Rebirth of a Once-Grand Steamship

Sitting at anchor at a permanent mooring still under construction, the SS Catalina--familiar to generations of Californians as the Great White Steamer--seems a bit like a bag lady who, unexpectedly having been offered a home and job, gets unsteadily to her feet, still skeptical that it can be true.

And like the bag lady offered six months’ room and board and dispatched to an interview for a job she’s not sure she’ll get, the Catalina has been infused primarily with a single precious commodity--hope.

If the latest and--so far--most ambitious plan in at least the last 12 years for the steamer actually comes to fruition, the Catalina will be operating here by the Fourth of July weekend as a floating bar, restaurant, disco and shopping center. The ship has been dry-docked and found to be seaworthy; workers are busy sanding, varnishing, painting, hammering and sawing.

A New Coat of Paint

Scraped clean below the waterline, she already wears a new coat of white paint--although it is spotted liberally with rust. Ashore, a wide rock breakwater is being converted into a formal parking lot, driveway and entrance. What will eventually be the gangway is under construction on what will eventually be the driveway.

The new operators--a joint Mexican-American corporation controlled by the Beverly Hills husband and wife who acquired the vessel at auction in 1977 and the businessman son of a retired Mexican navy admiral--promise an official opening June 25. From the look of the progress of the work, it will be a difficult deadline to observe.

Ruth Singer, whose husband, Hymie, bought the ship for her as a $70,000 spur-of-the-moment Valentine’s Day gift after the couple’s 32-foot cabin cruiser sank, walked the top deck of the steamer one day earlier this week. As she went, she checked on such details as reassembly of engine room fittings and progress in refinishing the steamer’s original teak benches that are to be reused as seating in a 4,000-square-foot open-air bar.

“It’ll be nice to see her full of people, with music,” Singer said. “You feel like the ship will know. It sounds silly, but you get that feeling.”

For the Catalina, a designated U.S. historic vessel that in 50 years beginning in 1924 transported 25 million people from Los Angeles to Avalon and back with time out for World War II service as a San Francisco Bay troop transport, it is the first positive development in a dotage previously characterized by little but bad luck.

By the early 1970s, the cumulative effects of a history of labor woes and economic difficulties implicit in trying to keep a vintage piece of machinery operating within any rational economic boundaries had clearly taken their toll. First owned by the Wrigley chewing gum family of Chicago--which owned Catalina Island at the time--the ship passed through several hands and had been laid up repeatedly, sometimes for a year or two at a time.

The 1977 auction was almost the final straw, but Hymie Singer’s chance purchase set in motion a flurry of attempts to find another use for the steamship. It was a period punctuated by litigation in which Singer and Gene Webber, an Orange County real estate agent who leased the ship, fired repeated legal salvoes at one another. Eventually, Webber had the ship towed to Ensenada--where port officials initially declared it in violation of various Mexican laws and entered a seizure order against it. It was a move that also intensified litigation in both state and federal courts.

Original Lease

While a suit over the original lease involving Webber and the Singers is still pending in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Singer obtained a preliminary injunction in February allowing the Mexican company, which technically leases the American-owned vessel, to go ahead with its plans.

Having the Catalina here, though, still irks Ruth Singer a bit. “I’ll always feel bad about it,” she said. “That (the Los Angeles area) was the natural place for the boat. But it’s a happy ending because the ship has a home. It’s better for it to be here than just sitting somewhere. You feel that the ship is at peace.

“Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. It’s Los Angeles’ loss and Ensenada’s gain. It’s going to be appreciated here. Maybe it would have been lost in the shuffle in L.A. Here, it will always be the Catalina. “

Ironically, the plan to open the Catalina as what amounts to Ensenada’s equivalent of the Queen Mary represents a concept almost identical to the plan hatched by Singer shortly after he acquired the vessel.

Singer’s plan at the time was to moor the ship permanently somewhere--preferably Avalon--and use it as a restaurant and boutique complex. But no port--including Avalon, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Long Beach--wanted the ship, concluding that she was too risky, too economically uncertain, too much of a threat to established businesses or otherwise simply unwelcome. The city of Avalon even voted the plan down in a referendum.

Alejandro Marcin Salazar, whose father retired as chief medical officer of Mexico’s navy after 35 years’ service, moved here five years ago to run the marketing operations for Ensenada’s complex of tuna canneries and to help organize tourism activities on behalf of the Mexican government.

One day in 1986, he recalls, he was approached to buy the Catalina. From his home, Marcin had been able to see the ship anchored four miles outside Ensenada harbor. He understood, he said in an interview that began in his office on the city’s main beachfront boulevard and continued aboard the Catalina, little of the ship’s significance in Southern California.

