What Happened To The Goonies Pirate Ship?

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When Steven Spielberg‘s classic 1985 film The Goonies first premiered, the reveal of the giant pirate ship was one of the movie’s most iconic moments. Over the years, the ship has become a symbol of the movie, featured on T-shirts, posters, and other memorabilia. But what happened to the Goonies pirate ship after production wrapped up?

Here’s everything you need to know about the Goonies pirate ship, what happened to it after the movie, and the real life shipwreck off the coast of Oregon that inspired the film.

The Pirate Ship Scene From The Goonies Movie

If you’re unfamiliar with the Goonies pirate ship scene or need a refresher, here’s a brief summary of the Goonies ship scene to help provide context for the rest of this article:

In the final scenes of The Goonies, Mikey, Data, Mouth, Brand, Andy, and Stef are traveling through a series of caves and evading both booby traps and members of the Fratelli crime family. With no other choice, the Goonies plunge down a waterslide and into a pool of water below. As they swim to the surface, they are amazed to find themselves in an underground grotto with One-Eyed Willy’s legendary pirate ship, the Inferno.

The Goonies board the ship and are amazed to find it full of dead pirate skeletons and treasure! This is the treasure they have been searching for and it can help save their town from being demolished and turned into a golf course. Excitedly, they start filling their pockets with whatever they can find, but they make sure to leave the treasure that belongs to the ship’s dead captain, One-Eyed Willy, untouched. With the treasure in hand, they can now go back home and save their town!

But while The Goonies are raiding the pirate loot, the Fratellis surprise them. At gunpoint, the Fratellis take the treasure away from the Goonies. Then in true pirate fashion, the Fratellis bind the hands of the Goonies and make them walk the plank.

Then all of a sudden, Chunk and Sloth arrive in heroic fashion. Chuck helps his friends swim to safety while Sloth distracts the members of his devious crime family. With The Goonies out of the way, the Fratellis greedily grab as much loot as they can, including Willy’s treasure. This triggers a final booby trap causing the grotto’s rocky ceiling to cave in around them.

Escaping through a hole in the grotto’s wall, the Goonies swim to a nearby beach where search and rescue teams reunite them with their families. The Police are also on hand to arrest the Fratellis.

Not wasting any time, Elgin Perkins, the owner of the Astoria Country Club who is behind destruction of the “Goon Docks” neighborhood, hands Mikey’s father the final foreclosure papers.

But just as Mikey’s father is about to sign the papers, the Walshes’ housekeeper Rosalita finds Mikey’s marble bag in his wet clothes. The bag is full of gems from the pirate ship that the Fratellis overlooked. After seeing the jewels, Mikey’s father triumphantly rips up the foreclosure papers. The Goonies did it! They saved the town! Their quest to find One-Eyed Willy’s treasure was a success!

As the Goonies and their families celebrate on the beach, they see the Inferno in the distance. One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship has broken free of the grotto and is sailing off into the horizon one last time.

On a personal note, I saw The Goonies in theaters with a group of kids for a birthday party. When we saw the Goonies pirate ship sailing away, we all jumped out of our seats and started clapping and going wild. What an awesome movie ending!

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Was The Goonies Pirate Ship Based On A True Story?

The inspiration for One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship is loosely based on the lost Spanish gallon, the Santo Cristo de Burgos. In July of 1693, this ship sailed across the Pacific Ocean from Manila in the Philippines toward North America. Loaded with valuable cargo, including silk, porcelain, and beeswax, the original destination of the Manila galleon was Acapulco, Mexico.

Unfortunately, the Santo Cristo de Burgos drifted thousands of miles off course and wrecked along the Oregon coast near Astoria. On a map, Acapulco, Mexico and Astoria, Oregon are a little over 3,000 miles apart from each other. That’s one major wrong turn!

