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PHA Annual Meeting With Lecture From Phil Williams On “His Majesty’s Ship Racoon”
April 26 @ 11:30 am - 1:30 pm
THE CURIOUS VOYAGE OF HIS MAJESTY’S SHIP RACOON
How Her Action in the War of 1812 Changed the Geography of America
The Presidio Historic Association 4/26/25
Philip B. Williams Ph.D.
On the morning of January 14th, 1814, HMS Racoon arrived off the Farallon Islands. She was in a desperate state. Her hull was heavily damaged and for the last two weeks her crew had been continuously manning the pumps in a losing battle to keep her afloat. Now they were exhausted, out of provisions, and encountering a huge breaking swell on the San Francisco bar. They had only one last chance to make it to safety. So, with all sails set, hatches battened down, and topweight jettisoned, they ran before a gale through the breaking surf, to anchor at last in calm water off the Presidio beach. They urgently needed the help of Commandante Arguello to repair and resupply.
Phil Williams will tell us the fascinating story of how the Racoon came to be here in San Francisco, and the enormous geopolitical consequences of what she had done.
Speaker Phil Williams emigrated to the United States from England 55 years ago. His father was a Royal Navy officer, so he spent his youth among British warships in Portsmouth Harbor in Hampshire, immersed in naval history. In San Francisco he founded a consulting firm dedicated to environmental restoration and one of his projects was the Crissy Field wetland restoration, located exactly where HMS Racoon was dragged ashore. In his retirement Phil’s interest is researching the history of the British Navy on the Pacific Coast and he is the Vice President of the Drake Navigators Guild.