In front of you lay the hull remains of the schooner Forester. The schooner, launched in Alameda in 1900, would take cargoes of lumber from northern forests of Oregon and Washington to points in the Pacific including China, India, and Australia. The Forester was 250 feet long, 32 feet wide and weighed 680 tons.
The schooner, during its last years, was used as a tidal break around the main tower of the Carquinez Bridge (just west of Martinez) while the bridge was being built from 1925 to 1927.
In 1935, the first and only captain of the schooner, Otto Daeweritz, decided to beach the Forester on the mudflats of Martinez and live out his days. During the active days of the sailing vessel, the Forester set world records for a sailing craft and once sailed from Australia to San Francisco in seventy-five days. The Forester was the last intact schooner on the Pacific Coast. In 1975, the Forester burned to the waterline. The burned hull is all that remains today.
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