Diosa del Mar

The Diosa del Mar (Spanish: Goddess of the Sea) was a wooden schooner that sank off of the coast of Catalina Island at 2:25 pm on July 30, 1990.

The two-masted wooden schooner was designed by A. Cary Smith and built in 1898 by the firm of A.C. Brown and Sons of Tottenville, New York.

In Lloyd's Register of American Yachts it appears as Bonnie Doone until finally disappearing from the registry in 1959 under the ownership of a Dr. Irving E. Laby in Los Angeles, California.

[citation needed] In 1979 she won the Serena Cup as the fastest schooner in the Newport to Ensenada Race (California to Mexico).

The salvaged stern and mast from the Diosa Del Mar was on display at the Isthmus on Catalina Island, California, for a number of years.

[citation needed] Numerous people over the years, since the sinking of the Diosa Del Mar in 1990, had attempted to raise and salvage the keel of the boat.

It took two attempts by the Huseman brothers, and about 17 trips to Catalina to move masts and debris in preparation to raise the keel off the rocks and reef, and towed to Long Beach Harbor, California.

The eventual successful salvaging operation in 1996 was "the talk" of the maritime groups and the news media in the Los Angeles Basin, since there had been so many failed attempts over the years.

[citation needed] On the first attempt to raise the keel, Gordon Frappier towed a 30-foot-long (9.1 m) by 8-foot-diameter (2.4 m) empty gas tank from the California mainland over to the wreck site next to Ship Rock, three miles from the Isthmus on Catalina Island.

The exhausted diving crew, after being in the water for two days, and the sailboats left Catalina Island elated, having achieved a successful salvage operation that no one else had been able to accomplish.

The tank and 20-ton keel were then towed 24 miles by the Cal 39 Perkins 4108 50-hp diesel engine across the Catalina Channel to Long Beach Harbor.