Cape Race

by Robert C. Parsons

  A year later it encountered a German U-boat off Halifax. Captain Cluett, Mate Mike Brown, and his crew were ordered off and the Hollett shelled. The schooner fell over on its side but did not sink. After the crew had rowed to Halifax and reported the incident, the schooner was towed in and repaired.

  Five years later it went down in the Atlantic westbound to Newfoundland. The salt-laden Gladys M. Hollett was 65 days out from Oporto and headed to its home port when it became stuck in Arctic drift ice in mid-March. For weeks the schooner was battered in floes until planks near the bow weakened and began to leak.

  Hollett’s Captain Brown, presumably the same Brown who was mate during the U-boat incident, ordered the crew to man the pumps continuously. On March 29, water in the holds was four feet high; the next day it was discovered the schooner’s rudder case had split. After Gladys M. Hollett’s crew were provisioned, for they had run short of food, a tow line was attached in the hope the vessel could be saved. The men worked hard, but the final blow came when the tow hawser from Sable I to the waterlogged schooner parted. Captain Brown decided to abandon ship.

  Taking whatever personal belongings they could, the Burin crew lowered the dory while Brown prepared to set her afire. When Sable I came back to re-attach the tow rope, it picked up the weary mariners and took them to St. John’s.

  In the era of sail, there were hundreds of Newfoundland-owned ships that left European or Canadian ports deeply laden with cargo destined for our island. Not all of them made it; some simply disappeared; others were more fortunate and crews were rescued. One of the most unusual stories of survival – an experience of shipwreck and hardship probably unsurpassed in the history of Newfoundland shipping – happened to seven Carbonear seamen off Cape Race. In the spring of 1923, the crew were Captain Thomas Janes, Mate Leonard Dale, Cook John Hynes, Moses Janes, John Vatcher, Walter Parrott, and Gordon Parrott.

  They were crew of the tern schooner A. B. Barteau, reportedly overdue after leaving Perth Amboy, New York, with a cargo of coal for the Gas Company of St. John’s. The 268-ton schooner left early February; by mid-month it was slated to arrive at St. John’s.

  Fears were expressed for A. B. Barteau’s safety, although it was considered an able vessel and one of the largest of Newfoundland’s fleet. Built in 1909 at Canning, Nova Scotia, its registry later passed to a group of businessmen of St. John’s (see chart above). The vessel measured 153 feet in overall length, 35 feet wide.

  Late winter of 1923 was an unusual one for Newfoundland shipping, for ice practically surrounded the island and lasted from February to mid-March. By February-March 1923, several Newfoundland vessels had been sunk, damaged by ice, or delayed in reaching port, including A. B. Barteau. One of the co-owners, Arthur Rendell, knowing his schooner was heavily laden, asked other ships to keep a lookout for it.

  Captain Janes sailed from New York on February 5, and for the first few days weather was fair. A week into the voyage, A. B. Barteau encountered the icefield off Cape Race. For some days Janes edged the tern through the small bergs, large pans of ice and slob.

  On February 20, about 75 miles southwest of Cape Race, A. B. Barteau seemed to be settling by the bow. Captain Janes went into the forecastle and then out onto the bowsprit to check how much freeboard the schooner had, or how deep it lay in the water. He hastily called all hands to the deck, for he realized Barteau was sinking fast. Apparently a pan of ice had stove in the bow.

  While the crew were cutting the lashings from the lifeboat and getting it to the side for launching, the heavily burdened tern went under. Without time to get extra clothes, oilskins, or provisions, the seven seamen jumped into the boat. Captain Janes was the last to leave, and in doing so fell into the slob ice up to his waist. Others had their boots filled with water.

  A. B. Barteau’s men were stranded in zero-degree weather amid a vast field of ice in an open boat. They had no food, fuel, or extra clothes, but with great determination headed toward land. For the most part they were on solid ice, but in case they reached open water, the men dragged their boat behind them.

  Pulling the boat slowed them down, and sometime after the first day, it was left behind. In the event the boat would be found later, the men attached a note to it which read:

  “Schooner A. B. Barteau, foundered February 20th, 1923. Crew left ship on the ice and are hoping to reach land. Finder of the boat, communicate with British Consul or A. S. Rendell & Co., St. John’s.”

