Amended in Assembly August 18, 2016

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 153

Introduced by Senator Hueso

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(Coauthors: Assembly Members Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Arambula, Atkins, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom, Brough, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Chang, Chau, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Holden, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey, Linder, Lopez, Low, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Mullin, Obernolte, Olsen, Patterson, Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Waldron, Weber, Wilk, and Williams)

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June 14, 2016

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 153—Relative to the San Salvador replica.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

SCR 153, as amended, Hueso. Maritime Museum of San Diego: San Salvador replica.

This measure would recognize and commend the Maritime Museum of San Diego for its continuing dedication to preserving, interpreting, and teaching the rich maritime history of California while upholding a worldwide reputation for excellence with regard to the restoration, maintenance, and operation of historic vessels, particularly the San Salvador replica.

Fiscal committee: no.

WHEREAS, The Spanish galleon San Salvador was explorer
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo’s flagship vessel, and during his 1542
expeditionary voyage, the San Salvador, in the company of two
other ships, landed at what is now the City of San Diego and
established first contact with the indigenous peoples of the
California coast, and Cabrillo and his crew became the first
Europeans to set foot on the Pacific coast of the United States; and

WHEREAS, The Maritime Museum of San Diego’s mission is
to serve as the community memory of our seafaring experience by
collecting, preserving, and presenting our rich maritime heritage
via a world-class collection of 10 historic vessels, exhibitions,
public events, and educational programs; and

WHEREAS, In pursuit of this mission, the Maritime Museum
of San Diego sought to build a full-sized, fully functional, and
historically accurate replica of the San Salvador to create a living
link between California’s past and present, that would serve as a
community memory of the region’s seafaring experience and
present its rich and diverse maritime heritage and historic
connections to the Pacific world; and

WHEREAS, After years of research and fundraising for the
construction of a functional and historically accurate replica of the
San Salvador, the Maritime Museum of San Diego hosted an
international symposium in 2004, at which time experts were
enlisted to evaluate the design of the vessel, and in the spring of
2011, construction began in full view of the public at Spanish
Landing Park in the City of San Diego; and

WHEREAS, The construction of the San Salvador replica is
based on painstaking research in the fields of early modern Spanish
and Portuguese maritime history and maritime archeology, and
experts have scoured volumes of historical narratives, examined
all the available images of early 16th century sailing vessels, and
surveyed the remains of contemporary shipwrecks; and to execute
this vision, the Maritime Museum of San Diego engaged a group
of skilled professional boat builders, who were assisted by scores
of regular volunteers; and

WHEREAS, Most of the labor was performed by volunteers
who believed they could learn to build a ship and almost 500
volunteers from around the world devoted their time, energy, and
talents to building the ship; and

WHEREAS, On September 4, 2015, during the Festival of Sail,
the San Salvador replica was commissioned; and

WHEREAS, The San Salvador replica will function as the origin
symbol ship for California and commemorate the voyage of the
original San Salvador which, through its voyage into the unknown
parts of the ocean, provided vital geographic, climatic, and
oceanographic information on the Pacific Ocean; and

WHEREAS, Beginning in the fall of 2016, as an operational
vessel, the San Salvador replica will be used in Cabrillo discovery
reenactments and outreach voyages to other ports and the museum
will partner with other educational facilities and museums, and
the ship’s presence will also enable the Maritime Museum of San
Diego to implement a teacher training institute, where teachers
can attend California standards-based seminars on the discovery
of the western coast and the age of exploration; and

WHEREAS, The vessel’s maiden voyage will be known as the
San Salvador Pacific Heritage Tour and will travel from San Diego
to other California ports of call in Ventura, Monterey, San
Francisco, Vallejo, Jack London Square, Old Sacramento, Morro
Bay, and the Channel Islands; and

WHEREAS, The mission of the San Salvador replica is to
embody our community origin story by presenting the life and
times of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, the historic voyage of the San
Salvador, our place in the beginnings of the modern world, and
first contact between Europeans and Native American peoples of
the west coast of North America; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, the Assembly
thereof concurring, That the Legislature recognizes and commends
the Maritime Museum of San Diego for its continuing dedication
to preserving, interpreting, and teaching the rich maritime history
of California while upholding a worldwide reputation for
excellence with regard to the restoration, maintenance, and
operation of historic vessels, particularly the San Salvador replica
that will soon set sail; and be it further

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of
this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.