Inca (schooner)

Last updated
Schooner INCA.jpg
Damaged schooner INCA at anchor, possibly in Sydney Harbour, c 1920.
History
US flag 45 stars.svgUnited States
BuilderHall Brothers, Port Blakely, WA
Launched1896 [1]
Stricken1920
General characteristics
Tonnage901.88 tons
Length215 ft 5 in (65.7 m)
Beam41 ft 3 in (12.6 m)
Draft16 ft 5 in (5.0 m)
Sail plan5-masted schooner [2]

The Inca was "the first true five-masted schooner built on the West Coast." [3]

Contents

Inca, "the second of her rig built on the Pacific, was launched at Port Blakely by Hall Bros. in 1896." [4]

Launching

"The Inca, because of its size and rig, had attracted considerable attention during the progress of its construction and when the time set for launching arrived a large crowd of people was present in the shipyards. The Port Blakeley schools were closed so that the pupils might attend the exercises incident to launching. Little Miss Melusina Thornton, the nine-year-old daughter of Chief Engineer Thornton of the steamer Sarah Renton, christened the new boat as it slipped into the water a few minutes before 11 o'clock on the morning of November 11, 1896." [5]

First cargo of sugar to Port Costa refinery

On April 3, 1898, the Inca brought the first cargo, 31,763 bags of sugar, from Honolulu to the new sugar refinery at Port Costa, California. The barkentine Planter followed with a second sugar cargo from Honolulu shortly thereafter. [6]

Voyage to Alaska gold fields, 1902

On May 13, 1902, Inca was the first vessel to leave Newcastle, Australia for Nome, Alaska, bound for the gold fields. [7]

Lumber schooner

Inca was active in the West Coast lumber trade. In 1907, she arrived in San Francisco with over a million board feet of lumber on board—1,100,000 board feet, according to a local report. [8] Two examples of her lumber voyages follow:

Inca arrived in Astoria, Oregon from Honolulu on July 19, 1910, after discharging ballast at Linnton. She was scheduled to load lumber at the Inman Paulsen mills for New Zealand. [9]

According to Gordon R. Newell, Inca "left Eureka, California October 10, 1920, with a cargo of redwood lumber for Sydney, Australia and was dismasted in the South Pacific. She was abandoned on December 7 by all hands except two men who volunteered to remain on board. The captain, his wife and the other 10 men of the crew set out in the boats and were sighted by the steamship Cosmos , which towed the Inca to Sydney, where she arrived December 18, discharged her cargo and was subsequently hulked." [10]

Inca Lane in San Francisco is supposedly named after the 5-masted schooner. [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>C.A. Thayer</i> (1895)

C.A. Thayer is a schooner built in 1895 near Eureka, California. The schooner is now preserved at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. She is one of the last survivors of the sailing schooners in the West coast lumber trade to San Francisco from Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. She was designated a National Historic Landmark on 13 November 1966.

Jackass-barque

A jackass-barque, sometimes spelled jackass bark, is a sailing ship with three masts, of which the foremast is square-rigged and the main is partially square-rigged and partially fore-and-aft rigged (course). The mizzen mast is fore-and-aft rigged.

The West Coast lumber trade was a maritime trade route on the West Coast of the United States. It carried lumber from the coasts of Northern California, Oregon, and Washington mainly to the port of San Francisco. The trade included direct foreign shipment from ports of the Pacific Northwest and might include another product characteristic of the region, salmon, as in the schooner Henry Wilson sailing from Washington state for Australia with "around 500,000 feet of lumber and canned salmon" in 1918.

<i>Wapama</i> (steam schooner)

Wapama, also known as Tongass, was a vessel last located in Richmond, California. She was the last surviving example of some 225 wooden steam schooners that served the lumber trade and other coastal services along the Pacific Coast of the United States. She was managed by the National Park Service at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park until dismantled in August 2013.

<i>Mary D. Hume</i> (steamer) United States historic place

The Mary D. Hume was a steamer built at Gold Beach, Oregon in 1881, by R. D. Hume, a pioneer and early businessman in that area. Gold Beach was then called Ellensburg. The Hume had a long career, first hauling goods between Oregon and San Francisco, then as a whaler in Alaska, as a service vessel in the Alaskan cannery trade, then as a tugboat. She was retired in 1977 and returned to Gold Beach. In 1985 she sank in the Rogue River and has remained there ever since as a derelict vessel on the shoreline. The Hume is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

USRC <i>Thomas Corwin</i> (1876)

The Thomas Corwin was a United States revenue cutter and subsequently a merchant vessel. These two very different roles both centered on Alaska and the Bering Sea. In 1912, Frank Willard Kimball wrote: "The Corwin has probably had a more varied and interesting career than any other vessel which plies the Alaskan waters."

Hans Ditlev Bendixsen American shipbuilder

Hans Ditlev Bendixsen was an American shipbuilder who was instrumental in the development of the merchant marine industry on the West Coast of the United States. His lumber schooners were built in or near Eureka, California in shipyards on Humboldt Bay for over 30 years. These schooners played a major role in the historic west coast lumber trade.

<i>Amaranth</i> (barquentine)

Amaranth was a four-masted barquentine built by Matthew Turner of Benicia, California in 1901. Amaranth sailed in the China trade between Puget Sound and Shanghai. She was wrecked on a guano island in the South Pacific in 1913 while carrying a load of coal.

Matthew Turner (shipbuilder)

Matthew Turner was an American sea captain, shipbuilder and designer. He constructed 228 vessels, of which 154 were built in the Matthew Turner shipyard in Benicia. He built more sailing vessels than any other single shipbuilder in America, and can be considered "the 'grandaddy' of big time wooden shipbuilding on the Pacific Coast."

