Dix (steamboat)
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Dix
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| History | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Dix |
| Owner: | Seattle and Alki Point Transportation Company |
| Builder: | shipyard of Crawford and Reid Tacoma |
| Completed: | 1904 |
| Fate: | Sunk in collision, November 18, 1906 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | inland passenger dayboat |
| Tonnage: | 130 tons |
| Length: | 102.5 ft (31 m) |
| Beam: | 20.5 ft (6 m) |
| Installed power: | steam engine |
| Propulsion: | propeller-drive |
The steamboat Dix operated from 1904 to 1906 as part of the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet. She was sunk in a collision which remains one of the most serious transportation accidents in the state of Washington to this day.
In May 2011, it was reported that wreckage likely to be that of the Dix had been confirmed off Seattle's Alki Point.
Dix was built in 1904 at the Tacoma yard of Crawford and Reid.. Dix was 102.5 ft (31.2 m) long, 20.5 ft (6.2 m) on the beam, 7.5 ft (2.3 m) depth of hold, and rated at 130 tons. Later, given her tragic end, it was recalled, perhaps superstitiously, that the launching of Dix was a failure. The vessel had simply refused to move down the ways at Crawford and Reid, and had to be hauled into the water the next day by Captain Sutter in command of Tacoma Tug and Barge’s Fairfield.
Dix was purpose-built for one route only, the run across Elliott Bay from Seattle to Alki Point, then the main recreation area for Seattle. Her owners were A.B.C. Dennison and W.L. Dudley, doing business as the Seattle and Alki Point Transportation Company. She was lightly built, and apparently top-heavy, as the steamboat inspectors twice refused to issue her a seaworthiness certificate, only relenting when her builders installed 7 tons of gravel ballast in her hull and 5 tons of iron weights bolted to her keel. Even so, she was said to be difficult to handle.
Dennison and Dudley put Dix on the intended Seattle-Alki route. In summer service with their other steamer Manette the two boats made nineteen trips daily. During the legislative session in early 1905, Dix was placed on the Olympia-Tacoma route. The fast sternwheeler Greyhound was already on that run and there wasn’t much business left over, so in January 1905 Dix was returned to the Alki run.
On November 18, 1906, Dix was not on her customary Alki route, but was acting as a relief boat for the Monticello on the Seattle-Port Blakeley run. She left Seattle with about 77 passengers. Her captain, Percy Lermond, tasked with collecting fares, was absent from the pilot house, leaving the mate Charles Dennison in charge. Theoretically fare collection was a job for the purser, but on the smaller vessels, it was customary for the master to perform this function.
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