Wrong Turn at Watch Hill
by Gene Henson

Capt. William Groggins was worried; though it was the mate's watch, he'd stayed on the bridge. It was dark and the ONONDAGA, a 2696-ton Clyde freighter, was steaming through waters neither she nor any of her crew had ever been in before. Now it was raining and visibility was down to about two miles as Capt. Groggins peered out the wheel house window. The mist made little halos around the deck lights as he strained to see. "Where the hell is that light?" he said to himself.

Outward bound from Boston for Charleston, SC, ONONDAGA had been making this trip for several years, but not on this route. It was June, 1918, and the Cape Cod Canal as we know it today, was years away. The usual route from Boston to Charleston before the canal was upgraded to allow big ships to pass, was out around Race Point, at the end of Cape Cod, southeast to clear Nantucket Shoals; then southwest to the Carolina coast. America was at war, and just before sailing, Capt. Groggins had received orders to keep inshore as much as possible because several German U-boats had been reported off the New England coast. He was to pass through Vineyard Sound, out around Block Island, and along the south shore of Long Island before heading south for Charleston.

Capt. Groggins had no problem with this route. Although he had never been this way, the chart showed plenty of water for ONONDAGA'S 16-foot draft, and the Coastal Pilot noted many aids to navigation. The Route wasn't without hazard, but Capt. Groggins had confidence in his navigation and it didn't look like it would take much longer than the normal offshore route. But off Point Judith, just when he thought the worst was over, a Coast Guard patrol boat hailed and the officer in charge had ordered Capt. Groggins to take ONONDAGA through Long Island Sound to New York and wait there for new orders. That was not so easy; there are lots of places to get into trouble in Long Island Sound with a vessel the size of ONONDAGA. One problem is entering the sound from the east. To get there, you have to pass through a very turbulent stretch of water called the Race, off the west end of Fishers island.

Capt. Groggins knew that normally a pilot was needed for this route, but there were no pilots around tonight and ONONDAGA'S cargo was needed in Charleston. Capt. Groggins looked out the window again. There was, he knew, a nice big lighthouse on Race Rock, just off Race Point on the west end of Fishers Island. Race Rock light guarded the entrance to Long Island Sound, but where was it? He turned and walked toward the chart room behind the bridge. He smiled to himself as he saw the anxious looks on the faces of the quartermaster and the mate. "Well," he thought, "we won't have any shirkers on lookout this trip."

Capt. Groggins turned on the red lamp over the chart table and frowned as he looked at the chart. It was almost three hours since they had passed Point Judith. After the patrol boat had left he had ordered turns for nine knots, and now his dead reckoning out them just off Wilderness Point on the south side of Fishers Island, about three miles from the Race. The plot looked good, but he was uneasy. "What's the tide doing?" he asked himself. Capt. Groggins didn't have a local tide table, and his copy of Eldrige was over a year old. It was (and is) possible to extrapolate year-old table but the results aren't meant to be used for close in piloting. The note in the Coast Pilot warned that tidal currents here were strong. Not as strong as those off the main coast, but there were lots of countercurrents that required local knowledge to effectively plot, set and drift. There was also a big lighthouse on Watch Hill, located about two-thirds of the distance from Point Judith to the Race. The chart showed it to be about the same size as the one on Race Rock, but they had not seen it. He tapped the points of his dividers on the chart right over the little red circle that represented Watch Hill Light. "We must have passed it in that patch." he thought. They had passed through some fog about two hours from Point Judith, just about the time they should have been off Watch Hill. Capt. Groggins scratched his head and rubbed his eyes. "Lets see now, if I give it another 20 minutes, we should be able to come north and keep inside of Valiant Rock." The chart showed lots of water inside Valiant Rock,, much more than ONONDAGA needed. But where was that damn light?

The captain was looking down at the red Race Rock mark on the chart when there was a shout from the bridge. He dropped the dividers and ran through the chart room door. "Cap'n look!" shouted the mate. "There, about two points off the Starboard bow. Looks like our light." Capt. Groggins eyes strained as he looked through the rain streaked window. Even though he couldn't see it yet, he knew the light was there. First Mate William Crowell had the best eyes aboard and always saw buoys long before the lookouts. Then Capt. Groggins saw it: a dim flash of red off the bow to starboard. "Okay now, where's the other one?" There is was. Flash red. Flash White. "Light on the starboard bow!" came the shout from the lookout forward. "About time." grumbled the mate. "All right Mr. Crowell," said Capt. Groggins, "Come starboard to north west by north and drop her speed to 5."

As he listened to the mate give the new course to the quartermaster, Capt. Groggins relaxed and walked out onto the starboard bridge wing to get a better look t the light. "Idiots" he muttered. "They better get some pilots on this run if they don't want trouble." He wanted to get back to the chart room and give some thought to what was coming up next, but decided to wait until they were through the Race. According to the Coast Pilot the Race could be nasty. The ship's clock struck four bells. Ten P.M., halfway through the mate's watch. Just as Capt. Groggins turned to go back into the bridge, there was a shout from forward. "Breakers! Jesus, cap'n breakers dead ahead!"

