The Goodwin Sands is a 10-mile-long sand bank in the English Channel, lying six miles east off Deal in Kent, England. The Brake Bank lying shorewards is part of the same geological unit. As the shoals lie close to major shipping channels, more than 2,000 ships are believed to have been wrecked upon it, and as a result it is marked by lightvessels and buoys. Notable shipwrecks include the VOC ship Rooswijk, HMS Stirling Castle, the SS Montrose, and the South Goodwin Lightship. Several naval battles have been fought nearby, including the Battle of Goodwin Sands in 1652 and the Battle of Dover Strait in 1917.
Read more about Goodwin Sands: Navigational Aids, The Island of Lomea, Potential Airport Site, Cricket, Literary References
Famous quotes containing the word sands:
“That land is like an Eagle, whose young gaze
Feeds on the noontide beam, whose golden plume
Floats moveless on the storm, and in the blaze
Of sunrise gleams when Earth is wrapped in gloom;
An epitaph of glory for the tomb
Of murdered Europe may thy fame be made,
Great People! as the sands shalt thou become;
Thy growth is swift as morn, when night must fade;
The multitudinous Earth shall sleep beneath thy shade.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)