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ART DECO VESSELS "Art Deco is an influential visual arts design style that first appeared in France after World War I. It flourished internationally for three decades before its popularity waned after World War II. It is an eclectic style that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials. The style is often characterized by streamlined geometric shapes and lavish ornamentation." During the art deco period, the design of automobiles, aircraft, speed boats, buildings, trains, camping trailers and even entire ships was often heavily influenced by this art form. The most extreme examples of American ships that can properly be called 'art deco vessels' were a ferryboat named KALAKALA [depicted at the top of this page] and an excursion steamboat; the SS ADMIRAL. They both were traditional ships initially, then enjoyed brief fame through conversion before being scrapped.

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ART DECO VESSELS

"Art Deco is an influential visual arts design style that first appeared in France after World War I. It flourished internationally for three decades before its popularity waned after World War II. It is an eclectic style that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials. The style is often characterized by streamlined geometric shapes and lavish ornamentation." During the art deco period, the design of automobiles, aircraft, speed boats, buildings, trains, camping trailers and even entire ships was often heavily influenced by this art form.

The most extreme examples of American ships that can properly be called 'art deco vessels' were a ferryboat named KALAKALA [depicted at the top of this page] and an excursion steamboat; the SS ADMIRAL. They both were traditional ships initially, then enjoyed brief fame through conversion before being scrapped.

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MV KALAKALA [Kalakla is believed to mean 'Flying Bird' in Chino ok;

a Pacific Northwest Native American language]

First Life...As A Jinxed Ship

The MV KALAKALA started off life as a traditional double-ended ferryboat named PERALTA. She and an identical sister ship were 276 feet long and could carry upwards of 4,000 passengers. Their hulls were steel, but these vessels' superstructures included large quantities of wood and other flammable materials. Constructed in Oakland, California, in 1926 for passenger service between San Francisco and Oakland, the PERALTA was considered a jinxed ship by most sailors when she stuck on the ways during launching. Within a month of going into service in 1927, she slammed into docks in San Francisco, causing considerable damage to both piers and herself. A year later, as the PERALTA was approaching her berth in Oakland on a cold day in February, passengers crowded to her bow in anticipation of disembarking, causing the ferry boat's bow to be pushed down. Then she hit a water trough, causing her bow to dip down further, resulting in a five foot wall of water to surge across her main deck. Thirty people were washed overboard. Five of them drowned in the icy waters of San Francisco Bay. The final blow came on the night of May 6, 1933. She was moored alongside a pier for the night when an arsonist set the structure on fire. The ensuing blaze jumped to the PERALTA and by morning she was a smoldering wreck. The insurance company wrote her off as a total loss. Her hull was offered for sale 'as is - where is'. Most maritime observers assumed she would be sold for scrap. But in October of 1933, Captain Alexander Peabody of the Puget Sound Navigation Company purchased the ravaged hull for $6,500. He had it towed to a shipyard in the Seattle, Washington area. His original intent was to rebuild the vessel along fairly standard 'double-ender' ferryboat lines. But Mrs. Peabody and an aircraft designer from the Boeing company had other ideas...

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"She Ought to be More Rounded!"

One night after dinner, Captain Peabody laid out his preliminary plans for creating a more modern looking, yet still fairly traditional ferryboat design on the family's dining room table. Mrs. Peabody suggested something more distinctive and modernistic.

Louis Proctor, a Boeing engineer was engaged to go in that direction. As a result, Captain Peabody's original design was radically altered, resulting in the world's first streamlined vessel. His ideas were then incorporated in a five foot model, which measured up to Mrs. Peabody's suggestion... and then some. The image on the left shows her admiring the model in their home.

Salvaging & Naming the Vessel The rebuilding effort commenced in November of 1934. The following image shows the hull after most of the fire damage had been cut away. The main deck plating was left intact, although it had been rippled in places by the intense heat of the fire that ended her career as a San Francisco Bay ferryboat. That deck's overhang on both sides was removed, reducing her beam from 68 feet to 55 feet.

That same month, William Thorniley, publicist for the ferryboat company suggesting naming the vessel KALAKALA. His intent was to emphasize the nickname 'Flying Bird' in advertising materials; evocative of the sweeping design to be used when rebuilding the vessel. When Captain Peabody agreed, Thorniley embarked on a promotional blitz. Billboards with just the word 'KALAKALA!' soon appeared all over Seattle. Once the public's curiosity was aroused, an artist's conception of the vessel's new look was added to the billboards.

