❖ Scratching the Beach with the MARTIN D

MARTIN D 
Working in Alaska.
Photo courtesy of Keith Sternberg.

"My philosophy is to forge ahead whatever the state of the tide. Perhaps this is derived from my log towing days. 

      Sometimes we scratched along the beach, as close as we dared, to avoid the current and might get into a back eddy. I was in log-towing tugs in Alaska and Puget Sound. Samson Tug & Barge in Sitka towed pulp logs to the mill at Sitka and saw logs to a mill in Wrangell. The sawlog tows were Sitka spruce and Alaska yellow cedar. These were made up as very large tows, 72 sections, with all five of the company tugs pulling. 

      Nearing Petersburg the tow was broken up into small units and towed through Wrangell Narrows. The tug in which I was mate, was the MARTIN D, originally a US Army ST built during WWII. She had a direct-reversible Busch-Sulzer diesel engine which turned 380 rpm at full-ahead. 

Mate Keith Sternberg
MARTIN D,
Alaska.
Photo courtesy of Keith Sternberg.

On the MARTIN D, I stood the midnight to 6 A.M. watch alone, usually
towing logs at about one knot. With the pilothouse stool under a
spoke of the wheel she would hold course fairly well while I went
below to oil the engine's rocker arms every two hours and have a look
around the engine room."

Submitted by Keith Sternberg, Lopez Island, WA.

Please see a reader's comment below.

❖ WRECKS ❖ SHIPS R-S ❖

WRECKS

Ships R - S

Work in progress (1)

SAINT FRANCIS

O.N. 115835

Built 1882
Lost 14 May 1917
Capt. J.A. Rosengren
1 mile south of Middle Point (now Sennett Point)
Unimak Island, AK.

SAINT FRANCIS
231'
1,898 G.t. / 1,757 N.t. 
she departed San Francisco on 21 April 1917 bound 
Kvichak, Bristol Bay with a crew of 17.
Click to enlarge.
Original photo from the archives of
the Saltwater People Historical Society©

Saint Francis was a downeaster built in Bath, Maine. The square-rigger spent most of her career on the Pacific. After a long term of duty with the Alaska Fisherman's Packing Co, according to the Marine Digest, she passed to Libby, McNeill & Libby when she was lost.

USCG Report of Casualty, 15 May 1917:
"At night and dark, fresh SW, misty, moderate.
1 mile south of Middle Point, missed tack, in veering vessel, went ashore. Unable to do anything. Steamers NORWOOD and GOLIAH stood by and rescued people –– took all on board. Total loss." Captain J.A. Rosengren

The FRANCIS was carrying a cargo of 1,500 tons of general merchandise and cannery supplies valued at $150,000. The ship was valued at $75,000. Both were insured for ? amount.

Source:
Marine Digest. Number 50, August 14, 1965.
Alaska Shipwrecks website.

❖ BRISTOL BAY FISHING GROUNDS❖

Fishing grounds of Bristol Bay, Alaska.
From a report compiled by the
Bristol Bay Regional Planning Team
For State of Alaska Fish and Game, 1988.
click image to enlarge.

"Fishing being an ancient industry, it is only natural that certain fishing grounds should have become famous. One of them is Bristol Bay, AK.
      These waters form the southeastern corner of the Bering Sea and include the area from Cape Newenham to Cape Menshikoff. Of the six salmon rivers in this territory, five are open for commercial fishing: The Nushagak, the Naknek, the Egegik, and the Ugashik rivers. The sixth river, the Togiak, is fished for 'personal use' only, by the inhabitants of that watershed.

      

Schooner WAWONA
Captain Charlie Foss.
"In 1914, she cleared Anacortes, WA.
31 March and arrived at Unimak Pass on 8 April
with 23 fishermen.
The largest vessel of the fleet caught
240,000 fish (550 tons)
 most were caught from 32-45 fathoms deep."
 McCurdy's Marine History/Newell

Cod schooner WILLIAM H. SMITH
full of dories sailing north from
 San Francisco, 31 March 1933
for the Alaska fishing grounds. 

      Bristol Bay’s claim to fame rests upon the very solid foundation that from the beginning of commercial fishing in America, it has been the largest producer of red—or sockeye—salmon in the world. Yearly catch has reached into the millions of salmon and the yield to the canners of millions of dollars in one year. Some wonder then that the name “Bristol Bay” has a magic sound in a fisherman’s ear and is spoken with wonder and respect when fishermen get together.

