alaska cruise ship sinking

Coast Guard suspends search after charter boat sinks off Alaska, leaving 1 dead and 4 missing

The Coast Guard has suspended its search for survivors after a charter boat sank off Alaska on Sunday, leaving one person dead and four others missing.

The search began after the Coast Guard at Sector Juneau received a call Sunday night from Kingfisher Charters alerting them that a 30-foot charter vessel with five people on board had not arrived at its destination, the agency said in a news release .

The vessel had last been seen underway Sunday afternoon, it said.

Search crews found one person dead Sunday night before locating the boat, which was partially submerged off Low Island, about 10 miles west of Sitka, the agency said.

They continued to search for the four missing people Monday but suspended the operation at sunset, the Coast Guard said.

The people who were on the boat have not been publicly identified.

Kingfisher Charters did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment.

Air and vessel rescue teams searched 825 square miles over the course of more than 20 hours, the Coast Guard said. A number of good Samaritan boats also helped with the search.

“Despite our best efforts and those of several partner agencies, we were not able to find the four remaining individuals," said Darwin Jensen, Captain of the Port Southeast Alaska.

"Suspending a search is never an easy decision. We extend our deepest sympathy to the loved ones during this difficult time," he said.

Chantal Da Silva is a breaking news editor for NBC News Digital based in London.

Search suspended for 4 people missing after Alaskan charter boat sinks: Coast Guard

The five people aboard the boat were last seen Sunday afternoon.

The Coast Guard suspended its search late Monday for four missing people after a charter fishing boat sank off the coast of Alaska.

Rescuers located one deceased individual and the vessel partially submerged near a small island 10 miles from Sitka, Alaska, according to the Coast Guard.

Kingfisher Charters, a Sitka-based company that operates all-inclusive fishing trips, reported the missing vessel to the Coast Guard on Sunday evening. The boat was carrying four passengers and one guide when it sank, according to the Coast Guard.

The 30-foot aluminum vessel was last seen on Sunday afternoon near Kruzof Island, less than 10 miles from the small rocky island where the ship was found.

"Despite our best efforts and those of several partner agencies, we were not able to find the four remaining individuals, " Coast Guard Captain Darwin Jensen said. "Suspending a search is never an easy decision. We extend our deepest sympathy to the loved ones during this difficult time.

MORE: 2 people, dog rescued from sinking boat off Georgia coast

Kingfisher Charters offers all-inclusive fishing packages and operates guided trips on 30-foot power boats that can carry up to six anglers on a boat, according to the company website .

Kingfisher Charters did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Rescuers, including the Coast Guard, local officials, and private boaters, searched 825 miles over 20 hours before suspending the search.

MORE: Polar bear kills mother, 1-year-old son after rampage through remote Alaska village

Sitka often attracts anglers from across the United States for its king salmon and halibut fishing, both currently in season. Located in Alaska’s Southeast panhandle, Sitka has over 8,000 residents across Baranof Island, according to the latest census data.

ABC News' Jenna Harrison contributed to this report.

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Coast Guard Suspends Search After Charter Boat Sinks Off Alaska, Leaving 1 Dead and 4 Missing

Teams searched a total of 825 square miles over the course of more than 20 hours, the coast guard said, by chantal da silva | nbc news • published may 30, 2023.

The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search for survivors after a charter boat sank off the coast of Alaska on Sunday, leaving one person dead and four others missing.

The search began after Coast Guard workers at Sector Juneau received a call Sunday night from Kingfisher Charters alerting them that a 30-foot charter vessel with five people on board had not arrived at its destination, the agency said in a news release .

The vessel had last been seen underway Sunday afternoon, it said.

Search crews found one person dead Sunday night before locating the boat, which was partially submerged off Low Island, about 10 miles west of Sitka, the agency said.

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They continued to search for the four people still missing Monday, but suspended the operation at sunset, the Coast Guard said.

The person found dead and the four missing have yet to be publicly identified.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com here .

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History | Military | Search & Rescue | Southeast

35th Anniversary of the Prinsendam, Part 1: The Rescue

November 4, 2015 by Rich McClear, Sitka

October 4th marked the 35th anniversary of the sinking of the Prinsendam. The cruise ship was abandoned 200 miles off the coast of Alaska due to fire. Over 500 passengers and crew were rescued. (Photo courtesy of the Alaska State Library

It’s been called the greatest high seas rescue in the history of the Coast Guard. 35 years ago on October 4th, the luxury cruise liner Prinsendam caught fire in Gulf of Alaska, between Yakutat and Sitka. Despite an incoming typhoon, 30-foot seas, and 100-meter visibility, every one of the more than 500 passengers and crew escaped before the ship burned and sank.

Earlier this month members of the US Coast Guard and Air Force, and their Canadian counterparts, gathered in Seattle for a reunion. In Part 1 of a three-part series on the Prinsendam anniversary, KCAW’s Rich McClear headed south to join them – and reflect on his own role in the emergency. 35 years ago, McClear, was about to leave KTOO in Juneau to start the public radio station in Sitka.

Oct. 4, 1980, was Juneau’s 100 th birthday and the city was in the mood to party. The Coast Guard Cutter Boutwell was in town, up from Seattle, to help with the celebration. The bars were full of Coasties.

Sitkan Doris Bailey was in Juneau and remembers how her husband, Roy, first learned that the party was over. “Some boat started tooting blasts on the horn and Roy jumped out of bed and said “Oh My Gosh, every coastguard person is being called back to the ship, all leave is canceled,” Bailey said.

That was around 1 a.m. in the morning. The Boutwell’s captain, Lee Krumm, was scheduled to be the Centennial Parade Grand Marshal. He was enjoying himself in a Mendenhall Valley tavern when he was called to the phone.

Lee Krumm: I went up and got the microphone from the band and said, ‘Anyone from the Boutwell in here get yourselves downstairs. We’re heading back on the ship. We have a cruise ship on fire.’ We had people actually sitting in the trunks of cars with their legs hanging out the back getting them back to the ship.

The Juneau police and volunteer fire department went to every bar rousting out crewmembers. Seaman Dan Long was on the ship helping load the crew back on board. Long remembered the process. “One guy take the arms, one guy take the legs, haul them on board and dump them on the flight deck – those guys who couldn’t walk under their own power,” he said.

But in two hours the Boutwell was ready to sail with only nine crew members missing. In Sitka, the Woodrush was also underway and two helicopters from Air Station Sitka were heading to the ship.

Aboard the Prinsendam, the fire spread. She was dead in the water. The captain gave the order to abandon ship. John Graham was the ship’s lecturer and recalled, “In the beginning the seas were relatively calm. We were put into the lifeboats in the middle of the night. It was kind of an adventure. People did sing along to old campfire songs.”

At daybreak, the helicopters started hoisting passengers. They ferried the survivors to the Exxon Williamsburgh, which heard the SOS. Fortunately, the tanker had a helipad and was fully loaded with crude oil, making it stable in the rising seas.

Every few trips the helicopters had to refuel, so they carried their passengers to Yakutat.

Pete Torres was on the crew of one of the Kodiak choppers and said, “The people had been sitting cramped in a lifeboat for up to 10 to 12 hours. By the time they got into the helicopter, they couldn’t get themselves out of the basket. We would actually have to pick them up and move them back to the back of the helicopter.” He added, “There weren’t enough troop seats in the helicopter, so after a while a lot of the passengers would actually have to sit on the deck in a pile. I think on our last run we had up to 16 survivors on our helicopter.”

The Prinsendam on a postcard, pictured at Skagway before the fire. (Photo courtesy of the Alaska State Library)

The Prinsendam passengers who flew to safety may have been the lucky ones. As the day wore on, the weather deteriorated.

Passenger John Graham said this is when survivors in the lifeboats began to feel desperate. “Finally the typhoon hit us full force. Winds gusting up to 60 knots. 30 foot seas. And we were all hypothermic. We were all seasick. At about 5 o’clock, the storm was so bad that the helicopters couldn’t fly anymore. So our only hope was that there something out there on the sea that could rescue us,” he said.

Graham’s boat was eventually found by the Boutwell. She had arrived from Juneau and began taking survivors aboard. It wasn’t easy.

First they sent a launch to transfer survivors from the lifeboats to the ship. That didn’t work so well, Dan Long recalls. “We went out and got to the first lifeboat. Well, the crew from the Prinsendam, they were just panicked. We wanted to take the elderly on board first. They were climbing over the elderly and climbing onto our boat because they were so afraid. It was this total mayhem. Our boat quickly filled up and we couldn’t get the elderly off the lifeboat.”

Instead, the launch towed the lifeboat to the Boutwell, but most were not able to climb the 40-foot Jacob’s ladder to the ship. Their hands were cold, and they could not grip the rungs. Long said, “We just sent a man down with a horse collar and manually hauled them up one by one,” using a hand winch.

