DANA POINT : Mooring Approved for Sailing Ship

The sailing ship Pilgrim will soon drop anchor--for good--in Dana Point Harbor.

On Thursday, the state Coastal Commission approved a permit to construct a mooring for the pleasure vessel at the west end of the Harbor.

Since 1981, the wooden ship has floated in the cove anchored by chains. Officials from the Orange County Marine Institute, a nonprofit group, said that if a strong storm hit Dana Point, the ship could be lost.

The institute will seek a permit to allow more people on board and to resume the theatrical productions that once were performed on the vessel but were stopped because of fire hazard, said Stan Cummings, institute director. The new mooring will also provide access for the handicapped.

“Now the vessel will be something that the whole community can witness. It will also appeal to visitors from out of town,” he said. “The ship is not just a passive artifact but a living vessel.”

The institute had been soliciting donations to buy the two-masted sailing ship since 1985, the year it signed a five-year contract with a Salinas-based consortium that has been leasing the ship to the institute.

Last December, the institute bought the vessel with a $225,000 donation from one of its board members. The Pilgrim is a replica of the vessel on which Richard Henry Dana sailed. Dana was a 19th-Century sailor, writer and lawyer who first mapped the cove which now harbors the ship.

The mooring facility will consist of a short concrete pier. A ramp will lead to a floating dock. The vessel will be moored inside the dock, Cummings said.

The cost of the mooring is estimated by Cummings to be about $534,000. County officials said they will spend about $200,000 for the dredging, which should be under way by late spring.

Tom Rossmiller, coastal engineer for the county Environmental Management Agency, said, “Right now the water is a little too shallow for the pilgrim to safely move in and out. We’re making it deeper.”