Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/575

 THE SANDBINaHAU. 563 �The plan of operations was to heave on the cable and take advan- tage of every tide to draw the ship off the sand-beach ; to lighten her by taking ofif cotton, and shipping the baies on tugs and schooners to Norfolk ; to keep down the leakage by active pumping ; and to pump out the great weight of water in the ballast tank. �There were rough weather and strong ocean swells during four or five of the several days during which the work was going on, which made it neeessary to pass the cotton from the deck over the port side of the ship, which was considerably listed upon her starboard side, to let it down into surf-boats run under her port side, and to carry it in these surf-boats across the breakers to the steamers and schooners outside. The weather and swell of the ocean were sueh during these days that these steamers and schooners could not corne inside of the breakers without great danger. The work was the more tedious because it could not go on at night. Capt. Nelson says in bis testi- mony: �" There was a line of breakers outside of where the ship was lying, from 100 to 150 yards wide, where it is dangerous to cross during the day; and theref ore I wouldn't undertalie to do such thiugs at night. I was satisfied the [surf j boats would swamp if I did undertake it, and therefore I wouldn't run the risk of losing beats and men's lives. We couldn't work on the ship [at night] for the reason we couldn't see how to work in lowering cargo into the boats, and couldn't have lights in the hold of the ship loaded with cotton." �The weather was at times such that the vessels receiving cotton from the surf-boats found it neeessary to put into Lynhaven bay at night. The surf-boats were pulled out across the breakers by their crews taking hold of a lead-line that was stretched from the ship to the vessel receiving the cotton outside. Occasionally they were rowed out when the weather would permit. The surf-boats were rowed back by their crews, and were towed, on one day by a tug, out to the windward from the receiving vessels, in order to give them a fair wind to return to the Sandringham by rowing. Owing to the danger attending the lifting of the baies over the port side of the ship and letting them down into the open boats tossed on the waves below, and the small number of baies that could be carried in each boat, the process of saving the cotton was slow and tedious ; but there were saved in this manner on the seventh, eighth, ninth, and eleventh of Noveraber an aggregate of 573 baies. �It was fortunate tot the ship that the wreckers sucoeeded in mak- ing fast their cable to her af t port before night on the 6th, the night ��� �