Editor’s note: A shipwreck presentation is set for this Saturday, Nov. 2 at 1 p.m. at the Polson Museum.
Washington maritime history is filled with fascinating stories of dramatic shipwrecks and daring rescues. The West Coast is littered with ships that lost their lives to the mighty Pacific.
Unpredictable weather, sand bars, jagged rocks, ocean and river currents make navigating these waters treacherous for sailors. Here are their stories.
The first explorers
Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan planned and led the Spanish expedition of 1519-1522 to reach the East Indies. In this daring and perilous adventure, he was the first European to circumnavigate the world. In 1520 the expedition survived the perils of Cape Horn, the Southern tip of South America, and entered a vast body of water. As they were sailing through a calm stretch of water Magellan named this unknown body of water the Pacific which is a version of pacify or peaceful.
Of the three major oceans, the Pacific is by far the largest, occupying about one-third of the surface of the globe. Its area, excluding the South China Sea, encompasses about 62.5 million square miles. It has double the area and more than double the water volume of the Atlantic Ocean, the second largest body of water, and its area more than exceeds that of the whole land surface of the globe.
The average depth of the Pacific is 14,040 feet, which is close to the height of Mount Rainier at 14,411 feet. The Mariana Trench is 36,201 feet or about 6.8 miles deep, about 34 miles wide and stretches more than 1 580 miles.
Along the West Coast the Davidson Current runs south to north along the coastline. It varies in width from one to 15 miles. The Davidson Current has played a serious role in Washington’s maritime history.
In 1579 Sir Francis Drake sailed along the Northwest coast to the 48th parallel calling the land New Albion. He was the first English explorer to see the Washington coast, 41 years before the pilgrims landed on the East Coast in 1620, and the first English explorer to circumnavigate the world in his 1577-1580 expedition.
He was followed by Juan de Fuca in 1592 discovering the straits between the 48th and 47th parallel that bear his name.
The Columbia Bar to Cape Flattery
Shipping from the Columbia River Bar to Cape Flattery in the northwest corner of Washington state at the end of the Olympic Peninsula covers a distance of about 138 miles.
Willapa Bay is 24 miles north of Cape Disappointment which is located on the southwest corner of Washington along the Columbia River. Willapa Bay is a low sandy beach with sandy ridges 20 feet high parallel to the shore.
Next is Grays Harbor about 45 miles north. There are no deep water harbors from Grays Harbor to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and it is also craggy with sand bars.
The Columbia River bar is one of the most dangerous bar crossings in the world. The bar is about 3 miles wide and 6 miles long.
Since 1792, over 2,000 ships have sunk or been damaged in and around the Columbia Bar, acquiring a reputation worldwide as the graveyard of the Pacific. In one book published in 1950 the author stated that over 200 deep water ships were lost, with damage to another 500 deep water ships.
The smaller vessels fishing fleet had suffered about 500 losses. The Columbia bar has cost the maritime industry millions of dollars in losses of vessels and cargo.
Who are the brave souls and what are their stories that sail the mighty Pacific along this wild coastline?
Lumber schooners
Lumber schooners were the workhorses of the Pacific, building the lumber industry that built the economy of Grays Harbor. They hauled most of the lumber that rebuilt San Francisco after the disastrous 1906 fire and hauled the materials for the 1915 Panama Pacific International exhibition.
Their cargo also contributed to building the cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego in addition to numerous construction projects in the Northwest. Some of these vessels carried as much as one million board feet of lumber which would build about 40 houses.
They maintained a regular schedule of deliveries between Washington and California, making as many as 18 trips a year. They had shallow drafts for crossing coastal bars, uncluttered deck arrangements for ease of loading and unloading lumber and easily maneuvering in and out small ports. They did not have top masts so sailors did not have to climb rigging.
C.A. Thayer
C.A. Thayer is a schooner built in 1895 near Eureka, California. The C.A. Thayer was built by Danish-born Hans Ditlev Bendixsen in his shipyard, located across the narrows of Humboldt Bay from the city of Eureka in Northern California. Bendixsen also built the Wawona (1897) which was dismantled in 2009. The C.A. Thayer was named for Clarence A. Thayer, a partner in the San Francisco-based E.K. Wood Lumber Company.
Between 1895 and 1912, C.A. Thayer usually sailed from E.K. Wood’s mill in Grays Harbor to San Francisco. But she also carried lumber as far south as Mexico, and occasionally even ventured to Hawaii and Fiji.
