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NY TIMES: Published: November
10, 1895
A BIG STEAMSHIP'S FATE
- Now Only a Prey for Seaside Relic Hunters.
THE GLUCKAUF AT FIRE ISLAND
For Over Two Years a Plaything for the Surf and a
Curiosity for Summer Strollers Along the Beach.
On the 24th of March, 1893, just before dawn, and during a
slight snow squall, the German tramp steamship Gluckauf,
an oil tank boat of 2,000 tons, chartered by the Standard
Oil Company, went ashore on Fire Island beach, opposite
Sayville, about fifty miles from New-York, on the south
side of Long Island. The men from the Blue Point Life
Saving Station were promptly on hand, and the Captain and
crew of the ship were brought ashore without trouble, for
the sea was not rough. In fact, it was so calm a night
that a rumor went along the coast to the effect that the
grounding of the Gluckauf showed curious lack of care; she
was insured for $200,000 in German companies, and was said
at the time to be worth twice that sum. At all events, she
grounded on the outer bar and a storm coming up the next
day, before wrecking steamers could reach the spot, she
was driven, bow on, right to the beach. Had she gone a
thousand feet further she would have cut the Blue Point
Life Saving Station in two. With her bow clear of the
sand, so that a man could walk under her keel, the surf
broke over her stern, and, at high tide, all along her
starboard side.
For a few weeks it was hoped that the wrecking companies
might get her off, and some thousands of dollars were
spent in attempts to pull her from the sand at high tide.
With every day's delay, however, she seemed to sink deeper
into the sand, and when another storm opened a breach in
her hold and poured in hundreds of tons of sand all hope
was abandoned. She was stripped of most of her rigging,
engines, fittings of every portable description, and left
there for the sea to break up.
It's an ill wind that blows no good. The loss of a fine
steamship cost German stock holders some hundreds of
thousands of dollars; but it gave to the Summer population
of Patchogue, Sayville, Blue Point, and a dozen other
villages along the Great South Bay a curiosity which,
during the last, three Summers, has been of more interest
than a sea serpent-a big ship, 300 feet long, still in
apparently fair condition, and right on the beach, where
every one can climb aboard and wander all over it. Whoever
the owners of the ill-fated Gluckauf may be, they make no
objection to having the ship used as the playground of the
thousands of visitors who climb up her sides every Summer.
There she lies, a forlorn and helpless monster, bearing on
her bows " Gluckauf" in big brass letters a foot long,
meaning " good luck," or " lucky one "-- the irony of
fate. If you have a small boat astern of your sloop, you
can row ashore at the Blue Point Life Saving- Station and
find yourself at the spot. But a sailboat draws too much
water, and has to land at the
docks at Water Island, a local beach resort about a mile
west of the Gluckauf. For miles before you reached Water
Island you can see the masts and the bow of the steamer;
on a clear day she can easily be distinguished from the
train on the Long Island Railway, if you know where to
look for her. On the ocean beach she is visible for ten
miles either way, if there is not too much mist from the
surf. Watching her from the bay, on the sail across from
the mainland, it looks exactly as if she was trying to get
across the Fire Island beach into the quiet waters of the
Great South Buy.
Since she came ashore three years ago the sea has dug a
pit at the stern. With the result that the bow is steadily
rising. She is also canted over at a sharper angle. From
the land, or port, side. a wire cable hangs over the side,
enabling visitors with any ambition to climb the twenty
feet to the deck. Until last year there was a rope ladder
provided, but the privilege was abused by relic hunters,
the last one carrying off the ladder with him, and now the
wire Cable has to suffice, and it does suffice for most
men and for lots of women. From the deck the view is a
fine one, especially if the tide is high and a good surf
crashes against the other side. Each incoming wave or
breaker meets the iron sides of the ship with a tremendous
crash that sends the spray forty feet into the air. The
ship shakes from stem to stern, and the wonder is that, if
a July surf can produce this effect, how anything is left
after a January pounding. Having recovered breath from
your climb, you make the tour of the ship, holding on to
the rail most of the way; the deck is almost at an angle
of 45 degrees. Of the four masts three remain. The fourth
was cut away the night the ship came ashore. Everywhere
are evidences of the marvelous power of the waves - iron
bars an inch thick twisted as if made of wax: bits of
machinery weighing tons tossed 40 feet out of place; bolts
too heavy for a man to lift torn out and hanging in the
rigging.
It is a common thing for people who visit great steamships
to exclaim as they examine the massive fittings, that it
is incredible that seething water could create havoc and
make playthings of such ponderous things. Let them climb
aboard the Gluckauf where everything bears the mark of the
ocean's fury - where nothing is quite erect or straight,
or whole, where everything is bent, twisted or broken.
Down in the main cabin, by means of the now crazy steel
stairs, the impact of the surf reverberates like thunder,
driving the more timid visitors to the deck. Bits of
seaweed and sand fill what once was a comfortable cabin.
Everything that man or the elements could carry away is
gone. In the cook's galley souvenir hunters have even
pried up the encaustic tiles; every bolt or nut that could
be unscrewed has been taken. Made bold by familiarity and
the absence of any caretaker, people have brought axes,
saws, and hatchets with them with which to hack away
trophies. What they cannot carry away they disfigure. Some
wretched vandals even succeeded this Summer in tearing
away two of the brass letters of the name "Gluckauf," on
the port side. The letters K and F are gone. Those who
carried off the K and the F must have had a cold chisel
with them. A recent visitor managed to chop off a copper
bolt from one of the hatches: later he had the name of the
Gluckaut, with the date, engraved upon it for a young
woman who wanted a paper weight. Where people have failed
to get a piece of the Gluckauf, they have vented their
spite in scribbling their insignificant names in
conspicuous places, upon the masts especially. Worse than
that, some pill-maker has scrawled the name of his nostrum
in letters 3 feet high on the sides of the ship. It
appears to be only a question of time when every available
square foot will be covered by these signs which deface
our trees, fences, and big rocks. It was here on this
beach last year that a Long Island genius plastered the
advertisement of his cough syrup upon the broad back of a
dead whale that drifted ashore.
The Long Island coast has many wrecks to boast of besides
the Gluckauf, but as a rule they last only a few weeks or
months. There was the Louis V. Place, that came ashore a
year ago last Winter, and of which' not a vestige remains.
She was a wooden vessel. Iron seems to defy the surf. The
mains of the boilers and engines of the steamship
Franklin, wrecked off Bellport in 1848 are still there. It
may, therefore, take half a century before the Gluckauf
ceases to be an object of Interest. |
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