We proudly present the finest qualitity GIANT plank on bulkhead
wood model of the famous lumber Schooner WAWONA ever offered for sale. She sets a new standard for the large
size perfect reproductions of the famous American designed vessels that we offer in our collection. The Wawona features
a fully detailed bowsprit with Dolphin Striker, gaff rigged mizzen, main and foremast, three jibs, and a foresail.
The running rigging, and carefully stitched sails with reef points, is all authentic and makes this an incomparable model.
It has a beautifully enameled dark flat black hull with red lead bottom paint, and a white whale stripe, white deckhouse,
and wood decks, white taffrail and cap rail.
By comparison to some of our other models this is a GIANT at 42" Overall
vs 34". Everything about this model is outstanding, and exceptional. I hesitate to use this term, but this is a
near museum quality model at an unrealtistiaclly low price.
As a retired professional mariner, and collector myself, it is difficult
to understand why there is such a wide disparity in quality on ebay. Many models are sold at give away prices, and when
you look at them closely, you can see why. They are not true to the original and are mostly of foreign vessels. We are in
the process of changing that by providing high quality models of boats known and loved by American sailors at a reasonable
price that will give you lasting enjoyment, and pride of ownership.
OUR LINE OF QUALITY MODERATELY PRICED BOAT MODELS include
in sailboats in addition to the WAWONA, the Crosby cat, the Marshall 18, and Beetle cats, two different sizes
of the Schooner Bluenose, a Friendship sloop, Schooners Adventuress, America, Amistad, the much admired Herreshoff's
12.5 "S" boats, and New York 30, J Class Rainbow, Endeavour, Enterprise, Shamrock, each as full models or
half hulls, and also the three masted lumber Schooner WAWONA and Sparkman & Stephen's ocean racer Dorade, yawl
Odyssey, and Concordia yawl. In motor vessels we offer the Lake Union Dreamboat , the Chris
Craft Barrel Back, the Garwood Speedster, and a classic 1920 motor yacht.
SCHOONER WAWONA HISTORY:
Launched: September 12, 1897
At: H. D. Bendixsen Ship Yard, Fairhaven,
California
Length: 165 feet
Beam: 36 feet
Draft: 11 feet 6"
Displacement
468 tons
On September 12th 1897, master shipbuilder Hans Bendixen launched the
largest three masted schooner ever built on the west coast of North America, the Wawona. Built for the Dolbeer & Carson
Lumber Company of Eureka California, Wawona is 165 feet long with a 36 foot beam and a depth of 12 feet 3 inches. At the turn
of the century, there were over 300 commercial schooners like Wawona in the proud Pacific sailing fleet. Today, only two of
these ships still exist: Wawona, at Northwest Seaport in Seattle, and her sister ship the C.A.Thayer at the National Maritime
Museum in San Francisco.
Wawona is a Yosemite Indian name for the Northern Spotted Owl, which was
believed to be the guardian of the forest. This belief has proved true in our own time. Paradoxically, the schooner Wawona
was built to haul lumber, logged from the great primeval forests of Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. Wawona
served her first owners well for sixteen years. She was then sold to the Robinson Fisheries Company of Anacortes, Washington,
for employment in the Bering Sea codfishing trade.
Each Spring for thirty years, Wawona was loaded with salt for preserving
fish, coal for cooking and heat, and a six months supply of provisions and fresh water for about 38 men. She then sailed west
by northwest, some 2,000 miles, through Unimak Pass and into the Bering Sea. There she would drop anchor. Her fishermen would
fan out each morning in two dozen dories, to fish for cod with handlines. From dawn til dusk, the fishermen brought in codfish
by the dory full, sometimes as many as 10,000 a day. These were counted, cleaned, and salted down in the hold. The work was
back-breaking and dangerous. Some years, fishermen were lost. But Wawona and her crew would remain at their labors until summer's
end brought the fiercer weather. Wawona is said to have set the all-time total catch record for codfish, for any vessel in
the world, at 6,830,400.
Wawona was drafted by the U.S. Army during World War II. Not being sailors,
the army removed her masts and used her as a barge to haul supplies from Puget Sound to Alaska. There she was reloaded with
yellow cedar for the Boeing Company's use in making airplane wings. Thus, Wawona served in all four of the largest industries
of the Pacific Northwest. After the war, Wawona worked two more seasons in the codfishing trade. Her last commercial voyage
was in 1947.
Today, the Wawona is being preserved and restored by Northwest Seaport
in Seattle. Wawona remains as the sole surviving tribute to the great wooden schooners of the Northwest, to their good
Masters, and to the iron men and women who sailed them.
MODEL DIMENSIONS: 42" L x 26" H x 7"
W WEIGHT 3 lbs
MINOR ASSEMBLY REQUIRED: To save cost, this
model is shipped with its masts down and bowsprit housed. For most people, it is a simple affair to step the mast, rig
the bow sprit, and hook on all the stays and shrouds, and attach the sails. The detailed instructions are excellent,
and the sails have numbered stickers on them, but if you have a problem, email or call us for guidance.