The Final Voyage of the Eritrea
A Chilean ship navigating the Strait of Juan de Fuca mistakenly identified a fog signal, leading to a total wreck on Dungeness Spit.
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.
The Chilean ship Eritrea went ashore in a fog on Dungeness Spit at 11:30 in the forenoon of Friday, August 4. She lies broadside on the sand and is probably a total loss. Capt. Preve, who has been navigating for fifty years, explained that a thick fog came on, and when he heard the Dungeness fog whistle, he thought it was the Race Rocks whistle, the intervals of which were not clearly explained on his charts. Thinking the sound came from Race Rocks, he undertook to sail to the southward of it and struck the spit. He realized too late that he did not know exactly where he was. The Eritrea was a Nova Scotia built ship and had sailed under four flags. She was insured for about $18,000 American money, though valued at twice that amount. The hull is still solid, but she hangs heavily on the center, which has caused her to become slightly 'broken backed.'
“Thinking the sound came from Race Rocks, he undertook to sail to the southward of it, and struck the spit.”
Marine accidents like the loss of the Eritrea were common in the 19th-century Salish Sea due to inconsistent navigation technology and treacherous fog. Today, Dungeness Spit is a protected wildlife refuge, and the remnants of such shipwrecks serve as historical artifacts buried under the sand.
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