Stockwin's Maritime Miscellany

by Julian Stockwin

  Before the ship actually crossed the line an emissary from the court of King Neptune appeared on board. He brought a message for the captain announcing when the king would be arriving and presenting a list of those who were to appear before him.

  On the actual day, the pollywogs, those who had not yet obtained their freedom from Neptune, were confined below decks, to be released one by one. King Neptune arrived accompanied by his wife Queen Aphrodite, together with an evil-looking barber, a grim-faced surgeon, fierce-looking guards and various nymphs and badger bears. After parading round the ship, the group convened a court on a platform beside the bath filled with seawater. King Neptune summoned the pollywogs in turn. The barber besmeared their faces with a foul mixture of tar and grease and then scraped it off with a hoop iron ‘razor’. The surgeon administered ‘medicine’ and then these unfortunates were tipped into the bath for a good ducking.

  A ship might remain for weeks in the belt of calm that lies close to the equator known as the doldrums. While in this region all aboard suffered from enervating conditions and longed for a breeze. Departure from the doldrums was therefore a time for thanksgiving.

  King Neptune, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

  * * *

  MAKING HEADWAY – progress of a general nature, sometimes hard won. DERIVATION: at sea, headway is the ship’s forward movement through the water. Sometimes considerable effort was involved to achieve this, as when a ship tried to tack in a light breeze. The manoeuvre might have to be repeated several times before the sails filled and the cry was heard, ‘She’s making headway.’

  * * *

  PREST OR PRESSED?

  During the desperate struggle with France from 1793 to 1815 the Royal Navy never had as many men as it needed. At the height of the conflict its authorised strength was up from 45,000 to 145,000. There were a number of ways the navy could man its ships – volunteers, quotas (compelling local authorities to supply a given number of men) and the press gang. The belief persists today that the navy’s seamen consisted almost exclusively of pressed men, taken against their will and subjected to a harsh life at sea, condemning their wives and children to lives of poverty, but this is not so.

  The press gang was universally loathed, but ordinary folk were generally not at risk. Legally, only those ‘who used the sea’, i.e. experienced mariners, could be pressed. There were some within this category, such as whalers and apprentices, who were issued with a ‘protection’ and were exempt, although in particular periods of manning crisis a ‘hot press’ occurred and these protections were ignored.

  One reason for the myth of the press gang’s impact comes down to two words, which in the course of time came to be spelt alike. A ‘prest’ man is a sailor who has received a ‘prest’, a sum of money in advance as an inducement to join the service. A ‘pressed’ man is one who has been taken by force. It is likely that less than half of the navy’s seamen were actually pressed; the majority of them were volunteers.

  However, there were abuses of the system and some gangs took men and boys with no previous experience of the sea. The Impress Service maintained gangs in various ports around Britain, organised into 32 districts each commanded by a naval captain. A press gang was usually led by a lieutenant, who bore a warrant signed by the Lords of the Admiralty, and consisted of about ten men.

  When they got word that the press was about, sailors often came up with ingenious ways to escape capture, going to ground in the country or disguising themselves as females. A problem with the latter, however, was that their rolling gait and the tar on their hands often gave the game away.

  Sometimes the seaports would rebel en masse and pitched battles between the townsfolk and press gangs ensued. Such was the unpopularity of the press that in December 1811 a near riot freed a suspected murderer from police custody as the mob mistakenly believed he was being pressed.

  The Royal Navy is often called ‘the Andrew’, from Andrew Miller, a press-gang officer who was so efficient, ruthless and zealous in recruiting seamen that it was alleged he owned the navy.

  Eighteenth-century caricature of a press gang at work.

  ENTERING NEPTUNE’S REALM

  When the first vessels took to the water a number of customs developed that were designed to appease the gods of the sea. Some involved human sacrifice; the Norse Vikings launched their warships over live prisoners tied to the launch-ways so their blood was carried into the sea.

