The Lady Alexandra

The Lady Alexandra floating restaurant at its Redondo Beach mooring in the late 1970s, before disaster struck.

The Lady Alexandra's saga begins in Vancouver, Canada and ends at the bottom of the sea 50 miles off of Redondo Beach.

The vessel was built by Scottish craftsmen in 1923 and was designed specifically for short excursions in the area between Vancouver, Bowen Island and Howe Sound. During the 28 years it was in service in Canada, the ship carried an estimated 16 million passengers  for picnic journeys, moonlight cruises and other tourist adventures.

Demand for the 225-foot ship's services declined after World War II, and it was retired from service in 1952.

A biplane shadows the Lady Alexandra as she enters the Vancouver harbor on June 25, 1924.
Photo by W.J. Moore, courtesy of the City of Vancouver Archives.

The Lady Alexandra first became a floating restaurant in Coal Harbour in Vancouver in 1959.

A dozen years later, investors purchased the Lady and brought her to Redondo Beach, where she was re-dubbed the Princess Louise II. The original Princess Louise at the Port of Los Angeles was a highly successful floating restaurant at the time, and the PLII was envisioned as her Redondo Beach sister ship. (Read a South Bay Yesterday history of the original Princess Louise here.

Heavy tides  scotched the first attempt to moor the Princess Louise II in King Harbor on November 6, 1972. The ship broke loose from its moorings and was damaged. It had to be returned to San Pedro for repairs.

On January 23, 1973, she returned to King Harbor, where a permanent berth was established successfully and the ship/restaurant opened for business.

Though business was brisk, it was not enough to keep the restaurant afloat, and its owners filed for bankruptcy in 1975.

Into the breach stepped former "Our Gang" comedies star Chuck Johnston, pictured at left in the 1980s. (He played the character of "Stinky Davis.") In addition to being the master lessee of the Redondo Beach Marina, he owned a variety of businesses in King Harbor, including the Blue Moon Saloon.

In the late 1970s, he reopened the restaurant under the ship's original name, the Lady Alexandra. A disco/nightclub, Dirty Sally's, was added. The ship also became the home of the Palos Verdes Yacht Club.

But the ill-fated vessel would soon meet its match. A record high tide, combined with wind-whipped waves, battered the Lady Alexandra in mid-January 1980, suffering enough damage to close down the businesses for a few days.

The Lady Alexandra lies toppled on its side following the high tides and stormy seas of February 1980.

It would reopen, but the death blow came a month later on February 19, 1980, when more high tides and even more violent storm-driven seas toppled the ship. The same storm also tossed rocks around seaside parking lots, inundated the Blue Moon Saloon and threatened the Portofino Inn.

It took salvage crews operating cranes, left, until March 19, 1980 to right the ship, which was fully insured. Marine surveyors went aboard to see if the ship could be rehabilitated and moved to another location, as the King Harbor mooring was destroyed in the storm. Crews can be seen pumping water out of the newly righted ship in the photo below right.

Unfortunately, the Lady Alexandra was declared a total loss. On March 23, 1980, she was towed out of King Harbor and taken 50 miles offshore. According to a March 24, 1980 Daily Breeze news story, "There, her sea valves were opened and she gently sank to the bottom for an ignominious ending as a fishing reef."

The sea life that now calls the sunken ship home might quibble with "ignominious." The Lady brought a lot of people happiness in a lot of different ways while afloat. Looking at it that way, her final resting place seems fitting.

Spectators on the Redondo Beach pier watch as the Lady Alexandra is towed out to sea toward her final resting place on March 23, 1980.