The Chiquimula Collection
The Schooner Chiquimula, Captained by James Buffett
This History of the Chiquimula
The Chiquimula was a four‑masted schooner built in 1918 by Columbia Engineering Works in Portland, Oregon, with a wooden hull and a gross tonnage of 687. Her may voyages took her to many ports, but notably the port of Mobile, where she was captained by James Buffett, the grandfather of singer/songwriter, Jimmy Buffett.
She was discarded and scuttled when steam dominated of sail power. But in the 1960s, she made her presence known, when she drifted down the delta onto the causeway of Mobile Bay. A few years afterwards, she caught fire and burned to the waterline.
Limited Edition Medallions
In 2007, while laying out plans for a development and marina, the remains of the ship was rediscoverd. In order to learn about the ship, a two week survey was done of where exactly the ship was located and how deep in silt it was buried. With an empending marina going in, several samples of wood and iron were preserved.
Some of the artifacts were donated to the Gulf Maritime Museum for display. While preparing these items, fragments of wood and metal was collected. This was normally items that would be discarded but the idea of making something out of them to remember the history of this ship came to life.
The metal fragments were ground down to a powder and cast into a resin mold with the image of the ship upon it and placed onto a medallion.
These are made into two limited series, The Captain series (limited to 150 medalions) and the Commodore series (limited to 50 medalions)