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Ada Iredale | Official Number
65953 |
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Ada Iredale | Official Number
65953 |
The Ada Iredale was an iron barque built at Harrington by R.Williamson in 1872, for Peter Iredale & Co.
On the 20th June 1876 the Ada
Iredale left Ardrossan, Scotland, for San Francisco, with a coal
cargo. On the 13th October, in lat.15 S, long.108 W, fire was discovered
in the lower hold, and within 36 hours the accummulated gases had
caused the decks to explode. The crew of 24 (Capt.Stewart, 1st, 2nd and
3rd officers, cook, carpenter, steward, five boys and 12 seamen)
abandoned the vessel on the 15th October in three boats. Initially a
course was shaped for the Galapagos Islands, 1200 miles distant, but
after the captain's boat had capsized and the instruments had been
lost, the plan was changed and the boats headed for the Marquesas,
2400 miles away. On the 3rd November another boat capsized and the
carpenter was drowned, but on the 9th November the remaining survivors
arrived at Dominique Island in the Marquesas. They had survived the
final six days on a glass of water and one biscuit each per day. 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.
The New York Times, 7th October 1929, page 9;
" 19 IN LIFEBOATS SAVED OFF WASHINGTON COAST - 17
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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