Cape Race

by Robert C. Parsons

  A day later, the Customs authorities at St. John’s had a message from Renews, saying Bay State was a total wreck, with cargo all underwater. The local wreck commissioner and police were on board to prevent looting. Any cargo salvaged – and locals predicted a lot of materials would come off the wreck should the weather moderate – would be landed at Renews.

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  The Summer of Thick Fog

  June, July and August 1901

  During June, July, and August 1901, the southern coast of Newfoundland and adjacent waters were blanketed with a layer of dense fog. During the first couple of weeks of summer, it was not surprising when reports came to shipping offices of a wreck or two.

  Then, during June and July, report followed report almost weekly, of ships on the rocks in the Cape Race–Trepassey area. One writer declared, “There was a veritable epidemic of marine disasters.” Ship losses, when totalled, came to a value of millions of dollars when the ship plus the cargoes were driven to destruction against the iron-bound cliffs of the southern Avalon.

  There was so much disaster (yet practically no loss of life) that there was concern and agitation, not only from Newfoundland, but from the great shipping ports all over the North Atlantic. The ships that came to an end that summer near Cape Race were: Crewe, Assyrian, Lusitania, Delmar, Vera, Acis, and the tug Petrel.

  The SS Assyrian, an Allan liner, went ashore just below the Cape Race lighthouse. It was two or three days before the St. John’s wrecking tug Petrel arrived to attach a line to attempt to tow the liner off. In the meantime, a strong northeast gale was brewing, increasing in intensity within a day. In the heavy seas, one of Assyrian’s ropes became entangled in the tug’s propeller. Petrel, then crippled, drifted inside the liner. Sheltered from the high seas by the great liner, the tug’s crew tried to repair the damage. In the storm, it looked as if both vessels would become complete wrecks. The seas swung Assyrian around as if it were on a pivot, and both vessels were forced broadside on the rocks with seas sweeping over them.

  The crews of both left their ships, except for Captain Dingle and two officers of Assyrian. The steamer Algerine, also standing by, had to cut its lines as the winds picked up and make an emergency run for Trepassey to get in out of the weather.

  Petrel hung up on a reef for a day or so, but, with the assistance of Algerine and the British steamer Magnetic, was freed from the rocks. Entirely disabled, it was taken to St. John’s for extensive repairs.

  Assyrian, described as a very large ship, was bound across the Atlantic with a varied and valuable freight, including thousands of cases of the best-quality champagne. About 2,000 cases were taken from the wreck and brought to St. John’s; however, local workers often became thirsty on the job and consumed quite an amount of champagne. Much of Assyrian’s freight, worth about $420,000, was a loss. The owners, seeing the great steamer resting easy on the rocks before the storm, decided not to engage a steamer to pull Assyrian off.

  Dingle, acting on the advice of salvage and insurance agencies, chose to wait for a certified, capable wrecking tug. Assyrian’s owners also preferred to wait until the wrecking tug arrived on the scene. Local men thought that if Newfoundlanders had been allowed to begin salvage work at the time of the wreck, at least a quarter of the cargo would have been saved. Assyrian, four years old, was eventually pounded to pieces.

  The steamers Vera, Delmar, and Lusitania were on the rocks near each other at Seal Cove, on the seaward side of Cape Race. Another source, the New York Times, says Vera (and the Lusitania) struck land farther up the coast, west of the other wrecks, but this information has to be tempered with the fact that the American paper was acting on the best sources available at the time. Others, including most Newfoundland sources, say the Vera and Delmar were within sight of each other at Seal Cove.

  The Acis was stranded between Mistaken Point and Portugal Cove, at a place called The Rookery. The Vera, Delmar, and Crewe had no cargo, but the others did. The SS Crewe, in ballast, was en route to Bell Island in Conception Bay to load iron ore from the Wabana mines; Vera was in water ballast.

  The steamer Delmar came to a halt on July 8, close to the stranded Vera; so close that if Delmar had come in 40 feet farther west, it would have struck the stern of Vera. The SS Delmar was a British cargo steamer of 2,324 gross tons that ran aground and was wrecked at Blackhead, Cape Ballard, Newfoundland, when en route from Dundee for Mobile in ballast.

