A fun way to begin your Saturday
Posted: March 09, 2012 | posted by: Christine Baird!
How about beginning your day walking with the birds? Join Ranger Carol at the entrance to Hyde Street Pier on March 10, 2012 at 10:00am for a 90-minute bird walk. All levels of interest welcome and dress in layers. More info: 415-447-5000.
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Spoondrift
Posted: February 24, 2012 | posted by: Christine Baird!
I was doing some research and using this book: The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor; or, a Key to the Leading of Rigging, and to Practical Seamanship. By Darcy Lever. Charles E. Lauriat Company, Boston, 1938. You can discover BALCLUTHA everyday at 2:15pm
Posted: February 03, 2012 | posted by: Christine Baird!
Everyday, at 2:15pm, there is a tour of the square-rigged ship BALCLUTHA.
February is African American History Month
Posted: January 25, 2012 | posted by: Christine Baird!
This is a photograph of BALCLUTHA surrounded by portraits of some of the crew from the first voyage in 1887. SAFR P80-133 Please click here to learn about programs at the park during February that focus on the contributions of Black and African American mariners. Chantey Sing This Saturday
Posted: January 03, 2012 | posted by: Christine Baird!
Saturday, January 7, 8pm to midnight, aboard an historic vessel at Hyde Street Pier. FREE! Reservations required: call 415-561-7171 or peter_kasin@nps.gov. Bring a mug for hot cider served from the ship's galley. Click here to find out more about chanteys. Worm Parcel Serve
Posted: December 19, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
Thanks to Courtney Andersen, Historic Ship Rigging Supervisor, for information and references. This is the starboard side of the main deck of Balclutha. Maintaining the standard rigging is an ongoing job. This past summer (2011) some of the wire rope was taken down and worked on. Here you see some of it suspended along the starboard rail. The day I took this photo one of the riggers was using a Happy Holidays at Hyde Street Pier
Posted: November 29, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
Christmas at Sea and Old Time Maritime Christmas Sea Music Concert Aboard Historic BALCLUTHA
Posted: November 16, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
On Saturday evening at 8pm, November 19, come down to Hyde Street Pier for a sea music concert aboard the historic ship Balclutha. If you have never been on the pier at night it is a real treat. Performing together for over 30 years, Dick Holdstock and Allan Macleod captivate audiences with authentic renditions of songs from their homelands of England and Scotland. Trading off on guitar and mandolin, their songs provide an extraordinary glimpse into a not so distant maritime past. Tickets are $14. Read More About Sea Music Concert Aboard Historic BALCLUTHA Dogs and ships
Posted: October 21, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
Do you think dog owners sometimes look like their dogs?
In Tacoma, WA circa 1893-1905, Captain Jansen seated beside his puppy on the grating near the wheel box of the sailing ship ALSTERKAMP, built in 1892. SFMNHP F07.12,335psl Wilhelm Hester collection
Pelicans and spacecraft can be friends
Posted: October 13, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
The pelicans are flying with a new friend. Find out more by clicking on this sentence! Sea Music Concert Aboard BALCLUTHA
Posted: October 05, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
On Saturday evening at 8pm, October 15, come down to Hyde Street Pier for a sea music concert aboard the historic ship Balclutha. If you have never been on the pier at night it is a real treat. David Coffin will be performing traditional and contemporary sea music. Tickets are $14. Click here for more info. Hay bales to Homer - now that's longevity
Posted: September 19, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
Went out on the Alma last Thursday for a morning sail along the SF city front. It's been a while since I had a water view of the park and city. The Alma is a scow schooner built in SF in 1891. She's about 60 feet long and shaped like a fat rectangle, not a sleek sailing craft but very-well designed for what she did during the late 1800s. There were about 250 scows like Alma crisscrossing the Bay carrying goods like hay and lumber. Swimming in San Francisco Bay?!
Posted: September 02, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
Childbirth at sea
Posted: August 12, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
Alice Durkee, wife of Alfred Durkee who was captain of the Balclutha from 1894-1899, sailed with her husband on and off during his 30-year seafaring career. She gave birth to a daughter, Inda Francis, on board the ship.
