A Sloop Built on Sundays, Lost at Deception Pass
Captain Robert Jack and William Foley are presumed drowned after the Lily and Maud capsizes in Deception Pass, not long after the captain's Sunday-built sloop sank on launch day.
No new developments were brought to light yesterday regarding the capsizing of the fishing schooner Lily and Maud in Deception Pass, and no doubt exists that the two men drowned were Captain Robert Jack and William Foley. The former was well known along the Seattle water front and well liked. He was considered a good sailor, and a number are at a loss to know how the sloop came to capsize.
The sloop was built by Captain Jack in a little place back of the McSorley house, east of First Avenue in Ballard, during his spare time on Sundays. She was completed last Sunday, taken down to the beach and launched, and sank the same afternoon.
“She was completed last Sunday, taken down to the beach and launched, and sank the same afternoon.”
Small-craft tragedies were routine on Puget Sound before modern weather forecasting, radios, and Coast Guard rescue. The detail that Captain Jack built the sloop on Sundays in Ballard—and that it sank on launch day—makes the loss feel both local and preventable. The water still demands respect.
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