Story of the 1979 sinking of the M/V Lee Wang Zin. From the Anchorage Daily News a couple days ago.I’d never heard of it.
Tragically all hands were lost.
On Jan. 1, 1980, the Lee Wang Zin suddenly began to sink while being towed, still about 50 miles from its destination. An observer on the scene noted, “As soon as it started to sink, the winches started to back up. It burnt out the winch motor and started to tow the Salvage Chief back at 20 to 30 knots.”
My uncle was a deckhand on the Salvage Chief in the 1950s. I got a tour of her (and lunch) when she came to San Francisco around 1955. Those below-deck shots bring back memories.
Cheers,
Earl
Used to tie up to the Salvage Chief in Astoria back in the day in between jobs. The true superpower of that little ship was the winches and anchors. She probably didn’t tow stuff all that well, but close to the beach she sure should pull.
Good article about long-time captain Reino Mattila.
To Mattila, the Salvage Chief was just a strange-looking ship with a tiny, off-center bridge that caught his attention that December night as he and his wife drove into town to see a movie. Making a quick detour to check out the vessel, he met the captain, Vince Miller, who he knew from previous work on the river. Miller introduced him to Devine.
“He told Fred Devine ‘You better get this guy’s phone number’” and told Devine about his experience as a tug captain, Mattila said.
“By the time we got home from the movie, they were calling me,” he said. The Salvage Chief had just been summoned to a wreck on the Washington coast, and Devine was asking him to join the crew as chief mate.
“I grabbed my sea bag and headed down to the dock.”