Maritime Notes and News

In 1970, after Great Britain had been abandoned for 33 years, Sir Jack Arnold Hayward, OBE (1923–2015) paid for the vessel to be raised and repaired enough to be towed north through the Atlantic back to the United Kingdom, and returned to the Bristol dry dock where she had been built 127 years earlier. Hayward was a prominent businessman, developer, philanthropist and owner of the English football club Wolverhampton Wanderers. Now listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, Great Britain is a visitor attraction and museum ship in Bristol Harbour, with between 150,000 and 200,000 visitors annually. She was the largest passenger ship in the world from 1845 to 1853. She was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859), for the Great Western Steamship Company’s transatlantic service between Bristol and New York City. While other ships had been built of iron or equipped with a screw propeller, Great Britain was the first to combine these features in a large ocean-going ship. She was the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic Ocean, which she did in 1845, in 14 days. Read the complete article in Wikipedia.com [Article by Anthony Goodenough.]

After spending a winter trapped by ice in present-day Hudson Bay, the starving crew of the Discovery mutinies against its captain, English navigator Henry Hudson, and sets him, his teenage son, and seven supporters adrift in a small, open boat on 22 June, 1611. Hudson and the eight others were never seen again. Read the complete article on History.com.

During his circumnavigation of the world, English seaman Francis Drake anchors in a harbor just north of present-day San Francisco, California, and on 17 June, 1579, claims the territory for Queen Elizabeth I. Calling the land “Nova Albion,” Drake remained on the California coast for a month to make repairs to his ship, the Golden Hind, and prepare for his westward crossing of the Pacific Ocean. Read the complete article on History.com. Note that this voyage is featured in Dean Calin’s song, Call of the Sea, performed by Bounding Main.

On April 28, Fletcher Christian, the master’s mate on the Bounty, led a successful mutiny against Captain Bligh and his supporters. The British naval vessel had been transporting breadfruit saplings from Tahiti for planting on British colonies in the Caribbean. The voyage was difficult, and ill feelings were rampant between the captain, officers, and crew. Bligh, who eventually would fall prey to a total of three mutinies in his career, was an oppressive commander and insulted those under him. On April 28, near the island of Tonga, Christian and 25 petty officers and seamen seized the ship. The captain and 18 of his crew were set adrift in a small boat with 25 gallons of water, 150 pounds of bread, 30 pounds of pork, six quarts of rum, and six bottles of wine. By setting the captain and his officers adrift in an overcrowded 23-foot-long boat in the middle of the Pacific, Christian and his conspirators had apparently handed them a death sentence. By remarkable seamanship, however, Bligh and his men reached Timor in the East Indies on June 14, 1789, after a voyage of about 3,600 miles. Bligh returned to England and soon sailed again to Tahiti, from where he successfully transported breadfruit trees to the West Indies. Read the complete article on History.com.

In an incident that some regard as the first naval engagement of the American Revolution, colonists board the Gaspee, a British vessel that ran aground off the coast of Rhode Island, and set it aflame. The Gaspee was pursuing the Hanna, an American smuggling ship, when it ran aground off Namquit Point in Providence’s Narragansett Bay on June 9. That evening, John Brown, an American merchant angered by high British taxes on his goods, rowed out to the Gaspee with a number of other colonists and seized control of the ship. After leading away its crew, the Americans set the Gaspee afire. Read the complete article at History.com. Also, refer to this Wikipedia article.

June 8, 1708 the count of Casa Alegre knew a squadron of English warships was lurking in the area, but he thought he could avoid it. As captain of the Spanish galleon San José, he was charged with leading the Tierra Firma fleet from the Caribbean back to Spain, 17 ships in all, loaded with several years’ worth of treasure from the New World, enough perhaps to turn the tide of war in Europe. Casa Alegre had no doubt the English would be after the precious cargo. If he could reach the harbor of Cartagena de Indias, on the coast of what is now Colombia, the fleet would be safe. Then they appeared on the horizon to the north. Four English sails. To give the fleet’s merchant ships a chance to reach the harbor, Casa Alegre had no choice but to turn and fight. He hoisted the red battle flag up the mainmast and sailed toward the enemy, accompanied by two armed galleons. As in a bar brawl, the two most fearsome combatants sought each other out. At sunset, the 70-gun HMS Expedition, helmed by Commodore Charles Wager, took on the 62-gun San José. For more than an hour, they traded broadsides, sailing past each other while firing their cannons at close range, pulverizing wood and bone. Read the complete article in Vanity Fair. Also, refer to this article in Wikipedia.

