Ship of Lost Souls

<P>Of all the stories of ships lost in what has come to be called the “Graveyard of the Pacific” that of the steamship <I>Valencia</I> is among the saddest. In January 1906 the <I>Valencia</I> set 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 the <I>Valencia</I> ran aground.</P><P>The wreck of the <I>Valencia</I> was 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.</P><P>This book pieces together the story of the <I>Valencia</I> and 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.</P>