Dories sailing to the fishing grounds
Bristol Bay, Alaska.

On Bristol Bay fishing grounds setting a gillnet
with a fresh-caught salmon breaking water.
June 1938
From the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society ©

Cod fisherman in the 1940s got their food
from scows anchored in the Bay.
Bristol Bay, Alaska.

"Fishermen going ashore Bristol Bay, AK."
As inscribed verso.
Click image to enlarge.

      The gillnet is the only legal fishing gear in Bristol Bay. It may be used as a drift net, or as a set net—also called “stake net” or “beach net.” Set nets may be used by the local people only, and one must be a resident for a certain time period to operate this in any of the rivers. From the beginning of commercial fishing in Bristol Bay and for some 60-odd years thereafter the fishing was done with open boats, using sails and oars as propulsion, the use of motorboats having been prohibited by law.
      The reasons for this prohibition were not quite clear, it seemed. Some said that it was for the sake of conservation, as powerboats would be so much more efficient than the sailboats. Others again insisted that motorboats were prohibited at the request of the canning companies, as motors cost big money, and had to be repaired and replaced when worn, whereas Squarehead, Finn, and Italian fishermen could be thrown away when worn out, and replaced at no extra cost. Whatever the reason the law was there and had to be obeyed.
      The law prohibiting powerboats was changed finally, and the fishing season of 1951 brought the first power fishing boats to the Bay. They began to take over the field completely and the old sailboat is seen no more on the rivers of Bristol Bay.

      The history of early Bristol Bay fishing is a proud and terrible record of grueling work, privations, sufferings; of heroism and skullduggery, of foresight and initiative. Bristol Bay boasts what is perhaps the most “un-navigable navigable” waters in North America, with dangerous sandbars and banks extending miles out to open sea. The tidal difference is the third-largest in the world, creating dry land where, only five hours earlier, there was a navigable channel with twenty feet of water. The currents are unusually strong and erratic—storms are frequent and violent. Such are the waters fished by small, open sailboats—a testing ground that served to divide the 'men from the boys.'
      The rivers of Bristol Bay took their toll, year after year; boats were capsized, sunk, stuck on a sandbar and broken to pieces by the tide when a sudden storm came up. No statistics have been compiled but is common knowledge that hundreds of fishermen found their grave in the sands of wide river mouths.

      

Bark BERLIN (3223)
and others
stuck in the ice of Bristol Bay
One hundred years ago.
Dated May 1918.
Click image to enlarge.
BERLIN escaped back to Oregon...

But in May 1922, BERLIN, age 46 years,
went aground at Ugagak, Capt. E. Wendt of
Portland, OR., and was a total wreck.
She was bringing salmon to Naknek Cannery.
Vessel value $25,000 and Cargo $111,000.
All crew members were saved.
Naknek River, Bristol Bay, Alaska.

In the early transportation to and from the Bristol, fishing grounds was by sailing ships, each canning company operating its own fleet of vessels. The trip from “stateside” —Astoria, Seattle, San Francisco, and other ports—often had unpleasant surprises in store for the fishermen—who, during the voyage, also served as sailors. The Gulf of Alaska is known as rather a rough piece of water, especially in the time of winter and early spring, and the sailing vessels had to take a lashing from wind and waves before reaching the Pass—Unimak Pass, the gateway from the Pacific Ocean to the Bering Sea. And then the sailor might find—drifting ice in the Bering.
      Days and weeks might go by fighting the way to the anchorage at the mouth of the river. A 40-day voyage from stateside to Bristol Bay was far from uncommon and it often happened that as many as 63 days were spent underway.
      The working requirements? Here are excerpts from ‘Articles of Agreements and Wage Scale for the season of 1907 between the various AK Salmon Packers and Fishermen’s Union.’
      ‘...They agree to give their whole time and energy to the business and interests to said Company, and to work day and night (Sundays and holidays, not excepted), according to the lawful orders of the Captain, Superintendent, or whoever may be in charge for the Company, and for the compensation provided, but shall not be required to work for outside parties.’
      ‘...While preparing for fishing or after fishing has closed, the men shall not be required to work on Sundays as a rule, and if they are required to work any time on Sundays, such time shall be given to them during the week. In case of an emergency such as safety of ship or company’s property is in danger, such work to be done at any and all times without giving time back.

