The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-12-21

hulk and removing it as menace TO nav
igaticn. Or. the vessel may be fairly in
at raising advisable, the wreckers' work
consisting in salving valuable cargo. Of
ten the wreck is one not submerged at all.
ship may have run onto a reef where IL
lies. nose on d crag and stern af1oat, ris-
ing and falling on the ocean swell pound
ing and pounding and pounding, until the
very ocean bottom drones and she is grad
ually broken to pieces"
Case of the Yankee.
1t was thus that the Yankee lay, with
her bow fast on a rock. Into her stern
was poured thousand barrels of cement
in the hope that its weight might lift the
forward part of the vessel clear of the
rock on which IL was impaled- The fact
that II did not do so made only more DIFF
ficult this now famous piece of wrecking,
since all the cement had to be removed IN
order TO raise the vessel by compressed
air. the wreckers working all the time
on a dangerous lee shore.
There are other ways in which a ship
gets into trouble which demands the ship
doctors presence The wreck may be that
of a steamer which has pointed its nose
shorewaTd in fog, finding beach, ploW-
ing a furrow through the yielding sand
and never coming to halt until il is stuck
fast all nut high and dry, helpless vic
tim to the next storm that comes screech-
ing up the coast to pile breakers against
her and crowd her even higher upon the
beach.
II is not easy to say which of all the
dangerous opportunities of the wrecker is
most dangerous, but seldom does any ex-
coed that which. IN addition to other dan
gers, needs "A storm TO make il successful
the particular method of wrecking
known as walking ship TO her cables.
When "A big vessel like an ocean liner
loses its bearings and the giant nose turns
shOreward and into the sands, the mon
strous hull backed by the enormous i'm
pact of six thousand or twelve thousand
tons moving at speed from ten TO TWEEN
ty knots an hour, gougeS into the yielding
bottom like a gigantic pillow that digs a
furrow fifteen or twenty feet deep, II does
not come TO rest until the steamer is all
but high and dry. surrounded by water
hardly deep enough TO float brick
schooner The wrecker's method for
dragging an unfortunate of this sort back
to deem water is what is known as walk
ing the ship TO her cables.
Storm Sometimes Needed.
To walk a ship to her cables. what the
wrecker wants is a storm. Not cheap
little thirty or forty-knot zephyr, but a
real storm. A baby hurricane. the wilder
the better, for literally he intends to har-
ness the storm with giant haWsers. where
after he stakes his life and the fate of
the vessel that the sea viii pull tn" X
back to safety.
70 harness one of these storms hD To /;
from four to six twenty housand-p pound
anchors. attaches a hawser fourteen
a
anchor into the sea at distance from
two hundred and fifty to three, hundred
fathoms aStern of the wreck and brings
the ends of the hawSerS aboard the
stranded vessel There they are set up
tight as fiddle strings by means of the
ships Windlasses. Then, unless the storm
breaks at once. he takes cargo and every
thing that Is movable out of the ship to
tighten her and awaits the blow. As
the fury of the storm increases and the
seas become higher, up goes the stern,
momentarily ailoat on the houSe-high
breakers and down she comes with a thud
and crash that threatens to snap out
her masts while men In sou'westers and
not to be knocked off their feet. Every
time she is lifted and momentarily afloaG
on a breaker, she is being dragged sea-
ward-an inch-two inches-a foot at a
time For although each time she rises
the surf tends to cast her higher up on
the beach. there are four or six of the
miGhtiest cables it is possible for humans
to make each of these cables having an
elasticity of something like twenty-five or
thirty feet and the combined elasticitieS,
or pulling power. of all the hawserS is
even migbtier than the sea. Therefore.
instead of the wreck being battered higher
up the strand. ii is pulled seward and
merely the occasional setting up of the
hawsers is necessary to tauten this har-
ness thrown over the storm.
But however he works whether it be in
dragging a vessel from a sandy beach.
raising her from deep water or blowing
her up with dynamite for the benefit of
navigation the wreckers life is in danger.
What he has done the public sometimes
reads, how he does it, seldom or never.