BajaNomad
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Latest Info on SS Catalina in Ensenada
Because of my involvement with the group trying to "save" the SS Catalina, I feel compelled to post updates on the recovery effort.
For those not aware, I produced and have hosted one of the sites for the recovery effort ( http://sscatalina.com ) as well as support and development of the "official" site ( http://sscatalina.org ).
There is an official update at:
http://sscatalina.org/saloon/
And an article from the weekend at:
http://www.dailybreeze.com/content/bln/nmsby8.html
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
– Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
We know we must go back if we live, and we don`t know why.
– John Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
Affordable Domain Name Registration/Management & cPanel Web Hosting:
https://www.regionalinternet.com |
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Packoderm
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I had no idea that boat was so pretty in her younger days. Is she hitting solid ground or is she still partially floating? I walked up and checked her
out about five years ago. They were in the process of fixing up a restaruant, but it was low in the water even back then. Remember the navy boat that
they cut to scrap? I climbed around and inspected every inch of that boat. It was interesting. It would of been fun to open a saloon on the navy ship
compete with slanting floor!
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BajaNomad
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Basically sitting on the floor of the bay.
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Anonymous
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SS Catailna
Is there anything new regarding the SS Catalina and her raising status?
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BajaNomad
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The SSCPA is working with a possible donor that wishes to remain anonymous (for reasons which will/should be obvious at some point)...
Lastest note I saw noted that there may be news coming in the next few weeks. Hopefully it'll be good news.
Regards,
--
Doug Means
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Divers: SS Catalina Structurally Sound
http://www.thelog.com/news/newsview.asp?c=61770
Thursday, June 12, 2003
By Jean Quist
It?s hard to believe just by looking at her - stuck on the bottom of Ensenada Harbor with an 11-degree list to port, and most of her portside decking
gone - but a recent dive survey indicates that SS Catalina is still salvageable.
In fact, according to preliminary reports, she?s in better shape than expected.
A dive team retained by the SS Catalina Preservation Association (SSPCA) traveled to Ensenada Harbor May 19 and spent two days diving on the hull,
measuring hull thickness with ultrasound, taping underwater video, and assessing structural damage. A dive survey is the first step in determining
whether a vessel can be salvaged, what method should be used, and how much it will cost.
The association, a grass-roots effort that has been working to raise Catalina and return her to American waters since the mid-?90s, was approached by
a potential sponsor last year who may be willing to underwrite the cost of the salvage project.
The association?s goal is to refloat the SS Catalina and bring her back to the U.S. Once back in U.S. waters, she may be eligible for a variety of
grants and funding from preservation organizations. The association is looking for a permanent berth in the Los Angeles/Long Beach/San Pedro area.
SS Catalina was built in 1924 and over the course of her lifetime, has served as the ferry between San Pedro and Catalina Island, a troop carrier
during World War II, and a theme restaurant.
One of the few remaining coastal steamers built in the early 20th century, she has received designation as an Historic Landmark. More important to her
immediate survival, though, are the impressions and fond memories she has instilled in the hearts and minds of the more than 2 million passengers she
carried.
This desire to save a part of Southern California?s legacy and the personal ties so many people feel toward the vessel, whether they traveled on her
each summer to Boy Scout camp or first viewed Avalon Harbor from her decks, was integral to the success of the dive survey as well.
Advisor to the SSCPA Board Tim Pyle worked for several weeks to coordinate members of the dive-and- salvage team and charter a boat in Mission Bay to
transport dive equipment and to serve as the dive boat while in Ensenada Harbor.
When the charter fell through at the last minute, Pyle contacted ?anyone I could think of? to help locate a substitute boat.
One of those frantic phone calls was to Bill Krause, the West Coast representative for Ceram-Kote?, a protective hull sealant recently used to seal
the Berkeley?s hull for the San Diego Maritime Museum. Krause is also a member of the San Diego Yacht Club and a close friend of two men he felt would
be willing to lend a hand.
Bob Shinn and Bill Leisk are both retired Navy officers and submariners; Leisk?s father was a skipper aboard the SS Catalina for more than 30 years;
he remembers selling peanuts to the summer tourists. Bob Shinn has a boat, a 55-foot Grand Banks fishing trawler Andante. The two have sailed together
for years.
Shinn and Leisk agreed to take Pyle and a SSCPA board member Maria Castillo-Curry and the dive team?s equipment down to Ensenada Harbor, where they
would meet members of the dive team.
That team was headed up by two veteran divers and salvers, J.H. ?Mick? Leitz of Fred Devine Diving & Salvage Co. from Portland, Ore., and Rich Barta
of Muldoon Marine Services, Inc., Long Beach, Calif. Leitz and Barta had first worked together 14 years ago on a salvage project along the Alaskan
Coast - removing oil from and refloating Exxon Valdez.
