❖ OLD FERRY GREETED BY HER OLD CAPTAIN ❖

Captain Halvorsen (L)
and Captain Ole Rindal
Two four–stripers heading for shore –– after cake.
Original, undated photo signed by
Williamson's Marine Photo Shop
from archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

"Back when the Puget Sound ferry ENETAI was known as the SANTA ROSA –– the first time –– one of her captains was Ole Rindal, at right in the above photo at his retirement.
      He may have thought he had seen the last of the boat when he skippered her into retirement.
      But he hadn't.
      When the old ferry, now the SANTA ROSA again, was given a champagne welcome upon her return to San Francisco Bay Ole Rindal was there.
      The SANTA ROSA was towed from Puget Sound to Oakland along with another ferry well known to residents of both areas. The other vessel was the FRESNO, which resumed her original name after plying Puget Sound as the WILLAPA.
      Oakland's fireboat greeted the ferries as they went under the Golden Gate Bridge, the span that ended the SANTA ROSA's service between San Francisco and Marin County. 
      Then the ferries went under the Bay Bridge, which put both of them out of business on San Francisco Bay in May 1940, and opened the way for them to be purchased by the Puget Sound Navigation Co.
      Several hundred people greeted the returning ferries at Oakland, where the SANTA ROSA (ex-ENETAI), was rechristened by Mrs. Don Clair, the ferry's new owner.

M.V. SANTA ROSA
Permanently anchored at Pier 3,
adjacent to downtown San Francisco for
Hornblower Cruises and Events.
The former car deck is now a dance floor,
with corporate offices above.
Hornblower Cruises website 2018.

      "Capt. Ole Rindal was there in his Washington State Ferries uniform," Harre Demoro, member of a steering committee which plans to turn the SANTA ROSA into a maritime museum, said in a letter received here today.
      'He was skipper of the ferry when she arrived on Puget Sound and ran for a few weeks as a diesel-electric, under her old name.' 

M.V. ENETAI (ex-SANTA ROSA)
and Captain Ole.
Click image to enlarge.
Photos from the archives of the Saltwater People Log©

Then he was one of her first skippers when she emerged in 1941 as the ENETAI.
      Then he tied her up for the last time last June. 
      'He was quite the celebrity.'
      Like the ENETAI and the WILLAPA, Capt. Rindal is now retired.
      The SANTA ROSA and FRESNO are tied up near where the KALAKALA, another former Puget Sound ferry, was launched as the PERALTA in 1927.
      About 100-feet from the SANTA ROSA is the bulk of the CHIPPEWA, the first Puget Sound ferry which Clair bought for a museum ship. Workmen have begun removing the charred superstructure of the CHIPPEWA, which caught fire, apparently burned by vandals, while under conversion."
Text by Jay Wells, Maritime Editor, the Seattle Times. May 1964.
Clip submitted courtesy of Capt. Jack Russell, Seattle, WA.
Here is another Saltwater People Log entry regarding a young Capt. Ole.

❖ Schooner LOTTIE BENNETT ❖ Packing a Utopian Dream? (Updated)

Lumber Schooner
LOTTIE BENNETT,
Laying San Francisco, 1933.
Original photo from the archives of the S. P. H. S.©

The Hall Brothers built 170 ft schooner LOTTIE BENNETT, launched in 1899 at Port Blakely, WA, was one of three sister ships built for the account of the yard owners. 
      She was purchased by Capt. L. Ozanne of Papeete, in 1924 for serving under the French flag as schooner NORMANDIE.
      When the above photo was taken in San Francisco in 1933, she had her birth name restored and was being prepared for a trip to Panama. 
      A Utopian group of forty people wanted to establish a cooperative colony headquartered on two islands in the Bay of Panama where they dreamed about replacing money with barter. 

Mrs. Frank Harris
of the California Cooperative Colony
at the wheel of the LOTTIE BENNETT

Original photo from the archives of the
Saltwater People Historical Society©

Members trimming the LOTTIE's
deck equipment
preparing for what was to be a sail 
 their new colony.
Circa forty members had to deposit
money for their share, before
joining the ship from
from San Francisco to
the Bay of Panama.
Original photo from the archives of S.P.H.S.© 

      Those plans fell through and she ended up involved in the motion picture industry before she was used as a floating cannery for Dr. Ross Pet Foods Co., operating for a time in Mexican waters.

