the
UARTERDECK
Vol. 24, No. 1
Winter 1998
A review and newsletter from the Columbia River Maritime Museum at 1792 Marine Drive in Astoria, Oregon
A 44-foot motor lifeboat in heavy surf off the Oregon Coast. U.S. Coast Guard photo.
Lifesaving Craft Tell Vivid Story The bar and mouth of the Columbia River-weather-ridden, unpredictable, and sometimes treacherous-have generated over a hundred years of rescue and lifesaving activity. In recorded history, over 2,000 vessels have come to grief in this immediate area. The Columbia River Maritime Museum is in a unique position to tell a powerful story of the most notorious bar crossing in the world, the drama of shipping in peril, and the development of sophisticated rescue response to save life and property.
The Museum's permanent collections contain a wide variety of artifacts documenting the U.S. Coast Guard and its predecessor agencies, the U.S. Life Saving Service and the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service. We collect these items to tell a compelling tale, and to provide a tangible link to the heroic stories of wreck and rescue on our coast. Recently, the Museum added an important rescue craft that brings the story up to present day. The 44-foot motor lifeboat #44300 was built in 1962 (the same year
that the Museum was launched), and spent her last 15 years at Cape Disappointment. Recently, when replaced by the 47-foot motor lifeboat, #44300 came to occupy a place of honor at our Museum. Join guest writer William D. Wilkinson, one of the world's foremost authorities on rescue and lifesaving craft, for a look at the colorful history of this breakthrough lifeboat beginning on page 6.
-Anne Witty, Curator