Dana Point : Brig to Have Permanent Berth and a New Owner

The brig Pilgrim II, a feature on the Dana Point scene since its arrival four years ago, should soon have a permanent home in the harbor there as a result of a unanimous vote Tuesday by the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

Although the Orange County Marine Institute has tried since 1981 to buy the Pilgrim, several pitfalls, including nervousness by officials over who would pay for the ship were the institute to default, have stood in the way of a purchase.

The vote Tuesday, however, frees the Board of Supervisors, the Orange County Department of Education and the four community college districts that form the joint-powers authority that runs the institute from any liability for the ship’s purchase.

Title to the 98-foot ship has been the subject of some dispute, but terms of the purchase agreement call for a settlement between the two parties who claim ownership.

“The entities that form the joint-powers agreement, including the Board of Supervisors, feel the agreement is sufficiently clear to release them from any liability arising from the Pilgrim,” said David Rosso, chief of lease development for the county Department of Harbors, Beaches and Parks.

Stanley Cummings, director of the Marine Institute, said Monday that the institute plans to close escrow on the two-masted vessel by Thursday.

Cummings said that more than $50,000 of the $450,000 purchase price has already been raised and used as a down payment for Pilgrim II, a replica of the ship on which Richard Henry Dana, author of “Two Years Before the Mast,” sailed.

The institute, Cummings said, plans to finish paying for the Pilgrim over a five-year period, and an ongoing fund-raising campaign is under way. Meanwhile, the Pilgrim will be sailed to Long Beach in September and hauled out of the water for routine maintainence.