Sept. 20, 1914, USRC Tahoma lost off Aleutian Islands

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Commissioned in 1909, the Revenue Service (precursor to the Coast Guard that was established in 1915) Cutter Tahoma was 1215 tons and 191 feet. Assigned to the Bering Sea Patrol, she sailed along the Alaskan coast each summer enforcing fisheries regulations and assisting with search and rescue missions. During winter months she would homeport at Port Townsend, WA and refit. 100 years ago tonight, September 20, 1914, her crew of 79 men and 8 passengers, including an Alaskan woman and her four small children, fared better than their ship after Tahoma ran aground on a mile-diameter, uncharted reef while steaming east about 31 mi. from the closest island on the south side of the western Aleutians. All through the night, Captain Richard O. Crisp and his crew tried in vain to free the reef-locked ship that was being battered into the rocks.

 

 

At 4 pm the next afternoon, with the sea breaching the hull, boilers drawn to prevent catastrophic explosion, pumps out, bow several feet underwater, stern deck high in the air and the spar deck listing 45°, Crisp ordered his crew and passengers to "abandon ship". Taking to the six small boats of varying sizes (and sail equippage) each commanded by one of his line officers, Crisp gave orders to rendez-vous at Agattu Island in MacDonald Bay, about 80 miles away. While the six small boats were unable to keep together as Crisp feared, five of the six reached Semichi or Agattu Islands, after being at sea between 3 and 5 days. The gig with 10 men (eight crew and two passengers) that Crisp himself commanded, was picked up at sea after 110 hours afloat. "But I have noticed that when a small calamity follows a big one, that you do not rail at it, but accept it as a matter of course." Captain Richard Owens Crisp, USCG.

 

For those that enjoy maritime reading or shipwreck tales (and some great pictures) the below article "Steaming to Disaster" published in 2007 provides an engrossing read that really brings the event to life, based on survivors' accounts. For shorter reads, other links follow.

 

http://nebula.wsimg.com/5255acc252c2f2be17a19bb8033f7457?AccessKeyId=49438A3D51EEABA12898&disposition=0&alloworigin=1

 

NY Times article:

 

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9D04E2D91638E633A25754C2A96F9C946596D6CF

 

Captain (later RADM) Crisp's (1861-1951) account of the event is riveting. A board of inquiry found that the captain and crew were blameless. Every precaution in navigating had been taken and every possible effort had been made to refloat the ship.

 

http://www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/Tahoma_1909.asp

http://books.google.com/books?id=8vg_AAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA3&dq=loss+of+the+united+states+revenue+cutter+tahoma&hl=en&sa=X&ei=absdVLmWL4rkoAT__YDIDg&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=loss%20of%20the%20united%20states%20revenue%20cutter%20tahoma&f=false

 

Log entries from one of the rescue ships, USC&GS Carlile P. Patterson:

 

http://forum.oldweather.org/index.php?topic=4004.0

 

 

Images: (1) ship in July 1909 at Yokohama during her "world cruise" from Camden, NJ where she was built to her homeport in the Pacific Northwest; (2) ship's crew in 1914; (3) ship locked on the reef and (4) some of the survivors.

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p2

[RustyCanteen]

Hi AB,

 

Very interesting story. Being shipwrecked is not a good thing, but to be adrift of the Aleutians is pretty bad!

 

Thank you for posting.

RC

[aerialbridge]

Hi RC,

 

Glad that you enjoyed this post. Navigating coastal waters by nature is a particularly risky business, as the loss of more than one cutter over the years and many merchant ships attests. Here's a period article on the wreck of the Tahoma from the Washington Times, Sept. 22, 1914. Best to you, AB.

[aerialbridge]

Whole page of above article

[Wharfmaster]

Great Story. No satellite links or helicopters in those days. To survive, you had to be self reliant.

 

 

W

[aerialbridge]

Great Story. No satellite links or helicopters in those days. To survive, you had to be self reliant.

 

 

W

 

It's amazing that 45 years after we put a man on the moon, here on earth inaccurate, outdated charts and even uncharted obstacles still exist. And particularly in Alaska, where there are over 180 known wrecks or groundings off the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.

 

http://www.amnwr.com/ShipwreckList.htm

 

"NOAA has identified 39,000 square miles of navigable U.S. waterways where charts are either inadequate or obsolete. These so-called critical areas include some of the busiest of this nation's coastal waters. Off Alaska, some are in waters that have never been charted. Yet today these waters are plied by the most worrisome of all commercial conveyances, the oil tanker. We finally learn that the big, the bad and the ugly is also partly blind.

 

''Alaska is a place that can get scary,'' Capt. Prahl [former acting director of Coast Survey, in the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] says. ''You can have one depth of 100 fathoms, and then all of a sudden up pops a rock depth of just a couple of fathoms.''

 

http://www.joc.com/maritime-news/case-reappearing-rock-and-other-uncharted-navigational-hazards_19980429.html

 

100 years ago, Capt. Richard Crisp and his experienced crew discovered that the hard way. As his ship steamed 31 miles south of Buldir Island in the Bering Sea, the government charts showed him in 1000 fathoms of water, more than a mile deep. And the next instant- disaster. And in 2014, for a different ship and crew, it could still happen.

[PaulR]

The links require a membership to read... :-(

 

Regardless, a very interesting thread. I did not know about the 1914 grounding of the RCS TAHOMA.

[aerialbridge]

The links require a membership to read... :-(

 

Regardless, a very interesting thread. I did not know about the 1914 grounding of the RCS TAHOMA.

 

Paul, if you want to read that last article that says you have to register when you click on the link, try this. Cut and paste the below title of the article into a Google search. When it comes up at the head of the list, click on it and you should have the full article.

THE CASE OF THE REAPPEARING ROCK, AND OTHER UNCHARTED NAVIGATIONAL HAZARDS