THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 14, 1994 TAG: 9412140499
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SARAH MISKIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Croatan residents may get their wish to keep a washed-up chunk of a century-old ship.
Virginia Beach military reservists struggled unsuccessfully against a relentless sea Tuesday to free the wreckage, which has become firmly lodged in the shore since surfacing a half-mile south of Rudee Inlet during the havoc of Hurricane Gordon late in November.
Linda and Robert May, who live at Croatan, said residents were reluctant to lose the hull fragment because it added personality to the beach, but they realized it had to be moved for preservation.
Fielding Tyler, executive director of the Life-Saving Museum of Virginia, thinks the wreckage is from a sailing vessel that went down late last century or early this century off Dam Neck, just to the south. Until the fragment is salvaged and moved to a more hospitable environment, he cannot solve the mystery of which ship it was.
From an earlier list, Tyler has removed the Fannie Palmer, which was refloated and repaired, and added the 1,239-ton German ship, Elizabeth, which stranded on Jan. 8, 1887, with the loss 27 lives. Other possibilities include the 568-ton Nellie W. Howlett, lost Oct. 10, 1903, and the 550-ton D.M. Anthony, lost Feb. 3, 1905.
Since reporting the wreckage to the museum on Nov. 20, Linda May has saved it from would-be carpenters who wanted to make coffee tables out of the old planks.
``If you look at the size of the boards, that would have been a real chore,'' she said.
Robert May said his wife had ``scared them off'' by making them feel bad.
The rain, wind and rough sea Thursday proved more than a match for the military reservists. Even the track and front-end loaders brought to the task by the 203rd Civil Engineering Flight of the Air National Guard could not get the huge chunk of schooner hull to budge.
Grey sea swirled at the ankles of the 15 ``Red Horse'' engineers and members of the Marine Air Control Squadron 24 as they worked to free the 45-foot-by-25-foot fragment.
Despite the low tide and what Tyler called a ``valiant effort,'' the sea deposited sand back around the wreck as soon as it was shoveled away.
``The weather beat us today. The waves and the surf were too much for us. We could not get the equipment into position because of the weather. There was just too much water.''
An earlier salvage attempt by the Marine unit on Nov. 29, without the use of heavy equipment, was equally unsuccessful.
If it can be dislodged, the wreckage will be taken to the rifle range at Camp Pendleton and put with other pieces found on the beach, including another 40-foot piece of the keel, a piece of the stern and a piece from the base of the mast. Experts would then be called in to identify the ship. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by LAWRENCE JACKSON, Staff
Members of the 203rd Civil Engineering Flight of the Air National
Guard and Marine Air Control Squadron 24 stand atop a
45-foot-by-25-foot wooden fragment of a ship that was uncovered by
Hurricane Gordon. The fragment is a half-mile south of Rudee Inlet.
KEYWORDS: SHIPWRECK by CNB