In a few days tugs and lighters were brought to the scene of the wreck
and the work of attempting to save the cargo was begun. A large part
of her cargo was sugar in great straw mats; these in the process of
hoisting out of the hold of the vessel frequently became broken and
the sugar sifted out upon the deck; some twenty-five men were required
to assist in this work of hoisting out the cargo and placing it upon
the lighters. As it was not practicable for these men to go ashore at
noontime they were obliged to take their dinners with them to the ship;
generally a small pail or basket sufficed for carrying the noon meal.
When these men left their work at night the overseer in charge of the
work of unloading would tell the workmen that they might fill their
lunch baskets with the loose sugar which had sifted out of the broken
mats and take it home. In the beginning their pails as a rule held two
or three quarts, but when it became known that the dinner pails could
be filled each night on leaving the ship the size of these lunch pails
and baskets increased amazingly, from a receptacle with a three quart
capacity they soon rose to twenty-five and even fifty pounds capacity,
so that the boat in her last trip to the shore was in danger of being
swamped with the great weight of lunch baskets. This abuse of a
privilege resulted in the cutting off the supply, although many workmen
had already secured a year’s supply of sugar for their families when
the shut off edict was issued.
This vessel seemed to offer the wreckers a good proposition as an
investment and a company was formed with the purpose of making an
attempt to raise and float the vessel. They purchased her of the
Insurance Companies into whose hands the ship had fallen; then they
spent hundreds of dollars in trying to get her from the sand bar;
finally after many weeks of preparation everything seemed ready, a
powerful tug was engaged to stand by and be ready to pull the ship away
as soon as she floated, big steam pumps were installed on board and
all was expectancy; then after a full day’s steady pumping by the great
pumps on her deck, suddenly the big ship stirred in her bed and rose to
the surface with a bound; then a great shout went up from the assembled
crowd on the beach and from the interested investors on the bark’s deck
when they believed their venture was about to be crowned with success,
but this quickly turned to dismay when the ship, as suddenly as she had
come to the surface, sank back again beneath the sea, from which place
she never moved again, and the shifting sands soon covered her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account