There is a unique place on the planet in its own way, the world's largest ship graveyard - "Goodwin Shoals". The English maritime chronicles show that the Goodwin Shoals have been the site of constant shipwreck for thousands of years. Back in the Middle Ages, sailors gave these shoals the apt nickname “The Great Ship Eater”.
William Shakespeare also mentions them more than once.
For example, The Merchant of Venice says that Antonio's ship with a valuable cargo "crashed in these confined waters called the Goodwins, very dangerous, flat and deadly, where the skeletons of many ships rest." Lloyd's insurers, who have been keeping records of all maritime accidents for almost three centuries, have long since lost count of the ships killed here. They estimate the value of the ships insured by them and those who perished in the Goodwin shoals over the past two hundred years at £ 250 million, and the number of people missing here at 50 thousand
10 kilometers off the coast of East Kent in England is one of the most dangerous sandbanks in the UK. The Goodwin Sands are located in the middle of the English Channel in the narrow Strait of Dover, next to one of the busiest shipping canals in the world. Since the first recorded shipwreck at the Goodwin Sands in 1298, more than 2,000 ships have met their end here.
The name "The Great Eater of Ships" perfectly characterizes the steep nature of these deceptive sands, which seem to be able to change their color to match the color of the water, for which they are nicknamed the Sand Chameleon. In the stomach of this chameleon lie several battle triremes of Julius Caesar, in 43 AD. e. invaded the island and conquered the inhabitants of Foggy Albion. Above the triremes of the Romans lie the remains of the "inhabitants of the sea" - the Vikings of Scandinavia. Both those and others, in turn, are forever pressed down by the oak skeletons of the heavy galleons of the "Invincible Armada". Above the Spanish galleons in the sands, the pirate brigantines and corvettes, which once inspired terror in the hearts of Hanseatic and Venetian merchants, sleep peacefully in the sands. Somewhere next to them rest the English frigates and barges of the 18th century, stuffed with ebony, ivory and precious stones exported from India and Africa. Above all this armada of sailing ships sunk in the abyss of quicksand - the hulls of modern dry cargo ships and tankers, and even submarines from the Second World War. There also rests a German bomber from the Second World War, which made an emergency landing.
At the beginning of the 2nd millennium AD, on the site of the shoals, there was the island of Lomea, with an area of approximately 1600 hectares. The sea gradually eroded the coast of the island. Therefore, local churchmen collected money from the population to build a dam. However, the churchmen instead spent the money raised to renovate the local church. As a result, around 1100, the sea washed away the island, and shoals formed in its place.
According to another hypothesis, the island of Lomea never existed. That is, there was once land here, but it became shallow between 7600 BC. e. and 5000 BC e., that is, in prehistoric times.
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According to another, English legend, this dangerous sandbank was once the island of Lomea, flooded and sank to the bottom in the 11th century, when Earl Goodwin refused to build walls to protect the island from waves. For his greed, the count suffered severe punishment - the sea flooded his castle along with the island. On the site of the island, treacherous shoals have formed, sand monsters-ship-eaters, whose belly is truly insatiable.
The Goodwin Sands are approximately 15 kilometers long and 5 kilometers wide, but tides and currents constantly create shallow waters. Usually the sand is completely flooded at a depth of 8-15 meters, but at low tide a sandbank forms and about one tenth of the sand appears above the water surface. At this time, the Goodwin Sands pose the greatest danger to ships.
“Why did the ships get trapped and run aground? Couldn't they get around her? There are three main reasons why ships often sank in these areas: storms that carried helpless sailboats to the sands; fog, which deprived the navigator of visibility and the ability to accurately determine the location, and strong currents that carried ships off course. When they ran aground and could not be removed before low tide, the ships remained forever in Goodwin's captivity.
Thus, Goodwin Sands is a perfect example of a random combination of the most unpleasant qualities in one place. As a rule, ships fell on the beach during bad weather conditions and were wrecked. Any survivor found himself on the sandy strip, trying to attract the attention of ships sailing by. If help did not arrive for several hours, the tide would begin and the sand would turn into quicksand, dragging on the remains of ships and all survivors.
The greatest loss of life occurred during the Great Storm of 1703, when 13 warships and 40 merchant ships were trapped, killing 2,168 lives in the process. One of the ships lost that night was in the service of the British Armed Forces and was discovered by local divers in 1979. Other notable shipwrecks include the ship of the East India campaign Admiral Gardner, which sank in January 1809. It carried a cargo of iron, weapons, anchors, and 48 tons coins. The remains of the ship were found in 1984, after which approximately one million coins were recovered. Admiral Gardner's wreckage area is now a protected area with a 300-meter restricted area around it.
