A Pair tf Lurnber Sbips f .r Iroln w)e Snried Past Find, Tbeir Srft llarbor

There was a heavy air of nostalgia at the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco as two old visitors to the Port of San Francisco tied up at to the City's new San Francisco Maritime Museum.

Completely restored to their original condition, the sailing schooner C. A. Thayer and the steam schooner W'apama were moved into permanent berths by three Red Stack tugs on October 2, to become part of the new State maritime monument in the Aquatic Park area.

The Thayer and Wapama join the 73' year old Eureka which for years was a fixture on the Northwestern Pacific Railroad's San Francisco-Sausalito run. The Eureka is the last ferry in the nation with a o'walking beam" engine.

Dedication ceremonies followed the berthing of the two venerable lumber schooners, said to be the last of their type left out of the hundreds of such vessels which once plied the West Coast as part of California's ooScandinavian Navy". Governor Edmund G. Brown and San Francisco Mayor George Christopher headed the dele' gation of officials at the dedication cere' monies, but to us the presence of Mrs. Maurice W. Ely of Portland was the real treat.

Mrs. Ely, who seems to be holding her age as well as the Wapama, originally chris' tened the steam schooner in 1915 at St. Helens, Oregon, and she repeated the cere' mony to the delight of the press agents, if not the old salts.

"It's bad luck to launch a ship twice," one old-timer was heard to growl.

Both the Thayer and Wapama were res' cued from the bone yard in the nick of time some three years ago. Since then thou' sands of volunteer man hours have gone into the careful restoration of the two ves' sels under the watchful supervision of a small band of men who sailed on them during the heyday of the craft.

Visiting hours at the Maritime Museum are I0 a.m.-10 p.m., admission is $l for adults, 50y' for children.

The Wapama

The tiny niches in the rock-bound Mendocino Coast where two-masted schooners out of San Francisco loaded redwood lum' ber from chutes anchored to the cliff'tops furnished the initial incentive to the development of the steam-powered lumber car' rier. The paramount advantages inherent in operating steamships, rather than sailing vessels into these dangerous inlets led to the introduction of the "steam schooner" in this trade at a time when sail was yet undis' puted on the world's bulk-trade routes.

The first steam schooners were built at San Francisco in the early '80's. They were generally about the size of a small three' masted schooner (180-200 tons), and some' times carried this rig; they employed their sail when it was advantageous, yet sail was distinctly auxiliary to the steam plant.

(Con^tinueil on Page 79)