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External Features In addition to her radical superstructure and unconventional window treatments, depicted below in early 1935 during the rebuilding, the vessel's design included additional unusual features. Electro-welding, a metal joining process that was fairly new in the 1930s was utilized instead of using traditional rivets. This resulted in a much smoother look for the vessel's superstructure seams. The KALAKALA's bridge and wheelhouse were set back much further from the vessel's bow than normal for ferries; intended to mimic the look of an aircraft cockpit. However, once in service, this feature proved unwise, as it was impossible to see the vessel's bow from her bridge, making it difficult to safely dock. The highly streamlined bridge and wheelhouse were built entirely of copper. This was done due to an unfounded fear that if steel were used, it would interfere with the ship's compass. A capability to carry up to 85 motor vehicles on her main deck was incorporated during the rebuild, which was very different from her original 'passenger-only' design. The vessel's main deck was renamed the car deck. Her fully rounded bow was fitted with clamshell-like doors [right] to keep rough seas from entering the vehicle parking area.

No longer configured as a 'double-ender' ferryboat, its stern following modernization, featured a large archway on the centerline for vehicle access. On either side of her stern, cutout areas in the superstructure [left] were created to house the KALAKALA's lifeboats at the Car Deck level instead of atop the superstructure, as found on most ferries.

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Internal Decor

Internally, the art deco theme was continued throughout her public spaces. Moldings and trim around the many wide, rounded windows, faux portholes and the railings of her cast iron staircases were finished in gleaming brass. Eggshell, tan and brown hues were chosen for interior paint and upholstery use.

The lunch counter [left] was located one deck up from the main passenger cabin [below, right]. It functioned as a quick order restaurant and featured a double horseshoe counter. Aft of this space was the 'Palm Room', fitted with wicker chairs. This space provided access to areas of the promenade deck open to the weather.

Wary of the 1933 fire that largely consumed the vessel, fire resistant materials were used throughout. A sprinkler system was installed along with several 'fire stations'. These installations consisted of brass pipes fitted with fire fighting nozzles that could be pivoted in any direction.

Somewhat incongruently for an otherwise totally art deco atmosphere, the vessel's forward observation lounge [left] on the promenade deck was furnished with red velvet upholstered chairs. The contrast with the modernistic stair railing was a bit startling.

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Amongst the numerous luxurious amenities provided - unusual for a ferryboat - Mrs. Peabody insisted that a well furnished ladies' lounge be installed. Located aft on the main passenger cabin, it was fitted with full-length mirrors and plush seats. It is not recorded if those 'plush' seats were also of the flush variety... Not to be undone by his wife, Captain Peabody had a masculine lounge, called the Tap Room installed under the car deck, near the vessel's stern. A narrow stairway led down to that male sanctuary. No known pictures of the Tap Room could be found, but it apparently included a bar along one side of the space and a circular art deco bench in the center. Aft of the Tap Room, in the very stern of the vessel and below the car deck was a changing room and showers. That area was designed to cater to shipyard workers who lived in Seattle and traveled daily by ferryboat to their workplaces at the Bremerton Navy Yard across Puget Sound. On their return trip home, tired and dirty shipbuilders could clean up there and also knock back a beer or two.

Propulsion Particulars The 1933 fire ruined the vessel's original steam engines and boilers. Her radical redesign included fitting the KALAKALA with a large direct-drive diesel engine and a single propeller. Accordingly, she was classified as a Motor Vessel (MV). She was repowered by a 10-cylinder Busch-Sulzer diesel that produced 3,000 shaft horsepower and gave her a top speed of 17.5 knots. One of thirteen identical engines built at the same time, the one mounted below KALAKALA's car deck [right] became the only shipboard installation in this production run. Adolphus Busch had acquired rights to build diesel engines designed by the Sulzer Brothers of Switzerland at the beginning of the 20th century. This particular engine was built at an Anheuser-Busch manufacturing facility in St. Louis, Missouri. Busch-Sulzer built diesels there between 1911 and 1946, before divesting of that product line and concentrating on the beer brewing business. The MV KALAKALA's huge engine, the largest ever previously installed in a ferryboat was connected to her propeller by an extremely long shaft. Apparently, the engine and shafting were poorly aligned, for during the vessel's initial operation at high speed, she vibrated badly. This condition was partly corrected when her original four-blade prop was replaced with a five-bladed propeller.

