Researching the Origins of the Wood. After looking over this stunning wood, I made a deal to purchase all the hand rails and brought them back to the shop for trimming and prepping. At this time I did not know which ship the hand rails had come from, but judging from the age and quality of the wood, I knew it had a story to tell. I had asked the lumber yard employee if he had any idea what ship the hand rails had been removed from. He did not know and suggested I contact the lumber yard owner.
The lumber yard owner said he could not be 100% positive but he was pretty sure the hand rails had come from the Wind Song. While he was on an overseas trip purchasing teak for their lumber operations, he had gotten a call about a cruise ship that was being salvaged. He went to the ship and made a deal to purchase the teak decking and rails and shipped the teak to their lumber yard in Florida.
Based on this information, I was pretty certain that the hand rails I had purchased were likely from the Wind Song. However, I still needed additional verification before I felt comfortable claiming that these spearguns were made with Wind Song hand rails. I needed historical pictures of the Wind Song, showing the hand rails I had purchased.
So off to the internet I went, and thanks to Google, You Tube, and Wikipedia, I was able to get a lot of information about Wind Song very quickly. There were several really good photos and videos of the ship on the internet, including many photos of the fire, the evacuation, and close up pictures of the damage the ship suffered.
While I got some really good info on Wind Song from Wikipedia and You Tube, neither of those sites showed me the hand rail pictures I needed. Then it hit me, the Wind Song had two sister ships, the Wind Star and the Wind Spirit. Were they still sailing? If so, there may be pictures of those ships that might show the exact hand rails I had. After all, there were only three ships in this class ever built, I felt I could safely assume that the Wind Song was a duplicate of her sister ships. Back to the internet I went, to search for the Wind Star and Wind Spirit.
Sure enough, I found a link to book a cruise on Wind Star and Wind Spirit. Much to my amazement the sister ships were still commissioned and sailing. I decided to go to the cruise ship site
www.windstarcruises.com and there, listed under current vessel is Wind Star and Wind Spirit. I clicked on Wind Star and there were over 50 photos of the interior of the ship. There were many photos that showed the teak hand rails which were the same shape and color of the ones I had in my shop. The rails surrounded the entire upper deck of the ship, the pool area, and the stairwells. They were a perfect match! This was the final piece of the puzzle, the evidence that I needed to be certain that these hand rails had indeed been salvaged from MSY Wind Song.