  In the Golden Age of Sail it was important to follow certain traditions to ensure good fortune for a ship and all who sailed in her. One of these was the custom of leaving coins under the step of a mast at the time the vessel was being built. This came down from the Roman tradition of placing a coin in the mouth of a dead person to pay the underworld ferryman Charon to transport him across the River Styx to Hades. If a ship met a mishap at sea the coins would ensure that the fares of the hands were paid.

  When an English ship was launched a toast was drunk to her prosperity out of a silver cup, which was afterwards thrown overboard. In the late seventeenth century this was felt to be too extravagant and the practice of breaking a bottle over the ship began, performed either by a royal personage or a dockyard commissioner. In 1811 the Prince Regent introduced the custom of ladies performing the ceremony. However, one lady’s aim was so poor that the bottle hit and injured a spectator, who sued. As a consequence the Admiralty decreed that henceforth the launching bottle should be secured by a lanyard to the bows.

  * * *

  Bless This Ship

  French ship christenings in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were accompanied by rites resembling marriage and baptismal ceremonies. A godfather for the new ship presented a godmother with a bouquet of flowers as both said the ship’s name. No bottle was broken over the ship, but a priest blessed it with holy water.

  * * *

  Tradition has it that water was used in the first two attempts to launch the iconic USS Constitution (‘Old Ironsides’), but she would not budge. It took a bottle of fine Madeira from the cellar of the Honorable Thomas Russell, a leading Boston merchant, to entice her to enter Neptune’s Realm.

  Charon, ferryman of the underworld.

  WHEN A SAILOR TOPPED HIS BOOM

  Sailors had a number of colourful expressions for death at sea, mostly involving nautical terms. Some sails need a long spar, or boom, to spread their foot. When the boom is topped, the vessel is ready to start the voyage. Sailors adopted the expression ‘to top your boom’ to refer to the journey to the afterlife, from which there was no return. Other salty euphemisms for dying were to ‘cut your painter’, ‘slip your cable’, ‘cross the bar’ and ‘go aloft’.

  A mariner might talk about meeting Davy Jones, the spirit of the deep. Davy Jones was thought to be in all storms and was sometimes seen as being of huge height, with three rows of sharp teeth in an enormous mouth, and emitting blue flames through his nostrils. The origin of this name is uncertain. It may be a corruption of ‘Duffy Jonah’, a West Indian sailors’ name for the devil. Another explanation is that Davy derives from St David, the saint often invoked by Welsh sailors, and Jones comes from Jonah, the biblical figure swallowed by a whale. Some claim that Davy Jones was a London pub owner who kept drugged ale in a special cupboard and served it to the unwary, who were thus shanghaied – sent stupefied off to sea.

  Davy Jones’ Locker was the bottom of the sea, a sort of repository for everything that went overboard, from rigging to men. Sailors used to say, ‘Nothing is lost, for you know where it is.’

  Then there was Fiddler’s Green, a mythical Elysium waiting for shellbacks, those who had been at sea for so long that barnacles grew on their backs, when they slipped their cable and went to their rest. In this paradise, populated by countless willing ladies, equipped with rum casks that never emptied, it was always a fair wind and flying fish weather. To get to Fiddler’s Green the shell-back became a gull and then flew to the South Pole, where the entrance awaited him in the form of an open ha
tch.

  Sailors did not like molesting sea birds, as they were thought to be the spirits of dead sailors who had not yet found their way to Fiddler’s Green.

  Unless the ship was very close to land, burial was at sea for most sailors. The body was sewn up in the man’s hammock and weighted with a cannonball. At the last minute, a stitch through the nose confirmed that he was really dead! It became customary for the man who performed this task to claim a guinea a body. The French, however, brought their slain sailors home buried in the ship ballast so that they could be given Catholic rites.

  Jack Tar was very uneasy about having a corpse on board ship, believing it would attract bad luck. If a corpse was carried on board there were some things that could be done to minimise the impact: it must always lie athwart the vessel, never end on, and when the home port was reached it must leave the ship before any member of the crew.

