“methought i saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon:
wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
all scattered in the bottom of the sea.”
—shakespeare
two hundred years ago, scientists were beginning to chart the winds over the oceans and the currents that thread their way across the surface of deep waters. until this work was finished, the mariner was almost completely at the mercy of the atmosphere and the sea. he would come to uncharted places where the winds ceased to blow and sailing vessels might be becalmed for weeks. day after day, the burning sun climbed slowly toward the zenith and while the unbearable heat tortured the crew, descended with agonizing slowness toward the western horizon. at night, relief came under unclouded skies but the stars gave no indication of better fortunes on the morrow.
in these places it seldom rained. drinking water, as long as it lasted, became putrid, but the crew preserved it as their 33 most precious treasure, drinking a little when they could go no longer without it—holding their noses. the food became so bad that every man who had the courage to eat it wondered if it wouldn’t be better to starve. this happened often in the north atlantic in the days when sailing vessels were carrying horses to the west indies. if they were becalmed and fresh water ran short, the crews had to throw some or all of the horses overboard. in time this region became known as the “horse latitudes.” because it lay north and northeast of the hurricane belt, a long spell of rainless weather for a sailing ship here could be succeeded suddenly and overwhelmingly by the torrential rains of a tropical storm.
at long intervals, a slight breeze came along, barely enough to extend a small flag, but it gave the ship a little motion and brought hope to the men who were worn out with tugging at the oars. in this circumstance, it might happen that a long, low groundswell would appear. coming from a great distance, it would raise and then lower the vessel a little in passing. others would surely follow—low undulations at intervals of four or five to the minute—bringing a warning of a storm beyond the horizon. here was one of the ironic twists of a sailor’s existence. even while he prayed for water, the atmosphere was about to give it to him in tremendous quantities, both from above and below. at this juncture the master was in a quandary. for the safety of ship and crew, it was vital that he know exactly what to do at the very instant when the first gusty breezes of the coming storm filled the sails.
from the law of storms, the mariner eventually learned—and it was suicide to forget it at a time like this—that if he could look forward from the center of the hurricane, along the line of progress, the most terrible winds and waves would be on his right. here the raging demons of the tropical 34 blast outdo themselves. the whirling velocity is added to the forward motion, for both in these few harrowing hours have the same direction. all the power of the atmosphere is delivered in this space, where unbelievable gales try to blast their way into the partial vacuum at the center. but the atmosphere is held back from the center by a still greater power, the rotation of the earth on its axis. no shipmaster should ever be caught between these awful forces with the huge bulk of the storm drawing toward him.
here we find horrors that were never disclosed to the early storm hunters. it is doubtful if any sailing ship or any man aboard survived in this sector of a really great hurricane. but even more dangerous are the deceitful motions of the sea surface, which can trap the mariner and drag his vessel toward the dangerous sector, even while he thinks he is fighting his way out of it.
in those uneasy hours when the groundswell preceded the winds, the master had to watch his barometer and the clouds on the horizon, to get the best estimate of the storm’s future course. if it gave signs of coming toward him or passing a little to the west of him, he had to run with the wind as soon as it began, every inch of canvas straining at the creaking masts to get all the headway possible. he would do better than he thought, for the surface of the sea was moving with the winds and his vessel was plowing through the waves while the sea was swirling in the same direction. it was a race for life, and if he was not unlucky, he would find himself behind the storm, sailing rapidly toward better weather.
if he made the wrong choice and tried to go around the center on the east side while the storm moved northward, he might have thought that he was making headway. but the sea surface was carrying him backward while the horrible right sector rushed forward to encompass the ship. 35 now we see why redfield, reid and piddington, when they came to a realization of some of these facts in the logs of sailing vessels, were so eager to give the world a law of storms. their work was only a beginning, for the so-called law is not as simple as they imagined. but some shipmasters took their advice and survived, whereas any other course would have taken them to the bottom of the sea. and untold numbers had gone down in big hurricanes.
among the logs and letters collected by redfield and reid in their work on the law of storms were many which referred to a fierce hurricane in 1780. for more than fifty years it had been talked about as “the great hurricane.” but the stories didn’t all seem to fit together. the storm was said to have been in too many places at too many different times to suit redfield. when he had finished putting the data from ships’ logs on a map in accordance with his law of storms, he saw that there had been three hurricanes at about the same time and that they had been confused and reported as one.
in the year of these big hurricanes there were many warships in the caribbean region. the american war of independence had started with bloodshed at lexington and bunker hill in 1775, and by 1780 england was in a state of war with half the world. her battle fleets controlled most of the seas along the american coast and roamed the waters in and around the west indies.
