When taken together with the Port of Oakland across the Bay of San Francisco, the Port of San Francisco is one of the leading ports of the United States of America. The port was born out of the California Gold Rush of 1849, and today manages 7.5 miles of San Francisco waterfront stretching from Fisherman’s Wharf in the north to the India Basin in the south of the bay. The responsibilities of the port authority include the promotion of maritime commerce, navigation and dredging of the bay, providing environmental protection work and public recreation facilities, and turning around eighty cruise ship calls with over 200,000 passengers annually.

History of the Port

The first recorded ship to enter San Francisco Bay was the Spanish supply ship San Carlos in 1775, and in 1835 the first Harbour Master was appointed in Capt. W. A. Richardson. At this time, San Francisco was a sleepy outpost called Yerba Buena. During 1847/48, only eleven ships dropped anchor in San Francisco Bay to land cargoes of hides, tallow, whale oil and horn. However, the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1849 changed its fortunes completely, with 90,000 gold prospectors arriving in the port on 650 sailing vessels in one year. Large numbers of other prospectors arrived on overland wagon trains moving through Indian territory, and very well equipped with rifles and guns for self defence. One gunsmith catalogue of the time featured a large range of guns, rifles and revolvers as well as decorative powder flasks with drawings of hunters, Indians and bison.

The prospectors arriving by sea disembarked at Long Wharf or Central Wharf, now Commercial Street, with these two piers the first to be built in the port. They were eventually extended by two thousand feet into the bay over shallow water and mudflats to give ships sufficient depth of water to safely berth. Shipping and cargo demand dictated the building of more piers, and San Francisco became the focus of ocean going and river traffic for most of California, and the centre of extensive traffic on the bay. In 1863, the Board of State Harbour Commissioners for San Francisco was appointed under the Senate Bill 90 and signed by Governor Leland Stanford. Its responsibilities included the construction and upkeep of wharves, piers and seawalls, the dredging of the harbour, and the collection of rents, tolls, wharfage and dock fees.

Labour disputes were common, and in 1878 trades union leaders in San Francisco demanded the end of land monopoly and the instigation of an eight hour working day. An end to the use of Chinese labour, brought in originally to build the transcontinental railways, was also sought. Matters escalated out of control particularly in the press, with the editor of the San Francisco Examiner shot dead by the son of the editor of the opposing San Francisco Chronicle.

By 1880, over 2.5 miles of seawall had been completed from Fisherman’s Wharf in the north to the China Basin Channel in the south of the bay. Some 800 acres of prime land had been created behind the seawall, which today is the highly valuable real estate of the downtown financial and commercial districts of San Francisco. The wide and impressive Ferry Building with a tall thin white central clock tower took seven years to build and was completed in 1903 at the foot of Market Street for use by the Harbour Commission as well as the many ferry boat lines operating across the bay. The ferries eventually served all of Oakland, Alameda, Sausalito, Tiburon, Vallejo and the Angel Island State Park.

At the Millennium, a new pier was opened as Pier 42, and complemented the two piers of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, one with ‘Panama’ above its entrance and the other with ‘China and Japan’ written above its entrance. The Golden Gate entrance to the bay could be a very dangerous place in the frequent thick fogs, and the Pacific Mail liner City of Rio de Janeiro was wrecked there on 22nd February 1901 at the end of her voyage from China and Japan. Capt. William Ward was drowned and 131 of his passengers and crew were lost, about half the complement onboard.

San Francisco Earthquake

The Ferry Building escaped relatively undamaged in the serious earthquake disaster of 1906, thanks to the help from nearby American Navy warships in fighting the subsequent fires. The earthquake occurred in darkness at 0513 hours on 18th April with all of San Francisco shaking like a leaf, with many roads cracked and split, wharves warped and cracked, steel structures bent, and many buildings split in two from their cornices to their foundations. The Nob Hill district, the Fairmont Hotel, and Chinatown were completely destroyed with one quarter of a million people made homeless and over 700 people killed. It measured 8.3 on the Richter scale in six consecutive shocks, the third occurring at 0845 hours and caused the greatest destruction.

Six hours of fear and terror were experienced by its citizens, as successive seismic waves moved the earth in the most disastrous earthquake in the history of the west coast. Raging fires added to the disaster and martial law was declared as the flames destroyed the business district and half of the population spent the night in public squares and parks. The military had orders to shoot looters on sight and the police struggled to keep control. Sweeping winds carried the flames to other areas of the devastated and terrified city, with eight square miles and several hundred city blocks completely burnt out. Smouldering ruins were everywhere with the financial loss in the city estimated at $250 million, but much higher at $5 million in Oakland and San Jose across the bay.

