Disasters at Sea

by Liz Mechem

  For months, the 13 crew members of the Golden Venture had beaten and virtually imprisoned the 286 illegal immigrants crammed onto the tramp steamer. In scenes evocative of the barbaric slave ships of the African slave trade, the emigrants endured appalling conditions on the vermin-infested ship. Tensions were at the breaking point as the ship went aground on the sands off Rockaway Beach, New York, on June 6, 1993. In the mutinous scramble that followed, 10 refugees lost their lives. The rest were rescued and then incarcerated. Their plight elicited international attention.

  WHAT PRICE AMERICA?

  Desperate Chinese had paid up to $30,000 each to “snakeheads” (illegal immigrant smugglers) for the privilege of hiking from China through the mountains of Myanmar (Burma), and on to Thailand. From there, they packed onto the Golden Venture, a modern steel freighter rusting into a state of poor repair and dubious seaworthiness. Her overcrowded condition was commonplace and certainly did not hinder her departure. The Golden Venture stopped in Kenya for supplies before heading off on the long and dangerous transit around the Cape of Good Hope. The legendary troubled seas off the southern tip of Africa didn’t fail to disappoint—Golden Venture and her much-abused human cargo confronted a hurricane while rounding the Cape.

  As the crowded ship approached her destination, her passengers, treated as little more than captives, began to rebel. When the ship ran onto the sandbars of Rockaway Beach at 2:00 AM on an unseasonably cold day, pandemonium ensued. With the desperately sought shores of America less than 100 yards (900 m) away, it is easy to understand why the frantic passengers went over the side of the ship in droves. The bitterly cold water killed 10 of them, but most managed to reach the shore.

  THE AFTERMATH

  The overwhelming odds the immigrants had overcome to get to the portal of freedom moved many, but other American arms were not as welcoming. The Immigration and Naturalization Service of the federal government rounded up the wreck survivors and immediately transferred them to a medium-security prison in York, Pennsylvania. Many were deported to various other countries, but a large number of the refugees languished in prison in York, until President Bill Clinton ordered the final 52 released on February 27, 1997, some four years after the wreck of the Golden Venture.

  The Golden Venture itself was freed from Rockaway Beach and towed to the waters off Boca Raton, Florida. There she was sunk to serve as an artificial reef and destination for recreational divers. Rough seas during the hurricane season of 2005 reportedly broke up the wreck, leaving the memory of the Golden Venture to history.

  ANCIENT CRAFTS, NEW LAND

  WHILE IMPRISONED IN YORK, Pennsylvania, awaiting trial, the Chinese refugees practiced, refined, and publicized the ancient Chinese craft of paper folding. Tiny pieces of paper were folded into interlocking triangles in ever-increasing three-dimensional modular units. The Golden Venture refugees crafted more than 10,000 models of eagles, pineapples, swans, and more. These folk art sculptures charmed magazine editors and dignitaries as publicity for the refugees’ cause. This modern three-dimensional style of paper craft became so popular, in fact, that it is now known as Golden Venture folding.

  A paper swan, constructed in the style now called Golden Venture

  5 ·CASUALTIES OF WAR

  Battle of the Combined Venetian and Dutch Fleets Against the Turks in the Bay of Foja by Abraham Beerstraaten, 1649

  The Mary Rose

  GRAND WARSHIP OF HENRY VIII

  W hen King Henry VIII ascended the English throne in 1509, war with France and enmity with Scotland had been ongoing for more than a century. The young king was determined to outdo both countries in naval might. Built by royal decree in 1509–10, the Mary Rose was by all accounts King Henry’s favorite ship. Named for his sister Mary and for the Tudor rose, the stalwart four-masted carrack served her king for almost 40 years before sinking in 1545.

  A conservationist sprays the hull of the Mary Rose with waxy polyethylene glycol to replace the water in the wood to prevent it from cracking as it dries out.

  Equipped with 78 guns, the Mary Rose was fitted out for battle. She measured 125 feet (38 m) in length, with a beam of 38 feet (11.7 m). England went to war with France only a year after the Mary Rose was completed. She proved herself an able combatant, carrying 185 soldiers, a crew of 200 men, and 30 gunners. Refitted twice during her career, the Mary Rose boasted 91 guns when she sailed into battle for the last time. Some reports maintain that this added load—she went from 500 to 700 tons (450–635 metric tons)—weighed her down, leaving her gun ports only 14 inches (36 cm) above the waterline. These measurements matter, for the causes of the Mary Rose’s sinking are still disputed.

