Sailor Mouth Saturday: Room

The word room was familiar to English speaking seamen in various capacities when Drake ruled the waves.   As Admiral Smyth notes in The Sailor’s Word Book, the word was interchangeable – or perhaps stood in the stead of – the more modern term large in regard to sailing.  The term going room, according to the Admiral, was documented in England as early as 1578.  Used in this sense, the phrase meant the same as going large: sailing “with the wind free when studding-sails will draw.”  This might also be expressed as rooming or running to leeward.

Larger ships of old and to some degree to this day, had rooms.  They were, of course, not proper rooms as in a home or even cabins per se, depending on the type, but were nonetheless referred to as rooms.  In no particular order, and doubtless with a careless omission or two, one might find in a frigate or particularly a man-of-war such rooms as:

Cook room: another, more ancient, term for the galley.

Sail room: generally on the orlop deck, an enclosed space where spare sails can be kept clean and – in particular – dry, thus free of mold.  In very large ships more than one sail room might be kept.

Light room: attached to the powder room or magazine, this was where flints and slow match would be kept for the great guns.

Powder room: where the volatile black powder was kept for guns and small arms.  Like the sail room, dry conditions here and in the light room were absolutely necessary.

Gun room: located on the after-gun deck of larger ships, this was where gun deck officers and/or warrant men would take meals.  In frigates and smaller ships, this room might be located in steerage.

Ward room: generally above the gun room, this was where lieutenants and midshipmen slept and ate.

Bread room: another dry room often lined with sheeting of some kind and used to store bread and ship’s biscuit.

Spirit room: often located next to the bread room in the hold, this room contained the ship’s liquor and was frequently kept under lock and key, for obvious reasons.

The term sea room, still used today, indicates a ship running along free of seen or unseen dangers such as shore, shoals, reefs etc.  In such case, she is said to have “good offing”.

Happy Saturday, Brethren, and a mug of grog to y’all.

Header: Lee Shore by Edward Hopper via American Gallery

Booty: Myths of a Cleaned-Up Sea

Over at the aptly named Real Clear Science, author and environmentalist Todd Myers offers this short but powerful piece on the recent trend in the U.S. to ban the use of plastic grocery bags.  It has a strong relativity to that part of the world that the Brethren hold most dear, the sea, and so I thought you might be interested in what Mr. Myers has to say.

As he points out, the largest argument for the ban on plastic bags is that they are mucking up the ocean and killing sea creatures.  He addresses the widely held, but as it turns out erroneous, belief that a “Pacific Garbage Dump” the size of Texas is full of plastics of all types and particularly plastic bags.  In fact, quoting from an Oregon State University study, Myers notes that as recently as last year this unfortunate patch of ocean south of Hawai’i was less than one percent the size of Texas. 

Myers goes on to quote oceanographer Angel White: “There is no doubt that the amount of plastic in the world’s oceans is troubling, but this kind of exaggeration undermines the credibility of scientists,” and Greenpeace biologists: “It’s very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags. The evidence shows just the opposite. We are not going to solve the problem of waste by focusing on plastic bags.”

So what, if any, is the positive impact of banning plastic bags all together?  Myers answers in the negative.  It seems that plastic bags are, in fact, the most energy efficient form of purchase transportation currently being manufactured.  From the article:

The most significant environmental risk from banning plastic bags is the increase in energy use. Plastic bags are the most energy-efficient form of grocery bag. The U.K. Environment Agency compared to plastic, paper and re-useable bags. It found the “global warming potential” of plastic grocery bags is one-fourth that of paper bags and 1/173^rd that of a reusable cotton bag. In other words, consumers would have to use a reusable cotton bag 173 times before they broke even from an energy standpoint. Thus, even if consumers switched to reusable bags, it is not clear there would be a reduced environmental impact.

So it seems that, in this case as in so many others, feeling good and doing good are two vastly different things.  And knee-jerk reactions based on baseless “science” rarely get anything of value done.

A big thanks to the First Mate, by the way, for pointing me in the direction of Mr. Myers’ excellent post.

