Saturday, October 17 (continued from yesterday) — Next we went to see the HMS Surprise. This boat was originally named Rose and was built in 1970 in Canada as a replica of the Royal Navy frigate HMS Rose. She is 179.5 feet long, 32 feet wide, has a 13 foot draft, and displaces 500 tons.
The replica builders used the original plans and were obsessed with making an exact copy of the original. The original HMS Rose was built in 1757. She served in the European seven year’s war and later was sent to the American Colonies. In 1774, she was assigned to stop smuggling into Rhode Island. She did such a good job of it that the Rhode Island economy came to a standstill. This enraged the local Rhode Islanders and caused them to declare independence from England in May 1776, two full months before the rest of the states. The Rhode Islanders also started the first American navy specifically to fight of the HMS Rose. The HMS Rose served in the American Revolution. In 1779, in Savannah, Georgia, the HMS Rose deliberately grounded herself in a channel to block all traffic. By preventing supplies and assistance from entering the area, the British were able to maintain a stronghold and Savannah remained under British control until the war ended. After the war, the boat was destroyed to clear the channel.
The replica Rose was used as a sail training vessel in the 1980’s and 1990’s in the New England area. In 2001, she was sold to Fox Studios. Fox took her to Rosarito, Mexico and used her exterior as the set for the movie “Master and Commander” (the interior was a movie set on land). She was officially renamed the HMS Surprise, which was the name of the boat in the movie. After filming was completed, she was sold to the museum. She still sails regularly.
The interior of the HMS Surprise is clean and tidy, loaded with “Master and Commander” memorabilia, along with a few signs describing what each room was used for back when it was originally a military ship. The HMS Rose was a large ship in her day, but by today’s standards, she is tiny. When you take into account the huge guns and piles of ammunition the frigates used to carry, it doesn’t leave much room for 100 people, livestock to feed 100 people for months on end, cargo, etc. When we were in Antigua, we visited a museum that explained in gruesome detail how horrible life aboard a frigate was (https://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/2009/04/15/nelson’s-dockyard-museum/), and seeing this small ship has really driven home for us just how bad it must have been.
Then we went to The Star of India, the oldest sailing ship that still regularly sails and the oldest iron hulled merchant ship still floating. She is an official United States Historical Landmark. Unfortunately, our camera died, so we have no photos of this super cool ship!
She was originally built in 1863 as a full rigged iron windjammer ship (which means she had three masts and squaresails on all three masts), commissioned by a British private company. She was named Euterpe. She is 205 feet long, 35 feet wide, has a draft of 21 feet, and a displacement of 1318 tons.
She was initially used as a merchant ship carrying cargo to and from India until 1871. Then she started a new career, transporting passengers and cargo to and from New Zealand. Each time she made this trip, she went eastward all the way around the world. She did the around the world trip from England to New Zealand and back to England 21 times. In 1897, she was sold and became a merchant ship once again, this time taking cargo between the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii and Australia. In 1901 she was again sold, this time to the Alaska Packer’s Association. She was re-rigged as a barque and renamed her The Star of India. She carried workers/supplies to Alaskan canneries and returned home loaded with canned fish. In 1923 she was replaced by a steam ship and retired. In 1926, she was sold to the Zoological Society of San Diego, who intended to use her as a museum and aquarium. But it never happened, and instead she sat in the bay and deteriorated until 1959, when a group of citizens formed the “Star of India Auxiliary” to restore the ship. Restoration was slow, not completed until 1976. Her hull, cabin and equipment are mostly original. She was the first ship in the San Diego Maritime Museum.
The boat is beautiful. She has a classic design that is aesthetically appealing. The museum has done a great job of maintaining her. The upper deck has some first class staterooms that passengers traveled in. The have been refurbished to look the way they did during the New Zealand years, and are small, but nice. We are guessing all the other passengers and crew camped out on the floor in the lower decks. The lower decks are huge, and mostly wide open spaces, which was probably ideal for a cargo ship. We were able to peer into the anchor locker and were impressed by the size of the chain. The lower decks have several different museum exhibits in them which are interesting.
At this point, we were starting to feel a little museumed out, so our last stop was the Berekely, a ferryboat built in 1898. This boat is another classic beauty. She was one of the first ferries built with a triple-expansion steam engine, the first ferry on the west coast with a propeller instead of a paddle wheel, and when she launched, was the biggest ferry in the country with a capacity for 1700 passengers. She has an unusual design, in that she has rudders at both ends rather than only at the back. It was apparently one of those good ideas in theory but not as good in practice. The docent said she could be a little difficult to steer.
She was originally built by the Southern Pacific Railroad and worked for 60 years taking passengers back and forth between the San Francisco Ferry Building and the Oakland Pier. She is the last ferry boat left that was in service during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake/fires. In 1958, Southern Pacific ended its ferry services and the Berkeley was sold to a local businessman and turned into a gift shop. After 12 years of inadequate maintenance, the owner sold her to the San Diego Maritime Museum, who restored her.
We went down to the engine room first, where a docent showed us how the massive steam engine works. Operating it required constant attention and could be dangerous. Next to the engine room was the coal shoveling area. It must have been hot, dirty and gross on that deck between the heat from the engine and the coal.
Like the Star of India, the rest of the decks are essentially wide open spaces that have assorted exhibits scattered around. The displays are eclectic and span a wide range of maritime related topics. There are several models of other types of ships that were interesting. One display that really stood out for both Christi and Eric was the old maps of California. For many decades, it was believed California was an island. Even though they knew the Sea of Cortes had no outlet, they were still sure there must be another waterway around it that they just hadn’t found yet. So these old maps have the whole state of California separated off from the rest of the mainland.
After we left the museum, we went for a walk along the waterfront. It was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed the sunshine. It was a nice day!