Stranded (14 page)

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1918

ABOARD
PRINCESS SOPHIA
ON VANDERBILT REEF, ALASKA

When the lights went off aboard the
Princess Sophia
, everyone immediately assumed the worst. Aboard the
Cedar
, Captain Leadbetter's first thought was that the ship had begun to founder. Nearby, on the
King & Winge
, Captain Davis was thinking along similar lines. He had the engines put on “slow ahead” and gradually crept closer to the wreck, ordering his men to keep a watchful eye for any evacuation efforts.

Finally the lights aboard the
Princess Sophia
began to faintly flicker. “Every once in a while, we would see a faint light on the vessel, which would flicker and go out,”
[1]
said Juneau reporter and accountant J. Clark Readman. From his perch on the deck of the
King & Winge
, Readman tried to discern what, if anything, he was seeing amongst the blowing snow obscuring his vision. “We could not tell whether they were trying to put up rockets, or whether it was a lantern, or what it was. It was quite a faint light … and things remained about in that condition until daylight.”
[2]

The sudden plunge into darkness had the same disconcerting effect on
Princess Sophia
's passengers and crew. The darkness removed one of the few remnants of safety. Everyone was left fumbling around in the pitch-dark confines of the ship, causing many cries of confusion. Captain Locke quickly sent crew down into the hull to sound the ship. To his relief, they returned with the word that a steam pipe had broken, depriving
Princess Sophia
of fuel for her electrical generators. Locke and his officers quickly took charge, explaining the situation to the worried passengers crowding the ship's social hall and ornate staircase that ran between the awning and promenade decks. Lanterns were affixed to her exterior and interior decks until a permanent solution could be found.

Around 10:00 p.m., wireless operator Robinson got the
Princess Sophia
's battery set to work long enough to tap out a message to Captain Leadbetter on the
Cedar
, the only vessel near the stricken ship that is also fitted with a wireless apparatus. The communication reaffirmed Leadbetter's belief that
Princess Sophia
was firmly wedged on Vanderbilt Reef. They agreed to attempt to take off passengers at four in the morning. At 11:45 p.m. the message was passed from Juneau Radio to Frank Lowle, Canadian Pacific's man in Juneau, who had been alternating between work and sleep all evening, along with his assistant, Smeaton. The two settled in to sleep in their offices until the rescue effort began in the early morning hours.

The
Cedar
, shown here in the mid-1930s, was commanded by the indefatigable Captain John W. Leadbetter at the time of the
Princess Sophia
's sinking.
Cutter History File WAGL-207, USCG Historian's Office, USCG HQ, Washington, D.C.

Few shots of the
Princess Sophia
's interior spaces survive, but this shot of the forward lounge and staircase aboard
Princess May
are a near match in terms of the layout and interior design aboard the
Princess Sophia
.
City of Vancouver Archives AM54-S4-: Bo P434.2.

On Friday, October 25th, shortly after 4:00 a.m., Captain Leadbetter ordered the
Cedar
's anchor raised. While snow squalls still obscured his view periodically, the real trouble was the wind, which had increased substantially since the night before and was whipping the seas into a frenzy. Captain Leadbetter guided the
Cedar
back toward Vanderbilt Reef, but was unable to see the
Princess Sophia
. Evidently the steam pipe had not yet been repaired, as her deck lights were still extinguished.

With her lights out and the weather worsening, the planned early morning rescue effort was abandoned before it could even start. At 5:50 a.m. the
Cedar
messaged Juneau Radio, stating that nothing could be done until daybreak at the very least, owing to the miserable sea conditions. The operator in Juneau passed the message on to Frank Lowle, advising him that the
Cedar
would provide another update at eight a.m. Lowle leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes; once again he was in the unenviable position of having to break the news to Captain James Troup, Canadian Pacific's superintendent of British Columbia coastal steamers.

In Victoria, Captain Troup's demeanour bordered on apoplectic. Wireless communications with Juneau had been unreliable at best, and what few messages were making it down to the provincial capital were almost universally bad news. While some messages made it through in decent time, others were getting garbled up or simply lost in the shuffle. On several occasions, Troup was simply unable to message Juneau due to the amount of wireless traffic zipping back and forth between the ships and the offices in Skagway, Juneau, and Victoria.

