FOUR-MASTED SCHOONER SCOTTISH LADY, San Juan Island 1942

Teak figurehead of the Scottish Lady,
 (ex-La Escocesa,
ex-Coalinga, ex- Star of Chile,
ex-Roche Harbor Lime Transport)
1868-1960
202' x 34.2' x 21.8'
1,001 tons
Iron 3-master
Site: Roche Harbor, San Juan Island, WA.
Dated 1942.
The vessel ashore in the background
is the 50-ft steam tug Roche Harbor,
built in Tacoma in 1888. With a crew of 4
she did a lot of heavy work for the
Roche Harbor Lime Company.
Original photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

"When the four-masted schooner Scottish Lady, like a nautical phantom out of the past, spreads her sails to the winds of the Pacific and begins a voyage halfway around the world, the picturesque vessel will have a golden figurehead under her bowsprit.
      In a Pacific coast shipyard, where the old windjammer, which sailed as a proud unit of the fleet of the Alaska Packers Association, is being converted from a three-masted bark to a four-masted schooner, the teak wood figurehead has been lifted to the deck of the vessel and will be covered with gold leaf before it is returned to the bow of the ship.
      Built in Dundee, Scotland, in 1868, as the La Escocesa, the vessel became the Coalinga and after her purchase by the APA, was renamed the Star of Chile. Now she has been christened Scottish Lady.
      For ten years, the vessel was ideal at Roche Harbor where she was moored in a setting framed in trees and foliage. 

Roche Harbor Lime Kilns,
San Juan Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA. 
Schooner Scottish Lady at the dock.
Tap image to enlarge.
Original photo from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©
Photograph by Brady. Undated.

Then came the demand for ship tonnage resulting from the war and she was towed to a shipyard to be made ready for sea. Her heavy iron hull, built in Dundee, was found to be five-eighths of an inch thick.

      A.B. McCollum, a Chicago businessman, is the new owner of the old windjammer. He was represented in the purchase of the vessel from the Roche Harbor Lime Co by H.F. Mowry, shipbroker of Newport Beach, CA.
      The Scottish Lady will be taken to sea by Captain John Bertonccini of Seattle, who sailed the ocean lanes before he was 12 years old and survived fourteen ship accidents.
      Captain Bertonccini has had some narrow escapes, but his ship always made port. In 1921 he and his two-man crew drifted for 39 days in the cargo and fishing vessel Baldy which became disabled at sea. The crankshaft of the 57-ft vessel broke while she was 500 miles south of Unimak Pass, AK, leaving her at the mercy of wind and wave.
      The Baldy was sighted by the N.Y.K liner Heian Maru, which notified the Coast Guard by wireless at Capt. Bertonccini's request. A Coast Guard cutter was unable to find the helpless vessel, but the steamship Yaquina sighted the Baldy and again notified the USCG. A cutter was sent to the vessel and towed her into Grays Harbor. The Baldy was repaired and returned to service.
      'I was in the motorship when she burned 500 miles south of Unimak Pass, AK,' said Capt. Bertonccini as he paused from his work on ship tackle aboard the Scottish Lady. 'The Kamchatka was on a fur-trading cruise for Hibbard & Swenson of Seattle. We were 86 hours n a motor launch and finally reached Unga, AK, where we spent two weeks. The Catherine D, of the Pacific American Fisheries took us to Bellingham. I was on the ship Santa Clara for eight years and two years in the Star of Alaska, windjammers sailing in the Alaska cannery trade for the APA. This ship, the Scottish Lady, was the Star of Chile of the APA at that time, sailing out of San Francisco to the Alaska canneries.'
      Captain Bertonccini, a hard-working skipper who dons old clothes and toils long hours getting his ship ready for sea, was born in Sweden of an Italian father and a Swedish mother. He first went to sea in 1884 in the Swedish brig Anna, sailing out of Stockholm."
      The Seattle Times featured several articles about this vessel during the early 1940s. The above is dated Feb. 1942.
      The Scottish Lady had her beautiful figurehead tucked away in the safety of a warehouse in Seattle, when she was undergoing a refit. Owner McCollum planned to return the carving to the bow of the old ship when she again voyaged the sea lanes under sail. Before her planned blue water sailing the government requisitioned her to serve as a barge for hauling supplies to Alaska for the Alcan highway, in June 1942. Did the figurehead survive? (See the update below by H.H. Huycke.)

Below is an early photograph with the Star of Chile stranded in the ice, still in her youth in 1918.

STAR OF CHILE,
with early rig of three masts, 
inscribed as stranded in the ice of the Bering Sea.
Rescued by the USS Roosevelt in June 1918. 
Tap image to enlarge.
Original photograph from the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

1947:

History of the Scottish Lady was published in the American Neptune in 1947, Vol. 7, No.4. written by the late mariner/historian/author Captain Harold D. Huycke. He extends thanks to Rick James and Bruce Lundin for good assistance in documenting the final segment of the old ship's history. In 2002, the captain submitted the history to The Sea Chest journal, June 2002, (13 pages) a membership publication under the Puget Sound Maritime Society, Seattle. Lots of "bio" of that lady can be viewed there. 

      At that time Scottish Lady was laid up in the lower end of Lake Washington, apparently still owned by Mr. A.B. McCollum of Newport Beach, CA. For the previous five and subsequent seven years, she lay idle, tied to stumps on the lakeshore. 

      "Very little attention was given to Scottish Lady during those postwar years. A moving-picture company in Southern California made inquiries, but they wanted a 'bark' and not a schooner.

      Negotiations were established between Karl Kortum, the director of the San Francisco Maritime Museum, and Mr. McCollum for the acquisition of the fo'c's'le-head capstan and a few other significant, removable items. On 4 September 1954, a work party consisting of Walter Taylor, Gordon Jones, Ed Kennell, Kenny Glasgow, Karl Kortum, and I boarded the schooner Gracie S in Portage Bay and motored down to Kennydale and boarded Scottish Lady. The capstan had originally been fitted to the old down-easter Tacoma, one of the Alaska Packers cannery ships, but in years gone by it had been shifted to Star of Chile. Now it was heading home to the Maritime Museum in San Francisco.
      It was a day's work removing the capstan in sections, unbolting the foundation from the deck, and hoisting it aboard Gracie S.

      Sometime during this period, the figurehead was also acquired by the San Francisco Maritime Museum and shipped to San Francisco. The new sails, cut and manufactured in 1941-42, have not been traced.

1954: The ship was sold to Vancouver Tug and Barge Co of Vancouver and towed out of Lake Washington bound for a shipyard in British Columbia.

1955: Scottish Lady made one appearance in Puget Sound late in this year. She tied up in Duwamish River, but no further details were recorded of her cargo, coming or going."

An incomplete listing of past officers and crew:

David Evans, master, and son D.T. Evans, chief mate.

Olaf C. Olsen, master

Charles Hasse, master

Carl Peterson, master

John Bertonccini, master

Bob Fulton, master