The Whaleback That Made Puget Sound Look Impossible
Seattle crowds toured the strange, cigar-shaped City of Everett before it steamed out with nearly 4,000 tons of coal—the largest shipment yet from the Oregon Improvement Company’s bunkers.
The monster whaleback City of Everett pulled out from the Oregon Improvement Company’s coal bunkers yesterday afternoon at 3:34 o’clock for San Francisco with the largest load of coal ever shipped by the O. I. Company from this place. The exact figures, taken officially, showed that there were stowed away in the mammoth hulk 3,991 tons. The event was also important as it marked the first coal-laden trip of the whaleback from this side of the line; she had previously been loaded with Comox coal.
All day long the bunkers were filled with sightseers, and Master Buckman gave orders to allow all visitors aboard. The opportunity of looking over the craft—strange in appearance, yet by now nearly convincing doubters that she was all right in every particular—was eagerly accepted. The officers were constantly on hand and did everything in their power to give the visitors a pleasant time.
About 3 o’clock the last bit of coal was in, and then the work of screwing down the hatch began. As the cover was hauled on by means of big iron hooks, the people on the bunkers watched the proceedings with great interest and were constantly passing remarks on what a huge submerged craft she was.
As she lay in the water it was easy to see that she was about thirty or forty feet longer than the coal bunkers proper. Her actual length is 361 feet, and when loaded the highest point on her shell is not more than eight feet above water. Yesterday the mark on her side showed that she drew nineteen feet of water.
Everything about the whaleback is a model of neatness, and the apartments in the sort of house at the stern are finely fitted up. She is lighted throughout by electricity, and everything that can be done by the aid of steam is not overlooked.
J. S. Gibson, the first officer, said that he thought they would make the trip to San Francisco in about eighty hours.
“Yes,” added Second Officer J. B. Hastings, who is the man that brought the whaleback Wetmore around the Horn, “we will go sailing into the bay at San Francisco under ordinary weather at about 12 miles an hour. At San Francisco people are always asking how it is that Puget Sound can put forth such big craft. They seem to think that the enterprise is too much for this part of the country, but the work is before them.”
In speaking of the different coals, First Officer Gibson said that the Comox coal occupied forty-one cubic feet a ton and that the coal taken in this city took up forty-four cubic feet a ton.
“At San Francisco people are always asking how it is that Puget Sound can put forth such big craft.”
The whaleback was an audacious piece of maritime engineering, and Seattle’s waterfront crowd treated it as proof that the young city could compete on a continental scale. Today the same waterfront is a rebuilt public shoreline, but the booster impulse—build bigger, ship farther, announce it loudly—still shapes how Seattle sells itself as a port.
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