Ships
° Vessels & Rigging ° Clippers ° Steamships ° Lines ° Builders ° Shipwrecks
Daily Alta California, September 15, 1851
The following statement of the Ocean Steamships at present afloat, and in process of construction, will probably be found of great interest to our readers generally, and particularly to the commercial community. It is made up from the best sources of information to which access could be had, and though the statement is not as detailed in its character as could be wished, it is believed to be accurate and reliable as far as it goes. We acknowledge our indebtedness to Robert Carrington, Esq., of this city, and to Willmet and Smith's Times, for large portions of the facts embodied below.
| STEAM LINES UPON THE PACIFIC | ||
| Pacific Mail Steamship Company Route, between San Francisco and Panama, via intermediate ports. |
||
| Steamers | Tons | Commanders |
| Golden Gate | 2200 | C.P. Patterson, U.S.N. Now coming round the Horn. |
| Illinois | 2200 | Now building |
| Oregon | 1097 | R.H. Pierson |
| Panama | 1087 | James Watkins |
| California | 1050 | T.A. Budd, U.S.N. |
| Tennessee | 1300 | Geo. M. Totten, U.S.N. |
| Northerner | 1200 | Henry Randall |
| Republic | 1200 | W.H. Hudson, U.S.N. |
| Antelope | 500 | |
| Isthmus | 600 | |
| Unicorn | 600 | |
| Carolina | 600 | Richard L. Whiting |
| Columbus | 600 | J.B.G. Isham |
| Constitution | 600 | Samuel S. Welsh |
| Fremont | 600 | Allan McLane, U.S.N. |
| Sarah Sands | 1500 | William Isley |
| Between San Francisco and Oregon | ||
| Columbia | 800 | A.V.H. Leroy, U.S.N. |
| Agents--E. Knight, San Francisco; Oliver Ellsworth, Panama, Yecker, Torrey & Co., Mazatlan; Barron, Forbes & Co., San Blas; J.H. Bill, Acapulco; J. Durbrow, Jr., Oregon | ||
| Vanderbilt's Independent Line Route, between San Francisco and San Juan del Sud, touching at Acapulco. |
||
| Pacific | 1000 | D.G. Bailey |
| Independence | 800 | Edgar Wakeman |
| North America | 1250 | James H. Blethen. On her way around the Horn. |
| Sea Bird | 500 | Captain Tibbetts |
| San Francisco | 1000 | Nearly ready for sea. |
| Gold Hunter | ? | J.W. Thompson |
| Agent--R.J. Vandewater, and Goodwin & Co., Sansome Street, San Francisco | ||
| Empire City Line Route, between San Francisco and Panama, touching at Acapulco only. |
||
| New Orleans | 1200 | J.D. Wood |
| Commodore Stockton | 600 | E.H. Ackley |
| Monumental City | 800 | J.H. Norris |
| Agent--J.W. Raymond, Sacramento street, San Francisco | ||
| Pacific (Panama and Valparaiso) Company Route, between Panama and Valparaiso, touching at intermediate ports. |
||
| Peru | 658 | ? |
| Chili | 658 | ? |
| Coquimbo | 652 | ? |
| Equador | 323 | ? |
| New Grenada | 649 | ? |
| Building: At Glasgow, the Santiago, and three others not yet named, each of 1100 tons and 400 horsepower; the whole of which are to be of iron, and on the paddle-wheel principle. The Santiago is expected to leave Liverpool at the latter end of July, and the three others to be on the Pacific before April next. | ||
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Under Full Sail: Silent Cinema on the High Seas
Five films that preserve the romance, grandeur and allure of windjammers sailing open waters, photographed in the style of the time.
The Yankee Clipper(1927), produced by Cecil B. DeMille and directed by Rupert Julian, restored to the most complete version available since the film s release, is a feature-length melodrama recreating the real-life race from Foo Chow to Boston for the China tea trade. The gorgeous production filmed at sea for six weeks aboard the 1856 wooden square-rigger Indiana with stars William Boyd, Elinor Fair and Frank Junior Coghlan. Renowned organist Dennis James, in his solo DVD premiere, accompanies the film on an original-installation 1928 Wurlitzer pipe organ, recorded at Seattle's Paramount Theatre.
Around the Horn in a Square Rigger(1933) was filmed by noted sailor and author Alan Villiers documenting the record-breaking 83-day voyage of the 1902 barque Parma from Australia to England in the 1933 Grain Race. Villiers writes: "We wanted to make a picture that would capture some of the stirring beauty of these ships, that would perpetuate something of the glory of their wanderings ... some glimmer of understanding of the attraction which they hold over those who sail in them." Music by Eric Beheim.
The Square Rigger (1932), an early sound short filmed as part of Fox s Magic Carpet of Movietone, shows life aboard the schoolship Dar Pomorza, The White Frigate. Built in 1909 as the Prinzess Eitel Friedrich, it was ceded from Germany to France as a prize of World War I, and was later donated to the Polish State Maritime School in 1930 where it served 50 years and trained more than 13,000 cadets.
Ship Ahoy(1928) is a unique record of the conditions and traditions of the North American lumber trade featuring an unidentified schooner equipped with a fore and aft rig as it transports lumber from the Carolinas up the coast to a northern port. Music by Eric Beheim.
The collection is rounded off with a ten-minute sequence from
Down to the Sea in Ships (1922) documenting an authentic whale hunt from the 1878 wooden ship Wanderer out of New Bedford, Massachusetts. The camera-men risk their lives to capture practices unchanged since Herman Melville immortalized them in Moby Dick. Music by Dennis James.
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