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Flying Bird Finally Finished

By the end of June, 1935, KALAKALA was complete. Her silvery superstructure and aviation-like appearance dazzled the crowds who flocked to Seattle's waterfront to view her. As hoped, the streamlined ferry quickly gained recognition as images were circulated all over the world.

One overly-enthusiastic observer called her 'the most important vessel since Noah's ark.' She soon became the most photographed object in the world; second only to the Eiffel Tower. An estimated 100,000 citizens gathered at the Puget Sound Navigation Company's ferry docks in Seattle on July 2, 1935 to witness her maiden voyage...all the way to Bremerton...a distance of just 16 miles. Onboard were 500 guests of the ferryboat company. Two days later, she initiated daily service between Seattle and Bremerton, making six round trips daily. Fares were 45 cents each way for passengers and $1.10 for cars and their drivers. During those crossings, she often passed close to one of the more traditional steam-powered ferryboats that crossed Puget Sound each day. Every evening, she left Seattle at 8:30 PM for a 'moonlight cruise' that lasted four hours. Joe Bowen and the 'Flying Bird Orchestra' played during those 'trips to nowhere'. Couples paid $1.00 to dance to their music.

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The Puget Sound Navigation Company wanted KALAKALA to be known as the Flying Bird - or the Silver Swan. But she soon attracted other, less complimentary nicknames, including Silver Slug, Silver Beetle and, among Seattle's Scandinavian community, Kackerlacka, which means 'cockroach'.

1935 - 1967 The KALAKALA, operating as a ferry boat, plied the waters of Puget Sound for over thirty years. During that time she was involved in a few minor mishaps that included a collision with another ferry and on three occasions, running into docks. The latter mishaps were blamed on the limited view from her wheelhouse. In 1940, she made the final crossing by ferry of the narrows at Tacoma, Washington, before the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge was opened with great fanfare. Four months later that poorly designed and unstable bridge, infamously known as 'Galloping Gertie' collapsed. During World War II, she and her sister ferries were pressed into service to make additional daily runs to support the greatly increased work force at the Bremerton Navy Yard. Often packed with workers coming and going after completing work on either the day, evening or swing shifts, she acquired another nickname, albeit one more flattering: The Workhorse of Puget Sound.

The KALAKALA was issued FCC License #001 by the Federal Communications Commission in 1946 when the first commercial radar system [left] was installed atop her wheelhouse. In 1950, the Washington State Ferry System assumed responsibility for providing ferry service throughout Puget Sound. That governmental agency then acquired all of the

vessels owned by the Puget Sound Navigation System, and MV KALAKALA became a Washington State ferry the next year.

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In 1955, she was assigned to the Port Angeles, Washington-Victoria, British Columbia run across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. For the next five years she made four round trips daily between the US and Canada. Her stays in picturesque Victoria harbor [right] were brief. In 1960 she was replaced by a newly built ferryboat with a larger car-carrying capacity and more suited for that often stormy crossing. When the World's Fair was held in Seattle in 1962, this still-extremely popular art deco vessel was placed in a prominent position on the Seattle waterfront and decorated with banners and flags. According to polls conducted amongst the fair's millions of visitors, she was the second biggest attraction; only the space needle was more popular. During mid-1960s summers, KALAKALA provided Puget Sound ferry service seven days a week. Off-season, she sailed on weekends. In 1966, the Washington State Ferry System built several 'superferries' that were faster and capable of carrying twice as many cars as the KALAKALA. She made her last run on October 2, 1967, and then was put up for sale to the highest bidder.

North to Alaska...and Back Again Sold to American Freezerships Company, the KALAKALA was towed to Dutch Harbor, Alaska in 1968 for use as a crab-processing vessel. Two years later she was sold and moved to another location in Alaska. After just a few months, the former streamlined ferry moved again, to Gibson Cove in Kodiak, Alaska. There she was floated at high tide onto a bed of sand. Bulldozers backfilled rock around the grounded vessel to hold her in place [right]. Over the next several years, the forlorn former ferryboat was sold twice more. Both firms that acquired her went bankrupt. In 1982, the State of Alaska assumed ownership and then sold her to the City of Kodiak.

