Tall Ships of the Past
Recently Discovered Cache of Lost Photographs
Document West Coast Clipper Ship Prowess
![](untitled.jpg) |
The Willie
R. Hume was the first four-masted Barkentine
built on the West Coast. Launched in 1890 for
the Simpson Lumber Company of San Francisco, she
was sold in 1911 to Mexican owners. Here she is
in ballast, sitting high out of the water,
exposing her beautiful Clipper ship type hull.
Note the ship’s boat suspended in the rigging,
until the deck is loaded with lumber.
|
By Steve Priske
If one follows the axiom that, “the last
built of a thing is generally the best built of a thing,”
then the finest tall ships ever built may have been built on
the West Coast, and were home-ported at San
Francisco.History books tell us that in 1849, when the Gold
Rush was at its peak, the epitome of tall ships were being
launched from dozens of East Coast ship yards and were
called Clipper ships, over 600 in all. It has been assumed
that no Clippers were built on the West Coast. Well, that’s
all about to change. A discovery made in 2003 reveals that
over 65 world-class tall ships, some Clippers, were indeed
built on the West Coast. Some were the first of their rig
anywhere, while others set sailing records that stand to
this day.
In 2003, while working on a literary
project in Coos Bay, Oregon, I came upon an astonishing
1,500 original glass negative photos, most made in the mid
1800s. This huge collection of photographs depicted what has
turned out to be the largest fleet of tall ships ever built
on the U.S. West Coast. As a maritime historian and model
shipwright, I was familiar with the extensive 19th century
lumber schooner fleets that plied the redwood coasts and the
Mosquito Fleets bringing lumber and coal from hard-to-reach
outposts in Washington and Oregon to markets at San
Francisco. But no history book or museum collection had
taught me that a huge fleet of over 65 world-class tall
ships had been built on the West Coast. However, after a
year of chronicling this fantastic story, that is exactly
what I’ve found.
A world-class tall
ship is one defined as measuring over 130’ on the keel, over
150’ on the deck, registered at over 300 tons and powered
solely by sail. In terms of nautical history, The Oregonian,
in reporting on this find, described it as akin to finding
another pyramid in the desert.
![](TropicalBird.jpg) |
The Tropic
Bird, built in 1882 for A. Nelson of San
Francisco, was one of the most beautiful ships
of sail built on the West Coast. Her primary
route was from San Francisco to Tahiti. Here the
150’ long Tropic Bird is drying her sails at
Honolulu. |
The rapid growth that took place around
San Francisco Bay in the mid 1800s spawned several colossal
industries, one being the lumber business. Of the many
lumber companies that made their home in San Francisco, the
Simpson Brothers Lumber Company stood out from all others,
not just for their many lumber mills and retail yards, but
for their huge fleet of ocean-going tall ships. While most
lumber and shipping operations were content with plying the
West Coast in relatively small 100’ to 130’ long, two- and
three-masted schooners, the Simpson Brothers went “big
time”: 200’ plus long, blue water tall ships, delivering
their cargos to points all over the world. Included in this
unique fleet of ships of sail was the only true Clipper ship
built on the West Coast, and she was christened the Western
Shore.
![](Clippership.jpg) |
Using the
ship’s original blueprints, hand drawn on onion
skin, model shipwright Steve Priske built this
exact scale replica of the Clipper ship Western
Shore in approximately 1,200 hours. |
The Clipper Western Shore was launched in
1874, from Captain Asa Meade Simpson’s shipyard at North
Bend, Oregon, and at once brought to San Francisco and put
in the wheat trade to England. Asa and his brother Captain
Robert Simpson, who designed her unique sail plan, set out
to show their eastern counterparts that a West Coast Clipper
could be built at a reasonable cost and with respectable
sailing qualities. In fact, no sailing vessel ever set
afloat on the West Coast achieved such remarkable speed
records. In 1875, the Shore left San Francisco a few minutes
behind the steamer Oriflame and arrived in Astoria two and
one-half hours ahead, making the trip in a trifle over two
days. A year later, she established another record by
sailing from Astoria on the Columbia River to Liverpool in
97 days, and the next year made the trip to the same port
from San Francisco in 110 days, all records that stand to
this day. The Shores storied carrier includes almost running
aground on Alcatraz Island, when her hawser parted while
under tow, a mishap that knocked her Captain over 20 feet
from the fore deck onto the main deck, where in four hours
he bled to death from a broken shoulder. In 1878, while on a
coal run from Astoria to San Francisco, the Western Shore
ran aground under full sail onto Duxbury Reef off of Bolinas
and sank within hours, all hands making it to the boats and
safety. The ship’s captain at the time, Captain Hotchkiss,
claimed to have mistaken the lights of Bolinas with those of
the Farallones. Captain Simpson was convinced that the
skipper and first officer were drunk!
What made the Western Shore such a standout
Clipper ship was her design and construction. She measured
204’ overall and was registered at 1,177 tons, the largest
square rigger built on the West Coast. Her frames and
planking were built of Douglas Fir, while her masts and
yards were rough hewn from Port Orford Cedar, which Captain
Simpson would often comment, “grows up to 150’ tall and
arrow straight” adjacent to his Coos Bay shipyard. A
dramatic departure from tradition, the Western Shore had six
yards on all three masts (a three skysailer), and her main
and fore masts were the same height, 130’ from deck to
truck. An even more radical design difference, the
corresponding yards on the fore and main masts were the same
length. And, most importantly, the Western Shore was built
by the Danish master shipbuilder John Kruse, who while in
the employ of Captain Simpson would build over 38 similar
tall ships, several sailing for an astounding 40 years. I
find it particularly ironic that the super fast Western
Shore was sailing the same Pacific routes to England during
the same seasons the Cutty Sark and other notable Clippers
were, and yet, sadly, no history book records her existence.
