Stockwin's Maritime Miscellany

by Julian Stockwin

  Rous later told Symonds, ‘Your beautiful ship has had the hardest thumping that ever was stood by wood and iron.’

  The very rock that was embedded in Pique may be seen today in the grounds of the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

  Promoted to admiral in 1852, Henry Rous was a lover of horse racing from boyhood. He did much to bring fairness to the sport by devising a weight-for-age scale.

  ‘WHERE SHALL I FIND A MATCH FOR THIS?’

  Irishman Jack Spratt was a good-looking, high-spirited master’s mate aboard HMS Defiance at the Battle of Trafalgar. During the action Captain Durham ordered him to lead a boarding party to take L’Aigle, but the ship’s boats were found to be shot through. Undeterred, Spratt called the boarders to follow him, snatched a cutlass and leapt overboard to swim to L’Aigle, where he soon found himself in fierce hand-to-hand fighting. He was attacked by several soldiers, and having just fought them off and deflected a bayonet thrust at him by another he was severely injured in the leg with a musket ball.

  Meanwhile Defiance had managed to come alongside and the boarding party leapt to the deck. Through the smoke one of the first people Captain Durham spotted on Aigle was Spratt, his bloody leg dangling over the rail. ‘Captain, poor old Jack Spratt is done up at last,’ he called out, and he was hauled back aboard Defiance.

  Spratt was taken to the surgeon, who wanted to amputate the leg, but he refused. The surgeon appealed to Durham to intervene and order the operation. The captain tried to reason with Spratt, but he merely held up his good leg and said, ‘Never! If I lose my leg, where shall I find a match for this?’

  Spratt was landed at Gibraltar, where he was hospitalised for four months. He kept his leg but was lame for the rest of his life. He achieved the rank of commander and retired to Devon, where he was often seen riding on a small Dartmoor pony. Despite his incapacity Spratt retained his swimming skills and when he was nearly 60 years old he swam a 23-km race for a wager and won.

  THE FIRST EUROPEAN sea voyages that impelled the West into an unparalleled age of world discovery and trade were launched by Portugal’s Prince Henry the Navigator in the early fifteenth century. Before that voyages had been coastal, keeping always within sight of land. Other nations quickly followed the Portuguese, notably the Spanish, the Dutch and the English. For the often illiterate sailors crewing the ships, these voyages were frightening journeys into the unknown. Many had fears that they would perish horribly in the infamous Green Sea of Darkness, a terrifying place of lurking monsters and boiling seas.

  But more than a century before Christopher Columbus set sail, China mounted seven great exploration voyages under Zheng He, the Admiral of the Western Seas. He sailed to western Asia, Africa and Arabia, visiting some 40 countries. Zheng He’s voyages heralded a momentous period of exploration and trade for China.

  In the Golden Age of Sail inventive minds were tackling every kind of problem, from how to plot your position to ship-to-shore rescue. One of the most poignant of their achievements was Henry Winstanley’s lighthouse on the Eddystone reef, the first to be built in the open sea. It was a true feat of human invention and withstood a fiercely unforgiving environment for five years. During the titanic storm of 1703 Winstanley was on it with his men. When the tempest abated he and his lighthouse had completely vanished.

  Engraved world map, from a book printed in 1628 compiled by Francis Drake’s nephew.

  ADMIRAL OF THE WESTERN SEAS

  Zheng He was a Muslim born in China’s mountainous province of Yunnan in 1372. The Ming Dynasty had been established in 1368, bringing to an end Mongol rule. At the age of 11, Zheng He was captured and castrated when Ming forces were sent to Yunnan to destroy the last stronghold of the old regime. His reputation for bravery had been noted, however, and he was assigned to a royal household where over time he became very powerful. As an adult he was described as brave and quick-witted, a tall, heavy man with clear-cut features, long earlobes and a stride like a tiger.

