The freighter Snowbird gets mentioned in the book seven times, first in the chapter on “New Entrants into the Trade”, the section is called “Sea Story No. 1”
The Snowbird, while crossing the Gulf of Alaska, had her wheelhouse windows knocked out by a wave. The captain, Doug Surwold called a Mayday and the container ship, Tote’s Great Land answered but was unable to assist and was itself was hit by a large wave.
The Snowbird made it on her own into Juneau where the crew patched up the windows with plywood and Plexiglas and returned to Seattle.
Both the chief and Capt Doug mentioned that incident but didn’t go into much detail.