165¡j. -
ltVBNING ROVR, l'ISBBRMBN'S WHAR.P' • SAN PRANClSCO, CALIFORNIA.
LateenSai[
'Ifuougfi the (jolden (jate by Giovanni P anella
The men are very reckless, and their lateen rig are often seen beating against the wind when our pleasure yachts are glad to find an harbour. -San Francisco Bu!Letin, 1875 Feluccasatthenew TaylorStreetwharfinSanFrancisco, ca. 1905. (From a postcard, courtesy the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, #Al2.1501 l ) ralian visirors admiring rhe thousands of traditional boars from aro und rh.e wo rl d at the Brest 2000 boar festival in France cou ld nor help bur look for a vessel carrying th e Itali an flag. The first impression was rhar there were none at Brest. T he sailin g ship Palinuro was there, bur she is of French o ri gin ; before b ecom in g the schoolship of the Marina Milirare Italiana, she was o ne of the last sailin g ships ro fis h for cod on the banks off Newfoundland. Only afte r a day of searching did I discover a smal l lareen- rigged boar named rheNuovo Mondo. O n her mast fluttered the Ame ri can flag, because she comes from San Francisco, but she also flies the I tali an flag. T hose rwo flags , flown roger her, signal the passage ofa bir ofMediterranean sea lore ro the New World-the migration of the lateen sai l ro the far shores of the Pacific coast of North America. T he sro ry of that migration reveals that the lateen sail is more than just a sail. John Muir, Associate Curaror of Small Craft at the San Francisco Maritime National Hisrorical Park, has explored the hisrory of these vessels in San Francisco: T hrough the late l 800s-rhe wave began in the 1860s and ended in the l890s-successive waves ofitalian im migration brought hundreds of fishermen from the coastal vi llages near the cities of Naples and Genoa and the island of Sici ly inro San Francisco. They also built fis hing boars in the tradition of their native land, called "silenas" 1 by rhe fishermen , bur later more widely known as "San Francisco feluccas. " The seaworthiness of these small , lateenrigged vessels was a perfect match for
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rhe rugged waters of San Francisco Bay and contrib uted ro the success of their skilled owners. The felucca quickly becam e the principal vessel in the fishing fleets moored along the San Francisco waterfront. They were, essentially, allpurpose fi shing vessels, working a wide variety of nets and gear, from gill nets ro crab traps, ro co mpete in virtually every fishery in the San Francisco Bay region. The earliest recorded site of the growing fl eet of feluccas was located at the India Dock at the foot of Vallejo and Green Streets. Here, in the inside basin of a smal l rectangular pier, rhe fleet shared pier space with a varie ty oflarger vessels. With the practice of photography still in its nasce nce, there are only a few existing images of thi s multi-use wharf, and all of these were taken from far enough away ro obscure rhe derails of the fl eer tucked in behind irs sheltering piles. Nor until afte r 1884, rhe year the fleet was moved ro the new stare-owned wharves at the foorofUnion and Greenwich Streets, are rh e familiar views of fi shermen gathered rogether on their boats mendin g nets and drying sails captured on film .2 Thus, the latee n sa il traveled with a communi ty of Italian fishermen ro the ciry of San Francisco, where the fishermen influenced rhe development of a world-renowned warerfronr, which roday has be. . . come an important rounsr arrracnon. T he atmosp here peculiar ro rhar place at rhe end of the 1800s li ves in a quo re from Robert Louis Stevenso n's The Wrecker. Stevenson lived for a while in San Fran-
cisco before beginning rhe voyage rhat carried him ro the South Pacific. My delight was much in slums. "Little Italy" was a haunt of mine. There I wou ld look in at the windows of smal l eati ng-shops transported bodily from Genoa or Naples, with their macaroni , and chianti flasks , and portraits of Gari baldi , and co loured political caricatures; or (entering in) hold high debate with so me ear-ringed fisher of the bay as to th e designs of "Mr. Owsrria" and "Mr. Rooshia. "3 These fishermen built a fleet of boats similar ro those they left in Iraly, even though the Pacific Ocean was so vastly different from rh e Tyrrhenian Sea from which they came. They simply bui lt th e kind of boars their fathers used, modifying them in small ways ro make them better suited ro local conditions. These vessels were used for fishing inside San Francisco Bay, although rhey sometimes went farther, voyaging in the open sea as far as Monterey, Drake's Bay, or the Farallon Is lands. The San Francisco Chronicle, in February of 1886, reported rhar 150 boars of this type were active in rhe Bay Area. Other elements of Mediterranean culrure were brought ro San Francisco along wirh rhe boats, among them the "bel canro" style of singing, which was used in an original way by the Italian fishermen. On the coast of Californi a, currents of cold water meet a temperate climate, and while skies are clear over inland waterways, there may be a dense fog over rhe water when you reach rhe coast. While sailing on rhe Bay, ir is nor uncommon ro find oneself in rhe midst of a sudden dense fog. When this
SE!A HISTORY I02, AUTUMN 2002