Annual Report of the Operations
of the United States Life-Saving Service for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1895:
Captain R.B.K. Murphy
and his son, L.C. Murphy, were drowned November 24, 1894, by the capsize of a
spritsail fishing boat Friskey on Oregon Inlet Bar, coast of North Carolina (Sixth
District) under the following circumstances:
On the morning of the 24th
the surf in the vicinity of the inlet was only moderately high, but the wind
was fresh from the northeast and the weather was threatening. Under these
rather unpropitious circumstances two fishing boats went out early in the day
to pursue their customary occupation, but the sea soon began to make up fast
under the effects of the increasing wind, and they therefore abandoned their
work and returned inside the inlet.
Notwithstanding this
fact, of which Captain Murphy could hardly have been unaware, since it was well
known as far distant as the life-saving station two miles away, he put in order
the boat of which he had charge and soon sailed out of the inlet, shaping his
course to the northward. There was no person in the boat save Captain Murphy
and his son, both of whom were expert in the management of fishing craft, the
captain himself being a man of sixty years and of long experience in the
business of offshore fishing. To these facts is ascribed the boldness, not to
say folly, of their conduct in proceeding to sea after other competent men who
had already tested the conditions deemed it prudent to return to harbor.
By noonday rain was
falling, the wind strong, and the surf tumbling heavily on the beach, while the
sea was breaking far out on the bars; but there was nothing to show that
Captain Murphy had yet made up his mind that the situation has assumed a
dangerous aspect. There were no signs of his return, and he was still
presumably busy with his net to the northward, in which direction he was last
seen.
Along toward 3 o’clock,
however, a spritsail boat was discovered making tpr the shore, and Keeper M.W.
Etheridge of the Oregon Inlet Life-Saving Station, who knew the boat to be that
in charge of Captain Murphy, and therefore bound for the inlet, took his marine
glass and ascended the station lookout to keep himself informed of the progress
of the boat, and to be ready for action if mishap should overtake her. When she
was still nearly a mile offshore she was observed to be laying her course
directly homeward, and as the sea was constantly growing heavier, and there was
a strong flood tide, causing the surf to break with much force on the outer
bar, the keeper’s anxious hope that she might pass the perilous line in safety
gave way to despair the instant he saw her enter the breakers. At almost the
first contact with them the little craft fell off suddenly, and then, as a
great wave struck her on the starboard quarter, fully broached to, rolled over
and remained upside down, with one man visible on the upturned bottom.
A boat belonging to one
of the station crew was afloat just inside the inlet, and the keeper instantly
send his No. 1 man with four surfmen, running as fast as they could go, to man
it, while he and Surfman Hayman, seizing a number of cork jackets, ran up the
beach toward the scene of the accident at the top of their speed. On arriving
abreast of the capsized boat they could see no person upon it or in its
vicinity and then made the discovery that it was held fast, right where the
capsize had occurred, by the anchor which had fallen out and taken hold of the
ground. The breakers were sweeping over it with such force and volume that it
was almost constantly submerged, and the opinion of the life-saving men was
unanimous that the ablest boatman could not have held on to it for five
minutes. Evidently both men were drowned within that space of time. They were
excellent swimmers, but no man could long contend with the waters surrounding
them.
The loss of these two
men was clearly not preventable in any way from the shore. The boat afloat near
the mouth of the inlet which the life-savers proposed to use, was by all odds
the readiest means of rescue at hand, but no crew could have pulled it to the
scene before the two fishermen perished. Only one of them succeeded in getting
hold of the capsized boat at all, the other never having been seen after she
went over.
Why the boat, in the
hands of an experienced surfman, should have capsized at the very first
encounter with the breakers, would at first excite surprise, but strangely
enough for a man of his experience, it appears that Captain Murphy attempted to
steer at a perilous moment with a rudder instead of an oar. All the
circumstances, as developed at the investigation, confirm the opinion of the
witnesses that the misfortune was chiefly due to Captain Murphy’s
overconfidence in his surfmanship which let him in the first place to venture
out and remain under adverse conditions, and then emboldened him to trust to a
rudder instead of a steering oar to guide his boat through the breakers.
The cable gave way not
long after the accident occurred, and the boat and net still attached to it
were recovered and subsequently turned over to their owner, Mr. W.M. Tillitt,
but although diligent search was at once made and long continued, neither of
the bodies of the lost men was found until five days later, when that of
Captain Murphy was taken from the surf on the beach near the New Inlet Station,
some eight miles to the southward, whence, after being properly cared for, it
was forwarded to his friends on Roanoke Island. No report has been received
that the body of the son was ever recovered.
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