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Updated: June 1, 2025
About dawn the sea had become so dangerous, and the wind had so increased in violence, that an attempt was made to put out a sea-anchor. Whilst this was being done a heavy sea struck the boat and capsized her. The night was pitchy dark, and when the Swede who was a good swimmer came to the surface he could neither see nor hear any of the others, though he shouted loudly.
Had we broached in those great, over-topping seas, the boat would have been rolled over and over. Time and again, that afternoon, Arnold Bentham, for our sakes, begged that we come to a sea-anchor. He knew that we continued to run only in the hope that the decree of the lots might not have to be carried out. He was a noble man.
He lives up the state, and never was on a ship in his life. He probably wouldn't know the bow from the stern, or a sea-anchor from an umbrella, but he has good sense, he is honest, enterprising, keen, and thrifty. He has the art of quickly mastering a subject even though it be new to him and difficult.
Meantime the oars were got out in order to reach the Faroes, which were about thirty miles dead to windward, but after about nine hours' hard work they had to desist, and, putting out a sea-anchor, they took shelter under the canvas boat-cover from the cold wind and torrential rain. Says the narrator: "We were all very wet and miserable, and decided to have two biscuits all round.
The effects of oil on breaking rollers, the use of a "sea-anchor" over the side to "hold her to it," whether or not a man was justified in abandoning his ship under certain given circumstances, these were debated pro and con.
About 11 a.m. the boat suddenly fell off into the trough of the sea. The painter had parted and the sea-anchor had gone. This was serious. The 'James Caird' went away to leeward, and we had no chance at all of recovering the anchor and our valuable rope, which had been our only means of keeping the boat's head up to the seas without the risk of hoisting sail in a gale.
Food: 3 cases sledging rations = 300 rations. 2 cases nut food = 200 " 2 cases biscuits = 600 biscuits. 1 case lump sugar. 30 packets of Trumilk. 1 tin. of Bovril cubes. 1 tin of Cerebos salt. 36 gallons of water. 250 lbs. of ice. Instruments: Sextant. Sea-anchor. Binoculars. Charts. Prismatic compass. Aneroid.
Ladders, gratings, stanchions, and all movable deck-fittings were below the water-line. Wooden bulkheads, productive of splinters, were knocked down and discarded, while all boats, with the plugs out, were overboard, riding to a sea-anchor made up of oars and small spars. The crew was at quarters.
In the meantime, Ben had taken the oars and spare spar out of the dory and lashed them all together with a long rope. Carrying this bundle forward he attached it to a line and dropped it overboard. The Bolo instantly began to drift away from it as it seemed. Soon there was a distance of fifty feet or more between the struggling vessel's bow and this improvised "sea-anchor."
Moran had been inspired to use the swamped boat as a sea-anchor, fastening her to the schooner's bow instead of to the stern. The "Bertha's" bow, answering to the drag, veered around. The "Bertha" stood head to the seas, riding out the squall. It was a masterpiece of seamanship, conceived and executed in the very thick of peril, and it saved the schooner.
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