And that’s the way the Boutwell brought all the survivors from the remaining lifeboats aboard – or so they thought.

Lt. Colonel Dave Briski, the pilot of an Air Force C-130, was unwilling to call it a day.

Lt. Dave Briski: I called the Coast Guard and I said, “What’s the status of the mission?’ They said, ‘Well, everybody’s been picked up. We’re closing down the mission down.’ And I said, ‘Are you sure you’ve got everybody picked up?’ And they said, ‘Yes everybody’s picked up.” And I said, ‘OK, the last I heard, the Air Force helicopter, the boat they were picking up people from, had two of our PJs, or pararescue men, and about 18 to 20 people from the ship. Can you confirm those people were picked up?” They said ‘Yeah, they’re all picked up.’ I said, ‘Well give me the names of the two PJs and then I know you’ve got ‘em. They insisted they were going to close the mission. I called the Rescue Coordination Center back at Elmendorf and I said ‘Hey, I don’t think they’ve got everybody picked up.’

Briski was right. The Boutwell and Woodrush sailed search patterns in the area where the lifeboat was last reported. Just before 2 a.m., the Boutwell found the missing lifeboat and hauled its passengers aboard. The mission was closed, but for the residents of Yakutat, Sitka and Valdez, the rescue of the Prinsendam was just beginning.

The end of the mission at sea was the beginning of the rescue on land, as the more than 500 passengers and crew of the Prinsendam were brought ashore with only the clothes on their backs. In Part 1 of this series tomorrow, KCAW’s Rich McClear talks with Sitkans who lent a hand – and much more – to the survivors of the Prinsendam.

This story is Part 2 in a series to commemorate the 35th Anniversary of the Prinsendam Rescue. Here is Part 1 and Part 3 . Click here for more historic photographs of the Prinsendam sinking, courtesy of the Alaska State Library.

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Revelry and Unease in Alaska as Cruises Return

Ships are carrying fewer passengers than they did before the pandemic, but in port towns where the bulk of the economy depends on cruise travel, business owners say they are “grateful for what we have.”

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Three cruise ships are docked at a port with a large hill behind them and a peninsula with parking and a building in the foreground in a photograph taken from the air. At the top, a portion of an airplane wing is visible.

By Maria Cramer

Even before a rock slide in early July shut down one of the berths for the season, only about 275,000 passengers had disembarked in May and June from cruise ships in Skagway, Alaska.

That number, tallied by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, was nearly 40 percent lower than what it would have been if the ships were full when they pulled into the borough, a Gold Rush-era destination nestled in a valley by the Tongass National Forest.

Ships coming into the state’s capital, Juneau, and Ketchikan, another southeast Alaskan town that relies heavily on cruise tourism, were on average about 70 percent full in July, said Renée Limoge Reeve, vice president of government and community relations at the Cruise Lines International Association of Alaska .

That would appear to paint a bleak picture for Alaska’s cruise industry, particularly for Skagway, which welcomed more than one million cruise passengers in 2019. But that is not how many locals are describing it.

“Glorious,” said Mike Healy, the owner and general manager of Skagway Brewing Company. “Absolutely glorious.”

Two years after the pandemic crushed Alaska’s cruise industry and dealt a heavy blow to the state’s port towns, the sight of tourists ambling down the gangway, even in reduced numbers, has business owners and tour operators breathing a sigh of relief.

Andrew Cremata, the mayor of Skagway, said that he estimates the year will end with a total of about 600,000 visitors from cruises. Still, he said he is happy to see the town busy again.

“We’re surviving,” Mr. Cremata said. “And we’re so glad to be back in business.”

In April 2021, cruise lines in the United States began putting their fleets back out to sea after more than a year under a “no sail” order. But in Alaska, the industry would remain stalled for nearly three more months, in large part because of a law that forced cruise ships to stop in Canada, which had banned cruise ships until 2022 because of the pandemic.

The shutdown in 2020 and the “no sail order” from Canada had “catastrophic” effects on the southeastern part of the state, according to a 2021 study by several state agencies.

The state lost at least $1.7 billion in revenues in 2020, and during the first months of 2021 towns and port communities that rely on the cruise industry lost more than 22,000 jobs, according to the report.

In May 2021, Congress passed the Alaska Tourism Restoration Act, which allowed cruise ships to sail directly to Alaska without having to stop in Canada. But industry leaders still needed to come up with agreements with port communities, which needed reassurances that their fragile health systems would not be overwhelmed should there be an outbreak of Covid, said Ms. Limoge Reeve.

Ships then had to complete the process of bringing back their crews, said Anne Madison, a spokeswoman for the Cruise Lines International Association .

“It takes about 90 days to stand up a ship and have it ready to sail,” she said.

The Alaska cruise season is brief — it typically runs from April through October — and the 2021 season was barely salvaged. A total of about 57,000 passengers came through Skagway that year, said Mr. Cremata.

Statewide, there were 124,000 cruise passengers, said Ms. Limoge Reeve.

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It was a period of terrible stress on businesses and residents, recalled Tina Cyr, who owns a small local art gallery with her partner in Skagway.

“We were just living on our savings,” she said.

But there was also a respite from the normally taxing summer season, she said. Ms. Cyr said she and her partner took a summer vacation for the first time in years. “All of us were going, ‘It’s great to have our town back,’” Ms. Cyr said. “I heard that a lot.”

The streets were so quiet that a family of foxes was regularly seen running downtown, said Jaime Bricker, Skagway’s tourism director, who visited nearby Glacier Point, a popular tourist destination, for the first time in her life.

“My family and I embraced the quiet every chance we got,” Ms. Bricker said.

Fewer tourists, more whales

Around Glacier Bay National Park , a haven for seals, whales, dolphins and bears about 90 miles west of Juneau, the cruise ships were not missed, said Stephen Van Derhoff, one of the owners of Spirit Walker Expeditions of Alaska in Gustavus, a town of about 500 people near the park.

Mr. Derhoff’s business takes people to Glacier Bay in small kayaks and caters to independent travelers who want a more intimate wilderness experience.

“To see the giant cruises going by and the exhaust and smoke coming off them can have a negative impact,” Mr. Van Derhoff said. “For the first half of 2021 there was very little cruise ship traffic and that was actually very nice.”

Fewer ships at sea also gave scientists the opportunity to see the effects on humpback whales.

In 2020, researchers from the University of Alaska identified 63 adult whales, the most they had seen in a five-year period, said Heidi Pearson, an associate professor of biology at the University of Alaska Southeast. Dr. Pearson, who is conducting the study with Shannon Atkinson, a professor in the fisheries department at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said that it was too early to say whether fewer vessels at sea were the principal factor.

In Skagway, no one wanted the cruise ships gone for long, said Mr. Cremata, the mayor.

“I know there are some places that have a love-hate relationship with tourists,” he said. “But we love our tourists.”

More are coming, according to cruise companies, which in general have been offering discounts as they find their ships have room, in part because passengers are waiting longer to book.

Norwegian Cruise Line said it has five vessels sailing in the Alaskan region.

For the first time, Hurtigruten Expeditions, a smaller cruise company that specializes in trips to remote locations like Antarctica and the Arctic has operated trips to Alaska this year for the first time.

Ms. Limoge Reeve said industry officials project Alaska will see more than a million cruise passengers in 2022. “We’re really hopeful for next year,” she said. “Alaska continues to be a bucket list destination for people.”

Yet some wonder about the future of the cruise industry in Alaska.

Nicole Church, the owner of the Black Bear Inn in Ketchikan, said she believes people are now generally wary of boarding a ship filled with thousands of people.

Ms. Church said her inn has been booked since June, not with traditional cruise passengers but with guests who made their own way to the city or traveled on smaller cruise lines.

“They want to take an entire day hike, and go to Ward Lake and watch the white swans,” she said.

Dr. Atkinson, one of the professors studying humpback whales, described “mixed” feelings about the return of cruises.

While she is concerned about their effects on the environment, she said cruise ships, with their ability to take thousands of people to see the receding glaciers of Alaska, have an incredible opportunity to educate passengers about climate change.

“They have a captive audience,” Dr. Atkinson said.

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook . And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation.

Maria Cramer is a breaking news reporter on the Express Desk. More about Maria Cramer

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Alaska cruise cancellations pile up even as lines plan return to North America this summer

Cruises are returning to North America in June, but the news isn’t as good for Alaska as it might sound.

Cruises are still effectively banned in the U.S.: The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have yet to issue rules necessary for cruise lines to resume calling on U.S. ports.

And cancellations are starting to take a bite out of the heart of the Alaska cruise season. Princess , Holland America and Disney have each canceled cruises from Seattle through the end of June. Norwegian has nixed worldwide sailings through June as well.

None of them are taking online bookings for the 2021 Alaska summer season. The next scheduled voyage is a trans-Pacific sailing in October.

