Sailor Mouth Saturday: Land

I hear you Brethren. Land, Pauline? Seriously? Yes indeed; land. There are, in fact, so many ways to use the word land aboard ship that this may very well turn into two posts. (Plus, I'm missing a TCM Errol Flynn marathon right now so I'm not inclined to be "long winded" - another sailor's term!)

Of course first and foremost land is, well, land. Land ho! is honestly the first cry upon sighting land (although I have seen disagreements on that statement, I stand firm in the call's general, over-arching use aboard the majority of sailing ships).

Lay the land means to lose sight of it. This is almost virtually in direct opposition to the very similar lay of the land, used by land when one is out to get a feel of terrain, as in preparation for farming, battle, etc. Land locked means a ship in harbor with, by all appearances, land all around. In fact there will be a channel or pass in and out but when aboard the ship, a first glance would make it seem otherwise. Both Barataria and Galveston Bays fit this description, for instance.

To land on deck means to lower heavy items onto the ship from the wharf, dock or another ship via block and tackle. Set land means to find the nearest land by the compass. A ship lies land to when it is far enough out at sea to barely see the land on the horizon. To make the land is to see it clearly; time to call "Land ho!"

A land breeze is a particular issue in warm and tropical climates. Written of by many freebooting authors, including Alexander Exquemelin who grouses about it's inconvenience (at best), the breeze is a result of land cooling at night faster than a large body of water near it. The heavier air rushes out from land over the sea, often in various directions, playing havoc with ships sailing or anchored off shore. Experienced sailors know to plan for this eventuality in hot weather. Since most if not all of the buccaneers were not much for sailing, it is no wonder that the good Doctor found the land breezes off Panama and Maracaibo vexing.

But that's enough of land for today. I'm off for a date with Robin Hood, followed by Sir Francis Drake. A wonderful rainy Saturday indeed.

Booty: Honoring The Coasties

The United States Coast Guard turned 220 on August 4th. Begun with the help of such American Navy luminaries as Joshua Barney, the Coast Guard has protected the nation's waterways and right of way in foreign river roads unflaggingly for almost as long as the U.S. has been independent. Living in Alaska, where both legitimate livelihoods and ridiculous stupidity put people in harm's way on the open ocean all too frequently, I'm particularly fond of the Coasties.

Being particularly fond of art as well, I was pleased to see that the Coast Guard offers beautiful artwork by volunteer artists that commemorates the CG of yesterday and today. The above painting, "Defeat of Privateer Dart" by Dean Ellis, is just an example. It shows the nighttime firefight between a Coast Guard sloop and a British privateer during the War of 1812.

The Coast Guard Art Program now includes over 1,800 works which are displayed all over the country from the halls of Congress to the offices of various CG officers. There is also a movable display of selected works that travels to museums and elsewhere upon request. Best of all, though, you can own reproductions of the art yourself. Click over to the U.S. Coast Guard website and the article about the art program. There you can view and purchase some of these amazing pieces whose subjects range from the early history of the CG to the rescues and missions taking place right now.

It's worth taking a look, not just for the beautiful artwork but to appreciate the men and women who work so hard to keep us safe. Happy Birthday, Coast Guard; here's to another 220 years!

Women At Sea: On Ratcliffe Highway

Sailors and women of loose morals seem to go together in the popular imagination if not always in "real life". Of course there have been, are and will be happily married seamen, gay sailors and the celibate upon the waves. Generally speaking though, when we think of sailors on leave we think of a picture much like Thomas Rowlandson's "Sea Stores". The officer clearly negotiating best price (note the "jaunty" turn of the dirk at his waist), while the lady next to him stands silent with a smile and an upturned palm, waiting for his prize money before she and her friend promise anything.

Rowlandson is famous for pictures like this one not only because he was an astute observer of seaside life both in London and in Plymouth. There is also the fact that by the time Rowlandson was producing his work (the late 1700s and into the 19th century) the Royal Navy was setting the tone for just about everything seagoing in Europe. The scene above, dated around 1803, could have happened in Wapping, Brest, La Rochelle, Gibraltar, Port Mahon, Naples, New York or New Orleans. And the officer could just as easily be a pirate or privateer.

