A Historical Cruise around our Waterfront Offered by the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center

"The Spaulding Wooden Boat Center is one of the last remaining wooden boat yards on the West Coast. It is a working boatyard and a maritime museum, and has been described as a “cathedral of wooden boats.”  The filtered light, the sawdust and wood chips on the floor, the smell of paint and varnish and the rows of hand tools tell you that this is where boats are still being built the traditional way, with skilled shipwrights using natural materials. The mission of the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center is to restore and return to active use significant, historic wooden sailing vessels; preserve and enhance our working boatyard; create a place where people can gather to use, enjoy, and learn about wooden boats; and educate others about wooden boat building skills, traditions and values."

The Center is hosting a series of open houses on Saturdays to familiarize the public with their historical and working boatyard. Free rides on board the Dixie are offered - 45 minute tours of the waterfront with a docent from the Sausalito Historical Society on board. Here's a story about one of those waterfront tours during the last open house.

by Annie Sutter

Six passengers, a captain and a docent from the SHS boarded the little Casco Bay lobster boat Dixie, pulled out from the dock at the end of the Wooden Boat Center and turned south into the channel. The docks of the Sausalito Shipyard and Marina came into view, berths filled with an assortment of vessels; modern houseboats, fishboats, pleasure craft, and a large tugboat tied to the outside. This was once called Jerry's Yacht Harbor, filled with little Monterey fishboats, many beautifully restored with their working Hicks engines still intact. Nearby is the spot where the famous Forbes Island was built, which slid down the ways on a high tide in the early 1980s to become a luxurious and controversial anchor-out in Sausalito; today the island is a high-end restaurant at Pier 39 in San Francisco. We are passing a historic jumble of docks and haul lifts, marine ways, boatyards and vessels in all stages of repair. This is the old Arques Shipyard, long a place where many old vessels, ferryboats, sailing ships, barges and scow schooners were hauled up onto the beach and left to rot or to be recycled. In the 1940s and 50s, when ferryboats were taken out of service on San Francisco Bay, this is where many ended up to be used as floating homes, studios, restaurants. There are working boatyards here, and Aquamaison, which builds concrete hulls for houseboats, and where houseboats can be hauled out of the water and repaired. The old Lefty's pier was used by fishermen, and once upon a time locals could go right down to the docks and buy fresh seafood off the boats.

This entire area of the waterfront was once occupied by Marinship, when Bechtel Co. was commissioned in 1942 to build Tankers and Liberty ships for World War II. Between 1942 and 1945, this huge complex built 93 ships for the war effort. Farther south Marinship Park marks the spot where the finished ships slid down the ways, and the Army Corps of Engineers docks and the Bay Model are located nearby. Commercial fishing vessels unload their catches at these docks, and it is a busy scene when the herring fishing season is open.

Then we pass Schoonmaker Point Marina, where hundreds of sailboats and powerboats are berthed and luxurious visiting yachts are side tied on the outside of the marina, some up to 200' long. This is the home of Gaslight, a replica of a working scow schooner of the 1800s, and Transquest, a modern research vessel. Schoonmaker Marina features a sandy beach, well used by families, dogs and picnickers, and a kayak and paddleboard rental agency.

Immediately adjacent is Galilee Harbor, named after the old sailing ship Galilee whose hull still lies in the mud, an active liveaboard community on a site long used for maritime activities. This was the site of the Napa St. pier, where in the 1870s and 80s fishermen and boatbuilders lived; then various boatyards flourished over the years; the Atlantic Boatbuilding Works in 1880, Oceanic Boatyard in the early 1900s, to Bob's Boatyard which opened in 1945.