![](Marconi.jpg) |
The four-masted
schooner Marconi was the last of 65 world-class
tall ships built by Captain Asa Simpson of San
Francisco. She measured about 190 feet on the
deck and carried lumber to Pacific ports. In
1909, fully laden and bound for Valpariso,
Chile, the Marconi ran aground on the south spit
of Oregon’s Coos Bay. |
While the Clipper ship Western Shore would
be the sweetheart of the San Francisco fleet of Captain Asa
Simpson, he found the Barkentine ship’s rig the most useful
for transporting deck loads of lumber. A perfect example of
this is the Gardiner City, a three-masted Barkentine that
Captain Simpson had built in 1889. She was 169’ feet on the
keel, about 185’ long on the deck, and originally built as a
four-masted schooner. A few years after being launched, the
Gardiner City was re-rigged as a three-masted Barkentine.
One morning in 1911, while bound up the coast from San
Francisco, she met the schooner Alert bound for Hawaii. A
few minutes later, the Alert’s bow sprit fowled the fore
rigging of the Barkentine, and her anchor raked the
starboard side of the Gardiner City, cutting every shroud on
the foremast. The crew managed to jury rig and limp back to
San Francisco where the ship was laid up, while the Alert
continued on to Honolulu.
Having
started his lumber empire around 1855, Captain Simpson soon
realized there was a lucrative market for lumber overseas,
and thus launched a series of ships that would average 200’
overall in length, and represent the finest clipper type
hulls ever built. A wonderful example can be found in the
Willie R. Hume, the first four-masted Barkentine built on
the West Coast. She was built by John Kruse and launched in
1890; the Hume measured 183’ on the keel, 202’ overall, and
had the lines of the world’s finest clippers. The Willie R.
Hume was a frequent sight at San Francisco and San Pedro
waterfronts until it was sold to Mexican owners in 1911.
Another first was launched in 1886, the four-masted schooner
Novelty. She was the world’s first four-masted bald head
schooner, and sported no bow sprit when launched, leading a
local paper to comment, “...she should have been called
Oddity, instead of Novelty.” Later, a short bow sprit would
be added and the Novelty would go on to be the first four-masted
schooner to circumnavigate the globe. In 1907, the Novelty
was lost in a deep fog bank, stranded on the Oregon sand
dunes, her crew, captain, and family walking ashore.
![](SchoonerPolaris.jpg) |
The four-masted
schooner Polaris was launched in 1902 for the
Pacific Shipping Company of San Francisco.
Measuring over 190 feet on the deck and
registered at 690 gross tons, she was one of the
largest ships of her rig on the coast. In 1914,
while entering San Francisco Bay, the Polaris
ran aground on Duxbury Reef, near Bolinas. This
is the same reef that claimed the Clipper ship
Western Shore in 1878. |
Aside from the fleet of the Simpson
Brothers, about two dozen more ships of world-class
proportions would be built on the West Coast for the Pacific
Shipping Company, also based in San Francisco. One of the
more notable examples was the four-masted schooner Polaris,
which measured a huge 205’ on the deck and was launched in
1902. The Polaris was built by Emil Heukendorff, who had
been the master draftsman of Captain Simpson for about 25
years, until they got into an argument over where to place
the privy on the schooner Admiral. Heukendorff soon started
his own shipyard and, in my opinion, built the most
attractive tall ships of the 19th century. His ship the
Polaris would sail until 1914, when she wrecked on Duxbury
Reef, the same place the Western Shore laid down her bones.
Heukendorff would build nine more blue water tall ships,
such as the four-masted schooner Taurus, a sister ship to
the Polaris, and a ship that was burned off Catalina Island
while making a movie in 1924.
It’s
true that by the early 1900s steamships took over the
coastal transportation of lumber to the Bay Area, but these
ocean-going tall ships would continue circumnavigating the
globe well into the 20th century. Many would be sold to
foreign owners and are recorded to have sailed for 35 years
on average, which is about ten years longer than their East
Coast counterparts of the same era. Others, such as the
Encore (c.1897) and Manila (c.1899), met their fates quite
dramatically in World War I, being hunted and sunk by German
Raiders, such as the Seedler. One ship, the 180’ long, four-masted
schooner Echo, built by E. Heukendorff and launched in
1896, sailed for about 30 years, before it was turned into a
floating home off Sausalito through the 1950s.
Given the vast size and record-setting
accomplishments of this fleet of San Francisco-based tall
ships, it is my contention, when compared to the many West
Coast shipyards which produced mostly 100’ to 130’ long
schooners, and those East Coast shipyards that gave us the
famous Clippers like the Sea Witch and Great Republic, that
these 65 plus world-class tall ships of San Francisco rank
right up near the top of all maritime accomplishments and
should be considered some of the finest tall ships ever
built.
Maritime historian Steve
Priske can be contacted by e-mail at anchorsaweighms@comcast.net.
Priske has been a model shipwright for over 35 years and has
authored numerous aritime articles. Several of his ship
models are on display in maritime museums, while others have
appeared in major motion pictures. Mr. Priske’s intention is
to utilize his newfound collection of 1,500 vintage
photographs in a large-format hardcover book to be titled
The Tall Ships of San Francisco, 1859-1903.