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After WH SASS Q@ @ 1M ropIiIcs | How the Old Kosmos Liner Suscetiie Was Rescued From a Guatemalan Beach 10 Years After Being Wrecked ‘in 1907 FTER being stranded on the sands A« Ocos, Guatemala, for nearly 10 years, the old’ Kosmos freighter Sesostris has been salved and towed to Seattle for repairs, after which she will again be placed in service under the name of Frances L. SKINNER. She probably will be ready for the sea before July 15. She was wrecked in a hurricane off the Guatemalan coast in 1907 and was abandoned by the underwriters. After bleaching on a tropical coast for nearly a decade, the hulk was pur- chased by the D. E. Skinner Syndicate, Seattle, about a year ago for $35,000. D. E. Skinner is president, Skinner & Eddy Corp., shipbuilder, Seattle. The British Columbia Salvage Co., Van- couver, B. C., landed the boat success- fully in deep water for the sum of $250,000 and the salved ship was brought north under her own steam, in the convoy of a tug. It is said she can be put in good shape for an additional $60,000 and that she could then be sold for about $750,000. A Difficult Problem The Frances L. SKINNER is 380 feet long, 50 feet beam and 30 feet deep. Her gross and net tonnage is 4800 and 3026 respectively. Her speed when loaded is 10 knots. Her deadweight cargo capacity is approximately 7000 tons. Her restoration to good operating con- DECK SCENE ON FRANCES L. SKINNER dition will, present no special problems. Her salvage from the Guatemalan beach, however, was another matter. She was driven ashore at Ocos, Gua- temala, Sept. 15, 1907, while en route from Seattle to Europe via the Straits of Magellan. She was abandoned by the Kosmos line and for a year or more an enterprising Guatemalan used _ her, first for an electric light plant for the village of Ocos and later as a hotel, for “she had been driven high and dry in the sand by the The salvage expedition of the British Columbia Salvage Co. was carried south by the British tug Pitot, commanded by Capt. F. C. Stratford. The expedi- storm, tion found the steamer in a small lagoon which had been formed by pumping out the sand from around the vessel, during an unsuccessful effort to rescue the steamer before the war had made cost a matter of secondary importance. In. November: 1916, -.Gapt.. W.-H. Logan, Victoria, B. C., representing the London Salvage association, arrived at Ocos and took command of the job of floating the vessel. In the meantime the lagoon in which the ship rested had been enlarged and the SrEsostris was turned until her bow pointed seaward. Previ- ously she had lain parallel to the shore. Behind a Sand Barrier Captain Logan found that between the vessel and the sea lay a huge bar- rier of sand. This barrier protected the steamer from the ocean, but at the same time held her a prisoner. To restore the ship to the ocean it was necessary to dredge a channel 650 feet long through the sand to deep water. The problem was’ made difficult by the surf that kept the sand always in mo- tion. ‘To restrain the surf, a break- water was built seaward. But shifting sands were not the only difficulty; sev- eral times the expedition was hampered by earthquakes. The space between the sandy _bar- rier and the breakwater was not large enough for the vessel to turn in, and STEAMER FRANCES L. SKINNER, NEE SESOSTRIS, ARRIVING IN SEATTLE AFTER A SOJOURN OF 10 YEARS ON A TROPICAL BEACH 298