In this area, disasters have lasted for over a millennium. But no one, not even Lloyd's insurers, can say for sure how many ships and people died in this terrible place in the North Sea called the Sands of Goodwin (or the Goodwin Strait).
The High Risk Zone, located six miles from the southeastern tip of Great Britain in the Pas-de-Calais, actually consists of a group of sandbanks measuring 13 by 5 miles. Some of them dry out from time to time at low tide, exposing a two-meter layer of sand. With the onset of the tide, the sands begin to "come to life", and every month, under the influence of various currents, they change their shape, gradually moving one way or the other.
How was the sinful count punished?
According to legend, in these places was the island of Lomea, where the estate of Earl Goodwin was located. For sins before the church, the count suffered a terrible punishment - the sea flooded the island. The legend is a legend, but scientists claim that the island really existed and for some reason dropped below sea level somewhere around 1100.
The trap is mentioned even in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. In particular, there are several battle triremes of Julius Caesar, who in 55-54 BC invaded the coast of Britain; on top of them lie the Viking boats, and they are pressed into the sand by the galleons of the Invincible Armada, destroyed by the storm of 1588.
Sailing ships then had a semicircular bottom, and when such a sailboat ran aground, and the sands dried out with ebb, it lay on board. With the onset of high tide, the bank was flooded with a five-meter layer of water, which filled the vessel before it could return to its normal position.
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The fate of the steamers was no better. Having a flat bottom, they, once stranded, did not collapse during low tide, but during high tide the current washed out sand from under one side, washing it onto the other. If the vessel hit the bank bow or stern towards the current, then the sand was washed out from under these points, the vessel's hull sagged and, in the end, broke in half.
Sorrowful Martyrology
One of the worst tragedies occurred on the night of November 26-27, 1703, during a storm that struck Admiral Beaumont's squadron. This is what the commander of the surviving ship Shrewsbari Norhill wrote to the "father" of the Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe:
“There is a terrible storm here, which, in all likelihood, will continue. Rear Admiral Beaumont's ship, Mary, was next to us. This ship perished along with the admiral and 300 sailors. Ristoration died with almost the entire team. The few who managed to escape got on our ship.
The storm had a terrible force - our ship was ripped off anchors and carried 60-80 yards from the shallows, where we counted about 40 merchant ships - crippled or half-submerged. We watched in horror as their sailors climbed the masts, crying for help …"
An attempt to prevent crashes with a stationary lighthouse in 1807 ended in failure. The only thing that had to be hoped for was the placement of floating beacons. So in 1805 the North Goodwin lighthouse appeared. However, this situation did not save. In 1814, the sands were swallowed by the British battleship Queen and the Belgian mail and passenger packet boat. The situation did not change after the installation of two more floating beacons.
The only effective measure was pilotage, but captains of ships - partly because of the savings in money, partly because of the desire to get to the port of destination faster - often ignored this service. So it is no coincidence that the steamer "Violetta" with several hundred passengers on board became a victim of the sands. And then McCarta, Sorento died …
The only positive thing was that during the Second World War, the Goodwin Sands became a trap for German submarines, and at least 10 enemy submarines, along with their crews, found their end in them. However, even after the end of hostilities, when the lighting of the lighthouses was turned on, the disasters did not stop.
In 1946, the American military transport Laray Victory, carrying wheat from Baltimore to Bremen, was stranded, and a month later the steamer Gelena Modjeska, which had just left the stocks, was stranded. Then the team was saved, but a day later the captain of the last ship shot himself in a hotel room. In total, 12 ships were killed that year.
And finally, the tragedy that happened on November 27, 1954; the treacherous sands swallowed the South Goodwin lighthouse with the crew. How they managed to do this remains a mystery.
Konstantin NIKOLAEV