A Rough Night on the Sound
A local yachting club's pleasure cruise turns into a harrowing battle with the equinoctial storm.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Three members of the Seattle Yacht Club, George D. Ruddy, David Boyd and H. M. Burpee, have returned from a ten-day cruise in the sloop Edna M., with Capt. Jensen as sailing master. The boat left Seattle on September 20, visiting Edmonds, Port Townsend, and Victoria. On the return trip, while anchored off Mukilteo opposite Whidby Island, they encountered the equinoctial storm. During the night, the Edna M. dragged her anchor for two miles. The crew rushed to hoist the sails, but a squall struck the vessel, throwing her on her beam ends while water poured in at an alarming rate. She righted, however, and weathered the storm. By 4 a.m., they returned to their anchorage to find the schooner Moonlight, which had been moored nearby, had gone aground on the rocks of Whidby Island.
“Just then a squall struck her, throwing her on her beam ends, while the water poured into her at an alarming rate.”
While yachting remains a quintessential Puget Sound pastime, this story serves as a reminder of the raw, unpredictable nature of the Sound before modern marine weather forecasting and GPS. The incident near Mukilteo mirrors the enduring risk sailors face when the seasons shift in the Pacific Northwest.
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