But what about the ladies themselves? The lens of Victorian moralizing has turned them into soiled doves, broken by some first encounter with a cad - probably a seaman himself - and from then on forced to ply the filthy trade of fallen women since the time of Magdalene. The problem with that scenario is the complete denial of these people as individuals, some of whom certainly chose to step out with sailing men and make their way. For the purpose of this post, we will keep to Rowlandson's backyard. The history is so vivid and interesting that it would be a shame to gloss over all the characters in the many ports of call known to navies and privateers. Whores, it seems, are destined for many a post here at Triple P.

Initial documentation of professional ladies hanging out near the docks of London turns up in the Medieval period. Even though it was illegal, the "stew girls" who usually lived near the city's gates would wander down to the Thames in their distinctive yellow wimples and pick up incoming sailors with the promise of a bath. The ladies were rounded up and kicked out of town occasionally but, since nature abhors a vacuum, more took their place seemingly overnight.

By the time of Elizabeth I the brothels, still at that point known as stews, had moved closer to the the river. These began to be pushed more and more toward the East End and the ladies in question were the favorites of the crews of sea dogs John Hawkins, Francis Drake and their ilk. The story goes that Drake himself had a favorite, kept in a cozy nest not far from the theatre district, who may have gone by the colorful name of Scarlet Jane possibly because of her red hair.

The punch houses that kept bawdy women were firmly established along Ratcliffe Highway by the mid-1600s. Here, the actual stories of individuals began to pour out like the tide. One of note was Damaris Page, whose name alone must have made her interesting. Pepys called Page "... the great bawd of seamen" and her colorful career spanned two marriages, prostitution, motherhood and brothel ownership. She kept a house in Ratcliffe for ordinary seaman and another in Rosemary Lane for naval officers and successful privateers. She was charged with bigamy after her second marriage but the case was dismissed. When she was charged with the murder of one of her girls, things got sticky. Damaris was found guilty of killing the woman while trying to abort an unwanted fetus with a fork; she was sentenced to hang. Page plead her belly and, found to be pregnant, she gave birth in jail. She was released from Newgate three years later. Damaris returned to the work of a madam and died in comfortable circumstances in 1669, still in her house on Ratcliffe Highway.

Many girls, rather than actually marrying, were simply considered the spouses of one or more sailors who turned over their prize money to their "wife" when they returned home from sea. The ladies often had small townhouses along the wharves and some may have had as many as three or four "husbands". Though Victorian writers frequently tell us that the men knew nothing of each other and the women had to keep up a precarious juggling act to ensure their ignorance, it seems, generally speaking, that was not the case. In contrast, there is documentation of ladies having more than one "husband" at home at any given time and no one being particularly put out by the arrangement.

By the 1750s, there was a place for more discrete connections to be made between sailors and women. Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies gave men of the sea, usually officers judging from the prices listed, a literal directory of belles to choose from. The language of the advertisements often had a sea going flare. For instance, Miss Devonshire (perhaps a nom-de-guerre used as a nod to the famous Duchess?) is listed in 1788 as "... fair of complexion with cerulean eyes... fine teeth and a good figure". The listing goes on to euphemistically say that "... she is brave, that she is ever ready for an engagement, cares not how soon she comes to close quarters and loves to fight yard arm and yard arm, and be briskly boarded." Nothing is left to the imagination; we are told the lady's pubic hair is light brown and her price is 5 shillings.

Of course there were always the women who would entice sailors away from an ale house and steal anything not attached to the man's body without providing the promised sex. These were the storied ladies so often sung about in chanties wherein it was all a woman's fault that a poor lad had to return to the sea with nothing in his pockets but his hands. They were also the frequent focus of Victorian reformers, described as filthy, debauched and drunk.

Whatever the woman's condition, be she a simple "bawd" or a widow advertising on Harris's list to make ends meet, all of them were people who contributed in their own way to the life and livelihoods of seamen. More on this subject in the future. For now, Huzzah! for the ladies.

History: Pirates Are Pirates But...

... the coasts of Cuba, Porto Rico, St. Domingo and the Spanish main were the resorts of merciless freebooters who plundered and burned vessels with impunity, and frequently murdered the passengers and crews, after inflicting upon them the most shocking brutalities.