  When darkness came, the men stopped to rest. Janes suffered the most, for his pants and boots were frozen on him. At night some men became frozen onto the ice and had to be cut out. For three days and nights the exhausted men plodded on; each hour the need for food and warm drink became more intense. They used every means to cheer each others spirit and to keep warm. At night they had only one oil coat to lie on.

  On the third night they rested behind a pinnacle of ice and stacked smaller pieces to make a crude windbreak. Mate Leonard Dale had a vision or harbinger of rescue. He felt they couldn’t survive another day and stayed alert all night, watching and praying.

  At 3: 00 a.m. on February 23, his persistence paid off, for he saw in the distance the lights of a vessel. He roused the others, propped up the oilskin, and set it afire.

  For anxious relatives and owners in Newfoundland, the first word that the A. B. Barteau’s crew had been saved came on March 6, 13 days after rescue. Survival came in the form of a Norwegian steamer.

  When Captain Mitchell on the Red Cross liner Silvia docked in St. John’s on March 6, he told the story of the SS Hauk. Mitchell had been asked, while he steamed from the mainland to Newfoundland, to keep a lookout for the overdue Barteau. What Mitchell sighted at 4: 00 p.m. on March 5 was the Norwegian steamer Hauk, also bound, like the A. B. Barteau had been, to St. John’s with coal.

  Hauk was south of Cape Race, slowed practically to a stop amid a sea of ice. The chief officer went aboard the Silvia to ascertain position and to ask about ice conditions. While aboard, he related the rescue of the seven men from the A. B. Barteau who had been stranded on the ice. Captain Mitchell offered to take them aboard Silvia, which was able to steam through the icefield, and transport the men to St. John’s. But they were badly frostbitten and were too ill to be transferred from one ship to another.

  Hauk had butted through ice until February 23, when its crew saw the flare of a fire, indicating distress. As the Hauk’s crew gathered on deck for a look, they could make out several men huddled on a pan of ice with a flare on a pole. Occasionally one or two of the men would stumble, only to be picked up by the others.

  For five hours the captain of the Norwegian vessel pushed through dangerous ice before the ship reached the ice pan holding A. B. Barteau’s crew. Another six icebound days passed before it reached St. John’s on March 6. Barteau‘s crew had been 11 days suffering and frostbitten before they received proper medical treatment.

  In the meantime, as the Hauk steamed for St. John’s, everything possible was done by the Hauk’s crew to relieve suffering. They cut off clothes that were frozen onto the shipwrecked men and gave them hot drink and food. Frostbitten hands and legs were rubbed with snow to draw out the frost.

  When Captain Janes, Mate Dale, and the other crew arrived in St. John’s, two doctors – Carnell and Knight – met them. Cook Hynes, Vatcher, and Captain Janes, who had the worst injuries, were sent to the General Hospital. Walter Parrott, not so badly frostbitten, was hospitalized at the Sudbury Hospital. Dale, who had a frostbitten toe, was sent home, while Moses Janes and Gordon Parrott were put up in the Kitchener Hotel. They were the only two who escaped unscathed from the wreck of A. B. Barteau and the three days stranded on ice floes.

  Captain Janes, despite the best of care and treatment aboard the Hauk and at the General Hospital, had to have both legs amputated. All in all, the crew was fortunate to escape from such uncompromising circumstances; only the captain had serious injuries.

  38

  Wreck of President Coaker

>   February 1924

  In October 1923, President Coaker left Port Union for Pernambuco (today named Recife), Brazil, with 4,607 quintals of dry codfish. President Coaker was not due back until the latter part of January or early February, as this was a round voyage that took two or three months to complete. It was due to return to Port Union in ballast, that is, with a cargo of sand or rocks for weight. From Port Union, President Coaker was due to take another load of fish to South America.

  Representatives of the Fisheries Protective Union (FPU), General Manager Hazen A. Russell in Port Union and Martin Finney in St. John’s, knew their tern had arrived in Pernambuco after a routine voyage of 32 days. On December 10, President Coaker left for Newfoundland. Nothing more was heard of the ship until early February 1924, and the news on that date was surrounded by uncertainty.

