[CINC] Wrecks

[Ron Dreher]

Wreckage on our coast 


Bob Kieding 






 


 


 

April 23, 2008 8:17 AM

Hundreds of ships and boats have foundered on the Santa Barbara coastline
and the Channel Islands. The following excerpts from a variety of reports
unveil the interlocking sequence of events surrounding the loss of two
vessels. There were many commercial vessels operating in this area in the
late 1800s, despite the arrival of the railroad in 1877. The Santa Barbara
Maritime Museum, at Santa Barbara Harbor, has an excellent exhibit of local
shipwrecks.

. Monday, Jan. 1, 1894: The wreck of the Gosford cost other people besides
its Glasgow owners money. Spreckles Bros. of San Francisco have spent
$10,000 in a vain endeavor to raise the steel hull. After five days of a
southeaster wind in Cojo Bay (near Point Conception), where the Gosford lies
in forty feet of water, the wreckers have given up the attempt to raise it
intact. It will be broken up and sold for old iron. Four hours longer and
the ship would have been raised, but on December 24 the storm began, and the
engines, pumps and boilers of the wreck, which were on the Gosford's decks,
were washed off by huge waves. The cofferdam surrounding it broke to pieces
and the bulwarks were also broken. Diver Martin of the Union Iron Works was
brought down from San Francisco by Captain Haskell of the tug Fearless. He
discovered that the Gosford listed four feet to starboard and the main-deck
beams were broken in the middle and hung down inside the hull. The storm
carried the vessel out further than before, and it is now in forty-four feet
of water and eight feet underwater, instead of four feet as formerly.

"We have abandoned all hopes of raising her," said Captain Haskell, "and
have even lost all of our pumps and boilers, excepting one engine which was
recovered from the sand by the diver. The vessel will probably be blown up
with dynamite, as the Golden Horn has been."

On Tuesday morning, at 4 o'clock, the San Pedro (a wreck recovery boat) had
a narrow escape from going ashore near the wreck. The wind was blowing
furiously, and the old wrecking boat gradually drifted in until she was in
the breakers. Captain Scott of the tug Pellet shot a lifeline over the San
Pedro with a Lyall wrecking gun, and for five hours the tug strained trying
to get the boat out of danger. Captain Perry of the lighthouse said that he
thought both vessels were lost. Finally, the San Pedro was got out of
danger.

. Monday, Nov. 5, 1894: The steamer Santa Cruz was in port this morning and
took on the remainder of the Winfield Scott wreckers onboard. She then moved
a buoy for the (Stearns) wharf company, after which she sailed for San
Francisco. Word reached (San Francisco) today that the steam wrecker San
Pedro was burned on Sunday night in Cojo Harbor. A private dispatch was
received by Henry Rogers of the California Iron and Wrecking Company from
Captain McKenna, dated Gaviota. Very few particulars were given regarding
the matter, save that the vessel caught fire while McKenna was away and that
there was a boat with four men in it missing.

Rogers immediately telegraphed to McKenna to get a tug and go in search of
the missing men. The extent of the damage is not known, but on account of
the solidity of the wrecker, Rogers is inclined to believe that it will be
alright.

. Thursday, Nov. 8, 1894: On Monday night's stage, Captain Macgum and three
seamen arrived from Gaviota and reported the total loss of the wrecking scow
San Pedro at Cojo Bay Sunday night. The wrecker was raising the coal from
the sunken ship Gosford, and had on-board several tons of it beside about
thirty tons of wreckage. They were working short-handed, and on Sunday
Captain Macgum, Seaman Andrew Uden, Diver John Lawrence and Captain Juliu of
this city, who acts as pilot in the channel and among the islands, started
for Gaviota to engage more help. They returned in the night or toward
morning Monday and found the scow burned almost to the water's edge. The
crew had left and were nowhere to be seen. They had been unable to quench
the flames, so put off for land in a small boat. Captain Macgum even at this
late hour thought there might be a chance to save her machinery, and made an
effort to scuttle her, but to no purpose. At daylight they started back to
Gaviota and boarded the stage, arriving here last night. The wrecking scow
was the property of Rogers & Co., San Francisco, and was valued at $12,000
and insured for $6,000. She has been working recently on the wrecks of the
Newburn, Golden Horn, Winfield Scott and Gosford, and intended in a short
time to work on the Yankee Blade. Captain Macgum with Uden and Lawrence will
leave for San Francisco on the Corona this evening.

. Saturday, Nov. 10, 1894: The officers of the steamer Queen which arrived
here yesterday afternoon, said that as they passed Cojo Bay they could see
the masts of the wrecker San Pedro close beside those of the sunken Gosford.
The men who were left on board the scow by Captain Macgum when he left for
Gaviota are in the city. They left the scow in a small boat, and the next
morning the lighthouse keeper showed them where to land.

. Sea Terms: Cofferdam: A watertight enclosure.

Bulwarks: A solid rail, usually consisting of extensions of the vessel's
frames above deck-level and planked over; 15th century.

Scuttle: To sink a vessel by opening her seacocks or by cutting through the
bottom; 15th century.

Seacock: A through-hull valve located below a vessel's waterline; 16th
century.

Scow: A square-ended, flat bottomed craft; 18th century.

 

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