Dreadnaught II, One of the Last Remaining US Life-Saving Service Boats

By Jeff Shook, Columbia-Willamette Chapter

Dreadnaught II started her long and colorful career as a rescue vessel in the US Life-Saving Service (USLSS) so named until 1915 when the US Revenue Cutter Service and the USLSS merged and became the US Coast Guard. 

The lifeboat was an English invention adopted by the USLSS. Lifeboats were self-bailing and self-righting. They could be sailed or rowed. Long and heavy, some measured as long as 40-feet and weighed up to 4,000 pounds! Advantages included stability, sturdiness, and ability to handle heavy seas. However, the weight also made the boat almost impossible to haul down the beach; instead, it had to be launched from the boathouse directly into a sheltered harbor or channel. Later models of lifeboats were lighter and even motorized. With the addition of a motor, surfmen could travel to wrecks farther away and get there faster and with much less energy than rowing required.

Original drawing specifications for the boat.

This boat was assumed to have been built in 1909 by the Electric Boat Company (ELCO) in Bayonne New Jersey as a lifeboat, an early self-righting design known later as a Type E boat for Early. Powered by an engine, with sails and oars as backup, when the going got rough and tough and the engine was too cantankerous to be trusted, the boat would be rowed by the 10 oarsmen, the Keeper (Captain) manning the 2-handled crank that turned the steering gear.

Awarded to Charles L Pearson for heroic, daring rescue of the wreck, Rosecrans, January 7, 1913.

Stationed at the Point Adams Station, Oregon watching over the Columbia River Bar, most notably one of the most dangerous stretches of ocean in the country, it was first reported that she may have been Dreadnaught, the vessel from Point Adams that responded to the famous wreck of the Rosecrans on Peacock Spit January 7, 1913. 

In the rescue, two USLSS stations responded but could only save two men out of 36 with a third drifting ashore on debris. Sixteen men from the Cape Disappointment and Point Adams Stations received the prestigious Gold Lifesaving Medal for their efforts. Google this story to read about the rescue in more detail.

This lifeboat stayed in the service of the US Coast Guard in 1915 after the Revenue Cutter Service and the Life Saving Service merged. In 1928 she was sold as surplus. After being sold, her name changed to Endeavor. In the 1980s, her then owner, Fritz Funk, undertook her first major restoration. This included repairing and replacing over 35% of the outer layer of planking, about 15% of the inner layer, all with Honduras mahogany, the original material.

Endeavour moored in front of the Empress Hotel Victoria BC in the 1940s.

By 2005, Endeavor was in Alaska and Funk contacted the US Life-Saving Service Heritage Association to say the boat had reached the end of it’s useful life. Jeff Shook, president of the Michigan Lighthouse Conservancy and director with the US Life-Saving Service Heritage Association tried contacting a number of museums to find a potential home. When no takers stepped up, the US Life-Saving Service Heritage Association took up the charge.

The long process of saving this boat started with preparations to get a cradle made for transporting the boat as well as the paperwork required for shipping arrangements. Who knew shipping a boat of this size from Alaska to Michigan required an actual tug boat and barge and not overland transportation? But it did. Once in Michigan, she began a lengthy restoration. 

So what about Endeavor’s (thought to originally be Dreadnaught) history from 1913? After much research it was learned that the USLSS log books for the Rosecrans rescue indicated both boats were lost during the rescue. A period of time later, log books indicate the Dreadnaught was back at the station and supposedly operating as normal. After further digging, a newspaper article was found indicating the 1909 Dreadnaught had been in fact lost at sea and was replaced with another newer Type E motor life boat. 

Newspaper article on new lifeboat Dreadnaught II.

But, the confusion was in the name. Stations named their boats and no two boats ever had the same name. In this case, permission was granted to name the replacement boat Dreadnaught II because of the heroics the boat performed and to avoid any mix up of the boats. Records only talked about Dreadnaught, but not Dreadnaught II, so the confusion was real. It was disappointing to learn that this was not the original Dreadnaught gold medal rescue boat, but nonetheless it is still an important restoration project.

Today, Dreadnaught II is still under restoration. Some liberties have been taken including using bronze screws in the planks below the flooring where they are not seen and rivets above so that if you were inside the boat you would see the historical construction methods. All of the non-original parts and pieces have been removed from the interior.

Dreadnaught II under restoration.

Original parts still with the boat have been inventoried and we are in the process of making drawings to get castings and machined parts that are needed such as the freeing ports with valves that open when water gets inside the boat. Key features like this will be replicated exactly as the original design calls for. To save cost we are trying to find a way to do an alternative to the 112 copper air casings which will need to go in after the hull fittings are completed. Also, because of the cost of construction, we are seeking an alternative for the water/air ballast system. These will never be seen beneath the boat decking. We are searching for a Wisconsin engine to replace the original engine that would have been used in the service. We are estimating another two years for the work to be completed.

Dreadnaught II is likely the last remaining USLSS motorized lifeboat left in the country which will be going back to a sailing, pulling and motorized lifeboat as close to its original specifications as possible. It will have a nomination to the National Register of Historic places in the next year or two.

The unofficial motto of the USLSS was “the regulations say you have to go out, they say nothing of coming back”. This boat’s design brought crews home, even when the lifeboats were damaged and destroyed. In the Rosecrans rescue they stayed afloat long enough to let the crews and victims be saved from certain death and gold medals were issued for what should have been a don’t come back scenario.