Modern navigation technology and the presence of GPS with convenient channel markings now allow ships to avoid the Goodwin Sands. There have been no major accidents here since the crash of a floating lighthouse in 1954, which killed six crew members. Currently, another floating beacon is installed at the end of the sands, warning ships of danger. In continuation, read also about the most picturesque shipwrecks in a separate selection.
With the Goodwin shoals, in general, a huge number of legends are connected, most of which, of course, are about ghost ships.
The most famous of the Goodwin Sands ghost ships is the three-masted schooner Lady Lavigne Bond, sailing to Oporto and shipwrecked on February 13, 1748. All people on board drowned. It was believed that this voyage was unhappy from the very beginning, because the captain's bride was on board, a certain Annette, according to established maritime beliefs, a woman on the ship - unfortunately. The captain's mate also sought the hands of this lady, and, as one of the versions of this legend tells, it was he who, having killed the helmsman, in revenge on the captain caused the ship to wreck.
Every fifty years on February 13, Lady Lavibond is seen in the Goodwin Sands. At the time of the first appearance of this ghost ship in 1798, it is reported to have been seen by the crews of at least two ships. The ghost looked so real that the captain of the Coast Guard ship Edenbridge thought his ship was about to collide with him. In 1848, the ghost ship reappeared, and its demise looked so real that the sailors from Deal thought it was a shipwreck. They went out to sea in boats to look for survivors, but found neither people nor any traces of a shipwreck. Lady Lavinbond appeared in 1898 and 1948; its next appearance is expected in 2048.
Another victim of the Goodwin Sands is the paddle steamer Violetta, which crossed the strait more than a hundred years ago in winter during a storm accompanied by snowfall. Everyone on board drowned. Curiously, the ghost of "Violetta" repeated this accident at the beginning of World War II and was observed by the workers of the lighthouse on East Goodwin. They sent a dinghy to check what happened, but they found nothing. On the Atlantic coast of England, mysterious ghost ships with high masts can be seen, which fly to the coast and then disappear into the fog. The names of many of the ghost ships appearing there are unknown. As one Cornish legend tells, one moonlit night between Lands End and Penzance a ship was seen speeding towards the shore.
For many centuries, the Goodwin Shallows remained unlit or, as the sailors put it, without a navigational fence, that is, they were not fenced in by either buoys or lighthouses. The reliability of most nautical charts of the 16th-18th centuries was highly questionable. And in general, how could these shoals be accurately mapped if they constantly changed their shape! Suffice it to say that in the last thirty years alone the sands have moved two miles south. Due to the wrong map, storm, fog or current, sailing ships fell into this trap and died. The losses were enormous. English merchants have repeatedly asked their Crown to erect a lighthouse in the area of the deadly sands. The British Admiralty became generous only in 1795, by erecting a lighthouse on the Cape of South Foreland. It would be more accurate to say that it was not a lighthouse, but a wooden tower,on the site of which a fire was burned at night.
However, this structure was of little use: the fire only roughly indicated the location of the shoals, and those who were not familiar with their coordinates or had an inaccurate map were still in danger of falling into Goodwin's arms. The Sand Chameleon continued to fool the sailors. In 1802 the large three-masted ship of the Dutch East India Company "Fregeida", lost in the fog, was stranded. He disappeared into the sands on the third day, along with 454 passengers and sailors on board. The British Admiralty lost three hundred sailors in 1805, when the military transport Aurora got stuck in the sands of Hudzin. This loss caused public outrage in England. Outraged Londoners demanded that Parliament tame the "Great Devourer", and in the same year the Admiralty was forced to erect a floating lighthouse on the shoals.
It fenced off the Goodwin Sands from the north and was named "North Goodwin". On the other three sides the shallows remained unenclosed, and the number of shipwrecks remained almost unchanged. The English Admiral Cochrane put forward the idea of building a powerful lighthouse in the center of Goodwin, but an attempt to erect a stone foundation of the lighthouse on such a shaky ground ended in failure: Goodwin swallowed two barges with granite blocks and iron piles … The British hydraulic engineers had no choice but to put up another floating lighthouse - West Goodwin. Still, the Great Eater continued to rage. The most serious losses at that time were the wrecks in 1814 of the English battleship Queen and one Belgian mail-and-passenger packet boat. Then the insatiable Goodwin sucked into his womb, along with these courts, all who were on them.
For some reason, the taming of the Goodwin Sands proceeded surprisingly slowly. The third floating lighthouse, South Goodwin, was erected only almost a quarter of a century after the second, in 1832, and the fourth, East Goodwin, only 42 years after the third lighthouse. During this time, England was shocked more than once by reports of tragedies playing out on the Goodwin shoals. The most terrible of these was the disaster of the British royal steamship Violetta. This ship, with several hundred passengers on board, literally disappeared into the quicksand in front of the rescuers who came to the rescue … In London, at the headquarters of Lloyd's insurers, I looked through old books in heavy morocco binding, where the lost ships were registered. In these dark chronicles of human tragedies, I have often come across dates on which the Ship Eater consumed several ships.