That’s due in part to Canadian authorities’ decision to bar cruise ships from the country’s waters until early next year . Federal law requires foreign-flagged ships — including all large cruise ships sailing to Alaska — to make an international stop on domestic routes.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski says the state’s congressional delegation is working to overcome that significant hurdle.

Legislation that would waive the federal law requiring a foreign stop hasn’t picked up steam so far. But Murkowski said that’s only one part of the effort. The delegation is lobbying the Biden administration and the Canadian government to allow the season to go forward.

“So you have a legislative track, you have an administrative track, you have a personal persuasion track — where effectively, as a delegation, we are raising this issue with anyone who will listen and work with us,” Murkowski said.

State lawmakers are also advancing a resolution calling for a waiver of the Passenger Vessel Services Act , the law that requires a foreign stop.

But the clock is ticking. Norwegian’s CEO recently told investors it’d take roughly 90 days to go from layup to sailing again.

Local officials and business owners in Ketchikan aren’t betting on a 2021 season happening. Ketchikan’s city council voted to lay off two city employees Thursday after local officials said another near-zero cruise season would cost almost $9 million in lost tax and fee revenue .

And consulting firm Bermello, Ajamil and Partners issued a bulletin this week predicting large cruise ships won’t return to Alaska ports until April 2022, at the earliest.

As U.S. and Canadian authorities appear hesitant to allow cruises to resume, Celebrity, Royal Caribbean and another cruise line, Crystal, are starting the summer on Caribbean islands outside of U.S. jurisdiction.

Celebrity will sail from the island of St. Maarten on the Millenium , which normally sails to Alaska over the summer. Crystal and Royal Caribbean will sail from the Bahamas.

All three lines will require adult guests to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Eric Stone, Alaska's Energy Desk - Ketchikan

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35th Anniversary of the Prinsendam, Part 1: The Rescue

Posted by Rich McClear, Sitka | Oct 21, 2015

October 4th marked the 35th anniversary of the sinking of the Prinsendam. The cruise ship was abandoned 200 miles off the coast of Alaska due to fire. Over 500 passengers and crew were rescued. (Photo courtesy of the Alaska State Library)

October 4, 1980 was Juneau’s 100 th birthday and the city was in the mood to party. The Coast Guard Cutter Boutwell was in town, up from Seattle, to help with the celebration. The bars were full of Coasties.

That was around 1 AM in the morning. The Boutwell’s Captain, Lee Krumm, was scheduled to be the Centennial Parade Grand Marshal. He was enjoying himself in a Mendenhall Valley tavern when he was called to the phone.

Lee Krumm: I went up and got the microphone from the band and said, ‘Anyone from the Boutwell in here get yourselves downstairs. We’re heading back on the ship. We have a cruise ship on fire.’ We had people actually sitting in the trunks of cars with their legs hanging out the back getting them back to the ship.

But in two hours the Boutwell was ready to sail with only nine crew members missing. In Sitka, the Woodrush was also underway and two helicopters from Air Station Sitka were heading to the ship.

Every few trips the helicopters had to refuel, so they carried their passengers to Yakutat.

The Prinsendam passengers who flew to safety may have been the lucky ones. As the day wore on, the weather deteriorated.

Graham’s boat was eventually found by the Boutwell. She had arrived from Juneau and began taking survivors aboard. It wasn’t easy.

And that’s the way the Boutwell brought all the survivors from the remaining lifeboats aboard – or so they thought.

Lt. Colonel Dave Briski, the pilot of an Air Force C-130, was unwilling to call it a day.

Lt. Dave Briski: I called the Coast Guard and I said, ”What’s the status of the mission?’ They said, ‘Well, everybody’s been picked up. We’re closing down the mission down.’ And I said, ‘Are you sure you’ve got everybody picked up?’ And they said, ‘Yes everybody’s picked up.” And I said, ‘Okay, the last I heard, the Air Force helicopter, the boat they were picking up people from, had two of our PJs, or pararescue men, and about 18 to 20 people from the ship. Can you confirm those people were picked up?” They said ‘Yeah, they’re all picked up.’ I said, ‘Well give me the names of the two PJs and then I know you’ve got ‘em. They insisted they were going to close the mission. I called the Rescue Coordination Center back at Elmendorf and I said ‘Hey, I don’t think they’ve got everybody picked up.’

Briski was right. The Boutwell and Woodrush sailed search patterns in the area where the lifeboat was last reported. Just before 2 AM, the Boutwell found the missing lifeboat and hauled its passengers aboard. The mission was closed, but for the residents of Yakutat, Sitka, and Valdez, the rescue of the Prinsendam was just beginning.

The Prinsendam on a postcard, pictured at Skagway before the fire. (Photo courtesy of the Alaska State Library)

The end of the mission at sea was the beginning of the rescue on land, as the more than 500 passengers and crew of the Prinsendam were brought ashore with only the clothes on their backs. In Part 2 of this series tomorrow, KCAW’s Rich McClear talks with Sitkans who lent a hand – and much more – to the survivors of the Prinsendam.

This story is Part 1 in a series to commemorate the 35th Anniversary of the Prinsendam Rescue. Here is Part 2 and Part 3 . Click here for more historic photographs of the Prinsendam sinking, courtesy of the Alaska State Library.

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In 1980, U.S. Coast Guard helicopters and cutters, assisted by the U.S. Air Force and the Canadian armed forces as well as civilian rescue and relief organizations, rescued more than 500 passengers and crew from the cruise ship Prinsendam in the Gulf of Alaska. (Courtesy photo / U.S. Coast Guard)

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This map from Stephen Corcoran’s book “None were Lost: The Prinsendam Fire and Rescue” shows the distance to the distressed Prinsendam from major search and rescue bases in across the Gulf of Alaska. (Courtesy photo / Stephen Corcoran)

Senior Chief Petty Officer Eugene Coffin III, who helped coordinate the response to the Prinsendam fire from the Coast Guard District 17 watch center, stands next to the plaque commemorating the rescue in the lobby of the Hurff A. Saunders Federal Building on Sept. 23, 2021. (Michael S. Lockett / Juneau Empire)

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Cruise Ship Dumping

Reasons for concern.

We have heard many concerns from community members and leaders regarding the impact of cruise ships on our Southeast Alaskan waters. In response, we have compiled resources here to provide information on the issue and what it could mean for Southeast communities.

Each year, the size of cruise ships, the number of people they bring, and the voyages they take through Southeast Alaska increases. As a result, the amount of wastewater they produce and dump into Southeast Alaskan waters continues to grow.

There are many concerning environmental and human health impacts associated cruise ship wastewater in Alaska.

Informational resources:

What you can do:.

Report any discharge you observe in the water that has floating oil, film, sheen or discoloration to DEC. Be sure to note the date, time, dock location, and name of the vessel. Also, describe what it looks like and smells like, and include any photos/videos you have.

Send all reports to DEC at 907-465-5278 or [email protected] and Denise Wiltse at [email protected] .
I f you do report a violation to DEC, please also let SEACC know by emailing Aaron Brakel at [email protected] so we can track what has been reported and follow-up with DEC.

Tier 3 Protections

Tier 3 Waters

A Cruise Ship Goes Down

Sinking of the prinsendam in 1980 led to one of history’s greatest maritime rescues.

Sinking of the PRINSENDAM, October 4, 1980. The Prisendam was approximately 120 nautical miles south of Yakutat when the fire broke out. U.S. Coast Guard Photograph

By 2015 standards, the Prinsendam, at 427 feet, was tiny. Even in 1980, the ship was the smallest of the five in Holland America's fleet, although it was the newest and, in some ways, the jewel of the fleet. It had been built in 1973 at a cost of $50 million.

Passengers on the Prinsendam had paid between $3,125 and $5,075 for the 29-day voyage from Vancouver through the Inside Passage and then across the North Pacific to Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore. Some of the passengers were going to stay on an additional two weeks as the ship visited Malaysia, Sumatra, Bali and Java.

Its total of 524 passengers and crew also seems miniscule compared to modern ships in the Alaska fleet that have six or seven times that number. But the difficulties encountered in safely evacuating even that relatively small number of passengers and crew point out just what trouble could await if a similar disaster happened to one of the leviathans in the modern cruise industry.

Still, the evacuation was also a blue print for just how to successfully deal with such a disaster at sea. It became, what Josh Reppinger called in a 1981 article in Popular Mechanics, the "most successful large scale peacetime sea rescue in history."

The Captain of the ill-fated Prinsendam, Cornelius Wabeke, had been a ship master for Holland America for 30 years and was one of the most experienced captains in the fleet. He would later be faulted for his response to the fire but not held solely responsible for the loss of his ship.

“Light rain greeted the Prinsendam as she eased into Ketchikan’s harbor early on Thursday morning, October 2 but the sky brightened to afford a day of sightseeing and shopping along the rustic boardwalk of Creek Street,” H. Paul Jeffers wrote in his 2006 book “Burning Cold: The Cruise Ship Prinsendam and the Greatest Sea Rescue of All Time.”

