The life savers of Cape Cod

by J. W. Dalton

SALARIES OF THE KEEPERS AND SURFMEN.

The keepers of the life-saving stations receive $900 per year for their services, and the surfmen $65 per month.

In the early history of the life-saving service the keepers received but $200 per year, later their salary was increased to $400, then to $700, and, finally, to the present figure.

The surfmen in the early days of the service received but $40 per month, later it was increased to $45, then to $60, and, finally, to the present sum.

BEACH COMBERS AT WORK STRIPPING THE WRECKED FISHING VESSEL FORTUNA.

At the opening of the “active season,” August 1 of each year, the men assemble at their respective stations and establish themselves for a residence of ten months, being allowed one day in seven to visit their homes between sunrise and sunset. They arrange for their housekeeping, usually forming a mess, each man taking turns by the week in cooking. The crew is organized by the keeper arranging and numbering them in their supposed order of merit, the most competent and trustworthy being designated as No. 1, the next No. 2, and so on. These numbers are changed by promotion as vacancies occur, or by such rearrangement from time to time as proficiency in drill and performance of duty may dictate. Whenever the keeper is absent, the No. 1 surfman assumes command and exercises the keeper’s functions. When the rank of the crew has been fixed, the keeper assigns to each his position and prepares station bills for the day watch, night patrol, boat and apparatus drill, care of the station, etc. Then all is ready for the active work and the watch of the sea and shore that never ceases, day or night, until the close of the active season ten months later.

The patrol of the beaches each night, and during thick weather by day, by which stranded vessels are promptly discovered and the rescue of the imperiled crews made the object of effort by the life saver, distinguishes the United States Life-Saving Service from all others in the world, and in a great measure accounts for its unparalleled triumphs in rescuing shipwrecked seafarers.

If the surfman sights a vessel in distress or running into danger during the night, he fires a brilliant red Coston signal which he always carries. This is a signal to the shipwrecked crew that they have been seen and assistance has been summoned, and to the crew of a vessel which is approaching the danger line along the coast that it is time to haul offshore.

COSTON SIGNAL.

During the daylight on clear days the watch is kept from a lookout on the station, or by observation from points where the entire beach and sea limits of the station’s district can be clearly seen. Foggy days, and during thick weather, and every night, fair or foul, the watch is by the patrol of every foot of the water front of each district. The stations are located about five miles apart, and the district patrol beats of each are thus about two and one-half miles on either side of the station. The boundaries of each district are marked by a little hut in some protected spot on the beach called “The half-way house,” except at the Wood End Station. The night patrol is divided into four watches, one from sunset to 8 o’clock (the dog watch), one from 8 to 12, one from 12 to 4, and one from 4 to sunrise. Two surfmen are designated for each watch.

When the time for their patrol arrives, the surfmen set out from the station, in opposite directions, keeping well down on the beach as near the surf as possible until they reach the half-way house. Here they get warmed, and the surfmen from the adjoining station are met and checks exchanged. If a patrolman fails to meet the patrolman from the adjoining station at the half-way house, he, after waiting for a reasonable time, continues his journey until he either meets the patrolman or reaches the other station and ascertains the cause of failure. He thus patrols the neglected shore and is at hand to assist in case of disaster detaining the other patrolman. At the stations where the patrolmen carry watchmen’s time-clocks the key is secured to a post at the end of the beat, and the patrolman is required to reach it, wind the clock, and must bring back the dial in his clock properly recorded.

HALF-WAY HOUSE, WHERE SURFMEN FROM ADJOINING STATIONS MEET AND EXCHANGE CHECKS.

These houses are connected with the stations by telephone, and often from here the keepers are notified of disaster, and the crew summoned to a wreck.

The means employed at the life-saving stations for rescuing persons from wrecked vessels is everywhere essentially the same, either a life-boat is sent out through the surf or the breeches-buoy, or life-car used. The rescues by boat are the most thrilling and hazardous. The method of establishing communication with stranded vessels is over a century old, successful experiments with this method having been made as early as 1791 by Lieutenant Bell of the Royal Artillery. He demonstrated the practicability of the method by means of a mortar, which carried a heavy shot four hundred yards from a vessel to the shore. Lieutenant Bell also observed that a line might be carried from the shore over a stranded vessel by the means of his mortar, but the credit for the actual execution of this method of establishing communication is given to Capt. G. W. Manby, according to a report of a committee of the House of Commons, dated March 10, 1810. A London coach-maker first conceived the idea of a life-boat. The present type is the product of a century’s devoted study and experiment.