Header: Soleil Lavent by Claude Monet c 1872 via Old Paint

Tools of the Trade: All in the Color

Sailors are generally ship-proud.  Like housewives of old whose identity infused itself into their clean, tidy and good looking home, sailors want their ship to be the prettiest on the water.  One of the things that goes into sailing the best looking ship is the trim of her paint.  How well the paint is kept up, and what colors are chosen, has a lot to do with the personality of the ship and the pride of the sailor.

In the Great Age of Sail, certain colors were virtually synonymous with certain ships.  Nelson was famous for the black and white checkers he favored around the gun ports of his vessels.  This pattern, though tricky and time consuming to execute, caught on in the Royal Navy - particularly after Nelson's death but ultimate triumph at Trafalgar.  Ships that sported this design were generally painted black or a very dark blue to allow the checkered design to stand out.  From there, favorite combinations included everything from Nelson's black and white to such surprising combinations as scarlet and lilac, crimson and gold or salmon pink and brown. 

Across the Atlantic, the U.S. Navy tended to a more neutral pallet.  Black with cream was a very common combination but some of the larger frigates took on more distinctive colors.  USS Constitution, for instance, was famously recognizable for her contrasting black and white - no checkers, thank you.  As the picture above, from the ship's official website, shows, she carries those colors to this day.

A few other things, particularly those that might trick the eye as to a ship's flaws or help the crew in their day to day doings, were also taken into consideration.  For instance, decks were almost universally painted a light color such as white or cream.  This allowed the crew to see better at night.  Darker colors were favored for the hulls of larger ships while lighter colors - particularly white - were the choice for smaller ships.  This gave the larger ship a more lovely line, and the smaller ship the look of a larger one.  High gloss, in the form of lacquer, was usually avoided as it was thought to accentuate unmentionables such as a wide bow or a heavy bottom.

One rarely finds anything more beautiful on this planet than a well maintained ship.  If you haven't yet, now is a good time to think about a new coat of paint for your vessel, Brethren.  Maybe some purple and scarlet checkers, just for a change?

Header: USS Constitution in her glory, as noted above from her official website

History: The Glendower Murder

It is my pleasure and privilege to welcome one of my favorite people, writers and storytellers to Triple P.  My dear friend Undine, who long time Brethren will know from her insightful and delightful  World of Edgar Allan Poe blog, as today’s anniversary guest blogger.  You can also follow her on Twitter.  Don’t miss a word of today's post; they’re all worth savoring.

For an Edgar Allan Poe devotee such as myself, the strange and bloody goings-on aboard the good ship “Glendower” have an irresistible fascination.  Here we have a murder claustrophobic enough to unsettle Hitchcock, strange enough to make Dame Christie throw up her hands, and impenetrable enough to baffle Poe’s M. Dupin.  It resembles the Lizzie Borden case, in the sense that we think we “know” who committed the crime in question, but we can never truly know.  Also like the Borden murders, the complete absence of discernible motive leaves one deeply disquieted.  If the captain of the “Glendower” could be slaughtered in such an apparently pointless fashion, who among us is safe?

Our tale-without-a-moral began on June 9, 1911.  The “Glendower,” a coal barge that had seen seventeen years of service, was part of a three-ship flotilla.  The captain was fifty-five year old Charles Wyman, a man with a long, and so far as is known, perfectly commendable history at sea.  His three crew members, William DeGraff, William Nilsen, and Antonio Priskich, seemed both hard-working and respectable.  The vessel appeared to be approaching its scheduled destination of Newburyport, Massachusetts without incident.  The first sign of trouble came at about eight in the evening, when the barge began whistling.  It sent out signals indicating it wanted the “Monocacy,” the tug that was leading it, to change course and come alongside. 

The “Monocacy’s” pilot, a Captain Camp, realized this was a sign of trouble, but what happened next must still have been a great shock.  When his tug approached the barge, the ship’s cook, William DeGraff, shouted to him, “The captain is dead!”  When Camp sputtered out words of disbelief, DeGraff reiterated phlegmatically, “He took a rest this noon at twelve, and when we went to call him around five o’clock—well, he was dead, that’s all.  We found him dead.”

Camp was understandably stunned by the news, but he assumed Wyman had died of some unexpected, but perfectly natural causes.  Before heading to shore and notifying the police, the flotilla dropped anchor and he attempted to question DeGraff further.  In response to these inquiries, the cook said that Wyman had evidently died around noon, casually adding the information that “there was blood in the bunk, too.”  He invited Camp to come aboard and inspect the corpse himself.

