Looks like it didnt work out.

I would bet it got there on its own power.

By the way, Tugster: the Willy Wall is back at North Cove, and floats she still…!

Ray Wallace was a naval architect who had designed ships for Disneyland. David Tallichet was a restaurant developer who liked unusual locations. He had done those Lafayette Escuadrille restaurants at airports, where waitresses dressed up as World war I nurses. Ray Wallace told Tallichet he should create a floating restaurant in an old sailing vessel. Tallichet bought the idea and told Wallace to find him one. Wallace went to Karl Kortum, Director of the San Francisco Maritime Museum who told him the former British sailing ship ARRANMORE was being retired as a floating school named the VINDICATRIX. Wallace went to look at her and decided she was in too bad shape. Kortum was disgusted. He believed virtually any surviving sailing ship could be restored, and had convinced several people to take them on, including Peter Stanford (WAVERTREE).

Then they heard MOSHULU was being retired as a storage hulk. Tallichet bought her, and had her towed to Amsterdam for the preliminary work. Wallace designed the rig, and the spars were fabricated in the Netherlands. He also designed a complete interior that was a complete Hollywood fantasy and nothing to do with her actual history. Tallichet had a site on the waterfront of Queens opposite the UN (someone later did a restaurant there). The plans included windows in the side to give diners a view of Manhattan.

As the time approached for her tow to New York, Kortum and Stanford began pondering ways the ship might instead end up at South Street, without the windows. Tallichet finally agreed to berth her at South Street while some decision was reached regarding her future. She arrived in October 1972. The negotiations went on for two years. Tallichet finally said the Museum could buy the ship for what he had spent on her, or he was going to move her to Philadelphia.

I learned that the PEKING was now for sale, initially thinking some things from her could be used in restoring MOSHULU. A Museum trustee, Jack Aron, found out the price of the PEKING was likely to be much less than Talichet was asking for MOSHULU. and said he would buy her for the Museum, have her drydocked and towed to New York, and have the missing spars fabricated. In fact the purchase price of PEKING was much less. Other people attended the auction, but no one else bid. The MOSHULU was towed to Philadelphia, was given Ray Wallaces’ rig and interiors, and had the windows cut in her sides.

The two ships were very similar when built, and both were built for German owners. MOSHULU sailed under the US flag in the 1920s. The PEKING never visited this country during her active career.