Fullbore Friday

red light at morning

No more complaining about a long Sea & Anchor detail.

What a great story about a frigate ... and three hurricanes.

Read the full thing, but here is how it starts;

THE 24-gun frigate H.M.S. Experiment was built in 1740 by Henry Bird of Rotherhithe. She sailed on her maiden voyage on 21 July 1740 from Spithead to join Vice-Admiral Vernon’s squadron in the West Indies. Her captain was James Rentone, who had piloted Vernon’s squadron into Portobello Harbour and had been given the honour of bearing the news of Vernon’s victory to the king. George II had rewarded him with a present of 200 guineas and the promise of a 6o-gun ship. Under his command H.M.S. Experiment had nearly completed her passage to the West Indies when she received her first taste of what a hurricane could do.

By her reckoning she was in latitude 16° 34’ N, longitude 43° 04’, west of Madeira. Her log reads:

Saturday 30 August 1740
The first part fresh gales and squally, the latter a very hard Gale of wind at NNE and NE with a great swell from the ESE. At 6 p.m. took all the reefs in the topsails, furld the foretopsail, bunted the courses, brought too under main topsail and got down the topgallant yards: at 1 a.m. handed maintops’!, lower’d the main and foreyards and reef’d the courses: at daybreak the gale continued increasing and, having no hopes of its breaking, about r o a.m. cut away the topmasts to save the lower masts: soon after the mizon mast went away at the lower part of the hounds: the sea made a breach over the ship and we kept one pump constantly going, the wynch of the other being broke render’d it useless: lost one of the swivell guns over board by the fall of the foretop mast and had one of the lower studding sail booms wash’d away and severall other things of the deck harness, barr’l with beef 45 pd. and sev’l casks.

Sunday 31 August 1740
The first part a violent storm of wind from NE to East with a very great sea making a breach over us, the latter part the gale somewhat abated: at 4 a.m. the foresail being split in pieces cut him away from the yard and lost most part of the canvas: at 8 a.m. bent a new foresail and set the reef’ d courses.

On that afternoon her company raised a jury maintopmast and let the reefs out of the courses. On the next day they got up a fire-boom for a foretopmast and a maintopgallant yard for a topsail yard. At daybreak on 3 September they sighted Antigua and sailed into English Harbour. There Captain Rentone delivered the Duke of Newcastle’s letters to General Mathews and wrote to the Admiralty a description of the hurricane which adds a little to the log-book entry.

I made a great deal of water, my comings being very low and the tarpaulings, tho’ double battened, being insufficient to keep it from getting down in a very great quantity for 14 hours which the gale continued without the least intermission and one of my pumps disabled by the wynch breaking so that I had but one to depend on and that almost constantly going and if the gale had continued many hours longer, the least increase of water would have made it very difficult to save the ship.

Hat tip Society for Nautical Research.