Lumber trade, 1900–1919 After her launch, the
Minnie A. Caine was utilized in the trans-Pacific lumber trade. She typically carried a full load of lumber from
Washington state or
British Columbia to ports in Australia,
Hawaii,
Mexico,
Chile, or
Peru. Until the late 1910s, the economics of the trans-Pacific lumber trade depended on payment opportunities for return cargoes. Return cargo loads typically included a load of coal from
Newcastle, Australia to
Honolulu where coal was in demand for
the local sugar industry, followed by a load of sugar for San Francisco. Alternatively, a load of coal could be taken from Australia all the way to the
Pacific Northwest; for example, in 1907 the
Minnie A. Caine brought coal to
Nanaimo,
British Columbia and loaded her next cargo of lumber at the same port. The
Minnie A. Caine's most typical cyclic voyage was the
Seattle–
Sydney–
Newcastle–
Honolulu–
San Francisco–
Seattle route. On average, this route took her nine months. A one-way trip to Australia lasted approximately three months, and the loading and unloading processes were complicated, so docking could take weeks, after which the schooner often waited for return-trip cargo. This route was also the
Minnie A. Caine's maiden voyage. She was scheduled to leave
Puget Sound for Sydney on October 25, 1900. From the day of launch, the
Minnie A. Caine's captain was J. K. Olsen. Although initially the
Minnie A. Caine operated under multiple owners, by 1903, Charles Nelson Co. has consolidated the ownership of the schooner and re-registered her to the port of San Francisco. The company operated multiple vessels and was growing to become one of the largest lumber transporters in the United States.
The grounding of 1901 The
Minnie A. Caine's maiden voyage did not return to Seattle until December 23, 1901, having been delayed in
San Francisco port by the "strike trouble" there. Her next assignment was to pick up a load of lumber from
Chemainus, a
logging town in
British Columbia, and deliver it to
Callao, the main port of
Peru. The schooner left
Port Townsend, Washington on December 24, 1901. As she should pass through
Haro Strait and the narrow passages around
Salt Spring Island, she was pulled by a small -ton
tug,
Magic. On
Christmas Eve, as the coupled ships were passing
Victoria, British Columbia in the northeastern part of
Strait of Juan de Fuca, it encountered a severe storm that covered the entire area and was described as "the worst storm seen in many years." The
roll of the larger vessel—the
Minnie A. Caine—soon reached critical
amplitude, and at 2:00 a.m., the
hawser had to be severed to save the
Magic from overturning. The
steam-powered Magic managed to reach Port Townsend safely, pouring
machine oil around herself to "keep the seas down." The crew of the
Minnie A. Caine "heroically" attempted to sail through the storm, but the gale gradually ripped all her sails, and the schooner ended up thrown ashore on a rocky beach on northwestern
Smith Island. The crew was safe and found refuge inside the
Smith Island lighthouse. Subsequent inspection of the schooner revealed damage to her bottom, and she was generally believed to be a complete loss. At the time, the estimated cost of salvage and repair—from $60,000 to $65,000 (from $1,600,000 to $1,700,000 in 2020 dollars)—was higher than her original price.
Salvage operation of 1902 . It turned out that only Elmer Caine's share of the schooner was covered by insurance (in the amount of $17,500 ($465,000 in 2020 dollars)). The largest share, owned by Charles Nelson, was uninsured, and he sent his nephew, James Tyson, to investigate the possibility of
salvage to the avoid $35,000 ($930,000) loss. The damage to the ship was not as severe as originally feared, but re-launching the vessel was problematic. Charles Nelson Company and Caine's insurance
underwriters joined forces to organize the salvage, but all offered bids were too high. Finally, the parties agreed that
Robert Moran of
Moran Brothers would attempt the salvage. The operation was led by Moran employee Captain Klitgaard. The salvage became "widely followed" and its details were featured in the
Scientific American. The operation was complicated by the remote location of the wreck site, as all supplies, including fresh water, had to be delivered from Port Townsend. Caine allocated another of his ships, the
tug Wallowa, to assist with transportation. The tug transported supplies to host and feed the 40 people involved in the operation, and brought back surviving fittings, including the removed
topmasts,) from Smith Island. The actual salvage started in February 1902. The 40 workers used heavy
timber to construct
skids to direct the schooner into the water. They employed
hydraulic jackscrews to dislodge her from the sand onto the skids while the
Wallowa pulled the
Minnie A. Caine towards the water. The schooner was moved 45 feet, but a March storm destroyed weeks of work, pushing the schooner back to its original location. The procedure had to be restarted in April. The
Wallowa attempted to pull the vessel 85 feet towards the water, but her power was insufficient. On May 4, a more powerful tug, the
Tyee, from the
Puget Sound Tug Boat Co., was chartered, but it took the simultaneous application of two tugs—the
Tyee and the
Tacoma—on May 9 to return
Minnie A. Caine to the water. The schooner was tugged to the Moran Brothers' dock in Seattle, where she underwent repairs until starting a voyage to San Francisco in September 1902. The salvage operation ended up costing almost $20,000 ($530,000), with subsequent repairs at Moran's costing an additional $10,000 ($270,000), which amounted to almost half the vessel's value. Because Elmer Caine used his own tug and men during the salvage operation, he ended up owning a 50% share of the vessel. However, by 1903, he sold his share to Charles Nelson Co. which became the
Minnie A. Caine's sole owner.
