The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1901-11-07
NEW ENGLAND'S FOGS
HAVE ADDED EXTRA HAZARDS TO
THE SEAS DANGERS.
Many Collisions Result-Can Neither SEQ
Nor Hear Plainly in the Wet Mass
A Sea Captain Tells of the Difficulties
of Navigation.

VI
of Navigation.
Nature furnishes new phenomena, or
occasionally revives those that were
familiar to the fathers. An unusual
phenomenon along the Eastern state
coast this season has been punches
of fog" or fogs that are local, and
banks Of smoke that lie close to the
water
The endless chain of coal towns run
ming on schedule for the Lehigh Val
ley, Lackawanna, Philadelphia and
Reading, the Staples Coal Company
and othSrs, have CROPPED and twitched
their three and four string barges in a
dangerous way through these
punches"
They have collided with lightships
and been guilty of fool maneuvers.
Sometimes they have missed their
schedule, thereby condemning shippers
and crews to tie up at Boston or Perth
Amboy until their time to start came
round on the schedule, which is as in
exorable as time table for the rails.
Fog Is Deceptive.
The Lehigh tug Shawanese lay
alongside the north pier, Atlantic dock,
recently, her furnace raising the boil
ers' courage for start from the stake
boat with string of Amboy hulks.
In fifteen years experience" said
Captain George W. Goldrick. II never
c11o1 toll I,,ro Nf
| You can neither see nor hear in it.
Often 1 have stood on the top of the
| pilot house and looked over the top Of
| the bunch. directing the mate how to
| steer.
1T is the most deceptive fog. One
night, feeling about in the easterly en-
trance to Nantucket sound, heard old
Pollock Rip lightship blow ahead and
change the course to sou'sou west.
Next she blew abeam and again ahead.
| If it hadn't been for the bell, which is
now as false as the siren, the Lord
knows where we should have brought
up.
Collided with Lightship
Another time I heard the bell of
Pollock Rip lightship before the siren.
| There was only one thing to do. tel
| egraphed for full steam ahead, threw
barges to port their helms ito help the
tension on the towlines.
Barge No. usually has 200 fathoms
of line and Nos. 2, and have each
100 fathoms. The maneuvers was a
Sheer 1t worked all right until No. 2
came along and he bumped right into
Pollock Rip lightship. The barge had
a big hole knocked into her and We
had to anchor.
L Execution rock and Block Island
have the best sirens. They are the only
/ perfect ones. They are trumpet in
strument Of European make. Their
steam notes are of clarion c1earness,
sounding in fog like a submarine ex-
| plosion. From Cape Ann all the way
over east the government equipment
is very poor.
There are other ways of telling
whether you are beside sirens and
BELLS" said Fletcher Cakes, examining
pipe full. when the vacuum be-
gins to pull down from % to "a and 20
and thereabout l know we're between
Handkerchief and Pollock Rip light
| ships.
Knows Location by Condensers.
"Why, that condenser tells me more
than the sirens. The more vacuum
the less pressure on your exhaust. You
see, there's cold streak of water run
ming out to the ocean between Hanker-
chief and Pollock Rip, and that's what
affects the condenser. There's another
| cold streak from Cross Rip lightship to
Nobska point, fourteen miles. The
streak runs about west-no Invest and
1 east-sou' east.
pretty squeezing business in one O.
| those wet fogs from Handkerchief to
| Shoveful Shoals and to Pollock Rip
| lightship out through the slew" unused
the captain.
"The slew is twenty-four feet be-
| tween two bell buoys. Imagine shoot
ing four barges on string 5000 feet
long through door that you can't see
''In these fog punches the minute
you get off Cape Cod it's Just like
emerging from that blind arch yonder
into light, with Chatham Bar eight
miles into the point, three lights of
Nauset Beach eleven miles away, and
! fourteen miles to Highlands light"
4