POULSBO — Ray Diehl woke to a stormy morning Dec. 9 at his waterfront home on the western shore of Liberty Bay.

The waves where smashing against the concrete bulkhead in front of his home, and ultimately splashing over as winds rushed through the bay.

Diehl focused further off shore, though, and noticed the storm was at odds with the Queen of Sheba, a 105-foot wooden yacht anchored in Liberty Bay. And the boat was losing.

“It broke loose and they tried to push it up the bay, but it was maybe 40-45 mile an hour winds and they couldn’t do it,” Diehl said after the yacht’s anchor broke loose from the bay’s floor.

The record high wind of the morning of Dec. 9 was 37 miles per hour, at around 7:53 a.m. High tide was nearly 12 feet at 7:33 a.m. It was around that time that the Queen of Sheba’s anchor broke loose from the bay’s floor.

“Then it was dodging other boats,” Diehl said.

But the yacht wasn’t able to avoid every boat. It collided with a sailboat anchored in the bay, knocking that boat’s anchor loose. The sailboat was soon blowing in the wind as well, trailing behind the Queen of Sheba.

The yacht had another, smaller boat rafted to it. The small cruiser was used to move the yacht, which has no rudder or power, according to a source with the Poulsbo Police Department.

“That’s what pushed it in here about two months ago,” Diehl said.

As the wind claimed the Queen of Sheba, blowing it north toward shallow water at the head of the bay, the cruiser was not powerful enough to keep the yacht from blowing further. As the two boats approached shallow water, the cruiser detached and left the yacht to fend for itself.

The cruiser made its way to the Port of Poulsbo’s marina. The wind was blowing so severely against the cruiser that it took five attempts to dock.

By 11:33 a.m., the yacht had dragged its anchor from south of the Port of Poulsbo’s marina, to the north of it, and it wasn’t slowing down. By 12:30 p.m., it had struck the muddy bottom of the bay, near Bovela Lane on the western shoreline.

Low tide was at 1 p.m.

Poulsbo Police were made aware of the vessel’s situation. Officers went out in the police boat on

Dec. 10 to check on the vessel, as the Queen of Sheba was still at the north end of Liberty Bay. Officers towed the boat out of Liberty Bay, under the impression that friends of the Queen of Sheba were coming to tow it further, ultimately to Port Townsend. Police took the vessel as far at Lemolo, just across from Keyport.

But on the morning of Dec. 11, the Queen of Sheba was still off the shores of Lemolo where it was laying on its port side during low tide.

High wind warnings for an approaching storm were issued on Dec. 11 by the National Weather Service.

The incident on Dec. 9 was not the first time the yacht has lost a battle with the Liberty Bay winds. Approximately two weeks before it was blown south.

“It got away last time the wind blew,” Diehl said. “It went over to between Scandia Point and Virginia Point. They brought it back out when it was nice again, and anchored it near the boathouse (in the middle of the bay).”

“It doesn’t have any lights on it,” he said. “They always put it in the middle of the channel, too.”

Since it was beached at the north end of the bay, the Queen of Sheba turned on its anchor lights.

Poulsbo Port Manager Brad Miller contacted Poulsbo Police and the Coast Guard as the Queen of Sheba was blowing past the marina on Dec. 9. The port is not responsible for securing boats drifting in Liberty Bay. However, if there is a fuel spill, the port will assist at the request of law enforcement, Miller said.

Poulsbo Police Chief Al Townsend said the department had received calls about three boats adrift over the morning. The boats have been monitored from shore, “but if it appears they will create property damage to other boats or objects, we will send out the police boat to try to re-anchor them or try to tow them into a port slip,” he emailed the Herald.

The Queen of Sheba was built in 1943, primarily of oak and fir, in Stockton, California, by Stephens Marine, according to an info page on CharterWorld.com. The yacht is not a charter boat. The Queen of Sheba “can sleep up to 10 passengers on board and has around 5 professional crew,” the info page stated.