The SS Catala was a Canadian coastal passenger and cargo steamship built for service with the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia.
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Catala was built at Glasgow, Scotland in 1925. Like her sister ship, the SS Cardena, Catala spent most of her operating career from 1925-1958 on the British Columbia Coast.
In 1958, she was sold to new owners in British Columbia for use as a fish-buying ship. During the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle she was used as a floating "boatel" moored on the Seattle waterfront. Later in 1962 she was towed to California and used as a floating restaurant. In 1963 she was brought back north to Ocean Shores, Washington and used as a "boatel" again until she was driven aground by a storm on New Year's Day 1965.
Following her grounding, efforts to re-float Catala failed, and the wreck was left to decay at the beach on Damon Point, Washington. Over the years she was vandalized and pillaged, and in the late 1980's a girl fell through a rusted portion of her deck, breaking her back. Her family sued the State of Washington, which in turn ordered the wreck cut up. Catala was cut down to sand level and buried, until a series of winter storms unburied her in the late 1990s. Subsequent storms gradually exposed more of the hull until in April 2006 a beachcomber noticed that oil was leaking from the wreck. The State of Washington Department of Ecology cordoned off the wreck before scrapping the rest of the vessel. Several endangered bird species nest in the area, including the snowy plover.
SS Catala Shipwreck page - Washington State Department of Ecology
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