Camp declined—he probably already suspected by this point that events  were becoming far too weird for him to handle alone—and the ships made their way to Boston, where he went ashore to file a report with the police and the local coroner.

It was not until dawn of the following day that the Suffolk County medical examiner, Dr. George Magrath, accompanied by several policemen, went aboard the ill-fated barge.  DeGraff greeted them quietly.  DeGraff, a sailor for nearly forty years, had joined the crew of the “Glendower” only a month before.  DeGraff ‘s background was and is a puzzle—virtually all we know of him is contained in the previous sentence—and although he was a strongly-built man with powerful arms and shoulders, he was also extremely hunchbacked.  His strange, oddly composed figure only compounded the grim atmosphere of the scene.

The visitors found Wyman’s body lying face-down in his bunk.  He was wrapped in a blanket, which was heavily bloodstained.  Drops of blood also covered the area around him.  His head had been repeatedly battered with what was believed to be a hatchet or large club.  Dr. Magrath found a hammer loosely held in the dead man’s hand.  It was, however, bloodless, proving that it had been placed in Wyman’s hands after the blood on them had already dried.  It did not take a forensic genius to realize this was not, as Camp had assumed, a stroke or heart attack, or even a suicide.

When Magrath and the patrolmen questioned the crew, they obtained little helpful information.  The trio insisted that there could not have been anyone but themselves aboard ship, and they all professed complete ignorance of how their captain met his violent end.   The policemen made a minute search of the little barge, without discovering a single clue to help them solve the mystery.  The crewmembers were all placed under arrest and brought ashore.  It was noted that DeGraff, unlike his obviously confused shipmates, was quietly wary, taking careful notice of all that went on around him.

When the trio faced a Boston Grand Jury, it was brought into evidence that while Nilsen and Priskich bunked some distance away from the captain, DeGraff’s cabin communicated with Wyman’s, enabling him to clandestinely enter Wyman’s quarters.  It was also revealed that the other two survivors of the “Glendower” were continuously alone together during that fatal afternoon, in a different part of the ship.  It was judged to be a ridiculously easy case to solve.  There appeared to be literally no one in the world who could have killed Captain Wyman but his crippled cook.

DeGraff went on trial on February 19, 1912.  Testimony showed that DeGraff called the men to meals by ringing a bell.  Three of them ate at a time, while the fourth manned the wheel.  On the day of the murder, Nilsen was at the wheel for the midday meal, which was served at eleven.  Priskich was with him until the dinner bell rang, and DeGraff arrived for his turn at the wheel.  Wyman ate a full meal and retired to the chartroom, which adjoined his cabin, shortly before twelve.  It was the last time anyone admitted seeing him alive.

Nilsen took the wheel at noon, and Priskich went to the engine room, where it was impossible for him to reach Wyman’s cabin unobserved.  DeGraff went somewhere below deck, where he was unseen by Nilsen or Priskich until close to five PM.  Around one-thirty Nilsen thought he heard a groan or cry, without being able to place its source.  (Some vaguer accounts state he heard an angry cry of “Get out of here!”)  Doctors who examined the murder victim believed that what he heard were the last sounds made by Captain Wyman.

At two, Priskich took his place at the wheel.  Nilsen testified that he briefly rested in his bunk, and then rejoined Priskich.  From then until the four-thirty supper time, the pair were constantly within sight of the other.

Supper was—for the first time—late, by about fifteen minutes.  DeGraff came to take the wheel, and Nilsen and Priskich went to eat.  They were surprised to find the captain was not there.  After waiting fruitlessly for a while, they went to question the cook about what they should do.  DeGraff told them indifferently to go ahead and eat—the captain would turn up eventually.  Priskich knocked on Wyman’s door, but got no reply.

After the two men ate, they again consulted DeGraff about their increasing unease with the situation.  The cook, with the same air of nonchalance he displayed throughout the entire story, dismissed their worries.  When Priskich pointed out that Wyman was due to take the wheel at five, DeGraff replied that he himself would take the captain’s place.  However, after Priskich left to look after the engines, the cook told Nilsen to take over the wheel, as he had to clean up after the meal.

