GRAVEYARDS OF THE SEA.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 18762, 29 December 1930, Page 3

GRAVEYARDS OF THE SEA.

SPOTS FEARED BY SAILORMEN. The recent salvage operations to recover gold worth millions in the s.s. Egypt, sunk off France in a famous graveyard of the sea, revives interest in other waters. Points Du Raz, off which the Egypt was sunk after a collision, is one of the most dangerous headlands of France, because all ships coming south out of the English Channel bound for Bordeaux, the Mediterranean. Africa or South America, murt clear its toothed and hungry rocks. It is to France what the Goodwin Sands and The Lizard are to England, and what Nauset Beach, on Cape Cod, Nantasket Beach south of Boston, Nantucket island and Diamond Shoal, off Cape Hatteras, are to the United States, and King Island is to Australia. Nantucket is credited with snaring 500 ships from the time of its settlement down to 1876. Lighthouses, buoys, light-ships, better weather report service, increased use of motor power and, now, radio direction finding, have made the death corners of the sea less dangerous, but they still exact their toll. Goodwin Sands, a trap lying just beyond the mouth of the Thames, has long held the title of “ship swallower,” innumerable vessels having been buried in its wastes. Small King Island, off the Australian coast counts to date 40 ships brought to an untimely end on its shores. Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America, and Cape of Good Hope, at the end of Africa, have vilthe same class fall the rock-cluttered lainous reputations among sailors. In straits off the south end of Japan, where typhoons out of the Philippines sweep whole fleets to destruction. Onoshrdlu shrdlu shrdlu shrdl shrdl Each of the world’s worst waters has its own peculiarities. Cape Cod Hope, at the end of Africa, have villainous reputations among sailors. In the same class fall the rock-cluttered straits off the south end of Japan, where typhoons out of the Philippines sweep whole fleets to destruction. Each of the world's worst waters has its own peculiarities. Cape Cod and Nantucket are most dangerous in a north-easter, when the howling wind tries to drive ships, Europe express lane steamers, coastwise steamers and New England fishing schooners on to the sandy shores that run at right angles to the direction of the gale. Cape Hatteras, jutting far out into the Atlantic, extends its shoal water still farther out. North-easters blowing contrary to the flow of the Gulf Stream, build up over these shoals the highest, steepest waves to be found along the coast. Jamming their noses into toppling walls of water, vessels begin to founder and drift helpless on to Diamond Shoal.

Goodwin Sands, eight miles long, four miles wide, sprawls like a spider awaiting its prey off the coast from Deal, England. Awash at high tide, large areas of the Goodwin Sands at low tide offer a hard, dry surface. Ships going to or from London, to North England ports, Belgium, Holland and Germany, have to pass close to the Sands, which are studded with the bones of victims. Steamships of today have much less trouble with Cape Horn than the old-time sailing ships that beat against the prevailing westerly gales of the roaring forties. With rigging iced, with no sun to take bearings from, many a skipper lost his ship in the battle to make westing. One vessel which tried for more than 50 days to round Cape Horn finally gave it up and went to Asia the other way around the world.

Not the least of the dangers eliminated from graveyards of the sea are those which were created not by Nature, but by human beach scavengers. Nags Head, on the North Caroline beaches, perpetuates the memory of the professional wreckers, who would hobble a horse with a lantern hung on its neck. Captains of sailing vessels, picking their way carefully through dangerous waters, would sight the bobbing light that looked like those of another ship. Approach to the beacon soon brought the vessel to grief and the crew to death, perhaps, while the wreckers raced to the beach to snatch up the cargo that the sea rolled out of the broken vessel.