Then Dixie turns around in the channel, and heads north. We pass Clipper Yacht Harbor, where seals are hauled out on the breakwater, enjoying the sun. Nearby we can just see the yellow stack of the ferryboat Vallejo, resting on the shore at Varda Landing, once home to artists and philosophers and the center of a free and easy lifestyle that characterized Sausalito. On to the houseboats of Waldo Point Harbor, the docks and piers built in the late 1970s , now occupied by elegant, colorful and well kept homes on the water, some new and modern, some restored relics of the assorted vessels that found their way to the houseboat communities. Most of the ferries have been lost, but the yellow vessel in the next harbor is the 1888 ferryboat the City of Seattle, now the flagship of the Yellow Ferry Harbor. With Richardson Bay Marina and Kappas Gate 6 1/2 ahead, we were getting in to the shallow end of the bay, so it was time to turn around in the channel and return to the Wooden Boat Center.

The next Open Houses and tours on Dixie will be held on June 9, July 14, August 18 and September 8. The Center is located at the foot of Gate Five Rd. For more information: www.spauldingcenter.org.

The Humming Toadfish Story

by Annie Sutter

A houseboater reports that he has again heard the mysterious humming sound that made national news and had the waterfront buzzing with theories several years ago. “Right on schedule,” he said, “It’s July and here they are. Kinda sounds like a refrigerator humming…” So, for those of you who were not around, or who may have forgotten some of the outrageous explanations of the source of the sound, here’s the story recycled from the Scope of December 1985. It turned out that it really was an amorous toadfish singing to attract a lady toadfish.

Do Singing Fish Do It?

Or is  the  nocturnal humming sound that’s been disturbing our houseboater’s sleep due to a less romantic source than an amorous plainfin midshipman buried in the mud of Richardson Bay, and singing to attract a lady toadfish? Many are the alternative explanations that have been proposed: a singing sewer outlet, the secret signal of a Soviet spy ring, a submarine sneaking around in SF Bay, some defunct railroad switching gear, and a giant electric razor. Now, however, we have it straight from the fish’s mouth, so to speak, an opinion from Dr. John McCosker, Director of the Steinhart Aquarium, who went out into Richardson’s Bay on board Charlie Merrill’s Cimba to solve the mystery of the nighttime hummmmm.

Mc Cosker, despite his impressive titles, has both the appearance and the enthusiasm of a college kid; the likes to swim with great white sharks, makes films about sea creatures for PBS, and researches exotic species such as the revolting slime eel. Now he’s delving into the mysteries of the singing toadfish, a singularly ugly little fish with a protruding chin, whiskers, and a spiny backbone. “I know what that noise is,” he said. “We’re gonna go out and prove that it’s the romantic hoo-hooing of the male toadfish during mating season.” “I saw it with my own eyes,” added Merrill, “I’ll tell you, there’s no question in my mind.”

There may be, however, questions in the minds of the many houseboaters who’ve had to live with this liquid buzz that’s heard only in the summer and which goes on and off as though a switch had been turned. Doubters offer: “Perhaps it is an orchestra of toadfish,” said Hugh Lawrence, “when you show me the leader in his little tuxedo and baton lining up the chorus and starting them all at the same time, I’ll believe.” Others deny that it could be a fish making such a steady sound without variation – “it’s some kind of electrical device,” said Tom Watson, resident of Yellow Ferry Harbor. But houseboaters’ opinions vary as much as do their abodes, and Chris Tellis, long time resident, is convinced that it is fish. “I’ve been listening to it for fifteen years,” he said, “and the sound matches their migratory patterns. Besides – anything THAT ugly would have to make a sound like that. The problem here is not singing fish, it’s the yuppification of the waterfront. The fish have always been here – it’s just the reaction that’s new. They finally got a press agent.”

Speaking of the press, the voyage on board Cimba put the houseboat community and its mysterious buzz into national news as McCosker, a couple of divers and staff from Channel 5 ventured into Richardson Bay to peep into the sex life of fish buried in the mud. At first they uncovered other items indigenous to Richardson Bay; tires, a boat’s rail, and mattress springs. Finally, following the humming sound with hydrophones, they zeroed in on the singing fish, dropped a net and brought it up caked with mud and containing ten specimens of  toadfish which were whisked off to the aquarium for observation. And yes, they sang, “and out of the water they go whoof – whoof,” said Merrill.

