This Day in Coast Guard History – Dec. 2

1883-The schooner Champion with a crew of two men stranded on Dick’s Flat, Plymouth Harbor, near Duxbury Pier lighthouse, at about 6 am. The shoal where she struck was about three miles west-southwest of the Gurnet Point Station (Second District), and the crew of the station were not sure she was aground until about 10 o’clock. The life-saving crew therefore arrived on board a little before 2 o’clock in the afternoon. They found one of the men, the captain, at the pumps and the other bailing from the hatch. The vessel was leaking badly. The two men on board were wet, cold, and very glad of the assistance of the life-saving crew. The keeper, at the captain’s request, took charge. The pumps were manned while another gang went to work bailing. When she began to right with the incoming tide, they shifted the booms over and canted her the other way, so as to bring the leaky seams out of the water to chinse them with oakum and nail canvas over all to stop the leaks. After doing this and getting most of the water out, they carried out an anchor into the channel, set all sail and by heaving hard on the hawser, they brought her on an even keel. She was hauled off the shoal at about 4 o’clock and got safely under way. As the weather looked bad, the captain concluded to remain in port for the night and accordingly anchored.

(Source: USCG Historian’s Office)