  When his master seized the Peacock Throne and became Emperor Yong Le, he made Zheng He ‘Admiral of the Western Seas’. Over the next three years an incredible flotilla of sailing ships was built under his direction, ushering in a golden period of exploration and trade for China, and making her the most advanced seafaring nation in the world.

  Seven great exploration fleets commanded by Zheng He set sail between 1405 and 1433; they were the mightiest the world had ever seen. The first carried 28,000 people in around 300 vessels, including the treasure ships which were of extraordinary size. Nine-masted, 120 m long and 49 m wide, each ship could carry more than 1,000 passengers. Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, the three ships of Columbus built more than a century later, would all fit easily inside a single Chinese treasure ship.

  In addition to sailors and soldiers there were merchants, astrologers, craftsmen and priests on board. Zheng He’s fleet had a number of technological innovations, including magnetic compasses and watertight compartments, which would not be seen in European vessels for hundreds of years. There were even on-board vegetable patches.

  Zheng He sailed to western Asia, Africa and Arabia, visiting 40 countries. Some speculate that he reached America and even circumnavigated the world. Others believe he touched on the shores of Australia. Of all the wonders he brought back, the most exciting to his countrymen was a giraffe from Somalia.

  The Admiral of the Western Seas died in 1433 on the return voyage of the seventh expedition. Thereafter there were no more heroic voyages: a new Chinese ruler ushered in 500 years of isolation; the logs of the seven remarkable voyages were destroyed, and the giant treasure ships abandoned and left to decay.

  The Chinese artist Shen Du, a favourite of Emperor Yong Le painted the giraffe Zheng He brought back from the east coast of Africa.

  THE BEACON OF LIGHT

  Until the end of the seventeenth century one of the great threats facing shipping heading to Plymouth on the southern coast of England was the isolated and treacherous Eddystone reef, 23 km directly offshore. Much of the hazard is underwater, creating complex currents, and extraordinarily high seas are often kicked up when conditions are very windy. In 1620 Captain Christopher Jones, master of Mayflower described the reef: ‘Twenty-three rust red… ragged stones around which the sea constantly eddies, a great danger… for if any vessel makes too far to the south… she will be swept to her doom on these evil rocks.’

  As trade with America increased during the 1600s a growing number of ships approaching the English Channel from the west were wrecked on the Eddystone reef.

  King William III and Queen Mary were petitioned that something be done about marking the infamous hazard. Plans to erect a warning light by funding the project with a penny a ton charge on all vessels passing initially foundered. Then an enterprising character called Henry Winstanley stepped forward and took on the most adventurous marine construction job the world had ever seen.

  Work commenced on the mainly wooden structure in July 1696. England was again at war, and such was the importance of the project that the Admiralty provided a man-of-war for protection. On one day, however, HMS Terrible did not arrive and a passing French privateer seized Winstanley and carried him off to France. When Louis XIV heard of the incident he ordered his release. ‘France is at war with England, not humanity,’ said the king.

  Winstanley’s was the first lighthouse to be built in the open sea. It was a true feat of human endeavour. Work could only be undertaken in summer and for the first two years nothing could be left on the rock or it would be swept away. There was some assistance from Terrible in transporting the building materials, but much had to be rowed out in an open four-oared boat in a journey that could take nine hours each way.

  Winstanley’s lighthouse was swept away after less than five years, during the great storm of 1703. Winstanley was on it at the time supervising some repairs – he had said that he wished to be there during ‘the greatest storm that ever was’.

  The next lighthouse was built by John Rudyerd
and lit in 1709. Also made largely of timber and with granite ballast, it gave good service for nearly half a century until destroyed by fire in 1755. During the blaze the lead cupola began to melt, and as the duty keeper, 94-year-old Henry Hall, was throwing water upwards from a bucket he accidentally swallowed 200 g of the molten metal. No one believed his incredible tale, but when he died 12 days later doctors found a lump of lead in his stomach.

