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vienna · 09-09-20, 05:59 AM

All those clips of sail boats in distress reminded me of something I saw when I was kid in San Francisco; there used to be a huge structure called the Sutro Baths on the Pacific side of SF, right near and below what is called Land's End; right of the shore to the West is a grouping of Rocks known as Seal Rocks (its easy to guess why it has that name) and the shoreline around that area and to the North has been the site of several shipwrecks, some of them major and fatal, owing to the often turbulent waters; the Sutro Baths was a glassed-in building built in the 1890s as an indoor mammoth series of salt water swimming and bathing pools; in later years, the pools were converted to indoor ice skating rinks, which is what I knew them as growing up in the 1950s; there were all sorts of observation decks located all over the West end of the building, facing out into the Pacific; one day, I was looking through one of the telescopes (IIRC, abut 5 cents for about 10 minutes of viewing) when there was a sudden agitation in the people off to one side of myself; they were pointing out to the ocean and I turned the telescope in the direction of the pointing; there was a sailing fishing boat and it had lost its main topmast and was dragging the wreckage on its port side; people in the Baths watched, horrified, as the boat drifted towards the rocks, then disappeared behind them; it eventually emerged past the rock, but was obviously further damaged; people were calling out for the building security people to call the authorities about the wreck; some ran off to find pay phones (no cell phones in those days) to make emergency calls; the boat limped further northward and disappeared beyond the point...

In the nearly 60 years since that happened, I don't recall what the ultimate fate was of the fishing boat and I don't recall any news reports of casualties, so my best guess is it either managed to limp into the Bay on its own or was aided by some local or Federal rescuers; still, the sight of seeing the crippled boat disappear behind the Seal Rocks and reappear damaged is still a strong memory...

<O>

09-09-20, 05:59 AM	#130
vienna Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Anywhere but the here & now... Posts: 7,507 Downloads: 85 Uploads: 0	All those clips of sail boats in distress reminded me of something I saw when I was kid in San Francisco; there used to be a huge structure called the Sutro Baths on the Pacific side of SF, right near and below what is called Land's End; right of the shore to the West is a grouping of Rocks known as Seal Rocks (its easy to guess why it has that name) and the shoreline around that area and to the North has been the site of several shipwrecks, some of them major and fatal, owing to the often turbulent waters; the Sutro Baths was a glassed-in building built in the 1890s as an indoor mammoth series of salt water swimming and bathing pools; in later years, the pools were converted to indoor ice skating rinks, which is what I knew them as growing up in the 1950s; there were all sorts of observation decks located all over the West end of the building, facing out into the Pacific; one day, I was looking through one of the telescopes (IIRC, abut 5 cents for about 10 minutes of viewing) when there was a sudden agitation in the people off to one side of myself; they were pointing out to the ocean and I turned the telescope in the direction of the pointing; there was a sailing fishing boat and it had lost its main topmast and was dragging the wreckage on its port side; people in the Baths watched, horrified, as the boat drifted towards the rocks, then disappeared behind them; it eventually emerged past the rock, but was obviously further damaged; people were calling out for the building security people to call the authorities about the wreck; some ran off to find pay phones (no cell phones in those days) to make emergency calls; the boat limped further northward and disappeared beyond the point... In the nearly 60 years since that happened, I don't recall what the ultimate fate was of the fishing boat and I don't recall any news reports of casualties, so my best guess is it either managed to limp into the Bay on its own or was aided by some local or Federal rescuers; still, the sight of seeing the crippled boat disappear behind the Seal Rocks and reappear damaged is still a strong memory... <O> __________________ __________________________________________________ __