Stranded (13 page)

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 alarm. 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.

At 8:00 p.m., on board the
Peterson
, Captain Stidham finally saw the lights of another ship approaching. It was the
Cedar
; a two hundred-foot United States Lighthouse steamer equipped with a wireless set.
[23]
With the winds intensifying, and satisfied that his help would not be needed during the night, Captain Stidham sailed the
Peterson
fourteen miles to Shelter Island, where he spent the night at anchor, protected from the worst of the weather.

Commanded by John Leadbetter, the
Cedar
was substantially larger than the other rescue ships that had been coming to and from the wreck throughout the day. As the largest tender ever built for the United States Lighthouse Service, her size and four on-board lifeboats could greatly expedite rescue efforts. In an emergency, up to four hundred people — everyone currently on board the
Princess Sophia —
could be placed aboard this one ship.

Approaching the wreck as close as he dared, Leadbetter shone his searchlights on the Canadian Pacific ship, illuminating her stranded hulk from the darkness that surrounded it. A strong wind from the northwest had picked back up and was whipping the water into little whitecaps that hit Leadbetter's searchlights, disintegrating into mist as the wind picked the spray up and flung it across the curved windows of the wheelhouse. The snow had also restarted and sporadic flakes joined the spray, obscuring his visibility. Leadbetter switched the searchlights off, and
Princess Sophia
disappeared momentarily. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, only her running lights and deck lights could be seen.

Since the
Cedar
was equipped with a wireless apparatus, Leadbetter wired Captain Locke on the
Princess Sophia
to ask if her passengers were safe. Locke replied that they were. Leadbetter then had his wireless operator, Elwood Miller, ask Captain Locke if would he like the
Cedar
to standby and remain underway for the duration of the night, ready to assist; or could he anchor the
Cedar
on Benjamin Island, just a few nautical miles away?

Weary after a long day at the key tapping out emergency messages, the response from wireless operator Robinson was already unenthusiastic:

CAN ANCHOR IF CARE TO. CAN DO NOTHING TONIGHT.

The message had barely reached Miller's key when the lights on the ship they had been shadowing for a little over half an hour suddenly began to flicker. Without warning, they were completely extinguished. Not even the
Princess Sophia
's running lights remained on. Noticing the change, Captain Leadbetter rushed to the windows and peered out into the darkness as Miller frantically began tapping out another message to Robinson. It went answered.

At 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 24, 1918, the 343 passengers and crew aboard the
Princess Sophia
were plunged into total darkness. It would be their longest — and last — night alive.

0100 HRS, JUNE 23, 1995

ON BOARD
STAR PRINCESS
IN LYNN CANAL

On the starboard side of the darkened bridge on board Princess Cruises'
Star Princess
, Alaska State Pilot Robert Nerup quietly looked up from the radar console where he has been perched since his colleague, Pilot Ronald Kutz, had departed the bridge five minutes earlier. He was disturbed by what he saw on the radar, but a quick scan of the view wasn't all that helpful in the fading light. Something was amiss; the ship wasn't where he expected her to be. The mid-channel manoeuvre in Lynn Canal had left
Star Princess
about one nautical mile off her plotted course. To remedy the situation and bring
Star Princess
back on her intended track, Pilot Nerup ordered the vessel's course altered from 143°T to 126°T. The quartermaster complied, and
Star Princess
once again began to turn.

Fifteen minutes later, at 1:15 in the morning, Nerup put the electronic bearing line (EBL) on his radar. Intended to show the vessel's eventual track if maintained on any given course, the EBL is a useful tool for lining the ship up against a given radar plot. In this case, Nerup kept the EBL on the radar screen and ordered another course change, this time to 156°T — a heading he kept the
Star Princess
on until the EBL on his screen had passed over the location of the Poundstone Rock buoy.

Nerup believed that the thirty degree course correction should have placed
Star Princess
one full cable — six hundred feet — to the east of Poundstone Rock. Still not quite as much clearance as Pilot Nerup would have liked, so he ordered another course correction, this time to 155°T. He wanted
Star Princess
to pass at least two cables — twelve hundred feet — east of Poundstone Rock, the minimum safe distance Nerup was comfortable with. At this point passing to the west of Poundstone Rock was no longer an option.
Star Princess
was already crossing Vanderbilt Reef on the east side. “Once you pass Vanderbilt [on the east side],” he would later testify, “I don't feel that the option to go to west [of Poundstone Rock] is open any longer.”
[1]

Having sailed this route so many times in the past, Nerup likely knew about the
Princess Sophia
accident and the checkered history of Lynn Canal, but his colleagues on the bridge probably didn't realize their vessel was crossing over the graveyard of Alaska's worst maritime disaster. The bridge was silent as Vanderbilt Reef glided slowly past the ship's starboard side at 01:15 in the morning.

Ten minutes later another obstacle cropped up. Ahead of the
Star Princess
the deck and navigation lights of another vessel suddenly came into view. Pilot Nerup saw it and established that it was heading toward them based on the positioning of the ship's red and green navigation lights mounted to both the starboard and port-side bridge wings. It was still off in the distance — probably nine and a half miles — and looked to Nerup as if it was abeam of Aaron Island, six miles to the south of Sentinel Island.