In his book, Jeffers noted that several passengers had a great time purchasing Native crafts and other items on Creek Street and elsewhere to take to loved ones back home.

“While the passengers were ashore in Ketchikan, the lifeboat crews practiced lowering boats,” Jeffers wrote. “When the Prinsendam was underway in the late afternoon, the sun was peeking through the clouds.”

Before arriving in Ketchikan, the passengers had a safety drill, according to Jeffers. They mustered in the lounge area and were shown how to don a life jacket or life vest and were told which life boat they were assigned to. According to the numerous passenger interviews that Jeffers used in his book, most of the passengers felt the drill had gone well and that they were prepared for any eventually. Of course, none of them really thought they would need to use that information.

Sailing north of Ketchikan, it was a typical day at sea. After dinner the passengers were treated to a variety show, which featured a young Greek musician who went by his first name, Yanni. Yanni would eventually become world famous as a new age keyboard player and the seller of millions of albums through direct sales on television.

On October 3, the ship arrived at Glacier Bay and the passengers enjoyed the day snapping pictures of the glaciers and the ice bergs.

As the ship turned out in the North Pacific on the evening of October 3, most of the passengers headed to their staterooms. Many were on their first trip in the open ocean and Dramamine was the popular nightcap of choice. There was a chance the ship might be bounced around by the remnants of a tropical storm in the next few days, but for now the sea was relatively quiet, especially for October.

Meanwhile down in the bowels of the ship, the engine crew was going about its nightly duties. While nothing is ever routine on a cruise ship, especially one with a four engine propulsion system, they were following the normal procedure of checking each of the multiple cylinders on the engines.

The oilers, greasers and other workers were hard at their tasks around 12:40 am when they saw a blue flame spark as a filter was being changed in a fuel line near one of the engines. A fire immediately broke out and efforts to fight it with fire extinguishers were unsuccessful. Soon the engine room was full of thick black smoke.

As the fire spread, the crew donned breathing apparatuses. It was clear that the fuel line was continuing to leak, making it impossible to contain the fire. Alerted to the problem, the Captain made the decision to try to fight the fire by flooding the engine compartment with carbon dioxide gas.

At the same time, Captain Wabeke had his signal operator send out the “XXX” code to the Coast Guard. The “XXX” code was less urgent than a “mayday” signal or an “SOS.” It merely reported to anyone listening that the ship had a problem, but not one of extreme severity. The message also reported the engine room fire.

The Prisendam was approximately 120 nautical miles south of Yakutat when the fire broke out. It was hundreds of miles away from the ships and planes that would need to rescue it. The Coast Guard rescue center - and its helicopters and aircraft were 250 miles to the west, Air Force rescue aircraft were at Elmendorf Air Base in Anchorage 370 miles to the north.

Sinking of the PRINSENDAM, October 4, 1980. U.S. Coast Guard, 17th District, Photograph Collection, Courtesy Alaska State Library

Coast Guard helicopters were also available in Sitka 170 miles to the southeast. The nearest Coast guard cutters were the Boutwell in Juneau, some 300 miles away, and the Woodrush in Sitka. Other possible resources, in British Columbia, were also hundreds of miles away. If the passengers and crew of the Prinsendam had to abandon ship, it could be hours, if not days before those ships and planes would reach them. But there was a vessel much closer. A 1,000 foot supertanker, the Williamsburgh, had left Valdez with 1.5 million gallons of oil the day before and was some 90 miles south of the Prinsendam when it heard the distress signal. It turned around and began the five hour journey to rendezvous with the stricken cruise ship. Other private vessels, farther away, also heard the distress call and changed course to find the Prinsendam. The 850-foot tanker Sohio was on its way from San Francisco to Valdez, and a container ship, the Portland, was on its way to Anchorage "This is your captain speaking," several passengers later recalled hearing at just after midnight on October 4. "We have a small fire in the engine room. It is under control but for your own safety, please report to the promenade deck." Many of the passengers later related they were first woken by the rumble of an explosion deep in the ship. There were several small explosions touched off the by the fire, shortly after those explosions the ship lost electrical power. Passengers could smell smoke in the corridors and soon the Captain had asked them to muster on the promenade deck. In the dark it was hard to dress and many passengers reached the promenade deck in odd assortments of clothes, some reportedly were even wearing draperies for warmth.

By 2 am, the main lounge on the Promenade Deck was beginning to fill with smoke and some passengers went out on deck to escape the smell. Some went into the Prinsen Club, a smaller lounge toward the bow. They were given snacks and free beverages. The gift shop was opened and sweaters were passed out. Ship entertainers continued to perform.

Shortly before 4 am, the passengers had to go out on deck because the smoke was filling the forward lounge.

Down in the hold, the firefighting efforts were not going well. The carbon dioxide system was working but not effective. The loss of electricity meant that there was no water pressure to fight the flames.

One thing in the ship's favor was that the weather was still calm. Although the remains of a tropical storm were just over the horizon, the Prinsendam was drifting in a calm sea, swells to five feet, winds of 10 mph, the air temperature was 57. Daylight would arrive in a few hours and - with help already on the way from a variety of directions - Captain Wabeke made the decision to abandon ship.

At 6:30 am, he announced: "I'm sorry, the fire is completely out of control, we have to abandon ship."

Given the relative old age of most of the passengers on board, the Captain decided to risk putting them in life rafts sooner rather than later, hoping that the bad weather would hold off and the rescuers would arrive. He knew that evacuating them directly from the ship in heavy seas would be nearly impossible. The fire was already spreading to other parts of the ship, it was starting to list as fire-cracked port holes were letting in seawater and he had no idea how much longer it would stay afloat.

Depending on which account you read, the evacuation either went smoothly or was chaotic. The vessel had six lifeboats that could hold 60-65 people and four large life rafts that could hold an additional 100 passengers. There were also two motor launches that were usually used to liter passengers in locations where the ship anchored in the harbor.

Clearly, there were problems loading some of the lifeboats. Unlike other famous evacuations it wasn't a case of rafts and boats leaving the ship half full. Some of the lifeboats were jammed with up to 90 people when they cast off. But with all the boats away, there were still 15 passengers and 25 crewmembers left on the stricken liner.

Fortunately, the Coast Guard and Air Force planes and helicopters began arriving on scene and with them were fire fighters brought to tackle the blaze and save the ship. But even the fire fighters had trouble. Their pumps were not sufficient, a large one was lost into the sea, and after an hour and a half, they conceded the battle was basically lost.

The best news happened at 7:45 am when the oil tanker Williamsburgh arrived on scene. The fact that it was fully loaded also was a good omen because it was riding lower in the water and it would be a little easier to transfer the Prinsendam passengers and crew to the giant tanker. Even so, passengers would have to climb up 40-foot rope ladders to get from the lifeboats and life rafts onto the tanker and given the age of many of the passengers that would have been a challenge. By 9 am, it was clear that the helicopters would have to hoist most of the passengers onto the tanker. Fortunately, it had a helicopter pad.

The helicopters quickly began hoisting the passengers - between 10 and 15 per load - on board and then transferring them to the Williamsburgh. It was a long process, according to Petty Officer Oliverson, a helicopter hoist operator, who spoke to Reppinger in 1981.

"It took about three to five minutes to hoist one person 20-30 feet into the copter...The basket would be lowered into the lifeboat, someone would somehow crawl in, hold on for dear life, and we'd hoist him or her into the copter. Then another crew member would flip the basket over (crewman had to literally bang the knuckles of some frightened passengers to get them to release their grip) and then carry the person back in the copter where we tried to distribute the weight evenly."

When the helicopter was full, Oliverson said, the copter would go over to the Williamsburgh, drop off the passengers in about five minutes and then return to the life boats for another run. Occasionally, a helicopter would take a load of passsengers to Yakutat where it had to go to refuel.

Once on board the Williamsburgh, or the Coast Guard cutter Boutwell which arrived at mid day from Sitka, a team of doctors, nurses and other rescuers triaged the passengers deciding which ones needed more immediate care. Besides passengers suffering from exposure and motion sickness, there were also cancer patients, epileptics, even a passenger suffering from a malarial relapse. It was a testament to the skill of the responders that all the passengers eventually recovered.

By 6:30 pm it was announced that all the life boats and life rafts had been emptied and the Williamsburgh, with 380 Prinsendam passengers on board, was returning to Valdez, which was the only port large enough for it to dock. The Boutwell was heading back to Sitka with 80 passengers on board. By now the typhoon remnants - and its 35 foot seas and 40 knot winds was arriving.

But then the Air Force realized that some of its personnel were not accounted for. Another survey found that they were in a final lifeboat with 20 passengers. Night closed in as the storm began to rage. Because it was unsafe to continue to fly, the Boutwell turned around in hopes of finding the final lifeboat. Finally at 1 am, a cutter found the life boat and pulled the passengers and Air Force rescuers on board.

