Remove ads
Alma is a tugboat preserved as a museum ship at the Morro Bay Maritime Museum in Morro Bay, California. Alma was built in 1912 in San Francisco by the Beviacqua Brothers Genoa Boat Works near Fisherman’s Wharf. Alma is a small harbor tug, built out of wood, with sawn oak frames and cedar planking. The former owners of Sylvester’s Tug Service, the Kelsey family, donated Alma in 1995 to the museum. No longer in the tugboat business, the Kelsey family now runs the Kelsey See Canyon Vineyards near Avila Beach. In June 2016 restoration work on Alma was completed and Keith Kelsey worked on Alma while the vessel was there. Alma's restoration work was done by the Central Coast Maritime Museum Association. Funding for the restoration work came from the Hind Foundation.[1] Before her 1995 retirement, Alma operated out of Morro Bay.[2][3][4]
 Alma at Morro Bay Maritime Museum | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Name | Alma |
| Owner |
|
| Builder | Beviacqua Brothers Genoa Boat Works, San Francisco |
| Completed | 1927 |
| In service | 1927−1995 |
| Status | Museum ship at Morro Bay Maritime Museum in Morro Bay, California. |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Tugboat |
| Length | 48 ft (15 m) |
| Beam | 13 ft (4.0 m) |
| Draft | 5.2 ft (1.6 m) |
Remove ads
In the morning on December 23, 1941 the Japanese submarine I-21 torpedoed and sank the Union Oil tanker SS Montebello near the start of World War II. The Montebello had departed Port San Luis with crude oil bound for Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Alma departed her mooring at the Cayucos Pier to look for survivors of the sunken oil tanker. The 400-foot (120 m) Montebello sank six miles (9.7 km) offshore just north of Cambria, California. The Alma was able to pick up two of Montebello's lifeboats with 22 men and took them back to Cayucos. Another tug towed one of the other lifeboats to shore. The fourth and last lifeboat was able to make it to shore on its own. The Montebello has thirty-three survivors. The tanker's wreck lies in 880 feet (270 m) of water off the coast of Cambria.[5][6] The shipwreck was listed on the US National Register of Historic Places in 2016.[7]
Remove ads
Remove ads
Wikiwand in your browser!
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.
Remove ads