Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Collision off Cape Flattery -- February 23, 2021

 

San Francisco Call, 14-September-1897

William A Coulter did many maritime drawings for the San Francisco Call. The article from the 13-September-1897 San Francisco Call describes a collision near Cape Flattery, Washington. 

COLLISION OFF CAPE FLATTERY
Ship Dashing Wave and Bark Topgallant in Trouble. The Former Lost Her Headgear, The Damage to the Bark Is Not Known.

A peculiar accident happened to the ship Dashing Wave and the bark Topgallant off the Straits of Juan de Fuca last week. Both vessels were lumber laden and bound for San Francisco. The tug Tyee took them in tow at Tacoma and when outside the straits blew her whistle notifying the master of the Topgallant to let go his hawser and make sail. The captain of the Dashing Wave misunderstood the signal and cast off the hawser which connected his vessel with the tug. The result was that the Dashing Wave drifted down on the Topgallant, did considerable damage to that vessel, carried away part of her own jibboom and nearly all of her own headgear. The collision took place about midnight and the exact damage done to the Topgallant could not be ascertained.

In connection with this collision the men on 'Change yesterday were coupling the news brought by the Norwegian tramp steamer Transit. The captain of the steamer reports that on the 9th instant, between the Columbia River and Cape Blanco, his vessel passed through pine lumber which covered an extent of ten miles. The lumber was not in a ten-mile mass, but was scattered in small quantities over that distance. The Topgallant was loaded with pine lumber and seafaring men think that as a result of her collision with the Dashing Wave the captain may have been compelled to jettison the deckload in order to ease the ship in the northwester that blew last week.

The only other vessel that is out as the Topgallant is the schooner Oceana Vance, also from Tacoma with pine lumber. There are others again who think that the lumber seen by the crew of the Transit came from the schooner Marion, which arrived here on the 9th inst, without a deckload and with only 20,000 feet of lumber in her hold. On January 12 last the Marion brought 350,000 feet of lumber from Grays Harbor, and then she was not fully loaded. On her arrival here the captain did not report the loss of his deckload, and as she went up the river direct there was no need of finding out whether or not it was part of her cargo sighted by the Transit.

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