Why We Can't Have Nice Things in Dana Point
The Ocean Institute is reconstructing a smaller copy of the Pilgrim like the phoenix from the ashes. Workers on the dock today spin the story about what really happened. A passerby shouts to the workers about the erroneous signs asking, "what happened to the Pilgrim?"
They coyly pretend they do not know. Signage misrepresents that the new ship is the same as the old.
The Pilgrim, a ship in Dana Point Harbor that served as the ultimate sailing fantasy for forty years of students in Capistrano School District. The Pilgrim in the harbor was a replica with some antique parts. She was a life size copy of the three-masted schooner merchant ship that Richard Henry Dana detailed in his novel Two Years Before the Mast. School children read the book, wrote stories about throwing the hides down the bluffs, and re-enacted the sailing on the ship Students slept in her quarters overnight and performed duties described in the novel.
In 2018 the ship was inspected by the US Coast Guard, the Insurance company's inspector, several boat consultants, the Harbor Master, and the Ocean Institute. They were advised to dry dock the Pilgrim and repair the leaks. Instead of fixing her, they let her sit in the water for four more years to sink.
March 27th, 2020 locals noticed her sinking and notified the Ocean Institute. On the afternoon of the 28th she keeled over. By the 29th the ship sank in her slip at Dana Point Harbor.
A crane was leased to lift the Pilgrim out of the water on Thursday, April 2 for inspection to determine the cause of its sinking. But U.S. Coast Guard halted the operation when crews heard loud cracking and deemed the plan unsafe. Negligence and lack of maintenance caused major rot in the mask and hull. The Ocean Institute called to consult with the County and the School District to solicit funds, but immediately the Ocean Institute found it cheaper to take the insurance settlement and demolish the Pilgrim in its slip.
The barge crew conducted the demolition and removal process on Tuesday, April 7, 2020. The removal was a process of cutting her into four foot pieces over several days with locals onlooking. Chain saws, pry bars, and hoists from the dock pulled her apart into scraps. The ship's wheel, lanterns, sails, the carvings, sleeping benches, the living history pieces mostly disappeared. Some items are today displayed in persons homes when they were supposed to become part of the Institute's collection. Pieces of the hull and mast sat in the Ocean Institute parking lot until 2022, some rotted parts line the pathway on the Ocean side of the building.
The Pilgrim's last insurance valuation was at $6 million. The vessel was surveyed during Pilgrim’s last haul out of the water in 2018, at which time the marine surveyor provided a market value, or insurable value. Ocean Institute underinsured the ship and settled for something shy of three million dollars.
The Pilgrim was an important classroom and field trip destination for hundreds of thousands of children for forty years and played a prominent role each year during the Ocean Institute’s Tall Ships Festival. My children scrubbed the decks and ate an onion. What do you recall about your school trip on the Pilgrim?