This is an excerpt from the research and writing done by writer Tim Finch who is currently gathering together material for a book on northwest hardhat divers to be hopefully published with the "Visions of America" series by Arcadia Publishing.

by Tim Finch

In a heavy fog on Elliott Bay on a Wednesday afternoon, December 14th, 1910, two steamships collided. The SS Kitsap was hit on her port bow by the SS Indianapolis. The Kitsap had just left Pier 4 (in the vicinity of what is now Pier 55) and was on her way to Poulsbo when the collision took place about 1000 feet beyond the dock. The accident occurred 4 or 5 minutes after having left the pier at 4:35 pm. The Indianapolis was just completing her Tacoma to Seattle run, heading for the Colman Dock when she collided with the Kitsap.

After the collision, the captain of the Indianapolis kept the bow in tight with the Kitsap so that the passengers and crew could make their way onto the deck of the Indianapolis. After the crew and passengers of the Kitsap were safely on board, it was initially thought that there might be a chance to tow the Kitsap back to the dock. But the Kitsap was filling fast and sank to the bottom of the bay in about 20 minutes, to a depth of 37 fathoms (about 220 feet).

The Kitsap was owned by the Kitsap County Transportation Company, and at that time, she was plying the route between Seattle and Poulsbo. This was at a time when boat passenger rates were greatly reduced for many routes in an ongoing price war between Kitsap Transportation and the other large local shipping concern in the area, the Puget Sound Navigation Company. At the height of the price wars, a person could buy a passage between Seattle and Bellingham for 25 cents. Tensions were high between the 2 companies and there were accusations of unsafe practices between boats of the rival outfits. The collision between the Kitsap and the Indianapolis made worse the already strained relations between the rivals. In fact there were law suits and counter suits over the responsibility of the collision.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SHIPS
The wooden steamship Kitsap was constructed in Portland, Oregon, in 1906 for the KCTC and spent her first 4 years hauling people and freight over many routes throughout Puget Sound.

The steel built Indianapolis, on the other hand, came from the Great Lakes region. Constructed in 1904, she began her shipping life on a route between Chicago, Illinois, and Michigan City, Indiana, on the southern end of Lake Michigan. Within 2 years the popularity of the route had outgrown the capacity of the ship and she was sold to a subsidiary of the PSNC in late 1905. The ship was dry docked in the Great Lakes and outfitted for her 18,000 mile journey circumventing North and South America via the Straits of Magellan. She arrived in record time and was overhauled again in Seattle, modified to the needs of her new job. She started sailing Puget Sound on April 1, 1906, running on the Seattle-Pt. Townsend-Victoria route.

SALVAGE OPERATION
To salvage a ship from such a depth was a risky gamble that J. F. Swanberg, President of the Elliot Bay Dry Dock Company, could not afford to lose. Given the depth of the Kitsap, many experienced salvors steered clear of going after this job. If the ship had sunk in a shallower location, a diver would have likely been sent below to make an inspection and see how the wreck lay. He could then assist in securing lift cables to the hull. But in these earlier days of “submarine” diving, a hardhat diver rarely went much deeper than 100 to 150 feet due to the limitations of their manual air pump system and due to the increased risks of decompression sickness at the greater depths.

The first attempt to locate the Kitsap occurred within a week of her sinking. Capt. E.C. Genereaux of the Board of Marine Underwriters along with Capt. E. V. Ruger, hired by Elliot Bay Dry Dock Company to superintend the job and Capt. Henry Finch Sr., a diver and experienced salvor, made their way to the approximate location of the Kitsap’s sinking. They got lucky and dropped anchor within 10 feet of the sunken vessel according to a news article of the day.

At the start of the salvage operation there were safety issues regarding ship traffic in the vicinity.

The location was at the heart of the busiest part of the bay. On the first day of the operation the flotilla consisted of the tug Ketchikan from the Lillico Launch Co. and a large float that held a crane and a donkey engine. There was also the diving scow of Henry Finch and Sons.

Despite red flagged buoys set up around their working area and the presence of their small fleet of vessels anchored in the harbor, many boats came too close and fast, creating wakes. The steamship H. B. Kennedy was reported to have come within 80 feet of the work area and created a swell that washed completely over the float, nearly washing workers off their feet and into the water.

The first step in the process of raising the ship was for the salvors to snag the ship beneath the hull. To do this, a cable was anchored to the bottom of the harbor in the immediate vicinity of the wreck.

With the other end of the cable, a loop was made and the loop swept in circles around the anchor by the tug until they hopefully grappled the hull of the boat. During their first attempts, a lifeboat from the Kitsap was loosened and came floating to the surface.

Within a few hours the tug had gotten a bite and over the next 3 days more cables were secured to the Kitsap. Once cable loops were secured beneath either end of the ship, a large iron ring was then slipped over the four or more free ends of the cables. The ring helped temporarily secure the cables to the wreck for the attempted lift.

The dry dock was brought in and the cables secured to it. With the first attempt at lifting the ship, the cables snapped at about 100 tons of dead weight lift. That was the bad news. The good news was that the dry dock had a lifting capacity of 600 tons. Though disappointed, the operators felt that with stronger cables they would have the ability to lift the Kitsap. The replacement of the cables took considerable time and re-securing them to the wreck took even more but the underwriters, the contractor and the salvors now felt that the operation could succeed.

And indeed it did. The second attempt was successful and the Kitsap was lifted from the bay floor. The dry dock and it’s cargo were carefully towed by tugs about a half mile to shallow waters near old Pier 11, in the vicinity of where Lenora Street meets Alaskan Way (or Railroad Avenue as they called it back then). Now at a shallow depth, diver Finch could descend and secure additional cables to the ship.

Finch descended with air supplied by a manually operated pump, the norm for 1910.

The air pump was operated by two men turning handles attached to two flywheels situated on either side of the air pump. The pump had two pistons attached to the crankshaft which pushed air through valves, through an outlet to the air hose and on to the diving suit.

The tender for the diver was his son, Henry Finch Jr., who had been working for his father as a tender and as a diver for the previous 6 years. With the fastening of 7 cables to the hull of the Kitsap, the temporary hold on the boat was now secured and the wreck would now be hauled across the bay to West Seattle to be beached for quick patching.

After being underwater for more than 6 weeks, the Kitsap was beached north of the old West Seattle Ferry terminal. At that time the terminal was located in the vicinity of what is today the southern end of the public boat launch facility on Harbor Ave., approximately across the street from the Alki Tavern. It took only a few days to temporarily patch and pump out the hull before the boat was re-floated. Upon examination, it was determined the machinery of the vessel was almost undamaged and soon steam was raised in her boiler to assist in the final pumping process. With the aid of the tug boat Yellow Jacket and the Finch diving scow, the mud spattered ship with broken timbers made her way from the West Seattle beach to the Duwamish East Waterway. She may have looked like a derelict ship on her way to the Duwamish but she was afloat again, a condition that many felt would never happen.

She was slipped into a dry dock at the Elliott Bay Dry Dock Company where a survey of the damage was immediately made for the purpose of taking bids for the repair of the boat.

On May 1st, 1911, with extensive work to her upper works completed, the Kitsap returned to the mosquito fleet running freight and passengers throughout the Sound. Later, shortly after her return she was renamed by her owners as the Bremerton. It was about 15 years later, in 1926 that the Bremerton, while docked in Lake Washington, caught fire and was destroyed.

EDITORS NOTE: The 2 divers of the story, his grandfather and great grandfather, lived from 1905 onward, their lives in West Seattle. It's also where he and his siblings grew up.