A Sunken Ship That Earned a Fortune 



How the Walkiire was scuttled, bought 

 for $29,000, raised and sold for $825,000 



The vessel was only slightly damaged, so her captors opened her seacocks aiid sunk her to 

 prevent further attack. Only her two masts, stack and flying bridge remained visible above water 



THE German freighter Walkure was 

 loading phosphate rock at the Island 

 of Makatua when the war broke out; 

 then she was captured by the French 

 gunboat Zelee and taken into the harbor 

 of Papeete, Tahiti. Later on the two 

 German warships (the Gneisenau and 

 Scharnhorst) appeared at Papeete, sank the 

 Zelee, wrecked the town, and punctured 

 the Walkure above waterline with a few 

 small shells. The French decided to pre- 

 vent further damage in later attacks on the 

 Walkure by opening her seacocks. She 

 sank in fifty-four feet of water. 



The Walkure is built like some old 

 French war vessels and some Scandinavian 

 freighters. 

 Her sides 

 rise out of 

 the water 

 for about 

 twelve feet, 

 curve 

 squarely 

 inward a 

 distance of 

 ten feet, 

 forming 

 w h a t i s 



known as the "harbor deck," then rise 

 some eight feet to the main or turret deck. 



-SIDE OF COFFERDAM 

 -BEAMS OF COFFERDAM 

 -TURRET DECK 



TT l STEEL BULWARKS 



HARBOR DECK 



How the cof- 

 ferdam was 

 attached to 

 the ship and 

 how the tow 

 boat worked 



Because she was thus built she was salved 

 in a novel way. 



She is a single -screw steel vessel, 350 

 feet long, 49 feet beam, and 24 feet depth. 

 Her gross tonnage is 3,836; net 2,403; dead 

 weight capacity, 6,700. She has triple ex- 

 pansion engines with an indicated horse- 

 power of 1,800. Her bunker capacity is 

 1,300 tons. Her speed on trial trip was 

 10.5 knots. 



At the time the vessel met her fate, 

 she was 3,670 miles from San Francisco 

 and was sunk about 300 feet from shore, 

 resting on a sloping bottom with a slight 

 list and with some ten feet of water over 

 her turret deck forward and about thirty 



feet aft. 

 Only her 

 two masts, 

 stack and 

 flying 

 bridge re- 

 m a i n e d 

 visible. For 

 nearly a 

 year she 

 lay thus. 

 Eventually 

 she was 

 put up for sale by a French prize court and 

 was purchased by Mr. John A. Hooper of San 



POSITION 



»»J. 