  Henry VIII is undoubtedly one of England’s most famous monarchs, primarily for the dubious distinction of having broken with the Catholic Church because of his many matrimonies.

  An illustration of the sinking Mary Rose, one of the most famous warships of Tudor England (1485–1603). Thanks in part to England’s growing naval power during this period, the country emerged as a major world player in following centuries.

  LOSS AND RECOVERY

  A hostile French fleet, 225 ships strong, sailed on England in the summer of 1545. The Mary Rose was one of fewer than 100 English ships to meet it. The two forces met on July 19 in the Solent, a narrow channel of water between mainland England and the Isle of Wight. The Mary Rose survived the first day of battle but mysteriously sank on the second, even though all sailing ships were becalmed. King Henry himself witnessed the sinking of his beloved ship, and her complement of 400 men, as he stood watch from nearby Southsea Castle.

  Nearly 300 years passed before a fisherman discovered the Mary Rose in 1836. It was not until 1979, though, that excavation to raise the Mary Rose began in earnest. Finally raised in 1983, she was nearly intact on her starboard side where she had lain in the silt of the Solent, but badly damaged on her port side. Like the wreck of the Vasa, recovered in Sweden two decades earlier, the Mary Rose was carefully treated to preserve her timber. She is now housed in a dedicated museum in Portsmouth, England, along with supplies and artifacts that went down with the magnificent Tudor warship.

  WHO SANK THE MARY ROSE?

  WHEN THE MARY ROSE went down in a dead calm,

  the French claimed that their cannons had done the fatal damage. The proud English navy disagreed. According to the English, she had probably heeled too far to starboard, coming about to fire a broadside. Either that, or Spanish mercenaries had misunderstood their English captain’s orders and left the gun ports open to the waves.

  Now that the Mary Rose has been raised, the mystery is gaining new scrutiny. The most recent theory holds that the day the Mary Rose sank, the French had sent out galleys, powered by oars rather than wind. The galleys advanced on the becalmed English fleet, fired their cannons, and struck the Mary Rose on her port side. A recent British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) news report characterizes the long-held English view as Tudor-style “political spin.”

  A model of the Mary Rose

  The Spanish Armada

  MIGHT OF AN EMPIRE

  T he Spanish Armada was driven by three primary forces—politics, religion, and national wealth. In 1588, King Philip II of Spain planned what he hoped would be a definitive naval attack on England. With an unprecedented force of some 130 ships, he intended to eliminate the burgeoning Protestant faith and policies espoused by Queen Elizabeth I of England. This was a period of widespread religious strife between Catholics and Protestants through much of Europe. Philip also wanted to strike back at English interference with Spanish trade in the New World and shore up Spanish holdings in Flanders (present-day Belgium) and the Netherlands.

  But things did not go as planned. Spain’s decisive defeat at the hands of the English—aided by wind, weather, and luck—proved a turning point in the balance of world power. Protestant England superseded Catholic Spain in dominance of the seas. The shift had profound effects on trade, culture, and geopolitics that are evident even today.<
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  A 1590 map showing the ill-fated route followed by King Philip’s venerable Spanish Armada as it circled the British Isles

  PLAN OF ATTACK

  King Philip of Spain and Queen Elizabeth of England were monarchs of the two most powerful naval empires of their time; Portugal—a major power in its own right—had recently come under Spanish dominance. But Philip and Elizabeth were also bitterly entangled through marriage. Philip was the former king consort of England; he had been married to Elizabeth’s predecessor and half-sister, the Catholic Queen Mary I. The Protestant Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558 after Mary’s death, and she began persecuting Catholics. Philip conceived of his attack on his sister-in-law as a crusade and received papal aid and support.

  The Spanish fleet was assembled and launched from Lisbon, Portugal, which Spain had controlled since 1580. Philip aimed to overwhelm the English with ships, firepower, and men. He ordered 28 new warships and converted scores of trade galleons for battle. Commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the spectacular fleet carried some 30,000 men. They sailed on May 28 for Dunkirk, where they were to rendezvous with a squadron of thousands more men commanded by the Duke of Parma. From this quarter, they would attack England.

