- Goodwin Sands
The Goodwin Sands are a 10-mile long
sand bank in theEnglish Channel , lying six miles east of Deal inKent ,England . More than 2,000 ships are believed to have been wrecked upon them and as a result, they are marked by numerouslightship s andbuoy s. Notable shipwrecks include the VOC ship "Rooswijk", "Stirling Castle" and the "South Goodwin Lightship ".There is currently a lightship on the end of the sands, on the farthest part out to warn ships. The sands were once covered by two
lighthouses on the Kent mainland, one each at the north and south ends of the sands. The southern lighthouse is now owned by the National Trust, and the northern one is still in operation.When hovercraft ran from
Dover they used to make occasional trips to the sands.An annual
cricket match was until 2003 played on the sands atlow tide , and a crew filming a reconstruction of this for theBBC television series "Coast" had to be rescued by theRamsgate lifeboat when they experienced difficulty in 2006. [cite web | url = http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/wisdencricketer/content/story/263587.html | title = Now that's a real wash-out | accessdate = 2008-08-22]Several
naval battle s have been fought nearby, including theBattle of Goodwin Sands in 1652 and theBattle of Dover Strait in 1917.Legend holds that the sands were once the fertile low-lying island of Lomea, often equated with an island known to the Romans as Infera Insula ("Low Island"). This, it is said, was owned in the first half of the 11th century by
Godwin, Earl of Wessex , after whom the sands are named. When he fell from favour, the land was given toSt. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury , whoseabbot failed to maintain thesea wall s, leading to the island's destruction, some say in a storm of 1099. However, the island is not mentioned inDomesday Book , suggesting that if it existed it may have been inundated before that work was compiled in 1085–86. [Origines Celticae (a Fragment) and Other Contributions to the History of Britain - Page 350, Edwin Guest, 1883 — [http://www.google.co.uk/books?id=v7ksAAAAMAAJ&q=%22As+Lomea+is+not+mentioned+in+Domesday,+it+was+probably+destroyed+before+that+compilation+was+made%22&dq=%22As+Lomea+is+not+mentioned+in+Domesday,+it+was+probably+destroyed+before+that+compilation+was+made%22&pgis=1 snippet] ] The earliest written record of the name "Lomea" seems to be in a 1590 work "De Rebus Albionicis" by a John Twyne (or Twine), but no authority for the island's existence is given. [The Kentish Coast, Charles G. Harper, 1914, page 231]Another theory is that the sands' name came from Anglo-Saxon "gōd wine" = "good friend", an ironic name given by sailors.
In 1974 a plan was put forward to build a third London airport on the Goodwin Sands, with a huge harbour complex, but the idea faded into obscurity.
hipwrecks on the Sands
17th century
*John, the son of
Phineas Pett of Chatham, was involved in an ordeal in the beginning of October 1624, when occurred: "a wonderful great storm, through which many ships perished, especially in the Downs, amongst which was riding there the "Antelope" of his Majesty, being bound for Ireland under the command of Sir Thomas Button, my son John then being a passenger in her. A merchant ship, being put from her anchors, came foul of her, and put her also from all her anchors, by means whereof she drove upon the brakes [the Sands] , where she beat off her rudder and much of the run abaft, miraculously escaping utter loss of all, for that the merchant ship that came foul of her, called the "Dolphin", hard by her utterly perished, both ship and all the company. Yet it pleased God to save her, and got off into the downs, having cut all her masts by the board, and with much labour was kept from foundering." (From the "Autobiography" of Phineas Pett.)Phineas received news of the shipwreck at Deal, and was dispatched by the Lord Admiral to attend to the ship and use his best means to save her. He used chain pumps, replaced the rudder, and fitted jury masts, by which effort she was safely brought to Deptford Dock.
*In 1690 HMS "Vanguard", a 90-gun
second-rate ship of the line , struck the Sands, but was fortunate enough to be got off by the boatmen of Deal.Great Storm of 1703
In the the Great Storm at least 13 men of war and 40 merchant vessels were wrecked in the Downs, with the loss of 2,168 lives and 708 guns. Yet, to their great credit, the Deal boatmen were able to rescue 200 men from this ordeal.
Naval vessels lost to the sands included:
*HMS "Northumberland" Deptford built, and, from there locally manned, lost with all hands
*HMS "Restoration" Deptford built, and, from there locally manned, lost with all hands; also
*HMS "Stirling Castle", a 70-gun third rate built at Deptford in 1679.
*the Woolwich fourth-rate HMS "Mary" was totally overwhelmed with the loss of 343 men.
*the boom ship "HMS Mortar " was lost with all of her 65 crew.19th-20th century
The
brig "Mary White" was wrecked on the Sands in a storm in 1851; seven men of her crew were rescued by the lifeboat fromBroadstairs .The
Radio Caroline vessel MV "Ross Revenge " drifted onto the Sands in November 1991, effectively ending the era of offshore pirate radio in Britain.Literary references
William Shakespeare mentions them in "The Merchant of Venice ", Act 3 Scene 1::Why, yet it lives there uncheck'd that Antonio hath:a ship of rich lading wrecked on the narrow seas;:the Goodwins, I think they call the place; a very:dangerous flat and fatal, where the carcasses of many:a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my gossip:Report be an honest woman of her word.Herman Melville mentions them in "Moby-Dick ", Chapter VII, The Chapel::In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included; why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands...R. M. Ballantyne , the noted Scottish writer of adventure stories, published "The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands" in 1870.W. H. Auden quotes the phrase "to set up shop on Goodwin Sands" in his poem "In Sickness and in Health." This is a proverbial expression meaning to be shipwrecked. [C. Merton Babcock, The Language of Melville's "Isolatoes", "Western Folklore," Vol. 10, No. 4. (Oct., 1951), pp. 285-289 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-373X%28195110%2910%3A4%3C285%3ATLOM%22%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J] ; W. Carew Hazlitt, "English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases," London, 1869, p. 430.]G. K. Chesterton 's poem " [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rolling_English_Road The Rolling English Road] " refers to "the night we went toGlastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands."Ian Fleming refers to the Goodwin Sands in Moonraker, one of theJames Bond novels, as well as making them a major plot point in his children's storyChitty Chitty Bang Bang .References
Further reading
* Richard Larn and Bridget Larn - "Shipwrecks of the Goodwin Sands" (Meresborough Books, 1995) ISBN 0-948193-84-0
External links
* [http://www.whitecliffscountry.org.uk/heritage/goodwins.asp An historical sketch, including a map of the sands and their environs]
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