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.