Stranded

by Aaron Saunders

  He looked the letter over, then, satisfied, folded and placed it in his jacket pocket. Maskell didn’t know it at the time, but the letters he had just completed would provide some of the only insight into what was actually taking place on board the Princess Sophia during her final hours.

  Around the time Jack Maskell was penning his letter, the sixty-five-foot Estebeth arrived, coming up on the starboard side of Princess Sophia. After sailing for six straight hours from Juneau to aid the stricken ship, Estebeth’s captain, James Davis, made a new entry in his log book: “10:20 Wreck S.S. Sophia, Vanderbilt Reef.” He then turned his attention to the Princess Sophia. He was surprised to see just how high out of the water she was resting; nearly the entirety of her bow was clear and surrounded by reef, while she sagged at the stern. All the way aft her propeller was visible above the waterline, though the majority of the bladed apparatus remained submerged.

  Princess Sophia aground on Vanderbilt Reef. The strength of the wind can be seen by looking at her funnel — steam from the ship’s generators is being blown nearly horizontal.

  Vancouver Maritime Museum Collection.

  Of greater concern to Davis was the gash in her hull plating. It was expelling an enormous amount of water, somewhere in the neighbourhood of “two to three hundred gallons a minute — something like that — in a four to six inch stream.”[10]

  Captain Davis also noticed one of Princess Sophia’s lifeboats — the third from the bow on her starboard side — had been lowered approximately halfway down the side of the ship. Davis could see the shadowy black outline of people in it, and noticed others had gathered up near the bow on the ship’s sunken well deck.

  With the wind blowing fifteen to twenty miles, Captain Davis believed a rescue might be in progress. As he man-oeuvred the Estebeth closer to the wreck, his brother and a local Juneau doctor who had been travelling with him stepped out on deck. The snow had stopped and the seas were calmer, with little more than wavelets disturbing the surface. The Davis brothers had the foresight to bring a very important piece of equipment with them on this rescue mission: a camera. Steadying it against the portside rail of the Estebeth, Davis’s brother snapped the first shot of the stricken Princess Sophia up on Vanderbilt Reef: smoke wafting lazily from her funnel and a handful of whitecaps crashing on the reef.

  Lying halfway between the Estebeth and the Princess Sophia was the triangular safety buoy, supposedly placed there to keep ships from running aground in the first place. A few more photographs were snapped and then Estebeth’s engines were powered up.

  As Davis guided the Estebeth within two hundred feet of Princess Sophia, he hollered out to the ship. Captain Locke stepped out onto the starboard side of the open deck near the wheelhouse. Cupping his hands to his mouth, Davis shouted as loudly as he could so as to be heard over the wind: “Is an evacuation in progress?”

  Locke replied that there wasn’t. The crew had lowered the lifeboat to inspect the hull of the ship. This was the same one the crew of the Peterson had noticed an hour earl-ier. Locke shouted through his megaphone that they were resting securely on the reef for now, but asked the Estebeth to stay close. His plan, should the weather allow for it, was to hold tight until the wind let up a little more. Locke told Davis that once that happened he wanted the Estebeth to come around to the port side to assist in the evacuation.

  Captain Locke looked down on the Estebeth, then shouted through his megaphone: “Do you think the wind will go down?” Davis yelled “No!” at the top of his lungs. The Estebeth didn’t have a megaphone or a wireless set and his words, drowned out by the still-howling wind and surf, failed to reach Captain Locke. After a few seconds of silence, Locke repeated the question through his megaphone. This time, on the Estebeth, Captain Davis vigorously shook his head back and forth; the international signal for “No.”[11]

  Not only was Davis doubtful the winds would go down, but he actually felt there was a good chance they would increase. Based on his past experiences with Lynn Canal, Davis knew that a strong north wind at this time of year, coupled with the heavy snow they’d already seen, seldom relented for long. Unable to properly communicate with Captain Locke, and with Locke reluctant to order an evacuation despite the improvement in the weather, Davis could do nothing for the moment. He guided the Estebeth farther away from the wreck, to the government buoy bobbing around in the swell, where he tied his ship up to await further instructions.