C.A. Thayer is typical of the sort of three-masted schooners often used in the West Coast lumber trade. She is 219 feet in length and has a cargo capacity of 575,000 board feet. She carried about half of her load below deck, with the remaining lumber stacked 10 feet high on deck.
In port, her small crew of eight or nine men were also responsible for loading and unloading the ship. Unloading 75,000 to 80,000 board feet was an average day’s work, taking roughly 7-8 days to complete the task.
On Nov. 8, 1903, the C.A. Thayer encountered a ferocious storm that broke her rudder and rudder post going aground near the Grays Harbor Bar. Rescue boats were unable to reach her and the crew remained on board.
On Nov. 12 the crew was taken ashore and the schooner continued to remain in the same position. On Nov. 23 the Thayer was pulled into deep water, then towed into Cosmopolis. By March 1904 she was back at work hauling a load of lumber to San Pedro, California, continuing for another eight years until on January 1912 off the coast of California she sustained serious damage during a gale.
With the increase in the use of steam power for the lumber trade, C.A. Thayer was retired from the lumber trade and converted for use in the Alaskan salmon fishery.
Early each April from 1912 to 1924, C.A. Thayer sailed from San Francisco for Alaska. On board she carried 28-foot gillnet boats, bundles of barrel staves, tons of salt and a crew of fishermen and cannery workers. She then spent the summer anchored at fishery camps. While there, the fishermen worked their nets and the cannery workers packed the catch on shore. C.A. Thayer returned to San Francisco each September, carrying barrels of salted salmon.
Vessels in the salt-salmon trade usually laid up during the winter months, but when World War I inflated freight rates, C.A. Thayer carried Northwest fir and Mendocino redwood to Australia. These off-season voyages took about two months each way. Her return cargo was usually coal, but sometimes hardwood or copra.
Between 1925 and 1930, C.A. Thayer made yearly voyages from Poulsbo to Alaska’s Bering Sea cod-fishing waters. In addition to supplies, she carried upward of 30 men north, including 14 fishermen and twelve “dressers” (the men who cleaned and cured the catch). At about 4:30 a.m. each day, the fishermen launched their Grand Banks dories over the rails, and then fished standing up, with handlines dropped over both sides of their small boats. When the fishing was good, a man might catch 300-350 cod in a five-hour period.
After a decade-long, Depression-era lay-up in Lake Union, the U.S. Army purchased C.A. Thayer from J.E. Shields for use in the war effort. In 1942, the Army removed her masts and used Thayer as an ammunition barge in British Columbia.
After World War II, Shields bought his ship back from the Army, fitted her with masts once again, and returned her to cod fishing. Her final voyage was in 1950.
The State of California purchased C.A. Thayer in 1957. After preliminary restoration in Seattle, a volunteer crew sailed her down the coast to San Francisco. The San Francisco Maritime Museum performed more extensive repairs and refitting, and opened C.A. Thayer to the public in 1963. The vessel was transferred to the National Park Service in 1978, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1984. She was added to the National Register of Historic Places on Nov. 13, 1966.
After 40 years as a museum ship, the C.A. Thayer has again been restored, which took three years starting in 2004, and which resulted in her temporary removal from her berth at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Approximately 80% of the ship’s timbers were replaced with new timbers matching the original wood.
The ship sailed back to the Hyde Street Pier in April of 2007 and continues to reside in the San Francisco National Historic Park. More than 500 lumber schooners were built, but the C. A. Thayer is one of two lumber schooners that have survived and continues to educate people about the Pacific Coast lumber industry.
The Pacific
One of the most tragic shipwrecks on the Washington coast hit Nov. 4, 1875. The Pacific left Victoria, B.C. in the morning and that night during a storm about 40 miles south of Cape Flattery it either struck or was struck by the Orpheus.
The Orpheus was unaware of hitting the Pacific and continued north to Vancouver Island where she crashed. Within an hour of the collision the Pacific went down with 275 people on board. Two crewmembers escaped the Pacific. The first survivor Henry Jelley was picked up hours after the wreck but died shortly afterward. The other crewmember — Neil Henly — survived over 70 hours in the water before being found by the Revenue Cutter Oliver Wolcott.
This is Neil Henly’s account of his experience:
“I was off watch and about 10 p.m. was awakened by a crash and getting out of my bunk I found water rushing into the hold at a furious rate. On reaching deck, all was confusion. I looked on the starboard beam and saw a large vessel under sail, which they said had struck the steamer. When I first distinguished her, she was showing a green light. The captain and officers of the steamer were trying to lower boats but the passengers crowded in against their commands, making their efforts useless. None of the lifeboats had plugs in them. There were 15 women and six men in the boat with me, but she struck the ship and filled instantly, and when I came up, I caught hold of the skylight which soon capsized.
