On December 2 the British sloop of war Condor departed Esquimalt for Honolulu. Commanded by Capt. C. Slater, she carried a complement of 130 officers and ratings, although Victoria sources claimed she had embarked an additional 10 men as supernumeraries just prior to sailing. The Condor was a 180-foot iron [steel] propeller steamer of 980 tons built at Sheerness in 1898. Her primary armament consisted of 10 four-inch rapid-fire guns and four three-pounders. In addition to her triple-expansion engine, which drove her at a 13-knot speed, she was fitted with auxiliary sails.

The 3,300-ton collier Matteawan, deeply laden with nearly 5,000 tons of coal, had departed Nanaimo the previous day. This 324-foot steel vessel, on the largest of the Pacific Coast coal fleet, was built in England in 1893 as the Asturian Prince, but had come under American registry and was operated by J. Jerome & Co. of San Francisco, commanded by Capt. H. B. Grosscup. Both Condor and Matteawan signaled the Tatoosh light station as they cleared Cape Flattery and stood out to sea in the face of threatening weather. Shortly thereafter a full gale struck the Northwest coast. Neither vessel was ever heard from again. It has been theorized that the two steamships collided during the storm, but wreckage of the Condor was later found on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, while that of the collier was picked up on the beach south of the Cape, indicating that the two were widely separated when they went down. The exact cause of the dual tragedy remains among the many sea mysteries of the North Pacific. Newell