A SURFMAN’S CHECK.

Practice drills in the use of the breeches-buoy and surf-boats are carried on constantly at each station, until so proficient are the crews that practice rescues are often made in less than three minutes. The practice is carried on under conditions as near active work in a disaster as are possible, and a description of a drill will give the best idea of actual work at a wreck.

For the practice with the beach apparatus, the breeches-buoy, each station has a drill ground prepared by erecting a spar, called a wreck pole, to represent the mast of a stranded vessel seventy-five yards distant. This is over the water, if possible, from the place where the men operate, which represents the shore.

TAKING A MAN ASHORE WITH THE BREECHES-BUOY. LYLE GUN IN FOREGROUND.

Each man knows in detail every act he is to perform in the exercise from constant practice, and as prescribed in the Service Manual. At the word of command they drag the apparatus to the drill ground, where they effect a mimic rescue by rigging the gear and taking a man ashore from the wreck pole in the breeches-buoy. If one month after the opening of the active season a crew cannot accomplish the rescue within five minutes, it is considered that they have been remiss in drilling.

No such celerity, however, is expected of the life savers in effecting rescues from shipwrecks, when storm, surf, currents, and motion of the stranded crafts conspire to obstruct. The hastening of the work of mimic rescue, however, gives the life-savers the utmost familiarity with the apparatus and prepares them for working speedily and successfully in utter darkness and under the most trying weather conditions.

The boat practice consists in launching and landing through the surf, capsizing and righting the boat, and practice in handling the oars. Drill signaling is interrogating each surfman as to the meaning of the various flags, the use of the code book, and actual conversation carried on by means of sets of miniature signals provided for each station.

The beach apparatus, the breeches-buoy, is used to effect the rescue of shipwrecked seafarers when vessels have stranded near the shore and the conditions make it inexpedient to use the surf-boats. At such times the apparatus is hauled to the scene in the beach cart; horses, kept at all the stations for the purpose, assisting the life savers in the work.

READY FOR A PRACTICE DRILL WITH THE BREECHES-BUOY AND FLAGS.

Frequently the storms which sweep the beaches are so violent that the horses refuse to pull the cart, and the life savers are then obliged to cover the head of the animals before they can be induced to face the fury of the elements. The life savers when on such journeys are usually driven to the back of the beaches by the tides, and the task of dragging the apparatus over the sand dunes is extremely difficult and hazardous.

The “cut throughs” in the beaches, places where during storms the seas rush through to the lowlands, further contribute to the dangers that confront the life savers as they rush along with the apparatus.

These “cut throughs” are also the dreaded menace of the surfmen on patrol, during stormy weather and high tides, the seas, as they sweep through them, often entrapping the life savers, throwing them down, burying them in the rushing waters, and jeopardizing their lives.

As soon as the life savers reach the scene of disaster, the Lyle gun is quickly taken from the cart, loaded, sighted, and fired, the captain, who sights and fires the gun, taking good care that he has sent the shot flying through the storm well to the windward of the wrecked vessel, so that if the shot should fail to go across the vessel, yet beyond it, the line will be carried to the wreck by the force of the gale.

LIFE SAVERS AND HORSE HARNESSED TO SURF BOAT CART READY TO GO TO A WRECK.

The work of burying the sand anchor, getting the crotch, whip line, hawser, and breeches-buoy ready is speedily accomplished. Torches are kept burning by the life savers to tell those on the wrecked vessel that assistance is at hand and the life savers are at work, and even if the imperiled crew do not hear the report of the gun, which has fired a shot to the vessel, they at once begin a search for the shot-line which is invariably found somewhere in the rigging.

The captain, with the shore end of the shot-line in his hand, waits for a signal from the ship that the line has passed over the vessel, and that the crew have found it and are ready to proceed with the work of rescue. A tail-block with a whip, an endless line rove through it, is made fast to the shot-line, and the wrecked seafarers haul it aboard their vessel as speedily as possible. Attached to the tail-block is a tally board with the following directions in English and French printed on it:—

“Make the tail of the block fast to lower mast well up. If the masts are gone, then to the best place you can find. Cast off shot-line, see that rope in the block runs free, and show signal to shore.”

