EVERETT — Brand-new for 1888, the Equator saw the world, and even made it on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Restoration efforts, though, faltered and the old gal has rotted to a point that can’t be moved without breaking.
The Port of Everett will be dismantling the Equator sometime later this summer, port officials said.
It’s not for naught.
On June 15, the public can see it and chat with Texas A&M students studying maritime archaeology. They’ve been documenting the ship with lidar and 3D technology.
The port also intends to salvage some of the timber for a local artist.
While the boat’s working life isn’t intertwined with Everett, its fame is that author Robert Louis Stevenson voyaged in the South Pacific in it. It was beached at Jetty Island in 1956. People moved to save it in the 1960s and there was a restoration campaign. The stern collapsed in 2017, though, leaving no way to restore it now.
The Port cleared up a boat ownership issue last year by getting the Equator declared as a derelict vessel to gain custody of the vessel, Port spokeswoman Cat Soper said.
