Maritime History

At 8 a.m. on April 23, 1778, John Paul Jones, with 30 volunteers from his ship, the USS Ranger, launches a surprise attack on the two harbor forts at Whitehaven, England. Jones’ boat successfully took the southern fort, but a second boat, assigned to attack to the northern fort, returned to the Ranger without having done so, claiming to have been scared off by a strange noise. To compensate, Jones decided to burn the southern fort; the blaze ultimately consumed the entire town. It was the only American raid on English shores during the American Revolution. Later the same day, Jones continued from Whitehaven, where he began his sailing career, to his home territory of Kirkcudbright Bay, Scotland. There he intended to abduct the earl of Selkirk, and then exchange him for American sailors held captive by Britain. Although he did not find the earl at home, Jones’ crew was able to steal all his silver, including his wife’s teapot, still containing her breakfast tea. From Scotland, Jones sailed across the Irish Sea to Carrickfergus, where the Ranger captured the HMS Drake after delivering fatal wounds to the British ship’s captain and lieutenant. Read the complete article on History.com.

Born today 1693, John Harrison, the cantankerous Yorkshireman who would go on to invent the naval chronometer and solve the mystery of calculating longitude at sea. Read the complete article on Atlas Obscura.

The worldwide implications of the American War for Independence are made clear on February 17, 1782 as the American-allied French navy begins a 14-month-long series of five battles with the British navy in the Indian Ocean. Between February 17, 1782, and September 3, 1782, French Admiral Pierre Andre de Suffren de Saint-Tropez, otherwise known as Bailli de Suffren, and British Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes, commander in chief in the East Indies, engaged in four major battles in the Indian Ocean region: the Battle of Sadras on February 17, the Battle of Providien on April 12, the Battle of Negapatam on July 6 and the Battle of Trincomalee on September 3. Read the complete article on History.com.

On October 15, 1863, the H.L. Hunley, the world’s first successful combat submarine, sinks during a test run, killing its inventor and seven crew members. Horace Lawson Hunley developed the 40-foot submarine from a cylinder boiler. It was operated by a crew of eight—one person steered while the other seven turned a crank that drove the ship’s propeller. The Hunley could dive, but it required calm seas for safe operations. It was tested successfully in Alabama’s Mobile Bay in the summer of 1863, and Confederate commander General Pierre G.T. Beauregard recognized that the vessel might be useful to ram Union ships and break the blockade of Charleston Harbor. The Hunley was placed on a railcar and shipped to South Carolina. Read the complete article on History.com. 1863 was in the later period when the work songs of sailors were flourishing, variously called chanties in America or shanties in England.

In one of the most decisive naval battles in history, a British fleet under Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar, fought off the coast of Spain. At sea, Lord Nelson and the Royal Navy consistently thwarted Napoleon Bonaparte, who led France to preeminence on the European mainland. Nelson’s last and greatest victory against the French was the Battle of Trafalgar, which began after Nelson caught sight of a Franco-Spanish force of 33 ships. Preparing to engage the enemy force on October 21, Nelson divided his 27 ships into two divisions and signaled a famous message from the flagship Victory: “England expects that every man will do his duty.” Trafalgar Day is the celebration of the victory won by the Royal Navy, commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, over the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. (Nelson died from a French sharpshooter’s bullet.) You can read the full article on History.com.

On 1st August 1798, Nelson led his fleet into action against the French fleet anchored at the mouth of the Nile in Aboukir Bay, Egypt. In a fierce action, fought in the shallows between the shoreline and the French warships, Nelson almost totally destroyed Napoleon’s naval power in the Mediterranean, leaving him and his expeditionary force stranded in the hostile Egyptian deserts. One fact that is often overlooked about the battle is that Nelson was quite severely wounded – a piece of shrapnel, or rather a splinter from the rail of his flagship, caught him on his forehead, ripping the skin and sending a fleshy flap down over his good eye. For a moment Nelson thought he was blinded, but after being treated soon returned to command the action with a bandaged head, as seen in this illustration below. You can read more about this event on British Battles and the Naval History and Heritage Command website.

Vasa is a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship sank after sailing roughly 1,300 m (1,400 yd) into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. She fell into obscurity after most of her valuable bronze cannon were salvaged in the 17th century, until she was located again in the late 1950s in a busy shipping area in Stockholm harbor. The ship was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961. She was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet (“The Vasa Shipyard”) until 1988 and then moved permanently to the Vasa Museum in the Royal National City Park in Stockholm. The ship is one of Sweden’s most popular tourist attractions and has been seen by over 35 million visitors since 1961. Since her recovery, Vasa has become a widely recognized symbol of the Swedish Empire. Link to full article on Wikipedia.

