Dakota Road
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Dakota.
The ship makes its way through the cold winter waves along the West Coast. The year is 1888. Dakota has loaded 100 tons of bar iron in Hamburg and is on its way to Oslo to load building timber. On January 30, the 22 men of the crew see snow falling thickly around them. It continues into the night and at 4.45 am, the lookout hears the waves breaking. The surf is ahead. At the same moment, the mate sees land. He orders the helmsman to let the ship fall off into the wind.
But it's too late. The ship hits the reef several times until it gets stuck. On January 31, Dakota runs aground off Sdr. Lyngvig. At 6 am, the captain makes contact with land. Six crew members row to the beach at the same time in a dinghy. They have a line with them. The dinghy capsizes, but all six make it to shore. Now the rest of the crew can start the journey with the line from the ship to the beach. They cling to the line with arms and legs. The captain and the steward lose the strength to hold on and fall into the sea. Both bodies are found and buried in Lyngvig cemetery.
Dakota is one of the largest sailing ships stranded at Holmsland Klit. Its masts rise high above the dune tops, so they can be seen from the other side of the fjord.
A month passes and the ship proves impossible to salvage. To get the most financial benefit from the ship, it is sold for scrapping at auction on March 5. The scrapping takes time and lasts until the spring. Only the hull remains. They decide to let the forces of nature help and wait for a storm to break it in half. The storm arrives as early as June 1st. But before you can salvage both sides, one side floats out to sea and lands in smaller pieces on other beaches. A piece of the ship's side turns up in Hvide Sande 106 years later, in 1994. Today, the timber can be found at Strandingsmuseum St. Georg in Thorsminde.
