Spruce Goose Ready to Migrate North : Attraction: Historic plane is loaded onto barge in Long Beach after ocean swells prevented transport last week.

After a two-day delay caused by rough seas, workers Sunday succeeded in loading the fuselage and tail section of the legendary Spruce Goose onto a barge before starting its journey up the Pacific Coast to an as-yet-unbuilt air museum in Oregon.

Onlookers lined Queens Highway in Long Beach as the 100-by-300-foot barge was tugged into the San Pedro Harbor, where the shrink-wrapped parts were to be lashed for the 1,000-mile ride. The barge, which was escorted by sailboats and other watercraft through calm waters, will remain in the harbor until later in the week, when the plane’s wings will be loaded, which together span the length of a football field.

“It was very emotional for everyone today,” said Peggy Nuetzel, assistant director of the air museum that Evergreen International Aviation Co. in McMinnville, Ore., will build to showcase the world’s largest aircraft, the brainchild of eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes.

“We had feelings of joy from the Evergreen side, and I’m sure there were feelings of sadness from the original crew members and the Long Beach community,” Nuetzel said.

As the 80-foot tail section was trundled onto the waiting barge, it ended an era that began almost half a century earlier on Nov. 2, 1947, when the Spruce Goose had its first and only flight--about one mile--over Long Beach Harbor.

Hughes kept the plane in an environmentally controlled hangar on Terminal Island until he died in 1976. The Spruce Goose has resided in the white dome at Long Beach Harbor since 1982 and was owned by the Aero Club of Southern California, whose members were among the original flight mechanics and crew.

The Aero Club’s search for a new home began this year when the Walt Disney Co., which has managed the Spruce Goose and the nearby Queen Mary since 1988, announced that it would not renew the lease expiring Sept. 30 because it lost millions of dollars on the attractions.

The company plans to give the dome to Long Beach, which will take possession once the plane and historical exhibits have been moved. The city has not decided how it will use the facility.

Nuetzel said workers were prevented from loading part of the Spruce Goose onto the barge Friday by unseasonal swells of almost three feet.

The barge will spend eight days chugging up the Pacific, turning inland at the Columbia River in Astoria, Ore., on the way to a storage facility where it will remain until the museum is built. Most of the plane’s other pieces--including the engines--have left via truck for Oregon.