Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional
notes will be found near the end of this ebook.
THE WONDERS OF SALVAGE
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
THE ROMANCE OF EXCAVATION
THE BODLEY HEAD
[Illustration: HOPELESS AS THE S.S. DEVONA’S POSITION SEEMED ON
SEPTEMBER 15, 1917, THE SALVORS MANAGED TO RAISE HER IN FOUR DAYS. VERY
CLEVERLY THEY RIGGED UP SOME WIRE MATTRESSES INTO WHICH THEY PUMPED HER
CARGO OF WHEAT, THUS DRAINING OFF THE WATER AND SAVING THE GRAIN]
THE WONDERS
OF SALVAGE
BY DAVID MASTERS
WITH FORTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
LONDON
JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LIMITED
_First Published in 1924_
MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY MORRISON AND GIBB LTD., EDINBURGH
TO
MY WIFE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
WRECK OF S.S. _DEVONA_ _Frontispiece_
PAGE
EXAMINING SEA-BED IN TOBERMORY BAY 18
WASHING SAND FOR SIGNS OF TREASURE 19
SIFTING SEA-BED FOR GOLD OF _LUTINE_ 30
WRECK OF _OCEANA_ 50
DIVING FOR _OCEANA’S_ TREASURE 51
A DIVER TREASURE-HUNTING WITH EXPLOSIVES 74
BRINGING THE _LEONARDO DA VINCI_ UPSIDE DOWN INTO DOCK 82
THE _LEONARDO DA VINCI_ SAFELY DOCKED 83
THE MAMMOTH TIMBER FRAMEWORK ON WHICH THE UPSIDE-DOWN BATTLESHIP
RESTED 86
THE UPSIDE-DOWN BATTLESHIP SEEN FROM THE AIR 87
TOWING OUT THE UPSIDE-DOWN BATTLESHIP TO TURN HER OVER 90
THE BATTLESHIP JUST BEFORE SHE WAS RIGHTED 91
THE _LEONARDO DA VINCI_ AS SHE SWUNG OVER 92
THE BATTLESHIP RIGHTED 93
A TORPEDOED SHIP SAFELY BEACHED 100
THE FAMOUS STANDARD PATCH 101
ELECTRIC PUMPS IN THE HOLD OF A £3,000,000 SHIP 104
DAMAGE WROUGHT BY A TORPEDO 105
A VESSEL DOWN BY THE HEAD 110
THE _U-44_ CARRIED ASHORE 126
REMOVING MINES FROM THE _U-44_ 127
THE _K.13_ RAISED AFTER TWO-AND-A-HALF DAYS ON THE SEA-BED 138
A BLAZING OIL TANKER 160
THE _ONWARD_ OVERTURNED AT FOLKESTONE 162
SALVAGE CRAFT ALONGSIDE THE _ONWARD_ 163
TUG-OF-WAR BETWEEN FIVE RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVES AND AN OVERTURNED
TROOPSHIP 164
PUMPING OUT THE _ONWARD_ 165
WRECK OF _ST. PAUL_ IN NEW YORK HARBOUR 166
OVERTURNED LINER BESIDE THE QUAY 167
DRAGGING THE _ST. PAUL_ UPRIGHT 170
THE _ST. PAUL_ RAISED 171
THE _ARABY_ BLOCKING THE ENTRANCE OF BOULOGNE HARBOUR 174
THE _ARABY_ BREAKING IN TWO 175
TWO HALVES OF THE _ARABY_ BEACHED 176
HALF A SHIP IN MID-CHANNEL 177
PATCHING A SHIP WITH CONCRETE 178
HOW THE CONCRETE PATCH WAS REINFORCED 179
CONCRETE PATCH FROM INSIDE THE SHIP 180
EXTERIOR VIEW OF SHIP PATCHED WITH CONCRETE 181
REFLOATING A WRECK BY DIGGING OPERATIONS 186
THE _TIMBO_ HIGH AND DRY 187
A DREDGER WRECKED IN THE GARELOCH 188
MIGHTY STEEL CABLES USED FOR RIGHTING THE WRECK 189
THE DREDGER RIGHTED ONCE MORE 192
A TORPEDOED SHIP IN GRAVE DIFFICULTIES 198
THE FOUNDERING SHIP SAFELY BEACHED AT CLOVELLY 199
SALVING A WRECK FROM QUICKSANDS 210
THE WONDERS OF SALVAGE
THE WONDERS OF SALVAGE
CHAPTER I
With eyes gazing fixedly ahead, the man, tense and alert, sought to
penetrate the blackness. Squalls of rain swept down and lashed his
face, the flying spume of spray shot up to intermingle with the rain,
leaving a tang of salt on his lips. The liner lurched and rolled
through the night, while thousands of souls aboard slumbered without
fear, placing implicit trust in this one man to whom the pulse of the
engines driving the ship was as familiar as the pulse of his own heart.
Rain and spray and wind were part of his life, and he accepted them
without demur because he realized that the weather was indifferent
alike to praise and blame.
