BALCLUTHA They mark our passage as a race of men — Earth will not see such ships as those again. — John Masefield
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he Grand Dame of the Bay is in for her once-a-decade makeover. We're talking about Balclutha, the 301-ft LOA centerpiece of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, located at the foot of Hyde Street in the City. Queen of the seven-ship historic fleet, Balclutha is one of the last and largest full-riggers on display on the West Coast. (The only others are San Diego's Star of India and Honolulu's Falls of Clyde) — and one of the most interesting. Launched in Glasgow in 1886, Balclutha (from baile clutha, gaelic for 'town on the Clyde', a reference to Dumbarton) made her maiden voyage the next year, carrying coal from Cardiff to San Francisco. She carried sacks of wheat grain for her trip back home. Although she visited other ports around the world, the
sea general' (tinplate, coke and pig iron) and, of course, lots of Scotch whiskey.
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n 1899, Balclutha was transferred to Hawaiian registry and joined the bustling Pacific Coast lumber trade. For three years, the ship carried lumber from the Pacific Northwest to Australia — 1.5 million board feet in all. Much of it ended up underground as mining timbers in the Broken Hill Mine, a mother lode in the Outback so rich in silver and lead ore that it's still producing today. Balclutha became the last vessel to fly the flag of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
ERIC BALDERSTON/COURESY BAY SHIP AND YACHT
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A little off around the ears, please — 'Balclutha' in drydock prior to her bottom getting sandblasted and painted
Europe-to-San Francisco run figured prominently in her early years, with such varied cargos as pottery, cutlery, 'SwanPage 114 •
Latitude 38
• February, 2009
BALCLUTHA AT A GLANCE LOA 301 ft LOD 256.5 ft Beam 38.6 ft Depth 22.7 ft Displacement 4,100 tons Mainmast 145 ft Sails 25 Sail Area 25,000 ft2 Crew: 26
n 1901, a special act of Congress admitted foreign-made ships into American registry. (Before that, only ships captured during wartime could become 'American'.) A few years later, Balclutha became part of the last great American sailing fleets, the Alaska Packers. The Alaska Packers Association caught, canned and transported salmon. Although steam power had already taken over most trade routes at the turn of the 20th Century, the salmon business was seasonal and sail still made economic sense, especially since old sailing ships were cheap and available. How cheap? After Balclutha went aground in 1904, the Packers bought her for $500! They pulled her off, fixed her up and put her to work. The Alaska Packers ships would sail north with men and supplies in April, anchor off one of the company's canneries with a skeleton crew for the summer, and return south in September with holds typically filled with 2.5 million cans of
salmon. Here in the Bay, the fleet rafted up and wintered in the Alameda Estuary, where any needed work was done. The Packers named all their canneries after diamonds and all their ships after stars and countries. Balclutha, one of the first members of the 'star fleet', became Star of Alaska.
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s the years went by, and the salmon business became more profitable, the Packers began replacing their sailing ships with steam powered ones. When Star of Alaska sailed north in the spring of 1930, she was the only sailing ship in attendance. She was retired upon her return to the Bay later that year. Of the 14 sailing ships in the Alaska