I then swam to a part of the hurricane deck, which had eight persons on it. When I looked around, the steamer had disappeared. …
“In a little while it was all over … and we were alone on the raft, the part of the deck on which was the wheelhouse. Besides myself, the raft supported the captain, second mate, cook and four passengers, one of them a young lady. At 1 a.m., the sea was making a clean breach over us, carrying away the captain, second mate and the lady and another passenger, leaving four of us on the raft. At 9 a.m. the cook died and rolled off into the sea. At 4 p.m. the mist cleared away and we saw land about 15 miles off. We also saw a piece of wreckage with two men on it. At 5 p.m. another man expired and early the next morning the other one died leaving me alone. Soon after the death of the last man I caught a box and I dragged it on the raft. It kept the wind off me and during the day I slept. Early on the morning of the 8th of November I was rescued by the Wolcott.”
The Ferndale — tragedy and heroism
On Jan. 29, 1892, The Ferndale was inbound to Portland with a load of coal, but encountered a dense fog
and stood offshore of the Columbia bar. The Davidson current and northerly winds took control. At
3:30 a.m. she struck the beach north of Grays Harbor about 50 miles from the Columbia bar.
This is the chilling story from one of the survivors and the account of one heroic rescuer that helped three survivors to safety.
“I saw nine men in the fore rigging, the captain in the mizzen rigging and there were five of us on the mainmast. The cold was intense and we nearly froze to death. One of the men with us — a native of New Zealand — took off all his clothes and leaped into the sea and swam for shore, which was the last we saw of him. The surging water in the hold made the deck heave with each roll of the vessel and soon, with a crash, it broke into fragments, carrying away the foremast, and drowning the men clinging to it. The masts, yards and rigging were all of steel, and what little woodwork there was about the ship was broken to splinters, so there was nothing for the men to cling to.
“Knowing it was but a question of time ere the other masts would go by the board, and day having broken, I determined to swim for life, and fastening a life buoy securely under my arms and kicking off my shoes I watched my chance, slipping down the rigging and jumped on the crest of a wave. I was so cramped by cold that for a time I was stiff and would surely have drowned had I not had the buoy, but the water was warm and I soon began to swim.
“No words can express the horror of my situation and it is a miracle that we three ever reached land. Sometimes I was dashed against the very bottom, turned over and over, and the next moment I was carried like a racehorse on the crest of a wave fully 20 feet high, only again to be almost smothered by a following comber.
“After tossing about for half an hour I was thrown on the beach and managed to crawl out of the water in fairly good shape but much exhausted. I met a woman — Mrs. Edward White, who lived nearby — who said her husband had gone further up the beach, as the current was setting that way, to render possible assistance, and that she had prepared a big fire, hot coffee and eatables at the house for any who might get ashore.
“I had gone but halfway to the house, when I heard cries for help, and turning saw Mrs. White in the water up to her waist dragging (sailor) Carlson onto the beach. I helped him to the house, and hearing more cries ran out and saw Mrs. White struggling in deep water with (sailor) Patterson. She got him safely ashore, but he was delirious with exhaustion and would certainly have drowned had that brave woman not rushed to his rescue. We carried him to the house, put him to bed and he was all right in a few hours.”
Martha White shared her version of the rescue in a November 1892 interview with the The Seattle Post Intelligencer.
“A high southwest gale was blowing and the waves were rolling mountains high when the Ferndale stranded at North Beach, fifteen miles north of Grays Harbor, at 3 o’clock in the morning. My husband (Edward White) and I saw the vessel at break of day … and he went down to the beach with his gun and fired signals. I followed and climbed on a big (tree) root about twenty feet high, which had been thrown on the beach by the waves. The sea was so terrible that a boat could not have lived in it …
“After watching for an hour we saw the masts go over, one after another, and then we realized that some of the sailors were coming ashore. Nine men went down on the mizzen mast and were never seen again, but the others had life-preservers.
“My husband gave me the shotgun and told me to signal to him when I saw any men coming ashore, as there was such a thick fog that we could not see any distance. He then went down the beach about half a mile to watch for any of the men who might come ashore. After a while I saw a sailor thrown up on the last breaker. … I jumped into the water and helped him up to the sand ridge and then went back to the big root.
