SHIPS DREAMING Follow the Star! by Karl Kortum Director, San Francisco Maritime Museum Last year the first successful ship save on the Pacific Coast celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. And the Star of India, built in 1863, showed all the rest of the historic ships saved in America how to celebrate fifty years of extra life -on the Fourth of July she towed to sea from San Diego and set sail again. "Raise tacks and sheets and mains'! haul! " She was the first significant merchant square-rigger to be saved as a museum ship. Inspired by the false dawn of plans announced by the Maritime Exchange in New York to save the Down Easter Benjamin F. Packard in the fall of 1925, a group of enthusiasts persuaded the San Diego Zoo to take on the Star of India the following year. (The Packard was later sold off for less than the price of one of the ship models in her owner's collection, served as a dance hall , and was scuttled in 1939. Her after cabins are preserved at Mystic Seaport today.) The Star of India was towed from San Francisco to San Diego in July 1927, by the steam schooner Wapama-a vessel later preserved by the Maritime State Historic Park in San Francisco. The Star of India was not immediately treasured by San Diego. She fell on hard times that stretched out for more than three decades. There was little interest in the ship: funds were not forthcoming for her upkeep. Gradually she deteriorated. She played the role of HMS Pinafore and netted $4.85. A barge crashed into her in a gale; she broke adrift and fl oated in the bay. She was in a remote spot- for a while one of her night watchmen turned her into a floating whorehouse. In World War II the avy crudely and peremptorily cut down the bark's rigging with acetylene torches until only the lower masts stood. This was so that Navy planes, which swarmed in the area, would no t hit the topgall ant masts. The old emigrant sh ip began to look bedragg led, rusty and unloved. There was talk of ordering her scrapped as an eyesore. But she had one inamorata who would not give up. Jerry MacM ullen , marine historian , had been the bark's guardian angel since before she arrived in San Diego .As a young man, he had been one of the gro up of five who conspired to bring her in . Now he moved to awaken the city
SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1977
to the rarity it had on its doorstep. MacMullen saw his chance when, in 1957, San Diego had a visit from Alan Villiers, the noted lecturer and Cape Horner, who had just brought Mayflower II across the Atlantic. At the end of his lecture, Villiers found Jerry MacM ullen at his elbow. Jerry suggested a visit to the Star of India. Villiers agreed-and was a bit surprised when he climbed her rotting gangplank, to be greeted by John Bunker, waterfront reporter for San Diego's Evening Tribune, with a photogra pher. (Jerry himself, as his father before him , had been a newspaperman.)
"So the old bark came back spectacularly from the shadow of extinction and beat us all to sea. " The result was, on page one of the next day's Tribune, a big picture of a scowling Villiers looking down from the break of the fo 'c's'le, and over it the caption: "She's a bloody mess." The interview presented his challenge: "She'd take a lot of work, and a lot of money. But London restored the clipper ship Cutty Sark and San Francisco restored the old sailing ship Balclutha. They're both packing tourists in and paying for themselves ." A campaign was put together, with Port Director John Bate weighing in, and attorney Jack Donnelley (as a boy he'd made a voyage to Alaska in the Down Easter Oriental) willing to take on the crucial task of fund-raising. Things began to move. I was invited down from San Francisco to make a survey. There was a willingness to proceed, even to go into debt to save the ship . She was hauled, her masts were pulled ; Jack Dickerhoff began renewing aged rigging in the spacious decks of the ferry Eureka, with Harry Dring's cheerful cooperation, in San Francisco. Not long after I finished my survey, a remarkable man arrived on the scene, in the person of Captain Kenneth Reynard. The physical restoration of the Star of India soon revolved around his energies and talents. Reynard led a crew of a few professionals and many amateurs and
The Star, painted by Capt. R eynard to rem ind himself to get her to sea under sa il.
showed them how to do the work with his own hands- he is a sailmaker, rigger, shipwright, marine artist, navigation instructor, and ship master. Through the early 1960's, San Diego closed ranks behind these men and their sh ip. So the old bark came back spectacularly from the shadow of extinction and beat us all to sea. Many were called to this service and many responded . But without Captai n Reynard's determination to see the ship through in first-class style- no scamping of the work anywhere-and the devoted loyalties he commanded in that task, she would not have sai led . Without Jerry MacMullen , author of classic books on our West Coast ships, and the most quiet of men, there would have been noStarof India for us to steer on.
Jerry Ma cMullen 's Star of India (Berkeley, Howell-No rth, 1961) recounts the ship 's long history and her battle for survi val up to the turning-point of the Kortum survey and her hauling for refit. The Star has since paid her debts, and gathered support for further ventures: a full-scale museum is coming into being in the handsomely paneled spaces of the gia nt steam ferry Berkeley, the steam yacht Medea now graces the harbor. A maior maritime cultura l center has grown up on the traffic of people drawn to the Star.
As emigrant ship, Alaska salmon ship, and museum sl11iJ, shes seen over a century's voyaging.
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