An excellent example of this had occurred the night before. At 7:00 p.m. Lowle sent a message to Captain Troup, advising him that
Princess Sophia
was resting securely on Vanderbilt Reef and was unable to float off at high tide. He outlined the various vessels that were around the stricken ship, standing by to take on passengers, but emphasized that this wasn't possible due to darkness and the increasingly poor weather conditions. By Friday morning that message still hadn't arrived in Captain Troup's hands. Although Lowle had left it with Juneau Radio, the Juneau office didn't find time to transmit it until 2:19 p.m., and it was four more hours before Captain Troup laid eyes on it. The total time for this wireless message, bearing Juneau serial number SRS 10825, to travel from point A to point B was a mind-numbing twenty-three hours.

————
—

At daybreak, Captain Leadbetter got his first good look at the
Princess Sophia
. Her entire bow was still completely clear of the water, and Leadbetter could see right down to her keel. He also noticed that even at almost high tide the water didn't even come within three feet of the draught marks that indicated the typical position of the waterline on the ship. Even more incredible, he noticed that the ship had managed to wedge herself into a crevasse on the reef, the sides of which rose up over eight feet above her keel.

Nearby, on the
King & Winge
, Captain James Miller noticed that the weather was vastly worse than the day before. Snow squalls developed and would blow hard for ten to fifteen minutes before disappearing again. Now that day had broken, Captain Miller manoeuvred his ship closer to the
Princess Sophia
. “I approached her as near as I could,” said Miller. “I got within 200 yards of her — probably not that far — I could see the men on deck, and I could see that they had sailors suits on, so I must have been pretty close to her.”
[3]

Glancing up at the massive hulk resting on Vanderbilt Reef, it became obvious to Miller that nothing could be done to rescue her passengers; at least, not at the moment. Because of the reef, Miller couldn't bring the
King & Winge
close enough to the stricken
Princess Sophia
to be of much help. He thought it might be possible to run a line down from the ship to the
King & Winge
to help guide his lifeboats to retrieve passengers, but even they would not be able to get close enough to render assistance. Passengers would have to jump in the water and take the chance that they would be picked up before hypothermia set in.

Like Captain Leadbetter on board the
Cedar
, Captain James Miller decided he would wait near the wreck, hopeful for a break in the weather so that they could safely begin transferring passengers off the stranded Canadian Pacific liner. “We came to the conclusion that his [Locke's] passengers were safer on the ship than to try to transfer them on board our boats on account of the weather.”
[4]

The morning's abandoned evacuation efforts evidently changed little in the shipboard routine aboard the
Princess Sophia
. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, passengers once again attempted to busy themselves to pass the time as quickly as possible. Were it not for the reef underneath them and the harsh winter climate outside, they could have very well been sailing down the Inside Passage toward Vancouver: the usual socializing took place in the observation lounge on the promenade deck, while many of the men no doubt retreated farther aft, to the cigar and leather-clad smoking room located in a separate deck house at the stern.

Wherever
thirty-five
-
year
-old United States Army Private Auris McQueen decided to sit down and write shortly after eight in the morning, he was apparently quite comfortable. Gathering a pen and some paper, he wrote a candid letter to his mother, giving it the title “In the Lynn Canal Off Skagway” and noting the date:
10-25
-18. Despite the fact that he had been stranded on board the
Princess Sophia
on Vanderbilt Reef for over thirty hours, his light mood was reflected in an opening joke:

The man who wrote “On a Slow Train Through Arkansas” could write a true story of a “Slow Trip Through Alaska” if he had been with a party of a few soldiers. We were sure making a slow trip. We were on a government steamer from Fort Gibbon to Whitehorse and had no pilot who knew the river, so had to tie up nights, and at that got stuck on six sand bars [
sic
].
[5]

The smoking room aboard the
Princess May
, photographed in April 1903, would have been similar in design and appearance to the same space on board the
Princess Sophia
.
City of Vancouver Archives AM54-S4-: Bo P434.3.