Priskich returned to the wheelhouse an hour and a half later.  Upon seeing that the captain had yet to make an appearance, he insisted on breaking into Wyman’s cabin—a plan DeGraff strongly discouraged--but his crewmates finally overruled him.  Priskich and DeGraff entered Wyman’s cabin, where their captain’s body was finally discovered.  Priskich—again over DeGraff’s demurrals—insisted on immediately alerting their tug.  Before doing so, he suddenly stopped and said “I don’t really know Captain Wyman is dead.”

“Sure, he died,” DeGraff replied.  “He died long ago, for I took his hand like this,” holding his left wrist with his right hand.

The weapon that killed Wyman was never found, and no blood was on the clothing of the three survivors.  However, only one of DeGraff’s aprons—freshly washed and unused—could be located.

At DeGraff’s trial, the prosecution’s main difficulty was establishing motive.  They found two witnesses who testified that DeGraff had said Wyman was “no good,” and that he had sworn to kill him.  These men were unable to give any reason for the cook’s reputed hostility, however.

When DeGraff himself took the stand, his testimony was terse and unenlightening.  The best his attorney could do for a defense was to suggest that a stowaway had secretly hidden aboard ship, slaughtered the captain for reasons unknown, and then managed to jump overboard and swim to shore unseen.  The prosecutor, on the other hand, was able to establish that DeGraff was the only one on the ship who had the time and opportunity to commit the crime.  He also pointed out that the murder must have been done by someone familiar with Wyman’s habits, and surely some secret lurker would be unable to know when the captain would be invisible to the rest of the ship.

By the morning after both sides had rested their case, the jury reached a verdict:  “Not guilty.”  Evidently, the prosecution’s inability to prove why DeGraff would wish to kill his captain so deliberately and violently outweighed everything else, as far as these jurymen were concerned.  They also likely found it difficult to picture such a calm, nondescript figure in the role of wild butcher.  DeGraff left the courthouse, and disappeared into history.  Some believed he changed his name and went on with his life at sea, but his subsequent history remains as shadowy as everything else in this case.

There is a legend that, immediately after DeGraff was freed, he confided to someone who had struck up an acquaintance with him during his imprisonment the story of his murder of Charles Wyman.  The tale said that many years before, when DeGraff was a strong, healthy young man, the brutal Wyman had attacked him, causing him to suffer a fall that left him permanently crippled.  DeGraff waited decades to take his revenge, biding his time until Wyman had forgotten him and the tragic incident.  Aboard the “Glendower,” he finally found the opportunity to settle scores.

This slice of Gothic melodrama is almost certainly the product of an enterprising journalist or overly imaginative local blowhard, but in the absence of any other explanation for what happened that gruesome day on the “Glendower,” it has lingered ever since.

The fate of the “Glendower” itself may be clearer.  Robert Ellis Cahill, the founder of Salem Massachusetts’ New England Pirate Museum, has told of visiting an abandoned building in his city where the second story is composed of an old barge.  Upon entering this upper half of the site, he was greeted by a ghostly voice yelling “Get out of here!”

Cahill was convinced that the barge used to construct the building was none other than the remains of the “Glendower,” complete with the restless, un-avenged spirit of its murdered Captain.  “It sounds,” he wrote, “like the ‘Glendower’ was kind of a hoodoo vessel.”  This is certainly as good an answer to the mystery as any.

In any case, let us pay tribute to the otherwise unmemorable William DeGraff.  This quiet, unassuming little cook may well have been as mad, bad, and dangerous to know as the most bloodthirsty pirate.

Once more, my appreciation to Undine for making Triple P's third anniversary all the more special!

Header: Collier Jupiter c 1921 via Wikipedia

Seafaring Sunday: Prize for the President

July 29, 1813: One of America’s original six frigates, USS President of 44 guns and captained by John Rodgers, captures and burns British brig Alert during the War of 1812.

Header: USS President Rides Out a Storm by E. J. Russell c 1904 via Wikipedia

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Club

Today's word is used at sea in reference to everything from hairstyles to tricky maneuvers.  A more versatile word, one might say, you could rarely find.

