Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-06-30
WILLIAM G. FITZGERALD

these are especially when they are filled with lumber
Let abandoned vessel be light, in ballast
and mayhap steamer will cut right through her;
but to hit water logged derelict, upheld by cargo
of sodden timber practically the striking
a rock. Nor will the first victim be the last for
these staggering buccaneers of the live for years
and travel half way round the world, dealing death
and destruction
Take the case of the thirty-five hundred-ton Dun
more, Cardiff to Newport News with coal. She
broke her shaft in mid ocean during furious biz
zard, and abandoned by her six hundred
miles from Cape Cod. The Dunmore then
leaking terribly; her master thought her about to
founder. But no, she lived and was sighted by
less than twenty-five steamers. BY some this prize
worth seventy thousand dollars was toWed
She boarded by five, and set fire by
Then the Dunmore vanished, although five British
warships went out from Bermuda to destroy her.
well knowing what a peril she to navigation.
Think of this big iron steamer, water logged and
her beam ends with three thousand tons of coal as
dead weight, dancing drunkenly into the track of
navigation!
The persistence of the derelict is very serious
problem. Take for example the American schooner
w. ii. White, at one time known to all Atlantic
sailors as the White Ghost. For over twenty months
that vessel was ahoat, apparently well masted and
manned. And she travelled five thousand miles,
zlgzagg1ng perlously across the Atlantic, only to
sink at last off the wild Hebrdes with all her white
sails set and her lonely decks in perfect order.
A Derelict's Whole Story
ID Ut the whole story of derelict is told in the case
- of the schooner Alma Cummings She loaded
lumber at Port Royal, jamaica for Boston, and on
her way fatally struck off Cape Henry by
February blizzard Her masts crashed overheard,
leaving ten face to face with death. Heavy
spars held by the torn and tangled rigging beat her
sides like batering rams in every swrling open
ing her seams and admitting tons of water. And
the big combers swept over the doomed vessel
coating of ice two feet thick formed the rock
ing decks. The pumps froze, and the battling
were chilled to the bone, without dry match
wherewth to start fire. Lashed to the stanchions
and mast stumps, the crew awaited death with the
grim resignation of sailormen.
But the storm passed. and then daring spirit
fired rifle into of kerosene and started blaze
A brief struggle prevented it from spreading. and
the fire carefully tended, that it might cook food
and fight the killing frost. On this crazy hulk the
men lived for five days and nights, until the
went down. They now resolved to abandon her and
make for land. But sooner had they provsioned
the lifeboat than a monstrous dashed it against
the side of the dereCt and utterly destroyed it.
couple of days later, however, when the helpless
craft was drifting about, a hundred miles off the
New Jersey coast the British steamer Oueensmore
bore down upon her and took off the suffering men.
Thereafter the Alma Cummings reported five
times drifting the Atlantic; and perhaps a
year later she far to the south near the
Equator having been burned to the waters edge by
crews that had boarded her, hoping to rid the seas
of her presence But below the waters edge the
fire would not go, for the decks too to burn
and the derelict persisted because her timber cargo
bore her up. There came long period of silence