Goodwin Sands

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The Goodwin Sands are a chain of sandbanks at the north entrance to the Strait of Dover , about 10 km east of Deal in Kent , England . They are notorious for the numerous shipwrecks that have occurred there. To the west of Goodwin Sands, about halfway down the Dover Strait, is Sandettie Bank .

Name and legend

According to the late medieval Scottish historiographer Hector Boetius (1465–1536), there was a low-lying island at the site of Goodwin Sands, which belonged to Godwin, Earl of Wessex (approx. 1001–1053), the father of King Harald II. This island is said to be Lomea washed over and covered by sand. This is what the author George Byng Gattie claimed in a highly regarded book in 1904 . He refers to the geologist Charles Lyell , who after test drilling in 1817, which were used for the purpose of building a beacon , identified a limestone-rocky subsoil under these sandbanks and also believed this to be a submerged island. This interpretation was followed uncritically until the middle of the 20th century. But this is evidently a legend; the most likely explanation for the origin of the Goodwins is that they were built up solely by the strong tidal currents at the entrance to the Dover Strait.

description

The sandbanks are about 19 km long and 8 km wide at their widest point, and they are cut through by a canal, the so-called Kellet Gut. The exact shape of the sandbanks changes permanently under the influence of the strong currents; a slow counter-clockwise rotation has been observed. At high tide , the sandbanks are completely covered by the water, at low tide part (about one tenth) falls dry and protrudes up to four meters above the water level. Up to the present day a cricket match was played annually on the Goodwins , which could be seen from the bank in good weather. Since the Goodwins act as a barrier against the waves, the downs between the sandbanks and the mainland are a traditional anchorage that is still popular today.

Since the Goodwins are a dangerous obstacle to this day in view of the strong currents, the often bad weather and the high volume of shipping traffic in the region, they are marked by three lightships (North Goodwin, East Goodwin and South Goodwin) and ten buoys , seven of which are carry a flashlight.

Due to its strategic location at the northern entrance to the English Channel repeatedly sea battles took place near the Goodwin Sands, the Battle of Goodwin Sands on May 29, 1652 in the First Anglo-Dutch naval warfare and in the First World War , the naval action in the Strait of Dover from 21st April 1917 between German and British destroyers .

Ship accidents on the Goodwin Sands

Lightship East Goodwin

The Goodwin Sands are one of the largest ship graveyards in the world; It is estimated that around 2,000 ships were lost there. The danger of the sandbanks even for modern ships is due to their location, the large tidal range, the strong currents caused by the tides and the heavy surf in bad weather, which even large and stable wooden ships were destroyed in a short time. Even modern ships made of steel were and often can no longer be saved. When the hulls lie completely on the sand, the strong currents cause deep erosions to form under the bow and stern, which cause them to break apart in the middle; Ships that got stuck on the edge of the sandbanks are exposed to such stresses due to a tidal range of up to six meters that they too often break apart. While wrecks at the edges of the Goodwins often slide into deeper water, ships lying completely in the sand are literally "swallowed" because they sink into the washings created by the currents around their hulls.

The Goodwins were already notorious in the Middle Ages. In June 1298, a ship owner complained that his wreck had been looted after being stranded. In January 1533, a royal port captain, who defended himself against the charge of enriching the cargo, wrote that 12 ships were stranded this winter and that all valuables had been taken from the robbers. The characterization of the Goodwin Sands as "shippe swalower" (ship swallower) goes back to Hector Boetius, which the English historian William Lambarde cited and made known in his Perambulation of Kent (a description of this county) published in 1570 . An example of the reputation of the Goodwins in the early modern period is provided by William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice (3rd act, 1st scene) , published between 1594 and 1597 :

“Yes, it has not yet been contradicted that a ship with a rich cargo was stranded in the strait for the Antonio. The Goodwins, I think, they call the spot: a very dangerous sandbank where the skeletons of many a stately ship are buried ... ”(after the translation by August Wilhelm Schlegel ).

The diary of the famous shipbuilder Phineas Pett also contains an account of a shipwreck on the Goodwin Sands . His son John was on the HMS Antelope in 1624 , which was driven onto the sandbanks after the collision with the merchant ship Dolphin . While the Dolphin was lost with the entire crew, the badly damaged warship could be saved. Another ship of the Royal Navy , the HMS Princess Maria (36 cannons), was lost on the Goodwin Sands in 1658, as was the HMS Nightingale in 1674 together with a captured Dutch privateer . The greatest catastrophe occurred in 1703 during the Great Storm . The hurricane , blowing from the southwest / west-southwest , hit a large number of ships lying in the Downs, including a Royal Navy fleet. The storm tore them from their anchors and drove them into the Goodwins, where they were crushed by the surf. The ships of the line HMS Stirling Castle , HMS Northumberland , HMS Mary and HMS Restoration as well as the mortar ship HMS Mortar were lost in this way . Of the more than 1200 men on board these ships, only 80 crew members of the Stirling Castle survived . In addition to the warships, around 40 merchant ships are said to have been lost. Fishermen and sailors from Deal were able to save a total of around 200 castaways. Another serious shipwreck occurred in 1740 when the Dutch East Indiaman Rooswijk with 250 people on board and a cargo of silver bars disappeared in the Goodwins. There were no survivors here either. The stranding of the British East Indiaman Admiral Gardner and Britannia on January 24, 1809 was happier ; All but 10 passengers and seafarers could be saved - in view of the heavy storm and the primitive aids, an enormous achievement. Theodor Fontane's poem Goodwin Sand from 1847 describes the sandbanks as a grave for ships and men: "It's a churchyard, half sea, half land."