  Meanwhile, the English were making battle plans of their own. Privateers John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake, together known as the “Sea Dogs,” had plagued and plundered Spain’s New World treasure fleets for decades. Now they were put in command of Her Majesty’s forces, reporting to the High Admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham. The English assembled a fleet of approximately 200 ships, including 25 “race ships.” These purpose-built warships were faster, more maneuverable, and lower to the water, lacking the high stern-and forecastles that typified the Spanish-Portuguese fleet.

  The chief differences between the two belligerents had more to do with tactics than with manpower. English troops consisted mostly of experienced sailors, while the Spanish troops were heavy on infantrymen. The Spanish planned to fire a rapid unison round and pull in close enough for the infantry to board the English ships, overpowering their crews in hand-to-hand combat. This strategy proved outmoded; the longer range and rapid reloading of English cannons shifted naval warfare to a new reliance on firepower.

  One of three so-called Armada Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I of England.

  The monarch is shown surrounded by allegories of power, with images of the Spanish Armada over her right shoulder and its defeat over her left.

  A contemporary image of the mighty Spanish Armada. The loss of its armada marked the beginning of the end for Spain’s dominance of the seas.

  FLOTSAM & JETSAM

  Queen Elizabeth gave the most famous speech of her reign at Tilbury, England, following the defeat of the Armada. She declared, “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman. But I have the heart and stomach of a king.”

  HELLBURNERS

  ON THE EVE OF THE BATTLE OF GRAVELINES the English loaded eight ships with gunpowder, set them ablaze, and sent them toward the Armada. The Spanish troops panicked when they saw the fireships—such “hellburners” had done great damage three years earlier during the Siege of Antwerp. In fact, the English ships carried far less explosive power, but the so-called “Antwerp Fire” ships were so notorious that many Spanish ships cut their anchors and fled. Weeks later, these ships would be unable to drop anchor, and they would be dashed apart in the rocky, turbulent waters of the Scottish and Irish coastlines.

  BATTLE, RETREAT, AND DEFEAT

  Weather delayed the Spanish fleet’s departure by several weeks and wrecked several ships before they even cleared Spanish waters. Arriving in July off the coast of Plymouth, in southwestern England, the Spanish met a well-prepared enemy. A series of beacons spread the news of the Armada’s arrival, so English ships were battle-ready along the length of the English Channel. The fleets met in battle at Eddystone, Portland, the Isle of Wight, and off the coast of Calais before the definitive Battle of Gravelines on August 8, 1588.

  Defeat of the Spanish Armada by Philippe-Jaques de Loutherbourg, 1796, shows the desperation wrought by flames during the Battle of Gravelines.

  By the time the Armada reached the coast of the Spanish-controlled Netherlands, the English had gained a tactical advantage, occupying the windward position. Near Gravelines, the two forces met in battle once more. The Spanish ships, downwind and outgunned, heeled far over to leeward, exposing their hulls to English cannon fire. Firing rapid-repeat volleys, the English overpowered the Spanish in broadside after broadside. The Spanish lost five ships and were forced to retreat into the North Sea. This course would spell doom for the Armada.

  Wind and weather seemed to join forces with the English in the weeks following the Battle of Gravelines. By then, the Spanish had no choice—gale winds from the south and an unrelenting English fleet forced them to continue north. English ships, joined by Dutch rebels, pursued the Armada until they neared the border of Scotland. The Spanish fleet rounded the tip of Scotland and proceeded south, along the west coast of Ireland. Ship after ship was wrecked along the rocky coastline in unusually ferocious Atlantic storms. Shipwrecked Spanish soldiers who made it ashore met with hostility or were murdered by the English in Ireland. By October, only half the Armada’s ships straggled back to Spain, some foundering or even exploding on the return journey. Some 20,000 men died in the service of King Philip’s extravagant, but failed, attack.

  The Spanish Armada off the English Coast by Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen, 1620–25

  AFTERMATH

  With all nature’s forces appearing to turn against the Spanish Armada, it was easy for Queen Elizabeth to decree that God had been on the side of the English and, by extension, the Protestant faith. Indeed, England, along with the Protestant Netherlands, now entered a new era of naval power and colonial expansion, from South Asia to Africa to the Americas. The chastened Spanish, meanwhile, steered a different course in the New World, retreating from North America and concentrating their colonial power on Central and South America.

