A Puget Sound Tugboat Yarn – Vancouver to Ballard

By Jack Brummet, Seattle History Editor

[from the Library of Congress Washington State folk life archives]

"I was skipper of a tugboat towin' a boom of logs from Vancouver Island to Ballard in 1911. Most of the way down we had one of them frozen fogs, and it kept gettin' colder all the time. The seagulls had slim pickin's that time of year up the Sound, and they swarmed onto the log boom till you couldn't see the bark.

"One morning, about six hours from Ballard, one of the deck hands noticed that they were flapping their wings considerable without gettin' anywhere, and [?] we come to find out, be'jeeze their feet was frozen to the logs. When we got about opposite Meadow Point, somp'n went wrong with the engine. The Chief reported that it couldn't be fixed without goin' onto dry dock, and there we was, driftin' out there in the fog, with little chance of gettin' any help for twelve hours or so, and a darn good chance of fouling on the point and losin' the boom and our skins besides.

"It looked pretty tough until I got an idea. Then I says to the Steward:

“Charlie, how much sack coal we got left?”

"Charlie says: 'We got five sacks in the hole and one part sack in the galley.'

“That's fine, I think that will be enough to get us into port."

He looks at me an though I had somp'n wrong with my head, and goes off mutterin' to himself. Then I calls the two deck hands and tells them to get the sacks of coal out of the hole and carry them way aft. Then I order all hands an' the cook to stand aft and throw coal at the seagulls on the log boom. And bejeeze, them seagulls flew us and the boom into port."

---o0o---