  John Smeaton, Britain’s first great civil engineer, was the next to rise to the challenge of Eddystone. He took the English oak as his design inspiration – a broad base narrowing in a gentle curve. The 22-m high lighthouse was built using solid discs of stone dovetailed together. Work began in 1756, and from start to finish the work took three years, nine weeks and three days. Small boats transported nearly 1,000 tons of granite and Portland stone along with all the equipment and men.

  The Smeaton lighthouse stood for over 100 years. In the end it was not the lighthouse that failed; rather that the sea was found to have eaten away the rock beneath the structure. In 1882 it was dismantled and brought back to Plymouth, where it was re-erected stone by stone on the Hoe as a memorial, and where it still stands. It had already been replaced by a new lighthouse, twice as tall and four and a half times as large, designed by James Douglas, which now gives mariners a beacon of light visible for 22 nautical miles.

  Rudyerd’s Eddystone Lighthouse.

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  THE COAST IS CLEAR – activity can proceed unhindered. DERIVATION: in the heyday of smuggling a boy led a white horse along a cliff as a signal, visible at night, that there were no Revenue men about and it was thus safe for smugglers to land contraband cargo brought over from France by sea.

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  A VOYAGE THAT CHANGED HISTORY

  In the early sixteenth century the Portuguese had a virtual monopoly on the only known sailing route to the Moluccas (part of modern-day Indonesia), eastwards around Africa. But if another way could be found to these fabled islands of spices, there would be great riches to be had.

  On 10 August 1519 after nearly a year of preparation the Armada of Molucca, five small ships under the command of Ferdinand Magellan, left Spain on a daring quest to find a different route to the Spice Islands by going in the opposite direction, around South America. This would be through waters completely unknown to civilisation.

  Almost three years to the day after they had departed, the armada returned with proof positive that the world could be circumnavigated by sea. But it was not Magellan who had achieved this incredible feat – he had not even contemplated it; his plan was to return from the Moluccas the same way he had come.

  When the expedition stopped in the Philippines for food and water en route to the Spice Islands, Magellan became embroiled in a dispute with local tribes and met his death there at the hands of a local chieftain, Lapu Lapu. With the loss of Magellan there was in-fighting between the ships and a succession of commanders vied to take up the mantle. From the outset the expedition had been dogged by misfortune and in the end only one ship, Victoria, made it back to Spain. Out of the original 265 men who had set out in 1519 just 18 survived, half-dead from starvation and disease.

  Although Magellan’s achievements are enormous – he crossed a fearfully unknown ocean, one far vaster than Columbus had sailed, and opened the way for future exploration of what in effect was half the planet – it was a man now almost forgotten by history, Juan Sebastian Elcano, who had brought Victoria safely back to Spain sailing westwards from the Moluccas, thereby becoming the first man to sail around the world.

  Charles I of Spain feted Elcano and presented him with a pension and coat of arms with the inscription ‘Primus Circumdedisti Me’ – you were the first to encircle me.

  Detail from a map by Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius – Magellan’s ship Victoria.

  NOT JUST A WORD-GRINDER

  He has been called the father of modern nautical fiction, but Frederick Marryat had a number of strings to his bow including an adventurous career around the world as a naval officer, serving in the Mediterranean, the West Indies, the East Indies and North America.

  In an age when swimming was not a widespread skill he saved the lives of more than a dozen sailors by diving into the sea to rescue them and was awarded a gold medal from the Royal Humane Society.

  In 1817 Marryat published his Code of Signals for the Merchant Service, an adaptation of Sir Home Popham’s navy signalling system of 1803. Unlike the Popham system, which needed several numeral flags per hoist to denote a word, the Marryat system simplified things with alphabetical flags, thereby using three times fewer. As well as being adopted by the merchant marine it was used by many others, and served as the basis for the Universal Yacht Signals code published by the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1847.

