Jersey Shore Magazine

j e r s e y s h o r e • s p r i n g 2 0 1 4 37 maritime economy and the environ- ment, defend U.S. maritime borders, and save those in peril. It is respon- sible for the upkeep and maintenance of federal aids to navigation, includ- ing buoys, lighthouses, day beacons, and radio-navigation signals Lifesaving The U.S. Life-Saving Station Sandbars, shallow waters, and win- ter storms off the New Jersey Shore were a constant danger to sailing ves- sels. The wind and waves of storms could destroy a helpless, grounded ship, its cargo, and its crew and pas- sengers in a few hours. Few people could survive a three hundred-yard swim in forty-degree, storm-tossed surf. Even if a few sail- ors managed somehow to reach the beach in winter, they stood a good chance of perishing from exposure on the largely uninhabited shore. On January 2, 1837, for example, the American bark Mexico wrecked on the New Jersey coast and all one hundred twelve emigrant passengers on board were lost. According to Park Service historian Tom Hoffman, in a ten-year span, one hundred fifty ships were wrecked along the coast. Subsequently, in 1848, the federal government started the United States Life-Saving Service to establish sta- tions along the coast. The Spermaceti Cove Station, which went into operation in 1849, housed the men who risked their lives saving shipwreck victims. Surfmen stationed on Sandy Hook rescued hundreds of passengers from ships wrecked along the coast. The Station was rebuilt two times, most recently in 1894. In 1915, the Life- Saving Service became the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Spermaceti Cove #2 Life-Saving Station was used until 1946. It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The life-saving equipment evolved and varied according to rescue con- ditions. It included a lifeboat and a lifeline fired from shore to ships in distress. In the beginning, a podlike lifecar was shuttled between shore and ship. Later, a lighter breeches continued on page 38 The Gun That Saved Thousands I n 1875, a request was made by the Secretary of the Treasury to develop prac- tical improvements in life-saving apparatus. This request got bogged down from one bureacratic department to another, and in 1877, the assignment was handed to David A. Lyle, a young U.S. West Point Military Academy graduate who had been commissioned as a second lieutenant. Lyle's task was to figure out how to accurately "throw" a line to a ship that had run aground offshore to rescue its passengers. Previous attempts using mortar and rockets had been, at best, partial and unreliable due in part to problems with wet powder, ineffective ignition, equipment that was not easily transported, line fouling, and the need for higher elevations. Lyle worked assiduously on the problem, first in Springfield, Massachusetts and then, because of public safety con- cerns, he moved to Sandy Hook Proving Grounds in 1878 to develop and refine the effective combination of metallurgy, gun, carriage, charge, and pro- jectile design to be successful. After numerous tests, Lyle decided upon bronze for the gun (because it was salt resis- tant), an oak carriage (for its light weight), eight ounces of navy cannon pow- der, seventeen-pound projectiles, and lines approximately 1/8" to 1/4" thick. He found that with this combination a line could reliably reach a target at a range of four hundred yards. What he developed became the model for the next seventy-five years. Shortly before he retired at the rank of a colonel in 1909, the Lyle Guns were credited with saving nearly 4,500 lives of shipwrecked persons. They remained in production until 1952. On Sandy Hook, at the Spermaceti Cove Station, there is a reminder of the days of the Lyle Gun. On the beach in front of the Station is a curious looking pole with a "Y" configuration. The pole, historically called a "wreck pole" or a "drill pole," was used to simulate the mast of a grounded ship and was used for rescue drills and target practice with the Lyle Gun. According to United States Life-Saving Service regulations, the life-saving crews had their "Beach Apparatus Drill" on a Wednesday or Thursday with a line-throwing Lyle Gun, lines, breeches buoy, and other equipment, all of which were transported on a "Beach Cart" once a week. The life-saving crew would use a Lyle Gun to shoot a heavy steel shot with a line attached over the wreck. If the shot line floated down across one of the yard arms, the line would then slide down to the crows nest where one or two surfmen could grab it and then pull on it to haul a heavier line from the life-saving crew down on the beach. That heavier line could be brought up to the crows nest and secured to the wreck pole. Still another line was brought out to the pole and secured near the top of it. This line, called the hawser, supported the breeches buoy that hung suspended from the hawser and could be pulled back and forth to rescue people off the shipwreck. u Life-saving crew and cart with the Lyle Gun. The "drill pole" or "wreck pole." Gordon Hesse Courtesy of Michael "Spike" fowler

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