After the storm passed, the Prinsendam was still afloat. Coast Guard officials wanted to tow it to Juneau or Sitka, but Holland America demanded that it be towed to Portland instead. When it was some 70 miles west of Sitka, the end came.

"Debris covered the decks, the bridge was gutted, the hull and cabin-sides were scorched with ugly black streaks,” Eppinger wrote in 1981. “Smoke continued to drift from its innards. The Prinsendam listed dangerously as it took on more water through its blown-out portholes. Finally, just after daybreak on the overcast morning of Oct. 11, it rolled over on its side, resting there for a minute and a half, before sliding bow first to the bottom in 8,820 feet of water."

Sinking of the PRINSENDAM, October 4, 1980. Description from Coast Guard: The cruise ship PRINSENDAM was abandoned 200 miles off the coast of Alaska, due to fire; over 500 passengers and crew were rescued; the ship sank seven days later U.S. Coast Guard, 17th District, Photograph Collection, Courtesy Alaska State Library

Although the ship sank off the Alaskan coast, the inquest into the sinking took place in the Netherlands, the home of Holland America. The loss of ship prevented officials from a thorough investigation as to why the fire started and what could have been done to prevent its spread.

In general the inquest determined that fire drills on the ship were inadequate and that the Captain had delayed measures such as the use of carbon dioxide that could have been successful. Some fault was also laid at the feet of the vessel owners for being generally aware of the problem of occasional high pressure fuel line leaks.

Although the Captain was found to have some fault in the sinking, the inquest also determined that several of his crew members hadn't “served him well” in their responses to the fire and that he could not be blamed for the loss of his ship. Captain Wabeke’s license was suspended for several weeks and other officers on the ship also had their licenses suspended for up to two months.

The sinking also caused the Coast Guard to change some of its procedures, most notably working to make sure that its helicopters could be refueled on scene in the future and not have to fly hours to land for more fuel. The Coast Guard was also impressed by the skill of the Air Force rescue swimmers and that led to the formation of the Coast Guard’s own rescue swimmer program, which has been credited with saving hundreds of lives in the decades since.

On the official Coast Guard website, the successful evacuation of the Prinsendam is rated as its second greatest rescue operation, second only to the evacuation of more than 30,000 people during Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast.

The rescue is also remembered every year when the Prinsendam Rescue Association meets in Seattle on the anniversary of the sinking. People who took part in the rescue most recently gathered from Oct. 2 to Oct. 4, 2015.

There is a Prinsendam currently in the Holland America fleet. In 2002, Holland America purchased the Seaborne Sun, which had been built in 1988, and renamed it the Prinsendam. The nearly 700 foot long ship carries approximately 1,200 passengers and crew. The ship offers "boutique" cruises to more out of the way tourism destinations such as the Black Sea, South America and Antarctica.

Edited by Mary Kauffman

The miracle rescue By PA1 Day Bosell USGC Military History - Includes USCG Photographs of rescue... http://www.uscg.mil/history/ops/sar/1980_PrinsendamCB.pdf

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Flashback in history: MS Prinsendam fire and sinking 4 October 1980

The cruise ship Prinsendam was built in 1973 for Holland America Line. It was somewhat smaller than average size for its day, carrying about 350 passengers and 200 crew. Just after midnight on 4 October 1980, a fire broke out in the engineroom as the ship was transiting the Gulf of Alaska. Shortly thereafter, the master sent a message to the US Coast Guard requesting assistance.

The ship was then 120 miles south of Cape Spencer and outside the range of USCG helicopters. The Coast Guard advised the master to send out an SOS, but he refused. The chief radio officer sent one anyway. Ships in the area responded, including the tanker Williamsburg and the USCGC Boutwell, which served as the on-scene coordinator. The master gave the order to abandon ship at sunrise.

The Coast Guard, Air Force, and Canadian Forces dispatched long-range helicopters, which carried persons from the lifeboats to the Williamsburg. The Prinsendam was taken under tow, but the fire could not be extinguished and the ship was listing heavily in deteriorating weather. Permission to bring the ship into sheltered waters was denied by the US Coast Guard, but probably had no impact, as the ship sank shortly thereafter. On October 11, 1980, the Prinsendam capsized and sunk, only 7 years after being built.

The Williamsburg brought 359 passengers and crew safely to Valdez.

There were no fatalities and no serious injuries.

In April 1981, Popular Mechanics magazine published an article about the disaster, reproduced here .

In 2002, Holland America Lines acquired the Seabourn Sun and renamed her Prinsendam - as of 2004, she is still in service with them. Click here for information about that ship.

MaritimeCyprus

Alaska For Real

Raised in ruins, alaska cruise ship disaster: the prinsendam.

On October 4, 1980, the aurora borealis danced above the stricken cruise ship as the elderly passengers crawled out of bed and made their way to the upper deck after the captain announced that there was a fire in the engine room. Almost everyone aboard, in the inhospitable Gulf of Alaska, one of the most dangerous bodies of water in the world, was of retirement age or older. Later, Muriel Marvinney explained how she and her friend Agnes Lilard came to be aboard: “Our families are wonderful. We’re both fortunate that our children and grandchildren live nearby and visit us. But, loving as our children are, and with all the dear friends both Ag and I have, there is a kind of invisible barrier for us as widows. You’re always fifth wheel at social gatherings….When we broached the idea of our taking ‘a slow boat to China,’ our children were all for it. The more we thought about it, the more exciting the idea seemed. All summer we pored over brochures like a couple of kids.” The boat they chose, as so many other retirement folks chose, was the intimate-sized cruise ship the Prinsendam, otherwise known (in a nod to the popular TV show The Love Boat ) by the affectionate nickname The Old Codger Boat.

The small Prinsendam (only 427 feet long, about the size of the flagship of Alaska’s ferry system), did not have a very auspicious start. She was built in 1973 as the smallest of Holland America’s fleet of cruise ships, and just before her inaugural cruise a fire started in the barroom and spread to the electrical wiring, burning out of control for an hour and a half. On the night of her final cruise, seven years later, the fire started in the engine room. The reaction by the crew was belated and inadequate. The captain, unaware of a large time lapse between when the fire began and when his instructions were followed, assumed that there was no great danger and didn’t immediately send out an SOS, assuming that their onbaord fire suppression methods would handle the blaze. However, he did send out a preliminary message that they had a situation that might escalate to an emergency. The Coast Guard and all shipping in the area immediately went on alert. Unfortunately, the Coast Guard was hundreds of miles away from where the Prinsendam was located out in the perpetually storm-harassed Gulf. If the elderly passengers were forced to take to the lifeboats it would be hours before the rescue heliccopters and cutters could reach them.

At first the passengers thought it was only a minor fire that would be taken care of soon, and they good-naturedly joked and chatted on the dark deck in their eclectic night attire, some of them in wheelchairs. The crew passed out drinks and snacks and opened the gift shop to offer sweaters to any who needed them. The ship’s entertainers, including a man who later come to fame as the musician known as Yanni, played music for them and they happily sang along. In the early hours of the morning, still assuming that everything was going to turn out all right, the captain allowed the passengers to come back inside to get warm. He also agreed to allow the crew to open up the dining room. Unfortunately, this caused the fire to re-ignite and abruptly blaze out of control. Hours before daylight, the captain sent off an SOS and announced that they were abandoning ship.

Until then the dead, unlit cruise ship, its electricity lost to the fire, had been wallowing gently in five foot swells with a gentle ten mph wind blowing. As the night progressed into dawn, the winds and seas began to rise. In addition, the smoky Prinsendam was starting to list as the fire blew out porthole windows and the growing swells sloshed water into the ship through these many openings. There were difficulties with getting the lifeboats loaded and lowered. Without electricity, they had to be lowered manually. One of the largest lifeboats got fouled in its lines and was abandoned, hanging at an angle. Another lifeboat was nearly lowered on top of another. None of them had power and the elderly passengers, crammed in so tightly they couldn’t move, couldn’t push their boats away from the steel sides of the ship as the waves ground and slammed them into it. But finally they were free, bobbing about in their small boats in the vast Gulf of Alaska under a murky dawn sky with, in front of them, the cinematic vision of their cruise ship pouring smoke out her portholes and listing into the growing seas. The captain, twenty-five crewmembers, and fifteen passengers remained on the stricken cruise ship. But by then Coast Guard and Air Force planes and helicopters were beginning to arrive. They managed to drop firefighting equipment and experts onto the liner, but after several different attempts to contain, let alone put out, the fire failed they had to admit defeat.

