The tall ship Pilgrim’s bell tolls one last time in Dana Point Harbor
By Orange County on June 7, 2020
The Pilgrim’s bell tolled eight last times on Saturday, June 6, in a final ceremony for the beloved ship – for decades an icon of the Dana Point Harbor, but now just salvaged pieces.
In naval tradition, a ship’s bell signals the changing watch; in this case ringing the tall ship’s bronze bell precisely at noon marked the end of the watch for the Pilgram, which sank at its dock next to the Ocean Institute in March.
Dan Goldbacher, the Maritime Programs Director for The Ocean Institute in Dana Point, holds up a framed nail salvaged from The Pilgrim, which sank in March, that will be part of an online auction of items salvaged from the ship that will benefit maritime programs at the institute in the future, as wall as maintenance of the institute’s ship, The Spirit of Dana Point. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Items salvaged from The Pilgrim tall ship, which sank in March, including a rolling cannon, fill a room at The Ocean Institute in Dana Point Harbor, which will be part of an online auction raising funds for future programs and restorations at the Ocean Institute. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
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Items salvaged from The Pilgrim tall ship, which sank in March, fill a room at The Ocean Institute in Dana Point Harbor, which will be part of an online auction raising funds for future programs and restorations at the Ocean Institute. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
A figurehead of Richard Henry Dana, which once adorned the front of The Pilgrim tall ship, is expected to be the biggest fundraiser as part of an online auction of items salvaged from the now destroyed Pilgrim that will benefit programs and restorations at the Ocean Institute going forward. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Dan Goldbacher, the Maritime Programs Director for The Ocean Institute in Dana Point, holds up a photo of The Pilgrim tall ship, framed in wood salvaged from the ship, which sank in March, that will be part of an online auction of items salvaged from the ship that will benefit maritime programs at the institute in the future, as wall as maintenance of the institute’s ship, The Spirit of Dana Point. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Ocean Institute dignitaries and volunteers present a bell, salvaged from The Pilgrim, which sank in its slip in Dana Point Harbor in March, to family members of Ray Wallace, who refurbished the famous ship, during a ceremony in front of The Spirit of Dana Point, another of the Institute’s tall ships, on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Ocean Institute dignitaries and volunteers present a bell, salvaged from The Pilgrim, which sank in its slip in Dana Point Harbor in March, to family members of Ray Wallace, who refurbished the famous ship, during a ceremony in front of The Spirit of Dana Point, another of the Institute’s tall ships, on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Rob Wallace, left, and Jim Wallace, the sons of Ray Wallace, who refurbished the famous Pilgrim ship, speak about their father as they accept a bell salvaged from The Pilgrim, which sank in Dana Point Harbor in March, during a ceremony on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Rob Wallace, son of Ray Wallace, who refurbished The Pilgrim for the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, points to one of the Ocean Institute’s buildings, which his father designed, during a ceremony in which a bell salvaged from the sunken Pilgrim was presented to the Wallace family on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Dan Goldbacher, right, the Maritime Programs Director for The Ocean Institute in Dana Point, speaks during a ceremony on Saturday, June 6, 2020 in which a bell salvaged from The Pilgrim, which sank in its slip in March, was presented to the family of Ray Wallace, who originally refurbished the now famous ship. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Ocean Institute dignitaries and volunteers present a bell, salvaged from The Pilgrim, which sank in its slip in Dana Point Harbor in March, to family members of Ray Wallace, who refurbished the famous ship, during a ceremony in front of The Spirit of Dana Point, another of the Institute’s tall ships, on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Bill Steel Jr., left, nephew of Ray Wallace, who refurbished The Pilgrim for the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, and an Ocean Institute Board member for 30 years, speaks during a ceremony in which a bell salvaged from the sunken Pilgrim was presented to the Wallace family on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Pieces of the now destroyed Pilgrim tall ship, which sank in March, including two tall masts with crow’s nests, sit in the parking lot of the Ocean Institute in Dana Point Harbor on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Jim Wallace, son of Ray Wallace, who refurbished The Pilgrim for the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, rings a bell that was salvaged from the destroyed ship during a ceremony on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
A bell salvaged from the sunken Pilgrim tall ship, engraved with the ship’s name, was presented to family members of Ray Wallace, who refurbished The Pilgrim, during a ceremony at The Ocean Institute in Dana Point on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Jim “Skip” Wehan, the Captain of now destroyed Pilgrim tall ship, speaks about the “wonderful experience of sailing the Pilgrim” during a ceremony at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Bill Steel, brother of Ray Wallace, who refurbished The Pilgrim for the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, speaks about his brother during a ceremony in which a bell salvaged from the sunken Pilgrim was presented to the Wallace family on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Rob Wallace, left, and Jim Wallace, the sons of Ray Wallace, who refurbished the famous Pilgrim tall ship, accept a bell salvaged from the destroyed Pilgrim, which sank in Dana Point Harbor in March, during a ceremony on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Ocean Institute dignitaries and volunteers present a bell, salvaged from The Pilgrim, which sank in its slip in Dana Point Harbor in March, to family members of Ray Wallace, who refurbished the famous ship, during a ceremony in front of The Spirit of Dana Point, another of the Institute’s tall ships, on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
