Ours was about 550 feet — the same length as the James Carruthers. We waited out the night, and the mate came to me and said, “Cap, some of the 730s look like they’re getting on their way. Do you think we should weigh up and set out, too?”
I queried him about the weather — and although there might be some improvement, he thought, I was convinced it was not yet time to leave. This just might be another sucker hole, I thought.
I told him, “Call down to the engineer, get the engines warmed up, get the crew ready — and wake me in a couple of hours. I’ll make my final decision then. Let’s let these big fellows get out there. We’ll see how they’re doing. And if it sounds good, we’ll follow along.”
Well, in two hours the mate woke me. He said that some more of the big ones had set out — and on the radio, it didn’t sound too bad. So I told him we’d haul anchor and go. And it wasn’t too bad. There was a heavy roll, but it was slow, and there wasn’t any danger. As we listened to the radio, it sounded as though the big boys were doing okay, and there wasn’t much to be worried about.
After an hour or two, the mate touched my shoulder and said, “Cap, have a look behind us.” I turned and looked toward our stern, and I could see a wall of white — looked like a blizzard coming toward us.
The mate uttered, “Squall line?”
I stared. I’ll bet my mouth was hanging open. “Squall line?” I responded, with a sense of desperation in my tone. “That’s a wall of water coming at us — sound an alarm. Get everyone ready.”
And within a minute, that wall of rampaging water thundered over us, hitting dead on the stern quarter. The entire stern section strained. We lifted and turned — and started to roll. Everything around me came crashing to starboard. Books, papers, charts, coffee mugs, glasses — they all flew wildly, crashing against the downside wheelhouse bulkhead. If ever I felt close to death on my ship, this was surely the moment. This was the instant where the tempest would rule — or our good ship, with the grace of God, would overcome and withstand the fierce pounding of this giant sea. A rogue? I’d never seen one like this before. The liquid mercury actually poured out of the gyro,3 we were over so far. The compass card was dislodged from its pivot. My two radar scanners went down. Surely, we were finished. The watery tomb below was sucking us down to our final demise.
Yet, ever so slowly, our good ship overcame the insult and the injury of this sudden brash assault and righted herself — but only to roll past her even keel to submerge the gunnels of the port side well below the surface, but for just an instant less, a moment short of the deep initial roll. And we rolled for a good half hour or more — ever so gradually regaining our stability.
Frightened? Of course I was frightened. But, was it over? Fortunately, my radios stayed up and I was able to talk to a big guy beyond me — a 730 somewhere out there who wanted to know how we were doing. He warned of more to come. And it had to be taken on the stern quarter — to turn away would take us to shore and aground. In this fury, we’d be broken up for sure. The gale had swung unexpectedly to the southwest. We weren’t ready, nor was anyone else. But we survived. And if we’d gone down, there be nothing we could have done. Just swallowed by an angry sea. And gone.
Rudder Damage
Another time we were caught in a storm on Lake Erie. It’s a little lake, but it can sure whip up a fury. We were off the Erie shoal, trying to make Port Colborne in raging gales, blinding snow, and crushing ice. We had much anguish making way — feared going aground. The Canadian Coast Guard had been ordered in to help. Their job was to assist ships carrying cargoes of most value first, unless lives were in danger on other ships, and then get the other vessels to safety. If things went wrong, we’d all be frozen in on the lake for the duration of winter. We carried a cargo of grain, so we were first on their list.
Through the various marine ages, ice in the rigging and the resultant instability, sometimes called “top-hamper,” posed big problems and created great risks for mariners.
Courtesy of Captain Roy Munday.
We were being heaved so badly that the rudder was lifted right out of her shoe. She was twisted around beyond her turning radius, forced by the raging swells, and her rudderstock above was ripped from its quadrant and twisted like a pretzel. It was an iron bar, reinforced and almost a foot through in thickness, wrenched and twisted in a fleeting moment — in the blink of an eye, no steerage. None. People who think there is little that can go wrong don’t understand the power and the fury of the sea — even on a little lake like Erie.
We were finally thrown up on the shoal. We sent the crew with axes to cut us loose from the Coast Guard vessels. If they kept trying to pull us loose, they would rip us apart. We would wait. They could free the other ships. We could hold on until the storm abated, and get hauled off in calmer weather. We’d suffered enough damage already. To be impatient would certainly bring more distress. We’d had enough already.
After a winter storm of December 1907, an unidentified vessel, perhaps the Meaford, is shown arriving at the security of Goderich Harbour after a rough ride on the stormy waves. It was a fearful time for master and crew, as tons of ice could accumulate and sometimes cause the vessels to list dangerously.
Courtesy of Goderich Elevator and Transit Company Ltd., Annual Report, 1948.
Language of the Sea
The language of the sea is confusing. There is a vocabulary for the saltwater sailors and for those on the lakes. It’s very different. We can’t talk eye to eye and understand the real meaning, unless we both speak the same version. This is especially critical in times of crisis.
In one inquiry, following some ships breaking loose in a storm, a lawyer who used the language from the salty sea grilled me. The terminology just wouldn’t match my own words. I told the judge I would answer no more questions until we could talk the language of the Great Lakes. This was a problem from Lake Huron. We had to use the freshwater words that would suit that case.
The judge agreed.4
“The only evidence that has been picked up on the beach at Port Frank [sic] so far which would indicate that the Wexford has gone down to the bottom is a card of the compass corrections1 or chart which bears the name Wexford. It is also thought that some of the wreckage which is strewn along the shore from Goderich south is from the Wexford but this has not been definitely established.”2
In the infamous Great Storm of 1913, more than 250 lives were lost. Most of those were on ships that “represented not only the best of [American and Canadian] lake practice, but of English and Scotch yards.”3 According to University of Western Ontario librarian and later university vice-president, the well-known journalist Fred Landon, who wrote about this maritime tragedy in his 1994 book, Lake Huron, “Sunday, November 9, 1913, is the blackest day in the history of navigation on the Great Lakes. The gales which swept the lakes region on that day sent ten stout ships to the bottom, drove more than a score of others ashore and took the lives of 235 sailors. No other storm of such destructive character