  The scene of the fate of President Coaker shifts to Shoe Cove, near the towns of Cappahayden and Renews.

  Shoe Cove, located six miles from Cappahayden and nine miles northward from Cape Race, is a remote, uninhabited spot and one of the loneliest on Newfoundland’s rugged southeast corner. The cove, over two miles long and containing three smaller coves, is over a quarter-mile from the road, which in 1924 meandered near the shoreline from Cappahayden to Chance Cove.

  On February 1 the local mailman, a man named Brazil, and his son walked along the road carrying mail to the various communities. For some unknown reason, Brazil asked his son to continue along the road with the mail while he walked seaward toward Shoe Cove.

  On the shoreline, which is bordered by huge cliffs and, in the central section numerous breaking rocks, Brazil saw wreckage of an unknown ship. Later that day he contacted the custom’s sub-collector at Renews, who wired this information to authorities in St. John’s:

  “Mail courier Brazil reports wreckage in Shoe Cove, near Cape Ballard. Leaving to investigate. Will wire particulars later.” (signed) Arthur O’Leary, Sub-collector.”

  President Coaker, soon due back from Brazil, was perhaps off that coast on this date. Fears surfaced that this might be the shipwrecked vessel. There was some speculation the wreckage might have belonged to Annie M. Parker, a two-masted schooner reported overdue. By that date, though, and unknown by its Newfoundland owners, Gabriel Hollett of Great Burin, Captain Joseph Hollett and his crew had been picked up from the sinking vessel and carried to Rotterdam, Holland. Parker’s crew had developed smallpox. One crewman from Burin, Reginald Deer, had died on the sea voyage, and the rest of the crew were detained in hospital in Holland, thus delaying considerably the news of their safety.

  Three groups of searchers, anxious to discover the name of the wreck in Shoe Cove, set out for the Cape Ballard area: O’Leary with a group of men from the surrounding localities, as well as company representative Martin Finney, left St. John’s for the southern shore by horse and slide. A tug, the SS H. A. Walker – owned at that time by Cashin & Company and captained by W. Dalton – was harboured at Renews and left for the area.

  As ominous as it was, the first news back to Port Union and St. John’s came from O’Leary’s group of men, who had descended the cliffs to the beach. Two messages, received by H. W. LeMessurier, Deputy Minister of Customs, read:

  “Just arrived at Shoe Cove. Picked up a sailor’s clothes bag, marked George House, Catalina, Newfoundland. Wreckage broken in matchwood. Would judge vessel lost about 100 tons.”

  “Have found nothing further to identify name of wreck. She was evidently a three-masted vessel and ashore for sometime.”

  Thomas Perry of Catalina wired customs officials in St. John’s, saying that George House of Catalina was one of the crew of President Coaker and that the schooner was 53 days out from Pernambuco to Port Union. The information was confirmed by Russell at Port Union and seemed to indicate the tern had been lost with crew.

  By late evening, February 2, there was little doubt the wreckage strewn around Shoe Cove was that of President Coaker. That day another clothes bag was found marked Harold Sheppard, but there was no sign of bodies. Captain Dalton of H. A. Walker had searched coves and the sea up the coast to Cape Race and had found no other debris from the wreck.

  A land search located President Coaker’s chains and anchors between Western Cove and Chance Cove Head, which formed the southwestern side of Shoe Cove; its rigging and small portions of the hull were found entangled around the rocks or among the cliffs. Embedded in the sandy beach of Western Cove, about one quarter of a mile beyond where the chains and anchors were located, was a 30-foot section of the vessel’s keel and portions of the timbers. This indicated the vessel was swept from Sandy Cove Rocks and shattered in pieces over the shores of Shoe Cove.

  One remarkable feature of the wreckage was that there was no sign of the ship’s boat or dory, and this gave rise to the belief that the men might not have been aboard when it struck. A small piece of an oar, broken slantwise, was picked up at Chance Cove, south of Chance Cove Head. Questions remained unanswered: Did the captain and crew leave President Coaker in a lifeboat? Was the vessel becalmed and later thrown on rocks by heavy seas? Was it impaled on the Sandy Cove Rocks and broken up?

