The Goodwin Sands

“ In an easterly gale, notwithstanding the protection of the Goodwins, there is a very heavy and even tremendous sea in the Downs, for the Goodwin Sands lie low in the water, and when they are covered by the tide—as they always are at high water—the protection they afford is much diminished. ”

“ Mr Jones Takes Strong Measures to Secure his Ends, and Introduces Billy and his Friends to some New Scenes and Moments.
Again we are in the neighbourhood of the Goodwin sands. It is evening. The sun has just gone down. The air and sea are perfectly still. The stars are coming out one by one, and the floating lights have already hoisted their never-failing signals. ”

“ Under our feet and deep in the sand lie vessels one over another, and in them all that vessels carry. Countless treasures must be buried there—the treasures of centuries. Witness the Osta Junis, a Dutch East Indiaman, which, treasure-laden with money and other valuables to a great amount, ran on the Goodwin Sands, July 12, 1783. ”

“ The whole of the Goodwin Sands are covered by the sea at high water; even the highest or north part of the Sands is then eight or ten feet under water. At low water this north part of the Goodwins is six feet at least above the sea level, and you can walk for miles on a rippled surface cut into curious gulleys, the miniatures of the larger swatches. Wild and lonely beyond words is the scene. The sands are hard when dry—in some places as hard as the hardest beach of sand that can be named. Near the Fork Spit the sand is marvellously hard. ”

“ Outside, and to the cast of this great fleet of vessels, lies the great 'shippe-swallower,' the Goodwin Sands. The sands are very irregular in shape, and are not unlike a great lobster, with his back to the cast, and with his claws, legs, and feelers extended westwards towards Deal and the shipping in the Downs. Far from the main body of the sands run all manner of spits and promontories and jaws of sand, and through and across the Goodwins in several directions are numbers of 'swatches,' or passages of water varying in depth from feet to fathoms. ”

“ In a narrative of adventure and conflict with the seas that rage over the Goodwin Sands, it would not be well to refrain from bearing testimony to how readily, how gallantly, the men of Deal, of Broadstairs, of Walmer, and of Kingsdown, as well as of Ramsgate, man their respective life-boats, whenever the call is made for their services, and race out to the scene of action, full of hardihood, of skill, of courage—true Storm Warriors, ever ready to dare all and do all that they may rescue the drowning from a watery grave. ”

“ From the windows can be seen, gleaming out in the darkness, the bright lights of the Goodwin light-ships, which guard those fatal sands—sands so fatal, that when the graves give up their dead, few churchyards will [Pg 85] render such an account as theirs, not only as to the number of the dead, but also that the Sands are a battle-field which entombs the brave and strong, who go down quick to their grave, quick from the full tide of life and strength, from the eager stern deadly contest in which, to the last, all their strong energies were fully engaged. ”

“ This is the corpse that was buried in the Goodwin Sands a few weeks ago, according to the will of the deceased.”
Much has already been said of the dangers of the Goodwins, but they are not altogether evil. Like human beings, they are compact of good and ill. Their useful and beneficent function is to provide a kind of natural breakwater forming the roadstead famous for centuries in naval and mercantile shipping annals as “the Downs”:
“All in the Downs the fleet lay moored,”
as the song goes, in Gay’s “Black-eyed Susan.” ”

“ There is a broad bay called Trinity Bay in the heart of the Goodwins, out of which leads due north-east the chief swatch or passage through the Sands. It is four or five fathoms deep at low water, and from about three-quarters to a quarter of a mile wide, and it is called the Ramsgate Man's Bight. Close to the outer entrance of this great passage rides, about twelve feet out of water, the huge north-east Whistle buoy of the Goodwins, which ever moans forth in calmest weather its most mournful note. ”

“ To sink the seamen with unmanly fear;
Though their firm hearts no pageant-honour boast,
They scorn the wretch that trembles in his post.
The smart and trim three-masted schooner, the Golden Island, was bound from Antwerp to Liverpool, with a cargo of glass-sand, and was running before a favouring gale to the southward. At midnight, on May 14, 1887, or the early morning of May 15, with a heavy sea rolling from the N.E., suddenly, no notice being given and no alarm felt, she struck with tremendous force the outer edge of the Goodwin Sands. ”

