On Monday 31 October 1927, the steamship freighter "Margaret Dollar" (built in 1921 as the S.S. "Celestial" and renamed in 1922) was transiting off the Washington coast when, off Cape Flattery, it came upon a drifting Japanese fore-and-aft rigged fishing boat, the "Ryo Yei Maru", a sturdy vessel of fairly recent construction.