Hattie Hansen was built in 1893 on Lake Washington by the Edward F. Lee[1] Shipyard at Sand Point.

[3] Later in 1893 Hattie Hansen was brought out to the sound through the Duwamish River, which at that time connected to Lake Washington.

[1] Captain Leopold Arther Bernays also commanded Sechelt from June to about the end of September or October.

[1] In 1910 Sechelt had some difficulties on this route, striking a reef at the Vancouver harbor entrance in August and going ashore at Bowen Island in November.

[1] Although he had had experience as an officer on oceangoing vessels, Captain James had not long operated inland steamships, having arrived in British Columbia only in late 1909.

In 1910 or early 1911, they chartered the small steel-hulled twin-propeller steamer Tasmanian for a month to run on the route from Victoria to Sooke as a test to see if the business warranted the purchase of a larger vessel.

[1][2] Sooke was a town with a sheltered small harbor near the southern end of Vancouver Island, and the route there from Victoria required Sechelt to cross the eastern part of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a notoriously dangerous body of water, which had in 1904 claimed the then-new steamboat Clallam, a much larger, newer, and stronger-built vessel than Sechelt.

[2] The vessel ran in the narrow passage between Race Rocks Lighthouse and the mainland, which was often hazardous in any conditions, but particularly on an ebb tide.

Aboard were her crew of four, an estimated 33 passengers, mostly workers on the Canadian Northern, and about 12,240 pounds of freight, including steel rails.

As she steamed around Beechy Head she was hit by high wind and seas in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

I was sitting in my house looking out of the window to seaward when I saw a small steamer coming around Church Point going west.

[1]From this account, given by Henry Charles at his house, the examiner concluded that Sechelt had sunk about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southeast of South Bedford Island (a bare rock) in 40 fathoms (240 ft) of water.

Having seen the disaster, Henry Charles ran to Rocky Point, where there was a telephone link to the quarantine station at William Head.

The preliminary inquiry was conducted by Captain Charles Eddie, Examiner of Masters and Mates, of the Port of Vancouver.

The engineer considered Sechelt unstable unless she were well-ballasted, and if cargo were carried only on the main deck (instead of in the hold, which was entirely used for a coal bunker except for some ballast forward), in his opinion her instability would increase.

Kick described the weather conditions on the day of the sinking but ascribed the accident entirely to the vessel's instability.

(Jarvis testified later that he and James had fired Stromgren, apparently related to his unawareness that he had lost a propeller blade and the possibility it posed for damage to the ship.)

[1] William Turpel, owner of a marine railway in Victoria, testified that his company had hauled Sechelt out of the water ten days before the sinking, on March 14, to repair her propeller, which, because one blade had been lost, required the removal of the opposite blade to keep the shaft in balance.

Harold G. Jarvis, her surviving owner, testified to the contrary, that he felt, as an experienced seaman, that Sechelt was perfectly suitable for the Victoria–Sooke run and that when he and Captain James had inspected her when she was hauled out at Turpel's yard, they both found her to be in "first-class" condition.

He did not consider the vessel top-heavy, and stated she had made several trips just before her loss in worse weather conditions, which on the 24th he characterized as "fresh" but not a gale.