      

Heading home and
leaving the ice behind.
Vessel unidentified.
Click image to enlarge.

A cosmopolitan bunch they were, the Bristol fishermen. Italians, Finns, Norwegians, Swedes, constituted the main force, with a sprinkling of Danes, Irishmen, Scots, Germans, Hollanders—men of many races, creeds, and color of hair.

Peaceful and easy-going, as a rule, disagreements were slow to arise, tempers to flare. Such things did happen —there were black eyes or bloody noses now and again. By and large, peace and good fellowship were the rules of the fishing camps.
       The actual canning work was done by the ‘China gang’, under the command of the ‘China Boss.’ In due time the Iron Chink replaced the Chinese cannery worker. Later still the Filipinos were replaced by natives from the area adjacent to Bristol Bay, Aleuts, and Aleut-Eskimos.”
Above text from Fish and Ships, This was Fishing from the Columbia to Bristol Bay. Ralph Andrews and A.K.Larssen. Bonanza Books.

Bark BERLIN 
homebound September 1918
Bering Sea to Portland, OR.
Click image to enlarge.
Fourteen photos from the archives of
the Saltwater People Historical Society©

❖ The Sinking of the PRINCESS SOPHIA ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ 1918

Captain Leonard P. Locke
Lost: all hands
25 October 1918.
Vanderbilt Reef, Lynn Canal, AK.
58°35'31"N
135°0'55"W

PRINCESS SOPHIA
On Vanderbilt Reef, 
24 October 1918.
The next day the ship and all hands 
slipped off the reef.
Two gelatin-silver photographs
 from the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©

"When the Canadian Pacific passenger steamship PRINCESS SOPHIA went down on 25 October 1918 in Lynn Canal, near Juneau, with 343 persons on board, the only articles salvaged from her were two empty lifeboats and a safe. The only survivor of this marine disaster, one of the greatest on record on the Pacific Coast, was a dog. 
  The wreck set in motion 15-years of litigation, ending when the US Supreme Court refused to review the ruling of the Circuit Court of Appeals limiting the liability of the owner to $643.50 for 227 victims' estates. Claims of their survivors had aggregated $2,095,000.
  During the course of litigation as many as 40 pounds of legal papers were brought into court, at one time, by the attorneys for the defense.
  Benjamin Grosscup, Seattle attorney who argued the case for the claimants before the Court of Appeals in San Francisco, recently gave the Seattle Hist. Society his copy of the 13-volume apostles on appeal, the papers sent to the higher court on behalf of his clients after the case had been heard in the District Court. The thick books contain radio messages, logs, depositions, and interviews never reported in detail by the contemporary press. Wrapped in legal terminology, they describe step by step a drama of despair.
  The PRINCESS SOPHIA was a single-screw, 245-ft vessel built in Scotland six years earlier for the BC-Alaska service. She plied between Victoria, Vancouver, and Skagway.
  Normally she carried 250 passengers, but a rush of miners from the interior, waiting to go "outside" at the end of the season, had taxed Skagway's meager tourist accommodations nearly a week. As a consequence, the vessel was temporarily certified to carry an additional 100 passengers. She turned away many. With all berths full, she had 256 in 1st class, and 38 in 2nd class, when she sailed down Skagway at 10 o'clock the night of 23 October.
  Five hours later, during a snowstorm, the steamship ran aground on Vanderbilt Reef, not far from where she previously had stranded in April 1913 and incurred $25,000 damage.
The Princess boats had a reputation for speed and witnesses who saw the SOPHIA pass in the storm testified that she did not slow down for bad weather, but was maintaining her customary 13 knots. It was admitted that no lookout was posted in the bow.
 

Site of the loss of PRINCESS SOPHIA, 1918.
Courtesy of Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society
The Sea Chest, June 1977.
Click to enlarge.

The reef was out of the water at this stage of the tide, and the ship, riding high, was carried ahead with great force and wedged on the top of the submerged mountain, remaining there for the next 40 hours. She was 1.75-miles off her course and 3-miles from shore.
Examination in daylight revealed that the reef had torn plates from her bottom and a hole two feet wide was gouged out of the starboard side, extending from the bow 60-ft aft.
In an exchange of wireless messages Capt. Leonard P. Locke was advised by the company's managing agent to back the steamship off at high water. When daylight showed, this was impossible.
      Locke was informed that the PRINCESS ALICE of the same line was about to depart from Victoria and would rescue the passengers.