  But by the time the Estebeth had been secured, Davis was beginning to worry again. The weather could change at any moment. If that happened any rescue attempt would be impossible. At 11:00 a.m., only forty minutes after arriving on the scene, Davis swung Estebeth’s skiff out and had it lowered to the water. He rationalized that if he could make it to the stricken Princess Sophia, he could use his skiff to begin taking passengers off. The wind, though, continued to gust well past twenty miles an hour. Despite vigorous rowing, Davis’s hands were quickly becoming frozen and he was making little to no headway in approaching the wreck. Disheartened, he returned to the Estebeth, but left the skiff up on the ship’s forward hatch in case they needed to launch it rapidly at some point.

  Back in Juneau, Frank Lowle had been working non-stop to transfer messages to and from Canadian Pacific headquarters in Victoria, and to make arrangements in local hotels for Princess Sophia’s passengers, who would all need a place to stay when they were brought ashore. His mind, though, was never far from the stricken ship. Lowle messaged Captain Locke. He first asked the captain if there was anything in particular he needed at the moment. The reply came back negative. Lowle then wired Captain Locke the latest update on the rescue vessels he could expect to see:

  BOATS PETERSEN, AMY, ESTEBETH, AND LONE FISHERMAN SENT IN ORDER GIVEN. WERE ONLY ONES AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY. KING & WINGE LEAVES HERE AT ELEVEN THIS MORING, NOTHING ELSE POSSIBLE OF ANY SIZE. JEFFERSON RETURNED SEATTLE FROM SWANSON BAY. ADVISE ME RELATIVE DISPOSITION OF PASSENGERS FOR SUITABLE ARRANGEMENTS HERE.[12]

  Getting the King & Winge to participate in the rescue effort had been harder than Lowle had anticipated. Earlier that morning Lowle had asked his assistant, Mr. Smeaton, to telephone her captain, thirty-six-year-old James Miller, just as the ship had arrived in Juneau with a hold full of freshly caught fish. A master mariner for seven years who had been at sea since the age of fourteen, Captain Miller told Lowle’s assistant “to call up our agent and ask them if they [the crew] had to go on taking the fish out.”[13] Miller knew his catch had to be unloaded and dried. Its potential loss would cost the company dearly, and he wasn’t about to shirk his responsibilities. He may have been captain of the King & Winge, but he was most definitely not her owner.

  He was also not Frank Lowle’s employee, and the Canadian Pacific agent found he had little sway over the loyal Captain Miller. Although Miller’s own agent was located right in Juneau, Lowle and his assistant were unable to track him down as the morning went on. Lowle continued to badger the captain of the King & Winge to drop everything and set sail immediately, but Miller continued to defer to his local agent.

  At 10:00 a.m., with his catch unloaded, Miller walked up the street to see Frank Lowle at his office. The young captain asked Lowle if he still wanted the King & Winge to set sail and steam toward the Princess Sophia. “Yes, I certainly do,” he told Captain Miller pointedly. “And every boat I can get. Captain Locke says to send all the boats we can, and he thinks he can get off the reef at high water.”[14]

  As she finally got underway from Juneau, King & Winge also carried a civilian passenger on board who in the days to come would prove a valuable addition. Hearing about the unfolding disaster, Juneau-based photographer Pond walked down to the wharf and arranged to travel to the wreck aboard the King & Winge in order to take photographs of the rescue operations. Joining him was J. Clark Readman, a Juneau-based accountant who amused himself in his off hours as an amateur reporter for one of the local papers. Now, with Juneau receding into the distance behind them, both men prepared for the l
ong afternoon of sailing ahead of them. They wouldn’t reach Princess Sophia until well into evening.

  The King & Winge would play a crucial role in the attempted rescue of those aboard the stricken Princess Sophia.

  Theb0180, NOAA’s Fleet Then and Now - Sailing for Science Collection. Location: Southeast Alaska. Photo Date: 1916. Credit: C&GS Season’s Report Colbert 1916–11.