“Then I saw another man float in unconscious, and waded in and lifted him up out of the water. He could not speak, but he tried to put his hands together to thank me. I floated him ashore and put him on the beach and went back again. I saw something away off in the water which looked like a man.
“I took off my upper garments, because the wet sand which clung to them was very heavy, and waded in after the man. I had just got hold of him, to all appearances dead, when we were struck by a big breaker, which washed us in. I was unconscious at first, but soon came to, and dragged the sailor up on the sand ridge. Then my husband came and found me lying on the sand, and said to me: ‘You have killed yourself to save these men.’”
Martha White was recognized for her heroism and received several medals for courage and bravery. Her life of bravery continued after losing her husband Edward. She remarried and moved with her husband to the Alaskan Territory to search for gold. She was the first white woman to enter the Territory. She and her husband did make their fortune in the Alaskan gold fields and lived a very comfortable life.
The S.S. Catala: A Shipwreck Legend in Ocean Shores
The S.S. Catala was designed and built in Scotland in 1925 for the Canadian Union Steamship company as a cruise and tramp steamer to serve the British Columbia Inland Passage.
In 1927 the ship hit Sparrowhawk Reef off the coast of British Columbia and was considered a total loss. Finally, all the insurance and shipping company issues were resolved. The ship was able to be salvaged by blasting the rock pillars holding her and repairing the damaged hull the ship was returned to service at a cost of about $175,000 or over $2.5 million in today’s costs.
Over 30 years later she was sold to new owners planning to use her as a fish buying ship. By 1962 the new owners found a new purpose for her as boatel at the Seattle World’s Fair. Once the fair ended she was moved to California to be a floating restaurant but that venture lasted just a few months.
The developers of the Ocean Shores Real Estate Company saved her from the boneyard. She again became a boatel for the charter fishing fleet in the fledgling resort development known as Ocean Shores. And was advertised as accommodating overnight guests, enjoying dining and the activities of several lounges plus fishing for salmon all aboard the beautiful refurbished boat.
A billboard at the development’s entrance advertised “sleep on the floating hotel Catala, eat in the Chart Room, 2 for $7.50 five miles ahead.
The ship capsized in a New Year’s Day storm in 1965, and salvage efforts were unsuccessful. For many years, the Catala remained on Damon Point at the southern tip of the Ocean Shores peninsula, serving as Washington State’s most frequently visited shipwreck.
Following numerous accidents aboard the derelict vessel, including a young girl falling through the deck, injuring her back, and the state of Washington settling a lawsuit salvage wrecking efforts were again begun. The ship was torn down to sand level and buried. The accretion of sands in the area covered the ship and she was soon forgotten.
In 1999, almost to the hour, erosion exposed the remains of the ship, over 30 years after she capsized and again tourists came to see the famous ship.
In 2006, a beachcomber exploring the wreckage poked a piece of driftwood into an opening on the hull and noticed a thick black sludge dripping from the stick. They struck oil!
This got the attention of the Department of Ecology and teaming up with over a dozen city, county, state, and federal agencies formulated a plan to remove the oil. A two-year oil recovery and salvage operation, costing $7.2 million dollars, was the most expensive recovery operation conducted by the state until the 2011 salvage of the Davy Crockett on the Columbia River.
Epilogue from author Joann Lacy
You have made a 500-year journey from Magellan entering the mighty Pacific Ocean in 1520 to the present and you have survived.
Thank you for reading my shipwreck ramblings, I hope they give you a better appreciation for the beauty, power and danger of the Pacific Ocean. Thank you to the Museum of the North Beach in Moclips; Coastal Interpretive Center in Ocean Shores; and the Polson Museum in Hoquiam for opening up their archives for my research.
I encourage you to visit all three of them. They have an incredible amount of information on the history of North Beach and Grays Harbor.
And as a final note I have scratched an around-the-world cruise off my bucket list.
Shipwreck presentation
The Polson Museum in Hoquiam invites the public to join local historian Joann Lacy this Saturday, Nov. 2 at 1 p.m. for an afternoon talk and slideshow on her recent research regarding shipwrecks on Grays Harbor.
Lacy has spent considerable time collecting photographs of wrecks on our coast and in Grays Harbor and has gathered the news stories, vessel statistics and geographical location information on wrecks dating from the 19th century on. Admission to the program is free of charge. The Polson is located at 1611 Riverside Ave. For more information, call 360-533-5862.