This is Dean Calin; in addition to being the founder of the Maritime Music Directory International, I am also the founder, in 2003, of the maritime music vocal group, Bounding Main. Bounding Main was performing together for just one year when they were hired in 2004 by Patti Lock to perform at Kenosha Days of Discovery, a five-day celebration of maritime adventure that included three tall ships in the city harbor. For us, this was a magnificent confirmation of our purpose – to honor the history of maritime music, associated with the age of sail. We joined veteran performers Tom & Chris Kastle and David HB Drake, whom we would come to know well and to entertain with at many, future tall ship events. Between our shows we explored the harbor park, meeting vendors such as Ships of Glass and Linda Anderson Photography. We saw many people waiting for deck tours of the U.S. Brig Niagara out of Erie, Pennsylvania, Milwaukee’s own S/V Denis Sullivan, Bob Marthai’s Windy II from Chicago’s Navy Pier, the Boston Harbor pilot boat, the Highlander Sea and, famously, the Bounty, a Lunenburg-built reproduction for the 1962 Marlon Brando film, Mutiny on the Bounty. We were all rather amazed and star struck by the whole thing. This was our first exposure to real tall ships and it was a great deal to take in. The lines for the tall ships were considerable, but suddenly, there was a break in the line for the Bounty so we clambered aboard! We sought out a deck hand to ask permission to sing aboard her – permission was granted! Decked out in our Elizabethan era clothing we sang in anachronistic delight aboard this 20th century reproduction of an 18th century British armed vessel! The crew and customers seemed to enjoy what we sang almost as much as we loved singing it! The Bounty was the first tall ship that we ever sang upon. We have gone on to perform maritime music across North America and Europe for over two decades and counting. We later learned that our friend, David HB Drake, had been hired, on an emergency basis, to play the shantyman on the Bounty by his old environmental theater friend, Bob Dawson. Drake was doing a deck tour of the Bounty when she was in port in Milwaukee during a tall ship festival there. Surprised to see each other,… Read more »

The idea of transporting trucks on ships was put into practice before World War II. In 1926 regular connection of the luxury passenger train from London to Paris, Golden Arrow/Fleche d’Or, by Southern Railway and French Northern Railway began. For transport of passengers’ baggage, four containers were used. These containers were loaded in London or Paris and carried to ports, Dover or Calais, on flat cars in the UK and “CIWL Pullman Golden Arrow Fourgon of CIWL” in France In the early 1950s, Malcolm Purcell McLean decided to attempt use of the containers commercially. By 1952, he was developing plans to carry his company’s trucks on ships along the U.S. Atlantic coast, from North Carolina to New York. It soon became apparent that “trailerships”, as they were called, would be inefficient because of the large waste in potential cargo space on board the vessel, known as broken stowage. The original concept was modified into loading just the containers, not the chassis, onto the ships, hence the designation container ship or “box” ship. At the time, U.S. regulations would not allow a trucking company to own a shipping line. Read the complete article on Wikipedia.com. TEU: 20-foot equivalent unit is the international standard measure of containers. TEUs are featured in the Jack Forbes song, Rolling Down the River. Jack said this about his song, “I wrote and recorded the song ‘Rolling down the River’ in 1982 for a radio programme about Tilbury Docks. It has since been used in an Educational Drama production, a folk theatre presentation and also as a Morris Dance, as well as being sung all over the world. It can be heard wherever there are shanty sessions at folk festivals and festivals of the sea. There is an American version* and a Polish version (sung of course in Polish).” Jack Forbes was a member of the Hoy Shanty Crew and Slow Loris. Jack passed away on January 30, 2016; many kind words about him were shared on MudCat Cafe

Five Spanish ships were lost. The galleass San Lorenzo, flagship of Don Hugo de Moncada, ran aground at Calais and was taken by Howard after murderous fighting between the crew, the galley slaves, the English who eventually killed all Spanish and slaves, and the French, who ultimately took possession of the wreck. The galleons San Mateo and San Felipe drifted away in a sinking condition, ran aground on the island of Walcheren the next day, and were taken by the Dutch. One carrack ran aground near Blankenberge; another foundered. Many other Spanish ships were severely damaged, especially the Portuguese and some Spanish Atlantic-class galleons (including some Neapolitan galleys) which had to bear the brunt of the fighting during the early hours of the battle in desperate individual actions against groups of English ships. The Spanish plan to join with Parma’s army had been defeated and the English had gained some breathing space, but the Armada’s presence in northern waters still posed a great threat to England. Read the complete article on History.com.