The piers of the port were rebuilt after the earthquake and in 1908 six million tonnes of cargo passed through the port at 23 piers. The Board of Harbour Commissioners strengthened the seawall to support the Embarcadero and the Belt Railway. Maritime trade flourished and the port experienced a steady increase in trade after the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914. Trade through the port increased to 14.5 million tonnes in 1923, with exports of petroleum products and canned fruit quadrupling, and exports of grain doubling. The other major event of that year was the death of President Warren G. Harding in the city from cerebral haemorrhage. One million San Francisco and bay residents watched the funeral train pull out of San Francisco railway station and make its way inland to Washington (DC). The working population of San Francisco at this time was over half a million with many new piers added to the San Francisco waterfront.

Major American and foreign shipping companies that called at San Francisco in the inter-war years included the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, Oceanic Steamship Company, Matson Navigation, American Hawaii Line, Isthmian Line, Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, NYK, Mitsui and Osaka Shosan Kaisha (OSK) and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (‘K’ Line) of Japan, and the Dollar Company later American President Lines, Java Pacific Line, Kerr Steamship Company, Silver Line, Chargeurs Reunis of France, Wilhelmsen Line of Norway in conjunction with Barber Line of London, Golden Gate D/S A/S of Knut Knutsen of Norway, Transatlantic Steamship Company of Gothenburg, East Asiatic Company of Denmark, Maersk Line, Bank Line, and Castle Line of James Chambers & Co. Ltd. of Liverpool. Standard Oil of California (Socal) quadrupled exports of petroleum between 1913 and 1930. Shipbuilding was carried out by the Moore Shipbuilding Company at San Francisco with ten building berths for vessels up to 600 feet, and by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation with a yard at Alameda.

The Golden Gate Bridge from the Presidio fortress on the San Francisco side to the Sausalito side across the open stretch of water to the Pacific was opened on 27th May 1937. Some 200,000 San Francisco residents crossed the bridge that day after the opening ceremony, and the bridge was a carnival scene for twelve hours. The longest suspension bridge in the world was a masterpiece of engineering as well as a majestic sight, with high shrill sounds coming from its undercarriage and wires during strong winds. The festivities ended with a pageant and fireworks display that bathed the bridge in a kaleidoscope of colour. The bridge had been designed by the engineers Joseph B. Strauss and Clifford Paine, and took four years, four months and 22 days to complete at a cost of $35 million. The bridge measures 6,500 feet from anchorage to anchorage, with its main 4,200 feet span suspended on majestic towers rising 746 feet from the choppy waves below. Some 100,000 tonnes of steel and 800,000 miles of wire cable were used in its construction. Unfortunately, eleven lives were lost during the 25 million man hours it took to complete the masterpiece.

Post World War II

Many ‘Liberty’ ships sailed on their maiden voyages beneath the famous Golden Gate Bridge during 1942/45, from two yards at Richmond in the north eastern corner of San Francisco Bay and one yard at Oakland. A huge Reserve Fleet of ‘Liberty’ and other war built ships on the west coast was laid up in post-war years at Suisun Bay, just inland from Richmond. San Francisco and the Bay port of Oakland were the principal departure point for troops and military equipment for the conflict in the Pacific during World War II. Shiprepair facilities were provided in post-war years by the San Francisco Division of Todd Shipyards with two floating docks of length up to 600 feet and width of 90 feet with lift capacities of 20,000 tonnes, and four floating docks at the Moore Dry Dock Company with lift capacities up to 20,000 tonnes.

The port continued to grow in postwar years, and control of the port was transferred to the City and Council of San Francisco in 1969. They began to face the challenges of containerisation and the construction of new specialised terminals. Container and cargo handling has now primarily relocated south to China Basin, and the northern waterfront now features the new James R. Herman Cruise Terminal opened on 25th September 2014 at Pier 27, as well as the Bay passenger ferry piers, harbour excursions and recreational and boating and sport fishing activities.

