The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

NPS Form 10-900-a (Rev. 8-86) Wisconsin Word Processing Format (Approved 3/87) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Schooner-barge PRETORIA Section 8 Page 10 Ashland County, WI having turned back after clearing Outer Island, hit Sand Island Shoal and broke apart with serious loss of life. The Venezuela and Pretoria elected to continue on, and were enduring a rough ride thirty miles northeast of Outer Island, when at about 7:30 a.m. the schooner-barge's hydraulic steering gear failed. The Pretoria's Captain Charles Smart signalled the Venezuela of his ship's condition. The Venezuela then attempted to alter the tow's course back towards the shelter of the Apostle Islands (Wolff 1990:105- 107; Keller 1984:107-108). The towline connecting the surging vessels parted at both ends, probably when the steamer came about, and the line dropped into the lake. In the rough weather and poor visibility, the Venezuela soon lost sight of her charge. After an unsuccessful search, the steamer returned to the shelter of Ashland Harbor and reported the Pretoria as missing. Despite the ferocity of the storm, few seemed seriously concerned about the schooner- barge 's fate. The Pretoria was still new, strongly built, and very large; she was expected to handle Lake Superior's worst weather (Keller 1984:108-110; Brower Scrapbook). Although designed for independent operation in open lake waters, the Pretoria in her disabled condition was powerless to battle the storm. A single sail in the foremast rapidly came apart leaving the schooner-barge drifting toward Outer Island, wallowing in the troughs of the large seas. The magnitude of the storm is testified to by the fact that its winds and waves blew the fully loaded Pretoria, probably sideways, across the lake at an average rate of between three and four miles per hour. Ships are not designed to absorb heavy transverse stresses. The huge waves repeatedly pounded the Pretoria's flat sides, smashed against her bulwarks and cabins, and crashed down hard on her decks and hatches. The pumps were set to work, but "gave out" (perhaps the heavy seas disabled the steam machinery by drowning the fire in the donkey boiler). A newspaper column, attributing its information to Captain Smart, indicated that the ship was slowly torn apart throughout the day. At some point during the ordeal the anchor was dropped, but did not catch until about 2:30 in the afternoon when the ship was only a mile and a half off of Outer Island. The battered ship continued to disintegrate at anchor, with water coming in through the hatch combings and forcing some of the hatches off. About an hour and half later, with the hold flooding, the covering board giving way,