Next Project

The Wawona

Since I finished up my last project, Non-Sign II, I've mostly been working on items for my Etsy Shop which you can see and buy from here. I've enjoyed finally having time to work on my own stuff, but seeing how working on my own stuff doesn't seem to pay the bills I have another project for John Grade lined up which I'll start here soon. It will first involve dismantling the old sailing ship the Wawona which is currently sitting in huge pieces out at Magnuson park.

Here is some back story on the Wawona.

Built in 1897 in Fairhaven, California by noted Scandanavian shipwright Hans Ditlev Bendixsen, the Wawona was one of the largest three-masted schooners built in North America. Designed to carry lumber from Washington State to California and more distant ports, the Wawona sailed with a mimimal crew and without ballast for the Dolbeer & Carson Lumber Company.

In 1914, the Wawona was sold to the Robinson Fisheries Company in Anacortes, Washington. She was refit to fit for cod, exchanging piles of timber for stacks of dories, and some of her immense cargo hold for crew bunks. Using the "dory-and-mothership" fishing system of the Grand Banks cod fishery, the Wawona and her crew caught more than 7.2 million cod over 33 years.

During World War II, the US Army took control of the Wawona, removing her masts and using her as a barge to transport lumber and other supplies along the Pacific coast. Following the war, she fished for another two seasons, then was retired and ultimately purchased by Northwest Seaport, then Save Our Ships, in 1964.

However, as a large wooden vessel originally built to last only a few decades, the Wawona eventually degraded beyond repair. After conferring with many experts in the maritime heritage field, locally and across the nation, Northwest Seaport created a plan to preserve key artifacts from the vessel. In March, 2009, the vessel was carefully deconstructed in a local shipyard and artifacts (including wooden knees, beams, and paneling) removed for storage and later display in on-land exhibits and memorials.

John Grade is going to be building a new sculpture using the wood from the Wawona. The new sculpture will eventually be placed in The Museum of History and Industry's new location at South Lake Union. What I will be doing is helping to take apart sections of the ship and select pieces that John can use.

Here are the pictures I took when I went out to check it out last week. Like I said, it's in pieces, many large pieces.

Here is a video of it being towed from it's location at South Lake Union to be dismantled.

and here it is being chopped into pieces.

Eventually the entire ship will be used for something. All of the important and historical artifacts from the ship were salvaged and saved waiting for a home in a museum someday. All the wood for the ship will be used for projects like John Grade's. Wood workers can submit proposals for projects using wood from the ship and eventually all the wood will be given out.  You can see more photos of the ship and artifacts here.