  Back on Vanderbilt Reef, Captain Locke was in a quandary. The weather seems to have let up enough for a rescue mission to be possible. But he stood on the boat deck, surveying the motley assortment of marine craft scattered around his ship with growing anxiety. None of the vessels on-hand were large enough to take everyone off the Princess Sophia in one go, and passengers would have to be taken to the rescue ships in several small lifeboats. If the weather took a turn for the worse while the small chain of lifeboats was making their way to or from the rescue vessels the results could be disastrous. Locke knew that you don’t have to spend a lot of time in the water to succumb to hypothermia. If only he had more ships standing by.…

  Striding across the deck, Captain Locke put his head into the wireless room and asked wireless operator David Robinson to message Jack Lowle in Juneau. Robinson immediately did so, advising Lowle that the four vessels currently on scene would not be adequate enough to transport all passengers and crew.

  U.S.S. PETERSON & OTHER SEVERAL SMALL GAS BOATS STANDING BY. WANT ALL BOATS AVAILABLE TAKE OFF PASSENGERS.[15]

  An hour later, Captain Locke received a positive reply from Lowle in Juneau:

  CANNERY TENDERS EXCURSION AND ELSINORE LEFT AT 11:45 THIS MORNING FOR YOU. ADVISE ME YOUR PLANS FOR CARE PASSENGERS OR PROSPECTS YOUR BOATS TAKING THEM.[16]

  Cannery tenders were small vessels intended to support larger fishing vessels. In 1918 plenty of older fishing ships still used sail power, and it wasn’t uncommon for a cannery tender to tow fishing vessels operating under sail to the grounds, in order to save time. Designed to shuttle the catch from the grounds to the canneries on shore, they were small and nimble. Both the Excursion and Elsinore probably only carried a crew of four men each, at best, but their small size meant they could potentially get closer to the Princess Sophia than other vessels. If the weather held, Captain Locke likely reckoned he could at least get a few passengers off his stricken ship.

  At noon an entirely different problem presented itself to the passengers and crew on board Princess Sophia — though those without a maritime background likely didn’t take notice. Low tide had officially reached the Princess Sophia, but with that came the realization that her hull was no longer being supported at the stern by the buoyancy of the water. Private Auris McQueen described it as a tense, unpredictable time:

  The most critical time, nobody but the ship’s officers, we soldiers and a few sailors amongst the crew and passengers were told of it, was at low tide at noon when the captain and chief officer figured she was caught on the starboard bow and would hang there while she settled on the port side and astern. They were afraid she would turn turtle, but the bow pounded around and slipped until she settled into a groove, well supported forward on both sides.[17]

  The danger quickly passed, but McQueen noticed that aside from the frightful noises coming from her hull as the waves pushed her around on the reef, the Princess Sophia seemed very sturdy. Surely it was safer on board this gigantic liner, sheltered from the elements, than out in the swirling ocean on an exposed lifeboat. McQueen’s fellow passengers, undisturbed by the noise except for the odd shudder that interrupted those writing letters and shook the frame of the vessel, began to slip into this modified shipboard routine. With the arrival of each new vessel, passengers would gather on deck to watch it approach with a feeling of both relief and anxiety.

  Shortly before 2:00 p.m., on the Estebeth, Captain Davis perked up when he saw Princess Sophia’s starboard aft shell doors suddenly swing open. The number of people on the deck had dramatically increased, and a ladder had been swung into position. The half-lowered lifeboat that had been at the ship’s side earlier in the morning now rested underneath the ladder, and Davis quickly started his engines as he saw roughly fifteen passengers begin to make their way down the ladder.

  As the Estebeth untied and motored away from the buoy, the partially lowered lifeboat started to move. Ever so gingerly it inched its way toward the water. Captain Davis picked up speed; he wanted to meet the boat as soon as possible.

  When the Estebeth was sixty feet from the wreck and closing, something happened that surprised Captain Davis: the lifeboat, which had been resting fully in the water with a small complement of passengers, suddenly began to ascend back up to the boat deck. When the lifeboat was about six feet above the waterline the crew on deck stopped hoisting, and the lifeboat rested there in her davits for a few seconds. Finally, after what seemed like an intermin-able wait, the crew on deck began to hoist again. One by one, each passenger got out of the lifeboat and disappeared back through the shell doors and inside the Princess Sophia. While they waited, they looked down over the side of the lifeboat at Captain Davis and the Estebeth. No one spoke.

