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MARITIME MUSEUM OF SAN DIEGO

The Maritime Museum of San Diego, established in 1948, preserves one of the largest collections of historic sea vessels in the United States. Located in the San Diego Bay, the centerpiece of the museum's collection is the Star of India, an 1863 iron bark.

The museum maintains the MacMullen Library and Research Archives aboard the 1898 ferryboat Berkeley. The museum also publishes the quarterly peer-reviewed journal Mains'l Haul: A Journal of Pacific Maritime History.

VESSELS IN THE MUSEUM'S COLLECTION

• Star of India, 1863 merchant bark
- Berkeley, 1898 ferryboat from the San Francisco Bay area
- Californian, 1984 replica of 1847 cutter C.W. Lawrence and official tall ship of the state of California
- Medea, 1904 yacht that served in both World Wars
- Pilot, 1914 harbor pilot boat
- HMS Surprise, 1970 replica of a Royal Navy frigate used in the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
- B-39, Soviet submarine

Not affiliated with the Maritime Museum but located a short distance away is the independently operated USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum. Although at first it was feared the Midway would compete with the Maritime Museum for visitors, in fact visitation of the Maritime Museum has increased since the Midway museum opened.[1]

STAR OF INDIA

Star of India was built in 1863 as Euterpe, a full-rigged iron ship in Ramsey, Isle of Man. After a full career sailing between Great Britain and India, she became a salmon hauler on the Alaska to California route. After retirement, she was restored and is now a seaworthy museum ship ported in San Diego.

In 1926, Star of India was sold to the Zoological Society of San Diego, California, to be the centerpiece of a planned museum and aquarium. The Great Depression and World War II caused that plan to be canceled; it wasn't until 1957 that her restoration began. Alan Villiers, a windjammer captain and author, came to San Diego on a lecture tour. Seeing Star decaying in the harbor, he publicized the situation and inspired a group of citizens to form the "Star of India Auxiliary" in 1959 to support the restoration of the ship.

Progress was still slow, but in 1976, Star of India put to sea again. She currently houses exhibits for the Maritime Museum of San Diego, and sails at least once a year. The Star of India is the second-oldest ship afloat, after the USS Constitution. The older ship makes only brief expeditions from its dock, so the Star of India is considered the oldest active sailing ship in the world.

BERKELEY

The Berkeley was a ferryboat that operated out of the San Francisco Bay for sixty years. Built in 1898, she served after the 1906 earthquake, ferrying refugees across the bay to Oakland. She has been in San Diego since 1973, where she currently serves as the main "building" of the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

CALIFORNIAN (Schooner)

Californian was built in 1984 as a replica of the revenue service cutter C.W. Lawrence which operated off the Californian coast in the 1850s. She is known as the "Official Tall ship Ambassador for the State of California". A precursor to today's Coast Guard, the Revenue Cutter Service was responsible for securing the tax revenue and to relieve distressed merchant vessels, much as the United States Coast Guard operates today.

Originally commissioned by the Nautical Heritage Society, she's flown the Californian flag up and down the Californian coast and in ports ranging from Hawaii, Mexico, and the East Coast. Recently acquired by the Maritime Museum of San Diego, she underwent a complete overhaul and has now returned to providing sail training and sea educational programs up and down the Californian coast.

MEDEA

The Medea is a 1904 steam yacht preserved in the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Named after Medea, the wife of Jason, she was built on the Clyde at Alexander Stephen's shipyard at Linthouse by John Stephen for William Macalister Hall of Torrisdale Castle, Scotland. She holds the distinction of being one of only two vessels surviving that fought in both World Wars. (The other is the USS Texas.)

During World War I, the French Navy purchased Medea and armed her with a 75mm cannon for use in convoy escort duty. (Her name under the French flag was Corneille.) Between the wars, she was owned by members of Parliament. During World War II, the Royal Navy put her to work anchoring barrage balloons at the mouth of the Thames.

After World War II, Medea passed between Norwegian, British, and Swedish owners before being purchased by Paul Whittier in 1971. He restored the yacht to its original condition and donated her to the Maritime Museum of San Diego in 1973.

H.M.S. SURPRISE (Replica)

Rose was a modern tall ship, built at Lunenberg, Nova Scotia in 1970 to a Phil Bolger design based on the original 18th century Admiralty drawings. She was a replica of HMS Rose, a sixth-rate frigate built in 1757.

Rose was inspected and certified by the United States Coast Guard and operated as a sail training vessel in the 1980s and 1990s, run by the HMS Rose Foundation based in Bridgeport, CT. She was sold to the 20th Century Fox film studio in 2001 to be used in the making of the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, in which she played the fictional Royal Navy frigate Surprise. After the film was complete, the ship was purchased by the San Diego Maritime Museum who have renamed her the Surprise and plan on restoring her to her former glory.

B-39 SOVIET SUBMARINE

B-39 was a Project 641 (also known by its NATO reporting name of "Foxtrot" class) diesel-electric attack submarine of the Soviet Navy. Foxtrots are among the largest non-nuclear submarines ever built. Her keel was laid down on 9 February 1962 at the Admiralty Shipyard in Leningrad (now known as Saint Petersburg). She was launched on 15 April 1967 and commissioned on 28 December 1967.

Transferred to the 9th Submarine Squadron of the Pacific Fleet, B-39 was homeported in Vladivostok and conducted patrols throughout the North Pacific, along the coast of the United States and Canada, and ranging as far as the Indian Ocean and the Arctic Ocean. After the end of the Vietnam War, she often made port visits to Danang. During the early 1970s, B-39 trailed a Canadian frigate through Strait of Juan de Fuca to Vancouver Island.

In 1989 in the Sea of Japan while charging batteries on the surface, B-39 came within 500 yards of an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate. Both crews took pictures of each other.

B-39 was decommissioned on 1 April 1994 and sold to Finland. She made her way from there through a series of sales to Vancouver Island in 1996 and to Seattle, Washington, in 2002 before arriving in San Diego, California, on 22 April 2005 and becoming an exhibit of the Maritime Museum of San Diego. During her sequence of owners she acquired the names "Black Widow" and "Cobra," neither of which she had during her commissioned career.

When B-39 was made a museum the shroud around her attack periscope was cut away where it passes through her control room. As built, a Foxtrot's periscopes are only accessible from her conning tower, which is off-limits in the museum. With the shroud cut away, tourists can look through the partially-raised periscope (which is directed toward the Midway museum, some 500 yards away). However, the unidentified and unexplained change gives the false impression that one periscope could be used from the control room.

From Wikipedia.org, the Free Encyclopedia

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