The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1904-07-21
A Night Off Hatteras,

A MgW UI1 ndtt6TdS,
The shoals extending some nine
miles eastward from Cape Hatteras,
North Carolina, have been dubbed the
Graveyard of the Atlantic" More
vessels and lives are lost on these
shoals in month than during the
entire year at any other point along
Coast. The Government has, for
many decades past, kept lghtship
moored on the outer, or Diamond
Shoal. When the West India hurri-
canes come along, however, they play
the dickens with the lightship, some
times dragging her as much as two
miles from the place indicated on the
Government charts. 1t is this fact,
coupled with the proximity of the
Gulf Stream and the peculiar promi-
hence of Cape Hatteras in the config-
uration of the Atlantic Coast line,
which causes so many Shipwrecks. In
their anxiety to keep out of the current
of the Gulf Stream, southern bound
vessels will try to shave Diamond
Shoal as closely as possible, trusting to
Providence for the correct location of
the lightship. If the lightship has
! been dragging it is almost certain to
| become case for the underwriters to
| settle.
| Take on the other hand, a lumber
drogher with heavy deckload of hard
pine, bound from Jacksonville, Fla,
say, tc New York. She has come up
along the coast with nice southerly
and, just before daybreak, has manag-
ed to sight the light on Cape Lookout.
| The course from there to Hatteras is
about east-north-east, with good hun
dred miles to run yet. With the dawn
of day the sky begins to assume that
murky, overcast, threatening look
which, to the experienced seaman, for
bodies a blow. The mercury in the
swinging barometer drops like the quo
tations on Change when the bears are
having an inning, and the seagulls are
all making for harbor. The wind grad
ually hauls to the southwest. freshening
all the time, while the sea keeps get
ting uglier, curling up in the waist and
breaking against the deckload. With
grim determination the "old man"
socks every rag to her that she will
carry, in the hope that she will weather
Hatteras before the sea becomes too
high. The atmosphere is thick with
flying vapors, and the distance to be
traversed must, therefore, be gagged
| by dead reckoning, hit or miss. Along
about three or four o'clock in the after
noon the wind has increased to such an
extent that she has to be snugged down.
The seas are breaking all over her, and
if the deckload lashings carry away
it's ''good-by. john According to
the patent log there are still fifteen or
twenty miles to be covered before Dia-
mond Shoal can be rounded and smooth
water reached. Sail after sail is reefed
and furled until at last she wallows
along under close-reefed mainsail
and fore-staysail Even at that she is
making a holy show of herself, and it
is as much as mans life is worth to
walk-or run-from one end to the
other. All-hands are kept on deck, of
course, and everyone is Strainlng his
eyes to catch glimpse of the blessed
hghtship. By the log she ought to be
visible well on the lee. 1t is now pitch
dark and the sea is playing with hel
like a cat with a mouse. Every white
capped roller leering up under her stern
looks as though he would swallow her
i'll a mouthtul. Everyone is nervous
and depressed for if it is so bad here
NldU NOil L IL DG olil III Lut VI uII sNlI6dLl,
where the current enforceS the south
west wind in rolling up big sea? On
a sudden some one bawls out: Light
off the lee bow" 1t is the Diamond
Shoal lightship. Oh, what an imme-
dlate ease-up of tense nerves there is.
Another half hour or so and the old
girl will be in smooth water and every
thing hunky-dory The cook is reused
out to make coffee for the boys, and
we'll, let her go, Smith, After she's
got around the corner, everything
she'll lug is put on to her to make
Hampton Roads before the wind chops
around to the northward
But, suppose that the Diamond Shoal
lightship had not been sighted, or, if
sighted, that it had been out of place
a mile or two inshore, say-what then?
One of two courses would then have
been left to the master. Either he
must have stood out into the Gulf
Stream and risked the loss of his deck
load, if not his vessel, or else he would
have taken his chances with the patent
log and kept her off when it indicated a
position well to the eastward of Cape
Hatteras. 1t is this uncertainty about
the position of the Diamond Shoal
lightship which, more than anything
else, has caused the shoals off Hatteras
to become the Graveyard of the Allan
tic. Coast Seamen's Journal.