Heroes of the Goodwin Sands

by Thomas Stanley Treanor

The shock against the Goodwins as the vessel slid from the crest of a snowy roller upon the Sands, threw the cabin dinner table and everything on it up to the cabin ceiling, and no words can describe the wild hurry and helpless confusion on the sea-pelted motionless vessel, as the foam and the spray beat clean over her.

Under her reefed mizzen and reefed storm foresail the lifeboat came ramping over the four miles of tempestuous sea between the mainland and the Goodwins, the sea getting bigger and breaking more at the top of each wave, or 'peeling more,' as the Deal phrase goes, the farther they went into the full fetch of the sea rolling up Channel. At last the shallower water was reached about twenty feet in depth, where the Goodwins commence.

Up to this point any ordinary good sea-boat of sufficient size and power would have made as good weather of it as the lifeboat, but when at this depth of twenty feet the great rollers from the southward began to curl and topple and break into huge foam masses, and coming from different directions to race with such enormous speed and power that the pillars of foam thrown up by the collision were seen at the distance of five miles, then no boat but a lifeboat, it should be clearly understood, could live for five minutes, and even in a lifeboat only the 'sons of the Vikings' dare to face it.

The wreck lay a long mile right into the very thick of this awful surf, into which the Deal men boldly drove the lifeboat. As her great forefoot was forced through the crest of each sea she sent showers of spray over her mast and sails, and gleamed and glistened in the evening sun as she struggled with the sea.

To the wrecked crew she was visible from afar, and her bright colours and red sails told them unmistakeably she was a lifeboat. Now buried, then borne sky-high, she appeared to them as almost an angelic being expressly sent for their deliverance, and with joy and gratitude they watched her conquering advance, and they knew that brave English hearts were guiding the noble boat to their rescue.

When within about half a mile, the lifeboatmen saw the mainmast of the vessel go over, and then down crash came the mizzenmast over the port side, carrying with them in the ruin spars and rigging in confusion, and all this wild mass still hung by the shrouds and other rigging round the quarter and stem of the doomed ship, and were ever and anon drawn against her by the sea, beating her planking with thunderous noise and tremendous force.

The Leda's head was now lying S.W., or facing the sea, as after she struck stem on, her nose remained fast, and the sea gradually beat her stem round. There was running a very strong lee-tide, i.e. a tide running in the same direction as the wind and sea, setting fiercely across the Sands and outwards across the bows of the wreck. Owing, therefore, to this strong cross tide and the great sea, every minute breaking more furiously as the water was falling with the ebb-tide, the greatest judgment was required by the coxswains to anchor in the right spot, so as not to be swung hopelessly out of reach of the vessel by the tide. All the bravery in the world would have failed to accomplish the rescue, had the requisite experience been wanting. Nothing but experience and the faculty of coming to a right decision in a moment, amidst the appalling grandeur and real danger which surrounded them, enabled the coxswains to anchor just in the right spot, having made the proper allowance for the set of the tide, the sea, and the wind.

This decision had to be made in less time than I have taken to write this sentence, and the lives of men hung thereon. All hands knew it, so 'Now! Down foresail!' and the men rushed at the sail, and some to the 'down-haul,' and got it in; the helm being put hard down, up, head to sea, came the lifeboat, and overboard went the anchor, taking with it coil after coil of the great white five-inch cable of Manilla hemp; and to this they also bent a second cable, in order to ride by a long scope, thus running out about 160 fathoms or 320 yards of cable. They dropped anchor therefore nearly a fifth of a mile ahead of the wreck and well on her starboard bow. Now bite, good anchor! and hold fast, stout cable! for the lives of all depend on you.

If the cable parted, and the lifeboat struck the ship with full force, coming astern or broadside on, not a man would have survived to tell the tale, or if she once got astern of the wreck she could not have worked to windward—against the wind and tide—to drop down as before. No friendly steam-tug was at hand to help them to windward, in case of the failure of this their first attempt, and both the lifeboatmen and the crew of the wrecked vessel knew the stake at issue, and that this was the last chance. But the crew of the lifeboat said one to another, 'We're bound to save them,' and with all the coolness of the race, though strung to the highest pitch of excitement, veered down towards the wreck till abreast of where her mainmast had been.

Clinging to the bulwarks and forerigging in a forlorn little cluster were the Germans, waving to the lifeboat as she was gradually veered down alongside, but still at a considerable distance from the wreck and the dangerous tossing tangle of wreckage still hanging to her.