| Summary: | This image shows the schooner King & Winge signaling distress by flying its flag upside down, probably en route to rescue the crew of the Karluk, which sank in January 1914 in the Chukchi Sea between Alaska and Russia. The King & Winge was one of the most famous ships ever built in Seattle. Designed by Albert Winge, she was built by the King and Winge Shipbuilding Company, intended as the biggest and best halibut schooner on the coast. The construction was very strong, and she was covered with a layer of ironbark sheathing. The King & Winge was chartered before construction was completed by the Hibbard-Swenson Co. for a 1914 expedition to the Arctic for hunting, trading, and making a motion picture. Over the next 80 years the King & Winge was present at the wreck of the Princess Sophia in 1918 and was employed as a halibut schooner, a rum runner, a pilot boat, a yacht, and a crabber. She sank in high seas in the Bering Sea, without loss of life, in 1994. The King and Winge Shipbuilding Company was an important maritime concern on Puget Sound from 1899 until the late 1920s. The shipyard was located at West Seattle and owned by Thomas J. King (1843-1925) and Albert M. Winge (1868-1916). Albert Winge's nephew Carl B. Winge (1891-1956), and Carl's future business partner in Olson & Winge Marine Works, Oscar E. Olson (b. 1882), both worked on the King & Winge schooner at the King and Winge Shipbuilding Company from about 1910-1917. 1 photographic print: b&w; 7 x 9 in.
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