Whatever may be causing Sausalito’s buzzing hummmmm, theories about its source continue: a Japanese container ship loaded with vibrators ran aground and sank off Sausalito, masses of cuisinarts kicking in just after a Julia Child cooking class on PBS, from Phil Frank cartoons; other ideas were giant Magic fingers and low flying B52s; and “the only animal capable of filling an entire Bay with obnoxious sound is man,” vs “people have become so urbanized they don’t realize how much sound Nature can make – think about how much noise one little cricket can make in your house." One sure thing – residents will just have to chalk it up to one of the charms of living on the Bay.

The Queen aboard the ‘PACIFIC QUEEN’

by  Steefenie   Wicks

Her name was Rose Kissinger and she became the only woman to spend 22 years of her life aboard the last full-rigger ship to fly the American flag … the ship’s name was the  ‘PACIFIC QUEEN’ aka the ‘BALCLUTHA’.

Christened the BALCLUTHA when she was launched in Glasgow in 1886, the 1500-tonner would carry cargo to India, South America, Australia, Africa and other ports for 15 years. In 1899, the vessel arrived in San Francisco waters, making frequent runs to the northwest as a lumber carrier. In 1904 she was added to the fleet of the Alaska Packing Corporation renamed the STAR OF ALASKA.  The last voyage of the ‘STAR’ came in 1929, and she would remain idle until her purchase in 1933.

Frank ‘Tex’ Kissinger and his wife Rose, chose the STAR OF ALASKA out of eight ships docked at Alameda, the remains of a fleet of 17 that had plied between Alaska and San Francisco.  The Kissingers had the ship rechristened the PACIFIC QUEEN in 1934 and then sailed her to Long Beach.  Rose Kissinger would later comment on how the Golden Gate Bridge was just going up and they could see the south tower as they sailed out. They had purchased this great ship for $5,000.00, and once Rose set foot on her the adventure began.

‘Tex’ Kissinger was known in the carnival circuits as a daredevil bike rider and Rose had worked as a phone operator at a hotel that catered to the entertainment industry. They had dreams of turning the ship into a floating showboat museum and ocean aquarium in the Los Angeles area.  So the PACIFIC QUEEN became the ship that was rented to film companies. The Kissingers were receiving $1,500.00 a day for renting the ship that would appear in more than 40 films.  The most famous film was ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’, which starred Clark Gable and Charles Laughton and was filmed in 1935.   The Kissingers would set sail for Mexico in 1936 only to find that they would run out of wind for 67 days which left them drifting toward Hawaii.  This adventure would eventually lead to the vessel being towed into San Pedro by the Coast Guard when it became stranded 675 miles from land.   In 1939 the PACIFIC QUEEN would return to the Bay Area for the Golden Gate International Exposition held on Treasure Island.  The ship was docked at Fisherman’s Wharf and Rose and Tex charged adults 25 cents and kids 10 cents to come on board and view the vessel.  During this period they were making over $1,000.00 a week and were able to make long overdo repairs to the ship with these funds. They did this for two years before WWII started when the vessel was moved first to Islais Creek and then back to Sausalito. 

Tex and Rose ran a school on board the vessel for the navigational training of merchant marine offices.  Rose was one of the first women to teach navigation in the US during WWII.  While Rose and Tex, with the help of Herb Madden, berthed the vessel in Sausalito, it was after the war in 1946 when they applied to the City to turn her into a floating casino.  They were turned down by the Sausalito City Council and once again sailed the PACIFIC QUEEN back to Long Beach.  But this move was not to be a successful one and Tex and Rose found themselves heading back to Sausalito in the spring of 1952. Imagine how Sausalito residents must have felt on the Sunday morning when the fog lifted and there was the Pacific Queen sitting in the waters off of Sausalito.   For the past few years she had been used as a museum in Long Beach, but the problem of mooring had them looking for a new home for this gallant vessel, and back to Sausalito she came.

