Schooner C.A. Thayer

Schooner C.A. Thayer was one of 123 three-masted schooners built on the West Coast for the lumber trade. Built in 1895 at Fairhaven on Humboldt Bay, California, by the Hans Bendixson Shipyard, she carried lumber from the Pacific Northwest to California ports from 1895 until 1912. She was then purchased by "Whitehead Pete" Nelson, owner of a salmon salting station in Alaska, and made yearly trips from San Francisco Bay to Bristol Bay with men and supplies, returning with barreled salmon. In 1925 she became a cod fishing vessel, sailing from Washington and fishing in the Bering Sea. Her final trip, in 1950, was the last commercial voyage by a West Coast sailing vessel. Captain Emil Anderson, her master in 1915, remembered her as a steady, solid-built little ship. On deck she measured 156 feet in length, with a 36-foot beam, an 11-foot draft, and a gross tonnage of 453.

San Francisco, California · United States