The Port of San Francisco is governed by a five member Board of Commissioners, each of whom is appointed for four years by the Mayor of San Francisco, the appointments being subject to confirmation by the Board of Supervisors of the city. The well known landmarks such as Fisherman’s Wharf, the Pier 39 Aquarium, the Ferry Building, and the AT&T Park, home to the San Francisco Giants baseball team, all fall within the jurisdiction of the port. The port celebrated its 150th Anniversary on 24th April 2013, as the State Harbour Commission was established in 1863 for the development of the port and the building of a long seawall to protect the city.

Cruise Terminal

The James R. Herman Cruise Terminal at Pier 27 was opened on 25th September 2014 as a two storey cruise terminal with 91,000 square feet of passenger space with superb views to the Bay Bridge and back to the city skyline and Telegraph Hill. The terminal can accommodate cruise ships carrying up to four thousand passengers, and was designed to meet the evolving trends of the cruise industry. The terminal includes the latest passenger and perimeter security features but can also be used for other events on non-cruise ship days. The terminal features computerised access control and security monitoring systems, full ‘wifi’ network access, and vessel data connectivity networking systems.

Passengers are dropped off from coaches and cars on the Embarcadero roadway within the thirteen acre pier dedicated area, and board their cruise ship via a new automated mobile gangway able to meet the varied door heights of all cruise ships. The cruise ships plug into the shore 12 megawatt power supply system to reduce pollution from the use of their engines in port. The Cruise Terminal Plaza provides a pleasant seated waiting area with images and the history of the many Pacific passenger ships that have called at the Port of San Francisco over the past 150 years. During 2015, some eighty cruise calls are expected with those of Princess Cruises heavily outnumbering the other cruise lines that call :-

2015 Cruise Calls

Cruise passengers have a wonderful city to explore, evoking more romance and feeling of pleasure than any other American port. Pretty apartments cling to the sides of the steep hills, the last cable cars in America rattle their way up and down the hills, sea lions charm visitors to the Fisherman’s Wharf, and the colourful Chinese and Italian districts give the city a cosmopolitan feeling. Fine cuisine at the many restaurants throughout the bay area can be reached by the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART). This is a 104 mile 44 station high speed public transportation system in the Bay area opened on 11th September 1972 with 28 miles of track from Fremont to Oakland. The second segment from Oakland to Richmond followed four months later extending the system to 39 miles and 18 stations, followed shortly afterwards by the full system to San Francisco. Some 357,135 passengers used the BART system on one day in 1989, and a new line was opened in 2003 to San Francisco International Airport.

Cargo Terminals

The port handles all manner of multi-purpose ships, as well as general cargo ships, ro-ro and automobile carriers, as well as oversize project cargo, rolling stock, containers, bulk and break bulk cargo. The port has six deep water berths with five gantry cranes for easy discharge of cargo to quay or barge. There are heavy lift cranes of one hundred tonnes capacity available, cold storage, covered warehousing of more than 550,000 square feet, and 145 acres of open cargo storage, as well as shiprepair facilities at the BAE Systems San Francisco Ship Repair Facility at Pier 68. A Foreign Trade Zone was established in 1948 to operate and maintain Free Trade Zone #3 and it has since been expanded to include the counties of San Mateo, Contra Costa, Napa, Solano and Sonoma. The main cargo handling is now concentrated at Piers 80A, 80B, 80C, 80D, 92, 94, 96 North and 96 South.

Pier 80.

A break bulk terminal at the foot of Cesar Chavez Street and the India Basin with 69 acres of apron at the four quays A, B, C and D of length 2,700 feet. There is forty feet of water alongside depth and 394,000 square feet of covered warehouse space, and rail access to the Intermodal Container Transfer Facility. Maintenance and repair facilities are nearby, as well as the Sheedy Crane and Drayage Centre.

Pier 92.

A break bulk terminal opposite to Berth D of Pier 80 on the other side of the Islais Creek Channel, and accessed by the newly completed Illinois Street Rail Bridge. There is one berth with a very large amount of open cargo storage area, and with direct access to the port rail yard.

Pier 94/96.

Two very busy bulk cargo and break bulk terminals of some size at the southern end of the Islais Creek Channel from Pier 92. The three berths occupy 76 acres and are 2,450 feet in length with forty feet of alongside water depth. There are two gantry cranes of forty tonnes capacity and rail access to the Intermodal Transfer Facility, as well as a maintenance and repair facility.