If you're thinking the above was written about men like Francois L'Olonnais or Edward Teach, think again. Thus wrote David Dixon Porter in his memoir of his father David Porter and he was speaking about piracy in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean in the 1820s. I've talked about about Porter's Mosquito Fleet and his clean up of the last Caribbean pirates before, but something has come to my attention that puts a new spin on the similarities between the pirates Porter took out and the problems modern shipping faces in the Gulf of Aden. First, the history.

By 1819 the Revolutionary states of South America had all but ceased to award commissions to their privateers. Though some of these men, like Renato Beluche, turned away from the trade and became part of legitimate navies, others went on the account. Their depredations increased to a point where Spanish, French and particularly U.S. merchants (who carried a lot of hard money to and from banks in the U.S. and South America) were not safe. Demands for U.S. Navy escorts escalated and the navy was all for it; a ship brought safely to port would often pay a percentage of the specie on board to the officer in charge of the escort. The last straw came when U.S. and European insurers of cargo ships - Lloyd's of London in particular - began raising their rates. By the date in question, insurance premiums were double and rising to triple what they had been during the War of 1812. The public - and merchant seafarers - clamored to their government for immediate redress.

It may come as a surprise to some of Triple P's readers that the U.S. government took swift action. In February of 1819, Congress passed a bill with the long-winded title "An Act to protect the commerce of the United States and to punish the crime of piracy." President Monroe signed it into law March 3rd. The navy was unleashed to convoy merchant or passenger vessels that might request help and to use any and all force as necessary. Within a year, Commodore Porter was setting up shop on Thompson's Island (now Key West) with his squadron of small, shallow draft ships. Piracy in the area was virtually unheard of by 1825.
Fast forward to the present day and this article from BusinessInsurance.com via the First Mate frighteningly entitled Pirate attacks sink premiums as insurers leap aboard.

Rather than increasing premiums in a time when piracy is not only escalating in the Gulf of Aden but spreading out into the Indian Ocean thanks to larger, better equipped mother ships, marine insurance carriers are engaging in a price war. Effectively, the increase in pirate attacks with their resulting ransom demands has brought more insurers into the business and lowered what is known as kidnap and ransom (K & R) insurance premiums.

As the article notes, the insurance covers "... the ransom of the ship and its crew, including negotiations with pirates and hiring of ex-special forces teams to deliver the money." Since the pirates return vessels with little or no damage more often than not, the K & R insurance - and it's handy affordability - makes hijackings and the resulting ransoms a simple cost of doing business. No higher costs to consumers, no screeching public, just sailors at the mercy of pirates.

The problem as I see it is threefold. First, the pirates - as is noted in the article - are "encouraged" by the ease of the process. Capture a ship, get the ransom, go out and do it again. Second, the insurers are slitting their own throats by lowering premium on a risk that their actions encourage. Finally, and perhaps most importantly to me, sailors are being put in harms way and treated as expendable commodities. As the article notes, there are currently 379 hostages being held by Somali pirates, most of them merchant sailors. That speaks for itself.

I understand that the rules have changed along with the times. But once in a while I wonder what that U.S. Congress, President and Navy of 1819 would have done if they were suddenly in charge of our current situation. Not to mention Lloyd's of London.

Sea Monsters: "... Absolutely Incredible"

The storied Northwest Passage was one of those things that Europeans believed in a lot longer than they should have. Many lives were lost trying to find the way from the North Atlantic to the North Pacific and back again, quite literally through what is now Canada. No such thing as it turned out. Also, as it turns out, our ancestors were several thousand years too late. Once upon a time there was a kind of waterway through North America which is now called the Western Interior Seaway. And that thing up there, which is now called a xiphactinus, lived in it.

This article from Canadian Broadcasting Co. online gives you the rundown on a fossil xiphactinus found in what was once the Western Interior Seaway. The skeletal remains were found in 2009 - not surprisingly, the jaw was located first - but it wasn't until recently that Canadian scientists wanted to announce with certainty what they had found. The most interesting thing to me, besides the ancient seaway itself, is the fact that the xiphactinus was found with the fossilized remains of a monasaur flipper in those jaws.

According to Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre curator Anita Janzic, the find is pretty unusual at best. She says in the article:

It's quite remarkable to have the opportunity to find one fossil, and absolutely incredible when that one fossil leads to the discovery of an ancient sea monster skeleton.

