Cape Race

Cape Race is a point of land located at the southeastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland, in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Its name is thought to come from the original Portuguese name for this cape, "Raso", meaning flat or low-lying. The Cape appeared on early sixteenth century maps as Cabo Raso and its name may derive from a cape of the same name at the mouth of the Tagus River in Portugal. The cape was the location of the Cape Race LORAN-C transmitter until the system was decommissioned in 2010. It is also home to the Cape Race Lighthouse, notable for having received the distress call from Titanic.

Dense fog, rocky coasts, and its proximity to trans-Atlantic shipping routes have resulted in many shipwrecks near Cape Race over the years. One of the most famous was the SS Arctic. Cape Race is a flat barren point of land jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean, its cliffs rising nearly vertically to 30.5 metres (100 ft) above sea level. On average it is shrouded in fog on 158 days of the year.

In 1583, having claimed the port of St John's for Queen Elizabeth I, an English Sea Dog, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, on board his ship Squirrel, and also accompanied by a fleet of other ships, passed by Cape Race on his way back to England. Unfortunately, neither Gilbert nor the Squirrel were ever seen again. According to folklore, one of the ships accompanying Squirrel was Golden Hind, the famous English Galleon which had conducted the second circumnavigation of the world under the command of another Sea Dog, Sir Francis Drake. Although at the time Golden Hind was off Cape Race, she was reportedly captained by Edward Hayes. However, the entire concept of Golden Hind being present off Cape Race with Squirrel is improbable, as Golden Hind had been placed on permanent display in the Deptford Shipyard in the River Thames near London after Drake's circumnavigation had been completed in 1580.

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