THE BEACH CART, MEN, AND HORSE, WITH HARNESS ON, READY TO GO TO A WRECK.

The foregoing instructions having been complied with, the result will be as shown in [Figure 1].

FIGURE 1.

As soon as the life savers get a signal from the vessel that the tail-block has been made fast, they “tie” bend on a three-inch hawser to the whip, the endless line, and by it haul the hawser off to the vessel. Occasionally circumstances permit wrecked crews to assist in this part of the work, but usually the life savers are compelled to do it alone. To the end of the hawser, which has been bent on to the whip, the endless line, is also attached a tally board with the following directions in English and French:—

“Make the hawser fast about two feet above the tail-block; see all clear, and that the rope in the block runs free; show signal to the shore.”

FIGURE 2.

These instructions being obeyed, the result will be shown as in [Figure 2].

FIGURE 3.

Particular care must be taken that there are no turns of the whip, the endless line, around the hawser; to prevent this the end of the hawser is taken up between the parts of the whip, the endless line, before making it fast. When the hawser is made fast to the wrecked vessel, the whip, the endless line, is cast off from the hawser, and the life savers, having been signaled to this effect, make the shore end of the hawser fast to the strap of the sand anchor. The crotch is then placed under the hawser and raised, and the latter drawn as taut as possible, thus making a slender bridge of rope between the vessel and shore. The traveler block, from which is suspended the breeches-buoy, is then put on the hawser, the whip, the endless line, made fast to breeches-buoy, and thus hauled to and from the vessel, as shown in [Figure 3], which represent the apparatus rigged with the breeches-buoy hauled out to the vessel.

SHOT USED WITH LYLE GUN.

The life savers always carry a good supply of shot and lines with them, and if the first shot fails to carry the line to the vessel, which seldom occurs, owing to the skill of those who have charge of this important branch of the work, a second one is promptly fired. The work of hauling the breeches-buoy to and from a wrecked vessel is an arduous task. The whip, the endless line, after passing through the seas, becomes coated with ice and sand, which cuts the mittens and lacerates the hands of the surfmen in a fearful manner at times.

The captain and one of the life savers rush into the surf and take the rescued persons out of the breeches-buoy as soon as it reaches the beach, while the other members of the crew stand ready to again send the breeches-buoy off to the wreck as soon as one rescue has been accomplished. In this way one after another of shipwrecked crews are brought ashore.

LYLE GUN, SHOWING SHOT PROTRUDING FROM THE MUZZLE.

Women and children and helpless persons are landed first from wrecked vessels. Children when brought ashore in this way are held in the arms of some elder person or securely lashed to the breeches-buoy. The instructions to mariners are to remain by the wreck until assistance arrives, unless the vessel shows signs of immediately breaking up. If not discovered immediately by the patrol, the crews of wrecked vessels are instructed to burn rockets, flare up, or other lights, and if the weather is foggy to fire guns.

Under no circumstances should the crew of wrecked vessels attempt to land through the surf in their own boats, until the last hope of assistance from shore has vanished. Often when comparatively smooth at sea, a dangerous surf is running alongshore, which is not perceptible three or four hundred yards offshore, and the surf when viewed from a vessel never appears so dangerous as it is. Many lives have been unnecessarily lost by crews of stranded vessels being thus deceived and attempting to land in the ship’s boats.

After a crew has been rescued the work of recovering the apparatus is quickly accomplished, and every part of it except the shot is invariably recovered, and often even the shot is also saved. This is done by a hawser cutter, which is pulled off to the wreck on the hawser the same as the breeches-buoy, cutting the hawser off close to where it is attached to the wrecked vessel. The life savers then haul the apparatus through the sea to the shore.

