King & Winge (fishing schooner)

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The King & Winge was one of the most famous ships ever built in Seattle. Built in 1914, in the next 70 years she had participated in a famous Arctic rescue, been present at a great maritime tragedy, and been employed as a halibut schooner, a rum runner, and a pilot boat.

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[edit] Construction

King & Winge was originally a powered halibut schooner built by the King and Wing shipyard in West Seattle in 1914. She was designed by Albert M. Winge, co-owner of the shipyard.[1] Her dimensions were 143 tons, 97' length on the deck (110' overall), 19.6' beam and 9.7 depth of hold. As built she was fitted with a 140 horsepower Corliss gasoline engine and an electric lighting system. She had two 60' high masts, and carried nine halibut dories. The construction was very strong, with 4x4 ½ inch oak frames, each set six inches apart, and sheathed with planking three inches thick, covered with another layer of ironbark sheathing. The schooner was divided into three watertight compartments, her hull was heavily braced, and her bow was nosed with steel-plates for ice work.

[edit] Rescue of the Stefansson expedition

While her builders had planned to put King & Winge in the halibut fishery, she was chartered before construction was complete by the Hibbard-Swenson Co. for an expedition to the Arctic for hunting, trading, and making a motion picture.

Captain Olaf Swenson and C. L. Hibbard took King & Winge up to Nome, where they found the U.S. revenue cutter Bear, Earlier that season, Bear had attempted to rescue the Stefansson expedition survivors, stranded in the Arctic since the sinking of their ship Karluk, crushed by ice in the Chukchi Sea in January. Bear had been forced to abandon the rescue effort by weather conditions and return to Nome to refuel. Swenson returned to Seattle for business reasons, but Hibbard and the navigator A.P. Jochkimson decided to go to Wrangel Island to look for the survivors, leaving a day ahead of the Bear.

Once arriving at Rogers Harbor, on September 7, they found and took on board the three survivors there, and then went through huge ice flows to Waring Point, where they took on board nine more. Sailing back south, they met the Bear and turned over the rescued men to the coast guard cutter.[2]

[edit] Wreck of the Princess Sophia

In October 1918, the King & Winge was present at one of the great tragedies of Alaskan maritime history, the wreck of the Princess Sophia. On October 23, 1918, coming south down Lynn Canal south from Skagway in a snowstorm, the Princess Sophia had struck Vanderbilt Reef, not far from the Sentinel Island Light. She was hung up high on the reef for a considerable time, and her captain apparently thought that she could be floated off at the next high tide. Consequently no attempt was made to transfer the passengers to the King & Winge or the lighthouse tender Cedar, which, with a large number of smaller vessels, had heard of the wreck and gone to the Sophia’s aid. The sea conditions were bad, and any attempted transfer would have been risky in any case. Overnight, however, the wind came up, and the Sophia was washed off Vanderbilt Reef and sank with all 343 people aboard. Only the upper part of her mast remained above the water. All that the Cedar and the King & Winge could do was pick up floating bodies and take them to Juneau. [3]

[edit] Rum-running career

The King & Winge’s history in the early 1920s is reported to be obscure[4] What facts are known is that at some point King and Winge sold her, and an effort was made to run her as a pilot boat at Cape Flattery, at the western entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. She had several owners in that time, and had become legally encumbered as security for a loan. In 1922, she was sold to Northwest Trust & Savings Bank to satisfy the loan.[5] In 1923, she was sold at auction to Roy Olmstead and T.J. Clarke, two former policeman who had opted for a substantially more lucrative career in the rum-running business, Prohibition having recently come into law. Clarke and Olmstead tried and failed to reregister the King & Winge as a Canadian vessel, and so the King & Winge passed into the possession of the Columbia Bar Pilot’s Association.

[edit] Columbia bar pilot boat

King and Winge was the Columbia bar pilot boat from 1924 to 1958. She was called the Columbia by the pilot’s association. In 1924, the King & Winge was converted from gasoline to diesel power.[6] She served under the command of Captain F.E. Craig, who estimated he’d made more than 50,000 crossings of the bar in her. [7]

[edit] Later history

In 1958, Dr Clyde C. Parlova of Astoria, Oregon bought King & Winge from the pilot’s association, with the objective of restoring her to as a sailing ship. How much progress Dr. Parlova made is not known, but late 1961, Jack Elsbree, of Seattle, a retired airline pilot, bought the King and Winge from him and brought her up to Lake Union in Seattle, with the same objective, that is, of restoring her to her original state.[8]

The King & Winge survived into modern times, sinking in 18 foot seas, 22 miles West of St. Paul island on February 23, 1994. Attempts to save the flooding vessel failed and all four crew members were rescued by the USCG cutter Hamilton.[9]

[edit] See also

Vilhjalmur Stefansson

[edit] External links

[edit] Photographs

[edit] References

  1. ^ Jacobi, Wayne, “King & Winge: Versatile Ship Comes Home,” Seattle Times, January 5, 1962, page 33.
  2. ^ McCurdy, at 242-243
  3. ^ McCurdy, at 299-300, provides an extensive recollection of Captain Leadbetter, who was in command of the Cedar.
  4. ^ Jacobi
  5. ^ McCurdy, at 322
  6. ^ McCurdy, at 366
  7. ^ Jacobi
  8. ^ Jacobi
  9. ^ MMS Shipwreck Database, http://www.mms.gov/alaska/ref/ships/INDEX.HTM Retrieved on 23 April 2008.