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For another decade, the KALAKALA remained unused and deteriorating. Then in 1991 an ardent admirer of her former beauty formed a nonprofit foundation for the purpose of refloating and restoring her. It took him several additional years to fund and physically prepare the vessel to be refloated.

Finally, on June 24, 1998, she returns to her natural element. Four months later, she was towed back to Puget Sound, where thousands of admirers greeted her and were given an opportunity to tour her disheveled interior spaces. Within a month she was moved to a sheltered location on Lake Union, Washington, where volunteers start the task of restoring her. A lack of funding and legal difficulties with the City of Seattle and the US Coast Guard soon halted those efforts.

A Long and Lingering Death

Between July of 2000 and March of 2003, a variety of ambitious schemes to fund, restore and display the KALAKALA on the Seattle waterfront failed. Out of options and money, the nonprofit foundation declared bankruptcy. Six months later, the former ferry was sold at auction by the courts. Her new owner, another nonprofit group called 'Lost Horizons', had the KALAKALA towed to Tacoma, Washington. They planned to restore the vessel to her former glory and operate her as a mobile waterfront attraction, visiting various Puget Sound ports. Once again, a lack of funding doomed those plans. Years went by with little progress made. The owner of the dock in Tacoma where she was berthed spend his own money to keep her afloat, instead of receiving any demurrage fees. In 2011, the US Coast Guard inspected the vessel and determined that she was in imminent danger of sinking. They subsequently declared her a menace to navigation.

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The Tacoma dock owner became the last owner of this iconic vessel through default. For a few years, he resisted the inevitable. Finally, out of options and money, and faced with large impending penalties from governmental agencies, he agreed in December of 2014 for her to be towed away and scrapped. On January 22, 2015, almost eighty years after her heralded introduction as an art deco vessel, the MV KALAKALA made her last voyage. It was less than a mile and at the end of a tow rope. Scrapping of the hulk commenced immediately and progressed rapidly. By the first week of March, all that was left was a few pieces that were later sold as souvenirs.

Iconic Image of an Iconic Vessel

This article includes but a fraction of the hundreds of images of the Flying Bird that have preserved since she captured the world's imagination in 1935. Far too many of them depict the vessel in her declining years. It certainly is more enjoyable to remember MV KALAKALA as she appeared in her prime. One of the best such images is a huge mural which occupies the entire side of a building in Port Angeles, Washington. It depicts the Flying Bird leaving that port in the 1950s, bound for Victoria, British Columbia. One of several murals in and around Port Angeles, this one also dramatically includes the majestic Olympic Mountains in the background. A nice way to remember her...

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SS ADMIRAL

The beginning years, innovative art deco makeover, a long service history and ultimate downfall and disposition of this Mississippi River excursion steamer are remarkably similar to those of the MV KALAKALA. The ADMIRAL started out life in 1907 as the steamer ALBATROSS. As the image on the right indicates, she had the lines of a classic riverboat. She was 308 feet long and had four boilers installed well forward. They provided steam to two engines set further aft that powered two paddlewheels. She operated on the lower Mississippi until 1937. That year, she was sold to a firm named Steckfus Steamers, Inc. which had been operating a palatial riverboat - somewhat appropriately named the J.S. DELUXE on the Mississippi for several years. The J.S. DELUXE was noted for exquisite service and fine musical entertainment. It was the intent of Steckfus Steamers to build on that reputation by modernizing the ALBATROSS for use as the firm's flagship. To say they modernized the steamboat would be an understatement.

They turned, improbably, to Maizie Krebs [left], a young fashion illustrator for a St. Louis department store. Although she had no maritime design experience, she must have been well versed in the art deco style. Plus, it certainly seems reasonable to presume that she had seen pictures of the MV KALAKALA and was influenced by that vessel's image.

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Between 1938 and 1940, the stodgy ALBATROSS was transformed into the ultra-modern ADMIRAL at a cost of more than one million dollars. What Steckfus Steamers got for their investment was a lengthened [to 374 feet] inland steamer of all-steel construction.

A St. Louis firm, the Banner Iron Works used Maizie Krebs' design concepts as a basis for detail design and fabrication of the vessel's new framework. When completed in June of 1940, the ADMIRAL was the largest passenger vessel on any American inland waterway. She was also, hands down, the most innovative vessel to ply the Mississippi and quickly became a local legend. This sleek vessel had five decks, two of which were air-conditioned, an unheard luxury back then. For relatively short excursion trips, she could accomodate as many as 4,400 passengers. Between 1940 and the early 1970s, she was a common sight on the Mississippi, typically cruising south from downtown St. Louis for a few miles and then returning to her dock. Day cruises typically lasted from 10 AM to 3 PM.

