John G. Alden SEAWARD

Sail Number:

Wartime designation: (IX-60)

Type: Auxiliary schooner

LOA: 106’0″ / 32.00m – LWL: 82’0″ / 24.99m – Beam: 21’8″ / 6.58m – Draft: 11’4″ / 3.45m – Displacement: 96 long tons – Original Owner: L.A.Norris Co. San Francisco, Ca. – Homeport: San Pedro, California – Original Name: Seaward – Year Launched: 1920 – Designed by: John G. Alden – Built by: Frank Adams Company, East Boothbay, Maine – Hull Material: Wood – Design No.: 115 – Location:

Historical:

Seaward was designed by John G. Alden and was built by the Adams Company, East Boothbay, Maine in 1920 for Mr. L.A. Norris, of San Francisco, Ca. She was acquired by the Navy on 31 January 1942 from Cecil B. DeMille Productions, Los Angeles, California. Sold in April 1945 to Charles A. Williams of San Pedro, Calif., and resumed service as the yacht SEAWARD. Transferred to French registry 1951.

Under Cecile B. DeMille Stewardship

Cecil Blount DeMille was an American filmmaker. Between 1914 and 1958, he made a total of 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cinema and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history. His films were distinguished by their epic scale and by his cinematic showmanship.

Some of Hollywood’s most intense research for Cecille’s various Paramount Pictures spectacles were conducted onboard his yacht Seaward. While underway Cecille, along with screenwriter Harold Lamb, worked out the details for “The Crusades,” The Crusades is a 1935 American historical adventure film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and originally released by Paramount Pictures. It stars Loretta Young as Berengaria of Navarre and Henry Wilcoxon as Richard I of England.

Cecil B. DeMille and the Tiburón Island Adventure – Thomas Bowen

Cecil B. DeMille had been working hard preparing for a new motion picture to be titled “The Ten Commandments” (the 1923 silent black and white version), and he needed a break before the exhausting job of filming began. What better way to rest up he thought, than to get together with some friends on his beloved “Seaward” for a few weeks of sailing and casual hunting and fishing. And what better place to get away from the Hollywood pressure cooker than Mexico! He and his friends could sail south to the tip of Baja California and then head northward into the Gulf of California. To add a little extra adventure, they could chart a course for the fabled Tiburon Island and take a firsthand look at the notorious Seri Indians. But the idyllic voyage he had in mind proved to be anything but smooth sailing. Things began to go awry right from the start, and through a combination of misinformation, misunderstanding, perhaps a bit of hubris, and plain bad luck, it turned out to be a trip that would dog him for the rest of his life.

The idea of sailing into the Gulf of California and visiting the Seri Indians was a familiar one to Southern Californians, for intrepid sailors had been occasionally been doing just that for more than two decades.

Unfortunately, some of the earlier trips had come to tragic ends. Two parties of Americans who went ashore on Tiburon Island in the mid 1890s disappeared and were presumed killed by Seris. The fate of the missing Americans had made lurid copy for the Los Angeles newspapers. For a while, imaginative journalism ran wild, and the Seris were accused in print of cannibalism and a litany of other sins against God and Nature. These fanciful reports induced a number of prominent and self-righteous Southern Californians to concoct schemes to buy Tiburon Island, conquer or exterminate the louthesome Seris, and turn the Island into a cattle ranch or a vacation resort with luxury hotels. Nothing ever came…to be continued

WWII service

The auxiliary schooner was placed in service on 19 February 1942, assigned to the 11th Naval District, and homeported at San Pedro, California. On 23 July, Seaward was assigned to the Western Sea Frontier. Seaward ended the year at Mare Island Navy Yard. She was placed out of service on 1 April 1943, and was struck from the Navy List on 18 July 1944.

Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Notable Guest, and Reunion Information):

Owner: (1920-1923) – L.A. Norris Co. San Francisco, Ca.
Owner: (1923-1942) – Cecil B. DeMille Productions, Los Angeles, California
Screenwriter: Harold Lamb, was an American historian, screenwriter, short story writer, and novelist.
Owner: (1942-1944) – World War II Service
Owner: (1945) – Charles A. Williams

Comments:

William Thomas

Jun 26, 2021 at 01:07

My father served as crew with two of his friends when Charles Williams bought it. He and his friends were high school ages (15-16) and Williams paid them t help him repair the damage the boat had taken (rammed by a fishing trawler in a fog while in the hands of the navy). After damage was repaired, Williams taught the boys to sail and took it out for a shakedown cruise around San Pedro Harbor area. Later they sailed to Santa Catalina Island and back. He then offered to take them on as crew for a trip to Hawaii and they actually got permission from their parents and went! After many adventures the arrived in Honolulu and were greeted by a yacht club member who claimed to have greeted every sailing vessel to have come to Oahu from the mainland since the turn of the century (1900) and he was astounded by the age of the crew, saying they were the youngest crew he had ever met to do that passage.
Last word was the Seaward had run aground on the Great Barrier Reef and was destroyed. I don’t know when or exactly where, but that’s what my father told me.

Rob Davidson

Jun 19, 2021 at 12:21

Hello, thank you for your interesting post…. My father was a naval officer assigned to the Seaward in 1942-43 to serve as part of the Navy’s offshore patrol mostly off the California Coast between San Diego and San Pedro. My father was a crack navigator, John Davidson, and used the time primarily to train seamen on their navigational skills, proper use of sextants, dead reckoning, etc. I have a letter from him, written while on-board dated January 10, 1943! He always spoke highly of his time spent on the USS Seaward.

William Thomas

Apr 21, 2020 at 14:19

I communicated with Bob Brokaw, a yacht salesman from San Diego whose father George served on the Seaward during the war as well. At least they used an image of Seaward on their website for years and I asked them about it.