The ship approaching them was the
Fair Princess
— a smaller, older cruise ship belonging to Princess Cruises. She was headed north through Lynn Canal bound for her scheduled port of call in Skagway, where she was due to arrive later on in the morning. As he watched the new ship, Nerup saw her navigation lights “open” — a term for when both the port and starboard navigation lights are no longer visible. Instead, Nerup saw the masthead light of the
Fair Princess
, along with her red port-side navigation light. The experienced Alaska State pilot assumed that
Fair Princess
had altered her course to allow for both vessels to pass
port-to
-port, or left side to left side.

Still, Pilot Nerup wasn't sure what exactly the
Fair Princess
intended to do. He couldn't tell if she intended to pass Poundstone Rock — which lay ahead of the
Star Princess
— on the east or west side. The previously plotted track for
Star Princess
called for the vessel to pass to the east of Poundstone Rock. As things stood, Nerup thought
Fair Princess
might attempt to squeeze through the channel on the eastern side of Poundstone Rock as well. Despite the uncertainty surrounding her intended course and actions, Pilot Nerup made no effort to call the
Fair Princess
using the ship's
bridge-to
-bridge VHF radiotelephone. Nerup assumed that both vessels were taking the appropriate actions to pass each other safely, and that no further clarification was needed. Essentially, he believed an accident was impossible.

Nerup's decision actually contravened the recommendations of the
Bridge-to
-Bridge Radiotelephone Act of the United States. Applicable to all vessels operating in navigable waters of the United States, the regulation requires vessels to transmit any and all information necessary for save navigation. Someone on either ship should have picked up the
bridge-to
-bridge radiotelephone. No one did. A single radio call would have told Pilot Nerup exactly what he needed to know. Instead, he continued to stare out the windows of the bridge, concentrating on what — if anything — the
Fair Princess
intended to do.

At 01:30, Third Officer Alcaras took another reading of the current position of the
Star Princess
and plotted it on the ship's navigation chart. He noticed that the ship is still roughly 0.3 miles west of her intended track, which had been approved by the master at the start of the season. Third Officer Alcaras wasn't particularly concerned; the deviation was a minor one, and he had sailed with Pilot Nerup before. He glanced over at Nerup, who was staring intently out the window. Satisfied that the Alaska State pilot had the situation under control, Third Officer Alcaras returned to his charts.

Second Officer Landi also knew that his ship is running due west of where she should be, but he was also not concerned. Later, both Second Officer Landi and Third Officer Alcaras would testify that neither spoke up because Pilot Nerup “… was piloting the vessel. He [was] a professional; he [knew] where we should be. He [had] been [there] before [and] he [was] making the necessary course changes.”
[2]

As if to confirm both Second Officer Landi and Third Officer Alcaras's thoughts, Pilot Nerup ordered yet another course change at 01:35. He had the quartermaster place the
Star Princess
on a heading of 153°T. The helmsman complied, and
Star Princess
began to turn. The event is recorded on the ship's voyage event recorder (EVR), which had been monitoring and noting the ship's technical performance all evening.

Despite the course correction, the heading still left
Star Princess
on a course that was closer to the Poundstone Rock buoy than Pilot Nerup would've liked. On a heading of 153°T, the vessel will pass the buoy on her starboard side with less than two cables, or twelve hundred feet, of clearance. If the
Fair Princess
wasn't there, Nerup would have put
Star Princess
as much as eight degrees farther to the west, on a course of 145°T. But with the oncoming ship in his way, Pilot Nerup didn't have that option.

On board the
Fair Princess
, the pilot was able to visually identify
Star Princess
. Travelling at 17.5 knots through the darkness, she was travelling on her own constant heading of 336°T. The pilot aboard
Fair Princess
felt that both ships would pass with about half a mile in between them, at a point just south of Poundstone Rock. He noticed that
Star Princess
was travelling on a course that would take her very close to the Poundstone Rock buoy, but he did not attempt to call the ship to inquire if that was intentioned. Like Pilot Nerup, the pilot on board the
Fair Princess
assumed the passage would go smoothly. Still, he made a point of not ordering any sudden or major course corrections that might spook the bridge team aboard
Star Princess
and give them reason to worry. Slow and steady wins this race.

At 01:40, Pilot Nerup stood up from his chair on the starboard side of the navigation bridge and walked over to the centre of the room. He stared out the window that ran directly along the centreline of the ship, overlooking the exact tip of the bow many decks below him.
Fair Princess
was two miles away and closing, and Nerup's attention was divided between the approaching ship and the oncoming buoy for Poundstone Rock.

Second Officer Landi was standing just to the right of Pilot Nerup, on the starboard side of the bridge near the navigation console. Third Officer Alcaras was hunched over the radar screen on the same side of the bridge. As it approached the ship, both Pilot Nerup and Second Officer Landi lost sight of the buoy. The time was 01:42.

Suddenly the routine silence on the bridge was shattered by a low, grinding, rumbling that came from deep within the hull. Second Officer Landi felt the floor shake. Pilot Robert Nerup felt it too and wondered what the problem was. He immediately made his way over to the starboard side of the bridge and opened the door to the exposed bridge wing. Second Officer Landi had also crossed over the wheelhouse floor, and joined Pilot Nerup on the starboard bridge wing. From their vantage point, high above the sea, both men were able to see the Poundstone Rock buoy glide underneath the bridge wing and begin to fall astern of the still-moving ship, which had dropped to a speed of just 3.5 knots in a matter of seconds.

Alaska State pilot Robert K. Nerup immediately realized what had happened. At almost two in the morning, while the majority of her passengers and crew were sleeping soundly,
Star Princess
had collided with Poundstone Rock. Nerup was sure of that. The real question was: how badly damaged was she?