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NEW BOOK NEWS!

The Wreck of the Steamship Pacific
is now available for pre-order!

A QUICK GLANCE:

When the sidewheel steamship Pacific left the Vancouver B.C. docks on November 4th, 1875 headed for San Francisco, CA, she was already in trouble. Listing heavily to starboard as soon as she set sail, she was overloaded; in her cabins and lining her decks were many more people than she was certified to carry—including miners, financiers, laborers, and an unknown number of unticketed children. In addition, it was likely that her 600 tons of cargo—which included coal, oats, animal hides, and cranberries—was poorly loaded and had shifted, making her list even worse.

Then the captain, Jefferson Davis Howell, made a tragic mistake: Seeking to correct the list, he filled the port lifeboats with water in an attempt to balance the vessel by tipping the ship in the other direction. It didn’t work. In fact, it caused the ship to list too far in the opposite direction; now the ship was listing to port. Worse yet, the desperate move meant that most of the lifeboats were out of commission; if they were needed, which in fact turned out to be the case, they would be unavailable.

At this point, the Pacific had barely left the docks. She was heading into worsening weather, still listing. Things were not going well. The old ship lurched out of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and wallowed into the open ocean, heading south. She would never make it to her next port of call.

There was another problem looming, one for which captain Howell could not prepare.

As the Pacific headed south toward San Francisco, the 1,100-ton sailing ship, Orpheus, under the command of captain Charles A. Sawyer, was heading north, having departed from San Francisco a few days before. Due to mistakes made by Sawyer’s crew, the two vessels would meet in the stormy darkness on the 4th of November, only hours after Pacific left the docks. The two vessels struck one another at about 9:30 p.m., neither having seen the other in the rain-swept darkness until it was too late to avoid a collision. The sailing ship, slightly smaller but somewhat heavier than the steamer, would—contravening long-held maritime tradition that demanded that a ship must aid any other vessel in distress—sail away after the collision, only minimally damaged. The Pacific, though, was mortally wounded; she would sink within minutes and of the perhaps 300 or more souls aboard, only two would survive.

The sad fact is that this catastrophe was completely avoidable. In fact, few such disasters are inevitable. We tend to think of maritime accidents as just that, mishaps that occurred without warning and for no reason. But that’s not how the sea works. It rarely simply rears up and kills you. It’s deadly, of course, but people who are prepared, people who understand the risks and prepare for them, people who don’t take shortcuts—those people almost always survive what the sea throws at them. A prepared, experienced sailor in a well-found small boat can face angry, mountainous seas and come out more or less unscathed—battered, perhaps, but alive; a poorly maintained boat of whatever size in the hands of an inexperienced, lazy, or unprepared sailor, though, will almost certainly disappear beneath the sea when conditions turn perilous.

In the case of the steamship Pacific, some 300 people died in the frigid ocean 40 miles off of the Washington coast not because of any “act of God,” but because of people who made poor decisions, the result of greed, graft, laziness, and plain stupidity.

Order your copy at Amazon.com, Books-A-Million.com,
BarnesandNoble.com, or directly from the publisher.

Ship of Lost Souls : The Tragic Voyage of the Steamship Valencia

The Anatomy Of A Tragedy

In January of 1906, off the coast of Vancouver Island, BC, almost everyone aboard the steamship Valencia died, including every single woman and child, when the vessel crashed into the jagged rocks just off of the island. Some 170+ souls perished within a couple hundred yards of land, and in spite of the fact that ships had been dispatched to rescue them. This is the story of that disaster, about who was at fault, and about the lessons we may or may not have learned from the tragedy.

Ship of Lost Souls: The Tragic Wreck of the Steamship Valencia is available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and directly from the publisher or your local independent bookstore.

Praise for Ship of Lost Souls:

“Riveting! A stranger-than-fiction tale that memorializes the Valencia among the great lost steamships of history—and one lost in the most jaw-dropping of ways.” —Daniel Stone, national bestselling author of Sinkable: Obsession, The Deep Sea, and The Shipwreck of the Titanic

“A fascinating story of tragedy, terror and drama that has been well researched and passionately told. Hard to put down once you start reading.” —Richard M. Jones, author and historian

In the story of the steamship Valencia, lost off Vancouver Island in 1906, we find some of the same hubris and human error that would lead to the sinking of the Titanic six years later. With scrupulous research and a fine eye for detail, Rod Scher recreates this maritime tragedy in a compelling and highly readable way. —Hugh Brewster, author of Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World

“A fascinating and highly engaging account of one of the greatest marine tragedies to strike the west coast of North America. Equally impressive is the fact that the author goes out of his way to highlight the important role that the wind and oceanographic conditions played in the tragedy. Had the vessel’s captain taken into account the ship's drift associated with the strong northward-flowing, wind-driven currents known to prevail off the Pacific coast of the US and Canada in winter, the ship might have successfully entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca during the storm and the tragic loss of so many lives would have been averted.” —Richard Thomson, oceanographer; author of Oceanography of the British Columbia Coast

“Scher details the background, key people, decisions, and circumstances that led to the grounding of SS Valencia and the tragically avoidable loss of life. His book reads like an adventure novel, except that it isn't fiction. Like virtually all marine accidents, the loss of Valencia was avoidable. The weakest link in the chain of events was and continues to be the decisions of honest, hard-working, and experienced people. Today's yacht and ship crews need to read this book so they can manage their decisions and successfully avoid disaster.” —CDR. John E. Harrington, USCG (Ret.)

“A completely engrossing saga. I could not put it down! Scher combines insightful historical perspectives along with weaving fascinating information on both the inventions and seafaring conventions of the time. While examining the reasons for this disaster, Scher shows how easy it is after the fact to place blame and second-guess each decision made that leads to tragedies. At turns both fascinating and heartbreaking, Scher’s book is a perfect addition to any sailor’s library.” —Patricia Wood, sailor and author of Lottery (short-listed for the 2008 Orange Broadband Prize for Women’s Fiction in the UK)

“Through meticulous research and exacting detail, Scher builds the story of the SS Valencia and makes it come alive by putting the events and people in historical context. And he doesn’t leave out the human component. He makes you care about both passengers and crew—those who survived and those who didn’t—and reveals both heroes and cowards, leaving it up to the readers to draw their own conclusions.” —Valerie Davisson, author of the Logan McKenna mystery series

Books by Rod Scher

Available on Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, Indiebound.org, or Bookshop.org

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Ship of Lost Souls

The Tragic Wreck of the Steamship Valencia

Valencia as she crashes into the rocks during the storm.

- Illustration by Molly Dumas. To see more of Molly's work, go to mollydumasart.com.

Click here for larger image

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Sailing by Starlight

The Remarkable Voyage of Globe Star

Click here for videos and images...

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Leveling the Playing Field

The Democratization of Technology

What happens when technology gets into the hands of the rest of us.

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Study Guide

The Annotated Two Years Before the Mast

An annotation of Richard Henry Dana's classic sailing yarn.

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The Annotated Sailing Alone Around the World

An annotated version of Joshua Slocum's classic.

Need more info? Got questions?

Email Rod at rod3041@gmail.com to learn more about the books, about upcoming author tours and book talks, or to schedule a meeting with your book group, library, or bookstore.