The Port of San Francisco has cargo calls by vessels of Crowley Maritime Corporation, CSL International of Canada, Chevron Shipping, Gearbulk, Saga Forest Carriers, STX Pan Ocean, Star Consortium of Norway, Hyundai Merchant Marine, Matson Navigation, Oldendorff Carriers, SK Shipping and Tokyo Marine as well as other major shipping lines. Some 224 cargo ships called in 2004 with 2,394 million tonnes of import or export cargo. The San Francisco Bar Pilots operate three pilot boats from Pier 9 East End on the Embarcadero in the sisters California and San Francisco of 224 grt built at Seattle in 2001 by the Marco shipyard, and Drake built in 1976 as California in 1976 at Stockton and renamed in 2001 when the new pilot boat arrived.

Port of Oakland

The larger of the two ports on San Francisco Bay in terms of tonnage handled with a throughput of 2.4 million TEU of containers in 2013. Oakland was named for the grand oak trees that once lined its streets, and the port now trades principally with Asia (75.82%), Europe (13.52%), Australia, New Zealand and Oceania (5.2%), and other world ports (5.38%) together with small amounts of Hawaiian, Guam and military cargo. The three major container ports of the American Northwest and California of Oakland, San Pedro Bay in Southern California, and Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest handle one half of the total U.S. container cargo volume. The best way to see the Port of Oakland is to take the ferry from San Francisco at the Ferry Building in between Piers 1 and 2 and disembark at Oakland Ferry Terminal.

The Port of Oakland was established in 1927 but only became of great significance when it heavily expanded in 1962 at the start of the container era. The container ship Elizabethport arrived during that year carrying 476 containers of a non standard length of 35 feet. She also inaugurated the container operations of Sea- Land Service Inc. using four modified war built cargo ships and a fleet of five thousand trailers that detached from their chassis to become shipping containers. The Port of Oakland invested $600,000 to upgrade piers just to the south of the Oakland Bay Bridge, designed by Charles H. Purcell and opened in 1936 via Yerba Buena Island as a double suspension bridge on the western section and a cantilevered eastern section. However, due to earthquake damage a new self anchored suspension bridge on the eastern section has recently reopened alongside the old East Span. The length of the bridge spans just over 4.5 miles excluding the approach links.

Sea-Land chairman and pioneer of container ship operations, Malcolm P. McLean said at the opening ceremony of the first terminal on 27th September 1962 ‘The use of sealed trailers and containers enables a vessel to be loaded and unloaded in one-sixth of the time of conventional general cargo vessels, and marks a new milestone in low cost ship transportation’. He was certainly proved correct in this statement as the entire world of shipping was turned upside down by this terminal served by two railroads, the Union Pacific and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF).

The Port of Oakland oversees the seaport as well as Oakland International Airport with a jurisdiction of twenty miles of waterfront from the Bay Bridge to the airport. It is the fifth busiest container port in the U.S. and directly or indirectly supports the jobs of 72,000 workers in California. It has six busy container terminals receiving ‘Super Post Panamax’ container ships up to 14,500 TEU capacity and three bulk and break bulk terminals receiving Panamax bulkers. The container shipping lines that call include ANL Container Line, American President Lines, CCNI and CSAV of Chile, China Ocean Shipping, CMA-CGM, Evergreen Line, Hamburg Sud, Hyundai Merchant Marine, ‘K’ Line, Matson Navigation, Mitsui OSK, Maersk Line, MSC, NYK, OOCL, Polynesia Line, UASC, U.S. Lines, Wan Hai Lines, Yang Ming and Zim Line.

The six container terminals and two intermodal rail facilities serve the Oakland waterfront. All of the shipping channels such as the Oakland Middle Harbour and 90% of the container ship berths are dredged to an alongside depth of fifty feet. The Union Pacific and BNSF railroad facilities are located adjacent to the heart of the marine terminal area to provide a reliable and efficient method of transferring containers to the intermodal rail network. The Port of Oakland handles almost 100% of the containerised goods moving through Northern California, and is one of the three container gateways on the west coast of the country.

Container Terminals

The six terminals cover a total of 779 acres with 24 deep water berths and 36 gantry cranes, of which thirty serve ‘Super Post-Panamax’ container ships. They are as follows :-

Ports America Outer Harbour Terminal (Berths 20-26)

Ten gantry cranes on a berth length of 5,622 feet with 210.4 acres of open terminal dedicated storage area. Operated by the Port of Oakland in the Outer Harbour area.

TraPac Terminal (Berths 30-32)

Four gantry cranes on a berth length of 2,172 feet with 65.7 acres of open terminal dedicated storage area. Operated by TransPacific Inc. in the Outer harbour area.

