Three Men Vanished Into Commencement Bay
A sailboat left a Tacoma boathouse with three unknown men aboard. Days later, searchers were still scanning the Sound.
Three unknown men left Alger's boat house, near the dock, last Wednesday morning in a sailboat and have not yet returned. The men left the boathouse at 10 a.m. and started across the bay. At the time a stiff breeze was blowing, and it would have been impossible for the boat to have rounded Point Defiance. A heavy wind came up Wednesday night, and Mr. Alger is of the opinion that the boat went in the other direction and rounded Brown's Point, and was capsized and the men drowned. Capt. C. H. Alger, of the steamer Orion, has gone out in a small boat and will cruise along the shore of the Sound as far as Port Blakeley in search of the missing boat.
“Three unknown men left Alger's boat house ... in a sailboat and have not yet returned.”
In 1891, a sailboat disappearing in Commencement Bay set off a local search along the same waters that Coast Guard and volunteer crews still scan today. Puget Sound weather remains unforgiving for small craft, and the story has the familiar shape of a maritime emergency: a short crossing, a sudden wind, and an anxious wait for news.
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