My Life at Sea: being a "yarn" loosely spun for the purpose of holding together certain reminiscences of the transition period from sail to steam in the British mercantile marine (1863-1894)Crutchley, William Caius
History
My Life at Sea: being a "yarn" loosely spun for the purpose of holding together certain reminiscences of the transition period from sail to steam in the British mercantile marine (1863-1894)
Crutchley, William Caius
Merchant marine -- Great Britain; Seafaring life
Down south of course the danger of collision with ships was
infinitesimal; with ice it was another matter, and I consequently
resolved in my own mind that if I could not see I should either go full
speed or stop. On one occasion, half-way across the Indian Ocean, a
dense fog came on. I had seen no ice, nor had I any particular reason
to suppose I should do so, but the fog was dense, so much so that I
could not see either end of the ship from the bridge. I did not like
to stop, but eventually about 8 p.m. I stopped the engines and lay all
night without moving. Though it is needless to say I had run before in
a fog scores of times, on this occasion I did not do so, nor could I
give any definite reason for my action. But when daylight came and the
fog blew away we saw around us at various distances a dozen or fifteen
big icebergs. Of course, we might have passed them safely, but, on the
other hand, had a difference of opinion as to right of way taken place
between us we should probably have added one more to the mysteries of
the sea.
I ran down to one of those bergs to see if I could get an echo from
the steam-whistle. It was then clear weather and the echo was quite
perfect, but whether it would be so in fog I am unable to say. Clark
Russell wrote an article on this incident in the _Daily Telegraph_.
I think the only other occasion on which I was delayed by ice, and
it was again stray ice too, was on a homeward passage, and it was
winter time. It was coming on dirty weather when, at the close of the
afternoon, such as it was, ice was reported--and a good deal of it.
Another case of the homeless dog, but it had to be attended to. The
wind was strong from the north-west with the usual mist and drizzle,
the night coming down as dark as pitch. Again I decided I could not
run with any degree of safety, so brought the ship to the wind under
her trysails, heading about N.N.E. with the engines moving as slowly
as possible. About ten o’clock the glass was falling rapidly, and a
terrific squall came down. The quartermaster observed to me, or rather
shouted, “She is coming to against her helm, sir.” This was rather
interesting, so I said to the officer of the watch, “If she knows what
to do better than I, let her do it; stop the engines.” He did so. By
this time the main trysail was blown clean out of the bolt ropes, but
in the roar of the weather I did not hear it go. The wind had now
shifted to the west, but the ship lay broadside to the sea without
shipping any water. This was because I had put my oil bag equipment to
work, and my experience of it was most satisfactory. After some hours
the weather cleared sufficiently for us to put the helm up and proceed.
We saw no more ice after that night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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