Bill Would Let Replica Retrace Dana’s Voyage

A bill that would allow the brig Pilgrim II to retrace the route sailed 150 years ago by author-seaman Richard Henry Dana was introduced Tuesday by Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad).

Richard Wright, a spokesman for the congressman, said special legislation would exempt the square-rigged ship, based at Dana Point Harbor, from a complex 1920 law prohibiting foreign-built vessels from conducting business from one U.S. port to another. The law was designed to protect U.S. shipping interests.

The hull of Pilgrim II was built in Denmark in 1945; the ship was converted in 1975 to resemble Pilgrim, the brig on which Dana sailed in the 1830s.

Therefore, according to her skipper, Capt. Ray Wallace of Long Beach, only a working crew--with no guests, paying or otherwise--would be allowed to make the trip without Packard’s legislation.

Wright said the measure is expected to encounter little trouble, because similar legislation has been passed on other occasions to accommodate vessels of historic value.

The brig will leave late in August, sail from Dana Point to San Francisco, then back south to Monterey, Santa Barbara, San Pedro and San Diego, all ports that Dana visited and mentioned in his classic book of the sea, “Two Years Before the Mast.”

Pilgrim II is owned by the Orange County Marine Institute and is moored near that building in the west end of Dana Point Harbor.