  Martin Finney, in his report to Sir William Coaker, the man after whom the vessel was named, claimed the wreck was surely President Coaker; pieces of wreckage bore its registry numbers and tonnage.

  39

  Winnie and Vivian,

  Lost at Cape Race

  Spring 1925

  In the mid-1920s, the little schooner Winnie and Vivian fished the Grand Banks southwest of Newfoundland. The vessel was owned by Wareham’s business of Harbour Buffett, although Captain Sol Reid probably had some shares in the six-dory banker. It had been built in the vital and viable town of Spencer’s Cove, located on Long Island.

  However, Winnie and Vivian was on its first or maiden voyage to the Banks. It had a good load aboard, but that shouldn’t have caused it to be about 30 miles off course. The waters off Cape Race are renowned for treacherous insets of tide, and that, coupled with the seemingly ever-present banks of fog, have claimed many a fine ship, both before and after Winnie and Vivian.

  The vessel had a small engine and two engineers to keep it in tune; however, the schooner was described by most as “cutty, ” i.e. hard to keep on course. In addition, it had several inexperienced fishermen aboard, and even they were expected to take their turn at the wheel.

  It was daylight, but thick fog. Steaming in on a northwest course, the skipper was apprehensive about the vessel’s exact position. Off Cape Ballard Bank on Newfoundland’s southern shore, the captain ordered the sounding lead out. Water was deep. Winnie and Vivian proceeded on, carefully.

  The cook had the table laid for breakfast, but before anyone began to eat, the worst happened. Without warning, the schooner struck a gravelly shore, a beach near Cape Race. All the crew scrambled around, trying to determine the extent of the damage, hurrying to gather clothes bags and personal possessions in case their schooner was in a dangerous position.

  The end of Winnie and Vivian’s career, a short one, was settled when a crewman surveying the damage saw parts of the rudder float up alongside the vessel. Not only was the rudder smashed, the damaged rudder casing caused severe leaking, and no doubt some of the ship’s bottom was stove in.

  The 15 crew put over three dories, abandoned the schooner, and rowed into Trepassey. Within a few days, the new schooner was reduced to debris along the shoreline.

  40

  Shipwrecked in the Movies.

  Shipwrecked at Cripple Cove.

  June 1927

  The Nickel Theatre, the first movie house in St. John’s, began showing moving pictures in 1907. By the 1930s, the city had a dozen theatres, but the Nickel continued to remain popular. It charged five cents for any seat in the house.

  In early June 1927, it featured the movie Shipwrecked with the byline:

  “A ship’s cook finds and befriends a stowaway who is a fugitive from a murder charge.”

  Shipwrecked, base
d on a popular stage play, takes place on board a ship bound for the South Seas. One of the passengers is escaped criminal Lois Austin (Seena Owen), who falls in love with galley hand Larry O’Neil (Joseph Schildkraut).

  In turn, Austin is lusted after by the ship’s captain, but before he can make his move, the vessel is wrecked in a storm. The captain and the crew jump ship, leaving O’Neil and Austin to fend for themselves. The couple lands on an extradition-free South Sea island, where they hope to start life anew – until that pesky captain makes a surprise reappearance.

  The title subject matter was one Newfoundlanders knew all too well; moviegoers flocked to the Nickel on opening night, June 9, to watch a fictional story of a distressed ship. Ironically, on that same date, a crew of a French vessel fought for their lives in the cold northern seas when their ship, Alvina, ran aground at Cape Race.

  The French schooner Alvina, owned by La Morue Francaise and bound to St. Pierre with a cargo of cement, struck the rocks at Cripple Cove. The first intimation of the mishap came to J. J. Collins at the Cape Race Marconi Station on the morning of June 6. It read:

  Four-masted schooner Alvina of St. Malo ashore immediately west of Cripple Cove, near Cape Race. Ice patrol ship Tampa going to assistance.

  Collins received the message from Trepassey and relayed it to St. John’s. About noon, the Honourable Tasker Cook, the French Consul (unofficial) at St. John’s, received a wire bearing a few more details of the incident.