1906–1909 incidents During one of the voyages from
Washington state to San Francisco in November 1906, the
Minnie A. Caine saved the crew of another San Franciscan schooner, the
Emma Caudina, which was wrecked off
Grays Harbor. Three years later, on December 27, 1909, the
Minnie A. Caine itself reached Grays Harbor in miserable condition after encountering a
typhoon. The schooner was sailing from
Haiphong,
French Indochina, to
Bellingham, Washington, and the typhoon carried away all her sails and destroyed most of her provisions. The crew was suffering from severe hunger. Captain J.K. Olsen became stricken with heart disease, and on arrival was taken to the Hoquiam hospital in critical condition. G. Nelson became the
Minnie A. Caine's new captain.
Australian incidents of 1917–1918 after the fire. For the 1917 voyage to Australia, Captain G. Nelson was replaced by Captain Nicholas Wagner. On August 19, the
Minnie A. Caine arrived at
Port Adelaide with of
lumber and of gasoline. Unloading was scheduled to finish at the Corporation Wharf by September 4; however, at 6:30 p.m. on September 3, a fire erupted in the schooner's lower
hold. The captain's wife and their three children made a hasty escape to a nearby hotel while the port's fire brigade, reinforcements from the city, the captain, and a few crew members fought the fire. The gasoline was safely jettisoned, but the fire was not contained until 10 p.m., when the firefighters were assisted by a heavy rain. The schooner was eventually half-sunk from the amount of water poured in to fight the fire, her masts resting on the surface of the wharf. The fire "almost completely destroyed the ship." The rapid progress of the fire from a section used to store sails raised suspicions of an arson. A special inquiry into the cause of the fire was held on September 20, but "it was not considered desirable to disclose" its findings to the public. The schooner was moved to a
dry dock of A. McFarlane & Sons in
Birkenhead to assess the damage. The burned area was and went deep. The
sternpost,
poop deck, and a number of
knees in
the aft section needed to be replaced completely. The knee replacement was of particular concern, as at the time, there was no sufficiently large timber available in Australia, raising doubts if that schooner could be repaired in Adelaide. Despite all the difficulties, A. McFarlane & Sons repaired the schooner "satisfactorily" by January 1918, although test runs and repairs of residual leakage continued until March. The overall cost of the repairs was 5,500
Australian pounds ($25,795 in 1917 US dollars or $574,267 in 2020 dollars). The
Minnie A. Caine was unable to leave Adelaide in March, however, because she became the first ship arrested in the port in years on the charge of not settling ship survey account amounting to 42 Australian pounds. The case went to Australian
Admiralty Court, which eventually cleared the schooner and captain of the charge.
Minnie A. Caine's ordeal in Adelaide finally ended on June 19, 1918, when the schooner sailed to San Francisco. By that time, one of the captain's sons was old enough to marry a local girl from
Semaphore neighborhood of Adelaide.
1920–1926 lumber trade After World War I, the economics of the trans-Pacific lumber trade changed. Advances in shipbuilding gave the advantage to
steam-powered vessels, gradually rendering the concept of a sailing lumber schooner archaic. The building of sailing ships effectively ceased after 1905, and moreover, the end of World War I flooded the market with a fleet of
steamers no longer needed for hostilities. On the other hand, the
Hawaiian sugar industry had switched from coal to oil, and it was less and less profitable to carry coal as a return cargo from Australia. By 1921, Charles Nelson Co. was one of the largest lumber trading companies in United States. Unlike most of its competitors, it hadn't gotten rid of its sailing vessels prior to World War I. In the changed economy, the company transferred its lumber schooners from the trans-Pacific lumber trade to the
West Coast lumber trade, delivering lumber from the
Pacific Northwest to San Francisco. Moreover, the schooners no longer sailed this route; instead, they were tugged along the coast by a steam schooner also loaded with lumber, or by a
tug. This approach permitted the operation of schooners with a minimal crew of less-experienced sailors, saving money on wages and keeping the transport rates down. By 1919, Captain J. K. Olsen returned to command of the
Minnie A. Caine, and the schooner began a cycle of tug-assisted voyages, mainly from
Port Angeles or
Mukilteo in Washington State to San Francisco, and occasionally as far as
Mexico. By 1923, the
Minnie A. Caine was the last sailing vessel operated by that Charles Nelson Co. By 1926, even this method of lumber transport became unprofitable. Her last voyage was from Port Angeles; the schooner arrived in San Francisco on August 8, 1926, and was later towed to the marine boneyard in
Alameda, California.
