Mystery object: A ‘king spoke’ from a ship’s wheel?

Historians at the Alaska State Museum this week examined photos of an object discovered by resident Luke Marquardt which resembles a handle, possibly from a ship’s wheel.

Marquardt said he found the five-inch-long object on a beach at the end of Lutak Road while walking there about a year ago. It was on the rocks, below the beach’s high tide line, he said.

Marquardt recently decided to post a photo on Facebook to see what others thought it might be.

Shaped like a bowling pin and inlaid with slightly raised metal banding, the object’s shaft has what appears to be manufactured holes on each end. Photos of handles on ships’ wheels indicate they sometimes were made with bored shafts to allow a pin to pass through, attaching the handle to the wheel.

The object’s weight also leads Marquardt to believe it’s a ship’s wheel handle. Dense woods like teak and mahogany were commonly used on wheels as those woods are able to withstand the deteriorative effects of salt water and constant exposure to weather.

The reason for the metal inlay may be attributable to steering the ship. According to Internet sources, one handle or “spoke” of a ship’s wheel would be specially marked or capped in metal so it could be differentiated from others by a person steering a ship.

The wheel was calibrated so that when the marked spoke, called the “king spoke,” was in an upright position (at the top of the wheel), the ship’s rudder was parallel with the vessel, steering the vessel straight. A king spoke allows the person at the wheel to quickly gauge the angle of the rudder.

The metal banding may have been important after dark for identifying the king spoke by feel.

Marquardt, who is a scuba diver, said he’s pretty sure the object is a ship wheel’s handle. “I’m really quite curious where the rest of the ship is.”

Steve Henrikson, curator of collections at the Alaska State Museum, said a “king spoke” would be an “educated guess” as to what the object is, though it also looks like a beer tap handle.

“The wood kind of reminds me of waterlogged teak,” Henrikson said. Many different kinds of vessels were pressed into service during the Klondike Gold Rush, including yachts that may have had such an ornamented wheel handle, he said.

“It certainly looks like a handle,” Henrikson said. “Things can last a long time underwater, particularly if they’re buried in silt and recently just tossed up and landed on the beach.”