Then in November of 1952, while tarring the decks of the PACIFIC QUEEN, Tex Kissinger complained of dizziness and later succumbed to a heart attack. Rose Kissinger announced after her husband’s death that she would continue with his dream of making the PACIFIC QUEEN into a maritime museum because Tex had spent his life as a showman and she wanted the ship to continue in that tradition. Two days later a gale wind would hit Sausalito and the drama aboard the PACIFIC QUEEN would continue.   As Rose tried to handle the lines on board the PACIFIC QUEEN, she attempted to tie down a 40-ft piece of canvas which was ripping from the stern of the ship during the storm.  The fierce wind wrapped the canvas around her, picked her up and repeatedly banged her against the stays which held up the mast. She had to be rescued and later decided to not go to the hospital until after her husband’s funeral which was held the next day.  Rose suffered a broken nose, broken finger and cuts and bruises but this incident did not make her leave her home aboard the PACIFIC QUEEN.

In 1952, Rose Kissinger was approached by the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce with plans that they had for turning the PACFIC QUEEN into a Marine Museum.  A committee had been formed and was led by Luther (Bill) Conover and Herb Madden.  Madden said that he was 100% for the museum and the ship was now located on his property.  He felt that the ship should be moved to a more public spot so that access would be easy.  But it is interesting to note, that these plans were made without the input of Rose Kissinger who was out of town when this action was taken.

In January of 1953 an article appeared in the Sausalito News about plans for the PACIFIC QUEEN under the direction of a Mr. Julius Rodman, who would later marry Rose Kissinger.   His plans for the ship called for a dramatic departure from the old out-moded carnival museum atmosphere, which obscured the finer assets of the vessel.  The morbid and unfitting wax pirate figures, keystone of the old displays would go.   The antique fittings and gear once rusting in display cases would now be put to functional use in restoring the ship to her natural state. Rodman’s plans for the PACIFIC QUEEN included restoring the authentic atmosphere of the ship and that every inch of her would function as a museum.

She would become in his reincarnation, the most authentic museum possible. But he and Rose were now facing the cold necessity of capitalizing the ship and deriving an income from her. Rodman had fast become the spokesperson for the ship while Rose took a back seat, or so some thought.

By July of 1953 the San Francisco Maritime Museum was eyeing the PACFIC QUEEN for purchase.   A spokesman for the association said that negotiations were in a preliminary stage but no definite action would be taken for another few weeks.  Rose had now taken back the helm and was steering the PACIFIC QUEEN back to San Francisco.  She had somehow come to terms with Rodman and dropped him and his name and once again she was Rose Kissinger, the sole owner of the PACIFIC QUEEN, and she would be the one that would either sell or keep the ship.

Then something went wrong and negotiations with San Francisco went bad.  Rose wanted to be paid for the PACIFIC QUEEN and felt that she had at least a $75,000.00 investment in her.  But this amount was not what San Francisco wanted to pay and they came back with another offer.  The last meeting Rose had with the San Francisco committee she had lowered her price to $50,000.00, still this was more than the committee had in their account and the meeting ended in angry on all sides, which may explain Rose’s next move.

The headlines for the 1954 March issue of the Sausalito News read:  "PACIFIC QUEEN … Maybe Sunk!  Rose Kissinger has announced her plans to have the U.S. Navy tow the PACIFIC QUEEN out into the ocean and use her as target practice and blow her up.    The historic vessel with the colorful past was being considered by the San Francisco Maritime Commission museum, but unless negotiations for a satisfactory sale are completed soon, Rose Kissinger, the ship's owner would sink the PACIFIC QUEEN."

Rose went on TV and announced her plans to sink the vessel and she began to sell the rights to who could film the event.  She had plans to sell the footage to TV and motion picture rights for the filming of the sinking of the ship.  She had wanted to keep “Tex’s dream alive but in the end she found that she was faced with too many money troubles to continue with the idea of establishing a museum.  She watched as those who wanted to profit from the PACIFIC QUEEN plotted against her and when her last effort to work with the San Francisco group became a game of how will you support this project without us, she decided she could and she would … she’d sink the PACIFIC QUEEN, her Queen and see her in a watery grave.

