President Trolling Vessel Owner's Association
1928
One of those mountain peaks caught the Seapp on its crest just as it broke and threw her on her starboard beam. The tops of the masts as she went over were actually below the hull and in that position she slid down the slope for a hundred fathoms or more, but finally righted.
Possibly it was only a baptism of what she was to receive a little later, but at that time I did not believe that such a thing was possible. I actually threw a kettle in the galley that was on a bracket on the port side to a higher bracket on the starboard side, believe it or not.
It was 11 a. m. when I had put about and at 3 p. m. I was at the outside whistle buoy at Grays Harbor. With the aid of wind and sea and under trolling-speed throttling I had made the 40 nautical miles in 4 hours and my normal speed would have been about 5 knots. The tide was ebbing and I knew that the bar was breaking but I though that it would be better to take a chance on that short bar than to risk the night on that equally bad sea outside. The barometer had by this time fallen to 29.40 and was still falling, and though the wind had moderated slightly I knew from all the indications that things were going to get worse before long, so I made up my mind to chance it rather than stay outside. I can say now, however, that if I had it to do over again I would beat to sea and make my way northward rather than take such a hazard.
The channel at the time ran in a northeast by southwest direction and there was a spit on the northwest side of the channel where the breakers started to curl before they reached the channel.
You have no doubt seen the way a breaker will spill on a beach, how it will start to break in one spot and with what rapidity it will shoot along the beach. Well, I had just passed the outer black can buoy and the ebbing tide was pushing me hard over toward the N. W. spit when I felt the stern of Seapp raise for a break. I closed the throttle to slow the wheel down, an action which usually keeps her from broaching, but just as I did the Seapp suddenly went over on her port beam, and once again that day the masts were pointing downhill, with the hull higher than their tops. She lifted mightily, then like a Hawaiian surfboard, she raced forward, quartering with such increasing speed that I was violently held in the pilot seat, unable to rise, and there I remained for the remainder of my breath-taking ride. I recall glancing aft through the rear pilot house windows and seeing the breaker falling like Niagara on the Seapp's starboard quarter and then it dawned on me that I had been caught in the end curl of one of those fast moving breakers and the Seapp was doing the surfboard trick, only she was in the front of the breaker instead of behind it.
It was all over, I think, in less than a minute. I did not have a stop watch, and the way I felt then I don't think I should have used it if I had, but when the Seapp finally righted herself, I was abreast of the inside whistler just three quarters of a mile from where I started and still going. I reached for the throttle and the instant I gave my trusty Miller engine a little gas she nearly jumped out of her bed. I thought I had lost my wheel and that now I would be swept back over the bar again to sea. Cautiously I opened the throttle once more. This time the racing wasn't quite so violent. After a short while I tried it again and this time the faithful engine took firm hold. Then it came to me that the first time I tried it the speed of the coat riding the wave was so great that the wheel was spinning the engine even against the reduced compression.
Why am I alive to tell the story? Well, if the Seapp had been differently constructed and had she not had all her ballast well down in the bilge and had there not normally been two-thirds of her weight under water, I'll admit this might have been "In memoriam", instead of first person singular narrative. The Seapp has a ton and a half of engine, a ton and a half of concrete and a ton and a half of scrap iron and that coupled with the fact that she has about 11 inches of deadrise with a concave bilge makes her about as hard to turn over as a whistling buoy.
I ran up to Hoquiam and when I came to harbor among the other boats they all wanted to know how in the name of creation I had been able to cross the bar in that storm. I said I would tell them all about it but that I first wanted something to eat as I hadn't had anything to eat all day. Andy on the Friea said I had done enough for one day and that he would cook me a huge beefsteak if I would come over on his boat and tell then what it was like to have such a close call and get by with it, and I can say that I don't think that I ever ate a better tasting steak than that was, but I don't know to this day if they believed all my story.