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Evening cruises featured dancing to live music in a huge ballroom that occupied most of the vessel's second and third decks. This space was air conditioned; which was a real treat on sultry summer nights.

The top deck of the ADMIRAL, depicted below, provided those less energetic a large area furnished with comfortable seating from which passengers could watch the shoreline slide by, and the occasional barge and towboat passing. But all was not ultra modern on the ADMIRAL. Her topmost deck also featured an old-fashioned riverboat steam calliope which was utilized to belt out traditional tunes amidst clouds of steam.

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In the winter of 1973/1974, the ADMIRAL's original steam engines and paddlewheels were replaced with diesels and propellers. Outwardly her appearance remained unchanged. Her 1907 steam engines were donated to the St. Louis Museum of Transport, where they remain on display.

In 1979, the US Coast Guard declared that the ADMIRAL was unseaworthy. Her owner, Steckfus Steamers, Inc., was faced with the necessity of a massive and expensive overhaul.

In spite of a continuing popularity for riverboat cruises, they decided to get out of the excursion cruise business. After being laid up for a period of time, the ADMIRAL was sold in 1981 for $600,000 to a Pittsburgh firm that said they was going to use her as a barge. Predictably, public protests soon followed.

As a result, a consortium of St. Louis businessmen, civic leaders and city officials banded together to 'save the Admiral'. The consortium, named S.S. Admiral Partners, bought the vessel for $1.6 million and then embarked on what initially was estimated to be a five-to-six million dollar renovation.

Ultimately, that work resulted in the expenditure of somewhere between $30 and 36 million, including several million in taxpayer money. Her engines were removed, making her an unpowered barge. In mid-1987, she was opened with great fanfare as an entertainment complex on the St. Louis waterfront.

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But by late 1987, the expensively and extensively renovated ADMIRAL was shut down due to mounting operating losses. After that, the unfortunate vessel lived up to its original name: Albatross.

The vessel changed hands several times and in 1992, when a statewide vote approved riverboat gambling in Missouri, the ADMIRAL became a floating casino. Fifty-nine gaming tables and 1,230 slot machines were installed in her ballroom. Her uppermost deck was enclosed, providing more space for equipment to be installed to enable the casino to be fully air conditioned.

A resurgence in her popularity soon faded. Within a few years a number of larger, more modern and better designed floating casinos essentially forced her into bankruptcy. Various schemes proposed during the first decade of the 21st century to save her all failed.

In early 2001 her upper deck was removed to provide adequate clearance under a bridge blocking her path to a scrapping site in Columbia, Illinois. In July of that same year, she was towed away from her St. Louis berth as hundreds of former passengers, gamblers and former crew members bid her a sad farewell.

By the end of that summer, she was no more...

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ART DECO OCEAN LINERS

The KALAKALA and the ADMIRAL were not ocean-going vessels, by any stretch of the imagination. But perhaps their creation, and most certainly the influence of the art deco period did result in a number of passenger ships designed in the 1930s to be classified as 'art deco liners'. One such vessel, the French Line's NORMANDIE, tops the list of such ships. Completed in 1935, her luxurious interiors were referred to in promotional literature as a combination of Art Deco and Streamline Moderne styles. Her interiors featured grand perspectives [right], spectacular entryways and wide staircases. Externally, she exhibited clean, sweeping lines and many considered her to be the most beautiful ocean liner ever constructed. Her anchor and line handling gear were hidden beneath an uncluttered foredeck. No unsighly ventilators cluttered her top decks. Instead they were cleverly concealed in her aftmost funnel, which was a dummy and served not only to give her a balanced, streamlined look, but to also house the ship's dog kennel.

Other liners of that period often incorporated some art deco features, albeit none to the extreme employed by the French in the design and construction of NORMANDIE. Alas, her beauty was destroyed when she caught fire in New York Harbor and then capsized in 1942. Her ravaged hull was scrapped in 1946. The time that any ship exists is often relatively short. Art deco vessels were no exception, but they provided an intriguing chapter in maritime history.

Bill Lee