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Hope Remains For Successful SS Catalina Salvage
http://www.thelog.com/news/newsview.asp?c=116332
July 22, 2004
By Jean Quist
Like the ship grounded in the shallows of Ensenada Harbor, hopes for salvaging SS Catalina lay mired in the mud of bureaucratic processing and
international negotiations.
At a meeting July 17, SS Catalina Preservation Association President Phil Dockery announced that a grant submitted in April to Sempra Energy?s
Community Partnership program had been rejected.
But, based on advice from the review committee, SSCPA plans to submit a modified grant proposal to Sempra Energy International. The modified request
may qualify under the utility?s community-outreach portion of its plan to build a LPG re-gasification terminal just outside Ensenada on the Baja
peninsula.
Dockery explained that the initial grant, which had requested $1.5 million to repair the hull and refloat Catalina, was rejected because it did not
fit criteria for Sempra?s domestic charitable efforts. Those criteria currently award applications that focus on education and literacy goals.
The review committee recommended that SSCPA submit a modified grant to the corporation?s Citizen Grant Board that is being established in Ensenada as
part of the LPG terminal construction.
According to Dockery, chances of a successful outcome are good, based on SSCPA?s affiliation with ICOMOS, one of Baja?s largest educational
organizations.
Efforts by SSCPA to salvage the 301-foot coastal steamer Catalina, built and launched by the Wrigley family in 1924, provided daily ferry service
between Los Angeles and Avalon on Santa Catalina Island.
Before being retired in 1975, the ?Great White Steamer? carried more than 20 million passengers. During World War II, she was commissioned as a troop
transport in the San Francisco Bay area.
Since 1997, the ship, which has been designated a California State Historic Landmark and is on the National Registry of Historic Places, has been
sitting in 15 feet of mud and silt in Ensenada Harbor.
Formed in 1999, SSCPA is a grass roots, not-for-profit organization that has dedicated considerable resources to her salvage and eventual return to
U.S. waters.
In late 2003, luck seemed to turn in her favor when veteran Hollywood producer Ken Wales approached SSCPA with a proposal that would provide salvage
funds in exchange for the ship?s role in a film based on Wales? book Sea of Glory.
The story is a fictionalized account of the 1943 torpedoing of SS Dorchester, an East Coast steamer also commissioned as a troop carrier during World
War II.
But, as often happens with Hollywood projects, the film?s production has run into repeated delays.
Wales is currently about to embark on a second version of a screenplay with a different screenwriter. He told Dockery last week that while he is still
interested in using Catalina in the film, he could not guarantee if or when the studio Crusader Films would makes funds available for a salvage
effort.
Meanwhile, the clock is still running out on Catalina?s survival as an historic icon.
The Mexican government and Port of Ensenada authorities want the 1,776-ton steel-hulled steamer removed from its location just offshore from
construction of a new marina complex in Ensenada Harbor.
The ship poses a navigational threat to the yachts that bring in revenue to the marina and, by extension, the port itself.
Recent efforts to contact and meet with Ensenada?s port director to negotiate a moratorium on Mexican plans to scrap the ship have been unsuccessful,
according to Dockery.
?The process of near success and then disappointment over the past five years has been beyond frustrating,? Dockery said, ?But, we still have some
options left and will investigate them before we give up all efforts.?
Dockery admitted that communication about the ship?s fate to association members in recent months had been limited due to a number of factors.
They include waiting for Sempra?s review committee to make a decision, lack of contact with Ensenada port officials, and new anti-spam technology,
which has hindered the e-mailing of newsletters and updates to the membership.
He said that the technical issues with the association?s database and its Web site should be resolved in the next few weeks.
For additional information on SS Catalina, salvage efforts and the SSCPA, please visit: http://www.scatalina.org
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Anonymous
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The gig is up. Waiting for a new screenplay to shop around and then the money appears? No wonder the Ensenada officials don't want to talk to them.
Ample time has been given and in any other harbor on this coast that navigational hazard would have long been gone.
I liked that ship. I rode it as a kid to Catalina. Later, when the ship first immigrated to Mexico, my Mexican wife and I ate sushi there. Paty was
curious and I conversed the history of the ship and what it meant to those of us from Southern California and that era. Even then the brightwork
still glistened and one could see the craftmenship in her makeup.
That is all history now and a sinking screenplay can't save a sinking hope.
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David K
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Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Is that you Dan (LL)?
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surfer jim
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Keep the ship...spend the money on grading the washboard roads.....
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