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Official Number
65953 |
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Official Number
65953 |
The Ada Iredale was an iron barque built at Harrington by R.Williamson in 1872, for Peter Iredale & Co.
On the 15th October, 1876 the Ada Iredale was abandoned in the South Pacific , when about 2000 miles E of the Marquesas Islands, after her coal cargo had caught fire. The barque drifted westward for eight months before being taken in tow by a French cruiser and taken to Papeete, Tahiti, with her cargo still burning. She was sold to American owners in 1878, the fire having stayed alight in her hull until May of that year. The vessel was rebuilt and renamed the Annie Johnson, sailing out of San Francisco. She had a diesel engine fitted in 1923.
By 1927 the vessel was owned by a French firm , who registered her at Papeete, Tahiti. The vessel's name was changed to Bretagne, and she was then described as a four-masted schooner with auxiliary oil engines, with a gross tonnage of 1,029 tons.
When on passage from Vancouver to Suva in the Fiji Islands the Bretagne was abandoned off the coast of Oregon, on Saturday, 5th October 1929. The vessel had filled with water and taken a heavy list. Her seventeen crew, together with the captain's wife and daughter, were picked up on the same day from a lifeboat by the American steamship Whitney Olson, 15 miles south of the Umatilla lightship.
From the New York Times, 7th October 1929, page 9.
19 IN LIFEBOATS SAVED OFF WASHINGTON COAST17 Men and 2 Women Who Quit Listing Craft After Storm Are Rescued by Schooner.
SEATTLE, Wash., Oct.6 (AP).-Seventeen seafaring men and the captain's wife and daughter were rescued yesterday by the steam schooner Whitney Olson after thay had taken to lifeboats when their ship, the French schooner Bretagne, became water-logged during a storm off the Washington coast.
Word of the rescue, picked up by the Everett radio station and relayed here, said the Bretagne became water-logged off Cape Flattery Friday morning and took a heavy list. Desperate efforts were made to keep the 57-year-old vessel afloat, but she was finally abandoned early yesterday. The Whitney Olson sighted the Bretagne's crew in lifeboats at 4 A.M. and picked them up.
The Bretagne, an auxiliary power schooner, sailed from Vancouver, B.C., early last week with a full cargo of lumber and 200 tons of canned salmon for the South Seas. She was commanded by Captain L.Ozzane. The Whitney Olson left Bellingham, Wash., Friday for San Pedro with a cargo of lumber. She proceeded to San Francisco where the Bretagne's crew will be landed.
The water-logged vessel was left adrift in the sea lanes and a Coast Guard cutter was sent to sink her by gunfire if she was still afloat. The Bretagne was fifteen miles south of the Umatilla lightship when abandoned. She was under charter to Burns, Phillip & Co. of San Francisco. Papeete, in the South Seas, was her home port.
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