All the sea-loving poet John Masefield asked for was "a tall ship and a star to steer her by". There is no more magnificent sight at sea than a tall ship ploughing the waves under full sail, but where there is beauty there is invariably danger, even when Masefield's star has been replaced by the most sophisticated navigational system, writes Wesley Boyd.
They that go down to the sea in ships and occupy their business in great waters, as the psalmist put it, know to exercise caution. Captain Tom McCarthy obviously acted prudently when he decided to take the Jeanie Johnston to the shelter of Valentia Harbour just a day after leaving Tralee Bay on the maiden voyage to America rather than battle against force nine gales off the Blasket Islands. The Jeanie Johnston continues a fine tradition of keeping sails on the seas and is one of many replica ships sailing the oceans of the world. But sometimes the romance can end in tragedy.
Goodwill ambassador
Years ago I stood in wonder on the deck of a fine clipper-schooner, the Pride of Baltimore, when she visited Dublin. She was a replica of the ships that had carried slaves to the New World from Africa and was being used as a goodwill ambassador and sail training ship by the city of Baltimore in Maryland. While she had called at many ports on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States her visit to Dublin, by way of Baltimore in Co Cork, was her first and, as it happened, her only voyage to Europe.
As I remember it the Pride of Baltimore was bigger than the Jeanie Johnston and was fitted out with the latest technology. Her masts were over 80 feet high. She had an enthusiastic and mainly youthful crew and after they had cheerfully entertained the highest and the lowest at the usual round of receptions and public visits they sailed proudly out of Dublin Bay en route to other European ports. At the end of her tour she headed westwards for her home port, but about 250 miles north of Puerto Rico she ran into a sudden and violent storm on May 14th, 1986. The wind blew the ship over on her side and she flooded quickly and sank. Four crew members, the captain among them, were drowned and eight were rescued. The US Coast Guard found that the design of the ship had contributed to the rapid flooding.
Less than a year later the city port on Chesapeake Bay demonstrated its faith in its seafaring traditions by laying the keel of a bigger and sturdier replica and named it the Pride of Baltimore II.
The Onedin Line
Another tall ship of my acquaintance - if only by remote control, in a manner of speaking - which came to a tragic end was the Marques. She was a three-masted square rigger used in the long-running television series, The Onedin Line.
Millions of television viewers knew her well. The Marques set out from Bermuda with 41 other sailing ships in the Cutty Sark race to Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1984. About 80 miles out she encountered a violent squall and sank in less than a minute. Of the 28 people on board, 19 perished. An official public inquiry found that the Marques had been unseaworthy because of lack of stability.
By a tragic coincidence - or a failure to learn from the lessons of the cruel sea - the owner of the Marques, Mark Litchfield, a former Royal Navy officer, was involved in another marine disaster. He was the owner and master of the world's oldest active sailing ship, the Maria Asumpta, another square rigger. In May 1995 the Maria Asumpta left Swansea to sail across the Bristol Channel to Padstow in Cornwall. She had almost completed the relatively short voyage when she started to drift towards the shore.
Swept away
Litchfield ordered the emergency engine to be started in an effort to take the ship farther out to sea. But after a few minutes of sputtering activity the engine stopped and the ship drifted towards land again. The heavy swell carried her on to the rocks and the 137-year-old vessel broke up within minutes. Eleven members of the crew, including Litchfield, managed to scramble over the rocks to safety; another three were swept away by the waves.
Two years later at Exeter crown court, Litchfield was charged with the manslaughter of the three lost crew members. It was also alleged that he had permitted contaminated fuel to be pumped back into the ship's tanks following a refit. During the trial, which lasted five weeks, the prosecution contended that the shipwreck had occurred as a result of gross negligence by Litchfield, who had taken the Maria Asumpta too close to a coast that was notorious as a graveyard of sailing ships.
The master was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Litchfield appealed but three Court of Appeal judges upheld the conviction of the man who had lost two of the world's best-known tall ships.