  Injuries and Compensation from the SS Acis

  A steel steamer of over 2,000 tons, Acis was 325 feet long, 48 feet wide, and 24 feet deep with three decks. It was built at Stockton-on-Tees in 1900 and was owned by the Acis Steamship Company of London.

  It was determined that the cargo from the SS Acis, wrecked nine miles west of Cape Race, was baled cotton and could be lifted from the holds of the wreck onto Newfoundland steamers. Several local men were hired to do grunt work – the heavy lifting and moving. During the operation, the wreck was still lurching and jerking from high seas. With any job involving hard labour under difficult conditions, injuries to workers were to be expected, but in this era, workers’ compensation in Newfoundland was practically unheard of.

  In November 1901, a Mr. Wall sued the New Walrus Steamship Company for damages – personal injury. Wall, injured during the salvage and while in the employ of the defendants, wished compensation for his injuries or for his time lost while recovering. Court action began in St. John’s on November 16, 1901, with Justice Emerson presiding.

  Mr. Wall, with a number of other men, was hired to go out to the stranded Acis on the Walrus. At the scene they began salving the cotton cargo stowed in the second and third decks. It was hoisted by a boom on board Walrus.

  The derrick or boom by which the cotton was hoisted was stayed (held by rope or steel cable) to the deck. The stays or cables were hooked to a ringbolt on the deck or bulwark. Wall contended the stay when hooked was not secure to prevent it from slipping out when the ship lurched in the breakers.

  Wall called Captain Power of Walrus and pointed this out. Power merely propped a bale of cotton near the hook to keep it from slipping out. When Wall was in Walrus’s hold unhooking bales as they were lowered down, Walrus gave a heavy roll.

  Weighing several hundred pounds, the package of cotton that had been placed near the hook by the captain fell into the hold. It seriously injured Mr. Wall. Wall contended the accident occurred due to neglect on the part of the captain.

  The defence lawyer put forward the argument the affair was purely accidental and that no blame could be attached to the owners of the Walrus Steamship Company. Captain Power had taken every precaution against such an accident from happening.

  Several witnesses were called for both sides and gave evidence as to the cause of the accident. Doctor Stabb testified as to Wall’s physical injuries.

  At 5: 00 p.m. the, defence concluded its presentation and Mr. Morris, King’s Counsel, addressed the jury on behalf of the plaintiff, continuing up to 6: 00 p.m. The court recessed, after which Justice Emerson delivered the charge to the jury. Emerson asked the jury to consider these questions:

  - Was plaintiff Wall engaged on Walrus as a servant of the defendants and did he receive injury while so engaged?

  - Was it due to negligence on the part of any person on board Walrus and, if so, by whom?

  - Was Captain Power a servant of the company and was Wall acting under the orders of the captain?

  - Did the plaintiff Wall contribute in any way to the negligence?

  The jury retired at 8: 20 and returned at 9: 05 with the verdict. To the first three questions the answer was “Yes, ” and to the fourth, “No.” In consideration of the damages inflicted on Mr. Wall, the jury awarded him $400 compensation.

  The case ended and, with that, the summer of fog and wrecks at Cape Race came to a close. With the exception of Petrel, none of the other steamers ever came off the rocks. Some of their large and valuable cargoes were salvaged; a little cargo ended up sold in St. John’s at v
ery cheap prices; much went to the bottom off the southern Avalon Peninsula.

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  Nothing Saved from Titania,

  Except Shirts and Drawers

  November 1901

  A message from Cape Race to St. John’s shipping agents in mid-November 1901 reported the barque Titania was near Cape Race “in the offing”; that is, lying to and awaiting favourable winds to take it northward to St. John’s. Titania didn’t arrive at St. John’s in an anticipated time, so the vessel’s owner, Bowring Brothers, assumed it was still waiting for the fog to lift. On the night of November 17, Bowrings received another, more ominous message at their St. John’s premises. It was from Doctor Carey of Trepassey.

  Carey said Titania had run ashore at Pound (or Pounding) Cove at 8: 00 a.m. Saturday morning (November 16) and was a total wreck. But what of the crew? Not good news. The ship’s bosun, Williams, had been killed trying to reach shore. Captain Cove and the crew were badly frostbitten and injured by the heavy seas then raging.

