Of all the ships lost in what has come to be called the "Graveyard of the Pacific," the story of the steamship Valencia is among the saddest. In January 1906, the Valencia set out from San Francisco, bound for Seattle with 108 passengers and some 65 crew aboard. Owing to bad weather and mistakes made by the captain, she struck a reef 11 miles off Cape Beale on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. The ship's hull was gashed open by the rocks. The tragedy was soon multiplied a hundredfold by a series of further mistakes and missteps. Ultimately, due in large part to the lack of lifesaving infrastructure in the rugged area where she ran aground, only thirty-seven survived. The wreck of the Valencia was an especially tragic one for a number of reasons. To begin with, most on board perished, including every woman and child, who had been lashed to the rigging high above the deck in an attempt to save them from the crashing waves. Additionally, the wreck itself was almost certainly avoidable, due almost entirely to navigational errors made by the captain. Finally, rescue efforts-such as they were-were hampered not just by the sea and the weather, but due to mistakes made by (and some say the cowardice of) the would-be rescuers. This book pieces together the story of the Valencia and her tragic end, weaving together not just the threads of the ill-fated voyage itself, but also relevant contextual history, including the development of radio technologies and lifesaving equipment and services that simply came too late to help the doomed voyagers.
Rod Scher received his MEd from the University of Oregon. He is a longtime boating enthusiast and former English teacher, as well as an experienced writer and editor with multiple books and dozens of magazine articles to his credit. The former editor of Smart Computing magazine, Scher is also the author of Sailing by Starlight: The Remarkable Voyage of Globe Star and Leveling the Playing Field: The Democratization of Technology, and the editor/annotator of editions of Joshua Slocum's classic nautical memoir Sailing Alone Around the World and Richard Henry Dana's classic Two Years Before the Mast. Rod began his career teaching high school English and journalism in Oregon and California. After several years in the classroom, he left teaching to become an editor at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in San Diego, California, where he edited a variety of humanities texts and participated in the development of computerized test preparation and textbook management products. Now semi-retired, Rod travels the country in a small motorhome with his wife, Lesley, writing and editing as the opportunity arises. When not on the road, Rod lives in Depoe Bay, Oregon.
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, Rod 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 "Sailing by Starlight takes what could have easily be-come one more nondescript sailing-around-the-world tale and makes it into a thoroughly researched and well-written book that's as much about problem-solving and strength of character as it is about adventure." * Sailing Magazine * "Rod Scher is an ideally informative and amiable companion as he follows Dana on his exciting and exhausting voyage-he places Dana fully in his time and place, offering historical and cultural contexts for the writer's experiences, observations, and expressions. Scher knows how to inspire a sense of historical imagination in his readers, without forgetting who we are now. Scher can be proud of his own achievement in bringing such factual detail and humane judgment to this edition." -- Stephen M. Buhler, Aaron Douglas Professor of English, University of Nebraska-Lincoln "Rod Scher has done it again, this time with his brilliant annotation . . . . Scher's annotation reopened this classic for me. This is a careful and thoughtful work, never dry and often with a subtle twist of humor, yet always sensitive to Dana's themes. Reading this annotation brings young Dana's chronicle into sharp, poignant relief in an almost new and very exciting way." -- E. Michael Jackson, USCG Master Mariner and boating instructor
