Babinda

The wooden motorship Babinda, sailing north from San Pedro, caught fire off Santa Cruz in the early morning of March 3, 1923. The fire assumedly started in the engine room, spreading from the stern and threatening the fuel tanks. The 23 officers and men tried to save the vessel, but ultimately Captain Helge Maland ordered the crew to “Abandon ship!” The nearby steam schooner Celilo, rescued and transported all men to San Francisco. The abandoned vessel burned to the water line and drifted south before sinking off Point Sur. The vessel was deemed a total loss, estimated to be worth $200,000.

Ship Stats:

Vessel Type: Motorship
Casualty Location: Point Sur, Monterey County, California, USA
Location Status: Located (see Important Note)
Casualty Date: 1923 (Mar 3)
Owner: Ocean Motorship Company
Home Port: Seattle, Washington, USA
Length: 268.7 feet Beam: 48.5 feet
Gross Tonnage: 3,098 Cargo: general
Builder: Patterson & MacDonald Shipbuilding Company
Launched: 1919 (Seattle, Washington, USA)
Official Number: 218986

Nature of Casualty:

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  Transcription: Motorship Babinda Destroyed By Fire Off Santa Cruz

  Source: Santa Cruz Evening News (Santa Cruz, CA), 3 March 1923, p. 1, col. 1.
  Courtesy of Newspapers.com

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  Transcription: Wireless Aids Rescue Of Crew; Local Boats Visit Doomed Vessel
  
  The wooden motorship Babinda of 3000 tons gross register and belonging to the Ocean Motorship company of Portland, Ore., was totally destroyed by a fire which started near her stern during the early hours of this morning along the coast about three and a half miles from Davenport, this county. The Babinda wirelessed for help between three and four o'clock this morning, stating that fire was threatening her fuel tank. The steam schooner Celilo which was a few miles away responded and removed the crew at daylight. The fire was then burning fiercely but the captain and crew did not leave the doomed ship until it was certain that the fire could not be kept from the fuel tank. The source of the flames and smoke indicated that the blaze started in the engine room near the stern of the boat.
  
  First word of the burning ship was telephoned to Santa Cruz from Davenport about 4 o'clock this morning. The blaze was easily seen from the cement town. Sunday Faraola of the California Western Fish company dispatched Arthur Googins in a launch to the scene of the burning boat and at 6 o'clock this morning Captain William Olson of the whaler Port Saunders steamed out to the Babinda to render what aid it might be necessary to give. It was discovered upon arrival, however, that the crew had been taken off the Babinda and that the boat was a roaring furnace and doomed to burn out and sink. About 8 o'clock this morning the C. Stagnaro fishing company sent two launches to the scene in charge of Steve Ghio and C. Ghio.
  
  A News man was on the city pier at 11 o'clock this morning when Captain Olson of the Port Saunders came ashore after his trip to the burning boat.
  
  "The Babinda is doomed," said the captain. "We were about a hundred yards from her. She's burning fore and aft fiercely and just before we started back the bridge was falling. Three steamers were standing by when we got there. I do not think the Babinda carried a cargo. She was too high out of the water. She's now about seventeen and a half miles south-south-west of Santa Cruz."
  
  The wireless messages sent out by the Babinda and the answers of various steamers were picked up by Frank Chase at his Walnut avenue radio plant this morning. Messages to and from the S.S. City of Alameda and the S.S. Mazatlan and the Bolinas radio station concerning the burning Babinda and her plight were caught here.
  
  The Babinda was a gasoline wooden schooner built in Seattle in 1919. She had a length of 268 feet, 48-foot beam and a depth of, 24 feet. She had a gross tonnage of 3000 and registered 2483 net tons and had engines of 1000 horsepower. She was engaged in the print paper trade between Columbia river mills and California points.

  Source: Santa Cruz Evening News (Santa Cruz, CA), 3 March 1923, p. 1, col. 1.
  Courtesy of Newspapers.com

