Stranded by Aaron Saunders

copper cylinders filled with air, they could support twenty-six people if needed, and could be launched by simply throwing them down from the ship’s uppermost deck into the water. The drawback, particularly in the frigid waters of Alaska, is that these buoyancies were never intended to keep people dry, they were designed to act as a sort of mass flotation device, with ropes fitted to the two copper cylinders that could be held onto by swimmers in the water. Even if there had not been a storm battering the Princess Sophia , taking to the water in one of these during the fading days of October in Lynn Canal would have been tantamount to suicide.
    High atop Princess Sophia ’s exposed boat deck, wrestling with the lifeboats was cold, difficult exercise for the ship’s crew. Near-blizzard conditions continued to obscure visibility, and high winds and heavy seas slammed into the ship with frightening regularity. Still, the crew — many of whom were little more than young men — worked diligently to prepare the boats and swing them out. During this time a few passengers likely wandered up on deck, but most probably retreated into the ship’s public rooms, where they would have been sheltered from the elements. A few hearty individuals may have gone one deck down, where a semi-enclosed promenade provided some protection from the driving snow.
    While this was taking place, Captain Locke summoned wireless operator David Robinson to send the call for help. Under Locke’s direction, Robinson first sent a wireless message to the United States radio station in Juneau via the ship Cedar , which was anchored near Juneau harbour. Identifying Princess Sophia by her call letters, VFI, the message stated they’d run aground on Vanderbilt Reef and asked any and all ships nearby to stop what they were doing and come to their aid. The time was fifteen minutes past two in the morning.
    Even in 1918 the wireless was still in its infancy, and sending a message directly to the line’s headquarters in Victoria — over 800 miles to the south — was simply not an option. Instead, Robinson had to rely on the Cedar and the wireless station in Juneau to send messages north to Skagway, where Lewis Johnston would soon be roused from his sleep, and south to the Canadian Pacific offices in Victoria.
    In the darkened city of Juneau lights started popping on in homes just after three in the morning as the incredible news began to filter in, much of it in quick, informal wireless conversations that would only be recorded in shorthand in the Juneau Radio log book. These initial messages were short and to the point. They also revealed something of the workload on board Princess Sophia at a time when it was unclear to what extent she’d been damaged in the collision. Robinson was keeping his words brief. One of the first messages to go out simply stated, “ Princess Sophia on Vanderbilt Reef calling for help.” [1]
    Over the next hour, Robinson would tap out six separate variations of this message. At 2:55 a.m. the situation on board appeared to be worsening, with Robinson wiring the Juneau office that the ship was “pounding heavily and lowering boats.” [2]
    A Marconi operator at his post aboard the North German Lloyd liner Grosserkorfurst . Early shipboard wireless telegraphy was far from an exact science, and prone to dropouts and delays.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ggbain-03109.
    At least, getting the passengers into the lifeboats was the plan. Slowly, one at a time, Princess Sophia ’s white lifeboats — weighing roughly 1,700 tons apiece — were swung out on their davits so that they extended over the side of the ship. Although their canvas covers remained on to protect them from the elements, they were ready to be embarked and lowered at a moment’s notice. But in the face of the storm that raged on unabated, they were beginning to look about as