Time and Tide Nantucket

On the night of July 25, 1956 the eastbound Swedish passenger liner Stockholm collided with the westbound Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria in what was to be described as the world’s first major radar assisted collision at sea. The collision happened approximately 50 miles south of Nantucket at 11:11 p.m. local time.

The Andrea Doria was struck just behind and below the starboard bridge wing and almost immediately took on a severe list of almost 20 degrees to starboard leaving half of her lifeboats unusable. Less than 10 minutes from the time she was struck, the Andrea Doria transmitted an SOS calling for immediate assistance. The loss of her port-side lifeboats might have resulted in a significant loss of life if not for the relatively rapid response of several nearby ships, and by the relative stability of the fatally wounded luxury liner despite carrying a worsening list throughout the night.

Unlike the Titanic disaster of 1912, the total loss of life was relatively small. Only 46 passengers from Andrea Doria died as a consequence of the collision. A total of 1660 passengers and crew were rescued and survived. On Stockholm, five crew members, who were in the area of the bow at the time, also died as result of the collision.

Sources:

Intro Text and Podcast Description:
Halpern, Samuel, "An Objective Forensic Analysis of the Collision Between
Stockholm and Andrea Doria" http://www.titanicology.com/AndreaDoria/Stockholm-Andrea_Doria_Collision_Analysis.pdf ; Page 1

Main Narrative:
Andrews, Evan, "The Sinking of the Andrea Doria" https://www.history.com/news/the-sinking-of-andrea-doria

© Egan Maritime Institute, 2020

Beginning in the 1870s, coal shipped from the Delaware River and the Hampton Roads area of the Chesapeake Bay encouraged the building of larger and larger schooners. Three-masted schooners had long been the primary means of transporting coal to Boston and Maine, but, by the 1880s, the four-masted schooner had become more popular. The late 1890s saw five-masted schooners, and the first six-masted schooner, George W. Wells, was built in Camden, Maine in 1900.

By 1910, 45 five-masted schooners and 10 six-masted schooners, each the length of a football field, had been built, mostly by Maine shipyards. Bath was their primary builder, but many were built in Rockland, Camden, Belfast, and other Penobscot Bay towns.

These very large schooners were awkward to handle, although"donkey" engines provided power for hoisting sails, running the windlass, capstan and pumps and handling other heavy gear.  With this early automation, the large coasters were able to get along with relatively small crews.

These vessels were designed for carrying capacity.  The ships were long and narrow, which gave them great potential for speed when there was good wind, but were unwieldy in light air.  The difficulty in steering the vessels, their pointed bows and their great weight of cargo were probably all contributing factors in a large amount of these ships being wreck around Nantucket in the early twentieth century.

Source:

Penobscot Marine Museum: "The Great Coal Schooners,"
https://penobscotmarinemuseum.org/pbho-1/ships-shipbuilding/great-coal-schooners.                                                                                                                                     

Stackpole, Edouard: "Life Saving Nantucket," Stern-Majestic Press; 1972.
p. 268-270

Studds, Gerry: "The Great Coal Schooners of New England," NOAA, Stellwagon Bank National Marine Sanctuary;
https://nmssanctuaries.blob.core.windows.net/sanctuaries-prod/media/archive/missions/2006palmer/pdfs/schooners.pdf.                                    

Music and Narration: Performed, Produced and Edited by Evan Schwanfelder.
Special Thanks to Katie Schwanfelder for all your help and for joining the discussion 

© Egan Maritime Institute, 2020

In this episode we travel back to March of 1877 when the large sailing bark, W.F. Marshall, bound for New Brunswick, Canada from Hampton Roads, Virginia, got caught in gale force winds and fog off the southern coast of Nantucket and ran aground near shore.  The newly constructed Surfside Life Saving Station crew spotted the ship in distress and responded immediately, saving all souls aboard including a large, black Newfoundland dog.

This story is a favorite of families that visit that Shipwreck and Lifesaving Museum, and with the museum's opening date uncertain at this time, we thought it would be fitting to share with our listening audience here on the podcast.  Enjoy!

Source:

Stackpole, Edouard: "Life Saving Nantucket," Stern-Majestic Press; 1972.
p. 128-129

Stewart, Whitney: "Marshall The Sea Dog," Mill Hill Press and Albert F. Egan Jr. & Dorothy H. Egan Foundation; Revised Edition, 2017.

Music and Narration: Performed, Produced and Edited by Evan Schwanfelder.
Special Thanks to Katie Schwanfelder for all your help and for joining the discussion 

© Egan Maritime Institute, 2020

In the late nineteenth century, Nantucket Sound, located in between the major ports of New York and Boston, was one of the most heavily trafficked marine highways in the country.  Before the construction of the Cape Cod Canal in 1916, thousands of sailing vessels, every year, bound on coastal and transatlantic routes had one of two navigational decisions to make.  Take the longer, more exposed, ocean route south of Nantucket and around the dangerous south shoals, or take the shorter, relatively more sheltered passage through Nantucket Sound.  Many vessels, especially those plying the northeastern coastal trade, chose the latter. 

However, the sound is not without considerable hazards to navigation.  The treacherous  Muskeget channel, Tuckernuck and Muskeget Shoals, and the Nantucket Bar lie to the west and the south of the sound, while to the east there sits a narrow passage between the Great Point of Nantucket and Monomoy Island off the southeast elbow of Cape Cod.  All around this channel is a veritable maze of shoals, rips and sandbars which have seen many a shipwreck over the centuries. 

