Iconic John Wayne yacht runs aground in San Juans

A weekend excursion to the San Juan Islands might be a wrap for the first yacht owned by legendary film actor John Wayne.

The 76-foot Norwester, which for several years has been an iconic presence on the La Conner waterfront, ran aground and nearly sank in Prevost Harbor off Stuart Island, its eight passengers safely rescued by the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office rescue boat and Whatcom County deputies.

The vessel sustained a gaping one-foot gash in the hull. Some fear it will not be seaworthy soon – if at all.

The Norwester most recently has been moored at Pioneer Point Marina south of Rainbow Bridge, meticulously maintained by Wayne Jones of La Conner, who is widely recognized as the foremost authority on classic yachts.

“Wayne is pretty broken up over the whole thing,” said Lisa Judy, who ran the gift shop aboard the Norwester when it was owned by Guy and Marla Vallee of the Waterfront Café and briefly operated here as a downtown floating museum.

The couple had moved it to town from Anacortes, and here it has remained, current owner Rich Rutherford retaining La Conner as the Norwester’s home port.

The vintage 1932 yacht departed La Conner Saturday morning bound for Stuart Island. It was smooth sailing until the approach to Prevost Harbor.

Soon after, the Norwester struck rocks and took on water that rushed in on the floor of the galley.

“They hit hard,” one rescuer reported. “Everybody who was standing ended up sitting after the collision. We’re really glad nobody was hurt.”

Jones, who was not part of the sailing party, confirmed Tuesday that the damage was severe. He is holding out faint hope that a major fundraising drive might be launched to restore the Norwester, much as was done previously with the famed Western Flyer, the boat chronicled by John Steinbeck in his one work of non-fiction.

The Western Flyer, like the Norwester, has called La Conner home. It was especially fitting that the Norwester, built during the Great Depression by Willis J. Reid and purchased by Wayne in 1955, would eventually moor here.

Wayne frequently stopped in the area to visit friend and local restaurateur Don Finsen of Snee Oosh while on summer cruises to the San Juans.

Wayne kept the Norwester until buying the larger Wild Goose, a 136-foot former U.S, Navy minesweeper.

“We had a lot of fun on Norwester,” Wayne’s son, Patrick, also an actor, said at one point, “but it wasn’t big enough with our huge extended family, so he eventually decided to buy the Wild Goose.”

Nor was John Wayne the lone celebrity to know the Norwester intimately. Its guest log includes the names of Orson Welles and other famous Hollywood luminaries.

Long admired in Puget Sound boating circles, the Norwester was subject of a well-received pictorial journal entry compiled by Anacortes photographer Steve Berentson.

The Tollycraft Boating Club perhaps said it best in response to the vessel’s ill fate last weekend, calling its grounding “an incredibly sad event.”