“I had never in my life heard of it,” he said. “But I thought it could be a big attraction, a little entertainment center. A lot of people around here thought I was absolutely out of my mind.”

Marcin had never been to Catalina Island at the time, he recalled, though he said that, when he finally did visit Avalon, he began to understand the ship’s place in Southern California history. “I spoke to a lot of people,” he said. “There was a couple that had been married aboard 35 years ago. They felt such nostalgia they almost cried when they were told what we were going to do.”

Complex Mexican Laws

But, Marcin said, the proposition to buy into the ship had come from Webber, who, he said, was unable to produce ownership documents for the Catalina--a situation Marcin said he quickly recognized as making it impossible to negotiate the complex of Mexican maritime laws that make no clear provision for floating harbor attractions.

Later, Marcin said, Mark Rosenberg, the Singers’ Los Angeles attorney, called him and the foundation of the now 18-month-old business relationship was laid. Under the new structure, the ship still is owned by S.S. Catalina Inc., a California firm owned by Hymie Singer, who is a Canadian citizen, and Ruth Singer, an American. The ship is leased to Catalina de Ensenada, S.A., the Mexican counterpart in which Ruth Singer and Marcin are partners.

For refurbishing capital, the Mexican company relies on a Canadian investment firm owned by Hymie Singer. So far, Marcin said, the tab for the Catalina’s refit comes to about $1 million.

Marcin began by organizing what amounts to an ongoing exercise in marine archeology. Every nook and cranny of the ship was scoured and a surprising number of vintage components--including the ship’s original helm, which had been believed stolen when the ship was still in the United States--were recovered. There were photographs of newlyweds taken aboard in 1935, a vein of 20 original life vests discovered in a forgotten box and enough original and spare engine room parts to allow a cosmetically near-complete restoration of the Catalina’s two gigantic steam engines--which will be open to public view.

Original Benches

Original benches covered with more than a dozen coats of paint were painstakingly stripped to the bare teak and are being stained and varnished. Original wood decks long since covered with canvas or linoleum were largely restored. Brass fittings were discovered under thick layers of paint all over the ship. Plumbing fixtures are being replaced. The ship’s fuel oil tanks are being converted to holding tanks in a waste-water system that will be connected to Ensenada’s sewer system.

The restoration is not completely faithful to the Catalina’s original design. A glass wind barrier has been installed on the top deck to shelter bar patrons, but the addition is scarcely noticeable from a distance. The upper deck has been divided by a partition separating the bar from other facilities. Ten small boutiques have been constructed on what was previously open deck space below, and the ship’s cargo compartment is being converted into a discotheque.

In its years on the San Pedro-to-Avalon run, the steamer was permitted to carry 2,200 passengers. Marcin said Mexican authorities here have agreed to allow up to 4,000 people aboard at one time.

The vessel sits in a specially dredged anchorage, next to a breakwater originally constructed by the Mexican government with the intention of developing a small craft marina inside. That plan never came to fruition, but Marcin said a government agreement permitting the Mexican Catalina corporation to develop the steamer’s docking facilities may eventually expedite construction of the marina.

Moored at Convention Center

The mooring is almost directly in front of the local convention and visitor center, a 1930s-era former hotel whose ballroom resembles the Avalon Casino. Visually, the scene is reminiscent of the Catalina’s former pier in Avalon harbor from which a nearly identical vista of ship and casino was commonplace.

A January storm damaged the steamer’s new dock, and that along with the normal delays of such a project have held up even such basic aspects of the work as bollards on the breakwater that will secure the vessel. Work on the disco had hardly even begun, but the two bars, the restaurant and the tiny boutiques were nearing completion.

There will be an admission charge and, Ruth Singer said, proceeds will be turned over to a yet-unchosen local charity. Some technicalities of American maritime law must still be addressed. In last year’s dry-docking, Marcin said, the steamer’s two 8-foot propellers were removed. They will be displayed ashore.

But the Catalina, which technically is still a U.S.-flag vessel, changed its status automatically with removal of the propellers under a U.S. Coast Guard regulation that requires the ship to surrender its active registration once it is no longer capable of moving under its own power. Rosenberg said the U.S. Department of Transportation has agreed to adjust the steamer’s American status so it will remain a vessel in good standing.

It will fly both the Mexican and American flags, Marcin and Ruth Singer said.

“How can you not have nostalgic feelings about her?” Ruth Singer said. “This is something that’s history.”

Marcin thought about it for a second. “We want this ship to be an anchor of friendship between the two countries,” he added.