Three months later in June of 1954, the San Francisco Maritime Museum which had spent nearly a year in negotiations with Rose came to a deal which let them have a 60-day option to buy the vessel.  Then on July 13, 1954, the PACIFIC QUEEN had her last voyage to her new home in San Francisco.  Rose Kissinger was there the morning the tugs came to tow her to the Bethlehem Shipyard.  She commented that the surveyors were surprised at the excellent condition of the hull.  As she watched the PACIFIC QUEEN leave Sausalito for the last time she waved to the Captain A. J. Moyes who as a personnel friend had been asked to take the helm one last time by Rose.  Rose, who preferred to stay on the land watched as the ship was tied to the Crowley tugboats and began her long last voyage to San Francisco.

On June 9^th, 1955 the ship BALCULTHA opened to the public on the 67^th anniversary of the arrival of the square-rigger in San Francisco on her maiden voyage.

In 1983 a very spry Rose Kissinger at the age of 81, stopped by to see her houseboat at Pier 43 and to tell the tales of the ship that sailed under three names and starred in 40 movies before it became a floating museum. It was the answer to the dreams held by her and her husband Frank ‘Tex’ Kissinger … because his dream and her dream …came true and the ship is still with us today.  This story is dedicated to Rose Kissinger and her determination to keep a maritime dream alive.  The true Queen of the PACIFIC QUEEN, Rose Kissinger.

The First Car Across the Bridge

By Larry Clinton, President

Frenchy Gales was one of many young Sausalito men who found work building the Golden Gate Bridge in the depths of the Depression. In an oral history conducted for the Historical Society by Liz Robinson, then-91-year-old Frenchy recalled, “A tea leaf reader told my mother, ‘In the near future they’re going to build a red bridge and your son’s going to work there and he’s gonna get killed on it.  So don’t let him work on it.’  That was about 1928, and there hadn’t been a mention of [the bridge project] before that.”

Frenchy also declared, “A structural bridge worker couldn’t get any insurance, their lifespan was too short. So they lived it up while they were young.” Some workers found interesting ways to escape from work-related stress, as Frenchy details in the following excerpt:

 It was very dangerous, no training.  All you had to do was be nimble and keep your fingers out of the way.  A guy showed you in 10 minutes what to do. 

In the rain they sent us home.  One day we came down out of the tower.  It was raining, and there were four guys who had to go on a ferryboat, so they asked for a ride into town.  I had a Chevy sedan.  So naturally we went into a bar.  At one o’clock in the day, and for about four hours, we were shaking dice and fooling around, and one of the guys said,  “Take us back to San Francisco.”

The roadway wasn’t paved --  they had beams across it and boards [for construction vehicles].  So I says, “Sure, they don’t watch it at night.”  So we went on the boards almost all the way to San Francisco; then there was a space of about 10 feet where the irons go across, but they had taken the boards up.  [Frenchy’s passengers] ran out and got two boards and laid them out there and I drove across the 12-inch boards.  They walked across. 

The guys got in and we went to the first joint we come to buy a drink.  They guys started to get out and I said, “Wait a minute, now, this is the first private car to go over the Golden Gate Bridge, and it’s not gonna be free.  You gotta pay me a toll.”  I charged them 50 cents and I had to buy the first drink. Cost me two dollars, so I was out.

But, anyway, I had the first car across the Golden Gate Bridge.  We were there until about 9 o’clock at night.  I wasn’t drunk, but when I came [back] to where the boards were I don’t remember going over them boards.  I thought somebody might be working on them.  In the morning, I thought, “How’d I get home?”  And I looked out the window and my Chevrolet was there.

Frenchy’s full oral history can be reviewed at the Historical Society, which is open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 10 AM to 1 PM.

 

Workers like Frenchy Gales lived dangerously on and off the Bridge.

