A Rainy Afternoon aboard the Forester |
"A couple of months ago, I took the family for a ride. We crossed the bay from Marin County on the San Quentin ferry, drove along the Sacramento highway to Pinole, and then to Martinez. Crossing Carquinez Strait on the Benicia ferry, you could look back and see her lying in the sedge of the tidelands, a little west of Martinez town.
The skipper of the ferry was a jovial man named Captain Jansen, a Cape Codder by birth and on the Benicia ferry run since the early 20s. Above the wind that whipped through the strait, I shouted through the open window of the wheelhouse and asked him what she was.
'Lumber schooner. Been tied up there for years. Go over and talk to her skipper sometime. He lives on board.'
'Thanks,' I replied. 'I will.'
The other day, I drove back to Martinez, crossed the railroad tracks, and bumped and swayed down a wet, muddy road. I parked the car as close to the schooner as the road would take me and struck off on a path across the flats toward the water's edge. a cold, west wind was blowing, driving the rain clouds up from San Pablo Bay and piling them up in the sky to the east. The path ended in a narrow plank walk leading out over the water to the side of the ship, and the walk ended at a locked door on which was the sign, 'Beware of the dog.' I pushed the bell button and waited.
A few minutes later, Captain Otto Daeweritz, skipper of the schooner Forester, led the way down into the after cabin of the ship. 'One thing,' he said over his shoulder, 'I'm not bothered by noisy neighbors.'
He was a short, stocky man, coatless in spite of the cold, and wearing a knitted sailor's cap. He had started going to sea in 1879, was 83, and like most men who have lived alone for many years, reluctant to talk about himself or his life.
Captain Daeweritz made his puppy lie down, got out some old photographs, and told me about his ship. She was launched 10 November 1900, at the Hay & Wright yards in Alameda, and as far as he knows is the only four-master left in the Bay Area. She went immediately into the offshore lumber trade for the San Francisco exporting firm of Sanders and Kirchmann. Captain Daeweritz, who was the only skipper she ever knew, had a financial interest in her too.
Robert O'Brien. Published by the San Francisco Chronicle, 1947.
SCHOONER FORESTER in the mud with Captain Otto. |
Cost to build; $60,000
Captain Otto A. Daeweritz, born in Czechoslovakia, was the Forester's only master. He came to San Francisco in the 1890s and received his captain's papers at the age of 24. He helped design the schooner and had two partners until 1927 when he bought them out. He lived on the ship with his faithful companion, the bulldog, Texas, until his death in 1947.
Charles "Charlie" J. Fitzgerald moved aboard the ship in 1948, purchased it in 1950 for $90, and settled in, trying to preserve and protect the Forester from vandals and souvenir hunters.
In 1962, a crew from the San Francisco Maritime Museum dismantled parts of the ship and put them in an interpretive display at the museum.
On 18 June 1975, a fire swept through the Forester. It burned almost to the waterline.
Forester Facts courtesy of the Martinez Historical Society, CA.
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