Wawona
 The ship in 2009
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The Wawona was a museum ship owned by the Northwest Seaport in Seattle . In 2009 the 111-year-old ship was canceled. The Wawona was one of the last surviving examples of this typical gaff schooner from the timber voyage on the American west coast.
history
Active service time
The ship was built in 1897 for the shipping company Dolbeer & Carson Lumber Company from Eureka at the shipyard of the Danish shipbuilder Hans D. Bendixsen in Fairhaven on Humboldt Bay . The name was derived from an Indian name for a tree species (other source: owl species). The ship was built as a wooden three-masted gaff schooner made of Douglas fir and was part of a fleet of over 100 comparable ships that brought lumber from the northwestern United States to California, which was flourishing at the time. To take over long timber, the Wawona , whose timber capacity was around 1500 m 3 , had a large gate in the bow below the starboard anchor. For the next 17 years, the ship remained busy in the timber voyage.
In 1914 the Robinson Fisheries Company of Anacortes , Washington, acquired the ship. This added an extended deck house to create more space for the 30 to 40 man crew and provided it with one-man dories . Until the Second World War, the ship was used for cod fishing with hand lines. During the war, the Wawona transported wood again, this time on behalf of the government. After the war ended, fishing was resumed. In 1947 she finally made her last trip to the Bering Sea , after which the Wawona was launched as one of the last commercially used typical gaff schooners on the American west coast.
As a museum ship
In 1964, "Save Our Ships", a group of citizens from King County , Washington, bought the ship in order to restore it and use it as a museum ship in the years that followed. From 1964 to 1981 the ship was in Kirkland , Washington. In 1970 the Wawona was recognized as a National Historic Site and was the first ship ever to be entered in the National Register . Seven years later, the Wawona was also included in Seattle's list of monuments. In 1981 the museum schooner moved to a new berth on the south end of Lake Union in Seattle. The Save Our Ships group was renamed Northwest Seaport . After the condition worsened again in the following decades, the Wawona suffered a water ingress in 2005, the negative effects of which were made worse by a subsequent vermin infestation. The cost of a major restoration to maintain floating status on the Seattle Northwest Seaport has been estimated at approximately $ 15 million. Therefore, in 2009 the decision was made to demolish the ship. The salvaged parts from the demolition, such as the captain's cabin, are to be exhibited after the Museum of History & Industry has moved to the Naval Reserve Building , if Northwest Seaport can raise enough money.
literature
- Otmar Schäuffelen: The last great sailing ships . Verlag Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 1994, ISBN 3-7688-0860-2 , p. 372/373 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Article at pugetsoundmagazine (English)
