Shields Point Ship Abandonment

Palafox was an American-registered ship built in Pensacola, Florida,
in May 1919 by the Palafox Shipbuilding Company. The three-masted schooner
was constructed of yellow pine and live oak, had a single deck, and was held
together with galvanized iron fasteners The 663-ton vessel had a length of
150.2 ft., a breadth of 39.2 ft., and a 13.8 ft. draft. The Fairbanks-Morse
Company provided two four-cylinder internal combustion semi-diesel oil
engines, each producing 100 horsepower, to provide the vessel with auxiliary
power. Throughout its career, Palafox was officially recognized as a freight service vessel.
Documents show that the ship had an interesting and active life. It underwent
some repairs just four months after being launched, and in 1921 the vessel
was determined to be A1, suitable for the Coastwise and West Indian trade. In
September 1922, the A1 vessel classification was cancelled, though Palafox continued working until 1933
when it was abandoned. Local resources such as the Pensacola
News Journal provide additional information about Palafox. For example, witnesses to
her trial run noted that although she had an awkward appearance in the water,
she made a remarkable seven knots even though she was not at full speed (31
May 1919). Her maiden voyage to Manzanilla, Cuba, occurred in July 1919, when
she was loaded with 550,000 feet of lumber. She traveled the 1,100 nautical
miles in just ten days, which was regarded as a good passage for an auxiliary
schooner at that time of year (18 July 1919).<br>

<span>
<span>In 1921,
the John A. Merritt &amp; Company hired the Bullock &amp; Caldwell Company to
build a single-decked schooner barge for transporting lumber and other cargo
associated with Pensacola’s bustling shipping business. Dinty
Moore was built in Pensacola and registered 137.9
ft. in length, 31.1ft. beam, with a draught of 12.1 ft. As constructed, she
was capable of carrying 402 gross tons of cargo. Designed specifically for
use along the Gulf Coast, Dinty Moore spent her entire career using Pensacola as her homeport. She
finally was stripped of everything useful and abandoned in 1937, alongside
other worn-out ships in Shield’s Cove.</span></span><br><br>

<span>
<span>George
T. Lock was a schooner built in Louisiana in 1917 for the
Pensacola-owned Aiken Tow Boat and Barge Company by the Clooney Construction
and Towing Company. Construction cost for Lock ranged between $39,000 and $40,000. Upon completion, she was a
single-decked, four-masted schooner built to transport lumber to Cuba and
various ports along the Gulf Coast. Lock was registered in 1917 at the port of Pensacola. Initially, it
received an A1 rating, meaning it was fit for the West Indian and coastwise
shipping trade. According to documents, it had an overall length of 180 ft, a
maximum breadth of 39 ft, a gross tonnage of 801 tons, and a depth of hold of
12.9 ft. In 1919, Lock
was converted to a schooner barge, meaning it primarily was used as a tow
vessel but had masts to assist; it was listed as a schooner barge on all
subsequent registries until it fell out of service. Converting sailing
vessels to schooner barges became common practice throughout the United
States from the 1890s to the 1930s. The reliability of steam engines proved
to be much more cost-effective versus a sailing vessel’s dependence on wind
as a source of power. Wooden hulls of sailing ships were durable, had large
cargo holds, and were constructed to withstand open water, all factors which
made them ideal for use as barges towed by a steam- powered tug. Typically,
sailing vessels of various types were converted to schooner barges by
reducing the amount of rigging and removing unnecessary structural features.
Masts were resized to retain only the lower section, bowsprits were removed,
and large bitts were erected to attach towlines.</span></span><br>

The
four-masted freight schooner Guanacastle, sometimes spelled Guanacaste in documents, was built in 1917 in Portland, Oregon. By 1924,
the 174 ft-long vessel had made its way to Pensacola where it was used as a
fishing vessel. Like other vessels now sunk in Shield’s Cove, it was
converted in 1926 to a schooner barge for the local lumber business. In 1938,
Guanacastle was
stripped and abandoned alongside other relics of the bygone Blackwater lumber
boom. The aerial photograph&nbsp;below was taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture&nbsp;in 1946 and depicts the largely&nbsp;still intact abandoned&nbsp;ships at Shield's&nbsp;Point.<br>