By the most astonishing good fortune, the oil tanker Williamsburg , fully loaded with Prudhoe Bay crude from the pipeline terminal in Valdez, arrived on the scene. Riding low in the water, it was the ideal platform in those conditions for getting the hundreds of passengers out of the lifeboats to a safe haven, especially as weather conditions continued to deteriorate. The only problem was the passengers would have to climb 40-foot rope ladders to get aboard the giant tanker. After having been wedged into the lifeboats and wallowing around in heaving seas, some of the elderly passengers (including those who were wheelchair-bound, suffering from cancer, epilepsy, having a malarial relapse) were in no shape to attempt this feat. That didn’t stop some from gallantly giving it a go. They made it to the top, but, knowing how bad storms in the Gulf could get–and knowing they were about to be struck by the remnants of a typhoon–the rescuers realized they had to speed things up. Thus began one of the most amazing sea rescues of all time as Coast Guard helicopters hoisted the passengers, between ten and fifteen per load, aboard and then transferred them to the tanker. The elderly passengers, at this point some of them suffering from hypothermia, dehydration, and severe sea sickness, had to crawl into the steel basket, cling for dear life, and be hauled through the cold, windy air, swinging above the growing waves, to the side of the helicopter where they were dragged inside. It took the rescuers, sometimes racing away with a load of passengers to Yakutat to re-fuel, from 9am to 6pm to transfer 380 Prinsendam refugees to the tanker. The Coast Guard cutter Boutwell had 80 passengers on board. Included in the rescued were the captain, crew, and passengers who had been left on the now completely abandoned and severely listing cruise ship. By now the remnants of the typhoon were lashing the Gulf with thirty-five foot seas and forty knot winds. The rescuers decided it was time to head for harbor. Shortly afterwards they realized that some Air Force personnel (rescue divers who had been lowered to help get passengers out of the lifeboats and into the basket) and twenty passengers were missing. Night closed in as the storm struck in full force.

Conditions made it unsafe for the helicopters and planes to continue searching for the missing lifeboat. Instead, the Coast Guard cutter Boutwell turned back and began a search they were afraid would end in disappointment and tragedy. At 1am, to their amazement, they found the lost lifeboat and managed to get everyone safely aboard. What was it like for those alone in the small vessel, at the mercy of towering seas, icy, spray-filled winds, worried that they might have been forgotten and abandoned? Many of the elderly passengers said they were at peace, despite their physical misery, with the idea that it might end here in this unforeseen adventure. They prayed to be rescued, but they knew that whatever happened they’d experienced long, full lives. Muriel Marvinney recalled, “From all over the [lifeboat] voices joined in repeating the prayer Jesus taught us. In spite of the Babel of so many languages–English, Dutch, French, German–we were all one at that moment.” Incredibly, despite the conditions and the elderliness and frailty of many of the passengers, not a single person was lost as the cruise ship Prinsendam sank through 9,000 feet of cold water to settle on the floor of the Gulf of Alaska, 225 miles offshore. The Coast Guard attributed this, modest about their own part in the rescue, to the patience, endurance, and good will of the passengers. They believed that it was because they were elderly, because they had learned the wisdom not to panic and instead to quietly fall in line with the rescuers’ orders, that one of the greatest maritime rescues of all time was pulled off without loss of life.

Note: Many of the details come from the book Burning Cold by H. Paul Jeffries. For those interested in reading it, be aware that while it has a wealth of detail, the author goes on awkward tangents and the book probably could have used more editing.

This blog post is for retired USN Chief, Melanie. Thank you for reminding me to write it.

5/26/2016 12:45:46 am

Beautifully written, ADOW! Thank you for this edge-of-the-seat, concise post about the Prinsendam rescue. I hope that the pollen is abating, and that you are feeling better.

5/26/2016 08:34:48 am

Thanks, Jo! Yes, I think the pollen is starting to lay down…but every time I think that it gets worse, so who knows? Craziness! 🙂

5/26/2016 12:33:32 pm

Fascinating story and one I had not known. Sorry to read you are still suffering from the pollen pollution.

5/26/2016 01:45:05 pm

Thanks, Sis. I’ve gotten behind in all my emails due to the pollen issues. To everyone I owe an email to, sorry, and I will catch up soon!

5/27/2016 07:21:27 am

How interesting! Thank you for sharing this story,

5/27/2016 07:37:25 am

You’re welcome, Wendy. Thanks for reading. This has been something of a lost story, which I think is too bad. I think it’s important to show how the elderly are better in some situations than young people. I’ve read hundreds of maritime disaster accounts and this is the only one, with this number of people and in these conditions, where no lives were lost. It’s an amazing accomplishment by everyone involved, but especially by the elderly passengers with their calmness and endurance.

Denise McDermott Reyes

1/6/2018 11:13:31 am

Please see my comment below. My Grandfather, Paul P. Noyes died as a result of injuries received on this ship during the storm. He was showering in his room and was knocked over due to the waves hitting the ship. He had a severe brain injury and never regained consciousness. He unfortunately died approximately a week later in a Seattle Hospital.

3/25/2017 02:09:05 pm

Raymond Moody and JD Nixon were Antenna Mahicans stationed in Kodiak Alaska They were ordered to be on Alert and not sleep soundly. They were responsible to make sure the the 4 Antennas remained in operation during this rescue.. They had just completed maintenance on the Antennas and knew they were in good shape. However, communications in this rescue was critical. For their service they received recognition form the United States Congress.

Tara (ADOW)

3/25/2017 03:01:44 pm

The reply to button isn’t working so I’ll have to reply in line. I wanted to thank you, J.D. Nixon for sharing the above information about the antennas and those making sure they worked. They definitely deserve the recognition considering how badly this story could have gone if communication had been a problem.

John Cassidy

3/24/2019 09:56:41 am

Communications was a problem as High Frequencies (HF) radio propagation was relied on as Satellite Communication systems were pretty much didn’t exist in 1980. HF reliability depends on bouncing radio signal off of ionized layers in the ionosphere which do not have stable layer boundaries. Unreliable long range (HF) communications between Anchorage and Juneau required relay via amateur radio operators through California. Even the on-scene Air Force HC-130 had a tough time maintaining long range communications with RCC Elmendorf. Due to curvature of the earth the VHF/UHF surface to surface range from lifeboat 6 was limited to ships to about 2.6 to 3 NM.

1/6/2018 11:04:15 am

It’s not true that there were no deaths from this tragic voyage. My Grandfather Paul P. Noyes succumbed about a week later to injuries he received while onboard the ship without ever regaining consciousness. It’s a harrowing story and the way my Grandmother, Ester Alma Noyes was treated was heinous. The Captain didn’t want to pay docking fees to let her disembark in Seattle so she was hoisted onto a dock and lost her shoes in the ocean in the process. It is a tradegy our family will never forget.

1/6/2018 11:17:05 am

Thank you for sharing this. In my research I never found any mention of this and it’s definitely part of the story that should be told. I’m so sorry your family suffered this tragedy. I did read that the crew behaved very badly in many cases–it was the elderly passengers who were the real heroes of this story for their incredible endurance, lack of panic, and stoicism. I could hardly believe all of them survived so it, sadly, doesn’t surprise me to learn that at least one of them didn’t make it. Thank you again for taking the time to share this important part of the story fo the Prinsendam. Hopefully future writers, when they do their research, will come across this and include it in their accounts.

Denise Reyes link

11/4/2019 08:31:43 pm

Hi, sorry it took me so long to get back. Somehow I’ve missed these replies. I see the controversy regarding my story. I assure you my Grandfather Paul P. Noyes was taken off this ship unconscious and died approx. a week later without ever regaining consciousness. If you check the passenger logs and research my Grandfathers passing in Seattle you can confirm my story. The problem may lie in the fact that he wasn’t injured during the fire and subsequent sinking. He was injured when the ship was hit by a large wave earlier in the week. I was always told the Coast Guard told the captain not to take the ship out to sea because of the storm and large waves on the day my Grandfather was injured. I will contact my Uncle Don Noyes and get the details. Thanks, Denise Reyes

4/21/2018 01:30:49 pm

The Captain did what he needed to do. There was never a conversation during the rescue about docking in Seattle or any other port. Yes returning to Alaska or Canada was an option. But a dead vessel is rather difficult to move.

11/4/2019 08:24:05 pm

My Grandfather Paul P. Noyes indeed was taken off the ship unconscious in Seattle where he succumbed to his injuries approximately a week later without ever regaining consciousness. his wife, my Grandmother Ester A. Noyes was taken off the boat along with him. This transpired before the ship caught fire and sunk. I will contact my Uncle Don Noyes more precise details and get back to you.

4/21/2018 01:39:53 pm

The second picture is wrong..the vessel went down over SB. I know that the stairs to the crew pool was on SB and not on PS

Mathieu Oosterwijk

4/21/2018 11:58:22 pm

I will pass this response on to my colleague 2nd Officer at the time, Paul Schol, who together with me and the 3rd Officer Paul Welling were responsible for the embarkation of passengers and crew into the lifeboats and liferafts and subsequent lowering them into the sea. As far as I am aware there were no unconscious passengers loaded into any of the lifeboats nor was there any intention from the captain to steer the burning vessel towards Seattle for disembarking passengers wounded or not!. A dead ship in the water will be extremely difficult to steer towards the shores.