  Yards a-cockbill indicated that the ship’s captain had died.

  * * *

  CUT AND RUN – make off without warning. DERIVATION: if the enemy suddenly came on a ship when she was at anchor, or if a sudden storm threatened to force her on to a lee shore, the captain would order the crew to cut the anchor cable and run downwind to escape.

  * * *

  FRIDAY SAIL, FRIDAY FAIL

  For a sailor the day of his ship’s departure was important. Wednesday was the best day of the week to begin and end a voyage – probably because the name derives from Woden’s Day, the Anglo–Saxon god Woden being the chief protector of mariners. Friday, however, was to be avoided at all cost, an injunction that holds to this day. The Temptation and Banishment from the Garden of Eden, the Flood and the Crucifixion were all believed to have occurred on a Friday. Exceptionally, Spanish sailors favour Friday, as this was the day on which Columbus began his great voyages.

  One admiral, a friend of Nelson’s, once remarked: ‘Why, I was once fool enough to believe that it was all nonsense, and I did once cruise, sail on a Friday, much to the annoyance of the men. The consequence was that I run my ship aground, and nearly lost her… nothing shall induce me to sail on a Friday again!’

  DAMNED TO CEASELESS WANDERING

  The ghost ship is one of the most pervasive legends of the sea, and there is none more famous than The Flying Dutchman.

  In the early eighteenth century a ship called The Flying Dutchman under Captain Vanderdecken set sail from Holland for the Cape of Good Hope. Then, according to nautical folklore, a great storm arose and the captain scoffed at the tempest and blasphemed. Suddenly a cloud opened up and a celestial figure descended on the deck. The captain fired a gun at this apparition, which put a terrible curse on him – to wander the oceans ceaselessly with neither rest nor fine weather, the sight of his ship bringing misfortune to all who see it.

  It is said that the skipper of The Flying Dutchman on occasion personally visits passing ships. Sometimes he sends letters on board and if the captain reads them he is lost; he goes mad and his ship dances in the air, then pitches violently before sinking. Vanderdecken also leads ships on to rocks, turns wine into vinegar and rots food aboard.

  The Flying Dutchman is a master of disguise, changing six times a day so as not to be recognised. Sometimes it is a heavy Dutch vessel, at other times a light corsair.

  There were a number of reported sightings of The Flying Dutchman in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One account, written in 1835, reads:

  Suddenly the second officer, a fine Marseilles sailor who had been the foremost in the cabin in laughing at and ridiculing the story of The Flying Dutchman, ascended the rigging and cried: ‘Voilà le Hollandais Volant!’ The captain sent for his night glass and observed, ‘It is very strange but there is a ship bearing down on us with all sail set, while we scarcely show a pocket-handkerchief to the breeze.’

  Another report, made in July 1881 in HMS Bacchante, cruising in the Pacific, stated:

  At 4 a.m. The Flying Dutchman crossed our bows. A strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the masts, spars and sails of an old-fashioned brig 180 m distant stood out in strong relief as she came up. The look-out man on the forecastle reported her as close on the port bow, where the officer of the watch from the bridge clearly saw her, as did the quarterdeck midshipman, who was sent forward at once to the forecastle; but on arriving there no vestige nor any sign whatever of any material ship was to be seen either near or right away to the horizon, the night being clear and the sea calm.

  Sightings continued to occur past the age of sail. During the Second World War the German U-boat fleet commander Admiral Karl Dönitz reported that his crew told him they had seen the The Flying Dutchman on their tours of duty east of Suez.

  The theme of The Flying Dutchman has inspired novelists, poets and composers – Marryat, Scott and Wagner among them. In modern times the legend was adapted into the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

  * * *

  BY AND LARGE – in general. DERIVATION: a ship that performs well under most sailing conditions goes smartly into or ‘by’ the wind and also does not disappoint with a following wind or when ‘going large’.