In the first unqualified defeat of a British naval squadron in history, U.S. Captain Oliver Hazard Perry leads a fleet of nine American ships to victory over a squadron of six British warships at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. The battle was closely contested for hours, and Perry’s flagship Lawrence was reduced to a defenseless wreck. He then transferred to the Niagara and sailed directly into the British line, firing broadsides and forcing the British to surrender. Perry had won a complete victory at the cost of 27 Americans killed and 96 wounded; British casualties were 40 dead and 94 wounded. After the battle, Perry sent a famous dispatch to U.S. General William Henry Harrison that read, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” The Battle of Lake Erie forced the British to abandon Detroit, ensuring U.S. control over Lake Erie and the territorial northwest.Read the full article on History.com

Revolutionary War commander John Paul Jones sets out to raid British ships On April 10, 1778, Commander John Paul Jones and his crew of 140 men aboard the USS Ranger set sail from the naval port at Brest, France, and head toward the Irish Sea to begin raids on British warships. This was the first mission of its kind during the Revolutionary War. Read the complete story on History.com.

On October 15, 1863, the H.L. Hunley, the world’s first successful combat submarine, sinks during a test run, killing its inventor and seven crew members. Horace Lawson Hunley developed the 40-foot submarine from a cylinder boiler. It was operated by a crew of eight—one person steered while the other seven turned a crank that drove the ship’s propeller. The Hunley could dive, but it required calm seas for safe operations. It was tested successfully in Alabama’s Mobile Bay in the summer of 1863, and Confederate commander General Pierre G.T. Beauregard recognized that the vessel might be useful to ram Union ships and break the blockade of Charleston Harbor. The Hunley was placed on a railcar and shipped to South Carolina. Read the full article on History.com.

The Austrian submarine U-35 bombs and sinks the American schooner Lyman M. Law in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Cagliari, Sardinia. The Lyman M. Law, captained by S.W. McDonough, had embarked on its final journey from Stockton, Maine, with a crew of 10 on January 6, 1917, carrying a cargo of 60,000 bundles of lemon-box staves. The schooner was traveling across the Atlantic bound for Palermo, Italy, when it was captured on the morning of February 12. The Austrians ordered the crew of eight Americans and two British sailors off the schooner before a bomb was detonated, setting fire to the 1,300-ton wooden vessel prior to its sinking. The crew was uninjured and transported to the coastal town of Cagliari, where they were released. [MMDI editor’s note: this incident demonstrates that tall ships continued to play a significant part in world events well into the 20th century.] Read the complete article on History.com.

On November 10, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks in Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew members on board. It was the worst single accident in Lake Superior’s history. The ship weighed more than 13,000 tons and was 730 feet long. It was launched in 1958 as the biggest carrier in the Great Lakes and became the first ship to carry more than a million tons of iron ore through the Soo Locks. Read the complete article on History.com.

In London, Thomas Blood, an Irish adventurer better known as “Captain Blood,” is captured attempting to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Blood, a Parliamentarian during the English Civil War, was deprived of his estate in Ireland with the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660. In 1663, he put himself at the head of a plot to seize Dublin Castle from supporters of King Charles II, but the plot was discovered and his accomplices executed. He escaped capture. In 1671, he hatched a bizarre plan to steal the new Crown Jewels, which had been refashioned by Charles II because most of the original jewels were melted down after Charles I’s execution in 1649. Read the complete story on History.com.

On December 31, 1600, Queen Elizabeth I of England grants a formal charter to the London merchants trading to the East Indies, hoping to break the Dutch monopoly of the spice trade in what is now Indonesia. In the first few decades of its existence, the East India Company made far less progress in the East Indies than it did in India itself, where it acquired unequaled trade privileges from India’s Mogul emperors. By the 1630s, the company abandoned its East Indies operations almost entirely to concentrate on its lucrative trade of Indian textiles and Chinese tea. In the early 18th century, the company increasingly became an agent of British imperialism as it intervened more and more in Indian and Chinese political affairs. The company had its own military, which defeated the rival French East India Company in 1752 and the Dutch in 1759. Read the complete article on History.com.

The day after the Senate followed the House of Representatives in voting to declare war against Great Britain, President James Madison signs the declaration into law—and the War of 1812 begins. The American war declaration, opposed by a sizable minority in Congress, had been called in response to the British economic blockade of France, the induction of American seaman into the British Royal Navy against their will, and the British support of hostile Indian tribes along the Great Lakes frontier. A faction of Congress known as the “War Hawks” had been advocating war with Britain for several years and had not hidden their hopes that a U.S. invasion of Canada might result in significant territorial land gains for the United States. Read the complete article on History.com.

On January 3, 1841, Herman Melville ships out on the whaler Acushnet to the South Seas. Melville was born in New York City in 1819. A childhood bout of scarlet fever permanently weakened his eyesight. He went to sea at age 19, as a cabin boy on a ship bound for Liverpool. Two years later, he sailed for the South Seas. The Acushnet anchored in Polynesia, where Melville took part in a mutiny. He was thrown in jail in Tahiti, escaped, and wandered around the South Sea islands for two years. In 1846, he published his first novel, Typee, based on his Polynesian adventures. His second book, Omoo (1847), also dealt with the region. The two novels were popular successes, although his third, Mardi Moby-Dick. The book flopped and was not recognized as a classic for many years. Click here to read the complete article on History.com.