  Titania, 43 days out from Cork, was bound in ballast to Bowring Brothers to load fish. This 253-ton iron barque was formerly the Russian ship Voorspold. It had been stranded in the North Sea and written off by its owners. Refloated by divers and underwriters, the hulk was renamed Titania (after the Russian princess Titania Romanov, daughter of Czar Nicholas II). Bowrings saw the value of a relatively new ship, having been built seven years previously, and purchased it for the Newfoundland-to-England trade.

  Gradually, the reports of what happened to this fine iron barque came to Bowrings. Captain Cove and his crew were immersed in thick Cape Race fog in the early morning of Saturday, November 16. Buffeted by winter winds and pushed by unpredictable currents, Titania hit the rocks at Pound Cove, four miles from Trepassey. Captain Cove and crew were too far from shore to jump safely; to put a boat to seaward would have been instant death.

  Fog was so dense, the people who lived along the coast were not aware that a wreck had occurred. The crew was unable to make any signals that would attract attention. Owing to the fact that Titania was wedged in a small cove under an overhang of high cliffs, it was impossible for the crew to get off the wreck.

  With white waves constantly breaking across the decks, Titania’s crew climbed the rigging and lashed themselves on, waiting for the storm and pounding seas around the cape to abate. They had gone there without enough time to clothe themselves adequately; most had nothing on except their undergarments – no boots.

  Bosun Williams grew impatient of waiting and suffering on the vessel, and decided it would be just as well to take his chances with the cold sea and precipitous cliffs as to die on a vessel breaking apart.

  Williams plunged in and nearly reached shore. But the shoreline was not a sandy or cobblestoned beach, but a mass of boulders and cliff. He was dashed against the rocks and knocked unconscious. The next wave finished him and threw his lifeless body onto the rocks, where it remained out of reach of the mad combers.

  The rest of the crew stayed lashed to the topmasts from 8: 00 a.m. Saturday morning to 9: 00 a.m. Sunday – 25 hours of pure agony. By Sunday the weather had settled enough for boats to attempt to reach Titania. At the risk of their lives, two seamen-shipowners from Burin, George and James (in one report his name is given as Jabez) Inkpen, went in their schooner, climbed the rigging of the wreck, and took down the surviving crew. Another man, Andrew Keough of Caplin Bay (today’s Calvert) went out on Inkpen’s schooner on the mercy mission. The survivors, near death and incoherent, had to be physically lifted and carried to safety.

  Even after they had recovered their senses, Titania’s seamen were unable to walk, as their feet were swollen from cold and exposure. Those without adequate outer clothes were white with frost. However, although they had no use of their limbs for several hours, they did not require hospitalization.

  The Inkpens carried the captain and crew into Trepassey, where Doctor Carey took charge of the suffering men. The remains of the dead man, Williams, were taken from the cliff by livyers near Pounding Cove and placed in a coffin. He was interred at 2: 00 p.m. November 18.

  That same day, the magistrate at Trepassey contacted Bowrings with three reports that summarized the end of Titania:

  November 18. Neither Captain nor crew are able to move about as their feet are still much swollen. Will do the best to supply them with clothing and boots, all being barefooted. Saved nothing but shirts and drawers.

  November 19. Fearful sea at Trepassey. No possibility of saving ship or fittings.

  November 20. Ship broken up. Wreckage on beach. Captain and crew at Trepassey and coming to St. John’s by “Leopard.”

  Although none of Titania’s crew were Newfoundlanders but probably Englishmen from Liverpool, Captain Cove was well-known in local shipping circles. For years he sailed in Newman’s employ out of Harbour Breton in the barque Retriever. He was considered an excellent seafaring man who had made quick trips from England to Newfoundland.

  As for the Inkpens of Burin, the courageous schoonermen who made the heroic rescue, nothing much was heard about them or their involvement with Titania after the event. There was no compensation or public citation. Presumably, with human lives safe, they continued on to the great fish exporting town of Burin.

