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USS Saluda and Atlantis resting on Ram Island flats after 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane.

USS Saluda and Atlantis resting on Ram Island flats after 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane.
USS Saluda and Atlantis resting on Ram Island flats after 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane.
USS Saluda and Atlantis resting on Ram Island flats after 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane.
USS Saluda and Atlantis resting on Ram Island flats after 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane.
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39338
Thayer, Mary Curtis Cobb
USS Saluda and Atlantis resting on Ram Island flats after 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane.
Still Image
09/15/1944
com/cullen/At_Saluda.jpg
Date is approximate.
Image of The Day caption:
On September 14, 1944, with a category 4 hurricane working its way up the Eastern seaboard, WHOI's research vessel Atlantis was secured to the National Marine Fisheries Service dock in Woods Hole. The ship's captain, Lambert Knight, and four other crewmen were on board when the mooring lines parted and Knight steered the ship toward a place he knew to be mud-bottomed. After the storm, Atlantis, foreground, and the USS Saluda rested on nearby Ram Island flats for three weeks. The storm caused over $100 million damage to the region, but there was no major damage to the Atlantis--though it cost the Institution $17,000 to raise and move the ship.
Caption from Down to the Sea for Science, pg. 66:
Atlantis returned to Woods Hole from its safe harbor in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in July 1944. On September 14 the ship was moved to the Fisheries dock because of the impending hurricane. Captain Lambert Knight and four other men stayed aboard. When the fastening lines parted, Knight managed to steer the ship toward a place he knew to be mud-bottomed. After the storm, Atlantis and USS Saluda rested on Ram Island flats in the upper reaches of Woods Hole Great Harbor near the causeway to Penzance Point. The smaller Saluda was soon floated, but drawing 17 feet (5 meters), Atlantis was, for all practical purposes, high and dry and 6 to 7 feet (2 meters) of water. There it rested on its bilges for three weeks until a salvage operation could be arranged. There were no major damages to Atlantis, but salvage costs exceeded $17,000.
Photo by Mary Curtis Cobb Thayer
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
From Mary Curtis Cobb, November 1961.
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