Snow ceased falling at 7 o'clock in the morning, the sea was quieter, but still choppy and small craft were on the way from Juneau to aid the ship, dispatched after the company agent there, learned by radio, of the wreck. Two gas-powered fishing boats reached the reef at 10 o'clock and were followed by the large Seattle halibut schooner KING & WINGE and two cannery tenders. They were ready to go to work with their dories, removing passengers, but the PRINCESS SOPHIA was resting on even keel, and Capt. Locke declined assistance.
By evening the rescue fleet was joined by the 65-ft ESTEBETH, the Army transport H. B. PETERSON, and the lighthouse tender CEDAR. Capt. Locke informed Capt. J. W. Leadbetter of the CEDAR that he had orders to keep his passengers on board, adding that he considered them perfectly safe, safer than they would be if he attempted to place them on the rescue vessels. Locke also told the captain of the tanker ATLAS bound for Juneau, not to stop, that he needed no help.
The barometer was rising and he expected the weather to improve, but this was not the case. A northwest wind picked up, the PRINCESS SOPHIA pounded on the rocks, and a little after 8 PM in the evening the electric lights, which had been burning brilliantly, went out for good.
The rescue fleet lay as close as was safe, but Capt. Locke still wanted no help. By then it would have been difficult to render assistance. That evening the captain reported to the agent's office, "disposition of the passengers normal."
As the morning of the 25th dawned, the KING & WINGE, the CEDAR, and the halibut schooner SITKA, still hovered as close to the reef as they dared. There was no sign from the PRINCESS SOPHIA and watches observed no one on deck.
The gale blew all day and when daylight waned, the CEDAR and the KING & WINGE anchored in the shelter of the south end of Benjamin Island, and the captain discussed what to do if the steamship’s situation became critical. Capt. Locke, by radio, still professed to be awaiting the PRINCESS ALICE, not knowing her departure from Victoria had been delayed.
By 4:40 the ship’s pounding became more threatening and Locke wired Leadbetter to come to his assistance. What happened aboard the SOPHIA in the next half hour is unknown. Two tanks, bound together and covered with planks were found later with children tied on them, back to back and apparently set afloat in the hope that they would reach land. No lifeboats were removed from the falls.
The last word from the SOPHIA’s radio operator was at 5:20 when he reported that water was over his feet and pleaded, ‘for God’s sake come and save us!’
By then the storm made rescue impossible. The wreck was not visible and, with her radio out of commission, there was no means of guiding the waiting craft through the high seas. At daybreak they steered a compass course in blinding sleet and, on approaching the reef, saw only a foremast rising from the water where the PRINCESS SOPHIA had been. She had slipped from her wedged position to a lower shelf on the reef, carrying with her everyone aboard. Those who attempted to float or swim away were coated with oil escaping from the ruptured fuel tanks. One man succeeded in reaching shore but died on the beach from exhaustion before his presence was discovered.
One of the intercepted wireless messages entered as evidence by claimants in the lawsuit stated that nearly all of the passengers, believing themselves doomed, were writing farewell notes. Counsel for the claimants alleged that bodies must have been searched upon recovery by persons looking for any messages that might have cast blame upon the company. No letters written in the last hours reached their intended destination except one, concealed in the back of a watch.
Bodies were picked up for a long time, but not all were recovered. One man was found with $40,000 in a money belt. A woman had $80,000 in bills sewn into her coat and another’s body carried $5,000 in jewels.

Tender MONAGHAN
Scene of the wreck & loss of the PRINCESS SOPHIA.
MONAGHAN, shown here on Vanderbilt Reef, AK., 
 built by Capt. Charles H. Curry, at Brown's Bay, 
Orcas Island, WA in 1911. 
At the helm is Capt. Robert O. Griswold, Shaw Island, WA.
 He helped to collect 26 bodies from Shoal Point, Douglas Is.
Two original photos from the archives of the S. P. H. S.©

