San Francisco Maritime National Park

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VOICE ONE:

This is Gwen Outen.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Bob Doughty with
EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we tell about the San
Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. This unusual national
Park celebrates the great harbor of San Francisco, California. It
also celebrates the men and women who sailed the ships that made
this harbor famous.

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VOICE ONE:

Our story begins long ago in
October, seventeen-sixty-nine. A group of Spanish explorers have
come north from Mexico. They are moving slowly up the coast of the
territory of California. The governor of California, Gaspar de
Portola, leads the group.

The men and horses are tired. It has been a long trip. Governor
de Portola decides to rest for a few days. But he still wants to
explore the area. He orders a young man to take some soldiers and
search to the north for a few kilometers. The young man is Jose
Francisco Ortega.

VOICE TWO:

On the morning of November second, seventeen-sixty-nine, Ortega
leads his small group of soldiers up a hill. What they see from the
top of the hill makes them stop. There, below them, is a body of
water. They are looking at a huge bay. Its waters seem to stretch
for many kilometers to the north, south and east. The waters are
very calm.

When the small group of soldiers reports to Governor de Portola,
they are excited. They tell him of a huge natural harbor. A Spanish
religious worker reports the harbor is so large it could hold all of
the ships of Europe.

VOICE ONE:

Six years after the huge bay was discovered, the Spanish ship San
Carlos is sailing north along the coast of California. Juan Manuel
de Ayala commands the ship. As the little ship sails along the
coast, one of the crew reports to de Ayala. He says there is a huge
opening in the land mass several kilometers wide.

De Ayala orders the San Carlos to sail carefully into the
opening. A crewmember reports the water in the opening is more than
one-hundred-twenty meters deep. Slowly the little ship enters the
huge natural harbor.

For more than a month, de Ayala and his crew will sail their
little ship around the huge bay. They make maps and study the area.
They discover the bay is more than eighty kilometers long and from
three to nineteen kilometers wide. On September eighteenth,
seventeen-seventy-five, the San Carlos leaves the great bay. The San
Carlos was the first ship to enter what would become San Francisco
Bay.

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VOICE TWO:

The Spanish exploration was the beginning of the history of San
Francisco harbor. That long history is celebrated at the San
Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.

The park's main visitor center and
museum is only a few hundred meters from the waters of the great
harbor. The main building and the surrounding area are part of the
history of the city and its link with the Pacific Ocean. It is a
memorial to the great ships and those who sailed them.

The Maritime National Park was designed to tell the story of the
huge harbor. It also tells of the importance of the bay to the city
of San Francisco, the state of California and the United States.

VOICE ONE:

The visitor center holds many objects linked to the past of the
great harbor. There are small ships, ship equipment, and hundreds of
beautiful old photographs. Many of the photographs from about
eighteen-forty-nine show thousands of sailing ships surrounding the
city of San Francisco. This is when gold was discovered in
California. Thousands of people came looking for gold and wealth.

Many visitors also stop to look at a large painting of a huge
sailing ship. The painting shows the ship fighting against an angry
ocean. Blue and green waters break against the side of the ship. Men
high up in the ship's masts are trying to control the sails. It is a
painting of a ship named the "Balclutha" The ship was built in
Scotland in eighteen-eighty-six.

Visitors learn that the Balclutha fought storms around the tip of
South America on its first trip. It reached the harbor of San
Francisco after one-hundred-forty days at sea. It carried a cargo of
coal from Britain.

Visitors who look at the painting
can go out the front door of the visitor center and see the real
Balclutha. The Balclutha is the largest of almost one- hundred ships
and boats that are part of the Maritime National Park.

VOICE TWO:

People walking near Fisherman's Wharf often do not believe their
eyes when they first see the Balclutha. Almost everyone stops and
looks at the huge ship. Many people take photographs.

The Balclutha is more than ninety-one meters long. The three tall
masts that once carried its sails reach forty-four meters into the
sky. It seems to be an object from the past that has arrived in
modern San Francisco.

The great ship looks almost new. Several years ago, more than
one-million dollars was spent to repair and paint the Balclutha.
Now, more than two-hundred-thousand people a year visit the ship.
The visitors learn how the Balclutha once traveled the world
carrying cargo. They can see a photograph of the first crew of the
Balclutha. That crew sailed it into San Francisco harbor with a
cargo of coal more than one-hundred years ago.

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VOICE ONE:

The Balclutha is perhaps the most popular ship with visitors to
the Maritime Park. However they can also visit several others ships.
These are also very important to the history of the great harbor.
But not all of these ships are open to the public. One that is open
is a small steam-powered workboat that was built in
nineteen-oh-seven.

This small boat is named the Hercules. The Hercules is a tugboat.
Until nineteen-twenty-four it pulled ships around the harbor. It
pulled huge amounts of wood from trees from the city of Seattle,
Washington in the north all the way to Panama. And it moved cargo
from place to place within San Francisco harbor.

VOICE TWO:

Another boat popular with visitors is the Eureka. It was built in
eighteen-ninety. It is the largest wooden ship still floating today.
The Eureka was a ferryboat. It carried people and cars across San
Francisco bay. It did this until the Golden Gate Bridge and the
Oakland Bay Bridge were built.

The C.A. Thayer is another sailing ship. It carried wood from
trees along the Pacific Coast from the state of Washington to
California. Later it was used as a fishing boat. Until recently it
was used as a floating classroom for school children.

Children stayed the night on the C.A. Thayer. They attended
classes about living and working on a ship. They learned how hard
the work was and how dangerous it could be.

In December, two-thousand-three, the C.A. Thayer began a period
of repairs that is expected to last two years. The rebuilding
project will replace as much as eighty percent of its wooden parts.
While the work is being done, visitors can still see the ship. They
can watch the work as the ship is rebuilt.

VOICE ONE:

A much smaller sailing ship is called the Alma. Sailors called
this kind of ship a scow. It usually had only two crewmembers and
perhaps a boy who was learning how to work on a boat. The Alma was
the kind of small ship used during the California Gold Rush. It
delivered cargo across the great harbor and up rivers. Ships like
the Alma carried almost everything -- bricks, salt, lumber, grain,
food. The little ships could carry as much cargo as a large modern
truck.

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VOICE TWO:

The San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park also has a
very unusual looking museum. It is a large building that almost
looks like a ship. The museum is filled with interesting equipment.
One room has been made to look like a ship's radio room.

Radio operators show visitors how the equipment was used. One of
the most interesting objects in the museum is a small sailboat only
large enough for one person. It is only five-and-one-half meters
long. The little boat is named Mermaid. In nineteen-sixty-two,
Japanese sailor Kenichi Horie sailed the Mermaid alone across the
Pacific Ocean from Japan to San Francisco. No one had ever done such
a thing before.

VOICE ONE:

From the top of the building, visitors can watch the ships of the
world sail in and out of the great harbor. Visitors to the San
Francisco Maritime National Park learn that the history of the
harbor is important to the past. And the work of San Francisco
harbor continues into the future.

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VOICE TWO:

This program was written by Paul Thompson. It was produced by
Mario Ritter. This is Bob Doughty.

VOICE ONE:

And this is Gwen Outen. Join us again next week for another
EXPLORATIONS program in VOA Special English.