RON HENGGELER

May 12, 2007
The ghost of Prince Philip reappears

The bones of a 128-year old shipwreck surfaced on San Francisco's Ocean Beach this past week. The remains are of the clipper ship King Philip.
She reappeared from out of her distant past at low tide on Tuesday afternoon.
On Jan. 25, 1878, the King Philip left San Francisco without cargo. It was customary in those days for steam tugs to tow sailing ships outside the Golden Gate. At the time she was taken out, there were two other sailing ships in the area, and one of them -- the collier Western Shore, had a serious accident in which the captain was killed. The King Philip’s tug went off to help the other ship, and the King Philip dropped her anchor. The seas were heavy that day, the ship rolled, and the anchor didn’t hold. The King Philip ran up on Ocean Beach and was wrecked at high tide. She now shows herself again on very low tides every so often. The last time she came up for air and said hello was in 1980 during El Nino. All this past week, hundreds of people have come to view the old ship's timbers rising up out of the sand where the foamy surf meets the shore at the foot of Noriega Street.

 

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