 In June, with hundreds of damage suits shaping up, the Canadian Pacific Railroad Co. instituted suit in the US to limit the liability of the owners to the value of the vessel and the freight and passenger money paid for the trip. Attorneys for the heirs sought to recover under Alaskan law $10,000 for each adult human life and $3,000 for reach child lost.
US Commissioner A. C. Bowman was assigned as special master to hear the arguments of a corps of attorneys representing the company and William Martin of Seattle on behalf of the claimants. Taking of evidence covered six years, with hundreds of witnesses called before Bowman. Martin repeatedly charged that the PRINCESS SOPHIA had put to sea with a crew of untrained boys and with old-style lifeboat gear that was difficult to handle. He alleged that the company ordered the passengers kept aboard the steamship until its own vessel could arrive in order to save salvage money.
When the case went to the District Court, Judge Jeremiah Neterer narrowed the company’s blame down to two points—that proper lookout was not maintained and the vessel was traveling at an excessive speed. He decided that failure to transfer the passengers was due to the captain’s error in judgment and the company could not be held responsible for his act.
While his findings appeared to open the way to collecting heavy damages, the judge cited a federal maritime law centering around the condition of the ship and the crew at the time of the disaster. He held that the insurance money on the ship belonged to the company and not to the passengers and that the liability was limited to the value of the vessel when salvaged and the fares and freight charges for the voyage.
As the ship was virtually worthless and the Court of Appeals, in a 30-page decision, upheld Judge Neterer, the years of litigation—one of the longest drawn-out cases in history—resulted in nothing except the heap of printed documents.
In the Seattle Hist. Society’s library at the Museum of History and Industry, in years to come, researchers may read the accusations and arguments of attorneys, the testimony of witnesses, and their interpretation of events in that critical 40-hours, when 343 lives were balanced perilously upon a rock in Lynn Canal."
Text by author/historian Lucile McDonald
The Seattle Times, 24 January 1965

The Orcas Island built 56-ft wooden, tug/tender, MONAGHAN operated by Captain Robert O. Griswold, is the historical thread to San Juan County.

For additional reading, there are at least two books in print on the loss of the PRINCESS SOPHIA.
      The Sinking of the PRINCESS SOPHIA, Taking the North Down with Her by Ken Coates and Bill Morrison. University of Alaska Press, 1991.
      The Final Voyage of the PRINCESS SOPHIA, Did They All Have to Die? by Betty O'Keefe and Ian MacDonald. Heritage House, 1998.

✪ The Lost Ship That Came Home

CURACAO,
 Capt. Brooks.
Three original photos from the archives of the
Saltwater People Historical Society© 

"One of the unusual stories I wrote while marine editor of Seattle's evening newspaper concerned the steamship CURACAO, known as the lost ship that came home. The CURACAO was wrecked at Warm Chuck, AK, 21 June 1913, while laden with 800 t. of coal and 750 t. of cannery supplies. She sank in 78' of water at low tide. The vessel, insured for $110,000 was abandoned to the underwriters. Sixty days later, the wreck was purchased by the Vancouver Dredging & Salvage Co. for $4,000.   

      Capt. Harry W. Crosby, a pioneer of the Seattle waterfront, had a major role in the unusual salvage feat. He furnished the scows and tugs used in the operation and was on the job long hours in a diving suit. 'We salvaged the cargo in the fall and returned the next June to continue the work of raising the vessel. It required two months to complete the job, working on three tides. The CURACAO was down one year and eight months', Crosby said.