Chief Diver Tristan Mayberry and divers David Weeks and Michelle Nichols dove on the ship for two days, inspecting the underwater hull structure,
rivet strength, and deck beams. The dive itself became a new tourist attraction, with excursion boats and private vessels driving by for a look at the
action.
The Mexican government and Ensenada port officials have made their position on the SS Catalina quite clear: get it out of here.
The 300-foot ferry steamer is a navigation hazard and sits just off the shore from a marina development site. Castillo-Curry, a professor at Il
Colegio de la Frontera Norte, said that Mexican authorities were pleased that action has finally begun to remove the ship from its current location.
The marina project?s start date has been delayed for a few months, giving SSCPA additional breathing room to float and transport her. If she remains
at her current location much longer, Mexican authorities have said they will cut up the ship for scrap and haul it away in pieces.
President of the SSCPA Board Phil Dockery shared preliminary results of the dive survey with the rest of the board and its advisors at a meeting May
31. In addition to providing an overview of the ship?s condition, President and Senior Salvage Master for Fred Devine Diving & Salvage and author of
the report Leitz offered three options for raising the SS Catalina.
The divers found more than 90 openings and hull penetrations where water flows in and out of the vessel, with 85 requiring patches to refloat the
boat. According to the dive-survey results, approximately 50 rivets were scraped and examined for integrity. The heads were all found to still be
slightly crowned and tight around their perimeters.
Options for raising the ship vary from using a sling to lift the hull while holes are patched, constructing a cofferdam from the main deck to the
saloon deck and around most of the ship?s perimeter, or patching and sealing the approximately 85 holes required and pumping out the water and silt,
letting the vessel?s natural buoyancy lift her off the harbor bottom.
Leitz recommends the last alternative based on practical and economic reasons and estimates the refloating project would take 30 days. He was waiting
to receive blueprints of the ship before giving SSCPA a realistic cost estimate.
Pyle, who was on hand throughout the survey, applauded the quality of the survey.
?This is the most extensive, thorough, qualitative, and quantitative survey performed on the SS Catalina so far. And all of these people involved
cared enough to do this [dive survey] without charging what a typical survey would cost.?
If she is refloated, plans are for her to either be repaired in Ensenada before journeying north or towed to a Southern California port for drydock
and repair.
SSCPA hopes to ultimately fully restore the ship and use her for educational and historic purposes, where the public can experience an important piece
of Southern California?s maritime heritage.
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Ski Baja
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Catalina
I spent many summers of my childhood going back and forth on the S.S.Catalina. Including diving for coins in Avalon Bay when she would dock there.
Last trip on her was with a bunch of friends, one who lived on the island. When all of our girlfriends disappeared on the trip over, we finally found
them in the engine room playing poker with the crew. The good old days. I would love to see her afloat again.
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Time Running Out For SS Catalina
http://www.nbc4.tv/travelgetaways/2464199/detail.html
Ship Ferried Tourists To Island For Years
POSTED: 1:24 p.m. PDT September 8, 2003
LOS ANGELES -- The clock is ticking for the SS Catalina, the Great White Steamer that ferried generations of tourists to Santa Catalina Island.
Preservationists have until the end of the month to salvage the rusty 310-foot ship, which has been partially sunk in Ensenada Harbor for five years.
Mexico authorities want the ship moved or it will be demolished to make way for a $50 million Ensenada marina development.
"It's a large piece of history and it means a lot to a lot of people," said David Engholm who began the Catalina salvage attempts in 1997. "I'm hoping
and praying that she's going to be saved."
From 1924 to 1975, the SS Catalina ferried more than 20 million passengers back and forth between Los Angeles Harbor and Avalon. The ship, built at
Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. in San Pedro at a cost of more than $1 million in 1923, also transported soldiers across San Francisco Bay
during World War II.
Preservationists had hoped the ship would be docked as a tourist attraction in Los Angeles Harbor.
"Even though she may never run again, it would be nice to have her set up somewhere as a museum," Engholm said.
Phil Dockery, president of the Catalina Preservation Association, said his group is working with a new sponsor to help raise the ship out of the
water. He wouldn't identify the sponsor.
"It looks really good," Dockery said. "We've gone the professional route this time."
It would cost at least $2 million to raise the ship and put it in dry dock.
The old steamship, already a navigational hazard, has to be moved or demolished, Ensenada port director Carlos Jauregui Gonzalez said, adding, "This
is the last call."
The SS Catalina was sold and moved to Ensenada Harbor in 1985 in a failed attempt to turn it into a restaurant. It began to sink in 1997 and now sits
partially submerged in about 20 feet of water.