the first of the three hurricanes struck jamaica on the third of october. nine english warships, under the command of sir peter parker, went to the bottom. seven of his vessels were dismasted or severely damaged. from the tenth to the fifteenth of october a second—and even more powerful hurricane—ravaged barbados and progressively devastated other islands in the eastern caribbean. this one has been rated the most terrible hurricane in history by many students of storms. it wreaked awful destruction on the 36 island of st. lucia, where six thousand persons were crushed in the ruins of demolished buildings. the english fleet in that vicinity disappeared. neither trees nor houses were left standing on barbados. off martinique, forty ships of a french convoy were sunk and nearly all on board were lost, including four thousand soldiers. on the island itself, nine thousand persons were killed. most of the vessels in the broad path of the storm as it progressed farther into the caribbean, including several warships, foundered with all their crews. it drove fifty vessels ashore at bermuda, on the eighteenth.
before this terrible storm reached bermuda another one roared out of the western caribbean, crossed western cuba and passed into the gulf of mexico, on october 18. unaware of the approach of this hurricane, a spanish fleet of seventy-four warships, under admiral solano, sailed from havana into the gulf, to attack pensacola. they were trapped in the eastern section of the gulf and nineteen ships were lost. the remainder were dispersed, several having thrown their guns overboard to avoid capsizing. nearly all the others were damaged, many dismasted. the spanish fleet was no longer a fighting force.
within three weeks most of the battle fleets in and around the caribbean had been put out of commission. both redfield and reid were impressed by the power displayed by these hurricanes. in his search of the records, the former succeeded in getting a copy of a letter written by a lieutenant archer to his mother in england, giving an account of the first of these terrible storms. the following story is condensed from archer’s letter.
archer was second in command of an english warship named the phoenix. it was commanded by sir hyde parker. before the first of these three hurricanes developed, the phoenix had been sent to pensacola, where the english were 37 in control. late in september, she sailed to rejoin the remainder of the fleet at jamaica. on passing havana harbor, sir hyde looked in and was astounded to see solano’s spanish fleet at anchor. he hurried around cuba into the caribbean, to take the news to the british fleet.
at kingston, jamaica, the crew of the phoenix found three other men-of-war lying in the harbor and they had a strong party for “kicking up a dust on shore,” with dancing until two o’clock every morning. little did they think of what might be in store for them. out of the four men-of-war not one was in existence four days later and not a man aboard any of them survived, except a few of the crew of the phoenix. and what is more, the houses where the crews had been so merry were so completely destroyed that scarcely a vestige remained to show where they had stood.
on september 30, the four warships set sail for port royal, around the eastern end of jamaica. at eleven o’clock on the night of october 2, it began to “snuffle,” with a “monstrous heavy appearance to the eastward.” sir hyde sent for lieutenant archer.
“what sort of weather have we, archer?”
“it blows a little and has a very ugly look; if in any other quarter, i should say we were going to have a gale of wind.”
they had a very dirty night. at eight in the morning, with close-reefed topsails, the phoenix was fighting a hard blow from the east-northeast, and heavy squalls at times. archer said he was once in a hurricane in the east indies and the beginning of it had much the same appearance as this. the crew took in the topsails and were glad they had plenty of sea-room. on sir hyde’s orders, they secured all the sails with spare gaskets, put good rolling tackles on the yards, squared the booms, saw that the boats were all fast, lashed the guns, double-breeched the lower deckers, got the top-gallant 38 mast down on the deck and, in fact, did everything to make a snug ship.
“and now,” archer wrote, “the poor birds began to suffer from the uproar of the elements and came on board. they turned to the windward like a ship, tack and tack, and dashed themselves down on the deck without attempting to stir till picked up. they would not leave the ship.”
the carpenters were placed by the mainmast with broad axes, ready to cut it away to save the ship. archer found the purser “frightened out of his wits” and two marine officers “white as sheets” from listening to the vibration of the lower deck guns, which were pulling loose and thrashing around. at every roll it seemed that the whole ship’s side was going.
at twelve it was blowing a full hurricane. archer came on deck and found sir hyde there. “it blows terribly hard, archer.”
“it does indeed, sir.”
“i don’t remember its blowing so hard before,” shouted sir hyde, striving to get his voice above the roar of the wind. “the ship makes good weather of it on this tack but we must wear her (to turn about by putting the helm up and the stern of the boat to the wind), as the wind has shifted to the southeast and we are fast drawing up on the coast of cuba.”