  THE TOBERMORY GALLEON

  ONE WRECKED SPANISH ARMADA SHIP has garnered more than her share of attention in the centuries following her wreck. The Tobermory Galleon, so called for the site of her wreck in Tobermory Bay on the Scottish Isle of Mull, was rumored to be holding treasure worth $45 million. The galleon has been the object of numerous diving expeditions over the centuries, which have turned up little more than the skull of a cabin boy—said to carry a curse. Recent scholarship has established that the galleon that blew up and sank in the remote Scottish harbor was actually the San Juan de Sicilia and was not, in fact, loaded with any treasure at all.

  Sir Francis Drake lived only 56 years (1540–96) but is one of England’s most famous naval heroes.

  FLOTSAM & JETSAM

  During his decades as a privateer, Sir Francis Drake earned the nickname El Drago, or “the dragon” from the Spanish sailors he terrorized.

  L’Orient

  NAPOLEON’S FLAGSHIP

  Napoleon Bonaparte’s ambitions of capturing Egypt—and perhaps even proceeding on to India—ended early on the morning of August 2, 1798, with the destruction of the French flagship Orient in the Battle of the Nile. After searching all summer, Admiral Horatio Nelson’s ships had cornered the French fleet at Abu Qir Bay, some 15 miles (25 km) off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt. The French had chained their ships together, with a shoal for protection on one side and the open sea on the other. And right in the center of the Gallic line was L’Orient, pride of Bonaparte’s navy.

  George Arnald’s painting The Destruction of L’Orient at the Battle of the Nile (1825–27) shows the ship at her moment of final destruction.

  Such a coveted prize as L’Orient was naturally a prime target for the English gunners. Yet, this sitting duck had talons: the English ships Bellerophon, Alexander, and Swiftsure attacked, but the French ship’s enormous firepower rebuffed all three. Nevertheless, an English shell had found its mark and set the seemingly indomitable
Orient ablaze. Seven surrounding French ships cut their anchor lines in a desperate attempt to flee the impending violence of L’Orient’s exploding powder cache. All activity around the great ship ceased midbattle, as horrified sailors of both sides helplessly watched the fire grow. After 10 minutes of stillness—only the crackle of L’Orient’s burning timbers could be heard—the blaze reached the powder stores. Two nearly simultaneous explosions rocked the bay. In that one wrenching moment, both L’Orient and Napoleon’s dreams of conquest disappeared into a thunderous cloud of smoke and debris.

  THE BATTLE OF THE NILE

  At a length of 214 feet (65.2 m), L’Orient carried 118 cannons on her three gun decks. Launched in 1791 as the Dauphin-Royale, she was rechristened Sans-Culotte during the French Revolution, finally taking on the name L’Orient in May 1795. As the flagship of the French navy, she had borne the future emperor himself and more than a thousand sailors and soldiers to their conquest of Egypt. Her destruction at the hands of Nelson’s armada left Napoleon and his armies stranded in North Africa.

  “THE BOY STOOD ON THE BURNING DECK …”

  THOUGH MORE THAN 1,000 PEOPLE DIED when L’Orient exploded, one death in particular gained lasting renown. Captain Luc-Julien-Joseph Casabianca’s 12-year-old son, Giocante, had accompanied his father aboard ship. The steadfast boy reputedly stayed at his post even while the ship burned, remaining on deck as the flames approached, and then detonated the powder stores. Giocante’s heroism was commemorated in “Casabianca,” a poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans, first published in 1826.

  Napoleon Bonaparte, whose victories in Europe made him a legend, met with less success in Africa. His men did, however, discover the Rosetta Stone, which allowed translation of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs into modern languages.

  The French fleet had evaded detection through subterfuge, keeping Nelson busy searching the Atlantic for a chimerical French attack on Ireland. They remained undetected at anchor in Abu Qir Bay for three weeks before their discovery by the British. Although Napoleon was not aboard L’Orient at the time of the battle, the loss of his flagship began the decimation of the French fleet by the British in one of the greatest and most decisive naval battles of all time. The Battle of the Nile was a resounding defeat for the French—and one with great geopolitical consequences. Napoleon’s retreat from Egypt, leaving his troops stranded behind him, sounded the death knell for his dreams of an overseas empire.