Maritime Museum of San Diego: Ferryboat Berkeley

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The Berkeley at sunset.
Photo courtesy the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

Maritime Museum of San Diego: Ferryboat Berkeley
1492 North Harbor Drive
San Diego, CA

Website:  Maritime Museum of San Diego

The Treasure:  The Berkeley is the finest example of a 19th century steam ferryboat still afloat.

Accessibility:  The Maritime Museum of San Diego is open daily from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., with later hours in the summer.

Benches inside the Berkeley.
Photo Courtesy of the Maritime
Museum of San Diego.

Background:  Before the Berkeley summoned in a new era, water transportation along the west coast was primarily by paddle and side wheel propulsion. Constructed by the Southern Pacific Railroad, the Berkeley is a double-ended, steel-hulled, propeller-driven steam ferryboat with a distinctive triple-expansive steam engine. At the time she was launched in 1898, the Berkeley was the first propeller-driven ferryboat on the west coast and the country’s largest commuter ferry operating at that time.

The Berkeley is not a native of San Diego, but was built to serve San Francisco and Oakland/Alameda by ferrying large numbers of railroad and commuter passengers. The huge ship could accommodate up to 1,700 passengers. This capability became especially important during the devastating 1906 earthquake. The Berkeley was quickly pressed into service, shuttling thousands of refugees from San Francisco to Oakland and ferrying supplies back to the firefighters and rescue workers in San Francisco.

After military service transporting troops during World War II, the Berkeley neared the end of her days as a useful transport ship. The Southern Pacific Railroad ended all ferry service in 1958 and sold the Berkeley. Through the 1960s, the ferry served as a floating gift shop docked in Sausalito, her glory days long behind her. The Maritime Museum of San Diego rescued her in 1973, taking responsibility for the major restoration that she desperately needed. A popular tourist destination today, millions have toured the Berkeley over the years, learning about the maritime history of the west coast and the nation.

Late Victorian era luxury on the Berkeley: Opalescent
stained glass cerestory windows.
Photo courtesy of the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

Notes from the Editor:  Preservation of boats is notoriously difficult. When you put steel in long-term contact with water, you inevitably get corrosion. The steel shell thins as it rusts, requiring steel patches to maintain the ship’s integrity.

With the Berkeley, the Save America’s Treasures grant was used to apply a new type of coating formulated to address the hull repair needs of corroding ships. More economical than the old mending strategies, this new repair treated the sandblasted steel surface of the hull with a coating of a tough ceramic resin. The resulting repair may serve as a cost-efficient model for long-term preservation of other aging steel-hulled ships, including historic U.S. warships.

The Berkeley in dry dock for hull restoration during the spring of 2003.
Photo courtesy the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

The hull of the Berkeley prior to restoration.
Photo courtesy of the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

The Berkeley's hull with new ceramic-embedded epoxy coating.
Photo courtesy of the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

The Star of India.
Photo by Maggie Piatt Walton,
courtesy of the Maritime
Museum of San Diego.

Other Recommended Sites:  While at the Maritime Museum of San Diego, don’t miss the opportunity to explore their other ships. In particular, don’t miss the Star of India, the oldest active sailing ship in the world dating back to 1863, and the SD Harbor Pilot, which served as San Diego’s chief pilot craft for much of the 20th century. The neighborhood adjacent to the Maritime Museum is San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, the historic heart of downtown San Diego with many buildings that date back to the Victorian era—recalling the time when the Berkeley was first launched.

TV crews document the restored Berkeley's 2003 return from dry dock,
with one of her propellers in the foreground.
Photo courtesy of the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Wednesday’s destination:  Mission San Juan Capistrano
Friday’s destination:  The Gamble House

© 2012 Lee Price