Giants in Their Days: Schooner Days CMXXVIII (928)

by C. H. J. Snider

THE LOSS of the largest of all the Canadian lake schooners, the Minnedosa, our only four master, on Oct. 20, 1905, was not the subject of a marine inquiry, as far as we recall. The very bad weather which put her down did not swamp her towing steamer, the Westmount, nor her follower the barge Melrose, towing astern.

Both these were fully loaded for the time of the year. The Minnedosa, judging after the event, was overloaded, but no one seems to have thought so before. There was room in her hold for more cargo, and she seemed to have sufficient freeboard, or side out of the water. She would have got through, but for bad weather. Capt. John Phillips, her master, with children grown up and married and he himself recently married for the second time, would have been cited as "smart man" if he had brought in the biggest freight the Minnedosa had attempted in her fifteen years, Poor fellow, he did not. He tried, and died trying.

CARRYING LAKE ON DECK

The owners' decision to reduce the vessel's intended depth by 18 inches before she was completed had a bearing upon her loss. The precautions taken of steel plating and strapping and heavy timbering left her very strong. But if her sides had been 18 inches higher she would have been stronger and less vulnerable, for her deck would have been eighteen inches higher out of the water.

There is a great difference between having 18 inches of water on deck or over your hatches, and having none at all. One square foot of water 18 inches deep weighs 94 lbs., almost a hundredweight. The Minnedosa had over 7,000 square feet of deck area. Eighteen inches of water all over it would weigh 375 tons, live weight, surging about. Her high bulwarks would hold in twice that much water—and weight—if the seas were coming aboard faster than the scuppers and freeing-ports could drain. It might be too much for her hatches. If they caved in or washed away she would fill and founder. I have seen a big freighter's deck completely under water and this water surging around as fast as the steamer was going. It takes faith to believe that a tight ship is as safe as a corked bottle. Corks can come out. and hatchcovers can collapse.

And cargo can shift. A grain cargo is a menace if there is space for the tiny grains to start rushing. Flax seed is the worst cargo of all. It is as slippery as oil. Oil carriers are protected by tanks, compartments and baffle-plates. Grain carriers use shifting boards for the same purpose. Maybe the Minnedosa's gave way. She had never had so big a load to trim before.

STRESS OF WEATHER

The loss of the Minnedosa was fairly chargeable to stress of weather. Thirty other vessels came to grief in the gale in which she went down, and twenty-three sailors were drowned. In Lake Erie the big barge Tasmania, almost as large as the Minnedosa, was lost with her crew of eight. The barge Joseph F. May of Cleveland, laden with iron, in tow of the steambarge Bradley, went down six miles from Rogers City, Mich. The barge D. P. Rhoades parted her towline and went ashore at Cheboygan, Mich. So did the harbor tug Cygnet. The tug Perry was sunk off Boat Island. The schooner Ermma L. Noelson of Alpena, Mich., was stranded at Presqu'isle Harbor in Lake Huron. The schooner Mantinee, bound from Buffalo to Duluth, was driven ashore 20 miles west of Dunkirk in Lake Erie; and Dunkirk fishermen lost $5,000 worth of nets.

The schooner Kate Lyons of Grand Haven was reported ashore from Grand Rapids. The schooner Kingfisher was lost at Cleveland and the steamer Sarah E. Sheldon of Cleveland lost her rudder and was wrecked at Lorain, Ohio.

HOW BIG IS BIG?

The world's largest schooner was the Thomas W. Lawson, built by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation of Quincy, Mass., for the Coastwise Transportation Company and launched Oct. 9, 1902. She was of steel, and her dimensions make those of the largest lakers look unimpressive. She was 404 feet long, 369 feet between perpendiculars, practically her waterline length, 50 feet beam (two feet less than our H.M.S. St. Lawrence) and 35 feet depth of hold, almost twice the depth of our lake "monsters," the David Dows and the Minnedosa.

Note the depth dimensions and proportions. The Lawson's depth was almost one tenth of her waterline length. The Minnedosa's was only one thirteenth. She was the more lathlike, limber. She may have broken her back.

But it is appointed unto all ships, like men, once to die and giants usually have short lives. The Lawson's depth did not save her. In fact, it killed her. Anchored outside the Scillies, at the end of a hard eastward voyage in December, 1907, to await tugs from Falmouth, she could not take shelter within the reefs because of her draught, and tried to ride out a gale with 150 fathoms of chain out. One cable parted, the other anchor dragged, and she struck on the ledge and broke in two between the sixth and seventh mast. The 2,450,000 gallons of lubricating oil with, which she was laden smoothed the raging seas enough for the St. Mary's lifeboat to pick up three men from the wreck, including the captain. Twenty or more were drowned. Her shareholders wrote $100,000 off the books.

The Thos. W. Lawson drew 28 feet of water loaded and was of 10,650 tons displacement, 8,000 tons dead weight, 5,218 gross tons register and 4,914 tons net—about four times larger in every way than our largest lake sailing vessels. Her greatest cargo was 9,200 tons of coal. Almost twenty times the average schooner load coming into Toronto.

Her seven masts had gaff-and-boom lowersails and gafftopsails on each. Six of them also carried topmast staysails. The foremast had five jibs or headsails ahead of it, so she had twenty-five working sails set at once.

Naming so many masts presented a problem. After trying the usual "fore," "main," "mizzen," "jigger," "spanker," "driver" and "pusher" the crew struck out for the days of the week, and her masts and their sails were known, from forward aft, by Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday prefixes.

DECEMBER DECKLOAD--The 400-ft. steamer W. H. Truesdale supplied such pictures on a successful voyage down Lake Superior in 1936-but some ships just can't take it.