Wapama, Steam schooner in Richmond, California.
Wapama is a wooden steam schooner built in 1915 and operated along the Pacific Coast transporting lumber. The vessel has a wooden hull measuring about 216 feet in length and is powered by a steam engine that allowed it to operate independently of wind and tides.
Built in 1915 at a shipyard in Oregon, the vessel served the lumber trade along the Pacific Coast until 1948. After retirement from service, it was preserved and now stands as a monument to maritime history in the region.
The ship connected workers to the Pacific lumber trade, employing generations of sailors and linking remote coastal communities. It demonstrates how vessels like this one formed the backbone of regional commerce and transported people and goods to isolated ports.
The vessel can be visited to explore life aboard and early 20th-century maritime engineering. The best experience comes on clear days when the wooden structure and mechanical details are easier to see and photograph.
Of the more than 200 steam schooners that once operated along the Pacific Coast, very few remain intact like Wapama. The ship preserves details of wooden shipbuilding craft that few people practice today.
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