This, of course, was no easy task. Clambering into a lifeboat and paddling away is something that’s hard enough to do when the ship isn’t roaring along at close to top speed and with choking smoke billowing out of every hatch. The first lifeboat swamped, pitching three sailors into the drink; but, luckily, the second lifeboat was launched successfully and was able to rescue them. Most likely a small crew got the boat under way and then the remaining members of the crew of 20, plus the captain’s wife, jumped overboard and were fished out of the drink and warmed up as best they could be. The ship’s dog, also, was rescued. Then they retrieved the other lifeboat, righted it and bailed it out, and set out for shore. 
Boiler Bay as it appeared from the bluff above on a sunny summer afternoon in 2013. (Image: F.J.D. John)Meanwhile, the Marhoffer, unmanned and unguided, thrashed onward through the waves toward the shore. Considering that the crew were about to land on a fairly remote seacoast, soaked to the skin and in at least two cases with injuries, having a burning steam schooner go before them to announce their plight had certain advantages. The sight of the ship, now trailing a thick column of fire and smoke, thundering toward the land, brought all the neighbors out of their houses and cabins and onto the bluff to watch, and assist. Unguided, the steamer came ashore, behaving more and more erratically as her boiler pressure rose. She actually made a full circle, just missing the rocks, and just as she passed the shore one of her oil tanks burst, showering the nearby trees with burning oil. Then she looped back around as if to try again, and piled onto the rocks with an enormous crash, still under full power and trailing a column of smoke and fire like a floating volcano. The ship heeled over and burned fiercely for a time; then her long-suffering boiler exploded with a thunderous blast, ripping chunks of wood and steel free and sending burning debris in all directions. One of those pieces of debris was, of course, the steel duct pipe that’s still sticking out of the bluff today, right where it fell. Luckily, neither the duct nor any of the other bits and pieces of burning wood and scalding steel that flew up into the air came down on any of the spectators who had gathered to watch the show.
AS FOR THE crew of the Marhoffer, in their two lifeboats, the ship reached the shore well before they did. Unfortunately, a misunderstanding as they pulled in close to shore caused them a great deal of trouble and probably sealed the doom of the ship’s cook, Frank Tiffney, who was the shipwreck’s only fatality. As the men rowed shoreward, they made for Fogarty Creek, just north of Boiler Bay and almost within sight of the burning wreckage of their ship. Unfortunately, a woman on the shore there spotted them and started vigorously waving a red shirt at them from that spot, assuming that they would understand that she meant that this was where they should land.
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To the sailors, though, it looked like she was waving them off, warning them of some danger. So they turned and pulled back out to sea, and rowed all the way around to the other side of Depoe Bay to Whale Cove, about three miles south, and came ashore there. By the time they got to land, it was almost dusk, and Frank Tiffney was beyond help. He succumbed to hypothermia shortly after they reached the shore. There were plenty of locals eager to help the sailors out, but unfortunately all of them were three miles to the north clustered around the burning ship. In Whale Cove, the sailors found there was nobody there to help them. They cast about a bit looking for shelter; but they ended up huddling on the beach around a fitful campfire trying to stay warm as darkness fell. 
The steam schooner J. Marhoffer under way with a big deckload, shortly after the ship was built. (Image: Superior Publishing)In the morning they hiked out in various directions to find settlements where they could get help. In the end, it could certainly have been worse; Tiffney was the only fatality. But the crew definitely would have had a more pleasant shipwrecking experience if they’d pulled in at Fogarty Creek as they’d originally meant to do!
I MENTIONED THAT there are two large pieces of the J. Marhoffer still around and attracting visitors today. One, of course, is the big duct pipe stuck in the bluff overlooking the bay. The other piece is the firebox of the ship’s boiler. This firebox is quite large, about 12 feet long and probably 10 feet wide, shaped like a giant soup can. When the boiler exploded and blew the ship to pieces, the firebox never left the blast site; it’s nestled among the rocks at the base of the bluff and is usually covered by the sea. But at very low tides, when the conditions are right, it can be reached via a rough trail leading down from Highway 101, from that parking area I mentioned at the start of this story. It's because of that rusty firebox — still mostly intact despite more than a century of immersion in salt water — that the little bay where the Marhoffer fetched up, formerly known as Briggs Landing, is today called Boiler Bay.
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