The placid, pristine waters of Catalina Harbor on Catalina’s West End may look innocent enough to the casual observer.
But in the turquoise depths beneath the waves of the idyllic harbor lurk the remnants of fierce battles of canvas and wood, iron and gunpowder, fist and cutlass; tumultuous expositions of violence between Moroccan pirates, Arab dhows and American frigates, Royal Navy Men o’ War and wayward merchant ships.
The placid, pristine waters of Catalina Harbor on Catalina’s West End may look innocent enough to the casual observer.
But in the turquoise depths beneath the waves of the idyllic harbor lurk the remnants of fierce battles of canvas and wood, iron and gunpowder, fist and cutlass; tumultuous expositions of violence between Moroccan pirates, Arab dhows and American frigates, Royal Navy Men o’ War and wayward merchant ships.
None of these battles were real, of course, unless you were one of the millions of theater-goers who watched these “battles” play out on the screens of motion picture houses across the nation.
It was there at the Isthmus in the ’20s and ’30s that dozens of swashbuckling films were made.
To the patrons of America’s theaters in that era, those battles were real enough and that’s all that mattered.
It was the end of the Age of Sail that supplied the movie industry with all the movie props they needed in the way of old wooden sailing ships.
It was common practice in the early years of Hollywood to buy up the old vessels and consign them to the “Hollywood Navy,” to be used in seafaring flicks.
As often as not, these vessels met ignominious ends and were blown up, burned, run aground or a combination of all three in an effort to thrill movie-goers.
The noble old ships had long since outlived their usefulness, having been replaced by motorized vessels in the so-called real world. Then, in the swansong of their lives, they were sacrificed to the movie gods.
One of those unfortunate ships was the Charles F. Crocker.
The Crocker—actually a four-masted barkentine—was built in 1890 in Alameda, California, by C. G. White.
With an overall length of 204 feet and measuring 762 gross tons, she was named after the son of the legendary railroad executive and banker Charles Crocker.
The Charles F. Crocker was a typical coastal schooner and probably spent most of her life carrying lumber and other goods up and down the West Coast.
(Unlike bulkier square-rigged ships, coastal schooners were ideal for the West Coast because they were much better suited to sailing the prevailing Northwesterly winds. To build the empire of California in the 19th century, a lot of lumber was needed and much of it found its way south from the mills of Washington and Oregon in this manner).
One way or another, the Crocker eventually found herself at Cat Harbor and a letter received by the National Maritime Museum in 1979 tells us of her fate.
The letter, written by Capt. Cliff Weidemann, explains that one of the scenes in an unnamed movie being filmed at the Isthmus called for a hurricane. While the close-up shots evidently involved another ship—the W.F. Jewett—film crews put dynamite around the masts of the Crocker.
Huge off-camera water tanks provided the “waves” crashing into the Jewett and flashing klieg lights played the role of lightning.
At some strategic point during the filming, the dynamite on the Crocker was set off, blowing the masts of the ship overboard.
As Capt. Weidemann explained, “Everything went over the side and into the harbor. The water was so clear you could see all that rigging, masts and yards under the surface.”
Apparently, the Santa Catalina Island Company wasn’t too happy with this. Capt. Weidemann explained that, “Mr. Wrigley’s caretaker had a fit. ‘You’ve got to get that out of there, you’ve got to get that out of there!’,” he yelled.”
The Crocker subsequently sank and for years, her remains lay abandoned in the tidal muds of the bay.
However, once again she was called in to action. In another letter, this one from Bill Oleson and dated July 15, 1982, we learn how the remnants of the ship were set afire for yet another film, this time about 1938. Although the timeline is a little difficult to follow, it appears that the Crocker still had one more trick up her sleeve.
In one of those odd twists of fate, a tsunami in the 1950s or 1960s—possibly the one created by Alaska’s Good Friday Earthquake of 1964—actually moved the sunken remnants of the Crocker further up into the bay to the point where they were visible once more at low tide.
Like the rest of her sister ships, once proud sailors of the bounding main and ultimately sacrificed in the name of entertainment, little can be found of these ships.
Like the legendary Ningpo, one may still find odds and ends, but for the most part, they are finally at peace.
