The Jan. 22 Gazette Chronicle had a note regarding the wreck of the steamer City of Columbus off Gay Head. The article includes thought that if the steamer had deviated from its course, the tragic accident would not have happened and 121 people would have not died. A small “deviation of its course would have seen the vessel safely over Devil’s Bridge.” I have been fortunate to have dived the remains of the City of Columbus and run side scan sonar about the site, hence a deviation more to the west than to the east would have probably resulted in safe passage.

Another incident had a similar, but fortunately, far less tragic situation. In the 1990s, the Queen Elizabeth II left Vineyard Sound for New York. As it traveled just southeast of Cuttyhunk, it neatly went over a shallow glacial erratic that really tore into the ship’s bottom. The QEII was doubled hull and little or no leakage occurred. All passengers were evacuated safely. The QE II hit seven rocks on the erratic that really made a starboard to port series of linear holes in the outer hull, lodged rocks between the inner and outer hull, and made those sections look like an old washboard. If the QEII had traversed either a football field length to the north or to the south, that incident wouldn’t have been one either!

H. Arnold Carr
Oak Bluffs