      After the general cargo and coal were salvaged, a channel was dredged ahead of the ship for a distance of 110'. Then a passage was flushed underneath the keel. Slings were passed under the hull and a cofferdam constructed around No. 1 hold. Six hundred empty gasoline drums with a total lifting capacity of 270 t, were placed in No. 2 hold. Scows were moored over the sunken ship to aid in lifting the vessel.
      Using a special gear on the scows, 6.5" cables, and powerful pumps, the CURACAO was lifted and dragged forward into the newly-dredged channel.
      The Pacific Steamship Co, the former owner, purchased the CURACAO from the salvors for approximately $90,000 and after extensive overhaul and repairs, returned her to service. Capt. Crosby, known on the waterfront as Seattle's mariner-capitalist, had a one-third interest in this strange salvage operation, which made it possible for a "lost" ship to return to service.
      After 56 years under the US flag, the CURACAO was sold to Greek interests who operated a fleet of ships out of Shanghai and transferred to Greek registry. The vessel's last service under the US flag was for the Alaska Steamship Co., which operated her from Cordova to Kodiak and Cook Inlet as a passenger and freight carrier.
      The unusual salvage operation that returned the wrecked CURACAO to service was only one of the strange dramas of the sea in which she had a stellar role.
      Carl Strout, one of the veterans of Seattle's waterfront, was purser of the CURACAO, his last seagoing job, while she operated out of San Francisco to Mexico and Central America. Strout was on his way to his room when the ship was in Mexican waters on one of her voyages in this service when he was attacked by two alien sailors. Both were drunk and had decided to avenge some fancied wrong.
      'Trow heem to the sharks,' one of the sailors said, as they seized Strout. Capt. Fred W. Brooks, a sea roamer of the old school, who was master of the CURACAO, heard the commotion and came out of his room with a pistol in his hand. The two sailors were overpowered, placed in irons and turned over to the federal authorities when the ship arrived back in the US.
      In those days, the Mexican-Central American run was a difficult one. In each of the ports, the majordomos would come out to the ship in their bare feet, carrying swords. The ship officers would hardly get acquainted with them, when there would be a revolution or a political change and they would have to deal with new majordomos, immigration, and post office agents, multiplying their troubles.
      The CURACAO was painted white and looked like a large steam yacht. During her Mexican and Central American service, the vessel was owned by the Pacific Steamship Co. She carried general merchandise south and coffee north.
      Captain Brooks, the CURACAO's skipper, a colorful seafarer, was known from the Galapagos Islands, where he was shipwrecked, to Nome; from Liverpool to Buenos Aires, and from Seattle to Hong Kong and other big ports in the Orient. He formerly was master of the freighter STUART DOLLAR and remained with that vessel during her long idleness in Lake Union. I visited Capt. Brooks several times aboard the STUART DOLLAR and talked over old times in shipping with him." 
Above text from High Tide, The Big Stories of Seattle's Waterfront
R. H. "Skipper" Calkins, Marine Digest, 1952

In her later years, according to Jim Gibbs in Disaster Log of Ships, she operated strictly as a freighter to Alaska. In 1940, she was purchased by Greek interests, renamed HELLENIC SKIPPER; while bound for the Orient, mysteriously exploded and foundered 125-miles NW of Grays Harbor, WA, 10 July 1940. Her crew escaped.

Other officers and crew:

Capt. William Thompson (1913)

❖ Schooner WAWONA "A Lucky Ship" ❖

"Ships of the sea, particularly those graceful sailing ships now finally slipping into the limbo of the past, have always been endowed with distinctive individual characteristics. No ship ever built has been exactly like any other. Once down the ways each ship has acquired not only a name but a soul of its own in an amazingly short time. And a reputation.
      One would soon be known as a dry ship, another as a wet one. This one would be called a "stiff" ship, that one "easy". One would be labeled "steady", her sister a "roller". She might be known as a "happy" ship or a "workhouse". Some ships cruise like a millionaires' yacht, while others get into all sorts of trouble.
      Sailors have only one definition of the character of a ship. The wet, uncomfortable, cantankerous workhouse they would call an "unlucky" ship. The other kind would simply be known as "lucky".
      A "lucky" ship has been the WAWONA, a three-masted fore-and-aft rigged schooner owned and operated by the Robinson Fisheries Co. of Anacortes, WA. If ever there has been a ship worthy of the appellation, the WAWONA is it. For she has been serving faithfully and well for nearly fifty years, in many parts of the world, and is still making money for her owners. From the days of Capt. Matt Peasley, one of her first masters, to the present, she has been every inch a lady, well behaved, and the pride of the men who have sailed her.

Robinson Fisheries, Anacortes, WA.
Original vintage postcard from
the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society.

      In the offices of the Robinson Fisheries they actually speak in reverent tones of the WAWONA. Jack Trafton, the company's president, and E. N. Trafton, his son, could scarcely find words to tell of the old schooner's long service in the N. Pacific codfish trade, of the masters, mates, and men to whom she has been home and career, of the part she played in both world wars. But the company watchman, who has known the WAWONA a good part of his life, expressed it in a few words:

"She has always been a lucky ship, and 
has always landed a good trip of fish."
Postcard reproduction was purchased 
from the Anacortes Museum.

