Long, Dangerous Coastline : Shipwreck Tales from Alaska to California

On September 8, 1923, a convoy of 14 U.S. Navy destroyers raced astern into the Santa Barbara Channel off California's coast in darkness and thick fog. Minutes later seven of the ships crashed one after another into jagged rocks, and 23 sailors died that night. Only five years before, a Canadian passenger ship steamed blind down Alaska's Lynn Canal in a late-night snowstorm. She was en route from Skagway to Vancouver when she ran up on Vanderbilt Reef, only four hours into her voyage. Less than two days later she slid off the reef and sank, taking more than 350 people to their deaths. The west coast of North America has some of the world's most beautiful scenery along its thousands of miles of bays, coves and forbidding cliffs, but it's often subjected to ferocious storms that play havoc with shipping. Here are stories of ships that met tragic ends-Brother Jonathan, Princess Sophia, Benevolence, Star of Bengal, Columbia and others-and the passengers and crews who found themselves in extreme danger on this long, dangerous coastline.