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Anonymous
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Film deal may help save Catalina
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20031017-9999_6m17...
Port officials say steamship must be moved this month
By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
October 17, 2003
TIJUANA ? A U.S.-based preservation group trying to save a sinking steamship stuck in Ensenada, Mexico, announced this week that a film producer is
trying to help rescue the ship so it can be used in an upcoming World War II film.
"We were contacted by someone that wants to use the ship as a double for a ship that is fairly similar to the Catalina," said Phil Dockery, president
of the S.S. Catalina Preservation Association. "It makes the film more authentic."
Dockery said he couldn't name the film company or provide details about the negotiations because the arrangements are not complete. The tentative
agreement would allow the company to use the boat for filming in exchange for removing it and towing it to shore.
It remains unclear whether the deal can be finished in time to save the Catalina.
Ensenada port officials have said the ship must be removed from the harbor by the end of the month so that more boat slips can be built as part of a
larger modernization project. In case the film deal falls through, the preservation association is renewing its effort to raise the estimated $1
million to $2 million needed to lift the Catalina out of the water and tow it to the United States.
The Catalina, built by chewing gum magnate William Wrigley, ferried more than 20 million passengers from the Southern California coast to Catalina
Island between 1924 and 1975. It also took military units to their assigned boats off San Francisco Bay during World War II. The ship was sold to
investors in 1977, and in 1985 it was moved to Ensenada, where it became a floating restaurant. It was abandoned and started to sink about six years
ago.
The Mexican government, which took possession of the Catalina after it was abandoned, has deeded the ship to the Irvine-based preservation association
with the provision that it be removed from the Ensenada harbor.
In an electronic message sent to association members, Dockery said negotiations with the film company began last year, when the association was
contacted by an East Coast researcher who was looking for steamships built around the 1920s for a film producer.
The company determined that the Catalina was the only one that would work for the project, "indeed the only ship of its kind left in as good condition
as she is," Dockery wrote.
Since then, Dockery has met with the producer and others involved in the project, and in March he took a group to Ensenada to see the Catalina.
The ship would be temporarily modified for the film, Dockery said, since much of the story would take place on board.
Robert Shindle, project archivist for the Steamship Historical Society of America at the University of Baltimore, said steamships helped ferry cargo
between the United States and England during the Second World War and were sometimes sunk.
But he said he couldn't guess which ship's story might be of interest to a Hollywood studio.
"They drafted a lot of them across the Atlantic and they were used for hauling cargo," Shindle said. "Even before the U.S. went to war, they would go
to Britain with supplies, but they were fair game for the Germans."
More information on the S.S. Catalina preservation effort is available at www.sscatalina.org
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Last Call For SS Catalina Says Port Of Ensenada
http://www.thelog.com/news/newsview.asp?c=78688
Friday, October 17, 2003
By Coty Dolores Miranda
HEADED FOR THE SCRAP HEAP? - Ensenada?s port director says Oct. 31 is the deadline for U.S. supporters to rescue the California State Historic
Landmark, the SS Catalina - if not, he?ll ask the Mexican navy to start cutting her up.
ENSENADA - As a prime example of the law of unintended consequences, a grand ship registered in the National Register of Historic Places and honored
with placement on the California State Historic Landmark and the City of Los Angeles Historical Cultural Monument lists may soon be cut up for scrap.
The SS Catalina, mired in the mud in Ensenada Harbor and home to seals and seabirds, will find her fate settled at month?s end, according to Port of
Ensenada Director Carlos M. Jauregui Gonzalez.
It is not a pretty one.
In an interview with The Log on Friday, Oct. 10, the director said that although he?d like to be optimistic that the S.S. Catalina Preservation
Association might work a last-minute miracle to raise the ship and move it to U.S. waters, he has no choice but to pursue the plan to scrap her.
?If they don?t remove the vessel by Oct. 31, I will ask the Mexican navy to clear the space the vessel is occupying,? he said. ?One of the conditions
of donating the vessel (to the SSCPA) was to remove it.?
Jauregui Gonzalez said the task is ?a big one? involving expenditures not budgeted by the Port of Ensenada or the Mexican navy under whose
jurisdiction the ship remains.
?We?re thinking it will cost more than $2 million to raise it,? he said.
The S.S. Catalina Preservation Association has been attempting to raise funds to get her afloat and towed back to U.S. waters since organizing for
that purpose as a not-for-profit corporation in 1999.
Though the news of their efforts posted on the www.sscatalina.org Web site has not been updated in nearly a year, active members like organization president Phil Dockery and vice president
Maria Eugenia Castillo De Curry have kept the goal alive, seeking U.S. sponsors and meeting three times this year with Port of Ensenada officials.