“ I cannot refrain from bearing my tribute of admiration to worthy Daniel Reading, a brave, skilful, modest sailor, the master of the steam-tug Aid; many and many a time has he rendered service, which for daring and skill could not be well surpassed, threading in and out of the Goodwin Sands 'mid terrible storms while seeking for the position of wrecked vessels, or making short cuts to tow the life-boat into position, that no time should be lost in her efforts to save the drowning crews. ”

“ They spread all the canvas they can stagger under, and the two boats fly before the gale straight for the light-ship; there they learn the position in which the signals of distress were seen, and cruise round the edge of the Goodwin in all the fierce tumble of sea, and skirt the ring of surf which marks where the rollers are breaking with terrible force upon the Sands; but they can obtain no guide, no clue to where the wreck is; no signal light shines out of that drear darkness pleading for help, and no sound can the men hear, listen as they will, other than the ceaseless roar of the storm. ”

“ Then, having avoided this, more dry, hard sand, rippled by the ebbing tide, and then a dry, deep cleft—for the Goodwins are full of surprises—and then came more wading.
Wading on the Goodwins conveys a very peculiar sensation to the naked feet. The sand, so dense when dry, at once becomes friable and quick—indeed, it is hard to believe there is not a living creature under the feet—and if you stand still you slowly sink, feet and ankles, and gradually downwards. As long as you keep moving, it is hard enough, but less so when under water. ”

“ The latter phrase of 'shippe-swallower' being only too true, has stuck, and there does seem historic ground to warrant us in believing that in the year named there was a great storm and incursion of the sea; but whether the Goodwin Sands were ever the fertile island of Lomea and the estate of the great earl seems to be more than uncertain. ”

“ Swirling and eddying in the strange currents on the Goodwins, and beaten of the winds and waves, on came the old cork fender towards the lifeboat. They had not another bit of cable to spare on board the lifeboat; every inch of their one hundred and sixty fathoms was paid out. Breathless the coxswain, and the man in the bows, rigid as his own boat-hook with the anxiety of the moment, lashed to his position, a life line round his waist, watched the approach of the fender. ”

“ And at Ramsgate the prayer may be uttered fervently indeed by those, who, when they hear the signal of distress, know that the endangered vessel is experiencing all the dread dangers of the Goodwin Sands, for the vessels wrecked upon them have indeed, if the weather is bad, but a poor prospect of ever sailing the broad seas again. ”

“ Nothing can be done for the schooner; driving fast, she soon begins to thump on the Sands; darkness settles down upon her, the fierce waves have her for their prey, and in the morning not one remaining fragment of her is to be seen; she has been torn utterly to pieces, and what the tide has not swept away, the Sands have completely buried. ”

“ The more threatening and heavy the weather, the greater the probability of disaster occurring, or having occurred, then the more ready are her crew to work their way out to the Goodwin Sands, and to cruise round them on the look-out for vessels in distress; they dare not take the lugger into the broken water—there a life-boat alone can live ”

“ THE GOODWIN SANDS.
bout six miles off the east coast of Kent there is a sandbank known as the Goodwin Sands, extending for a distance of ten miles, between the North Foreland and the South Foreland. No part of our coast is so much dreaded by the mariner, and from early times it has been the scene of many terrible disasters. As Shakespeare says, it is "a very dangerous flat, and fatal, where the carcasses of many a tall ship lie buried." ”

“ There, down into the trough once more, and now aloft again on the very shoulder of a breaking sea, which has hove her up, as a strong man swings a child, and then bearing her recklessly on, dissolves beneath her keel, in a tumbling avalanche of creaming foam, in the centre of which the sloop is carried triumphantly up, upon the wreaths of sea-weed at the very top of high water-mark, and there, as the sea recedes, is left high and dry! No Deal boatmen ever beached a galley more admirably after a wild trip to the Goodwin Sands. ”

