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Ship of the M o n t h - cont'd. A s h l e y T o m l i n s o n and fo rming part of what was kno wn m ore sim pl y as "The T o m linson Fleet". It was the habit of Mr. Tomli ns on , at that p a r t i c u l a r point in time, to give his ve ssels names b e g i n n i n g w ith the le tter 'S' and en ding wit h the letter 'A'. S I N A L O A took her name from the state loca te d alo ng the west coast of central Mexico, one of the m ajor centr es of the State of S i n a loa bei ng Maza tl an , which today is a maj or crui se ship desti na ti on . Interestingly, Sin al oa lies d i r e c t l y dow n c o a s t from the State of Sonora, for w h i c h T o m l i n s o n n amed an other of his steamers. SINA L O A was an e x t r e m e l y h a n dsome ship, and typical of the st eamers built just around the turn of the century, w h e n the art of steel s h i p b u i l d i n g was m a k i n g great strides. She had a straight stem, a grace f u l count er stern, and a sw eeping sheer to her deck. She had a half (or sunken) fo re castle, wit h a closed steel rail for about th r e e - q u a r t e r s of the length of the f o recastle head, and an open rail the rest of the way. The anch or s were c a r r i e d from h a w s e h o l e s located just bac k of the stem and not far above the loa de d w a t e r line. There was a long s t e ering pole set at the head of the sternpost, and it was rather h e a v i l y o r n a m e n t e d wit h a s s o r t e d decor a t i v e "shapes". As did most of her co nt emporaries, she ca rried her small, ro unded pilo t h o u s e right on the f o recastle head. It had five r e l a t i v e l y small wind o w s in its face, which was n o t i c e a b l y "slotted", so that the windows, w hen opened, simply were slid d o w nward on the ou tside of the cab in in the slots, rather than on the inside of the house. This ar r a n g e m e n t w o u l d wor k wel l in good conditions, but in cold w e a t h e r any spr ay taken over the bow w o u l d freeze the windows in ei ther an ope n or cl osed position. Her offi cers n a v i g a t e d the steamer from an open br idge on the m o n k e y ' s island atop the pilothouse, w hich was pr o t e c t e d from the el ements only by a wa isthigh closed w o o d e n rail, and by a canvas "dodger" or w e a t hercloth, which could be raised on short poles around the bridge. An awning also co uld be h oisted o v e r h e a d to provi de p r o t e c t i o n from the heat of the summer sun. A rela t i v e l y small texas cabin was lo cated on the forec a s t l e head di rectly abaft the pilothouse. It c o ntained only the m a s ter's office and quarters, the other dec k offic er s and the deck crew being hou s e d b elow in the forecastle. The roof of the texas e x t e n d e d out to the sides of the ship to form bridgewing s. A ver y tall and h eavy foremast, well raked, rose out of the texas, and there were ratl in es set in its shrouds. There was an open wire rail down the sides of the spar deck, w ith a closed steel taffrail aro un d the after cabin and across the fantail. There was a large after cabin on the flush quart er de ck , but it a p p eared rather "bald" in that there was ver y little ov erhang of its roof (the boat deck) except for the area on each side whe re the lifeb oa ts rested, and there was no rail at all around the bu nker h atch at the forward end of the boat deck. The fa irly large and well raked s m o k e s t a c k rose am ongst a flock of v e n t i l a t o r cowls, and abaft the stack was set the h eavy pole mainmast. SINALOA was pain t e d in the tr ad itional T o m l i n s o n fleet colours, w ith a dark red hull and forecastle, white cabins, and dark red stack with two narrow and wi d e l y spaced silver bands. The st eamer's name was car ri ed in white letters fairly far back on the bow and just bel ow the level of the spar deck and beneath the name was ca rried the "pennant" in signia co mmon to c o n t e m p o rary T o m l i n s o n boats. We have ne ver known for cer ta in what colours the "pe n nant" was, but judging from the wa y shadi ng s were r e f l e c t e d in bla ck and white photograp hs , we w o u l d hazard the fairly e d u cated guess that, of the two obl i q u e l y divided sections, the one at the hoist was yellow, whi le that in the fly was blue. Acr os s the slash was a white circle, in which appe ar ed in red the first letter of the own in g co mpany's name, and in SINA LO A' s case, this letter was a 'S', st anding for "Superior". Some of the steamers of her peri od boas t e d big, melod io us , trip le -c hi me steam whistles, w hich not only were the "voice" of the ships c o n c e r n e d but were so d i s t i n c t i v e that the vesse ls could eas il y be reco g n i z e d by the tones of their w h i stles whe n ca lling for a tug or passing one of the re po rting