Photo by Dulce Duncan            Courtesy of Sausalito Historical Society

The Jackals vs. the Banker

By Larry Clinton, President

We recently reprinted a memoir by Sausalito legend Swede Pedersen about his boyhood adventures in the bootlegging trade.  Here’s another first person account of those days, including a run-in with local nabob Charles Templeton Crocker:

The old town gang, consisting of 10 to 12 kids, had our headquarters in a well-built and secluded tree hut in Hurricane Gulch. It was here with the foghorns moaning in the background that we planned our early morning escapades.

In our days all deliveries of dairy products, bread and pies and newspapers to homes were done around 4:30 a.m. The newspapers were brought daily by tug from San Francisco.

Our system was easy. The kid living up hill had the delivery route. He would awaken and head down hill. Along the way he would stop at various houses, tug on a fishing cord hanging from a bedroom window tied to the toe of the sleeper. On awakening the kid would pull in the cord and hide it, then stealthily sneak out the house.

We would then proceed to our next venture since we were always earlier than the arrival of the newspaper tug. By this time the milkman had delivered his products to his customers’ porches and the bread and pie man had delivered his wares in the large wooden bread box sitting alongside the grocery store.

We then silently approached the houses and would borrow a quart or so of milk, some butter and cream. We were very tactful borrowing only from houses with large orders and did not pursue the same homes too frequently.

While the milk-nappers did their job, the rest of the gang approached the bread box, borrowing a large loaf of milk bread, a loaf of dark bread and a pie.

We all met back at the tree houses and enjoyed our breakfast until paper delivery time. Of course we lit up our hand rolled Bull Durham cigarettes along with some tailor-made snipes we found on the street and gave a sigh of contentment.

Later we thought it was best to lay low from this borrowing game until the milk company took down the $15 reward signs for information leading to the arrest and conviction.

Just as jackals, we watched the fishermen when they played their game of subterfuge with their illegal activi­ties, especially where they hid their sacks of undersized crabs, etc. When we got caught raiding regular-sized and undersized crabs, we plea bargained to clean barnacles and seaweed off the bottoms of the boats. The fishermen couldn’t turn us in because of their undersized crabs.

We borrowed rowboats, rowed with fence posts to Fort Baker where the army dumped trash. We salvaged the brass, lead and copper and rowed back, sold our junk to the junkyard which made weights out of it for fishermen.

We learned how to enter the storm drain pipes at low tide into the army bunkers used by bootleggers. We learned the people, the timing and the fog.

The most satisfying bootleg job we enjoyed happened in 1930. Across the street from the Walhalla, Nunes Bros. Boatyard contracted to build a schooner for Charles Templeton Crocker, a wealthy San Francisco hotel owner.  He paid $450,000 to have an 118 foot, two-masted schooner named Zaca built in Sausalito for a world cruise.

On April 14, 1930, the movie actress Marie Dressler was to christen the yacht at the big launching festivities. Marie Dressler, bless her soul, had a few drinks too many. When she swung the bottle of champagne at the hull during the launching, she missed! The bottle landed on the beach at our feet.

Charles Templeton Crocker yelled to the crowd, “Twenty-five dollars to the person who brings me the bottle of champagne!”.

Six of us jackals in bib overalls ran to the launching platform and handed the champagne to Crocker. We immediately were escorted back down from the platform without a thank you or twenty-five dollars! Our overalls clashed with their evening wear.

Revenge is sweet! On Captain Langer’s Dock was stored ingots of lead weighing fifty and one hundred pounds to be brought out to the Zaca by tug boat for ballast.  On the first night with the foghorns blowing, during the wee hours of the morn could be seen six forms (in bib overalls) pulling homemade wagons loaded with as many ingots as could be carried.  The caravan silently wended its way in the fog to the junk yard where the ingots were destined to be melted into fishing weights and lures.  With pure lead paying premium prices, the jackals of the fog smilingly counted their shares bidding Charles Templeton Crocker to enjoy his twenty-five dollars and his bottle of champagne and a rocky cruise.

This account was excerpted from the book “One Eye Closed The Other Red” by Clifford James Walker, part of the Sausalito Historical Society collection.

 

Swede Pedersen just before his jackal phase.

Courtesy of Sausalito Historical Society