Preservationists Trying to Throw Life Preserver to Wooden Schooner

The last of the sturdy wooden steam schooners that ferried cargo and passengers to growing cities up and down the West Coast could end its days buried. Not at sea, but in a hole in the ground.

That’s the fate that the federal government has projected for the 81-year-old Wapama, a victim of dry rot and neglect now perched on a barge in Sausalito, across from the Golden Gate Bridge.

Preservationists are waging a fight not only to save the Wapama from being dismantled and buried, but to restore it for future generations.

The 215-foot Wapama is the last of about 225 steam schooners built between the 1880s and 1920s for the lumber and passenger trade along the Pacific Coast.

Now the Wapama is a mess, the home for scores of pigeons. At first glance, the odds of saving it would seem slim. The campaign, however, is led by retired Merchant Marine Rear Adm. Thomas Patterson.

That improves chances a great deal.

Patterson already has scored one major success at saving a historic ship from the scrapheap. He’s largely credited with saving the Jeremiah O’Brien.

The O’Brien was the last of the nation’s seaworthy Liberty ships, the World War II cargo vessels that braved German U-boats to keep supplies flowing to Allied forces. The San Francisco-based O’Brien drew headlines in 1994 when it sailed to France for ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the Normandy invasion.

When it comes to the Wapama, Patterson’s motto is, “I have not yet begun to fight.”

“Yes, I think it can be saved,” he says. “We would need to establish a foundation and use volunteers.”

Seed money could come from $1.5 million that the federal government estimated would be needed to dismantle and bury the Wapama. Toxic chemicals used over the years to preserve the hull would mandate that it be buried.

Patterson envisions keeping the ship on land where it would be sheltered by a steel roof.

“It would be a barn-like affair, something very practical,” he said.

From the standpoint of the National Park Service, an $18-million price tag to restore the Wapama is just too high.

The Wapama once floated in the park service’s maritime historic fleet in San Francisco, a flotilla that includes the sailing ship Balclutha and the rail ferry Eureka.

“All the rest of the vessels we own would cost about $16 million altogether to rehabilitate,” said Bill Thomas, the maritime park’s superintendent. He called $18 million for one ship “an impossibility.”

Patterson said the forces that saved the O’Brien didn’t start out big. And, he added, nothing like $18 million would be needed if the ship was preserved ashore.

“The federal government can’t afford to save her,” he said. “A nonprofit foundation could do it.”

Patterson said he can get plenty of volunteers to work on the Wapama. The project has the support of several labor organizations, including the Marine Firemen’s Union and the Sailors Union of the Pacific.

Saving the Wapama has also drawn the attention of such preservation luminaries as Edward Zelinsky, vice president of the World Ship Trust, and Jim Delgado, head of the Vancouver Maritime Museum in Vancouver, B.C.

Delgado knows the Wapama well, having served as maritime historian for the park service from 1987-1991.

The Vancouver museum’s centerpiece is the St. Roch, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner that became the first ship to sail the Northwest Passage in both directions. The St. Roch is preserved in an A-frame structure that attracts 130,000 people a year.

There are “striking similarities” between the two ships, Delgado said. Both no longer could be maintained afloat, and both had serious dry-rot problems.

“The decision was made to place St. Roch ashore, and ultimately inside a shelter, which was the only way to save her,” he said.

The job of saving the Wapama may be “insurmountable” for the park service, Delgado said.

“Perhaps, when faced with the alternatives of losing her, then the maritime preservation community, and the local community, can rally to the cause,” he said.