THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 5, 1994 TAG: 9408050808
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
A brass cannon used in local shipwreck rescues early this century has come to rest in a resort-area museum 61 years after it was lost in a 1933 hurricane.
Known as a Lyle gun, the lifesaving device was discovered by a local beachcomber last May during a low tide at Little Island City Park, just south of Sandbridge. After several months of restoration, the cannon, which was used to shoot lifelines to floundering ships offshore, is now part of an exhibit opening today at the Life-Saving Museum of Virginia, on the oceanfront at 24th Street.
Rick Raehl of Virginia Beach found the cannon, its oak carriage and five projectiles in sand-and-rust-encrusted hunks on the beach in front of the former Little Island Coast Guard Station. The retired Navy man donated the cannon to the museum.
``Thanks to the commendable actions of Rick Raehl, we have a major maritime discovery for Virginia Beach because there aren't that many around, and we know exactly where it came from and the story behind it,'' museum director Fielding Tyler said.
Tyler verified the Lyle gun's origins with retired U.S. Coast Guardsman Ben Wroton, a museum board member. In August 1933, Wroton was a Coast Guard boatswain's mate, stationed at Little Island Station, which still stands today at the city park. When the storm hit, the original station, built in the 1870s, was being used as an equipment building, Wroton said.
The eye of the storm passed directly over the complex, he recalled. With 150 mph winds and 50-foot seas, the hurricane cut two inlets from the ocean to Back Bay, completely isolating the Coast Guard crew and their families.
``The old building was out where the (fishing) pier is now, about 300 to 400 yards out from the beach,'' Wroton said. ``When the building went down, we lost everything we had, all the equipment and all the rescue gear.''
And that included the Lyle gun. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
CHARLIE MEADS/Staff
Fielding Tyler, left, director of the Life-Saving Museum of
Virginia, and Rick Raehl show off the Lyle gun and projectiles Raehl
found in the sand at Little Island Park. The brass cannon has been
restored and is part of an exhibit opening today at the museum.
Graphic
WHAT IS IT?
The Lyle gun, named for its inventor, Army Col. David A. Lyle,
was used in the late 1800s and early 1900s to fire a metal
projectile with a shot line attached to shipwrecked boats offshore.
The line would haul out successively heavier lines until there was a
line strong enough to support a breeches buoy, which could carry
crewmen, one at a time, from ship to shore.
by CNB