 1002 Valley
StreetSeattle, WA 98109-4668 (206)447-9800 Home
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Length:
165’
The History of the Wawona Launched at the yard of Hans Ditlev Bendixsen at Fairhaven, CA, in 1897, the sailing schooner Wawona was one of the largest three-masted schooners built in North America. Her timbers were cut from virgin forests. Today she is one of two survivors of the once immense commercial sailing fleet in the Pacific Northwest. Carrying lumber between West Coast ports for Dolbeer & Carson Lumber Company, the Wawona, like other coastal schooners, had a reputation for speedy runs down the coast with cargo and a quick return, sailing without ballast due to her heavy, double-hulled construction. Entire logs could be loaded into her hold through doors in her stern. John Dolbeer, her co-owner, had invented the steam donkey engine, which revolutionized the logging industry. In 1914, the Wawona embarked on a new career as a fishing schooner in the Bering Sea. She was owned by Robinson Fisheries of Anacortes, WA, and was a mothership to eighteen dories, each manned by a single fisherman. Each doryman fished double-baited handlines and jigged for Pacific cod along the Aleutian Islands and the "Slime Banks" north of the Alaska Peninsula. After the dories returned to the ship, the Dress Gang cleaned the cod and salted the fish away in the hold. The fishing crew of 36 spent six months at sea, working exhausting days and living in a crowded foc’sle. During her fishing career, the Wawona often caught the most fish of any other vessel during the season. Her lifetime catch of 7.2 million cod far surpassed the career catch of any other Pacific schooner The Wawona was drafted as a military barge in World War II, hauling military supplies to Alaska and returning to Washington with wood for the aircraft industry. She returned to the codfishing grounds for two seasons following the war and then was retired to a sedentary life in Seattle. Of the nearly 200 ships built by Bendixsen's shipyard, two live on today. Hundreds more large commercial sailing ships were built in other West Coast shipyards; they are now all gone. Only the C.A. Thayer in San Francisco and the WAWONA remain. The Wawona became a National Historic Site in 1970, the first ship in the nation to be listed on the National Register. Though much restoration work remains to be done to this old wooden ship, a great deal has been accomplished. Northwest Seaport is striving to develop funds and community support to insure the restoration of the Wawona. A site for a restoration yard is critical for her and for all Seattle's historic vessels. Built at the end of the great "Age of Sail", the Wawona stands as a living monument to the skilled craftsmen who built her, the industries that supported her, and the fortunate crewmen who sailed her. |
Wawona