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The Liner President Madison Capsizes in Seattle Harbour 1933
by John M. MacFarlane 2012
The liner President Madison capsized in Seattle harbour. (Photo from Nauticapedia collection.)
The liner President Madison capsized in Seattle harbour on the evening of March 23, 1933 at the Todd Seattle drydock repair wharf.
Four shell plates had been removed from the vessel’s side opening upwards of 684 square feet. The lowest point in the cut was about 4 feet above the waterline. Lumber was being loaded from a scow alongside while repairs were underway. It was thought that the pull of the loaded scow on the ebb tide caused a starboard list movement accelerated by the movement of oil and water in tanks in the fore peak, wing tanks, settlers and double bottoms.
As the starboard list exceeded seven degrees, water rushed in to the opening in the hull. The ship careened and lay partially submerged with her superstructure jammed against the dock. A large number of stevedores on the scow scrambled to safety. More than a hundred crew were caught below decks. Three Chinese crew members were rescued through port holes. The engine room storekeeper was rescued after 17 hours. The Junior Engineer was killed in the engine room.
She was re-floated about three weeks later in what was described as the largest salvage operation completed in an American port to that time. The operation to right her was carried out by E.F. ’Jack’ Cribb, the Managing Director of the West Coast Salvage & contracting Co. of Vancouver BC. The Madison lay idle for more than six years. Soon after returning to service under the Philippine flag she was lost in a second capsize tragedy losing yet another life.
To quote from this article please cite:
MacFarlane, John M. (2012) The Liner President Madison Capsizes in Seattle Harbour 1933. Nauticapedia.ca 2012. http://nauticapedia.ca/Articles/President_Madison.php
Site News: April 19, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,229 vessel histories (with 15,629 images and 13,195 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).
In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!
My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into a semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.
Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 11,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.