Details from 1693 about the shipwreck are limited. It’s unknown if weather, illness or other reasons caused the Santo Cristo de Burgos galleon to drift so far off course. European settlers hadn’t populated the Pacific Northwest yet and information about the wreck was passed down as part of Nehalem Indian oral history. But according to the Nehalem Indians, some crew members of the Santo Cristo de Burgos ship survived and lived with the coastal Indians.

Where Is The Santo Cristo De Burgos Shipwreck?

Over the centuries, amateur explorers have attempted to find the shipwreck of the Santo Cristo de Burgos and its cargo of riches. Legend of the shipwreck grew and it became the inspiration behind One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship in the 1985 Steven Spielberg’s film, The Goonies.

Despite the Santo Cristo de Burgos ship’s boost in popularity from the film, the exact location of the shipwreck is still a mystery.

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What Happened To The Goonies Pirate Ship From The Movie And Where Is It Today?

One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship, the Inferno, was a full-sized replica of a pirate ship loosely inspired by the legend of the Santo Cristo de Burgos galleon and the style of Earl Flynn‘s pirate ship from the 1940 movie Sea Hawk. The Inferno was 105 feet long and created specifically for the film by production designer J. Michael Riva‘s team. The ship took 2-1/2 months to construct and was built on the Astoria waterfront in Oregon, where much of the filming for The Goonies took place.

What happened to the Goonies pirate ship after the movie? After production wrapped, the crew tried to find someone who would take possession of the ship. Sadly, they were unsuccessful and the Inferno had to be scrapped.

Although the pirate ship looked great on camera, it was built as a prop and not necessarily a seaworthy vessel. It’s too bad. After the movie became such a huge box office hit, I’m sure several theme parks would have loved to take it.

However, some of the props and set pieces from the movie survived, including Mikey’s treasure map and One-Eyed Willie’s skeleton. Some prop pieces from The Goonies are on display at the Oregon Film Museum in Astoria.

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The Beeswax Shipwreck

Over the centuries, large lumps of old beeswax have been found scattered along the beaches of the Oregon coast. Belonging to the Santo Cristo de Burgos ship, some of these pieces were large enough to include intact Spanish shipping marks.

The discovery of each new piece of beeswax further fueled the legend of the lost ship’s treasure. It also gave the undiscovered shipwreck of the Santo Cristo de Burgos galleon a new nickname, the Beeswax Shipwreck.

New Search Efforts For The Shipwreck Of The Santo Cristo De Burgos Galleon

In 2019, fisherman Craig Andes made an important discovery in the search for the Beeswax Shipwreck. He found several old wooden beams inside the costal caves just north of Manzanita, Oregon near Elk Flats Rock. Was it from the Santo Cristo de Burgos? Or just pieces of driftwood?

The COVID-19 pandemic delayed efforts to immediately explore to the cave. But a few years later, in June 2022, a team of volunteers returned to the caves identified by Andes and recovered over 20 pieces of wood. People were skeptical at first, but carbon dating techniques and research by the team at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria have helped prove the age of the wooden pieces. Historians now believe that the beams were in fact part of the Santo Cristo de Burgos shipwreck. Specifically, parts of the ship’s lower hull. But where was the rest of ship?

Andes’ discovery helped create a renewed interest in the hunt for the Santo Cristo de Burgos. In 2022, an extensive search effort to find the Beeswax Wreck took place using modern sonar technology and magnetometers. The team scanned the areas near both Treasure Cove and The Devil’s Cauldron.

But after a thorough search, they were unable to determine the final resting place of the Santo Cristo de Burgos galleon.

Solving The Mystery Of What Happened To The Goonies Pirate Ship

Unfortunately, this is all bad news for both fans of the Goonies movie and historians searching for the Beeswax Shipwreck.

The Santo Cristo de Burgos galleon is still lost under sea. For four-hundred years the ship has been dispersing clumps of beeswax clues to the shoreline. But eventually it will run out if it hasn’t already.

And the custom One Eyed Willy ship made for the movie was destroyed because no one wanted it. While it may be gone, the memory of the Goonies pirate ship will remain with fans for years to come.

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