The Great Shanty Off! Calling all Sea-Shanty groups! We are seeking expressions of interest from shanty groups (big or small) located on the Eastern Seaboard of Australia to join us in a singing contest later this year, held at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney. A cash prize of $1500 is on offer and the opportunity to perform at the museum on one of our vessels! Find out more: https://www.sea.museum/whats-on/events/competition

USS Chesapeake versus HMS Shannon happened on June 1st 1813 in Boston Harbor and is referred to as the Battle of Boston Harbor. At Boston, Captain James Lawrence took command of Chesapeake on May 20 1813, and on June 1, put to sea to meet HMS Shannon, commanded by Captain Philip Broke. Broke had issued a written challenge to Chesapeake’s commander, but Chesapeake sailed before it was delivered. Chesapeake fared poorly in the early exchange of gunfire, having her wheel and part of her rigging shot away, rendering her unmaneuverable. Lawrence was killed. The American crew struggled to carry out their captain’s last order, “Don’t give up the ship!”, but the British overwhelmed them. The battle was intense and lasted ten to fifteen minutes, in which time 252 men were killed or wounded including the Shannon’s captain who was seriously injured. Chesapeake and her crew were taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the sailors were imprisoned; the ship was repaired and taken into service by the Royal Navy. She was sold at Portsmouth, England, in 1819 and broken up. Surviving timbers are included in the nearby Chesapeake Mill in Wickham. Read the complete article on Naval History.

The naval Battle of Dover (also known as the Battle of Goodwin Sands), fought on 29 May 1652 was the first engagement of the First Anglo-Dutch War between the navies of the Commonwealth of England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands. The English Parliament had passed the first of the Navigation Acts in October 1651, aimed at hampering the shipping of the highly trade-dependent Dutch. Agitation among the Dutch merchants had been further increased by George Ayscue’s capture in early 1652 of 27 Dutch ships trading with the royalist colony of Barbados in contravention of an embargo. Both sides had begun to prepare for war, but conflict might have been delayed if not for an unfortunate encounter on 29 May 1652 near the Straits of Dover between a Dutch convoy escorted by 40 ships under Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp and an English fleet of 25 ships under General-at-Sea Robert Blake. Read the complete article on Wikipedia.com.

On May 23, 1701 the infamous English Pirate, Captain Kidd, dies. Kidd’s early career is obscure. It is believed he went to sea as a youth. After 1689 he was sailing as a legitimate privateer for Great Britain against the French in the West Indies and off the coast of North America. In 1690 he was an established sea captain and shipowner in New York City, where he owned property; at various times he was dispatched by both New York and Massachusetts to rid the coast of enemy privateers. Read the complete article on Britannica.com. Also, read this article on Historic UK. A tip of the hat to MMDI UK contributor Tony Goodenough.

One year after the United States doubled its territory with the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition leaves St. Louis, Missouri, on a mission to explore the Northwest from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Even before the U.S. government concluded purchase negotiations with France, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned his private secretary Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, an army captain, to lead an expedition into what is now the U.S. Northwest. On May 14, the “Corps of Discovery”–featuring approximately 45 men (although only an approximate 33 men would make the full journey)–left St. Louis for the American interior. 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.

May 2, 1670 – King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson’s Bay Company, made up of the group of French explorers who opened the lucrative North American fur trade to London merchants. The charter conferred on them not only a trading monopoly but also effective control over the vast region surrounding North America’s Hudson Bay. Although contested by other English traders and the French in the region, the Hudson’s Bay Company was highly successful in exploiting what would become eastern Canada. During the 18th century, the company gained an advantage over the French in the area but was also strongly criticized in Britain for its repeated failures to find a northwest passage out of Hudson Bay. Read the complete story on History.com.

Referred to as the “singeing of the beard” of King Philip II of Spain. In 1585 the tension between the England and Spain erupted into the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585–1604. Philip II ordered the arming of a great military fleet, which was to become known as the Invincible Armada, and it was hastily assembled in the Spanish port of Cádiz and in the Portuguese port of Lisbon with the objective of invading England. Queen Elizabeth gave the English privateer, Sir Francis Drake, an outstanding leader of previous naval expeditions, the command of a fleet whose mission was to inspect the Spanish military preparations, intercept their supplies, attack the fleet and if possible the Spanish ports. Read the complete article on Wikipedia. Read this article in Weapons and Warfare that includes useful maps and images.

Three weeks into a journey from Tahiti to the West Indies, the HMS Bounty is seized in a mutiny led by Fletcher Christian, the master’s mate. Captain William Bligh and 18 of his loyal supporters were set adrift in a small, open boat, and the Bounty set course for Tubuai south of Tahiti. Read the complete article on History.com.

On April 27, 1865 the steamship Sultana exploded on the water. This Civil War ship explosion killed more people than the Titanic sinking. The Sultana was only legally allowed to carry 376 people. When its boilers exploded, it was carrying 2,300. Read the complete article on Smithsonian Magazine.

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 story on History.com.