''Sibyl Marston'' was a wooden

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...

cargo ship built by W.A. Boole & Sons of Oakland, California and belonging to the Sibyl Marston Co. ''Sibyl Marston'' sank off the coast of

Lompoc, California Lompoc ( ; Chumash: ''Lum Poc'') is a city in Santa Barbara County, California. Located on the Central Coast, Lompoc has a population of 43,834 as of July 2021. Lompoc has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Chumash people, who called ...

on 12 January 1909.

Overview

On 12 January 1909, ''Sybil Marston'', the largest steam schooner built on the

United States West Coast The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S ...

, struck the rocks near

Surf Beach, California Surf is an unincorporated area of Santa Barbara County, California, located along the Pacific coast within a publicly accessible area of Vandenberg Space Force Base west of the city of Lompoc. The site originally was established as a railroad ...

and ran aground in a storm. She was carrying of lumber. Two crew members were killed in the disaster. Shortly after the ''Sybil Marston'' disaster, Lompoc residents salvaged the lumber and used it to begin a town lumberyard. Several houses built in Lompoc used lumber from the shipwreck. Surf Beach and its adjoining coastal area was a dangerous place for ship travel in the time before radar navigational systems made seafaring safer. There are about 30 recorded shipwrecks along the Surf Beach coast.

Location

The

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. Angela Croome reported in January 1999 that there were approximately ...

is located south of the Surf Amtrak Station in Lompoc.

Sources

References

External links

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YouTube video with details of construction
8 min. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sibyl Marston Schooners of the United States Lumber schooners Individual sailing vessels Ships built in Oakland, California Shipwrecks of the California coast Maritime incidents in 1909 1907 ships