John Cassidy link

3/24/2019 09:27:04 am

This recently written book has a bit more details of the rescue. In the book it is disclosed cold weather experts were predicting at the time the Prinsendam began lowering its lifeboats that half of the people in the lifeboats and rafts would succumb to the elements before they could be rescued, At that time, about 5:50 a.m., temperature was about 4 Celsius/ 40 Fahrenheit with a somewhat calm sea state. https://gorhamprinting.com/book/none-were-lost More accurately it was two Air Force Pararescuemen (PJs), not Air Force rescue divers in lifeboat 6. Info about PJs is found at https://afspecialwarfare.com/pararescue/ A specific request by the Coast Guard for Air Force PJs was rare, typically only when emergency medical treatment was known to be needed. In most instance Rescue Coordination Center dispatches an Air Force HC-130 rescue aircraft with a PJ team on board to parachute into the ocean when there were no Coast Guard vessels within the immediate area or in air refuel capable H-3 or H-53 helicopters with PJs on board. Also the Coast Guard didn’t have any Helicopter Rescue Swimmers prior to March 5, 1985. The Coast Guard after action report for this mission contains the first known official recommendation the Coast Guard establish a helicopter rescue swimmer program. It wasn’t until another attempted rescue on Feb. 12, 1983 off the coast of Virginia did the U.S. Congress insist the Coast Guard have helicopter rescue swimmers. https://gcaptain.com/mv-marine-electric-ship/

8/13/2020 09:52:47 am

Mr. John Cassidy it would be a pleasure if there was any way I could have your email to contact you. i would love to hear more stories over this historic event,

4/30/2019 01:27:03 pm

Thank you for sharing Tara!

Pamela J Clancy

11/4/2019 07:47:47 pm

My grandmother, Genevieve Gardner Denny, was on that cruise ship and wrote a witness of the events that happened that night when the ship was abandoned. I thank God for His mercy that all were saved. All the extemporaneous circumstances that seemed to be against survival were dispelled and all the passengers and crew survived. This was a remarkable rescue on part of the USS Coast Guard and God’s providence. So thankful these many years later (this 2019 which is 39 years since) to see the saving grace all encountered.

Georgia Felopulos

6/19/2023 07:36:52 pm

My grandmother, Carole (I’m not sure what her last name was at the time) Railsback, Nolan, or Felopulos and her youngest son (my uncle Paul Felopulos) were on the ship! 13 years before I was born…and sadly, they are both gone but I’m so thankful I came accross this! Thank you!

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Ghastly murder onboard a cruise to south africa.

Alaska Cruise Sinks – The 1952 wreck of the SS Princess Kathleen

Posted by: Michael Grace January 18, 2019

The Canadian Pacific Line’s 6,000-ton Princess Kathleen , queen of Alaskan liners, was 18 miles from Juneau on the last trip of the season from Vancouver, B.C. to Skagway, Alaska.

It was 3:15 a.m. Most of the 425 passengers and crew, including Captain Graham Hughes, were sleeping.
A light rain was falling, but the lookout reported fair visibility.

The final moments of the Canadian Pacific small liner SS PRINCESS KATHLEEN on September 7th, 1952.

Suddenly there was a violent shock and the frightening screech of tearing metal. Dazed men and women, thrown out of their berths, rushed on deck in confusion.

Unbelievably, for the Kathleen was supposed to have been following a well-charted and well-traveled channel, she had steamed right into the shore onto a high ledge of the Alaskan mainland.
Over the loudspeaker system, the purser told the passengers to abandon ship. One by one they went over the ship’s side, down ladders, and onto the rocky beach.
They were luckier than the passengers of the Princess Sophia , which 34 years (1918) before near the same spot, had struck a shoal and gone down with 328 aboard.

Passengers rescued – on the rocks.

The Canadian Pacific Princess Kathleen was a popular coastal passenger operated by Canadian Pacific Steamships. She was the predecessor to the Princess Patricia – the first “Love Boat” operated by Princess Cruises.

For most of the mid twentieth century, with the exception of World War II, the Princess Kathleen served most of her maritime career plying the coastal communities of British Columbia, Alaska and Washington.

The Princess Kathleen, along with her identical sister ship the Princess Marguerite, were built to replace the aging C.P.R.S.S. Princess Irene and C.P.R.S.S. Princess Margaret which previously had been requisitioned by the British Admiralty during World War I.

The dining salon on the elegant small liner.

The sinking made the cover of Life Magazine – 1952.

At 5,878 tons, and 369 feet, the Princess Kathleen was built by John Brown & Co., Clydebank in Glasgow Scotland and launched in 1924.

Canadian Hockey team on the Princess Kathleen.

On her maiden voyage, she sailed from Glasgow to Vancouver via the Panama Canal. Once in service, the Princess Kathleen and the Princess Marguerite relieved the existing sisters, the C.P.R.S.S. Princess Charlotte and the C.P.R.S.S. Princess Victoria on the premiere “triangle service” between Vancouver, Victoria, and Seattle. This was the exact route for which the new “twins” were intentionally built.

Princess on the rocks.

With a capacity of 1,500 passengers, 290 berths, 136 elegant staterooms, a classically designed dining room that could seat 168 passengers and the ability to carry 30 automobiles, the Princess Kathleen and Princess Marguerite provided a new style of luxury and the latest word in comfort.

Quite quickly the two sisters became the preferred ships on this service, successfully competing against their biggest rival for the passenger market, the Black Ball Line. Eventually, both of the sisters were later modified to carry 1,800 passengers by reducing the number of staterooms to 123.

In September 1939 the Princess Kathleen and the Princess Marguerite were requisitioned by the Royal Canadian Navy for use as troop ships. Sadly, the Princess Marguerite was lost in action during World War II off of Port Said in August 1942 with the loss of 49 lives.

More fortunate for the time being, the Princess Kathleen was returned to Canadian Pacific in 1947 after some 250,000 miles of wartime service untouched by Axis forces. The Princess Kathleen was extensively reconditioned following her return to Victoria and on June 22, 1947 she resumed sailing on the “triangle service.”

Changing demands and increased automobile traffic saw Canadian Pacific transfer her in 1949 to the Vancouver – Alaska cruise service along the spectacular Inside Passage.

Passengers waiting to board lifeboats – coffee and the final moments aboard a Princess.

During the 1950-51 cruise season, the Princess Kathleen had a brush with fate, when she and another ship, the Prince George, both equipped with radar, collided during heavy fog in September 1951, 27 miles northwest of Prince Rupert.

All passengers were mailed this souvenir... Princess Kathleen had escaped... But her fate would change the following year.

Damage to the Princess Kathleen approached $250,000, while approximately $100,000 damage was inflicted on the Canadian National steamer.

Passengers in life jackets – a Princess ready to sink.

Passengers were told to report to their lifeboat stations, but neither ship was in any immediate danger of sinking and the Princess Kathleen was able to reach the nearest port (with lifeboats swung out and ready for launching) by morning. All passengers were later mailed these photos from Canadian Pacific of the damaged bow.

The sinking of Princess Kathleen…

A young passenger looks at the sinking ship…

It was while on this same service that the fates, still determined it seems to thwart her, finally caught up with Princess Kathleen for good. On September 7, 1952, while on the final Alaska cruise of the season, the trim three-stacker encountered heavy squalls and poor visibility while traveling between Juneau and Skagway. At the time, the Chief Officer Charles W. Savage ordered a simple change, of course, to steer the vessel into the middle of the channel, this being done after seeing the traditional and regular sight of the Shelter Island Light.

The strong tides of Lynn Canal aided the wind in setting the Canadian Pacific coastal liner off her course to port. Heavy rainfall made it difficult to detect her dangerous swing toward shore.

Soon the passengers would be ashore – but the ship underwater.

Savage in charge of the bridge had ordered the change of course to starboard. After some time on the new course, he picked up his binoculars and stepped to the bridge wing to look for landmarks or navigation lights. As he did so, the lookout shouted, “Land”, but as it was through the intercom system and, as words tend to become indistinguishable when shouted into the microphone, the rest of his message was lost. The mate ran to see what the lookout had sighted and found the quartermaster had kept the helm to starboard. Then, for the first time, he sighted land, but it seemed some distance off.

In hindsight, Princess Kathleen should have moved to mid-channel, then return back on the original course. However, instead of giving the correct order to steer starboard then return to course, the Chief Officer Savage mistakenly gave a command to just steer starboard. Eventually, when the error was discovered, the chief officer soon saw land ahead and in a last ditch effort to avoid a collision, he ordered the vessel hard-a-starboard, but it was too late.