The first gun used for throwing a line to stranded ships was of cast iron, and weighed two hundred and eighty-eight pounds, and threw a shot weighing twenty-four pounds, with an extreme range of four hundred and twenty-one yards. This soon gave place to an improved gun, which was of cast iron, with steel lining, mounted on a wooden carriage. This gun weighed two hundred and sixty-six pounds, and carried a twenty-four pound shot four hundred and seventy-three yards. The Lyle gun, which is now used by the life savers of Cape Cod, is a bronze smooth bore gun, weighing but one hundred and eighty-five pounds, and fires a cylindrical line, carrying shot, weighing about eighteen pounds, some six hundred and ninety-five yards. This projectile has a shank protruding from the muzzle of the gun to an eye in which the line is tied—a device which prevents, to a degree, the line from being burned off by the ignited gases in firing. As further protection against this happening, the life savers wet that part of the line liable to become burned. When the gun is fired the weight and inertia of the line cause the projectile to reverse. The shot-line is made of unbleached linen thread very closely and smoothly braided, is waterproof, and has great elasticity, which tends to insure it against breaking. The lines in use vary in thickness according to circumstances. They are of three sizes, designated as number 4, 7, and 9, being respectively 4/32, 7/32, or 9/32 of an inch in diameter. Any charge of powder can be used up to the maximum six ounces.

FAKING BOX.

The Lyle gunshot line is carried in a faking box, so called, a wooden box with handles for convenience for carrying. The line is coiled on wooden pins, layer above layer. When brought into use the pins are withdrawn, and the line lies disposed in layers ready to pay out freely and fly to the wreck without entanglement. While six hundred and ninety-five yards is the greatest range to be obtained by a Lyle gun, about two hundred yards is considered the working limit. The line sags so, at more than two hundred yards, and the currents are usually so swift, that the crew of a stranded vessel could not haul the whip aboard their craft at a much greater distance, and in addition any one being pulled ashore in the breeches-buoy further than that would most likely perish from the cold and buffeting of the seas before they could be rescued.

LIFE-CAR.

The crotch is made of two pieces of wood, three by two inches thick, and ten feet long, securely bolted together, and crossed near the top so as to form a sort of X. The sand anchor is two pieces of hard wood, six feet long, eight inches wide and two inches thick, crossed at their centers, bolted together, and furnished at the center with a stout iron ring. It is laid obliquely in a trench behind the crotch. An iron hook, from which runs a strap of rope, having at its other end an iron ring called bull’s-eye, is fastened into the ring of the sand anchor. This strap connects with a double pulley-block at the end of the hawser behind the crotch, by which the hawser is drawn and kept taut. The trench is solidly filled in, and the imbedded sand anchor, held by the lateral strain against the side of the trench, sustains the slender bridge of rope constituted by the hawser between the stranded vessel and the shore.

The large majority of vessels now stranded on the shores of the Cape being coasters, with crews from six to ten men, the breeches-buoy is invariably used in preference to the life-car. It weighs but twenty-one pounds. It consists of a common life-preserver of cork, seven and one-half feet in circumference, to which short canvas breeches are attached. Four rope lanyards, fastened to the circle of this cork, meet above an iron ring, which is attached to a block, called a traveler. The hawser passes through this block, and the suspended breeches-buoy is drawn between ship and shore by a whip, an endless line. At each trip it receives but one person, who gets into it with their legs down through the canvas breeches legs, holding to the lanyards, sustained in a sitting position by the canvas saddle, or seat of the breeches, with his legs dangling below. When there is imminent danger of the vessel breaking up and great haste is required, two persons get into the breeches-buoy at once, and to further expedite the work of rescue, the hawser is dispensed with, part of the hauling line being used for the breeches-buoy to travel on to and from the wreck.

“A PERILOUS TASK.” LIFE SAVERS GOING TO A WRECKED VESSEL ON PEAKED HILL BARS.

There are many kinds of life-boats, and various devices for effecting communication by line with stranded vessels. The type of boats in use on Cape Cod are the Monomoy and Race Point models. All these boats are distinctly known as surf-boats. They are constructed of cedar with white oak frames, and are from twenty-two to twenty-four feet in length. The surf-boats have air chambers at the ends, and are fitted with cork fenders along the outer side to protect them against collisions with hulls or wreckage, and to further aid in keeping them afloat, and righting lines by which they can be righted if capsized in the surf. They weigh from seven hundred to one thousand pounds. In the hands of the skilled surfmen of Cape Cod they are capable of marvelous action, and few sights are more impressive than the surf-boat plowing its way through the breakers, at times riding on top of the surge, at others held in suspension before the roaring tumultuous wall of water, or darting forth as the comber breaks and crumbles, obedient to the oars of the impassive life savers. All these boats are so light that they can be readily transported along the sandy shores of the Cape under normal weather conditions, and launched in very shallow water.