In the mid-19th century, ship accidents increased on and at Goodwin Sands. In just 19 consecutive days of January 1852, five ships ran into distress on the sands. From January to May 1853, 13 strandings were recorded.

Aid to the castaways traditionally came from the seafarers and fishermen on the Kent coast, whose crews were famous for rescue missions on the Goodwin Sands. In 1851 a bold rescue operation by the crew of a regular lifeboat was first mentioned in Broadstairs . But until 1852, when the first lifeboat station with what was then a modern self-righting boat was set up in Ramsgate , there was no organized rescue service in the immediate vicinity. In 1865 there were four lifeboats on 11 miles of coastline (next to Ramsgate they were in North Deal , Walmer and Kingsdown); there were also boats in Broadstairs, Kingsgate and later in Margate and Dover - a concentration of lifeboats on a coast that was unique for that time.

News of shipping accidents remained frequent well into the 20th century. Right at the beginning of the First World War there was an accumulation of strandings or collisions because the illuminated signs had been deleted. On December 20, 1914, the Montrose of the Canadian Pacific Line , which was filled with cement to block the port of Dover, ran aground on the Goodwin Sands and broke in two parts. Other vehicles were torpedoed by German ships, such as the Africa on September 16, 1915. From 1916 to 1918, British censorship meant that there are hardly any records or reports of the high casualties during this period.

One of the most serious accidents in recent times was the sinking of the South Goodwin lightship, which lost its anchor in a severe storm in November 1954 and was driven into the sands. Only one of the seven crew members was rescued by a helicopter after holding on to the rigging for eight hours . Today the lifeboat station in Walmer is responsible for accidents in the area of ​​the Goodwins. The coast guard station at St Margaret's at Cliffe also monitors the sandbanks .

1909: Wreck of the Mahratta on Goodwin Sands

Two modern wrecks can be observed at all water levels: The North Eastern Victory and the Luray Victory , two American freighters, both stranded in 1946, are located in the south of the Goodwins, their masts and sometimes their superstructures protrude from the water. At times the wreckage of SM U 48 , which sank on Goodwin Sands in 1917, was also visible. B. 1973.

Due to their past, the Goodwin Sands represent an important archaeological site. The localized historical shipwrecks include three of the four ships of the line lost in the Great Storm, of which the well-preserved Stirling Castle was examined more closely despite the adverse currents and visibility. Exhibits recovered from this wreck include: a. on display at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich . Another object of investigation was the Admiral Gardner , from which around 1 million East India Company copper coins were recovered. It was only recently that a recreational diver discovered the remains of the Rooswijk . Your silver cargo was partially recovered and handed over to the Dutch state.

The plane wreck

In 2008 an almost complete aircraft wreck from the Second World War was discovered in 15 m water depth in the sand of the Goodwin Sands. It is a Dornier Do 17 , which on 26 August 1940 after shelling there ditched is. Preparations for the salvage of the wreck, which is the only surviving specimen of this type, began in May 2013. It was lifted on June 10, 2013 and five days later it was taken to the Royal Air Force Museum in Cosford Shropshire for a multi-year restoration , where it can be viewed.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Memorials of the Goodwin Sands, George Byng Gattie (London, 1904)
  2. ^ Richard Larn, Goodwin Sands Shipwrecks , David & Charles, London 1977, p. 31 f.
  3. ^ Richard Larn: Goodwin Sands Shipwrecks. David & Charles, Newton Abbot / London 1977, pp. 89 f., 96.
  4. ^ Richard Larn: Goodwin Sands Shipwrecks . David & Charles, Newton Abbot / London 1977, pp. 144 ff.
  5. ^ Wreck in the English Channel: British want to salvage German World War II bombers. In: Der Spiegel. May 3, 2013, accessed May 4, 2013.

literature

  • Richard Larn, Bridget Larn: Shipwrecks of the Goodwin Sands. Meresborough Books, 1995, ISBN 0-948193-84-0 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 16 '  N , 1 ° 30'  E