A memorable wreck

John Blaich, Special to the Pilot

* EDITOR’S NOTE: John Blaich is a Corona del Mar resident and

volunteer at the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum. About once a month, he

writes histories of interesting boats that graced Newport Harbor.

About 10 a.m. on Sunday, July 3, 1925, my father and I were walking

bare-footed along Ocean Beach near “E” Street on the Balboa Peninsula. We

saw over the rooftops of the bayfront homes the four lofty masts of the

top sail schooner Muriel moving slowly down the bay toward the harbor

entrance.

The Muriel was built by Hay and Wright at Alameda in 1895. She was 162

feet long with a beam, or width, of 36 feet, 8 inches. She had a depth of

11 feet, 8 inches.

Muriel was owned by Hind and Rolph and Co. of San Francisco, where

Muriel was registered and home ported. Most of her career was in the

Pacific lumber trade coastwise -- Muriel could well have delivered lumber

from Oregon to our Newport Pier. The lumber was offloaded onto railroad

cars, which were pushed out on the pier. Steam locomotives then took the

loaded railroad cars to Santa Ana for distribution.

The commercial sailing ships were replaced by steam schooners about

1914. Many of the sailing ships were laid up in the San Francisco Bay

area.

Ruben Shafer, a Newport Beach fisherman, purchased Muriel and sailed

her to Newport Harbor.

Muriel was converted to a fishing barge. In the summer, during the

fishing season, she was anchored about a mile off the Newport Pier.

Launches operated between the pier and Muriel to take fisherman out for a

day of “good fishing.” In the fall, Muriel was towed into the safety of

Newport Harbor for the winter.

On that Sunday morning in July, Muriel was being towed out to her

summer anchorage. Suddenly, the Balboa “white” fire engine went down to

the point with its siren blowing. This, in those days, indicated a

drowning or a boating accident as well as a fire. My father and I

followed in our trusty old Dodge touring car.

Muriel was being pulled by a motorized freight barge rather than a

proper tugboat, and they were towing with a short towline. As they got to

the head of the narrow entrance channel, a huge ground swell humped up

and the tow line parted.

The motorized tow could not get another line on Muriel. She drifted

over to the Corona del Mar sand bar, fetching up at an angle to the main

channel. Attempts to pull her off failed.

The ground swells broke against her port bow.

Due to the changing currents at the harbor entrance, Muriel caused the

Corona del Mar bar to increase in size so that at low tide, people could

walk out to the shipwreck and climb on board.

This proved to be a big summer attraction. My father and I donned

bathing suits -- bathing trunks were illegal at that time -- and at low

tide waded out to Muriel. We boarded with the help of a rope that was

hanging down from the boat landing platform, which had been built and

attached to the starboard side.

Vandals had broken the glass skylight in the after cabin. Being bare

footed, we had to be careful. My father was not a good swimmer, I was 7

years old. The tide was coming in -- so we did not stay on board very

long.

During a heavy southeast storm in the winter of 1926, Muriel was blown

off the Corona del Mar sand bar. Sailing with “bar poles” (four masts)

with no one on board, she moved across the channel heading back into the

harbor. She fetched up on the Balboa Peninsula sand bar about 50 yards

off the wooden bulkhead in front of what is now 2290 Channel Road.

At about this time, a Capt. Eliason established salvage rights and

took procession of Muriel. He and his associate took up residence in the

after cabin. The plan was to pump her out and refloat the ship. A

gasoline motor-driven centrifugal pump was placed on deck. Old-fashioned

hard hat diving equipment was used to dive inside the hull to plug up the

holes. The four masts were cut off at the deck and removed.

Due to the shifting currents at the harbor entrance, the presence of

the Muriel again caused a sand bar to build up between the bulkhead and

the Muriel so you could walk out to the ship on dry sand.

My father and I visited the Muriel one Sunday afternoon. We easily

climbed aboard and watched Eliason -- dressed in hard hat diving gear --

go down a steel ladder inside the hull to patch up leaks. He came back up

and motioned to his assistant, who was operating the hand-driven air

compressor, to cut a piece of canvas to size.

There was a strong rumor that the Muriel was being used as a warehouse

for rum runners who brought in large quantities of booze from ships

offshore. One fellow told me that one day he was on board at low tide

when the pump was pumping water into the hold of Muriel to cover up cases

of booze.

Finally in 1930, the sand bar around Muriel was dredged away. But

Muriel would not move because she was full of water. So a contract was

awarded to E.M. Burris, who conducted a general trucking business, and

Sam Talbert, a house mover, to remove the unsightly hulk.

They saturated the wood with stove oil and burned her to the

waterline. Dynamite was used to break the hull apart. An old fashioned

house-moving capstan (a vertical drum) was placed on shore and attached

to suitable “dead men” (logs buried in the sand).

One end of a large rope was attached to the remaining parts of Muriel.

The other end was wound around the capstan and a team of mules were

harnessed to a long capstan bar. The blindfolded mules were then led

around in a circle, which rotated the capstan.

Thus parts of Muriel were pulled into the beach and hauled away by

Burris’ trucks.

So in the spring of 1930, the 35-year life of the four-masted top sail

schooner Muriel ended.

The Sherman Library at Corona del Mar has assembled a pictorial

exhibit of Muriel. Included are two dead eyes from her rigging, which I

salvaged in 1930.