At 2:58 am, the Princess Kathleen ran aground at Point Lena in Alaska’s Lynn Canal, North America’s deepest fiord at low tide.

It was later determined that radar was not operational at the time of the grounding. A company spokesman later told the press that whether or not to turn on the radar was a decision made by the officer in charge and apparently Savage did not deem the situation radar worthy as the Princess Kathleen traveled off shore at a speed said to be 9 knots.

Initially, Savage’s crew sent out an SOS on the wrong frequency. It would be two hours later before the United States Coast Guard would become aware a Canadian ship had been grounded on their shores. When the USCG got wind of the plight of the Princess Kathleen, they immediately sent a cutter that had been towing a fishing vessel to the scene.

After assessing the damage to the bow, Captain Graham O. Hughs of the Princess Kathleen attempted to reverse her off the rocks, but she stuck fast and was unable to be moved. To be on the safe side, the passengers and lifeboats were readied for the possible evacuation of the vessel.

Could this happen today?

As the tide continued to fall, the Princess Kathleen took on a very decided list and with increased winds picking up; her stern was soon driven against the rocks causing further damage. By 5:30 am and in driving rain the list was at 19 degrees and the captain decided to have the waiting lifejacket clad passengers evacuate the ship.

While waiting for help, the waiting passengers built campfires onshore to keep themselves warm. One report by a historian notes no panic at all, but some stranded passengers assumed they were on an island, only to find out later they would be led on a bushwhack through the forest for a mile and a half to a nearby road to reach buses that would transport them into Juneau. One person reportedly had a heart attack later in the lobby of the Baranof Hotel.

The United States Coast Guard rescue cutter arrived at 6:30 am and eventually the cutter made two trips to evacuate about 150 remaining passengers and by 9:00 am all 307 passengers had safely disembarked from the stricken vessel.

The final moment. Then no more Princess.

The calmest passenger on the ship that night had been 88-year-old Mrs. Mary Thorne of San Francisco. Other passengers told the press that her courage and cheerfulness boosted their morale and turned what could have been a night of terror into an exciting experience. Mrs. Horne said at the time of the accident that she “was in good shape!” Further exclaiming; “We are all in good spirits and very thankful for the Coast Guard.”

However as the tide rose, her stern became swamped and started to flood. With the incoming tide encroaching on her perch and with her bow still on the rocks, the Princess Kathleen flooded even further, to the point that at 11:30 am, the captain and 80 crew gave up on trying to save her and abandoned her to the elements.

At 12:30 pm, ten hours after running aground, the Princess Kathleen slipped further and further off the rocks and into the sea. Her bow finally resting about 50 below the surface of the water, the stern 120 feet below, with about an 80 degree list. She had 155,000 gallons of bunker C fuel or also known as No. 6 fuel oil on board when she sunk.

With her precarious position right after sinking and coupled with an age of 27 years it was determined that salvage was too costly and she was left there. 300 of the passengers and crew sued the CPR for $1,119,000. Later, in May of 1954 the claims were settled with approval of a US District Judge for $190,000.

The Alaskan waters claim a Princess.

1952, alaska, Canadian Pacific, CPRR,final moment, Love Boat, passengers dead, princess kathleen, sinking princess kathleen, ss princess kathleen, ss princess patricia,steamship sinking, Titanic, normandie, prince rupert, princess cruises

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Any copying or reproduction of images or media herein is strictly prohibited.

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Yemen’s Houthi rebels hijack an Israeli-linked ship in the Red Sea and take 25 crew members hostage

The Galaxy Leader is seen at the port of Koper, Slovenia on Sept. 16, 2008. Yemen's Houthi rebels seized the Israeli-linked cargo ship in a crucial Red Sea shipping route on Sunday, Nov. 19, 2023, officials said, taking over two dozen crew members hostage and raising fears that regional tensions heightened over the Israel-Hamas war were playing out on a new maritime front. (AP Photo/Kristijan Bracun)

JERUSALEM — Yemen’s Houthi rebels seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in a crucial Red Sea shipping route Sunday and took its 25 crew members hostage, officials said, raising fears that regional tensions heightened over the Israel-Hamas war were playing out on a new maritime front.

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they hijacked the ship over its connection to Israel and would continue to target ships in international waters that were linked to or owned by Israelis until the end of Israel’s campaign against Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

“All ships belonging to the Israeli enemy or that deal with it will become legitimate targets,” the Houthis said.

Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the Houthis’ chief negotiator and spokesman, later added in an online statement that the Israelis only understand “the language of force.”

“The detention of the Israeli ship is a practical step that proves the seriousness of the Yemeni armed forces in waging the sea battle, regardless of its costs and costs,” he added. “This is the beginning.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had blamed the Houthis for the attack on the Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader, a vehicle carrier affiliated with an Israeli billionaire. It said the 25 crew members had a range of nationalities, including Bulgarian, Filipino, Mexican and Ukrainian, but that no Israelis had been on board.

The Houthis said they were treating the crew members “in accordance with their Islamic values,” but did not elaborate on what that meant.

Netanyahu’s office condemned the seizure as an “Iranian act of terror.” The Israeli military called the hijacking a “very grave incident of global consequence.”

Israeli officials insisted the ship was British-owned and Japanese-operated. However, ownership details in public shipping databases associated the ship’s owners with Ray Car Carriers, which was founded by Abraham “Rami” Ungar, who is known as one of the richest men in Israel.

Ungar told The Associated Press he was aware of the incident but couldn’t comment as he awaited details. A ship linked to him experienced an explosion in 2021 in the Gulf of Oman. Israeli media blamed it on Iran at the time.

International shipping often involves a series of management companies, flags and owners stretching across the globe in a single vessel.

Two U.S. defense officials confirmed that Houthi rebels seized the Galaxy Leader in the Red Sea on Sunday afternoon local time. The rebels descended on the cargo ship by rappelling from a helicopter, the officials said, confirming details first reported by NBC News. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter. That resembles other vessel seizures conducted by Iran, which long has armed the Houthis.

Twice in the last month, U.S. warships have intercepted missiles or drones from Yemen that were believed to be headed toward Israel or posing a threat to American vessels. The USS Carney, a Navy destroyer, intercepted three land attack cruise missiles and several drones that were launched by Houthi forces toward the northern Red Sea last month.

On Nov. 15 the USS Thomas Hudner, another destroyer, was sailing toward the Bab-el-Mandeb strait when the crew saw a drone, reported to have originated in Yemen. The ship shot down the drone over the water. The officials said the crew took action to ensure the safety of U.S. personnel, and there were no casualties or damage to the ship.

Satellite tracking data from MarineTraffic.com analyzed by the AP showed the Galaxy Leader traveling in the Red Sea southwest of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, more than a day ago. The vessel had been in Korfez, Turkey, and was on its way to Pipavav, India, at the time of the seizure reported by Israel.

It had its Automatic Identification System tracker, or AIS, switched off, the data showed. Ships are supposed to keep their AIS active for safety reasons, but crews will turn them off if it appears they might be targeted or to smuggle contraband, which there was no immediate evidence to suggest was the case with the Galaxy Leader.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Persian Gulf and the wider region, put the hijacking as having occurred some 150 kilometers (90 miles) off the coast of Yemen’s port city of Hodeida, near the coast of Eritrea. In later cited a security officer with the ship’s company saying the vessel had been taken to Hodeida.

The Red Sea, stretching from Egypt’s Suez Canal to the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait separating the Arabian Peninsula from Africa, remains a key trade route for global shipping and energy supplies. That’s why the U.S. Navy has stationed multiple ships in the sea since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7.

Since 2019, a series of ships have come under attack at sea as Iran began breaking all the limits of its tattered nuclear deal with world powers. As Israel expands its devastating campaign against Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip following the militant group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel, fears have grown that the military operations could escalate into a wider regional conflict.

The Houthis have repeatedly threatened to target Israeli ships in the waters off Yemen. Such attacks both back its Iranian benefactors, as well as bolsters the Houthis’ position in Yemen as anger has grown against their rule in recent months as that country’s civil war grinds on without resolution, said Gregory D. Johnsen, a Yemen expert with the Arabian Gulf States Institute in Washington.

“The Houthis view the war between Israel and Hamas as an opportunity to mute some of this domestic criticism,” Johnsen wrote in an analysis earlier this month. “If they are attacking Israel, their local rivals will be less inclined to attack them.”

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Tara Copp in Washington contributed to this report.

IMAGES

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Coast Guard suspends search after charter boat sinks off Alaska, leaving 1 dead and 4 missing

Search suspended for 4 people missing after Alaskan charter boat sinks: Coast Guard

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Coast Guard Suspends Search After Charter Boat Sinks Off Alaska, Leaving 1 Dead and 4 Missing

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35th Anniversary of the Prinsendam, Part 1: The Rescue

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35th Anniversary of the Prinsendam, Part 1: The Rescue

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