Jim Wallace, right, and Rob Wallace, the sons of Ray Wallace, who refurbished the famous Pilgrim tall ship, speak about their father as they accept a bell salvaged from The Pilgrim, which sank in Dana Point Harbor in March, during a ceremony on Saturday, June 6, 2020. (Photo By Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)
In a view overlooking the harbor, a crane on a barge stands by to lift the sunken ship Pilgrim as divers and others work to stabilize the ship in Dana Point Harbor on Thursday, April 2, 2020 in Dana Point. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Divers come to the surface above the sunken deck of the Pilgrim as workers prepare to stabilize the ship in Dana Point Harbor on Thursday, April 2, 2020 in Dana Point. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Reflected in the still morning water, the Pilgrim continues to list starboard in its slip on Tuesday morning, March 31, 2020, at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, after the ship sank Sunday morning in Dana Point Harbor. The Ocean Institute maintained two tall ships, the brig Pilgrim, and the Spirit of Dana Point. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Pilgrim, center, sails under a cloudy skies during the Tall Ships Sunset Parade Sail on Friday, September 9, 2011 to launch the 27th Annual Toshiba Tall Ships Festival in Dana Point. (File photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)
The Pilgrim – a full-scale replica of the ship immortalized by Richard Henry Dana in his classic novel, “Two Years Before the Mast” – was a favorite during the Ocean Institute’s annual Tall Ships Festival and has served since the 1980s as a living-history classroom for some 400,000 students and visitors.
On Saturday, the ship’s bell – mounted hanging from its original gallows – was presented to the family of Ray Wallace. Wallace is the noted marine architect who converted the Pilgrim from a three-masted schooner known as the Joal.
The boat was originally built in 1945. Wallace converted it into the Pilgrim in 1975 in Lisbon, Portugal.
“It’s just an incredible honor they’d do this for the Wallace and Steel family,” said Jim Wallace, the eldest son of Ray Wallace, who was at the event with several other family members including Bill Steel, Ray Wallace’s brother.
“My dad had this bell cast in the 1970s,” said Wallace, of Cypress. “We’ll be good stewards of it for a while.”
Ocean Institute officials hope to one day attach the bell to a new Pilgrim.
On April 2, five days after the Pilgrim heeled to starboard, efforts to lift it from the harbor floor were suspended by the U.S. Coast Guard. The Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol first saw the vessel was taking on water in the early morning of March 27.
The ship had been under watch, and all the pumps were in operation. No official determination of what caused the vessel to sink has been released.
Efforts to raise the 75-year-old wooden ship by crane and underwater divers failed.
Other salvaged artifacts, including the Pilgrim’s figurehead – a replica of Richard Henry Dana – and the ship’s wheel, will be auctioned online beginning on June 12 to raise money for the institute and the maintenance its other tall ship, The Spirit of Dana Point.
Wallace recounted how his father sailed the Pilgrim from Lisbon across the Atlantic Ocean and through the Caribbean into Miami, where final touches were added. A new crew took the ship from Miami through the Panama Canal.
The Pilgrim first stopped in San Diego and then sailed into the Port of Los Angeles. For a while, the ship stayed there at Ports O’ Call Village.
The Pilgrim sailed into Dana Point Harbor after Stan Cummings, the founder of the Ocean Institute, had the vision of using the ship give kids an experience on the water, Wallace said.
Since the Pilgrim went into service, fourth- and fifth-graders from throughout Southern California have spent nights onboard as part of a living history program offered every fall. Students learned about early California development and the area’s maritime history.
“We put them into challenging roles where they learned to become leaders,” said Dan Goldbacher, who heads up the institute’s maritime programs. “They became mates on each cruise. Like sailors in the 1830s, everyone had to be on the same page to make the ship work.
“They learned how to rig the ship, prepare meals and row boats into the harbor to get hides.” he said. “It showed them they had to push themselves to accomplish goals.”
Bill Steel Jr., a nephew of Ray Wallace and board member of the Ocean Institute, apologized to the Wallace family that the Pilgrim sank on “our watch.”
“We’re very sorry for that,” he said. “It was an ignominious end to a wonderful life.”
“My uncle was a stickler for details,” he said of Ray Wallace. “It reminded me of that when you rang the bell right at noon. Enjoy this as a temporary gift.”
There has been no resolution to what caused the ship to sink.
“It was almost good that it was destroyed,” Wallace said. “To finger point would have been terrible. This way, there is none of that. It’s just the resolution of the ship. She was 75 years old.”
Veronica McNamara, a 20-year volunteer on the Pilgrim, was there to hear the last bell tolls. She remembered precisely the minute she got the call that the Pilgrim was listing, heading to the harbor from her home in San Clemente immediately.
“I must have cleaned that bell 1 million times,” she said sadly.
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