Canadian steel-built passenger liner
SS "Princess Sophia" was a steel-built passenger liner in the coastal service fleet of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Along with , , and , "Princess Sophia" was one of four similar ships built for CPR during 1910-1911.
On 25 October 1918, "Princess Sophia" sank after grounding on Vanderbilt Reef in Lynn Canal near Juneau, Territory of Alaska. All 364 persons on the ship died, making the wreck of "Sophia" the worst maritime accident in the history of British Columbia and Alaska.
Inside Passage.
Beginning in 1901, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) ran a line of steamships on the west coast of Canada and the southeast coast of Alaska. The route from Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia, ran through the winding channels and fjords along the coast, stopping at the principal towns for passengers, cargo, and mail. This route is still important today and is called the Inside Passage. Major ports of call along the Inside Passage include Prince Rupert and Alert Bay in British Columbia, and Wrangell, Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway in Alaska.
The coastal liner.
Many different types of vessels navigated the Inside Passage, but the dominant type on longer routes was the "coastal liner". A coastal liner was a vessel which if necessary could withstand severe ocean conditions, but in general was expected to operate in relatively protected coastal waters. For example, as a coastal liner, "Princess Sophia" would only be licensed to carry passengers within of the coastline. Coastal liners carried both passengers and freight, and were often the only link that isolated coastal communities had with the outside world. Originally coastal liners were built of wood, and continued to be so built until well after the time when ocean liners had moved to iron and then steel construction. After several shipwrecks in the Inside Passage and other areas of the Pacific Northwest showed the weakness of wooden hulls, CPR switched over to steel construction for all new vessels.
"Sophia" was also referred to as a "pocket liner" because she offered amenities like a great ocean liner, but on a smaller scale. The ship was part of the CPR "Princess fleet", which was composed of ships having names which began with the title "Princess".
Design and construction.
"Princess Sophia" was a steamship of  gross register tons (GRT) and  net register tons (NRT), built by Bow, McLachlan and Company at Paisley, Scotland, United Kingdom. A strong, durable vessel, she was built of steel with a double hull. "Sophia" was capable of handling more than just the Inside Passage, as her use on the stormy west coast of Vancouver Island demonstrated. She was equipped with wireless communications and full electric lighting. While not as luxurious as her fleet-mates serving the Pacific Northwest, "Sophia" was comfortable throughout, particularly in first class. She had a forward observation lounge panelled in maple, a social hall with a piano for first-class passengers, and a 112-seat dining room with large windows for observing the coastal scenery.
Princess Sophia was launched in November 1911 and completed in 1912. She was brought around Cape Horn by Captain Albert Adolphus Lindgren (1862–1916), who had also brought two other CPR coastal liners, and , out from Scotland on the same route. As built, "Sophia" burned coal; however, the vessel was converted to oil fuel shortly after arrival in British Columbia. At the time of her sinking, Captain Leonard Locke (1852–1918) commanded her, with Captain Jeremiah Shaw (1875–1918) as second in command.
Routes.
On arrival "Sophia" was put on the route from Victoria to Prince Rupert. The following summer CPR assigned her to run once every two weeks from Victoria to Skagway, Alaska, alternating with "Princess May" and stopping in Prince Rupert along the way. Occasionally "Sophia" was diverted to other routes, such as an excursion to Bellingham, Washington, United States. When Canada entered the Great War in 1914, early wartime economic disruption resulted in a sharp decline of business for the CPR fleet and a number of vessels, including "Sophia", were temporarily taken out of service by November 1914. "Sophia" and other CPR vessels transported troops raised for service in Europe.
On 12 September 1918, "Sophia" struck the United States Bureau of Fisheries fishery patrol vessel while "Auklet" was moored at Juneau, Alaska. "Auklet" suffered significant damage to her deckhouse.
Final voyage.
On 23 October 1918, "Princess Sophia" departed Skagway, Alaska, at 22:10, more than three hours behind schedule. She was due to stop at Juneau and Wrangell, Alaska, the next day; Ketchikan, Alaska, and Prince Rupert, on 25 October; Alert Bay on 26 October; and Vancouver on 27 October. On board were 75 crew and about 268 passengers, including families of troops serving overseas, miners, and crews of sternwheelers that had finished operations for the winter. Fifty women and children were on the passenger list, including the wife and children of gold speculator John Beaton.
Four hours after leaving Skagway, while proceeding south down Lynn Canal, "Sophia" encountered heavy blinding snow driven by a strong and rising northwest wind. Captain Locke navigated the canal at full speed, possibly in an attempt to make up time. Due to the prevailing snowy conditions, the crew was required to use dead reckoning by blowing the ship's whistle and making calculations as to their location within the canal, based on the time it took for the echo of the whistle to return. The ship was at least off course.
Vanderbilt Reef.
Ahead of "Sophia" lay a rock called Vanderbilt Reef, the tip of an underwater mountain that rose from the bottom of Lynn Canal. At high tide the rock might be awash or almost invisible under swells. At low tide it looked like a low table, with its highest point standing above the water at extreme low tide. At the time, Vanderbilt Reef was at extreme high tide and was unlit. The channel at this point was about wide, but the presence of the reef narrowed the main navigation channel to on its east side. This area, with deep waters, strong currents, rocky cliff faces, and narrow fjords is dangerous for ships. Tides regularly bring ships dangerously close to the shore. In bad weather, winds in the canal quickly become gales.