HEAVING STICK.

A small line is attached to this, and the life savers find it a very valuable means of getting a line to a vessel or piece of wreckage. It can be used advantageously at about fifty yards.

The type of boat that is best suited for one locality, however, may be ill adapted for another, and a boat that would be serviceable at one time might be worse than useless at another. On the coast of Cape Cod the boat service at wrecks is generally not very far off from shore, and the chief and greatest danger lurks in the lines of surf which must be crossed, and in the breakers on the outlying shoals.

The self-righting and bailing boat is more unwieldy, not so quickly responsive to the tactics of the steersman, and not so well adapted to the general work on Cape Cod. Where long excursions are apt to be undertaken, and the service is especially hazardous, the men feel safer in a self-righting and bailing boat, one of which has been introduced at the new Monomoy Point Station.

WAITING FOR A GOOD CHANCE TO LAUNCH.

LIFE SAVERS PRACTICING LAUNCHING THROUGH THE SURF.

A GOOD LAUNCHING. CAPTAIN IN THE ACT OF GETTING INTO THE BOAT.

When the surf-boat is used to effect rescue it is taken along the beach to a point as near the wreck as possible, unloaded from the cart, and at a favorable time run into the raging waters. The keeper is the last man to get aboard the surf-boat, climbing in over the stern as she is run into the sea. The life savers who remain ashore to assist in getting the boat off run waist deep into the sea, helping to guide the boat, and to prevent her, if possible, from being capsized in the surf. The keeper steers with a long oar, and with the aid of his trained surfmen, intent upon his every look and command, guides the buoyant craft through the surf with masterly skill. He is usually able to avoid a direct encounter with the heaviest breakers, but if he is obliged to let them strike him, he meets them directly “head on.”

A GOOD LANDING.

IN DANGER OF OVERTURNING.

Although sometimes hurled back upon the beach and broken in desperate and unavailing attempts at a launch against a resistless sea, this boat, which might easily be upset, has rarely been capsized in going through the surf. While there is always great peril in launching these boats in times of shipwreck, the greatest danger lies in landing through the surf. The gigantic walls of water speeding to the shore cannot then be met head on as when the boat is passing out, and when one of these tumultuous combers break over the stern of the boat, which, fortunately, has rarely occurred on Cape Cod, the lives of those aboard the craft are placed in great peril.

In landing the life savers jump into the surf as the boat is about to touch the beach, and with the assistance of those of the crew who remained ashore to select a good landing place, the craft is quickly run up on the beach far out of the reach of the dangerous undertow.

AFTER A WRECK, SURFMEN OF CAHOON’S HOLLOW STATION CARRYING A BODY TO THEIR STATION.

This work is also attended with great danger, the surfmen sometimes receiving injuries by being struck by the boat, which incapacitates them from further duty in the service. The keepers and crews place their faith in the surf-boats which they use, and they are ever ready to face any sea in which a boat will live.

When a distressed vessel is reached, the orders of the keeper, the captain of the crew of life savers, who always steers and commands, must be implicitly obeyed.

There must be no headlong rushing or crowding, and the captain of the ship must remain on board to preserve order until every other person has left. Women, children, and helpless persons are taken into the boat first. Goods or baggage will not be taken into the boat under any circumstances until all persons are landed. If any be passed in against the keeper’s remonstrance he throws it overboard.

It often happens, however, that some of the crew, and even captains of wrecked vessels, attempt to get their baggage into the surf-boats. At a wreck which Captain Cole and his crew went to in the night a few years ago the captain of the craft insisted that the life savers should wait until he could get his baggage ready to take ashore. Captain Cole, in a voice that could be heard above the roar and din of the storm, commanded the bow oarsmen, who was holding the painter that kept the surf-boat alongside the wreck, to cut the painter. The captain of the stranded craft no sooner heard this command than he jumped into the boat, leaving his effects behind, and was safely taken ashore.

Persons rescued from shipwreck are taken to the nearest life-saving station, the weak, sick, and the disabled are treated with remedies from the medicine chest, supplied under the direction of the Surgeon-General of the Marine Hospital Service. Those who have escaped from shipwreck and are wet, hungry, and cold are provided with dry clothing, warmed, fed, lodged, and cared for until they are able to leave.