"Full astern!" yelled Capt Groggins. The mate was already at the telegraph, and ran the brass lever to full astern, then back to stop then full astern again - the emergency signal to whoever was on the throttle in the engine room that he really meant business. Capt. Groggins had put the engine room on standby long before and now he hoped that whoever was on duty down there was on the ball. He was. The answering bell was there before the mate's hands came off the lever. Now the deck started vibrating as the propeller tried to pull all 275 feet of ONONDAGA to a halt. Capt. Groggins ran back out on the wing. He could see white water ahead and to port. "Hard-a-starboard!" he ordered. If only the bow would come around. The propeller was pulling her stern to port and as the ship was still moving forward, the helm order would help. But it was too late. ONONDAGA hit with a shudder, slid up and over the rocks. Capt. Groggins stood on the wing pounding his fists on the teak rail. "Bloody hell!" he yelled over the sounds of the dying ship. "Where the hell did those rocks come from?" He looked over at the light, which he could now see clearly. Then it dawned on him. This was Watch Hill, not Race Rock, and they had run right over Watch Hill Reef.

The current had been stronger than Capt. Groggins realized and had taken three knots out of ONONDAGA'S speed. That and the similar light characteristics of Race Rock and Watch Hill lighthouses - each red and white lights, though with different grouping and timing - combined to fool Capt. Groggins into mistaking Watch Hill for Race Rock. William Crowell needed only a few minutes below to discover the massive flooding in number one and two holds, and it was obvious that the ship was doomed. After hearing the mate's report, Capt. Groggins fired off a red rocket that was seen by the duty lookout at Witch Hill Life Boat Station and soon all the crew was safely ashore.

The T.A. Scott Company, a New London, CT. salvage firm, tried for several weeks to refloat ONONDAGA. All attempts failed, although they did manage to off-load most of her cargo. Finally, the Coast Guard ordered her dynamited as a hazard to navigation. She remains there today, a haven for blackfish and an accessible wreck for SCUBA divers to explore. Forty-four years later, less than a quarter mile from where the ONONDAGA hit Watch Hill Reef, another large vessel ran aground right on the doorstep of Watch Hill Lighthouse. It was January 7th, 1962 just after dark when the 345-foot ship LIEF VIKING, carrying 650 tons of newsprint from Maine to New York, hit Gangway Rock. At 5:36 p.m., the radio operator at Coast Guard Station Montauk, on the east end of Long Island, heard a garbled message that said in part, "Race Point, grounded.

Unlike his predecessor of almost half a century before, Capt. Olv Johanson aboard LIEF VIKING had no reason to be worried. There was an experienced pilot on board and the navigation was supposedly in good hands. Capt. Alonzo Hodgdon had started his career as a coastal pilot four years after the ONONDAGA went down. Now 78-years old, he was starting to think of retirement. He had boarded LIEF VIKING at Searsport ME., two days before, and heavy weather all the way down had conspired to keep him and Capt. Johanson awake most of the trip. Once through the Cape Cod Canal however, the weather had moderated and both officers could relax. The forecast for the rest of the night and the next day was relatively mild for that time of year, westerly winds, 15 to 20 knots with moderate seas, and over five miles visibility.

After an uneventful trip through Buzzards Bay and with Point Judith ahead on the starboard bow, Capt. Hodgdon ordered a course change; right to 254 degrees true and an increase in speed to 11 knots. A little over two hours later, he again ordered a course change, this time to 275 degrees, which, he thought, would put them directly between Race Rock Light and Valiant Rock. Twenty minutes later LIEF VIKING ran up on Gangway rock, just inside Which Hill Passage. What happened? At the inquiry, Capt. Hodgdon testified that he had read the tide wrong and he had given course changes from memory. In reality, LIEF VIKING had only been making nine knots, not the 11 Capt. Hodgdon had ordered. Had he attempted to fix his position by RADAR, compass bearing or LORAN (they had LORAN A then - not as good as LORAN C, but good enough) he would have seen instantly that they were headed for trouble.

The characteristics of Race Rock and Watch Hill lighthouses were the same in 1962 as they were in 1918; occulting white and group flashing red (2) every 15 seconds for Watch Hill and flash alternating red and white every 20 seconds for Race Rock. (The coast Guard subsequently changed Race Rock to flash red every 10 seconds to help avoid any confusion) The similarity was a factor in the sinking of ONONDAGA, but the misreading of tidal currents was the ultimate undoing for both ships. In Capt. Groggins case, he was doing the best he knew how with what he had. There were no electronic aids to navigation in those days and the only way to determine depth was to station a man "forward in the chains" with a lead line - a very unpleasant place to be - right down on the anchor at the bow. When Capt. Groggins saw the light flash red then white, he was expecting Race Rock. In the case of LIEF VIKING, it's a little more complicated. Capt. Hodgdon had been piloting those waters for 40 years and knew what to expect. It's hard to believe he couldn't tell Watch Hill from Race Rock in spite of the similarity. The evidence points to a mistaken tide table reading and inattention. Capt. Hodgdon was an old man who had had little sleep for two days. He knew the waters there well, but familiarity breeds contempt.

It took Salvage crews nine days to re-float LIEF VIKING after unloading soggy newsprint from holds three and four. There were massive traffic jams on local roads ashore as people came in droves to see the unusual sight of a large ship stuck hard aground so close to shore. On January 16th, 1962, with temporary repairs to her hull completed, she was pulled off the rocks by a McAlester tug under contract to Merritt, Chapman & Scott, a salvage company based in New York city. LIEF VIKING completed her voyage to New York under tow and was repaired at a New York shipyard.