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Monday, April 16, 2007
SE WIND 10 TO 15 KT...BECOMING S 20 TO 25 KT LATER IN THE MORNING...VEERING TO SW IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 1 FOOT...BUILDING TO 5 FT THIS AFTERNOON. W SWELL 8 FT AT 12 SECONDS.
This was the scene of the U.S. Navy's worst peacetime maritime disaster...off Point Honda, within Vandenburg Air Force Base...in 1923...from the Navy website:
The Navy's greatest navigational tragedy took place in September 1923 at an isolated California coastal headland locally known as Honda Point. Officially called Point Pedernales, Honda is a few miles from the northern entrance of the heavily-traveled Santa Barbara Channel. Completely exposed to wind and wave, and often obscured by fog, this rocky shore has claimed many vessels, but never more at one stroke than at about 9 PM on the dark evening of 8 September 1923, when seven nearly new U.S. Navy destroyers and twenty-three lives were lost there.
Just over twelve hours earlier Destroyer Squadron ELEVEN left San Francisco Bay and formed up for a morning of combat maneuvers. In an important test of engineering efficiency, this was followed by a twenty-knot run south, including a night passage through the Santa Barbara Channel. In late afternoon the fourteen destroyers fell into column formation, led by their flagship, USS Delphy. Poor visibility ensured that squadron commander Captain Edward H. Watson and two other experienced navigators on board Delphy had to work largely by the time-honored, if imprecise, technique of dead reckoning. Soundings could not be taken at twenty knots, but they checked their chartwork against bearings obtained from the radio direction finding (RDF) station at Point Arguello, a few miles south of Honda. At the time they expected to turn into the Channel, the Point Arguello station reported they were still to the northward. However, RDF was still new and not completely trusted, so this information was discounted, and DesRon 11 was ordered to turn eastward, with each ship following Delphy.
However, the Squadron was actually several miles north, and further east, than Delphy's navigators believed. It was very dark, and almost immediately the ships entered a dense fog. About five minutes after making her turn, Delphy slammed into the Honda shore and stuck fast. A few hundred yards astern, USS S.P. Lee saw the flagship's sudden stop and turned sharply to port, but quickly struck the hidden coast to the north of Delphy. Following her, USS Young had no time to turn before she ripped her hull open on submerged rocks, came to a stop just south of Delphy and rapidly turned over on her starboard side. The next two destroyers in line, Woodbury and Nicholas, turned right and left respectively, but also hit the rocks. Steaming behind them, USS Farragut backed away with relatively minor damage, USS Fuller piled up near Woodbury, USS Percival and Somers both narrowly evaded the catastrophe, but USS Chauncey tried to rescue the men clinging to the capsized Young and herself went aground nearby. The last four destroyers, Kennedy, Paul Hamilton, Stoddert and Thompson successfully turned clear of the coast and were unharmed. In the darkness and fog enveloping the seven stranded ships, several hundred crewmen were suddenly thrown into a battle for survival against crashing waves and a hostile shore.
Just over twelve hours earlier Destroyer Squadron ELEVEN left San Francisco Bay and formed up for a morning of combat maneuvers. In an important test of engineering efficiency, this was followed by a twenty-knot run south, including a night passage through the Santa Barbara Channel. In late afternoon the fourteen destroyers fell into column formation, led by their flagship, USS Delphy. Poor visibility ensured that squadron commander Captain Edward H. Watson and two other experienced navigators on board Delphy had to work largely by the time-honored, if imprecise, technique of dead reckoning. Soundings could not be taken at twenty knots, but they checked their chartwork against bearings obtained from the radio direction finding (RDF) station at Point Arguello, a few miles south of Honda. At the time they expected to turn into the Channel, the Point Arguello station reported they were still to the northward. However, RDF was still new and not completely trusted, so this information was discounted, and DesRon 11 was ordered to turn eastward, with each ship following Delphy.
However, the Squadron was actually several miles north, and further east, than Delphy's navigators believed. It was very dark, and almost immediately the ships entered a dense fog. About five minutes after making her turn, Delphy slammed into the Honda shore and stuck fast. A few hundred yards astern, USS S.P. Lee saw the flagship's sudden stop and turned sharply to port, but quickly struck the hidden coast to the north of Delphy. Following her, USS Young had no time to turn before she ripped her hull open on submerged rocks, came to a stop just south of Delphy and rapidly turned over on her starboard side. The next two destroyers in line, Woodbury and Nicholas, turned right and left respectively, but also hit the rocks. Steaming behind them, USS Farragut backed away with relatively minor damage, USS Fuller piled up near Woodbury, USS Percival and Somers both narrowly evaded the catastrophe, but USS Chauncey tried to rescue the men clinging to the capsized Young and herself went aground nearby. The last four destroyers, Kennedy, Paul Hamilton, Stoddert and Thompson successfully turned clear of the coast and were unharmed. In the darkness and fog enveloping the seven stranded ships, several hundred crewmen were suddenly thrown into a battle for survival against crashing waves and a hostile shore.
Local Report:
Headed out at 0500 this morning direct to N coast. On arrival the low tide was minimizing the size and spreading the peaks out to close out. Knowing that a brutal S wind was brewing I hauled sac to Shorties where I lone rangered it and scored some good crappy waves until the wind demolished anything rideable. After my therapy session I was debating whether or not to grub on some Muchas when I noticed that each time I rounded a bend there was some offshore spray patterns. Upon further investigation and a full stomach, spot 1 was recieving an onslaught of offshores. I jumped in to catch a few fun ones in front of the rocks until the wind caught my board during a kernupt kick out and took off like a kite. Whereupon my board dragging and skipping me along the surface finally came to rest just where a right was reeling off some nice sandbar hightide action. Burned up the Muchas and headed home. Pretty good trip considering the reports.
~pra
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4 comments:
I hope you're not going to leave us hanging here Doc.......part2......mebbe even a part3 coming down the pipe?
I'll see what I can figger out...as long as you pm me regular surf reports on what I missed...like, religion...
I lived in Lompoc as a kid...I never heard a word about this...
It's quite a story. The Jalama Store has for many years had a framed copy of the local newspaper from 1923 covering the shipwrecks up in the dining room. There are some photos up as well.
That almost sounds like a Monty Python skit
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