A LIGHTSHIP ADRIFT

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 49, Issue 66, 28 December 1928, Page 5

A LIGHTSHIP ADRIFT

EAST GOODWIN SANDS.

DOUBLE MENACE TO SHIPPING. CREW'S TRYING EXPERIENCE. .United Press Association—Copyright). LONDON, December 26. How the East Goodwin lightship, one of the most important in the world and familiar to all overseas passengers arriving in London, spent Christmas Night adrift and buffeted in a raging south-westerly gale narrowly escaping disaster in the death-trap of winch it warned others, is related in the "Daily News." Throughout Christmas Day terrific seas swept the lightship. An anxious vigil came to a climax at midnight when, with a final plunge, she broke •her moorings and drifted a helpless prey to the fury of the wind and tide, leaving the busiest and most dangerous spot on the British coast, (perhaps m the world, unguarded and being herself a danger to crowded shipping in the neighbourhood of this ocean graveyard The lightship carried a master and six men. Some of them, in the teeth of the gale, the mast and extinguished the lantern, as otherwise it would have misled shipping. Others fired warning flares, warning vessels to keep clear, while red lamps were hoisted to indicate that the vessel was out of control. The lightship also wirelessed her plight to headquarters, enabling the Admiralty radio to warn traffic that the lightship was out of control and adding another peril to navigation in a most difficult area. Meanwhile, the gale carried the lightship along within a mile of the .boiling waste of breakers marking the sinister Goodwin Sands. . Eventually, when the crew had discharged their responsibility to shipping and had an opportunity to think ot their own lives, they found an anchorage with a spare anchor, and alter drifting for three miles notified their distress and position to Ramsgate from where a lifeboat put out and reached the lightship aiter a two hours' search. •,..■»* ±~ The lightship was towed to> Margate Roads, where she will be re-equipped before being restored to her position. —Australian Press Association.