June, 2021
There was a nice low tide this morning around 10am down here on the Oregon coast. You better believe I was up early and again drove to the beach to get a look at that ship while the tide was out. Partly I was thrilled to see the ship up close, and yet partly it hurt my heart to see it stuck there, no longer floating free.
In the video in my last blog post, you may have noticed some “sticks” or “posts” sticking up out of the sand a long way off to the left, way behind the ship (see photo below … the bow of the ship is WAY off to the right of the photo below).
However … those aren’t just any old sticks or posts. Those “sticks” are part of the ship’s stern-most mast, near the aft or stern of the Peter Iredale. Those posts helped support the fourth or stern-most mast. The vessel didn’t end there at those posts but continued on for another several feet to the left. In fact, in the photo above, you can see the bottom of the third mast on the right side of the photo. She was a four-masted barque.
This was one long ship! She was 285 feet long, displaced 2,075 tons (that’s what she weighed when empty of cargo). She had four masts with royal sails above double top and top gallant sails. She was a beauty!
She was built in 1890 in Maryport, England, and had been in international shipping service for just 16 years. On October 25, 1906, she was driven onto the beach by a sudden heavy nor’wester squall. She ended up on the beach, less than four miles south of the entrance to the Columbia River. The captain and crew could do nothing to save her. No human lives were lost. But her life was lost.
She had sailed from Mexico just one month earlier with only ballast on board, no cargo, with 27 crew and, interestingly, two stowaways. After the grounding and loss of the ship, a Naval Court inquiry placed no blame on Captain Lawrence. This was, after all, the “graveyard of the Pacific” and innumerable ships had been driven ashore and wrecked prior to this one, and many more would be grounded and lost in subsequent years. In fact, this continues to be one of the most treacherous river bar crossings in the world even though we now have ships with huge diesel engines on board.
Not long after the Peter Iredale grounded, most of her steel and iron were sold to a local scrap yard. Much of her original structure was removed within the first several years. Her bowsprit (that long chunk of metal pointing out from the bow that was part of the support structure for the forward mast and spritsails) was removed in 1960 for fear it would fall and hurt someone.
Here’s what the Peter Iredale looked like in early 1960. The photo below shows about 40% of her length. Notice three of the support tubes for the three larger, forward masts in the photo below. One of them was still visible when I was here today. I’ll show it to you. But not much is left of this ship today.
On the other hand, they say the ship was almost completely enveloped by sand about 10-15 years ago, but they also say that global warming and rising sea levels have increased wave action such that the ocean is now removing sand from around the ship, so more of the ship is being exposed. A Park Ranger told me that the parts of the ship that are still buried are still relatively intact.
Hmmm, on the other hand, there’s sure not much left of the the parts that are above the sand. Wind, tide, UV, and human interaction … all take their toll.
Photo below … from the aft of the vessel looking to the bow.
Even those posts near the stern are interesting. I’m told they helped support the fourth, small stern mast.
And then I turned and walked forward towards the bow of the ship, walking along what had been the deck of the ship.
You can see the bottom “stumps” of what remain of the supports for the second and third masts.
Off to my right as I walked along, curving along where the right/starboard edge of the ship would have been, were the tops of the structure of the railings, or the tops of the structure of the side of the ship … steel and iron, now encrusted with barnacles.
To the left, on the left side of the ship, the photo below shows definite structure of the top of the left side, the port side, of the ship.
The photo below is looking down into the “stump” of the iron support tube that helped hold up the third mast. This “stump” was at least 2.5 feet across, maybe 3 feet.
Photo below, off to the left again, on the port side of the ship, was a longer section of the iron support tube that surrounded the bottom portion of the second mast. That iron support tube is still there, lying across the outer edge of the ship where it fell when it broke off, and yet much of that support structure is now buried in the sand.
And then I turned and faced the bow of the boat … and walked forward along the center line of what would have been the main deck of the vessel. You can see below how this ship lists/tilts where it lies.
In the photo above, you can see what’s left of the the iron support tube for the forward-most mast, along with some of the steel supports for what were the deck plates … all at an angle.
I took the photos below as I walked slowly around the forepeak and bow of the ship. She certainly was held solidly by the sand.
Imagine the power of the ocean that bent that iron beam.
Above, standing directly in front of the ship and looking straight-on at the bow of the ship, I so wanted to lift her out of the sand, snap my fingers, and make her float again.
Although her very long bowsprit had been removed for safety reasons, a good portion of the cutwater had been left in place … that single piece of steel that curves outward in the photo below. As the ship is moving forward through water, this is the piece that “cuts” through the water before any other part of the ship does. I liked knowing it’s still there, and I liked seeing that there’s still water around it.
There are lots of photos online of this ship that people have taken over the years. If you would like to read more about the Peter Iredale, check out this website. Or check out any of a number of other websites about this ship.
Some of us believe that ships/boats have lives of their own. I absolutely believe that.
For this ship stuck in the sand, it felt as though she still had life, when I was here, when I walked around her and touched her gently. Maybe her life is waning, but she hasn’t given up yet. May she be at peace here.
Wow! Ann, you should write a book. This was fascinating.
I’ve been trying to find a book about this ship. I’m surprised there isn’t one. Maybe when I do write my book about my travels (smile), I’ll add a chapter about the “Peter Iredale”. Thanks Steve.