Fishing barge By 1931, strained by the
Great Depression, the Charles Nelson Co. was actively selling unneeded vessels. Simultaneously, Captain Olaf C. Olsen, a "square-jawed Norwegian" and one of many Pacific Coast sailors formerly involved in the
West Coast lumber trade, discovered a business opportunity in operating a fishing barge. Since 1925, he had successfully operated the barque
Narwhal in this capacity, and formed the
Malibu Maritime Corporation. After selling the
Narwhal to a
film studio, in April 1931 Olsen purchased the
Minnie A. Caine to turn it into a fishing barge operating off the
Santa Monica Pier. The schooner was tugged along the California coast from the boneyard in
Alameda to
San Pedro, where her
masts were cut off. She was subsequently reclassified as a
barge with a crew of two, and registered to the
Malibu Maritime Corporation with her
home port listed as
Los Angeles. In May 1931, the
Minnie A. Caine was anchored for the summer in
Santa Monica Bay, not far from the Santa Monica Pier. For the next eight years, the
Minnie A. Caine spent summers anchored in the bay, and Captain Olaf C. Olsen operated a small boat to bring fishermen to his barge. The ticket was 50 cents; during the Depression years, a kid could fish on the
Minnie A. Caine for a full day and bring home enough fish to sell it for spending money for a couple of weeks and the next ticket. At night, it was rumored that "merry" parties were held on the vessel, where alcohol was served. A piano was delivered to
Minnie A. Caine for entertainment. During the winter months, the former schooner was moored off the docks in San Pedro.
The grounding of 1939 During the night of September 24, 1939, after an unprecedentedly hot summer,
Santa Monica Bay was hit by a severe storm, with
gales reaching . At the time, Captain Olsen, five crew members, and an unidentified number of guests were on board. Anchored in the bay, the
Minnie A. Caine rode out the storm six miles off the
Santa Monica Pier. When the old anchor chain failed, the crew was too slow to cast the spare anchor, and the former schooner was thrown onto the shore at , by the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and then Roosevelt Highway (now Pacific Coast Highway, part of
California State Route 1). All guests and the six crew members were safe. The guests were transported ashore by small boats before the worst of the storm hit, but the crew members had to be rescued later that night by the
Coast Guard. The next day, after a futile attempt to free the vessel with
tugs, the crew discovered serious damage to her
keel. The
Minnie A. Caine was written off as
total loss and eventually abandoned. During the next several weeks, the grounded vessel was served as amusement for the local residents, who drove north of downtown of Santa Monica to observe the
wreckage.
The fallout of the grounding . Three months after her wreck, the
Minnie A. Caine created new problems for the city of
Santa Monica and the
California Highway Commission. A
sandbank had quickly formed, connecting the grounded vessel to the shore and disturbing the intricate flow of
currents inside the
Santa Monica Bay. As a result, ocean waves started battering and cutting into a section of
California State Route 1. By December 1939, of
berm had washed off, causing erosion of the roadway. As an emergency measure, 500 tons of
riprap were dumped along the highway and one last attempt was made to free the vessel. After the attempt proved unsuccessful, a call was put out through the newspapers to salvage the wreckage for timber. When this produced few results, the decision was made to burn the wreckage, and Captain Olsen signed abandonment papers. While the engineers prepared the burn, an additional 500 tons of
riprap were dumped along the damaged portion of the highway. After pouring of
fuel oil and
gasoline over the
Minnie A. Caine, highway engineers set her on fire at 1 a.m. on December 22, 1939. Many Santa Monica residents gathered to observe the fire. The fire continued through the next day, and it soon became apparent that additional fuel was needed to ensure that the ship's water-soaked
hull would burn. On December 23, of
crude oil were added to the fire, followed by another of oil later in the day. By December 24, the fire was out, but a portion of the vessel remained stuck the sand. The engineers feared that the remaining portion of the ship would continue disrupting the currents, and suggested using explosives to finish the destruction. This measure, however, was protested by concerned local residents, who feared that an explosion might trigger
landslides and damage their properties. Over the next month, the tide dispersed the remaining wreckage and the threat to the highway was eliminated. == In popular culture ==