Additional Information: Wreck Event

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  Transcription: CREW PERILED AS FIRE TAKES WOODEN SHIP
  Officers and Men Picked Up in Heavy Seas as Flames Sweep Freighter Off Monterey Bay
  Rescued from the sea at dawn after they had been forced to take to the lifeboats when their ship took fire off Santa Cruz, the crew of the wooden motorship Babinda, numbering twenty-three officers and men, reached here yesterday afternoon on the steam schooner Celilo.
  The Celilo, en route to San Francisco from San Pedro, picked them up after they had been drifting about in the lifeboats for a quarter of an hour. Heavy seas were running when the rescue was effected but there was no mishap and none injured.
  The Babinda, burned to the water's edge, was a smouldering derelict last night and appeared to be drifting inshore near the Monterey coast line. The whaler Port Saunders was reported standing by but was unable to put a line on the charred bulk because of the intense heat and smoke.
  It was a few minutes before 4 o'clock yesterday morning when the fire was discovered. Second Engineer Harry Hillstad, on watch, suddenly saw flames burst out over the dynamo. He immediately stopped the engines and, with other members of the crew, tried to put out the blaze. But the fire spread rapidly, and in a few minutes the entire engine room was enveloped in flames.
  While other men started the electric pumps and fought the blaze with pony fire extinguishers. Hillstad rushed to the bridge and sounded the fire alarm. Captain Helge Maland saw that the fire was fast getting beyond control and ordered V. W. Watts, radio operator, to send out S. O. S. calls. The first S. O. S. message was picked up here at 4:10 a. m. by the beach station of the Federal Telegraph Company. There was nothing to explain the call for help, and the operators, "listening in" awaited further word. Nothing came but the one S. O. S. call. Then silence.
  But Watts had only been able to send out one message. The fire had, reached the ship's dynamo and the spark on the radio failed. And the electric lights went out.
  Meanwhile the crew, directed by Captain Maland, were battling madly in the darkness to keep the fire away from the fuel oil tanks. The smoke was stifling; the heat intense. Yet they fought on. Slowly the blaze crept toward the tanks. It looked as if the crew were doomed.
  Then came the captain's order, "Abandon ship!" This was forty minutes after the fire was discovered. There was a scurrying everywhere as the men rushed to their quarters to save what belongings they could. Some were able to save everything, while others had only time to grab their coats and hats and flee.
  By this time, the after part of the Babinda, where the lifeboats were located, was a mass of flames, staggering through the smoke and fire, the crew took to the boats. All but the captain, Chief Engineer W. B. Bissner and three seamen were in the first boat, which was lowered with difficulty into the heavy sea. Then the second boat went over the side and the occupants rowed away.
  Ten miles away was the steam schooner Celilo, steaming for this port with cargo and a few passengers. They saw the blazing Babinda, but had not picked up the Babinda's S O S. Fifteen minutes after the Babinda's lifeboats had been lowered, the Celilo reached the scene of the disaster and picked up the survivors.

  Source: San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, CA), 4 March 1923, p. 3, col. 1.
  Courtesy of Newspapers.com

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  Transcription: BABINDA SINKS
  
  The motor ship Babinda which caught afire early Saturday morning off of Santa Cruz, while en route to San Francisco from San Pedro burned to the water’s edge yesterday morning at 7:10 o’clock and sunk fifteen miles north of Point Sur. Several vessels, including the Red Stack tug Sea Lion and the cutter Shawnee were standing by at the time the burning craft sank.
  
  Captain Darraugh of the Sea Lion which arrived her yesterday morning after the Babinda sank said that before sinking the vessel was a mass of flames from stem to stern and that there was no chance to salvage any part of the illfated craft. The crew of the Babinda arrived in San Francisco on the steamer Celilo Saturday night. The loss is estimated by local under-writers to be $200,000.

  Source: San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco, CA), 5 March 1923, p. 15, col. 2.
  Courtesy of Newspapers.com

Additional Information: Vessel

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  Transcription: FOUR SLOAN SHIPS FIGURE IN BIG DEAL
  
  FIRST VESSELS BUILT AT LOCAL YARD TAKEN OVER BY NEW SEATTLE FIRM
  
  Four motorships constructed by the Sloan Shipyards of this city for the Australian government figured in a big deal at Seattle this week when they and five others constructed at a yard in that city were bought by a syndicate of which J. E. Chilberg, prominent Seattle banker, is the head.
  
  Millions of dollars are involved in the deal. The vessels are the 4,000-ton motorships Benowa, Bobinda, Balcatta, Boobyalla and Boorika, all products of the Patterson-McDonald yard, and the 3,500-ton Cethana. Colburra, Coolcha and Challamba, built in the Sloan yard. These were the first vessels built at the local yard.
  
  The Cethana, Colburra, Coolcha and Challamba are in full operation, running between Australia and India. The Benowa was delivered to the commonwealth July 10 by the Patterson- MacDonald plant. The Babinda will he delivered August 15 and the Balcatta September 15.
  
  The motorships are twin-screw carriers, each vessel having two Mcintosh & Seymour Diesel engines of a total 1,300 indicated horsepower, giving an average speed of ten knots. In the five Patterson-MacDonald carriers all the auxiliaries and deck machinery are electric-driven, placing them among the most modern ocean carriers in existence. The Sloan ships have steam auxiliaries. All nine vessels are equipped with the latest cargo handling appliances.
  
  The Patterson-MacDonald motor ships have a traveling radius of 12,000 miles and the Sloan ships, 6,000 miles. All are general cargo carriers.

  Source: The Washington Standard (Olympia, WA), 15 August 1919, p. 3, col. 1.
  Courtesy of The Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Referenced and Additional Resources

Babinda Sinks. San Francisco Examiner, 5 March 1923, p. 15, col. 2. Newspapers.com.

Crew Periled As Fire Takes Wooden Ship. San Francisco Examiner, 4 March 1923, p. 3, col. 1. Newspapers.com.

Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Navigation. 1920. Fifty-second Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States. Washington, Government Printing Office. p.86.

Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Navigation. 1923. Fifty-fifth Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States. Washington, Government Printing Office. Loss of American Vessels Reported During Fiscal Year 1923, Gas Vessels. p.447.

Four Sloan Ships Figure In Big Deal. Washington Standard, 15 August 1919, p. 3, col. 1. The Library of Congress, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers site.

Motorship Babinda Destroyed By Fire Off Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz Evening News, 3 March 1923, p. 1, col. 1. Newspapers.com.

Reinstedt, R.A. 1975. Shipwrecks and Sea Monsters of California’s Central Coast. Ghost Town Publications, Carmel, CA. 168pp.

Semones, J. 2012. Sea of Troubles: The Lost Ships of Point Sur. Glencannon Press, El Cerrito, CA. 229pp.