Ben E. Nutter Terminal (Berths 35-38)

Four gantry cranes on a berth length of 2,157 feet with 74.0 acres of open terminal dedicated storage area. Operated by Seaside Transportation Services Inc. in the Outer Harbour area.

Oakland International Container Terminal (Berths 55-59)

Ten gantry cranes on a berth length of 6,000 feet with 270 acres of open terminal dedicated storage area. Operated by the Port of Oakland in Oakland Middle Harbour.

Charles P. Howard Terminal (Berths 67-68)

Four gantry cranes on a berth length of 1,946 feet with 50.3 acres of open terminal dedicated storage area. Operated by Stevedoring Services of America Inc. (SSA) in Oakland Middle Harbour.

Global Gateway Central Terminal (Berths 60-63)

Four gantry cranes on a berth length of 2,750 feet with 80.0 acres of open terminal dedicated storage area. Operated by Eagle Marine Services in Oakland Middle Harbour.

Bulk and Break-Bulk Terminals

There are three bulk and break bulk terminals located in the port, one at the Burma Road Terminal at Berth 7, and two at Berths 33 and 34. The Burma Road Terminal is located in the Outer Harbour waterway and ships and receives bulk and general cargo including ro-ro, heavy lift, and steel products. It is operated by the Marine Terminals Corporation and has a berth length of 1,460 feet with an alongside water depth of 35 feet. It occupies a dozen hectares and is served from the rear of the transit sheds by rail from the Oakland Terminal Railway and the Union Pacific and BNSF railroads. Berths 33 and 34 are adjacent in the Outer Harbour waterway and each have a berth length of 750 feet to give a total length of 1,500 feet with 23.0 acres of bulk open cargo storage area. There are two vessel turning areas in the port, one just to the south of the Oakland Bay Bridge, and the other in the Oakland Middle Harbour.

The principal exports of the Port of Oakland are edible fruits and nuts, meat, fish, machinery, vehicles, beverages, inorganic and organic chemicals, rare earth metals, chemical products, grain, cereals, seed, citrus fruit, cotton, yard, fabric, wines and spirits, dairy products and lumber and sawn wood. The principal imports of the Port of Oakland are machinery, beverages, furniture, bedding, vehicles, clothing, toys, sports equipment, plastic, iron and steel products, spices, coffee and tea, medical equipment and electronics.

Middle Harbour Shoreline Park

This welcome open space has given public access since Millennium year to the former naval ship basin and Oakland Naval Supply Depot which closed in 1998. Two miles of walking paths and 150 acres of shallow water area of the Middle Harbour have turned this area into an outstanding habitat teeming with many species of crab, flatfish, anchovies, herring and perch. The Port of Oakland works with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to restore further shallow water habitats of the Oakland Middle Harbour. It is also an ideal area to observe the comings and goings of container ships and Panamax bulkers in the Middle Harbour and in the Outer Harbour area with the majestic Oakland Bay Bridge in the distance.

Crowley Towage

Crowley was founded in San Francisco in 1892 and has been providing tug services in the Bay area since 1906 using powerful tugs manned by experienced crews. They assist all types of vessels entering and leaving the Bay, and also provide a tanker escort service to ensure their safe passage in and out of the San Francisco Bay refinery ports. Two powerful tugs are used for this purpose, Valor of 6,772 bhp and Guard of 5,500 bhp. Crowley also provide tug assistance with tugs such as Adventurer at many other West Coast ports, and also provide ocean towing along the coast and throughout the world. Crowley have also moved into many other areas of shipping e.g. barge towing and salvage work, ro-ro shipping, project logistics, global freight management, chemical and petroleum energy solutions, vessel design and naval architecture, and vessel construction management. Partnered with Crowley is Baydelta Marine Services Inc .with three harbour tugs of 3,400 bhp and 85 tonnes of bollard pull named Delta Audrey, Delta Billie and Delta Cathryn that work both Oakland and San Francisco piers. There are other tug companies in the Bay area including Westar Marine services Inc. with 17 tugs of up to 3,900 bhp and operating in the Bay area since 1976, Harley Marine with four tugs of up to 6,850 bhp, and Greger Pacific Marine with two tugs.

