Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1908-02-14

and her lonely decks in perfect order
But 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 over was fatally struck off
Cape Henry by February blizzard.
Her masts crashed overheard, leaving
ten men face to face with death.
Heavy spars, held by the torn and
tangled rigging, beat her sides like
battering rams in every swirliDg sea,
opening her seams and admitting tons
of water. And as the big combers
swept over the doomed vessel a coat
ing of ice two feet thick was formed
on the rocking decks The pumps
froze and the battling men were chilled
to the bone, without even one dry match
wherewith to start a fire. Lashed to
the stanchions and masts stump, the
crew waited death with the grim resig-
nation of sailormen.
But the storm passed, and then a dar-
ing spirit fired rifle into a can of
kerosene and started blaze A brief
struggle prevent it from spreading, and
the fire was 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
sea went down. They now resolved to
abandon her and make for land. But
no sooner had they provisioned the life
boat than monstrous sea dashed it
against the side of the derelict and
utterly destroyed it.
A couple of days later, however, when
the helpless craft was drifting about a
hundred miles off the New Jersey coast.
the British steamer Queensmore bore
down upon her and took off the suffer
ing men. Thereafter the Alma Cum
mings was reported five times drifting
across the Atlantic and perhaps year
later she was seen 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 pres
ence. But below the waters edge the
fire would not 60, for the decks were
too wet to burn, and the derelict per
sisted because her timber cargo bore
her up. There came long period of
silence about the schooner, but one
autumn day she grounded near Colon,
where she was broken up by the4ndians
Of Panama.
Not less remarkable is the record of
the American schooner Fannie E.
Wolsten. She was adrift for four years,
and travelled nearly ten thousand miles.
Abandoned off Cape Hatteras. she
drifted north with the Gulf Stream but
sudden gale drove her south again,
and she staggered into the dreaded
Sargasso Sea-that mysterious region
of weeds and wrecks, so dreaded by
every sailor. Here the hulk lay hidden
for two years. Then, as if alive with
malice, she shot out of that forbidden
sea, and was sighted Off Florida pur-
suing an erratic course northward. She
described two vast circles off the Vir-
ginia coast, and at last went to pieces
on the terrible shores of New Jersey.
This derelict was reported no fewer
than forty-four times. She crossed her
own track at least dozen times and in
spite of her long battle with the storms
she appeared as staunch as ever to
anxious observers. whose days and
nights she made hideous with fear.
The records of the photographic Of
fees of New York and London tell
strange tales. There was the Fred B.
Taylor, adrift for ninety-three summer
days-a most peculiar wreck floating
bow upward. All such are carefully
reported for the benefit of navigation.
Some years ago the Captain of a tramp
rounding Cape Horn beheld a New
Bedford whaler frozen into an ice
berg. The vagaries of bergs, by
the way, are well known, for just as
vast masses weighing thousands of
tons become detached through the SUMS
action, the towering pinnacles above
water throw queer somersaults. It
was thought this derelict whaler had
grounded on the berg and later on been
carried high into the air, where icy
sprays had fixed her surely upon her
high pedestal of blue green ice.
Fantastic as this case is, it is by no
means unique. The Newfoundland fish
ing schooner Albio was described in
1898 in precisely the same plight and
not even in fiction can one imagine
more dramatic episode than the slow
procession of her berg and its satellites
through the trawling fleets of the
Grand Banks, whose crews gazed up in
awe at the phantom ship, upreared on
her shining pedestal.
A derelict steered by a dead mans
hand is worth recording. That was the
sight that met the eyes of men on board
the ship Ariebis last year in the Pacific.
The man had lashed himself to the
wheel, and had died or been struck
dead in some tremendous storm. And
there he stood, apparently nerved and
erect, with cold hands grasping the
spokes, and sightless eyes that seemed
to steer ahead. The masters and Off
GERS of the Ariebis scuttled the derelict
and sent her lone watcher into the
depths to a fitting burial. There are
some derelicts which deserve the name
only because they are found on the
high seas with not living person on
board. Search the whole maritime an
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