“ Contrast the freezing midnight scene of storm and surf, eight miles from the nearest land, with the quiet sleep of millions.
Here was a January midnight, black as a wolf's throat—thermometer 15° below freezing, a mountainous surf on the Goodwins, and only twelve brave men to face it all; but those twelve men were the heroes of a hundred fights, and were determined to save the men on the wreck or die for it.
Therefore, though swept to leeward, they got sail on the lifeboat and got her on the starboard tack, ten men sheeting home the fore sheet. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the lifeboat services to the Goodwins are invariably effected under sail. In other places, where the wreck lies close to the land, and the lifeboats are comparatively light, services are performed with oars, but not to the Goodwin Sands, which have to be reached under sail, and from which the lifeboats have to get home by sail, often against a gale off shore, eight miles to windward—with no steam-tug to help them, but by their own unaided skill, 'heart within and God o'erhead.' ”

“ When the tide fell, about 8.45, flares and rockets were seen coming from the Brake, a very dangerous and partially rocky 'Sand' lying close to the Goodwin Sands. Then the Gull lightship also fired guns and rockets. There being obviously a vessel in danger on or near either the Goodwins or the Brake Sand, the Deal lifeboat bell was rung; and a crew was obtained out of the hundred men who rushed to get a place. The beach was smoothed to give the lifeboat a run, she was let go, and, in contrast with the failure of other boats, launched successfully. ”

“ We need scarcely point out that when several reasons are given for anything it is an indication that nothing very satisfactory is forthcoming.
That "Tenterden Steeple is the cause of the Goodwin Sands" is a proverb that was at one time often brought forth when any ridiculous cause was assigned as an explanation of anything. We have already [159] seen how very colloquial Bishop Latimer could be on occasion, and he tells us that a "Mr Moore was once sent with commission into Kent to try out, if it might be, what was the cause of Goodwin's Sands which had stopped up Sandwich Haven. ”

“ Many a stormy struggle after this rescue was gone through by Jarvist Arnold and his Kingsdown lifeboat crew on the Goodwin Sands during the years 1870-1873. Holding the honourable but arduous post of coxswain of the Kingsdown lifeboat Sabrina, he also manfully earned his living as Channel pilot, being a most trustworthy and skilful seaman. He did well that which came to his hand; he did his best and his duty. I speak after the manner of men, and as between man and man. More than that no man can do. ”

“ In fourteen years from his death only one of his brave band of sons survived, and he was a miserable captive, who spent his whole existence in the dungeons of his chief enemy. It seemed as if nothing that Godwin had acquired could be enduring, for the very lands he left behind him no longer exist, his chief estate on the coast of Kent was swallowed by the sea, and now forms the dangerous shoal called the Goodwin Sands.
“Wise men also die and perish together, as well as the ignorant and foolish, and leave their riches for other. ”

“ To remain standing in one place for a short time is to find one’s self sinking gradually, and sometimes even suddenly, for these are in many places quicksands; and innocent-looking pools, apparently quite shallow, give the incautious a bad shock by often proving to be perhaps anything from six to sixteen feet deep. They are locally known as “fox-falls,” and form but one of the many unpleasant surprises the Goodwins are capable of giving. Another strange thing is the extraordinary steepness of the Sands on the north side of the North Goodwin. ”

“ All hands now fled to the bridge of the steamer, watching for a favourable moment to get into the Walmer lifeboat, still riding alongside, while each mad billow lifted her up almost to the level of the bridge and then smothered the lifeboat in its foaming bosom as she descended into the depths.
Any one who carefully observes a succession of waves either breaking in charging lines on a beach, or in the wilder turmoil of the Goodwins, must notice how frequently they differ in shape and in size. ”

“ All the boatmen hung back, so the story ran, from the work of rescue, and shrank from the black fury of the gale, when the hero appeared on the scene, and roundly rating the coxswain and crew, sprang into the lifeboat, pointed out exactly what should be done, gave courage to all the quailing boatmen, and seizing an oar—those heroic youths always 'seize' or 'grasp' an oar—pulled to the Goodwin Sands 'in the teeth of a gale.' I notice these heroes always prefer the 'teeth of a gale,' especially when pulling in a lifeboat ”