Ship of Lost Souls: The Tragic Wreck of the Steamship Valencia [Hardcover]

Of all the stories of ships lost in what has come to be called the “Graveyard of the Pacific,” that of the steamshipValenciais among the saddest. In January 1906, theValenciaset out from San Francisco, bound for Seattle with 108 passengers and some sixty-five crew members aboard. Owing to bad weather and the captain’s mistakes, the ship struck a reef eleven miles off Cape Beale on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. Rocks gashed open the ship’s hull, and a series of further missteps soon compounded the tragedy a hundredfold. Only thirty-seven people survived, largely because of a lack of lifesaving infrastructure in the rugged area where theValenciaran aground.

The wreck of theValenciawas an especially tragic one. To begin with, most on board perished, including every woman and child, many of whom had been lashed to the rigging high above the deck in an attempt to save them from the crashing waves. Additionally, the wreck itself was almost certainly avoidable, due almost entirely to navigational errors the captain made. Finally, rescue efforts—such as they were—were hampered by not just the sea and weather but by the mistakes (and some say the cowardice) of the would-be rescuers.

This book pieces together the story of theValenciaand her tragic end, weaving together not just the threads of the ill-fated voyage itself but also relevant contextual history, including the development of radio technologies and lifesaving equipment and services that simply came too late to help the doomed voyagers.Rod Scherreceived his MEd from the University of Oregon. He is a longtime boating enthusiast and former English teacher, as well as an experienced writer and editor with multiple books and dozens of magazine articles to his credit. The former editor ofSmart Computingmagazine, he is also the author ofSailing by Starlight: The Remarkable Voyage ofGlobe Star andLeveling l#.