SS: City of Lincoln Traditional Cache
Related Web Page
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
A slightly more challenging cache that forms part of the Shipwreck Series. For the series methodology and more info visit SS: Shipwreck Series via the related web page link. This cache can be accessed from Die Dam. Camp overnight or do a day picnic for R10 per person and R15 for the car. No day visitors 15 Dec - 15 Jan. This section can be done as a walk (park the car at the Barbara Gordon cache) or by 4x4.
The City of Lincoln ran aground at 02h44 on 9 November 1946. Two salvage tugs were sent to transfer cargo and possibly refloat her.
Jan Fourie, famous Gansbaaier and local historian, describes in "Duskant die Duine" how as a child he witnessed the salvaging of the City of Lincoln:
"A fishing boat was used by the custom officials to transport the valuable cargo from the wreck to the settlement of Buffeljag. Apart from a cargo worth 2 million pounds, there were 13 new Dodge and Plymouth cars on board. These cars were purchased for the visit of the English Royal family that was to take place in 1947. Several of these cars had been thrown overboard."
Jan remembers how many years later he spotted a car-engine in the water at the same place; the only item remaining of what should have been a proud car serving a royal visit. Custom officials clearly did not have all under control. Jan Fourie writes how custom officials only became suspicious when domestic staff showed up at the local cinema in expensive fur-coats. A Caterpillar earth-moving machine was salvaged from the City of Lincoln and has ploughed the local fields for many years.
The City of Lincoln was later refloated, but the casualties were - The Swona, a 313 ton salvage vessel built in 1925 and owned by the salvage expert Capt Van Delden (unfortunately Capt Van Delden was killed when a hatch-cover on board the City of Lincoln blew off). The Shona lost her propeller and anchored to await assistance. A north-west gale caused her cables to part and she ran aground. and the Fynd (a 167 ton salvage vessel also owned by Capt Van Delden) got tangled with the cables and both vessels shared the fate of the City of Lincoln and ended up on the beach. Their remains can still be seen there today.
And the reason for the disaster? Simple: three of the officers on duty were drunk.
The City of Lincoln was finally towed off on March 10, 1947, after one of the greatest efforts in South African salvage history. For three years she then lay in Cape Town docks until finally she was stripped and sunk on May 6, 1950. On Saturday, May 6, the tug T.S. McEwan towed the stripped bulk of the City of Lincoln to the ships' graveyard off Robben Island where she was bombed and sunk by South African Air Force Spitfires and Venturas. It was just over three years prior to this, that the same tug triumphantly towed the City of Lincoln into Table Bay Harbour after she had been pulled off the rocks at Quoin Point. Bombs finished the job that they failed to do during the war years when the City of Lincoln ran the gauntlet to Malta.
Holed by only one direct hit, the battered ship broke her back, the fore section disappeared and the last pathetic remnant with the Red Ensign still fluttering astern rose into the air and then slipped quickly into the sea. The former chief officer of the City of Lincoln then dropped a wreath on to the waters as a last tribute.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Va frn-snpvat ubyr
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures