totalling the amount of the prize money offered.
Harrison’s first four sea clocks are preserved in working order today in the National Maritime Museum.
John Harrison .
T HE BUCCANEER WITH AN ENQUIRING MIND
William Dampier was born in Somerset, England, in 1652. He was orphaned while a teenager and started his sea career apprenticed to a ship’s captain on a voyage to the Newfoundland fisheries. He so hated the cold, however, that he made sure the rest of his travels were to the tropics, first as a sailor before the mast on an East Indiaman to Java.
When he returned he served in the Royal Navy for a time. He then worked as a sugar plantation manager in Jamaica, after which he found employment with the logwood cutters in Campeachy, Mexico. The dye of the logwood was highly prized for textiles but it was arduous work. The area was the nursery of English buccaneers at the time and Dampier found himself attracted to their free-wheeling lifestyle.
Much of his life at sea from then on was as a buccaneer. Dampier circumnavigated the globe three times, visiting all five continents and taking in regions of the world largely unknown to Europeans.
When not engaged in plunder he took careful notes of the places he visited – their geography, botany and zoology and the culture of the indigenous peoples. He carried his journal with him in a joint of bamboo sealed with wax at both ends. It was published in 1697 as A New Voyage Around the World and was followed by several other popular books. As a result Dampier was taken up by London society and he came to the notice of the British Admiralty. In 1699 he was sent on a voyage of discovery around Australia in HMS Roebuck . Unfortunately he lost the ship when it was wrecked at Ascension Island, which ruled out any further employment with the Royal Navy. He went back to buccaneering.
Future navigators benefited from Dampier’s geographic surveys and observations, especially his ‘Chart of the General and Coasting Winds in the Great South Ocean’, 1729. This was the world’s first integrated pattern of the direction and extent of the trade-wind systems and major currents around the earth.
THERE WAS SOMETHING very special about a sailing ship under full canvas, with nothing but the ocean winds and the skill of the mariner to carry her to the four corners of the world. At the height of the age of sail the man-of-war was the moon rocket of its day, a complex, self-contained community of 800 or more men. Day and night it could move faster than a man could run on land and was far taller than most buildings ashore. Its construction required the timber from 5,000 oak trees and it had nearly 2 hectares of sail and 40 km of rope and rigging. It could remain at sea for six months or more, carrying huge quantities of supplies including 110 metric tons of shot, 27 metric tons of meat and 40 metric tons of ship’s biscuit.
It was a tough life for the common sailor. Not for nothing do we talk about iron men in wooden ships. But life at sea was often better than life ashore. A sailor got to see the world, he had guaranteed food and drink every day – and if he was very lucky there was prize money that could set him up for life. There was, too, a unique chance to make your way up in the world. In the rigidly stratified society of eighteenth-century Britain the Royal Navy offered virtually the only path for someone of low birth, but with talent and a bit of luck, to become a gentleman. After Admiral Nelson and Captain Hardy the two most important people in HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar were both originally common seamen: John Quilliam and John Pascoe.
During the last days of the era the clipper ships, the greyhounds of the sea, could even give a steamship a run for its money. Cutty Sark , the famous tea clipper preserved in Greenwich, demonstrated this in an incident with the crack P&O steamship Britannia on 25 July 1889. Britannia , doing around 15 knots, was overhauled by
Harrison’s first four sea clocks are preserved in working order today in the National Maritime Museum.
John Harrison .
T HE BUCCANEER WITH AN ENQUIRING MIND
William Dampier was born in Somerset, England, in 1652. He was orphaned while a teenager and started his sea career apprenticed to a ship’s captain on a voyage to the Newfoundland fisheries. He so hated the cold, however, that he made sure the rest of his travels were to the tropics, first as a sailor before the mast on an East Indiaman to Java.
When he returned he served in the Royal Navy for a time. He then worked as a sugar plantation manager in Jamaica, after which he found employment with the logwood cutters in Campeachy, Mexico. The dye of the logwood was highly prized for textiles but it was arduous work. The area was the nursery of English buccaneers at the time and Dampier found himself attracted to their free-wheeling lifestyle.
Much of his life at sea from then on was as a buccaneer. Dampier circumnavigated the globe three times, visiting all five continents and taking in regions of the world largely unknown to Europeans.
When not engaged in plunder he took careful notes of the places he visited – their geography, botany and zoology and the culture of the indigenous peoples. He carried his journal with him in a joint of bamboo sealed with wax at both ends. It was published in 1697 as A New Voyage Around the World and was followed by several other popular books. As a result Dampier was taken up by London society and he came to the notice of the British Admiralty. In 1699 he was sent on a voyage of discovery around Australia in HMS Roebuck . Unfortunately he lost the ship when it was wrecked at Ascension Island, which ruled out any further employment with the Royal Navy. He went back to buccaneering.
Future navigators benefited from Dampier’s geographic surveys and observations, especially his ‘Chart of the General and Coasting Winds in the Great South Ocean’, 1729. This was the world’s first integrated pattern of the direction and extent of the trade-wind systems and major currents around the earth.
THERE WAS SOMETHING very special about a sailing ship under full canvas, with nothing but the ocean winds and the skill of the mariner to carry her to the four corners of the world. At the height of the age of sail the man-of-war was the moon rocket of its day, a complex, self-contained community of 800 or more men. Day and night it could move faster than a man could run on land and was far taller than most buildings ashore. Its construction required the timber from 5,000 oak trees and it had nearly 2 hectares of sail and 40 km of rope and rigging. It could remain at sea for six months or more, carrying huge quantities of supplies including 110 metric tons of shot, 27 metric tons of meat and 40 metric tons of ship’s biscuit.
It was a tough life for the common sailor. Not for nothing do we talk about iron men in wooden ships. But life at sea was often better than life ashore. A sailor got to see the world, he had guaranteed food and drink every day – and if he was very lucky there was prize money that could set him up for life. There was, too, a unique chance to make your way up in the world. In the rigidly stratified society of eighteenth-century Britain the Royal Navy offered virtually the only path for someone of low birth, but with talent and a bit of luck, to become a gentleman. After Admiral Nelson and Captain Hardy the two most important people in HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar were both originally common seamen: John Quilliam and John Pascoe.
During the last days of the era the clipper ships, the greyhounds of the sea, could even give a steamship a run for its money. Cutty Sark , the famous tea clipper preserved in Greenwich, demonstrated this in an incident with the crack P&O steamship Britannia on 25 July 1889. Britannia , doing around 15 knots, was overhauled by
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