“sir, there is no canvas can stand against it a moment. we may lose three or four of our people in the effort. she’ll wear by manning the fire shrouds.”
“well, try it,” said sir hyde, which was a great condescension for a man of his temperament to accept the advice of a subordinate. it took two hundred men to wear the ship, but when she was turned about, the sea began to run clear across the decks and she had no time to rise from one sea until another lashed into her. some of the sails had been torn from the masts and the rest began to fly from the yards “through the gaskets like coachwhips.”
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“to think that the wind could have such force!” archer shouted into the gale.
“go down and see what is the matter between decks,” ordered sir hyde in a lull.
archer crept below and a marine officer screamed, “we are sinking. the water is up to the bottom of my cot!”
archer yelled back, “as long as it is not over your mouth, you are well off.” he put all spare men to work at the pumps. the phoenix labored heavily, with scarcely any of her above water except the quarter-deck and that seldom.
on returning, archer found sir hyde lashed to a mast. he lashed himself alongside his commander and tried to hear what he was shouting. afterward, archer tried to describe this situation in his letter. “if i was to write forever, i could not give you an idea of it. a total darkness above and the sea running in alps or peaks of teneriffe (mountains is too common an idea); the wind roaring louder than thunder, the ship shaking her sides and groaning.”
“hold fast,” shouted sir hyde as a big wave crashed into the ship. “that was an ugly sea! we must lower the yards, archer.”
“if we attempt it, sir, we shall lose them. i wish the mainmast was overboard without carrying anything else along with it.”
another mountainous wave swept the trembling ship. a crewman brought news from the pump room. water was gaining on the weary pumpers. the ship was almost on her beam-ends. archer called to sir hyde, “shall we cut the mainmast away?”
“ay, as fast as you can,” said sir hyde. but just then a tremendous wave broke right on board, carried everything on deck away and filled the ship with water. the main and mizen masts went, the phoenix righted a little but was in the last struggle of sinking.
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as soon as they could shake their heads free of the water, sir hyde yelled, “we are gone at last, archer. foundered at sea! farewell, and the lord have mercy on us!”
archer felt sorry that he could swim, for he would struggle instinctively and it would take him a quarter hour longer to die than a man who could not. the quarter-deck was full of men praying for mercy. at that moment there was a great thump and a grinding under them.
archer screamed, “sir, the ship is ashore. we may save ourselves yet!”
every stroke of the sea threatened dissolution of the ship’s frame. every wave swept over her as she lay stern ashore.
sir hyde cried out, “keep to the quarter-deck, my lads. when she goes to pieces that is your best chance.”
five men were lost cutting the foremast. the sea seemed to reach for them as it took the mast overboard and they went with it. everyone expected it would be his turn next. it was awful—the ship grinding and being torn away piece by piece. mercifully, as if to give the crew another desperate chance, a tremendous wave carried the phoenix among the rocks and she stuck there, though her decks tumbled in.
archer took off his coat and shoes and prepared to swim, but on second thought he knew it wouldn’t do. as second officer, he would have to stay with his commander and see that every man, including the sick and injured, was safely off the ship before he left it. he wrote later that he looked around with a philosophic eye in that moment and was amazed to find that those who had been the most swaggering, swearing bullies in fine weather were now the most pitiful wretches on earth, with death before them.
finally, archer helped two sailors off with a line which was made fast to the rocks, and most of those who had survived the storm got ashore alive, including the sick and 41 injured, who were moved from a cabin window by means of a spare topsail-yard.
on shore, sir hyde came to archer so affected that he was scarcely able to make himself understood. “i am happy to see you ashore—but look at our poor phoenix.” weak and worn, the two sat huddled on the shore, silent for a quarter hour, blasted by gale and sea. archer actually wept. after that, the two officers gathered the men together and rescued some fresh water and provisions from the wreck. they also secured material to make tents. the storm had thrown great quantities of fish into the holes in the rocks and these provided a good meal.
one of the ship’s boats was left in fair condition. in two days the carpenters repaired it, and archer, with four volunteers, set off for jamaica. they had squally weather and a leaky boat, but by constant baling with two buckets, they arrived at their destination next evening. eventually, all the remainder of the crew they had left in cuba were saved except some who died of injuries after getting ashore from the phoenix and a few who got hold of some of the ship’s rum and drank themselves to death.
how many times this drama of death and narrow escape may have been repeated in the three great hurricanes of 1780 is not disclosed in the records. but hundreds of ships and many thousands of men were lost. and at that time no one knew the true nature of these great winds. it was not until more than fifty years had passed and redfield and reid examined all the reports that these tremendous gales were found to be parts of three separate hurricanes. this ignorance seems strange, for nearly three hundred years had passed since columbus ran into his first hurricane.