  “Take, Take, Take” from Aquitaine

  In the summer of 1902, a French bark bringing a great stock of choice liquors from France to St. Pierre ran afoul of a reef a little west of Cape Race. It is a story that is not verified by official shipping reports nor from accounts in local newspapers. The exact date of the accident is also elusive. Yet, renowned Newfoundland journalist P. T. (Patrick Thomas) McGrath wrote of the wreck of Aquitaine in the June 1903 edition of McClure’s Magazine.

  McGrath gave no explanation why Aquitaine was off course, whether fog, currents, or faulty charts, but the bark became a total wreck. Once the French crew saw the extent of damage and that Aquitaine might go to pieces at any moment, they scrambled over the side into their lifeboat and reached the safety of the shore. As soon as livyers from the coast arrived on the scene, the French captain clearly and loudly told them, in broken English, to “Take, Take, Take” whatever cargo they could.

  This the locals did with great speed. Using the ship’s windlasses and pulleys, they soon worked off the two hatch covers. One by one they exposed every tier of cargo, all untouched by the sea. The wreck was located on a remote and relatively inaccessible coastline; thus two days went by before customs officers and authorities were notified. On the third day, a revenue or government cutter sent from St. John’s arrived.

  In those three “lawless” days, several south coast fishing schooners learned of the wreck or happened by unintentionally. To their surprise, they saw the livyers of the coast dressed in bright French clothing, colourful jerseys, red waist sashes, and flat saucer hats – all property happily secured from Aquitaine. Soon the visitors were treated to champagne in tin pannikins and liquor out of fancy bottles. They bought expensive cognac from the villagers for 15 cents a bottle.

  The cargo also included bales of merchandise, packages and barrels of dry goods, tobacco, food, general stores, and equipment – all necessities of life destined for St. Pierre– Miquelon.

  Now, when the Newfoundland government cruiser arrived, the salvagers were asked or compelled to give up 50 per cent, as per salvage laws, to the owners. Some was given back, but of course there was much merchandise that could not be accounted for, and the sea near Cape Race was blamed for swallowing it up. It is said that much of the missing liquor and goods found a more convenient hiding place than the bottom of the sea.

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  Helen Isabel,

  A Wreck at Biscay Cove

  May 1904

  In 1904, another improvement came to Cape Race. A telegraph system had been in place for many years, but in 1904 the first wireless apparatus was installed at the cape. This technology arrived just three years after Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic message on Signal Hill
, St. John’s. It had been sent from Cornwall, England.

  As well, in that spring of 1904, a lonely ship wended its way to Newfoundland’s east coast. The barque Helen Isabel, carrying molasses, plied the seas in the regular two-way trade between Brazil and Newfoundland.

  Built in Greenock, Scotland, in 1869, the 267-ton ship had an iron framework with a wooden hull. It was chartered by Baine Johnston and Company, who had put Captain William Lawrie, a Prince Edward Islander, in command. With him were 11 crew, plus two sailors – Job Benson and Martret Auguste – from the wrecked Newfoundland ship Gladiola. They had been landed at Barbados by a rescue ship and were awaiting transportation home.

  After delivering a cargo of fish to Brazil, Helen Isabel left that country on April 4 and sailed into Barbados for a full cargo of molasses. On April 29, it left Barbados in a spate of excellent weather, but 15 days later, while 150 miles off Cape Race, it met dense fog. The shroud was so thick, Captain Lawrie said, that “from the taffrail a man could scarcely be seen on the lookout.”

  Under light topsails and a good spread of lower canvas, Helen Isabel sped along in a fresh breeze, making due allowance for an insetting tide. Occasionally the crew could hear the whistles of steamers passing east and west to and from the St. Lawrence River. All seemed well.

  Little did those on board know that the treacherous inset of tide at Cape Race, which had been the indirect cause of much loss of life and property with its hand-in-hand destroyer, the fog, was pulling the ship to certain destruction. Captain Lawrie reported:

  At once Helen Isabel filled with water. In five minutes, the crew had the ship’s boat over the side; in five minutes more, they left the fast-settling ship. The barque rested on its port side against a huge boulder and, as it filled with water, was submerged by this rock. The crew had to leave without their belongings, and Captain Lawrie only saved the ship’s strongbox, located in the locker in the cabin. The captain recalled: