The Schooner Zodiac, launched in 1924 from the Hodgdon Brothers shipyard in East Boothbay, Maine, was commissioned as a pleasure yacht for heirs to the Johnson and Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. She made an Arctic expedition up the Canadian east coast in 1925 and raced in the King's Cup across the Atlantic Ocean to Spain in 1928. During the Great Depression, the San Francisco Bar Pilots purchased her, renamed her California, and used her as a floating pilot's station outside the Golden Gate Bridge for 40 years. She retired in 1973 as the last pilot schooner to fly the United States flag. A group of sailing enthusiasts from the Pacific Northwest then restored her to her original design and rebuilt her from the waterline up. In 1984, she regained her maiden name and was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Today she operates as a Coast Guard certified charter vessel in the San Juan Islands, Puget Sound, and British Columbia, offering educational trips and recreational tours.