<i>Carrier Dove</i> (schooner)

The Carrier Dove was a 4-masted schooner built by the Hall Brothers in Port Blakely in 1890. She worked in the West coast lumber trade and in fishing.

<i>Oregon Pine</i> (schooner)

Oregon Pine was a six-masted lumber schooner completed in 1920, which was built as a result of the shipbuilding efforts associated with World War I. She sailed in the West Coast lumber trade, bringing lumber from the Columbia River to Shanghai and Port Adelaide, Australia.

Richard Holyoke

Richard Holyoke was a seagoing steam tug boat built in 1877 in Seattle, Washington and which was in service on Puget Sound and other areas of the northwest Pacific coast until 1935. The vessel was considered to be one of the most powerful tugs of its time.

Rabboni was a steam tug that operated on the west coast of the United States starting in 1865.

<i>Dode</i> (steamboat)

Dode was a steamboat that ran on Hood Canal and Puget Sound from 1898 to 1900.

Dog-hole ports were the small, rural ports on the West Coast of the United States between Central California and Southern Oregon which operated between the mid-1800s until the 1930s. They were commonly called dog-holes because the schooners that served them would have to be able to "turn around in a harbor barely small enough for a dog".

<i>Aquilo</i> (steam yacht)

Aquilo was a steam yacht which was built in Boston in 1901 for William Phelps Eno, a wealthy man who was the inventor of the stop sign. In 1910, Eno sold Aquilo and the yacht was brought to the west coast of North America, where it was operated principally in Puget Sound and coastal British Columbia. Aquilo had a long succession of wealthy owners. In 1966, the yacht caught fire and sank while en route from Seattle to Los Angeles.

USRC <i>Grant</i>

USRC Grant was a rare, three-masted revenue cutter built in 1870 and 1871 by Pusey & Jones Corporation in Wilmington, Delaware. She served the United States Revenue Cutter Service in both the Atlantic and Pacific preventing smuggling and protecting shipping. At the outbreak of the War with Spain, she was ordered to cooperate with the Navy 11 April 1898. Throughout the conflict, she patrolled the Pacific coast and was returned to the Treasury Department 15 August 1898. Grant continued to serve the Revenue Cutter Service in the Pacific until sold to A. A. Cragin of Seattle, Washington on 28 November 1906.

SS <i>Roanoke</i>

SS Roanoke (1882–1916) was a passenger and cargo ship built by John Roach & Sons in Chester, Pennsylvania. The Roanoke was built for the Old Dominion Steamship Company's service from New York to Norfolk Virginia. In 1898 the ship was sold to the North American Transportation and Trading Company to take miners, supplies and gold between Seattle and ports in Alaska. Later the Roanoke was sold to the Oregon-based North Pacific Steamship Company. In 1907, the Roanoke helped to rescue the survivors of her former running mate Columbia. On May 9, 1916, the Roanoke sank in heavy seas off the California coast near San Luis Obispo with the loss of 47 lives. There were only three survivors.

<i>Minnie A. Caine</i>

The Minnie A. Caine was a four-masted wooden schooner built by Seattle shipbuilding the Moran Brothers in 1900. One of the schooner's initial short-term co-owners, Elmer Caine, named her after his wife, Minnie. From 1900 to 1926, the schooner was operated out of San Francisco by Charles Nelson Co., one of the largest transporters of lumber in the United States at the time. The schooner transported lumber across the Pacific Ocean from the Pacific Northwest to ports in Australia and Americas, but after 1920, her scope of operations became limited to the West Coast lumber trade. By 1926, the company could no longer run a sailing ship profitably, and the Minnie A. Caine was moored in a marine boneyard in California.

<i>Senator</i> (1898 ship)

Senator was a steel-hulled steamship launched in 1898. She served as a troopship during the Spanish-American War and was an important part of the Nome gold rush. She spent thirty years in the coastwise shipping trade between Alaska and San Diego, until she was scrapped in Osaka, Japan in 1935.

References

  1. Newell, Gordon R. (1966). "Maritime Events of 1896", H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest. Seattle: Superior Publishing Co. p. 4. Retrieved 2010-02-27.
  2. Governor Ames and the Inca, the only five-masted topsail schooners in the world, San Francisco Call, Volume 83, Number 126, 5 April 1898
  3. Bruzelius, Lars (Oct 6, 1996). "Sailing Ships: Five-masted schooners" . Retrieved 2010-02-27.
  4. Lyman, John (May 10, 1941). "Pacific coast built sailers 1850-1905". The Marine Digest. p. 2. Retrieved 2010-02-27.
  5. Begley, Clarence (1916). History of Seattle from the earliest settlement to the present time. Chicago: S.J Clarke Publishing Co. pp. 615–616.
  6. Alaska Fever Now Abating. San Francisco Call, Volume 83, Number 125, 4 April 1898
  7. San Francisco Call, Volume 93, Number 165, 14 May 1903 — From Australia to Nome
  8. Shipping News and Gossip of the Water Front, San Francisco Call, Volume 102, Number 16, 16 June 1907
  9. Shipping News of Coast, San Francisco Call, Volume 108, Number 50, 20 July 1910
  10. Newell, Gordon R. (1966). "Maritime Events of 1919-1920", H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest. Seattle: Superior Publishing Co. p. 312. Retrieved 2010-02-27.
  11. Donat, Hank (2008). "Mr. SF.com, Streets of the City" . Retrieved 2010-02-27.

Further reading