      The WAWONA was built in Fairhaven, CA., in 1897, by the famous [Hans Bendixsen] yard. Her registered dimensions are 468 G. tons, 413 N. tons, 156-ft. length, 36-ft. beam, and a depth of 12-ft., 3-in. One of her first masters was Capt. Matt Peasley of "Cappy Ricks" fame. In that era, Peter B. Kyne's stories in the Saturday Evening Post were widely read, and Matt--the fellow who, in fiction, wiped up the deck with the "Big Swede" and who finally married the attractive daughter of Cappy Ricks--was identified with the life-sized skipper. Capt. Peasley, now 80-years of age, retired from the sea a few years ago, and now lives in Aberdeen, WA.
      The Robinson Co. purchased the schooner in 1914, and she has made a least one trip to the Bering Sea every year since except when she was in government service. She is the largest fore-and-aft rigged sailing ship on the Pacific Coast, and she is one of the few sailing ships that have served through both world wars and is still in active service. In 1917, during WW I, she made a voyage from Vancouver, B.C., to Suva in the Fiji Islands with a full load of lumber, and served with the U.S. Army from 1941 through 1945. Between wars, she has landed a tremendous tonnage of codfish for her owners.
      Captain Charles Foss was her master from 1914 through 1935, which was one year when misfortune overtook the hard-working ship. While clearing Unimak Pass on her way home from the 1935 codfishing season in the Bering Sea, Capt. Foss suddenly passed away. The ship was put about, and Capt. Foss was buried by his sorrowing crew in Lost Harbor, AK. The first mate, now Capt. Tom Haugen, took command and has been her master ever since, except when she was in Army service. On her first trip north in 1936, she carried with her a monument to mark Capt. Foss' grave, and each year on her way north the WAWONA stops at remote Lost Harbor, Akun Island, so that her crew may pay their respects to Foss and care for his resting place.

The 1940 burial of Capt. Richard A. Trafton, 
M.V. DOROTHY,
at Lost Harbor, Akun Island, AK., next to the grave of
Capt. Charles Foss, who died on board WAWONA, 1935.
Courtesy of Bruce Trafton for S.P.H.S.

      The WAWONA has always been a proud ship, but she has never been prudish. At sea, she has always been as graceful as a bird, yet during the late war, stripped of her masts and gear, she served without shame as a lowly scow. Since then her former beauty and accouterments have been restored in shipyards at Friday Harbor and Bellingham. Once again the grime of war service is gone. She is scrubbed and shined and polished. Three 114-foot "sticks" were brought down from the woods and stepped in. With Tom and his crew of 36 men, she sailed this spring for another season in the Bering.
      The WAWONA has always been a "lucky" ship. Her reputation is still good. And when that can be said of such a ship, it is like saying of a fair lady, "here is a useful and honorable life."
Above words by Leon M. Swank
Pacific Motor Boat
October 1946
Archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society
Typed verbatim.
1941: An unlucky day on 27 May when the 2nd mate, Nick Field, age 58 of Tacoma was lost from a WAWONA dory. The master was Capt. Tom Haugen.

Seattle Times 4 Sept. 1941.
1963: An organization known as "Save Our Ships" was organized with the intent to purchase the WAWONA, one of two remaining sailing ships in Puget Sound. The other, FALLS OF CLYDE, was purchased by a fast, fund-raising campaign in Honolulu, where the vessel was taken in 1963 to serve as a floating museum. All of the other sailing ships either have been broken up for scrap or sold to other ports for maritime museums.
1968: Not quoted in this log but a fine tribute to WAWONA is featured in West Coast Windjammers by Jim Gibbs. Superior.
1970: WAWONA was declared a National Historic Site, the first vessel to receive that designation in the country.
1981: The president of the National Maritime Historical Society, Peter Sanford, sent out an SOS to save the WAWONA, owned at that time by Northwest Seaport who moored her in Lake Union, Seattle, WA. Sanford described the WAWONA as an international maritime treasure that deserved better treatment than decrepitude.
2009: After 46 years of volunteer effort, the WAWONA was towed to a Seattle scrapping yard.
2011: Archived on this Log are some of those scraps in Schooner WAWONA's Bones, written by Roy Pearmain.

❖ King Crab ❖ The Delicious Monsters!

Fisherman aboard the beam trawler 
the DEEP SEA.
Photo Life, photographer unknown.

