To be read aloud in the dry, laconic voice of Naval Historiographer Drachinifel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mftUX7apmV1vsVXZh7RTw

**A Fictional Ship's guide to the Tacoma, a mosquito fleet vessel**

Instead of warships, today's Fun Friday will be a Fictional Ship's Guide focusing upon a particular ship from a rather unique fleet of commercial vessels that operated in the northwestern region of North America from the late 1860's through the 1930's. The last large vessel of that fleet was the steamship Tacoma.

First, a bit of background.

Plying the intricate and glacier carved waterways of North America's Puget Sound, were an abundant collection of privately owned steamers dubbed The Mosquito Fleet.  Carrying passengers and cargo between port side towns and even the odd, household dock, the Mosquito Fleet steamships were paddle wheel driven and later screw propelled vessels ranging in displacement from tens of tons to approaching just over 800 tons.

The surrounding forested terrain provided abundant wood for both hull construction and fuel for earlier vessels. Although coal and later, oil would fuel the fleet.

Unlike Naval vessels, where performance and offensive armament are dogmatic pursuits.  The private firms operating the Mosquito Fleet adhered to the doctrine of low operating costs with a Ferengi like devotion to profits and schedules.

The Puget Sound Transportation Company was an adherent devotee to said philosophy.  Growing it's business by increasing it's small fleet of ferry boats and buying out boats from competitors. The PSTC found itself needing a newer ship for the lucrative ferry route from Tacoma to Seattle in 1913.

At the time, railroads in the western United States did not co-lease tracks with rival railroads. The Northern Pacific was not keen on sharing it's Tacoma bound tracks with the Great Northern and the Great Northern was adamant on not sharing it's terminus in Seattle with the Northern Pacific.  This benefited numerous ferry vessels operating between the two port cities.

Having renewed an exclusive contract with the Northern Pacific to ferry railway passengers and miscellaneous small cargo from Tacoma to Seattle in 1913, the PSTC needed a larger vessel.  Due to a series of disastrous boat fires on the Great Lakes and Eastern coast, the US government began encouraging the use of steel hulls for larger ferry boats.  Heeding that advice, the PSTC to it's good fortune found an excellent local ship builder, the Seattle Construction and Drydock Company.

Seattle Construction and Drydock had already acquired a grand reputation for building both naval and commercial ships.  Looking at PSTC's needs for a near 800 ton displacement ferryboat that had to be both fast and economical, the builder just happened to have a spare steam engine block.

The engine was the second from a pair built for a naval cutter.  A four cylinder, triple expansion steam engine originally designed for steam yachts.  Unlike the classic triple cylinder, triple expansion variety, the third piston was divided into two pistons placed on either end of the engine.  This allowed lower vibration and higher operating rpm.

And so, a ship was drawn up by a ship builder and drafters with superb qualifications in naval architecture.  Being aware of potential top heavy loading from as many as 500 passengers, the ship took form as a single screw vessel with a cargo hold, an enclosed cabin deck, an upper hurricane deck and pilot house.

Displacing 836 tons, with a length of 209 feet and beam of 30 feet out of riveted steel, the ship's hold was 17.6 feet in depth. With room to spare for cargo or ballast along with the engine and twin oil-fired Ballin water-tube boilers supplying steam at 250 psi pressure.  Both engine and boilers had originally been rated for 300 psi service, but by happenstance, operating at 250 psi ensured excellent fuel consumption rates.  A single screw drove the vessel and again by good fortune, the propeller performed at the so called 'sweet spot' in efficiency around 20 knots.  Propeller design in that era had been a bit of a hit or miss affair.

Compared to PSTC's prior ships having laconic response to the helm, the new ship had substantial rudder authority, along with the ability to halt from full ahead to dead stop in under 17 seconds.

The vessel was christened Tacoma after her home city and launched in May, 1913.  Her cruising speed was 20.75 knots, more than the original specified 19 knots.  Although the Tacoma was capable of 22 knots at top speed and potential to be even faster than the wooden vessel, The Flyer, had the boilers been raised to 300 psi.  The owners of the Tacoma were content with the ship's economical speed along with it's excellent handling.  The narrow hulled Flyer, despite it's speed, had garnered a reputation for being list prone, harder to steer and fuel consumption detrimental to those seeking to maximize profits.  Hence it's early retirement and replacement by the Tacoma.

The Tacoma in decent weather, made the run between the city of Tacoma and Seattle in 77 minutes. A record the PSTC advertised heavily in it's brochures.  Most single screw ferry vessels approaching the docks at both Seattle and the city of Tacoma required a tug to aid in docking.  The Tacoma's ability to crawl port-side or starboard with a skillful reverse of propeller and rudder, meant she could often forego the usual tug fees when docking, with exceptions due to inclement weather or tidal conditions.

The Tacoma was blessed with an excellent ship's master, captain Coffin and chief engineer Julious Gillies.

Born in the Philippines to a tribe of Acerodon jubatus anthro bats with gold colored head hair.  Orphaned at an early age, Manuel Coffin had been adopted by Catholic missionaries and ironically christened the same surname as the head priest.

