Schooner Equator
N 48° 00.245 W 122° 13.075
10U E 558335 N 5317049
The remains of a schooner that once carried Robert Louis Stevenson
Waymark Code: WM1XF7
Location: Washington, United States
Date Posted: 07/27/2007
Views: 127
The Equator was built as a two-masted schooner in 1888 by renowned ship builder Matthew Turner, in California. She first worked as a south sea trader and mail boat under sail.
Her most famous charter was to novelist and poet Robert Louis Stevenson, who sailed her in 1889 and 1890 from Honolulu to the Gilbert Islands. On her decks he conceived of and started his book "The Wreckers" while cruising the Gilberts and trading copra with the islanders.
The 76-ton vessel was fitted with a steam engine in 1893 and served as a tender to an arctic whaling fleet. In 1915 the Equator was put into service as a towing vessel and was later converted to diesel power.
The boat became stranded on the Quilleute River bar in 1923 where the hull filled with water, but she was eventually refloated and towed to Seattle for repair. The Equator was thoroughly renovated and worked for many more years for Puget Sound Tug and Barge Co. In 1956 the Equator's machinery was removed and the hull abandoned and forgotten on the Everett Jetty, just 1000 yards west of its current location.
Today the vessel is listed on the state and national historic registers. The Equator Foundation has been established to reconstruct her to her schooner configuration, maintain her, and establish an interpretive center to tell her story.
Marker Name: Schooner Equator
Marker Type: City
Town name: Everett
Date marker was placed: 1972
Placer: Washington State Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
Related website: [Web Link]
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