If for seafarers Goodwin's shoals were a real curse, then the inhabitants of the southeast coast of England saw in them "God's grace." The misfortune of some was the main source of income for others, as financiers say, turning their balance of payments deficit into a surplus. The inhabitants of these shores sacredly believed that God himself had bestowed upon them a blessing - the cargo of ships that had run aground. Unlike the inhabitants of the insidious Isles of Scilly, in the southwest of England, who kindled false lights on the rocks on stormy nights and lured merchants into a trap of reefs, the people of Deal simply waited for the chance to send them another ship. After the British Admiralty, by a special order, stopped the robbery of ships that fell on Goodwin, the inhabitants of Deal had to reluctantly engage in a more noble business - pulling ships from the shallows and saving their cargo. Sure,they didn't do it for thanks.
Knowing well the local currents and having studied all the whims and habits of the "Great Devourer", they became subtle masters of this rare craft. In the sixties of the last century, the British Admiralty assigned several steam tugs to the rescue stations of Ramsgate and Walmer, which were charged with the duty of snatching victims from the Devourer. Such a sensible undertaking caused discontent among Dill's original private lifeguards. Still would! Powerful tugboats, equipped with steam winches and cranes, have robbed them of their trusty piece of bread! An irreconcilable enmity began between the tug captains and private rescuers, which often led to a sad outcome. This is what happened one day because of this. On December 17, 1872, a brand new British steamer Sorrento ran aground near the eastern tip of Goodwin. He sat down, as they say, not tightly, but slightly, with his nose. As soon as observers from the rescue station in Ramsgate noticed this, a tugboat was sent to help. They did not have time to separate the pairs on it, as a messenger rushed from Dila on horseback. He handed the captain a formidable warning from the local rescuers' artel "to get out of the way, pick up, hello." But the captain of the tug with such a rude message did not take into account and, raising steam, sent his ship to the scene. When the tug approached the Sorrento, two boats of private rescuers from Dila were already scurrying at the side of the steamer, bringing in anchors whose ropes went to the drum of the Sorrento's steam spire. On a steamer in trouble, they gladly accepted the tow rope from the arrived rescuer. He handed the captain a formidable warning from the local rescuers' artel "to get out of the way, pick up, hello." But the captain of the tug with such a rude message did not take into account and, raising steam, sent his ship to the scene. When the tug approached the Sorrento, two boats of private rescuers from Dila were already scurrying at the side of the steamer, bringing in anchors whose ropes went to the drum of the Sorrento's steam spire. On a steamer in trouble, they gladly accepted the tow rope from the arrived rescuer. He handed the captain a formidable warning from the local rescuers' artel "to get out of the way, pick up, hello." But the captain of the tug with such a rude message did not take into account and, raising steam, sent his ship to the scene. When the tug approached the Sorrento, two boats of private rescuers from Dila were already scurrying at the side of the steamer, bringing in anchors whose ropes went to the drum of the Sorrento's steam spire. On a steamer in trouble, they gladly accepted the tow rope from the arrived rescuer.whose ropes went to the drum of the Sorrento steam spire. On a steamer in trouble, they gladly accepted the tow rope from the arrived rescuer.whose ropes went to the drum of the Sorrento steam spire. On a steamer in trouble, they gladly accepted the tow rope from the arrived rescuer.
Foaming the water, the rowing wheels of the tug spun. It seemed that a few more minutes of working at full speed of the car, and the Sorrento would go aground. But at this time one of Dila's boats, having dropped the imported anchor, rushed to the tug. A swing of an ax, a blow - and stretched like a gigantic string, the cable churned the water with a squeal. From the boat, the tug captain was threatened with reprisal, terrible threats were heard in the air. In short - the steam rescuer got away … An attempt to steal Sorrento with the help of anchors and a spire did not lead to anything. In the evening of the same day, a storm came. The crewmen rushed to the shore in their boats, leaving the doomed steamer to fend for itself.