  * * *

  THE SHIPPE SWALLOWER

  The ancient town of Deal in Kent lies on the shore of the English Channel. Around 10 km out to sea lie the notorious Goodwin Sands, an uneven underwater platform of limestone, some 18 km long by 6.5 km across, over which many tons of shifting sands constantly flow. More than 2,000 ships have been wrecked there. At high tide the sands are covered by just 4 m of water. Some parts are treacherous quicksands which can swallow up whole vessels.

  According to legend the sands were once a fertile, low-lying island called Lomea owned by Godwin, Earl of Wessex, after whom they are named. The land was later given to St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, but the abbot failed to maintain the retaining walls and the sea reclaimed the area. The Goodwin Sands quickly developed a sinister and feared reputation as ‘the shippe swallower’.

  In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Antonio has ‘a ship of rich lading wracked on the narrow seas; the Goodwins, I think they call the place; a very dangerous flat and fatal, where the carcasses of many a tall ship lie buried.’ Herman Melville mentions the sands in Moby Dick, as do R.M. Ballantyne, the Scottish writer, and the poets W.H. Auden and G.K. Chesterton.

  Local stories tell of vessels claimed by the sands sometimes reappearing on the anniversary of their disasters. On 13 February 1748 Captain Reed aboard Lady Lovibond was toasting his recent marriage. His new wife and her mother, along with wedding guests, had joined him for a voyage to Portugal. However, First Mate John Rivers was consumed with jealousy at the match and after murdering the helmsman turned the ship into the sands. The bridal party below was too preoccupied to notice the change in direction until it was too late. On a number of occasions, in multiples of 50 years to the day, Lady Lovibond has been seen again and the sound of female voices has been heard coming from below deck.

  Another sighting dates from the Spanish Armada. On board one of the galleons the Spanish captain prepared to surrender. One of his junior officers, rather than see the ship given to the English, turned on his captain and killed him and was then cut down himself. General fighting broke out among the other officers and the ship caught fire. Aflame from stem to stern, she was driven on to the Goodwin Sands, where she broke up and the crew perished.

  Over 100 years later, in the Great Storm of 1703, four Royal Navy frigates, Mary, Northumberland, Restoration and Stirling Castle, all went to their doom on the Goodwins and hundreds lost their lives. A survivor from Mary reported: ‘A great warship of Drake’s day, her sails tattered, burning from fore to aft and her guns firing served by demented seamen bore down on us, sailed right through our ship and finally disappeared before our eyes into the depths of the sands.’

  On 28 November 1753 the captain of an East India clipper inward bound for London saw the spectre of Northumberland. He recorded in his log that he watched the phantom ship go t
o her doom a second time on the sands. Some of the men aboard Northumberland leapt into the sea but made no splash as they entered the water; the cries of the remaining crew and the firing of her guns every half minute for assistance filled him with dread and terror.

  To this day some say that the strange sounds borne on the wind around Deal are the moans of the waking dead devoured by the Goodwins.

  Deal, Kent.

  NOT JUST VANITY

  Sailors sometimes wore a gold or silver earring in one or both ears. They believed this improved their long-distance vision in the opposite eye. Earrings were also thought to guard the wearer against drowning. A pair of gold earrings would be purchased, one to be worn in the ear, the other to be thrown over the larboard side of the ship with the words, ‘Protect me, O Davy Jones.’ However, if the worst happened and a sailor drowned at sea despite his ear adornment, when his body washed ashore he could be assured the finder would provide a proper Christian burial in return for the gold earring.

  A VOICE FROM THE SEA

  At the turn of the nineteenth century a Cornish lass called Sarah Polgrain had an affair with a sailor known as Yorkshire Jack. When Sarah’s husband died he was initially thought to be a victim of cholera, but it was later found that she had poisoned him with arsenic. Sarah was condemned to death by hanging.

  She was granted her last wish that Yorkshire Jack be allowed to accompany her to the scaffold. Just as the rope was about to be placed around her neck, Jack kissed her and the two embraced for the last time. Spectators nearby heard Sarah say, ‘You will?’ and Jack agree.