After emigrating to Seattle as a teen, Manuel Coffin began his eclectic career, starting as a dock worker, crewing various PSTC vessels, rising to chief mate and becoming captain of The Flyer, a previous ferry vessel of the PSTC.  Despite his imposing, dark furred height, vestigial wing membranes between his forearms and a golden haired, fox like face with long sharp fangs, Manuel Coffin was a gentle soul.  Nothing appalled him more than being compared to actor Bella Wolfgosi, a lupine actor renown for playing Count Dracula.  The highly religious Coffin often volunteered at local Catholic events and even cos-playing Saint Nicolas in red suit for the Holidays.

In the days before Radar, Coffin, like many local pilots, relied on local knowledge of rocky shoals and audio skills in plying the often foggy conditions of Puget Sound. Using whistle blasts and listening to echos off nearby shores to judge the distance.  Coffin's sonic abilities were second-to-none. Not only could he accurately estimate the distance to the nearby shore via a brief whistle blast, but even the type of shoreline, be it rocky, forested, dock infested, or cobble beached.  Abilities that helped avoid running aground and dodging collisions with larger vessels in the often crowded Sound.

Likewise, Julius Gillies was born overseas in the Scottish village of Dalmeny along the Firth of Forth.  He came a from seafaring family of badgers and emigrated to the United States at an early age.  Night schooling allowed him to rise from being a stoker to becoming a ship's engineer at the young age of 25, where he would oversee ship's engine bays for many years.

Short, stout and wide with a European badger appearance, the laconic Julius was a ship's engineer of few words.  He met Coffin during their time on The Flyer and established a near perfect working relationship.  Julius had the spooky ability to anticipate Coffin's orders seconds before the ship's telegraph swung around or the bat's deep voice echoed from a speaking tube.

For many years after 1913, the Tacoma ferried passengers and cargo betwixt Seattle and Tacoma.  But like all good things, those days were numbered.  By the 1920's, the handwriting was literally on the wall in the form of the rubber tire imprint of the automobile.  More specifically, the ferry boat's nemesis, the truck, or lorry as it's called in Britain.

The ending of World War One brought forth commercially successful trucks along with the United States government embarking on a frenzy of road building within the State of Washington.  By the mid 1920's, the miles of asphalt and concrete roads in the western coast of Washington State exceeded that of the Roman Empire's entire road network.  A pace that would have warmed the cockles of those ancient road engineers, but spelled doom for the mosquito fleet of Puget Sound.

At the same time, the railroads put aside their competitive attitudes to co-lease tracks and connecting lines between the cities of Tacoma and Seattle.  The PSTC's contract to ferry railway passengers from the Northern Pacific evaporated in the late 1920's.  Plans to have the Tacoma take over the still profitable route between Seattle and Bremerton were sunk when Bremerton required future ferryboats be able to take both passengers and automobiles along with a few, you guessed it, trucks.

The PSTC scrambled to buy a diesel auto ferry from California. An art deco, streamlined designed masterpiece in stainless steel, the highly maneuverable Kalakala was sloth slow in speed. Fifteen knots on a good day with a tail wind.  But no other boat was cheaply available on short notice for a company bleeding revenues for the first time in it's history.  Half of it's fleet was soon scrapped.  Smaller vessels, like the wooden hulled Virginia V, continued to soldier on between Whidbey island and scattered locales in the north part of Puget Sound.

The Tacoma found use in the excursion boat touring business from Seattle to Victoria on British Columbia.  Despite being built for sheltered waters, the Tacoma's seaworthiness was recalled by Captain Coffin who later wrote:

When she was put in the excursion business, I got a great surprise as to her sea going abilities in the Strait between Point Wilson and Victoria. In the fresh southwesters that often occur in summer afternoons, I found her able to meet them all with very little fuss in going or coming either way. So I have always said that she was the ablest boat of her size ever on the Sound and as for stability, she was a wonder. When tested at inspection, as was often done, she surprised those giving the test. I have often seen five and six hundred passengers on the hurricane deck when landing and very few in the cabin, and she would hold her stability.

A testament to the ship building skills of the Seattle Construction and Drydock company.

The great economic Depression of 1930 dampened the incomes of even those who could afford excursion trips. By 1934, the Tacoma was laid up in it's home port of Tacoma. As the doldrums of the 1930's wore on, the PSTC began stripping the boat of it's upper deck and interior fixtures.

Even in the heights of the Depression, the US government did not slow down the expansion of road infrastructure. Just several miles further south in the treacherous waters of The Narrows, survey teams were sounding the depths to install caissons for a future suspension road bridge linking the Kipsap peninsula, the Puget Sound Naval yards and the town of Bremerton with the city of Tacoma.

By October of 1938, the PSTC, a shadow of it's former self, sold the Tacoma steamship to the Seattle Iron and Metal company.  A tug arrived on the fateful day to tow the Tacoma to the company's yard for scrapping.

A reporter for the Seattle Times noted a gathering of the PSTC's owner, employees, former passengers of the steamship, along with captain Coffin and Julies Gillies, who played a dirge on bagpipes. Not a dried eye was seen in the crowd according to the reporter's account when a whistle sounded and the tug towed the Tacoma off to the scrapyard.

And on an onshore parking lot, two chartered buses patiently waited to ferry the crowd back to Seattle.  Closing out the era of the Mosquito fleet.

Only one boat from that time survives to this day, the restored, wooden hulled Virginia V.  Privately owned and running the occasional excursion trip up and down the Inside Passage by British Columbia.