Yet, when contacted by The Log with the newest deadline notice, they were caught unawares, spurring a new scramble for help, if not from their
?anonymous donor? to which they have repeatedly referred but not identified, than from anyone who will listen and act.
?We have a good sponsor that might come late with the funds, and the ship could be lost by then. Meanwhile, we are trying to get other sponsors with
less money and a less-expensive company to help. Members of the SSCPA are working on that right now,? wrote Maria Castillo De Curry via e-mail Oct. 14
after learning of the port director?s newest cut-off date.
The ideal for the organization remains to remove the SS Catalina in tact, or as intact as the listing, rusted vessel can be. If worse comes to worse
and the steamship is dismantled, the members will resort to ?Plan B? according to Castillo De Curry.
?We told the API (Administracion Portuaria Integral de Ensenada - the port) and will continue telling them, that if the time ends, we still want to
help save whatever can be saved from the ship by joining efforts?In case the ship ends up in pieces, we are working on the possibility of bringing
back some of the pieces to the U.S. since in Mexico, the ship is not historically significant. I just hope all or part of it can be saved before the
last deadline arrives.?
The SS Catalina has already survived other drop-dead deadlines, but the patience of the port and the proposed $50 million expansion of that area of
the Ensenada Harbor with the construction of the Carta Marina is cause to doubt another is forthcoming.
Still, the SSCPA perseveres.
?We have done as much as we have been able to,? said Castillo De Curry who is a professor at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana. ?Keeping the
people of Mexico supporting us for six years has taken two presidential decrees that the SSCPA, together with the El Colegio de la Frontera Norte,
were able to push for - one was for declaring the ship abandoned, and the other was the donation to the U.S. preservationists.
?But we understand that they [the port] also have to deal with the needs of the port development. It is just so sad that historic preservation and
economic development cannot conciliate their interest in this particular case. The U.S. should extend the protection of historic vessels abroad
through grants and loans so this does not happen again. If the ship were in the U.S., it could be saved.?
Although these days the SS Catalina is just one of the quaint stops on Ensenada Harbor tours where tourists snap photos of lounging sea lions, she was
once a stellar steamship commissioned by William Wrigley, Jr. and built by the Los Angeles Ship Building Company in 1924 to ply the waters between Los
Angeles and Steamer Pier in Avalon. She had a passenger capacity of 1,963.
She did so for 51 years, carrying more than 20 million passengers, many of whom recall their 26-mile trips as ?vacations in themselves? where they
danced to live Big Band music in the ship?s elegant ballroom. Her last voyage to the Isle of Catalina was Sept., 14, 1975. She had made the journey
9,807 times.
Besides gaining her notch in history as the ship carrying more passengers than any other, she also earned accolades during World War II - transporting
820,199 troops across San Francisco Bay - more than any other Army transport.
At war?s end, she rejoined her consort the SS Avalon - the two being dubbed ?The Great White Steamers.? The smaller SS Avalon went down in a storm in
1961 after surviving three fires and the humiliation of a conversion into a salvage barge.
In 1977, the SS Catalina was sold to a private party. She was brought to Ensenada and for awhile, attracted the fancy folks to the Ensenada Harbor
shoreline refrocked as the Catalina Bar and Grill. The final American owner Ruth Sanger lost the boat in a lien by Mexican workers for severance pay.
By 1997, the pride of Avalon began to sink. She now lists portside at her muddy mooring, partially submerged in approximately 20 feet of water.
Ironically, the once-sparkling ship with her towering smokestack trailing wisps of gray behind her like a chiffon scarf and her colorful pennants
flapping smartly, lies within viewing of passengers of the many cruise ships at the nearby Cruise Port.
Phil Dockery, president of the board of directors of SSCPA said,"We've been working with a sponsor for over a year now.
?We?ve just reached the point where we are finally able to say that this sponsor is a film studio that has a very strong interest in using the
Catalina in a major upcoming World War II historical feature film, a true story, that prominently features an East Coast coastal steamer of the same
vintage as the Catalina.
Unfortunately, due to the peculiarities of the film industry, the funds that would save the ship won't be released in time to meet the deadlines
currently set by the Port of Ensenada.
If the ship is lost, it will be a true tragedy as the funds to save her would have become available just weeks later.
SSCPA has fought to save the Catalina for a long time now, and we still have two weeks left; anything can happen, and we won't give up until the last
possible minute."
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deviatesrock1
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SS CATALINA UP DATE
IMMEDIATE UPDATE OF SS CATALINA GO TO THELOG.COM FRONT PAGE UPDATE OF THE MOVIE PRODUCERS THAT IS GOING TO FINACE THE SALVAGE OF THE OLD SHIP
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