The Alameda Planning Board approved a use permit for the historic C.A. Thayer schooner to stay in Alameda for repairs at their regular meeting last Monday, clearing the way for its restoration to begin.

The C.A. Thayer, a 109-year-old former commercial and Army ship, had been in a holding pattern on a barge with the Point’s Bay Ship and Yacht Company for the past month as it left San Francisco without the board’s approval for company to begin the $9.6 million restoration project. But after the Planning Board approved the company’s use permit Monday, the Thayer moved in to its new home for the next two years Tuesday, Jan. 13.

“(Tuesday’s move) happened kind of quietly,” said Lynn Cullivan, spokesperson for the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park who watches over the ship as a museum at San Francisco’s Hyde Street Pier. “But with such an old ship and all the equipment to move it around without damaging it, the sight was pretty spectacular.”

Cullivan said the ship was rolled off a barge on to dry land and then “skated” on 18 giant dollies to the Bay Ship and Yacht hangar, where it will be restored. And though the transportation of the 400-ton ship -- fragile from age – used high tech equipment, Cullivan said the way two people directed the ship into the hangar, one in front and one in back, was similar to a captain yelling directions to a helmsman like in the old days.

John Conway, who has worked with the Thayer for the past 23 years in San Francisco, said the transfer from the barge to dry land went very smooth. Bay Ship and Yacht technicians started working on the ship almost immediately when it came in, starting first with leveling the cradle that it will sit on during construction.

A team of technicians will use lasers to determine the exact shape of the Thayer, which they will input into a computer. Once it’s in the computer they will manipulate the current shape and, after getting Conway’s approval, they will revamp the ship to exactly its original lumber schooner form.

The process will involve stripping much of the ship down to sound material and then building it back up with new materials. Some of the original ship will remain, however. The lower portion of the boat that sits in the water most likely still has the original wood it was built with, Conway said, and it will keep that wood through this construction. He said that the lower portion of the boat is still in good shape because it has been submerged in salt water for many years and, “Salt water kills the fungus that causes ships to rot.”

The keel of the ship will also likely remain original but it has bowed about 18 inches after sitting stationary in the water. The crew took six inches out of the curve when they placed the ship on the cradle, so it still needs to be straightened by about one foot before the process is finished.

The C.A. Thayer served first as a lumber schooner, making its maiden voyage to Fiji and Australia in 1895. It was made in to a salmon station supply ship in 1912 and later a codfisherman and an Army supply vessel. The Thayer’s final voyage was in 1950 and in 1984 it was designated a national historic landmark – later, in 1995, it was listed as one of the nation’s top 11 most endangered historic landmarks by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Contact Ed Moser at edmoser@alamedasun.com.

This story was first printed in the Alameda Sun, Jan. 16, 2004.

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