_{One of Black Ball’s premiere steamers, the Sol Duc was one of the first “night boats” sailing to Victoria, B.C. Colorized by/from author’s collection.}

BUILT:  1912, Seattle Construction & Drydock, Seattle, WA

OFFICIAL NUMBER: 210133 SIGNAL LETTERS: LCKW

L/B/D: 189 x 32 x 23 GROSS/NET TONS: 1085/667 PASSENGERS/AUTOS: 453 day, 149 in cabins/11 cars

PROPULSION: One triple expansion engine, 1,500 HP SPEED: 15 knots

NAME TRANSLATION: Chinook for “sparkling, mystical waters.”

FINAL DISPOSITION: Scrapped 1948

HISTORY

Along with the Potlatch, 1912 saw the construction and launch of a second large steamer, the S.S. Sol Duc. The Puget Sound Navigation Co. was well on its way to replacing its fleet of old wooden steamers with one of steel.

The unusual name of the steamer was chosen to tie in to Michael Earles’ new health spa located at the Sol Duc hot springs in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains. Earles credited the hot spring’s mineral waters with curing a serious illness he suffered. Earles spent more than $500,000.00 to construct a 165-room, four-star hotel, a three-story, 100 bed sanatorium, a sizeable bathhouse, and gymnasium, golf links, tennis courts, croquet grounds. 

Both the Sol Duc and Potlatch were completed by the Seattle Construction & Drydock Co. and went into service in the summer of 1912. International Marine Engineering’s September 1912 described the Sol Duc’s interior in detail:

Passengers are carried on four decks. On the boat deck a long Texas, abaft of the pilot house, holds staterooms for the master, mate, and wireless operator as well as ten staterooms for passengers. 29 more staterooms are within the flush-sided cabin on the upper deck, with an observation room forward and social hall aft. The main deck has ten staterooms, the galley, quarters for the chief engineer, chief steward, and a cargo space forward of 14,000 cubic feet.  The dining saloon, a pantry and storeroom are on the lower deck aft, with a bar and smoking room and crew’s quarters forward of the machinery. Altogether, 163 passengers are accommodated in 49 staterooms.

The staterooms were later increased to 52. The steamer could accommodate around 450 day passengers.

The Sol Duc was designed for the Seattle – Port Townsend – Port Angeles – Port Crescent run, but Port Crescent never took off as a town and was dropped from run after that first service year of 1912.   After the summer season in 1912, Sol Duc took over duty as the “Night Boat” running from Seattle to Victoria, British Columbia. She was advertised as carrying autos on the route as early as 1915.

Olympic, introduced in 1924, took over the auto traffic in the summer on the route, with Sol Duc taking over the run from mid-September to mid-June.

By the mid-1920’s it was becoming evident that the Sol Duc’s limited car carrying capacity wasn’t going to be sufficient even in the less-active winter months. The Iroquois had been repurchased by Black Ball and rebuilt specifically to fill this role, displacing the Sol Duc on 21 August 1928.

  A week later on 27 August 1928 the Sol Duc took over for the Kulshan on the Seattle-Everett-Anacortes-Bellingham route, sending the Kulshan into lay-up and ending her career.  Sol Duc stayed on the Bellingham run until it was discontinued in 1935. The Sol Duc was then tied up and kept in reserve to back up the Iroquois as needed, but after a few years Black Ball determined she was of no further use and put her up for sale.

The U.S. Navy purchased the steamer for $5000.00. Sol Duc for use as barracks ships, designated YHB-8 respectively.  At the end of the war with the need for passenger steamers long past, the Sol Duc was sold for scrap, and was broken up in 1948.