that time it was not standard practice to equip the wireless set with auxiliary battery power. Thus, if electrical power was lost on the ship in general, the wireless would also go down. This happened on May when the engine room flooded. The wireless operator, W.R. Keller, did not have time to send out a distress call before the main power was lost. Thinking quickly, he ran down to the engine room, where the incoming water was by then waist deep. Keller rigged an improvised electrical connection with the engine room telegraph battery, and using this was able to send out a wireless distress call before the engine room was completely flooded. The message sent by Keller stated: “S.S. PRINCESS MAY SINKING SENTINEL ISLAND; SEND HELP.” The close proximity of Sentinel Island allowed a safe place to evacuate the passengers and crew, as well as land the gold shipment and the mail for safekeeping. Later the passengers and crew were picked up by Princess Ena and other rescue ships and taken to Juneau. Over 120 plates were damaged on the hull. The largest hole was about long and wide. The engine rooms were flooded, and the ship could not move on its own. To remove Princess May from the rocks, the ship's owners hired Capt. W.H. Logan and the Seattle-based salvage tug Santa Cruz, as well as the William Jolliffe, one of the most powerful tugs on the British Columbia coast. Temporary shipways were built and rocks were blasted, and after several previous attempts failed, on 3 September 1910, the salvors were able to refloat the ship and tow it to port. This was the 32nd time that Captain Logan had successfully salvaged a ship. The cost of the salvage and the subsequent repair was $115,000. Conversion to oil fuel In 1911, while undergoing repairs from the Sentinel Island stranding, Princess May was converted from coal to oil fuel. The ship was the first of the Princess fleet to be so converted. Oil-fueled boilers had many advantages. Coal-fired boilers had to be taken out of service to be cleaned and have ashes removed. This sometimes prevented the ship from reaching service speeds, and on occasion caused the ship to miss favorable tides on some of the narrow Alaska passages. Oil fuel sharply reduced boiler out of service time, so much so that on Princess May it was found that two