He half turned his head to glance at the ship’s chronometer.
“Should be picking her up now,” he muttered.
Raising the night-glasses to his eyes, he concentrated all his powers
of vision on the murky gloom in front of him. His glasses roved slowly
from side to side, then a point of light, so dim as to be almost
imperceptible, swung in the blackness and vanished. For a minute he
waited until the light reappeared, then he breathed freely and rang
down for the ship to alter course, knowing that he was safe and that
he had justified the faith of the passengers who had trusted him to
navigate his vessel through the storm.
That point of light which meant so much to him was the beam of a
lighthouse, one of the many encircling our coast. All round our shores
they keep sentinel night after night, through summer calm and winter
blizzard, waking to life as daylight fades and dying as dawn steals
over the seas. These lights, which the city dweller on a brief visit to
the sea watches with such interest, are the friends of all who go down
to the sea in ships.
Our coasts are profoundly treacherous. Rocks, shoals and quicksands
abound everywhere, and are mostly marked with lighthouses, lightships
and buoys which in the aggregate have cost millions of pounds. No
expense has been spared to indicate these hidden dangers and make our
seas safe for shipping. Yet, in spite of all that human foresight can
suggest, wrecks still occur. Gales spring up and take their toll; fogs
steal on and drive ships blindly to their doom; machinery breaks down
and allows the seas to hurl the helpless craft upon the cruel rocks.
Probably no coast in the world is so well lighted as that of Great
Britain, but although there are over 1700 lights acting as signposts
of the sea, warning mariners of their dangers, our rocky shores exact
a grievous toll of shipping year by year. It is estimated that the
average value of the ships and cargoes lost in British waters amounts
to about £5,000,000 annually, so the wealth spilled out of the ships
since the galleys of our first invaders found a watery grave would,
could it be recovered, considerably lighten the burden of our national
debt. Unfortunately the greater part is lost for ever, for the sea
which has swallowed the ships destroys them utterly in the course of
time, and unless they can be salved within a certain period they soon
become not worth salving. The action of the sea water rots away the
cargoes, rust gradually devours the steel and iron carcass of the ship,
and only those two indestructible substances, gold and silver, the
white and red metals for which men have fought and died throughout the
ages, remain of the wealth which was originally lost.
Men, however, have not been content to see fortunes sink in the sea
without making some effort to recover them. They have pitted their wits
against the strength of the sea, risked their lives to wrest long-lost
treasure from the grasp of the ocean, and the story of their thrilling
deeds is one of the outstanding pages of human endeavour.
Consider, for a moment, the wonder of a ship. She is a marvellous
structure of steel and iron, full of the most intricate machinery, a
structure weighing perhaps thousands of tons. Of the manifold parts of
which she is composed, the wood fittings alone may be buoyant. Only
they may possess the power of floating on the waves; all the other
parts, from the smallest screw and rivet to the mighty propeller shafts
and hull plates would, if they could, sink like stones to the bottom of
the sea. This enormous mass of metal, which in its natural state must
sink, is so cunningly fashioned by man that it overcomes its natural
inclination to sink and is made to float. The huge weight is supported
by water, men toil in the bottom of the ship 20 and 30 feet below the
surface of the sea and are oblivious of any danger. The water on the
outer side of the steel skin of the ship towers 20 and 30 feet above
their heads, yet they sleep and eat and work in perfect safety. So long
as the sea is prevented from washing over the sides of the ship or
entering through a breach in the hull the vessel floats, would continue
to float even were she made of lead. In other words, she is buoyant.
Only when her buoyancy is destroyed does she sink. Then, before she can
float again, her buoyancy must be restored.
This is the simple problem that is always confronting the sea salvage
expert. How can he restore the buoyancy of the ship that meets with
misfortune? Simple as is the problem, it is seldom that the answer
is easy. To the salvor every wreck is a riddle. Tides and currents
make the riddle more complex. The position in which the wreck is lying
profoundly affects the case. And, above all, operates the unknown
factor of the weather. Whatever the salvage expert hopes to do, he
always adds to himself “Weather permitting!” He may be the cleverest
man alive, his plans of salvage may be the most brilliant ever
conceived, he may have the most expensive plant at his disposal and
all the money he seeks at his command, yet he is helpless unless the
weather be fair. Plans may be put into operation, work may go smoothly,
everything may be within an ace of success--when the tail of a gale
may blow the plans to pieces, shatter the work and rob the salvor of
the success that seemed within his grasp. It has happened before many
times, and it will happen many times again.
The men who get a living by trying to raise wrecks are farseeing,
sparing of words, patient where patience is demanded, quick as a rapier
thrust where quickness is essential, capable of toiling until they drop
if it be necessary. Every contingency that it is possible to think of
they consider, but the weather is something beyond their control. They
pray for fine weather, and fight against foul to the best of their
ability; but when the wind takes hold man and his endeavours are as
nothing.