I have read so many old sailing ship stories, but I’ve never heard anyone using that language today. This was really cool. Nor’wester and spritsail and cutwater and the rest. When I first logged into this blog I read your bio Ann and thought yeah ok another person who has owned a couple of boats for a few years, but you really do know boats. And indeed that language still does apply today. This was great, thank you. Dang, wish I could help you float the Peter Iredale again.
I sure wish you could help me float that ship too, Rob. Haul away and raise those sails!
We love this. We don’t know anything about boats, but we loved this. Great photos.
Thanks Marge. 🙂
So photogenic and sad. We have shipwrecks on the Great Lakes too, a few that are visible some years depending on weather and lake levels.
Oh, the Great Lakes are famous for shipwrecks aren’t they. Talk about nasty weather and storms that can sink a ship of any size. If I ever get out of the Pacific Northwest with my trailer in tow, I’m heading for Michigan and the UP.
GREAT story and photos. I always learn so much from your blogs, most of all what an interesting, creative and thoughtful person you are!
Thank you Laurie, that was really nice. 🙂
Fascinating!
It sure was. Glad you liked it. 🙂
Hope I’m not too late to comment here. We’ve had company, relatives, for the holidays and they left this morning and I just now got back online. You see so much stuff Ann! Really like your descriptions and your photos. I never heard the term cutwater before but I went into the shed and looked at my wood skiff and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t have a cutwater, a wooden vertical piece right along the front edge of the bow of the boat. Really cool. I will impress my friends with my newly acquired nautical knowledge. 🙂
It’s never too late to comment Tim! Yep, your wood skiff would definitely have a cutwater. Thanks for the comment, for all your comments. It’s really nice to have you along on this journey. 🙂
I’m late commenting too, but I’ve been the one who has been out visiting! Great photos, especially the one that shows the bent piece of metal “the power of the ocean”. Some day this ship will be gone, but Ann will have great memories, and so will the rest of us from her telling of the tale. Oh, wait, the ship has already been here since 1906 — 115 years! So maybe we will all be gone before the ship is gone. ah well. 🙂 Sure is fun to learn. thanks Ann.
Ha! Yes, I suspect we’ll all be gone before this ship is gone … she just keeps hanging on. But one day she’ll be gone too. In the meantime, it’s fascinating to see her and learn the history. Thanks Judy.
What are “spritsails” we’ve looked online and find way too many websites to wade through them all, what are they? Most search engines think we are looking for “spirituals”! Ha, not so much. 🙂
Ah, “spritsails”. Well, there are two different types of sail that are commonly called “spritsails”. First off, the word is not pronounced sprit-sail … it’s pronounced sprit-sull, really quickly. The very old drawing of the “Peter Iredale” in my blog above shows three relatively small triangular sails positioned above the bowsprit (the long pointy thing at the front of the ship). Some people call sails in that position “spritsails”, but other people say those are staysails or jibs depending on size and how they are connected. True spritsails are actually attached BELOW the bowsprit … they are attached directly in front of the bow of the ship, just above the water. They are usually rather large, rectangular, wide. It was found that when wind was coming from astern (which it always was on sailing ships, when pushing the ship forward) … it was found that wind just above the waves, right down on top of the water, would be split apart by the stern of the ship, then that wind would sweep forward along the sides of the ship, then as the sides of the ship began to curve back into the point of the bow, the wind actually truly picked up speed such that THAT wind was moving faster than the wind up in the main sails of the ship. It’s sort of the same idea of how wind over an airplane wing holds the plane up in the air, but that’s another story for another blog post. Anyway, back to the ship, once this phenomenon was discovered, sailors started rigging sails forward of the bow, just in front of the cutwater, and underneath the long extension of the bowsprit in order to catch that wind … a wind they called the “spirit wind” because it was a different speed of wind than the wind up in the rigging and because it snuck around the hull of the ship. And so “spirit” became “sprit” … so the sails used in that position were called “spirit sails” or … spritsails. Another definition is that any sail that’s attached to the bowsprit is a spritsail, but I like the “spirit wind” definition best. 🙂 In Portuguese such a spritsail is called a cevadeira or reaper, as it seems to reap the sea of the wind just above the waves, below the reach of the other sails. Besides the added propulsion, the lower spritsails could turn a ship more quickly than the sails above the deck. Let me go find a photo or painting of an old sailing ship with a spritsail set. Good question Wanda!!
Here’s one …
http://www.travelswithtowhee.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/x2021019v.jpg
Fascinating! Thanks Ann!
I have to say one more thing here. I’ve done a ton of research on this ship and her grounding. I’ve read scientific websites. I’ve read personal websites and blogs. I’ve watched videos (many videos). I’ve looked at hundreds of photos that spanned decades of visits to this ship in the sand. It seems there is misinformation out there. Probably half of the websites I’ve read and videos I’ve watched report that the ship’s masts broke off when the ship grounded. They did not! Many of the “yards” broke off and fell. “Yards” are the huge horizontal pieces attached to the masts, the horizontal pieces that hold up the sails. The yards broke and fell, but the masts remained intact for many years, even decades. Don’t always believe everything you read. 🙂