In 2000 the old steam schooner was moved to the Port of Richmond, prompting MarinScope columnist Marc Anderson to write: “The Wapama departed our shores Wednesday morning, drifting off in the fog like a lumbering dinosaur to its new berth in the East Bay. Around 10 a.m., I had the unexpected view of its departure from my perch above the Yacht Harbor, witnessing a vessel embodying almost 100 years of history passing by being pushed by a Red & White tugboat, followed by a few local boats. It was a ghostly sight. The close of an important chapter in our waterfront’s legends. Was it just one more notable artifact of Sausalito’s shoreline and identity being hauled off to the dustbin of history or a beneficial direction to preserve a historical monument? Who knows? Not to go on a rant, but most of what Sausalito was is now being ‘converted,' developed or moved.”
The old hulk’s final indignity came in 2014. Stephen Canright, Historian and Curator at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park recounted the sad story for Sea Letter, the magazine of the Maritime Park Association: “0n Monday July 22nd, I watched the beginnings of the scrapping work on the hull of the steam schooner Wapama. The contractor's gang started their work at the stern. By the end of the day they had wrecked out the whole of the port side of the stern overhang, using a four-pronged hydraulic claw to pull apart the timbers.”
So, one dream died while another thrived. All the more reason why we should celebrate the inspiring efforts of Alan Olson and the other members of the educational nonprofit Call of the Sea who planned, secured donations and recruited volunteers who gave more than 150,000 hours of their time to build the Matthew Turner.