  At this point, Captain Locke came out on the open deck outside the bridge. Shouting through his megaphone, a weary Locke warned Captain Davis to keep the Estebeth away from the rocks. As Davis would later recount, Captain Locke felt the Estebeth was coming too close, and that she was “in danger.”[18]

  Discouraged and annoyed, Captain Davis would spend the next four hours slowly guiding the Estebeth to the stern of the Princess Sophia before allowing the current to push her back through the water near the starboard side of the ship. He’d repeat this tedious process all afternoon, wanting to “stay close to her to see if they wouldn’t get up courage enough to transfer the passengers, or do something.”[19]

  Davis knew there was a safe landing site just eight or ten miles away from the Princess Sophia’s current location, where passengers could be safely offloaded before being transported on larger vessels to Juneau. A cannery in nearby Tee Harbor would have provided shelter and a much-needed staging area. Unfortunately, he was powerless over Captain Locke. Regardless of the situation on the much-larger Princess Sophia, Captain Locke was in command there — not Captain Davis. However small, the seeds of doubt had been sown in James Davis’s mind. In a few short months he’d be pressed to give his assessment of the surreal moment when the potential salvation of those still-stranded passengers slipped through his fingers. When asked what other master mariners would have thought of Captain Leonard Locke’s decision to sit tight, Davis was blunt. “Some people would call others in for consultation,” he said. “Others would not. Personally, I think if a master has no confidence in his own judgement, he is unfit to be the master of a ship.”[20]

  Another person beginning to doubt Captain Locke’s assessment of the situation was Captain Cornelius Stidham. From the wheelhouse of the Peterson, he saw that the number of passengers on deck had suddenly increased. Not only were more people crowding Princess Sophia’s open decks than two hours ago, but Stidham observed that many of them were now clutching suitcases and other personal belongings. With high tide having just arrived, evacuation again looked imminent. The time was 4:30 p.m.

  Captain Stidham waited for a sign. And waited. Despite the influx of excitement on the open decks, no signal came from the Princess Sophia. The Peterson lacked a wireless, and could not message the Princess Sophia directly. Moreover, Stidham — like most mariners — believed it was beyond his scope to publicly question Captain Locke’s decision-making or authority. As far as he was concerned, the Peterson was there to help — but only when help is formally requested. “We went there to perform services,” he would later say. “If the master of the vessel didn’t take advantage of it, it would not be our fault … Captain Locke had better lifeboats than I had at the time; he had larger ones, and it was his place to have the lifeboats put over — it wasn’t my place to have put them over.”[21]

  In any event, the evacuation appeared to be a false a
larm. By five that evening, most of those stranded on board the Princess Sophia began to disperse from the open decks, heading below into the warm, brightly lit public rooms. A few stragglers remained on deck for a while, clinging to luggage and hope, before they too relented. By the time the sun set, one fact was glaringly obvious to Captain Stidham: any hope of rescue would not come tonight.

  Just after 6:00 p.m., the Peterson manoeuvred up to the Princess Sophia. The weather, which had been calm up until about 4:30 p.m., had begun to worsen, and Captain Stidham wanted to know whether his assistance was still needed. Just as he had done seven hours ago, he had deckhand Kramer hail Captain Locke on the ship’s megaphone. Captain Locke appears on deck, silhouetted by the amber glow of the ship’s exterior lighting. Through his own megaphone, Locke shouted down to Kramer and Captain Stidham. He was expecting a steamer to arrive later that night; the Peterson was free to seek shelter for the evening if she’d just stay by the Princess Sophia until the steamer arrived.

  Twenty minutes later, the King & Winge reached Vanderbilt Reef, with the indefatigable Captain James Miller in command. He, too, had no wireless apparatus, and the growing darkness was making it impossible to get a decent look at the ship. Unable to get close enough to the Princess Sophia to hail Captain Locke, Miller sailed the King & Winge back and forth near the wreck in the hopes that the lights of his ship would provide some comfort to those still stranded on board.[22] The ship that Captain Locke had so eagerly requested that morning had arrived, and was completely unable to do anything to help. Locke now knew that he, along with every other passenger and crew member on board, must survive another night up on the reef.