In 1899 Balclutha left Calcutta, India enroute to San Francisco, CA with a cargo of Shades (or Sails) of Things to Come
Posted: July 21, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
Try writing a haiku
Posted: July 07, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
This post inspired by Maggie B. It's easy...three lines and 5, 7, 5. First line has five syllables, second line has seven syllables, third line has five syllables. Hyde Street Pier is a good place for Read More About Try writing a haiku From the "You Never Know" File
Posted: June 24, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
 This post inspired by Park Guide Rejane Butler Getting Ready For Summer in “Sunny California”
Posted: June 06, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
Ahhhhh…sunny California. Hang on a moment, you might want to rethink that if you are visiting SF during the summer (and bring along a sweater). When June 1 rolls around I start thinking about the fog rolling in through the Golden Gate, and I like to read this poem by Carl Sandburg. NIANTIC: Buried Gold Rush Ship
Posted: May 20, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
On April 28, 1978, workers excavating for a new office building in SF uncovered the remains of an old wooden ship at the corner of Clay and Sansome Streets. The timbers were the bottom section of a famous Gold Rush ship. Niantic arrived in 1849, one of over 700 ships that arrived that year. A small It's Fun and Free!
Posted: April 19, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
Junior Ranger Day on Hyde Street Pier Saturday, April 23, 2011, 10am to 4pm Raise a sail, tie knots, sing a sea chantey, make some scrimshaw, tour an historic ship, raise a sail, become a Junior Ranger.... See you there! More info: 415-447-5000 Have you marched lately?
Posted: March 07, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
Park Ranger program about life at sea
Posted: February 14, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
This is the crew of the Rathdown, a sailing vessel that was built in Ireland in 1891 and carried cargo around the world until leaving Yokohama, Japan in 1900 and was never seen again. This photo was taken in San Francisco (sometime during the 1890s) after the crew had just spent six months at sea, having voyaged from Belfast around Cape Horn to SF. Look closely and you can see the crew was quite ethnically diverse. Many seamen were born in Mascots at Sea
Posted: January 27, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
 Animals have always been important members of a ship's crew. This is a detail from a photograph (a formal portrait of the crew of a 19th century sailing ship called the Durham) showing a more unusual animal. Click here to see more historic photographs from the park's collection. On the edge of the Bay
Posted: January 19, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
SF Maritime is located right at the edge of San Francisco Bay. In fact, part of the park extends right into and over the water -- Hyde Street Pier, where the historic ships are moored. Just west of the pier is a wonderful, little strip of sandy beach. My walk into work in the morning usually takes me along the water's edge and I always try to focus some attention on the water, how it smells, high or low tide, white caps or flat water further out on the Bay. I feel lucky to start my day along the Bay. Foggy day on San Francisco Bay
Posted: January 13, 2011 | posted by: Christine Baird!
The Bay is really socked in today with fog. Can see the end of the pier but not much beyond that -- a fuzzy, white expanse. Not much wind, and hearing lots of fog horns. Horns from ships navigating the Bay and one from atop the Golden Gate Bridge and another on Alcatraz Island. They take turns and have their particular length and pitch. A fog symphony on the Bay today. Kind of soothing. |
Clipper cards were small, often colorful cards issued to advertise specific voyages from one port to another, usually from Boston or New York to San Francisco. Their heyday was the late 1850s to early 1860s. More...
Read More About Dogs and ships
There have been some eye-catching catamarans zipping around the Bay lately. And I mean zipping. I was walking along the waterfront near Marina Green, and glanced out toward the Bay in time to see one ripping along on a starboard tack heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge. In a minute it was a distant speck. The team from the USA, Oracle Racing, was out testing a smaller version of the craft that will be racing on the Bay in the 2013 America's Cup. Our photographer was out on the park's scow schooner Alma when one of the AC45s sailed
Put on those walking shoes and join the park's Living History Players as they set the clock back to 1901 and stage a re-enactment of a suffragette march for women's rights on Hyde Street Pier. Saturday, March 12, Noon, FREE. (P. S. In the United States women gained the right to vote in 1920.)