Qualla: SS Peralta https://qualla.com/ss-peralta en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: SS Peralta https://qualla.com/ss-peralta SS Peralta: Introduction https://qualla.com/ss-peralta/ She was built to carry oil, spent two decades packing sardines, and now spends her retirement holding back the Pacific. The SS Peralta is a ship made of concrete, which sounds like a contradiction until you learn that wartime steel shortages drove engineers to experiment with reinforced concrete hulls during both world wars. At 128 meters long, the Peralta is the oldest and largest American-built concrete ship still afloat, though "afloat" might be generous for a vessel that has not moved under her own power since the 1940s.

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]]> Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/0/z/7/ss-peralta-wp/c0z7-ss-peralta-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full SS Peralta: Built from Stone and Steel Shortage https://qualla.com/ss-peralta/ The San Francisco Shipbuilding Company launched the Peralta in February 1921, near the tail end of a wartime push to build ships from anything that was not steel. Concrete ships were an engineering curiosity born of necessity: heavy, slow, and difficult to repair, but buildable w...

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]]> Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/0/z/7/ss-peralta-wp/c0z7-ss-peralta-built-from-stone-and-steel-shortage.mp3 0:06 2 full SS Peralta: From Oil to Sardines https://qualla.com/ss-peralta/ The Peralta's career as a tanker was short-lived. In 1924, she was acquired and converted into a sardine cannery, spending the next 24 years processing fish in Alaskan waters. The conversion was practical: her massive hull provided ample interior space for processing equipment, a...

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]]> Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/0/z/7/ss-peralta-wp/c0z7-ss-peralta-from-oil-to-sardines.mp3 0:06 3 full SS Peralta: The Breakwater at Powell River https://qualla.com/ss-peralta/ The Powell River Company found that use in 1958. They bought the Peralta and towed her north to Powell River, British Columbia, where she was moored as the centerpiece of a floating breakwater protecting the company's log storage pond. She joined other decommissioned vessels in t...

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]]> Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/0/z/7/ss-peralta-wp/c0z7-ss-peralta-the-breakwater-at-powell-river.mp3 0:06 4 full SS Peralta: An Unsinkable Question https://qualla.com/ss-peralta/ When the Powell River mill downsized operations in 2000, someone proposed sinking the Peralta as an artificial reef for divers. The idea was rejected. After the scuttling of YOGN-82, a fellow breakwater barge, in 2018, the proposal resurfaced: perhaps the Peralta could follow her...

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]]> Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/0/z/7/ss-peralta-wp/c0z7-ss-peralta-an-unsinkable-question.mp3 0:06 5 full