![]() The introduction of the steamboat resulted in a dramatic change, for the sleek new steam packets were designed specifically to carry passengers. The sailing vessels proved no match for the elements, especially when hurricanes struck newspapers throughout the colonies frequently printed reports of shipwrecks during storms.Įven the largest sailing craft-brigs, barks, and schooners-seldom carried a crew of more than a dozen or so and only a handful of passengers, if any. ![]() As the Carolina settlement grew, seaborne traffic increased between the ports of the colony and its trading partners in such divergent places as New York, Barbados, and London. The carnage started early, with the loss of Spanish ships returning home via the Gulf Stream route after looting the treasure troves of the Caribbean and Central America.Įarly explorers and colonists, including those sent by England's Sir Walter Raleigh, suffered their share of misfortunes. Undoubtedly hundreds more were lost before accurate records were kept, or they simply disappeared without a trace. The loss of more than 1,000 vessels has been verified in the shipwreck inventory conducted at the Outer Banks History Center on Roanoke Island. Also, it was difficult for a mariner unfamiliar with the low-lying coastline to figure out the difference between an inlet and a low section of beach, and more than one shipwreck resulted when the master finally realized that the inlet toward which he had been heading was a mirage. ![]() Inlets had a tendency to close without warning, and the channels in even the more established ones shifted nonstop. The absence of a dependable harbor of refuge between Chesapeake Bay and Beaufort Inlet, a distance of more than 200 miles, also contributed to the enormous toll of shipping, especially along the Outer Banks. Often, when the shift finally came and the wind blew suddenly from the north, one or more of the tacking vessels would end up on the shore. Old-timers at Kinnakeet, north of the cape, have recounted seeing as many as 150 sailing ships, tacking back and forth, waiting for the wind to change. ![]() During the heyday of the coasting trade in the nineteenth century, southbound sailing vessels often were unable to round Cape Hatteras for weeks because of the combined forces of the steady northbound Gulf Stream flow and the prevailing winds from the southwest. There, the cold waters flowing down the coast from the north collide with the warm Gulf Stream current coursing up from the tropics. In the vicinity of the North Carolina capes, where the sand shoals are in constant flux, the outline of an entire vessel can be visible to a diver one day but indiscernible beneath the sand the next.Ĭonditions at Cape Hatteras, long dreaded by mariners, are a major reason for the large number of shipwrecks. At another, the eerie hulk of a German submarine rises from the ocean floor. Shipwrecks in past centuries were so prevalent along the North Carolina coast-the shallow waters offshore strewn with the ruins of wrecked vessels-that the area became known as the " Graveyard of the Atlantic." At one spot, part of the pilothouse of a recently sunken trawler almost touches the skeletonlike timbers of a wooden schooner. See also: Graveyard of the Atlantic Huron, USS Lifesaving Service, U.S.
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