Forty-Three Days of Gales, Then a Jury-Rigged Schooner Limps Into Port Townsend
Sails torn to ribbons and gear twisted, the three-masted schooner Buhne makes port after a voyage that should have taken three weeks and took six.
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.
PORT TOWNSEND, Feb. 12. — With sails torn to ribbons and with gear gnarled and twisted, the American three-masted schooner Buhne, Captain Andrew Olson, is at anchor here. Bound from San Pedro for Coos Bay, Oregon, after 43 days battling with gales, an entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca was accomplished only after an improvised jury rig had been set. Captain Olson stated today that the voyage was the most remarkable he ever made. The schooner was bound on a voyage that usually takes 21 days.
“Captain Olson stated today that the voyage was the most remarkable he ever made.”
Before radio, a coaster overdue by a week was simply gone, and no one ashore knew whether to grieve. Olson's 43-day passage — double the normal run — is a reminder that the coastwise trade that fed Puget Sound ports was sailed, not steered by forecast, and that the Strait of Juan de Fuca was an entrance earned rather than assumed.
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