Relics To Be

R. L. Stevenson

Restored

THE restoration of two relics of Robert Louis Stevenson’s sojourn in the Pacific from 1888 until his death in 1894 began in two widely separated localities early in June.

In Western Samoa, workmen began restoring Vailima, Stevenson’s home just outside Apia, which was badly damaged in January’s hurricane {PIM, March, p. 81).

And in Everett, Washington State, on the Pacific seaboard of the United States, members of the local Kiwanis Club began shovelling tons of sand and mud out of what now remains of the 82 ft schooner Equator, of RLS fame, in an effort to refloat and possibly restore her.

Repair work on Vailima, which is said to be still as solid as when it was built, is expected to cost about £17,000. It will involve restoration

of the front upstairs lounge, the roof, and the downstairs timber flooring; and extensive interior painting (be cause of delays in shielding the in terior from the weather).

The complete restoration of the Equator, if it is ever accomplished, will be a much more difficult and expensive job, as the hulk is holed and has been bogged in sand and awash in Puget Sound for some years.

The Equator, which Stevenson described as a “pigmy trading schooner”, was built in California in 1888.

She was chartered to Stevenson and his entourage in 1890 for a voyage from Honolulu to the Gilberts, and it was in that ship that the Stevensons reached Samoa.

After leaving the South Seas, the Equator served as a fishing boat in the northern Pacific. Then, with her masts chopped off and engines in stalled, she began a long career as a tug.

In 1923, the Equator went aground on shoals off the Washington coast, but was refloated with hundreds of empty oil drums.

Finally, she came to rest at the Snohomish River jetty in front of Everett, where the attempts began in June to free her from a prison of sand.

If the Kiwanis Club can get the ship refloated, plans are to tow her to another part of Everett and pull her out of the water.

But nobody has any definite ideas on what to do next as a complete restoration job is estimated to cost about SUS 100,000.

Meanwhile, an old PIM reader, Captain Fred K. Klebingat, of San Francisco, is making inquiries all over the world to try to find out what became of the Equator's skipper in Stevenson’s time, Captain Edwin Dennis Reid.

Has anyone any clues?

Norfolk Island as it is today, looking down on Kingston, with Nepean Island in the background. The ruins of the old gaol are on the shore.

Members of the Everett Kiwanis Club shovel sand and mud from the "Equator".

Photo: Jim Leo in the "Everett Herald".