Rescue from the Graveyard

With the ready-to-assemble equipment for a cement factory and a steel forging plant in her hold, the 1,275-ton Honduran freighter Omar Babun steamed out of Philadelphia one day last May on a coastwise voyage to Havana. Off the Carolina coast, the Babun ran into a full gale. Her cargo shook loose, tearing away the deck supports and ripping her hull. Captain Jose Villa ordered the ship beached on the desolate Outer Banks, 25 miles above Cape Hatteras. That night Captain Villa and his crew were taken off on a Coast Guard lifeline, and the Babun was abandoned 300 yards offshore in the "Graveyard of the Atlantic."

One Man's Hobby. Old salts from Rodanthe, a nearby hamlet, inspected the wrecked ship the next morning, pronounced it a "probable total loss." Professional salvage companies agreed. But one interested onlooker, Esveld Canipe, Buick dealer from Havelock, N.C., was more optimistic. Landlubber "Nip" Canipe, 38, had been fascinated with the sea ever since he moved to Havelock twelve years ago from western North Carolina. A tinkerer all his life, he had read a book about the wrecks off Cape Hatteras, and recently had tried a little amateur salvage work on an old World War I hulk up the coast from Havelock.

When he heard about the Omar Babun, Canipe drove 200 miles to the scene to have a look. After flying over the stricken freighter in a chartered plane and inspecting her from close range, Canipe disagreed with the experts. He flew to New York City, bought the hull for $3,500 and signed an agreement with the insurance companies: he would get 30% of the value of any cargo that he might manage to recover. Then he hurried back to the Babun, got to work. With an assault team of five men from his shop and a crew of 25 skeptical natives, he started bulldozing a sand roadway down to the ship, right through the breakers.

Kibitzing Outer Bankers decided that Canipe was pixilated (their advice to him: go home), and for a while it seemed as if they were right. Six times the tide came in and washed away Canipe's causeway. But on the seventh try the sandy road held fast, and soon the two 'dozers and an escort of trucks were moving down to the "Baboon" and hauling away the cargo. To get the heaviest parts of the cargo ashore, Canipe buried huge steel plates deep in the beach, hooked cables to them and easily slid the unwieldy factory parts ashore, above the high-water mark. A 23-ton steel press, worth $45,000 alone, was the biggest problem. As it was being winched over the side of the Babun, the cable broke, and the press landed in the middle of Canipe's causeway. The bulldozers managed to pull it to dry land in three hours, just ahead of the tide.

Anchors Aweigh. Last fortnight, with the cargo safely ashore, Salvager Canipe and his crew pumped the remaining water out of the Babun, did some work on her machinery and prepared to refloat her. While the natives scoffed. Canipe got two enormous, aged anchors from a Norfolk junk yard, fastened cable lines to them and dropped them a quarter-mile out at sea. The other ends of the cable were fastened to the Babun's freshly oiled winches. One morning the Babun's twin diesel motors began to purr, her winches started to wind, and the big pull was on. The next morning the Babun was floating free and riding out a vicious northeaster. It was the most successful salvage operation in the history of Cape Hatteras.

By last week the "Baboon" was safe in port in Norfolk, with Canipe, his 18-year-old son, Mack, and his father, a retired grocer, aboard. Until the damage is appraised, Canipe will not know how much he will realize from his prize. But he has a reasonable expectation of making at least $100,000 above the money (upwards of $40,000) that it cost him to salvage the Babun.

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