The
Long-Boat Would Be More Likely To Be Lashed Across The Hatch Amidships
Than Stowed On The Port Side Of The Deck, Unless In Use For Stowage
Purposes, As Previously Suggested.
Captain Collins very interestingly
notes in a letter to the author, concerning the measurements indicated
by his model:
"Here we meet with a difficulty, even if it is not
insurmountable. This is found in the discrepancy which exists between
the dimensions - length, breadth, and depth - requisite to produce a
certain tonnage, as given by Admiral Paris and the British Admiralty.
Whether this is due to a difference in estimating tonnage between France
(or other countries) and Great Britain, I am unable to say, but it is a
somewhat remarkable fact that the National Museum model, which was made
for a vessel of 120 tons, as given by Admiral Paris who was a Frenchman,
has almost exactly the proportions of length, depth, and breadth that an
English ship of 180 tons would have, if we can accept as correct the
lists of measurements from the Admiralty records published by Charnock
. . . In the third volume of Charnock's 'History of Marine
Architecture,' p. 274., I find that a supply transport of 175 tons,
built in 1759, and evidently a merchant ship originally, or at least a
vessel of that class, was 79.4 feet long (tonnage measure), 22.6 feet
beam, and 11.61 feet deep." The correspondence is noticeable and of
much interest, but as the writer comments, all depends upon whether or
not "the measurement of the middle of the eighteenth century materially
differed in Great Britain from what it was in the early part of the
previous century."
Like all vessels having high stems and sterns, she was unquestionably "a
wet ship," - upon this voyage especially so, as Bradford shows, from being
overloaded, and hence lower than usual in the water. Captain John Smith
says: "But being pestered [vexed] nine weeks in this leaking,
unwholesome ship, lying wet in their cabins; most of them grew very weak
and weary of the sea." Bradford says, quoting the master of the
MAY-FLOWER and others: "As for the decks and upper works they would caulk
them as well as they could, . . . though with the working of the ship,
they would not long keep staunch." She was probably not an old craft, as
her captain and others declared they "knew her to be strong and firm
under water;" and the weakness of her upper works was doubtless due to
the strain of her overload, in the heavy weather of the autumnal gales.
Bradford says: "They met with many contrary winds and fierce storms with
which their ship was shrewdly shaken and her upper works made very
leaky." That the confidence of her master in her soundness below the
water-line was well placed, is additionally proven by her excellent
voyages to America, already noted, in 1629, and 1630, when she was ten
years older.
That she was somewhat "blocky" above water was doubtless true of her, as
of most of her class; but that she was not unshapely below the water-line
is quite certain, for the re markable return passage she made to England
(in ballast) shows that her lower lines must have been good. She made
the run from Plymouth to London on her return voyage in just thirty-one
days, a passage that even with the "clipper ships" of later days would
have been respectable, and for a vessel of her model and rig was
exceptionally good. She was "light" (in ballast), as we know from the
correspondence of Weston and Bradford, the letter of the former to
Governor Carver - who died before it was received - upbraiding him for
sending her home "empty." The terrible sickness and mortality of the
whole company, afloat and ashore, had, of course, made it impossible to
freight her as intended with "clapboards" [stave-stock], sassafras roots,
peltry, etc. No vessels of her class of that day were without the high
poop and its cabin possibilities, - admirably adapting them to passenger
service, - and the larger had the high and roomy topgallant forecastles so
necessary for their larger crews. The breadth of beam was always
considerably greater in that day than earlier, or until much later,
necessitated by the proportionately greater height ("topsides"), above
water, at stem and stern. The encroachments of her high poop and
forecastle left but short waist-room; her waist-ribs limited the height
of her "between decks;" while the "perked up" lines of her bow and stern
produced the resemblance noted, to the croup and neck of the wild duck.
That she was low "between decks" is demonstrated by the fact that it was
necessary to "cut down" the Pilgrims' shallop - an open sloop, of
certainly not over 30 feet in length, some 10 tons burden, and not very
high "freeboard" - "to stow" her under the MAY-FLOWER'S spar deck. That
she was "square-rigged" follows, as noted, from the fact that it was the
only rig in use for ships of her class and size, and that she had
"topsails" is shown by the fact that the "top-saile halliards" were
pitched over board with John Howland, and saved his life. Bradford says:
"A lustie yonge man (called John Howland) coming upon some occasion above
ye grattings, was with a seele of ye shipe throwne into ye sea: but it
pleased God yt he caught hould of ye top-saile halliards which hunge over
board & rane out at length yet he held his hould . . . till he was
haled up," etc. Howland had evidently just come from below upon the
poop-deck (as there would be no "grattings" open in the waist to receive
the heavy seas shipped). The ship was clearly experiencing "heavy
weather" and a great lurch ("seele") which at the stern, and on the
high, swinging, tilting poop-deck would be most severely felt,
undoubtedly tossed him over the rail. The topsail halliards were
probably trailing alongside and saved him, as they have others under
like circumstances.
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