The greatest threat to mariners occurred during the winter and early spring season when violet storms blowing in a northerly direction arrived with little notice, catching ships off guard, and running them aground on the shoals and rips.  Ships could be broken up in a matter of days or even hours in the pounding surf, with sailors facing great risk to life and limb because of the cold water end extreme weather.   

Many had only to cling to the rigging, pray and wait for the life saving crews from Nantucket to take action and come to their rescue.  Such was the case in late March during the Great Gale of 1879, when 11 shipwrecks occurred around the Island, and the bravery of Nantucket’s volunteer lifesavers would be put to the ultimate test.

Source:

Stackpole, Edouard: "Life Saving Nantucket," Stern-Majestic Press; 1972. 
p. 144-148

Music and Narration: Performed, Produced and Edited by Evan Schwanfelder.
Special Thanks to Katie Schwanfelder for all your help and for joining the discussion 

© Egan Maritime Institute, 2020

Lightship service in the United Sates spans a period of 165 years from 1820-1985.  These floating lighthouses marked shifting shoals and sandbars, harbor entrances, river mouths or any other hazardous location on the water where the building of a stationary lighthouse was an impossibility. 

179 lightships were built between 1820 and 1952.  In the early years the ships were made of wood, powered only by sail and fitted with oil lanterns, as technology advanced, ships were eventually constructed of steel, powered by steam and diesel engines.  In 1915, the peak of lightship operations, there were 54 stations in the United Sates; 36 on the east coast, 2 in the Gulf, 5 on the west coast and 11 in the Great lakes. 

Some of the largest concentrations of lightship anchorages on the East Coast were in the highly trafficked and heavily shoaled waters of Nantucket Sound, but it goes without saying that by far the most isolated, most exposed and most extreme post in the entire lighthouse service was the lone Nantucket South Shoal Lightship, standing a year round vigil some 25 miles out to sea, south of Nantucket at the tip of the dreaded South Shoals.  There have been numerous lightships that served this post from 1854-1983, with many a tale to tell, but in this episode, I focus on the particularly fascinating history of the first two lightships that made station on Nantucket’s South Shoals.

Sources:

Boucher, Mike: "Lightships in America," United States Lighthouse Society;
uslhs.org/history/lightships-america

Kobbe, Gustav: "Life on the South Shoal Lightship," Century Magazine; August, 1891

Leach, Thomas: "Lightships of Nantucket Sound," January, 2006
threeharbors.com/lightships.html

Stackpole, Edouard: "Life Saving Nantucket," Stern-Majestic Press; 1972. 
p. 61-71
 
 Music and Narration: Performed, Produced and Edited by Evan Schwanfelder.
 Special Thanks to Katie Schwanfelder for all your help and for joining the discussion 
*Musical Note: Main Story Theme, instrumental cover; "Boots of Spanish Leather" by Bob Dylan

© Egan Maritime Institute, 2020

Life in Ireland was desperate in the mid nineteenth century.  The Potato Famine of the 1840's brought about a decade of starvation and illness.  More than one million Irish died and another million fled their homeland, emigrating to North America
 
 On the morning of October 22, 1851 the full masted ship British Queen, with 226 immigrants on board, departed Dublin, Ireland bound for New York.  The voyage was to take four to five weeks, but winter struck early that year and, eight weeks later, in a blinding snowstorm, the British Queen was driven into the dangerous Muskeget Channel west of Nantucket.  It was December 17th, 1851.
 
 Source:
 Stackpole, Edouard: "Life Saving Nantucket," Stern-Majestic Press; 1972. 
 p. 102-110
 
 Music and Narration: Performed, Produced and Edited by Evan Schwanfelder.
 Special Thanks to Katie Schwanfelder for all your help and for joining the discussion 

© Egan Maritime Institute, 2020

The wreck of the Hazard is one of the more mysterious shipwrecks in Nantucket history.  The ship set sail for Boston from the Delaware Breakwater on February 12th 1881 and made good time up the coast with favorable winds and tide.  However, on the eve of February 13th she encountered a gale and, the following morning, struck the shoals southeast of the island.  What unfolds next is a series of questionable decisions made by the captain with a remarkable twist at the end of the story.

Source:
Stackpole, Edouard: "Life Saving Nantucket," Stern-Majestic Press; 1972. 
p. 175-181

Music and Narration: Performed, Produced and Edited by Evan Schwanfelder.
Special Thanks to Katie Schwanfelder for all your help and for joining the discussion.
Song in the Main Story: Cover of "Off to Sea Once More" by Jerry Garcia 

© Egan Maritime Institute, 2020

On the night of January, 20th 1892, the three masted schooner, HP Kirkham, encountered a violent winter squall and grounded on the Rose and Crown Shoal approximately 15 miles southeast of Nantucket's Great Point. 

The following day, seven lifesavers from the Coskata life saving station, embarked on what is heralded as one of the most dramatic and courageous rescues in the history of the United States Life Saving Service. 

Source:
Stackpole, Edouard: "Life Saving Nantucket," Stern-Majestic Press; 1972. 
p. 182-188

Music and Narration: Performed, Produced and Edited by Evan Schwanfelder.
Special Thanks to Katie Schwanfelder for all your help and for joining the discussion.

© Egan Maritime Institute, 2020