Hard as some of the salvors have worked for their successes, others
have worked harder still for their failures. Often and often they have
striven strenuously for weeks and months to salve a ship, only to lose
her in the end. The luck of the game is indicated by a case which
occurred a year or two ago. A vessel went down on the summit of a rock
jutting sheer from the seabed. On all sides was water so deep that she
had but to slip to be irretrievably lost. The salvors, hurrying to the
scene, found her balanced most precariously on a ledge. A glance told
them that, before they could make the slightest attempt to salve the
ship, they would have to strive their utmost to secure her firmly in
position on top of the pinnacle of rock. They routed among their gear
for cables and anchors and, making the cables fast to the ship, carried
out the anchors in all directions in order to tie her tightly into
place.
Then they began to work against time, keeping a keen eye on the sky
and praying for fine weather, knowing full well that if the weather
held fair they would save the ship and that the coming of bad weather
would seal her doom. Day after day they toiled like giants, struggling
with huge baulks of timber, shoring up decks, strengthening bulkheads,
patching breaches in the hull. The weather favoured them. Day after day
it remained fine and enabled them to carry on their operations quite
unhampered. They had been hard at it for nearly a month before the
breeze began to freshen in rather an ominous manner. They were just
beginning to anticipate rough weather when the wind luckily died away
and they breathed freely once more.
They redoubled their efforts, and six weeks of intense toil saw their
work completed. The last timber was bolted securely in place and
the divers came out of the wreck, announcing that all was ready for
pumping out on the morrow. The salvors turned in for the night well
pleased with their labours, conscious that the next day would see them
proceeding to port with their prize.
But the weather, which had been kind to them so long, was destined to
cheat them at the very last. That night it began to blow. The seas
started to rise and hammer at the ship. She began to stir uneasily
and to strain at her cables. The gale increased. Under the continuous
chafing, one cable suddenly snapped. The breaking of that cable gave
the wreck more freedom to move under the hammer blows of the sea. The
waves battered at her incessantly and one cable after another went like
threads of cotton until a billow, far mightier than the rest, caught
her up and swept her off the pinnacle into the depths.
Imagine the feelings of the salvors when day dawned. All their gear was
gone, their labours lost when the prize was within their grasp. They
steamed slowly round the spot and proceeded to port, hoping for better
luck next time. That was the only thing they could do.
Men who spend their lives on salvage work are rather apt to lead the
casual inquirer to imagine that it is the easiest job under the sun,
whereas in reality the task is beset with difficulties and bristles
with risks. But the sailormen in their matter-of-fact way forget to
mention the ever-present danger. They are inured to it, just as people
are habituated to living on the slopes of a volcano that may erupt and
overwhelm them at any moment of the night or day. None the less the
salvors never forget the risk, nor leave it out of their calculations,
and for this reason fatal accidents among them are rare. They know the
strength of the sea too well to attempt to take liberties with it, for
they have seen it pick up great 10,000 ton ships and toss them on the
rocks as though they were cockle-shells; they have seen the strength
of 70,000 horses in the engines of a ship struggling in vain against
the strength of the waves, and they know better than to pit their power
against the power of the storm.
Thus they have a wholesome respect for wind and wave. They use the
strength of the sea to further their own ends so long as the sea
permits. At other times they may stand by a wreck for weeks while the
sea seethes and the wind howls about the ship they seek to save. A lull
in the bad weather will set them working frantically, and more than
one ship now afloat owes her existence to the accumulated labour of a
number of short spells of work undertaken between the gales.
The salvage man must thus be infinitely patient and possess a
determination that will keep him at work when most other men would give
up in despair. Above all must he be strong in hope. Without hope, no
man need seek to become a salvage expert, for he would be foredoomed
to failure. He must possess not only physical courage that enables him
to face the dangers of his calling, but also that rarer mental courage
that enables him to snatch victory out of the very jaws of defeat.
It is the men who possess this mental as well as physical courage who
perform the wonderful feats of salvage that will never be forgotten,
such as the recovery off Gibraltar of the steamer _Hypatia_, which the
salvors brought to the surface after an infinity of trouble. No sooner
was she raised than she filled and sank like a stone.
There was nothing for it but to do the work over again, which the
salvors managed to do. For the second time the _Hypatia_ was brought
to the surface, and once again she sank, seeming to mock the efforts
of her would-be preservers. Still they were not beaten. With grim
determination they made another effort, and after a great fight managed
to raise the _Hypatia_ once more. All in vain! For the third time she
sank.
Notwithstanding these three reverses, the salvors would not give up the
fight. Again the divers went down, and their strenuous exertions ended
in the _Hypatia_ seeing the light of day yet again. Not for long were
the salvors allowed to rest after their labours. Down she went for the
fourth time, while the sea bubbled and boiled around.
Few men would have continued a fight which appeared so hopeless. But
the salvors would not admit themselves beaten. Although Fate seemed to
be taunting them, they had the courage to take their task in hand for
the fifth time, and this time they succeeded. Truly it can be said that
no men more fully earned their reward than these salvors who triumphed
after four defeats.