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| "Japanese motor fish boat RYO YEI MARU, left Misaki, Japan, 5 Dec. 1926. Picked up off Cape Flattery, WA, by the S.S. Margaret Dollar, 31 Oct. 1927. Crew of 11 men and 1 woman, perished. Vessel burned by request of owners, March 1928." Original photo date 11 Oct 1927, from the archives of the S.P.H.S.© |
"On the last day of October 1927, as the big freighter MARGARET DOLLAR, Seattle-bound from San Francisco, approached Cape Flattery, a small two-masted, weather-beaten craft, with tattered remnants of sails blowing in the breeze, was sighted off the mouth of Quillayute R. rolling in the long ocean swell and steadily drifting toward the shore, six or seven miles away. The hoarse whistle of the big boat stirred no evidence of life on the drifter, so a boat was lowered and pushed off to investigate.
As the boarding party approached the small craft, the characters on her stern identified her as Japanese, and her hull, encrusted 4-inches deep with barnacles, and seaweed 2-ft long waving to and fro in the heaving waters, proclaimed a vessel long in salt water, while the damaged rigging and sail tatters, told of fierce struggles with the elements.
When the boarders climbed her side they were greeted by bleaching bones scattered about the deck, but not a sign of life. Empty fish holds, fore and aft, and fishing gear carefully coiled in baskets on top of the cabin, showed the derelict to have been a fishing boat, and a dismantled gas engine revealed the cause of its plight; while huddled in a corner of the little cabin, the mummified bodies of two men showed the fate of the crew.
Disabled engine, sails carried away, empty water casks, absence of every trace of food, weed and barnacle loaded hull, and shriveled human forms, told plainly a story of terrific tragedy--accident, struggle, drifting for months, and thousands of miles, starvation, and death.
But where were the rest of the crew? Clothing scattered about indicated the presence of a number of men. The small boat was gone. Had those two figures in the corner been abandoned by the others? And what were those bones on deck--so many, and all so clean?
Search furnished no information. Letters and papers in a rattan basked in the cabin were in Japanese, as were the inscriptions painted on a cedar board in the cabin, they could not be read without an interpreter.
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| RYO YEI MARU "Japanese fishing schooner, 10 Nov. 1927, after her 4,000 mile voyage across the Pacific Ocean." Original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.© |
The message painted by the captain of the ill-fated boat on the piece of board revealed the name of the boat to be RYO YEI MARU, meaning 'good and prosperous', and that, with a crew of twelve men, she had sailed from the village of Misaka, Japan, for the tuna fishing grounds on 5 Dec 1926, 11-months before. While fishing, the engine had broken beyond repair, a fierce hurricane had driven them off the banks, and in time their store of food, eight bushes of rice, was consumed. All hope was gone when the captain painted his message on that piece of board on 6 March 1927, and death was awaited by the despairing men.
A tragic story with all the details to be read between the lines.
A later and more careful search by the US Customs officials, after the boat had been towed to Seattle, added much to the story, for a diary was discovered in the effects of, presumable, the last survivor, which detailed the whole harrowing tale from the time the little craft sailed from Japan, until the date of the last entry 11 May.
The staunch little boat, 86-ft L x 15-ft B x 12-ft D, was powered with a 2-cyl gas engine, supplemented by the sails characteristic of the native boats.
The diary told of its departure from Misaki and that five days later an engine valve broke, leaving the boat at the mercy of the hurricane. On 13 Dec a Japanese fishing boat was sighted, on the 16th, another fishing boat and a big Japanese liner were sighted, but none of them paid heed to their signals of distress, it they saw them, and even a fire built on the deck, failed to attract. Those were the only boats sighted during all the terrible months of starvation and mental agony.
Friends and relatives of the members of the crew in San Fran and Seattle, have furnished information that when all the other fishing boats had found their way back to port after the storm the RYO YEI MARU was given up as lost, and on 16 Dec. services were held for the dead. Not long afterwards, insurance on the craft was paid by the underwriters to some thirty stockholders in Japan and in CA and WA. The same informants have told that boat was ill-fated from the first. She was an innovation from the old Nippon construction in many respects. It was the first 'great ship' to be built in the village of Wabuka, was five times the tonnage of the native boats, and was considered a palatial affair. She was also the first 'company' ship to be floated in that locality; the first to carry ice for the preservation of her catch; and the first to be equipped with an engine.
Sutyi Izawa, the cook, started the diary in lead pencil in a little water-stained book, and it is a wonderful revelation of physical suffering and mental agony--click on "read more" button below--
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