Postscript

The San Francisco Maritime Museum to the west of Fisherman’s Wharf has plenty of indoor attractions, models and information on west coast maritime subjects, and is part of the San Francisco Maritime Historical Park. The Aquatic Park Bathhouse has housed the Maritime Museum since 1951, and is a beautiful white art deco building with three decks with the clean lines of an ocean liner, and with dazzling interior murals. There are a very good collection of preserved static vessels afloat, including the 1896 square rigger Balclutha with beautiful figurehead, the 1891 scow schooner Alma, the 1895 wooden lumber schooner C. A. Thayer, the San Francisco Bay steam ferryboat Eureka of 1890, the steam tug Hercules of 1907, the steam schooner Wapama of 1915, and the former Tyne tug Eppleton Hall of 1914.

The latter tug was built for the Lambton & Hetton Collieries Ltd. by Hepple & Co. Ltd. of South Shields and was transferred to France, Fenwick Tyne & Wear Co. Ltd. in November 1945. After fifty years service on the Tyne she saw further service at Seaham Harbour and was then sold in May 1969 for £2,500 to Scott Newhall of San Francisco. She was restored at the Bill Quay yard of Harrison & Son and fitted for oil burning and also had sails fitted. This was for her long voyage out to San Francisco via the Panama Canal, and she left the Tyne in August 1969 with her decks heaped with wood and other combustible material to help her across the narrowest part of the Atlantic from Cape Verde Islands to South America. She called at Madeira and loaded more wood, and finally reached San Francisco in March 1970 and was transferred to the Maritime Museum and is still there today.

The preserved ‘Liberty’ vessel Jeremiah O’ Brien is steamed around San Francisco Bay each May, and is located permanently at Pier 45 just to the east of Fisherman’s Wharf along with the preserved USS submarine Pampanito, both open daily. A holiday visit to San Francisco must also include this collection of amazing vintage maritime vessels listed above, most well over one hundred years old, as well as the many marinas and other city and harbour attractions.

Jeremiah O’Brien

Jeremiah O’Brien is a rare survivor of the 6,939 ship armada that stormed Normandy on DDay 1944,and one of only two currently operational World War II Liberty ships afloat of the 2,710 built during the war, the other being the John W. Brown based in Baltimore.

Built in just 56 days at the New England Shipbuilding Corporation in South Portland, Maine, and launched on 19th June 1943, this class EC2-S-CI ship not only made four perilous round trip wartime crossings of the Atlantic and served on D-Day,she later saw sixteen months of service in both the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean calling at ports in Chile, Peru, New Guinea, the Philippines, India, China, and Australia.

The end of the war caused most of the Liberty ships to be removed from service in 1946 and many were subsequently sold to foreign and domestic buyers. Others were retained by the U.S. Maritime Commission for potential reactivation in the event of future military conflicts. Jeremiah O’Brien was mothballed and remained in the National Defense Reserve Fleet in Suisun Bay for 33 years. In the 1970s, however, the idea of preserving an unaltered Liberty Ship began to be developed and, under the sponsorship of Rear Admiral Thomas J. Patterson, USMS, (then the Western Regional Director of the U.S. Maritime Administration) the ship was put aside for preservation instead of being sold for scrap.

An all volunteer group, the National Liberty Ship Memorial (NLSM), acquired Jeremiah O’Brien in 1979 for restoration. At that time she was virtually the last Liberty at the anchorage. Amazingly, those who volunteered to resurrect the mothballed ship were able to get the antiquated steam plant operating while she remained in Suisun Bay. After more than three decades in mothballs, Jeremiah O’Brien’s boilers were lit. The ship left the mothball fleet on 21st May 1980 bound for San Francisco Bay, drydocking, and thousands of hours of restoration work. She was the only Liberty Ship to leave the mothball fleet under her own power. She then moved to Fort Mason on the San Francisco waterfront just to the west of Fisherman’s Wharf. There Jeremiah O’Brien has become a floating museum dedicated to the men and women who built and sailed the ships of the United States Merchant Marine in World War II.

In 1994 the Jeremiah O’Brien, on her eighth voyage, (the previous seven were during World War II) steamed under the Golden Gate Bridge, down the west coast, through the Panama Canal, and across the Atlantic to England and France, where she and her crew participated in the 50th Anniversary of Operation Overlord, the allied invasion of Normandy that turned the tide of World War II in Europe. She was the only large ship from the original Normandy flotilla to return for the 50th anniversary celebration.

The Jeremiah O’Brien makes several passenger carrying daylight cruises each year in the San Francisco Bay Area, and occasional voyages to more distant ports such as Seattle and San Diego.