  While still at sea Marryat wrote and had published a three-volume novel, The Naval Officer, or Scenes and Adventures in the Life of Frank Mildmay. He left the navy in 1830 to concentrate on his literary career and went on to write over ten more books, including a number of children’s titles.

  His code of signals for the merchant navy was so popular that it was in use unchanged until 1879, even though it had been officially replaced by the International Code of Signals in 1857, which was largely based on Marryat’s original conception.

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  The Language of Flags

  Flags were an important means of communication between ships. However, it wasn’t until towards the end of the nineteenth century that the International Code of Signals was widely adopted, enabling ships of all nations to signal each other and be understood. This code was even designed so that the flags could be read by the colour-blind.

  Previous systems were individual to a particular fleet or squadron, and users required a unique codebook in which to look up the meaning. These were weighted with lead so they could be thrown overboard in case of capture.

  Nelson’s famous signal at the Battle of Trafalgar, ‘England expects that every man will do his duty’, required 13 separate flag hoists, 32 flags in total. The admiral initially wanted to use the word ‘confides’, but agreed to change it to ‘expects’ in order to use fewer flags.

  Colours, the national ensign flown at the masthead at sea, had special significance. It was acceptable to fly false colours, i.e. those of some other country, but not to fire on another ship without first hoisting one’s true colours. If a ship’s colours were flown upside down, it was the signal for distress. When a vessel was captured, the colours of the victor were hoisted above those of the prize.

  In large sea battles, frigates were stationed to one side out of the gun-smoke to act as ‘repeaters’, passing on signals from the commander-in-chief. Both sides agreed not to fire on these frigates.

  Flags, however, did have drawbacks. If the wind blew them end-on they could not be read; battle-haze often hid them; they were not visible at night; and only a limited number of flags can be flown at one time, so complex signals were impossible.

  Captains were often thus forced to fall back on the tactic of ‘speak the ship’ – foam up alongside and bellow at each other with a speaking trumpet.

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  A SQUARE MEAL – substantial repast. DERIVATION: sailors ate their food off square wooden plates with a raised edge called a fiddle. This design was to stop food falling off the plate and to set a limit on the amount of food taken. If a seaman overfilled the plate he was said to be ‘on the fiddle’ and could be punished.

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  FLOWERS FROM THE ‘END OF THE WORLD’

  Henry the Navigator was the man chiefly responsible for Portugal’s heroic age of exploration between the 1430s and the 1550s, but he never actually set sail on any of these great voyages of discovery. Born in 1394 he was the third child of King John I of Portugal. Contemporary records describe him as a person who did not indulge in luxuries, was softly spoken and never allowed a poor person to leave his presence empty-handed.

  Henry established a mariti
me think-tank and gathered the great minds of the day around him. Under his patronage a number of expeditions sailed south to extend the boundaries of the known world. But in the fifteenth century the red sandstone cliffs of Cape Bojador off the west coast of Africa was seen as the point beyond which there was no return. There the seas crashed into the cliffs in constant fury, fearsome waterspouts erupted and dust storms howled off the cliff tops.

  According to popular belief, past the cape lay the end of the world, the Green Sea of Darkness, an area where the sun was so close to the Earth that a person’s skin would turn black, the sea boiled, ships caught fire and monsters lurked waiting to smash the ships and eat the sailors. Henry did not believe any such nonsense, but up until 1433 he could entice no seaman to pass Cape Bojador.

  Henry’s persistence did finally pay off. He persuaded Gil Eannes, who had turned back after starting a previous voyage, to make a second attempt. This time Eannes reached the cape, skirted around its deadly hazards and then worked his way inshore until he reached the coast, where he landed and picked flowers. When he returned he announced that beyond Cape Bojador there was in fact no Green Sea of Darkness.

  Prince Henry died in 1460, having transformed European expansion and trade from the old land routes to new sea routes in the Southern Ocean. By the end of the sixteenth century Lisbon was the European hub of commerce with the Far East.

  Henry the Navigator.

  MERCATOR, MAPS AND MARS