In the hairstyle way, we first must mention that many sailors during the 18th and early 19th century were averse to cutting their hair.  Like Samson, they felt that a certain amount of their virile nature was carried in their flowing locks.  Of course aboard ship, where rigging and blocks can catch and tear at one's tresses, simply allowing long hair to flow free was out of the question. 

To remedy this, men wore their hair braided down their backs often asking a mess mate to braid it for them after it had been washed.  Sometimes the braid was tarred to make it even more resilient.  When these braids were very long, they were still a hazard and men turned to "clubbing."  Much like dandies at European courts, who doubled their long ponytails at their necks, a sailor would fold his braid in half and tie it up at the nape of his neck.  This insured that it was both out of the way and safe from quite literally being ripped out at the roots.  Triple P's favorite literary Captain, Jack Aubrey, wore his long, blond hair clubbed - though not usually braided - throughout the O'Brian novels despite the vogue for short haircuts a la Napoleon at the time.

Club law was the British and Colonial American term for the rule of strength.  He who carried the biggest club, and was unhampered by empathy for those he wielded it against, was in charge. Rarely the case aboard naval ships or privateers, one might imagine this type of superiority finding a place at the docks.  Or aboard the occasional pirate vessel.

Clubbing was the term given for drifting along a current with an anchor out.  Clubbing the fleet was an English term for placing the first division of a squadron to the windward.

The maneuver known as club hauling was made famous in the Royal Navy in 1814 by one Captain Hayes in HMS Magnificent of 74 guns.  It would be a shame for me to try to paraphrase Admiral Smyth's description of both the maneuver and Hayes' brilliant move, and thus I quote from The Sailor's Word Book:

A method of tacking a ship by letting go the lee-anchor as soon as the wind is out of the sails, which brings her head to the wind, and as soon as she pays off, the cable is cut and the sails trimmed; this is never had recourse to but in perilous situations, and when it is expected that the ship would otherwise miss stays.  The most gallant example was performed by Captain Hayes in HMS Magnificent, 74, in Basque Roads, in 1814, when with lower-yards and top-masts struck, he escaped between two reefs from the enemy at Oleron.  He bore the name of Magnificent Hayes to the day of his death, for the style in which he executed it.

And you really can't argue with that.

Finally, on a personal note, today is Triple P's anniversary.  It was July 28, 2009 when I began this labor of love, and I love it to this day.  Enjoy your Saturday, Brethren, and be sure to stop in on Monday when we'll have a delicious treat from generous and talented writer, scholar, blogger and long time friend of Triple P, the radiant Undine.  You won't want to miss it.

Header: Engraving by C. Hunt of HMS Magnificent c 1813 via Wikipedia

Booty: Fighting Back With a Pinup

First off, I'm back.  Things are progressing slowly and quickly all at the same time, but I'm feeling better and ready to tackle Triple P once again.  It's hard to stay away from something you love.  Thank you each and every one for the support and positive energy you have channeled toward me and my family.  It is helping.  A lot.

Second, Triple P has received a complaint from an anonymous party - via Blogger - that I have infringed on someone's copyright.  How the infringement occurred and even what specifically, be it a picture, a paragraph or a thought, was infringed on is unknown to me.  As I have discovered, Blogger's process completely protects the complainant and puts the onus of proving a negative squarely on the shoulders of the blogger - me.  Which is fine given that it is standard procedure.  For me personally, however, it is unnerving only because I have never intended to infringe upon anyone's livelihood or intellectual property. 

For the record, Triple P operates under a Creative Commons U.S. License as noted on the sidebar.  I attribute whenever possible, giving credit for quotes and pictures used in my posts if I know their origin and providing links whenever possible.  I do not receive monetary compensation for this work as per the CC guidelines.  If credit is not appropriately given, I welcome comments to that effect that will allow me to do so.  I understand that the definition of copyright, particularly as it applies to images used on the Internet, is changing.  Any line I may have crossed, if that is indeed what happened, was purely unintentional.

At any rate, I have deleted the post and filed the appropriate form with Blogger.  What will happen next, I have no notion as, again, the source of the complaint remains unknown to me. 

Finally, a Happy Friday gift to you all from Triple P:  SS Pin Up by the inimitable Jay Scott Pike (via American Gallery).  What better way to kick off the weekend?