Navigation aids.
Vanderbilt Reef itself was marked with an unlit buoy, which of course would have been invisible at night. There was a staffed lighthouse at Sentinel Island about to the south. The light station on Sentinel Island had an area of sheltered water that was used for the station's wharf. "Princess Sophia" passed another staffed light station at Eldred Rock, the Eldred Rock Light, 30 miles south of Skagway. Keepers at both light stations kept weather logs, which became useful later in reconstructing the events of the next two days. The dock at Sentinel Island was used as a staging point by the vessels attempting rescue of the "Princess Sophia" on 24 and 25 October 1918.
Grounding.
Heading south through Lynn Canal, "Princess Sophia" drifted about off course, and at 02:00 on 24 October 1918, "Princess Sophia" struck ground hard on Vanderbilt Reef, south of Skagway. A letter later recovered from the body of a passenger, Signal Corps Private Auris W. McQueen, described the scene on board just after the grounding: "Two women fainted and one of them got herself into a black evening dress and didn't worry about who saw her putting it on. Some of the men, too, kept life preservers on for an hour or so and seemed to think there was no chance for us."
First distress call sent.
The wireless operator on "Princess Sophia" sent out a distress call immediately. Wireless was weak in those days. The distress signal could not reach much farther than Juneau. The message did reach Juneau however, and by 2:15am the local CPR shipping agent was awakened with the news. He immediately began organizing a rescue flotilla from the boats in the harbor.
Stranded on the reef.
High tide came at 06:00 on 24 October. The wind had lessened, but "Princess Sophia" was still stuck fast on the reef. Low tide came at about noon. The wind and waves forced "Princess Sophia" even farther up onto the reef, but fortunately the vessel's double hull was not breached. At low tide on the reef the entire hull of "Princess Sophia" was completely out of the water. The barometer was rising, which indicated a possible improvement in the weather. With the next high tide at 16:00, and the seas so rough that any evacuation would be hazardous, Locke chose to wait to see if he could get the vessel off. This proved impossible. Without a tug, or more likely two or three tugs, "Princess Sophia" could never be taken off the reef. Worse yet, the passengers could not be evacuated from the vessel without life-threatening danger. At low tide "Princess Sophia" was surrounded on both sides by exposed rock. At high tide, the rock was awash, but the swells were such that a lifeboat would strike the rocks as the waves pounded up and down.
Similar wrecks.
While there had been many shipwrecks and groundings over the years, and it was the rare vessel that did not run aground or have some problem of this nature, two shipwrecks would have been foremost in the minds of Captain Locke and his officers, as well as other senior captains and officers among the rescue vessels, like Captains Ledbetter of and Miller of . These two wrecks, of in 1904 and "Princess May" in 1910, showed well the dilemma faced by Captain Locke in making a decision whether to evacuate "Princess Sophia".
In fine weather and smooth seas on 5 August 1910, , another CPR steamship, grounded on Sentinel Island within sight of Vanderbilt Reef. All aboard were evacuated to the nearby light station, and the vessel itself was later removed from the rock with relatively minor damage. It was "Princess May" that CPR dispatched on hearing of the grounding of "Princess Sophia" to pick up her passengers who they presumed would be soon evacuated. While "Princess May"'s grounding had been in early August, and not late October, still there were other vessels with the "Princess Sophia" and the stranded ship seemed to be secure.
The disaster of "Clallam" showed the dangers of a premature evacuation of people from a vessel into lifeboats. "Clallam", a new vessel when she foundered, was sunk in a storm on what should have been an ordinary voyage across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Victoria, British Columbia. "Clallam" (168 feet, 657 tons), was a smaller vessel than "Sophia" and built of wood. Like "Princess Sophia", "Clallam" was driven by a single propeller turned by a compound steam engine. En route to Victoria on 8 January 1904, "Clallam", under the command of Captain George Roberts, encountered severe weather conditions. At about 3:30 p.m., with water rising on board apparently from a broken porthole and improper pumping procedures, "Clallam" seemed as if it would soon sink. Captain Roberts ordered the lifeboats lowered, and into them placed mostly women and children. All three boats capsized or failed to properly launch, drowning all 54 people aboard them. "Clallam" stayed afloat long enough for rescue vessels to reach her and evacuate the people left on board.
Decision not to evacuate.
Locke warned off James Davis, captain of the fishing vessel "Estebeth", who attempted and then abandoned an effort to reach "Sophia" in a skiff. Davis moored his vessel by tying up to the Vanderbilt Reef marker buoy, which was then in the lee of "Princess Sophia" and protected from the worst force of the weather. The desperation of the situation was obvious to Davis and the other captains of the small boats at the scene. "Princess Sophia" had been seriously damaged striking the reef, with a hole in her bow that water ran in and out of at a rate that Davis estimated at 200 or 300 gallons per minute. With no apparent way to evacuate passengers, and "Princess Sophia" stuck fast on the reef, the only thing that Davis and the other rescue boats could do was to wait to see if the weather would moderate enough to attempt an evacuation. Captain Locke, of "Sophia" was confident enough of his own vessel's safety to tell, via megaphone, "Estebeth" and "Amy", which were taking a pounding in the weather, that "Sophia" was safe and they should take shelter in a harbor.
Capt. J. W. Ledbetter, commander of the United States Lighthouse