The year 1941 will always live in the memory of a man named Lowell Wakefield, son of an Alaskan family long engaged in the business of herring fishing. That was the year he first saw "haystacks" in the sea, off the storm buffeted island of Kodiak. There appeared at lowtide a phenomenon seldom witnessed except on rare occasions by fishermen off the lonely coasts around Alaska and the Bering Sea--hundreds of giant King crabs, piled one on top of another in a huge pyramid--why, even the most eggheaded students of creatures of the deep have never been able to explain.

      The Kodiak islanders gathered the beached giants and had a memorable crabfest. The meat of the claws and legs proved to be more delicate than lobster and astonishing flavorsome. Wakefield's imagination was fired by the incident. These scores of fabulous crabs were a type seldom seen in the area, vicious-clawed monsters, some of them measuring six feet from tip to tip. As it turned out, he was destined to pioneer from these ugly eight-legged creatures, a $6 million industry never before essayed by an American.

      Wakefield sent some specimens to the Fish and Wildlife Service in Seattle. "These are delicious," he said, "but what kind of crabs are they?" Veterans of the Wildlife Service identified them as Paralithodes camtschatics, specimens of the King Crab, a giant crustacean peculiar to the North Pacific. When WWll ended, Captain Wakefield decided to go a-crabing. The Japanese with their floating canneries had been crab fishing commercially for years. Wakefield had a better idea--not canning, but freezing the delicious meat of the crabs taken fresh from the sea.

        As the crabs were hauled aboard, they were dumped into "live" tanks of circulating sea water where removed from the mighty pressure of the sea, they became sluggish and manageable. They were then washed, placed into wire baskets and plunged immediately into boiling water and cooked. The meat was removed, frozen in blocks and, as an extra insurance to perfection, covered with a freezing glaze of fresh, clear water. The DEEP SEA could freeze and store 170 tons of crab meat.

      The first three years were rough ones, during which Wakefield struggled to create a market. By 1950, the battle began to pay off. Fine restaurants were buying Wakefield's new frozen crab heavily, and it had made its first appearance in grocery stores. Two years later, Captain Wakefield was face-to-face with a brand new problem--demand threatened to exceed the supply.

      He made a quick decision that seemed foolhardy to old hands along the Seattle waterfront. He decided to risk a winter voyage to the Bering. The DEEP SEA was the only fishing vessel underwriters ever insured for winter voyages, but even she had always kept to port in January and February.

      The trip across the North Pacific was rough but uneventful. They stopped for fuel and water at False Pass, Alaska, on 31 January and two days later they took on three more crew members at the village of Akutan to make up a full twenty-two man complement. Early in the morning of 4 February, they reached their destination and began fishing operations.

       It was clear, calm, and cold. They made two prospecting hauls without success, but the third trawl showed promise.

       Then it began to blow, and for 5 full days, all hands fought the fury of the Arctic. It was a norther, 80-miles-an-hour fresh from the Polar ice cap, and the temperature was minus 14. Each sea crashing over the ship added to the tons of ice forming on decks, superstructure, and rigging, and the men chopped and beat at it with axes, crowbars and clubs day and night to prevent capsizing.

       On the tenth, the wind swung to the southwest and moderated to a gentle breeze. Air temp climbed to 22 degrees. A net was dug out from under two feet of solid ice and went over the side for a one-hour tow. As it was lifted alongside the ship, jammed to the wings with 8 or 10 thousand crabs, it was carried away from the sheer weight of the enormous creatures, and net and haul were lost.

      A new net was bent on, and trawling operations continued. They ended up packing to maximum capacity--15,000 pounds of King Crab legs and claws a day. Captain Wakefield had accomplished his purpose. His hard-earned market had an unfailing, year-round supply of King Crab, as promised.  

This story on small, yellowing, pages
was published in Photo Life,
date and author unknown. 
This image accompanied the article &
illustrated the action on board the DEEP SEA. 

For the fate of the DEEP SEA please see this link.

Seattle Fisherman's Terminal 
L-R: C. B. Wildes & Arthur Lauritzen.
When Wakefield Fisheries began using wire pots 
in the King crab fishery in Alaskan waters,
these men were hired for the job, Feb. 1956.
Click image to enlarge.
Original photo by Royal C. Crooks, Seattle,
from the archives of the Saltwater People Log© 

The Wakefield family lived for a short time at Griswold, Shaw Island, and West Sound, Orcas Island in the late 1800s.

Lee Wakefield owned Apex Cannery on Fidalgo Island.