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May 2001 |
 A Little Change Of History
by Dick Slottow For those who look to the right when entering the front door of the club, a large wheel is seen hanging on the wall. Although few have bothered to read the plaque on the wheel’s hub, it’s probably just as well. The inscription is wrong. Larry Prager, 97 years old, and George Emanuels, 94, took it upon themselves to visit us at CYC to straighten out a small piece of our history.
The plaque states the wheel came from the vessel “Apache”, and was placed in the club sometime in the late nineteen twenties. Actually it came from the vessel “Arrow”, a 147 foot twin-stacked ferry of the Monticello Steamship Company, one of the fastest ships on San Pablo Bay. It delivered passengers and cargo from San Francisco to Vallejo before completion of the Carquinez Bridge on May 21, 1927. Once the bridge was completed, the bottom fell out of the steamship business to Vallejo. After the Monticello Steamship Company ceased operation, the “Arrow” was beached near “Butchertown” (Hunters Point) in San Francisco where it took on derelict status. Many former Vallejo route riverboats languished there with their engines and their paddle wheels removed.
It seems as though two adventurous young men, Larry Prager and Ed Soares, decided to remove the wheel from one of the derelict boats. They selected the “Arrow” and late one night in 1927 they slipped aboard to take the wheel home. Needless to say at 7 feet, it was larger than they expected. To remove the wheel they first had to pull loose the front of the wheelhouse. Then with a great difficulty and a full day’s labor, they removed it from its setting. With no place to store a 7 foot wheel, they lashed it over the side and went home. The next day they called their friend George Emanuels because he owned a Model T touring car with a canvas top. Once the top was lowered, they had a place to put the wheel. With Emanuels driving in first gear, Prager holding the wheel on one side and another friend Bill Hynes holding it on the other, they drove to Ed Soares house somewhere in the mission district. The perpetrators of the act were not members of Corinthian Yacht Club although Larry Prager spent many Saturday nights during the 1920’s working as a waiter, which earned him a free meal. Bill Hynes, was a Corinthian and his father, Stuart Hynes had served as Commodore from 1921 to 1923. From what can be determined, Larry Prager and Bill Hynes brought the wheel to the club during the late 1920’s, and it was mounted in the front hallway around 1946.
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