A sad state for Stevenson's schooner

A sad state for Stevenson's schooner

CHRISTINA HARPER Reporting from the state of Washington NO-ONE pays much attention to the crusty old shell of an ancient schooner sitting in its dark shed in an old mill town in the Pacific Northwest. But when people learn that Equator once carried Robert Louis Stevenson, author of the classic Treasure Island, and his family to the South Seas, heads turn.

Visiting Equator at her home at the 10th Street boat launch in Everett, Washington, is like stopping to chat to a lonely old woman. She sits in her shed as if at her tenement window hoping that someone passing by will stop and blether for a while from the street. She's anxious to tell stories of her heyday, about the exotic islands she sailed to and most of all the famous writer and poet she kept at sea for many months. Behind the dreamy bravado lies a sad looking boat some would call a wreck. Her beauty these days lies deep in her story. Her spirit lives on but she has lost her looks. Harry McAlister, a tall white-haired Scotsman from Dumbarton, lives in Everett - 25 miles north of Seattle - and visits Equator from time to time. "It's an American boat but our interest is with Stevenson," he says.

McAlister comes from generations of boat builders once quite well known on the Clyde. He himself went into shipbuilding but chose to take an adventure of his own. Though not on the high seas, McAlister went first to Canada, then onto the US. "To me it does mean something." McAlister says. The story of Equator begins in Benicia, California, in 1888, when she was built by Matthew Turner. Said to have been one of the greatest shipbuilders of his time, Turner assembled the boat to be a South Sea trader and mail boat. Stevenson arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1888 where he and his family jumped ship. The following June they left for the Gilbert Islands – a vast 2,400 miles away - aboard Equator. (Ironically, the earth's equator runs through the former British island chain.) Stevenson referred to the boat as a "pygmy schooner" since she was a little more than 20 meters (66 feet) long and about 72 tons. Native musicians played music from the shore as Stevenson and family sailed out to sea. One can only speculate what power the schooner might have had to keep Stevenson sailing the Pacific for four months and indeed inspire him in some of his writings. In a letter to his friend Sidney Colvin from aboard Equator, Stevenson said: "My Dear Colvin - We are just nearing the end of our long cruise. Rain, calms, squalls, bang - there's the foretopmast gone; rain, calm, squalls, away with the staysail; more rain, more calm, more squalls; a prodigious heavy sea all the time, and the Equator staggering and hovering like a swallow in a storm; and the cabin, a great square, crowded with wet human beings, and the rain avalanching on the deck, and the leaks dripping everywhere: Fanny, in the midst of fifteen males, bearing up wonderfully."

More reading Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson's Edinburgh From the Gilbert Islands, a few months later, the schooner took the family to Samoa where Stevenson hoped to find a climate that would improve his weakening health. Too sick to brave the cold climate of Scotland, Stevenson knew that he would never see his beloved homeland again. He died in 1894 at age 44 in Samoa. What happened to Equator during this time is murky. The craft started out as a schooner but eventually became a blackbirder, a kind of slave ship, in the South Seas, says Dick Eitel, one of the men who resurrected her. The boat later worked up and down America's Pacific coast transporting lumber. Equator also spent some years as a tug before being dismantled. The hull was placed in breakwater in Everett during the 1950s. Eitel and others worked together to try and dig Equator out and patch her holes. "One exciting night we finally got it hauled out and hosed the sand out," Eitel recalls. "We thought the world would come and pat us on the back." Thinking that Equator deserved a place in the world of historic treasures, the group set out to put her on the state and national registers of historic places. That was accomplished by 1973. The boat was taken to her current home when it was deemed she was taking up too much space at the Everett marina. Out of sight, interest in Equator seems to have faded. "It's cribbed up so I don't think it would fall apart," says Eric Russell, director of property and development at the Port of Everett, which manages the piers, wharves and terminals. "It's not anywhere close to it being put back in the water."

Russell says the port has no plans for Equator. The schooner can be moved but not destroyed. Eitel doesn't think that Everett is the right place for Equator. He'd like to see her in a maritime museum - perhaps in California or Vancouver, British Columbia. It's raising the money to move it that has proven to be difficult. "I guess it's my anvil around my neck," Eitel says. "I still have a warm spot in my heart for it." New condominiums that will soon be built in the area do not threaten the dark and dank rotting boards of this sad old lady. If she could tell her stories they would be something to share with future generations. Stevenson is said to haunt Equator. Whether he does or not might only be answered by the few feral cats, among them Orange and Rambo, who live aboard the old schooner, roaming the hull and keeping rats and mice at bay. McAlister, the former Dumbarton man, says that he thinks the schooner should somehow be preserved. "Even if she just sits like she is," he notes. "She'll be there for a hell of a long time." For more information on how you might help restore Equator, contact Dick Eitel. This article: http://heritage.scotsman.com/ingenuity.cfm?id=1804682005