The article is very short on information about xiphactinus. Disappointingly so, in fact. It chooses to drift off into stumping for the CFDC and it's need for funds for a new building in the last five paragraphs rather than sticking to the alleged topic. From what I could find out, the monsters were large; probably comparable to some modern sharks. They had bones and a spine and the jaw was not only wide but - again like a shark - could be opened to accommodate the equally large prey they would find in the seaway during the Cretaceous period.

It's a tantalizing look at a time when fish like big X up there dominated the seaways the way the Royal Navy would by the 18th century of our modern era. And just another reason to be thankful you didn't live in the fish-eat-mammal, hard scrabble Cretaceous.

Tools Of The Trade: Closed Quarters

In the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, the Surprises board their French prey, Acheron, and are brought up short. Apparently, everyone is dead. Struck down by the great guns of Surprise during initial broadsides. Master Allen buys the ruse, and is shot in the head for his gullibility.

Of course, in the case of an able and seasoned captain like Jack Aubrey this would never happen. Killing everyone aboard with a broadside or two is as unlikely as sinking a man-of-war with one shot. Even if he didn't see a man on deck Aubrey would know where his enemy was: they had retreated to closed quarters.

Never seen in movies and rarely spoken of in fiction, closed quarters was a surprisingly common tactic in a boarding situation particularly among poorly armed merchantmen. If there was time to prepare the ship (as in the occurrence of a long chase) and the quartering was done correctly to the last detail, it could save lives, cargo and the ship itself. If botched, however, it could be almost as bad as hand to hand fighting on deck.

Everyone aboard ship would retreat below when the enemy came along side. Hatches had to be reinforced and locked or lashed down so that the boarders could not enter. Prior to the actual retreat what was known as loopholes would be drilled in the deck to allow defenders to shoot small arms and sometimes cannon through them at the attackers. The French, in their usual sarcastic if poetic way, called the loopholes meutrieres: murderesses.

If possible, cannon were positioned to clear the decks of boarders. If they could not be positioned correctly, they were spiked or even thrown overboard so that the enemy could not avail themselves of their prey's weapons. Individuals tossed grenados and stink pots from their hiding places. If time permitted powder chests were set up prior to the boarding. These were kegs or wooden boxes filled with black powder and anything heavy and/or sharp that could do damage to human flesh and bone. Fuses would be run below decks so that the chests could be set off once the boarders were on deck, the explosion burning and cutting them up if not killing them outright.

Robert Everard, a Frenchman who wrote of his forced service aboard a merchant in the Indian Ocean in 1686, recalls his ship being threatened by pirates. Everard's captain prepares to take up closed quarters shouting the challenge "Win her and have her," to the pirates. The freebooter boards and spends hours destroying yards, deck and rigging. The merchant trains her minimal arsenal on the pirate and, as Everard tells it:

... yet we beat his gunnel in and made him put off and lie upon the careen. As soon as she was gone we came out of our close quarters and found one of his men almost dead upon our poop...

Of course, if the quartering was not done correctly, grenades could be pitched into the hold, burning those hiding there at the very least. And then no quarter would be given by the raiding pirates for the prey had not acted "prudently" and would not be forgiven for their injury to the freebooters.

As with so many things in life, closed quarters had to be well thought out and well executed or the damage might be more than anyone cared to suffer.

Seafaring Sunday: The Audacity Of Success

Stephen Decatur (shown above in a tussle with Barbary pirates) kicked ass pretty handily. Nothing about that changed when he was sent to Algeria in 1815 as Commodore at the head of a ten ship squadron to start up the Second Barbary War. The U.S. was not happy with the way the Algerines had treated her merchantmen during the War of 1812 and Decatur took measures to make sure they understood. He concluded a Treaty of Peace with Algiers on June 30th of 1815.

Without requesting orders from Washington, Decatur sailed his flotilla to the bay of Tunis. He took it upon himself to demand reparations for British prize ships that had been taken from a U.S. privateer by the Tunisians during the War of 1812. Tunis nominally had a treaty with the U.S. at the time which the Dey of Tunis chose to overlook in favor of Britain. When the Dey would not pay up, Decatur's ships trained their guns on the palace and settled in for a siege.

On July 30th, without a shot being fired, the Dey capitulated. He paid Decatur $46,000 in Spanish gold as restitution for the privateer's losses.