Tacoma historian, Gary M. White, has included two photos of 

the LOTTIE BENNETT in his Hall Brothers Shipbuilders, published by Arcadia Press.

❖ SHANGHIED 1890 ❖

SHANGHAI 
"To kidnap or coerce against one's will; from the abuses practiced by boarding-house keepers who put drugged or drunken men aboard ships to serve as sailors." 
From Sea Language Comes Ashore by Joanna Carver Colcord

SAINT PAUL
115300
1,893 G.t. / 1,824 N.t.
228.2' x 42.1' x 19.7'
Built 1874 Bath, ME.
Master this day, H. De Gueldu, as inscribed verso.
Photograph by the noted Captain O. Beaton  
from the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

Historic square-rigger ST. PAUL,
Moored near the Ballard locks, 1934.
In the spring, she was to be opened to the public
with an array of history exhibits from Puget Sound.
From the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

"Sixty years ago I was serving my apprenticeship in an old East India clipper and had just arrived in San Francisco harbor anchorage from Antwerp after the smartest passage of the season, 107 days.
      A few days after our arrival a tall down Easter passed close under tow and came to an anchorage off Green Street wharf. We could see that she was loaded; she must have come from either of wheat-loading ports of Porta Costa or Crockett. This vessel was SAINT PAUL. What a sight for our young eyes! If I remember rightly she swung three skysail yards; her bow scroll-work showed up to its best advantage with the sun shining on it as she came abeam of us. It must have been newly painted, probably done as she was loading up the river.
      Her white paintwork and the varnished stanchions around her poop had also been touched up; her yards were dead square with both lifts and braces; truly a sight that I, at least, have never forgotten. Some mate took pride in her!
      Now we apprentices had to take our old man ashore each day and as our landing was at the Green Street wharf steps, we passed each time close to the SAINT PAUL. She evidently was waiting for stores and also for one more seaman to make up her complement.
      Finally came the day when this list was supplied––the day I found that 'shanghai-ing' was not just a word.
      I was waiting that day at the dock for our old man's return when two men came from the direction of Telegraph Hill where there was a saloon on every corner. One man was well-plastered––this was to be the SAINT PAUL's new sailor, the other was a notorious 'runner' from Hansen's boarding house.
      The two commenced arguing and this seemed the signal for the arrival at the dockside of a square-stern rowing boat, in it a man we had pointed out as Red Crowley. We boys soon tumbled to the fact that he was in cahoots with the runner.
      Well, the two on the wharf still kept up the arguing and I remember the sailor telling Hansen, 'I'm going to have another beer before I go on board that hooker!'
      'Probably he'll be easier to handle then,' can have been Hansen's thought for away they went and I suppose he had his beer. Then back they came still arguing. The drunk shouted at Hansen, 'I'm not going on that ship!'
      I won't say what Hansen said in reply but they started to fight, Hansen continually edging the man towards the face of the dock. At its base, the boatman had backed in close, and when Hansen let the drunk have one under the chin, over the dock he went, and straight into the boat.
      Crowley immediately started pulling out towards the SAINT PAUL. As far as we could see the other man never moved after he landed in the boat, nor did Crowley interest himself in him––just kept pulling on his oars.
      We boys watched the whole affair until he arrived alongside. They pulled the drunk up in a bowline and landed him on the deck and that was the last we saw of the 'shanghaied' seaman."
Words by Alexander McDonald. Deep Sea Stories from the Thermopylae Club; 1971. Edited by Ursula Jupp. 
The author of this essay was a dynamic personality who was skipper of the Thermopylae Club, Victoria, B. C. for its first six years. Scion of generations of Aberdeen ship-builders and master mariners, he loved the sea and the courage of the men who sailed it with a love almost mystical.
      Not yet eight years of age when his mother waved him goodbye when he left London Docks on the ship, CITY OF CORINTH, of which his father was master, he returned a long sixteen months later quite sure that life at sea was what he wanted as a career.
In 1890 Alexander McDonald signed on as an apprentice and before his retirement, nearly fifty years later, he had sailed in many seas and had rounded the dreaded Horn twenty-six times.
On board at one time:
Capt. H. De Gueldu

Another post on this ship can be viewed here.