as reid worked at great length on these old records in logs and letters, he became confident that redfield was right about the whirling nature of tropical storms. there were ten 42 hurricanes in the west indies in 1837 and these supplied reid with a great deal of added information. one of the most exciting was the big hurricane in the middle of august of that year.
this was a vicious storm which was first observed by the barque felicity in the atlantic, far east of the antilles, on august 12, 1837. the chances are that it came from the african coast, near the cape verde islands, as many of the worst of them do. by the time these faraway disturbances have crossed the atlantic and approached the west indies, they are usually major hurricanes, capable of wreaking great destruction. this one was no exception, but its path lay a little farther to the northward than usual and its most furious winds were not felt on land, even on the more northerly islands in the group.
ships in its path reported winds which appeared to be of a “rotatory” nature when reid plotted them on maps. on the fifteenth, the storm passed near turk’s island and on the sixteenth, was being felt on the easternmost bahamas.
at this stage, the ship calypso became involved in the storm and was unable to escape. the master, a man named wilkinson, wrote an account to the owners, from which the following is taken:
“during the night the winds increased, and day-light found the vessel under a close-reefed main-topsail, with royal and top-gallant-yards on deck, and prepared for a gale of wind. at 10 a.m. the wind about north-east, the lee-rail under water, and the masts bending like canes. got a tarpaulin on the main rigging and took the main topsail in. the ship laboring much obliged main and bilge-pumps to be kept constantly going. at 6 p.m. the wind north-west, i should think the latitude would be about 27°, and longitude 77°w. at midnight the wind was west, when a sea took the quarter-boat away.
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“at day-dawn, or rather i should have said the time when the day would have dawned, the wind was southwest, and a sea stove the fore-scuttle. all attempts to stop this leak were useless, for when the ship pitched the scuttle was considerably under water. i then had the gaskets and lines cut from the reefed foresail, which blew away; a new fore-topmast-studding-sail was got up and down the fore-rigging, but in a few seconds the bolt-rope only remained; the masts had then to be cut away.”
by this time the wind was even more furious and the seas so high none expected the calypso to survive. the master continued his story:
“my chief mate had a small axe in his berth, which he had made very sharp a few days previous. that was immediately procured; and while the men were employed cutting away the mizenmast, the lower yard-arms went in the water. it is human nature to struggle hard for life; so fourteen men and myself got over the rail between the main and mizen rigging as the mast-heads went into the water. the ship was sinking fast. while some men were employed cutting the weather-lanyards of the rigging, some were calling to god for mercy; some were stupified with despair; and two poor fellows, who had gone from the afterhold, over the cargo, to get to the forecastle, to try to stop the leak, were swimming in the ship’s hold. in about three minutes after getting on the bends, the weather-lanyards were cut fore and aft, and the mizen, main, and foremasts went one after the other, just as the vessel was going down head foremost.
“the ship hung in this miserable position, as if about to disappear (as shown in the accompanying reconstruction of the scene by an artist who worked under the direction of the master of the calypso) and then by some miracle slowly righted herself.
“on getting on board again, i found the three masts had 44 gone close off by the deck. the boats were gone, the main hatches stove in, the planks of the deck had started in many places, the water was up to the beams, and the puncheons of rum sending about the hold with great violence. the starboard gunwale was about a foot from the level of the sea, and the larboard about five feet. the sea was breaking over the ship as it would have done over a log. you will, perhaps, say it could not have been worse, and any lives spared to tell the tale. i assure you, sir, it was worse; and by divine providence, every man was suffered to walk from that ship to the quay at wilmington.”
from such accounts the hurricane hunters gathered the facts which led to a better “law of storms” and made life at sea safer for the officers and men who struggled with sails and masts in tropical gales. but it is most likely that the experiences of the crews of those sailing ships that were caught in the worst sectors of fully developed hurricanes in the open sea were never told. it is not probable that any survived the calamitous weather on the right front of the storm center, where the sea, the atmosphere, the rotation of the earth, and the forward motion of the hurricane are combined in a frenzy of destructive power.
in one sense, all of the men who survived these terrors at sea were hurricane hunters. they had to be. those who lived were the men who were always alert to the first signs in sea and sky, who knew when one of the big storms of the tropics was just beyond the horizon. they were learning and passing the knowledge along to others. by the middle of the nineteenth century, the mariner had a “law of storms” that kept countless ships out of the most dangerous parts of tropical disturbances.