A dozen swallowed steamers proved insufficient to feed the Ship Eater. Over the next years, he hid in his womb a good fifty more large and small vessels. The most tragic of these disasters occurred on the night of November 27, 1954. On that memorable morning, the mainstream English newspapers came out under the following headlines: "The Great Eater Does Not Abide!", "A New Drama on the Goodwin Sands", "The Sandy Chameleon of Goodwin has begun to eat himself!", "Goodwin's Quicksand has eaten up its lighthouse!", " South Goodwin in the insatiable womb of the Great Devourer! " and so on. On the night of November 26-27 of that year, a violent storm raged in the English Channel. Dozens of ships were in distress, and calls for help - SOS and mayday - were heard on the air. In the Irish Sea, the Liberian tanker "World Concord" with a displacement of over 35 thousand tons broke in half. Then someone's radio station reported that the light from the South Goodwin beacon had gone out. An attempt by the radio operators of the Ramsgate rescue station to get in touch with the lighthouse did not lead to anything. And only then the signalmen of the South Foreland Cape, through the stormy veil of spray, noticed that the floating lighthouse had disappeared from its regular place. At dawn, when the storm began to subside, a plane took to the air. Flying around the Goodwin Sands, his pilot saw the South Goodwin in the northern part of the shallow overturned to starboard and half submerged in water.the plane took off. Flying around the Goodwin Sands, his pilot saw the South Goodwin in the northern part of the shallow overturned to starboard and half submerged in water.the plane took off. Flying around the Goodwin Sands, his pilot saw the South Goodwin in the northern part of the shallow overturned to starboard and half submerged in water.
Giant waves mixed with sand rolled freely over the lost ship. On board the floating beacon, the pilot noticed a man desperately waving his hand, calling for help. Fifteen minutes later, a helicopter hovered over the torn lighthouse and threw down a wire ladder. The man was saved. It seemed incredible to naval specialists that the catastrophe happened to a floating beacon-structure specially designed for hurricane force wind and the strongest storm. After all, his two huge mushroom anchors could hold in place not only a thirty-meter lighthouse, but a real battleship. The disaster happened so quickly that the South Goodwin crew did not even have time to broadcast a distress signal on the air. Anchor failure? Sudden loss of stability? Evil intent? These questions tormented the specialists. But they never got an answer. The only eyewitness to the tragedy, Ronald Marton, could not help them. He was not a member of the South Goodwin crew. He was an ornithologist. He was sent to the lighthouse to observe the flight of birds …
Submarine trap
On an early foggy morning in December 1946, the North Eastern Victory, an American naval transport, made a transatlantic crossing, approaching the Thames estuary. The ship was in the Gull Stream and almost passed the northwestern tip of the Goodwin Sands, when suddenly there was a scraping of metal, the crew of the steamer felt a strong push. The ship came to a stop: it was aground … What happened often with many ships in these dangerous waters - the North Eastern Victory went off course and ended up on the sands of Goodwin. Only twenty minutes passed before the huge body of the heavily loaded transport broke into two parts. The crew of the steamer had no choice but to get over to the rescue whaleboats that had come up from Ramsgate. The next day, when the wind blew away the fog, divers arrived. They had to examine the condition of the two halves of the hull and find the most profitable way to save the valuable cargo. It turned out that the steamer had run into a sunken submarine. He crushed it under the bottom to half the length of his body. The bow of the steamer seemed to hang in the water. Swayed by a large swell, the ship's hull could not stand it. What kind of boat and how it got here was a mystery. The divers had to solve it. Everything became clear when they entered the submarine's cockpit and inspected its interior. A few hours later, the story of this unlucky boat became the property of the English newspapermen. Here is their version, which was later confirmed by German military historians. It was U-48, the German medium submarine of the Kaiser Navy (type U-43).
On November 21, 1917, under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Edeling, she went on a combat mission from the German naval base in Bremerhaven. This happened in the days when Germany began its "unlimited submarine war" - to sink the enemy's merchant ships without warning. Edeling was assigned the task of "hunting" in the western part of the English Channel. On the second day after leaving the base, the commander of U-48, due to bad weather, decided to stay at a deep depth in the Downs roadstead, that is, to the west of Goodwin's shoals. But the unexpected happened: the gyrocompass went out of order, and the boat, maneuvering according to the magnetic compass, lost its orientation and fell into the British anti-submarine nets. Escaping from them, Edeling landed a boat on the Goodwin Sands. German submariners pumped out sixty tons of fuel, almost all of the fresh water and released the entire stock of torpedoes. But all was in vain - an attempt to lighten the submarine and free from the captivity of the quicksand was unsuccessful. At low tide, the hull of U-48 was exposed above the water. British warships could not fail to notice this. The British destroyer HMS "Gipsy" arrived on the raid *** and began to shoot the boat with guns. Edeling ordered the crew to leave the ship and blew up the control room. Of the 43 people in the U-48 crew, the British captured one officer and 21 sailors. The fate of the rest is unknown. Soon, the Goodwin Sands hid the hull of the boat from human sight. It was forgotten and probably never would have been remembered if it were not for the story of the North Eastern Victory. The British told me that even during the First World War, the commanders of German submarines, fishing in the English Channel, often took on board from among the prisoners of English pilots and navigators,who knew the local sailing conditions well. Nevertheless, the Germans lost a dozen boats in the imperialist war on the Goodwin Sands. Two German submarines found their inglorious end at Goodwin during World War II. The only boat in Germany that was able to get out of the captivity of the "Ship Eater" itself was called U-94.