Scorned Cruise Ship Captain Not Alone in History

The captain of the wrecked Costa Concordia allegedly abandoned ship -- like many captains before him.

What will likely never be forgotten about the Italian cruise liner disaster is the quickness with which the captain of the Costa Concordia abandoned the sinking ship.

Considered one of the most infamous crimes in maritime law, Schettino's act of cowardice has many precedents in history.

Schettino may be a scorned captain today, but one of the most ignominious captains in history is Hugues de Chaumareys, captain of the French frigate Medusa.

On July 2, 1816, the Senegal-bound ship slammed into a reef. De Chaumareys, whose incompetence doomed the voyage, fled for the Medusa's lifeboats along with some upper class passengers and crew, while 147 people set afloat on a makeshift raft.

Initially towed behind the convoy of lifeboats, the raft was ordered cut free by de Chaumareys, who abandoned the passengers to a gruesome fate of murder and cannibalism.

When the raft floated to shore 13 days later, only 15 of the 147 were alive. The story shocked Europe and was immortalized in Theodore Gericault's painting, "Raft of the Medusa," on display at the Louvre.

Another 19th century infamous episode, involving the steamship  S.S. Jeddah, became the inspiration for Joseph Conrad's "Lord Jim."

In 1880, just like the fictional seaman Jim, captain Joseph Clark and crew abandoned the Jeddah, convinced that the leaking ship would have sunk. Nearly 1,000 passengers -- Muslim pilgrims on the way to Mecca -- were left to their fate in the middle of the Bay of Bengal.

Captain Clark reported his ship as lost, to then hear that she had reached port with all passengers alive, towed by another vessel.

On the other side of these tales of shame are numerous stories of nautical chivalry. One, involving the sinking of the troopship the HMS Birkenhead off the coast of South Africa in 1852, inspired the tradition of "women and children first."

The story goes that the soldiers' commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Seton, ordered his men to help get the women and children on board the three lifeboats as the Birkenhead began sinking in shark-infested waters. Not a single woman or child lost their life, thanks to the soldiers who stoically stood on deck as the ship went down. Their sacrifice has gone down in maritime history as the Birkenhead Drill -- women and children first.


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Embarkation of the Pilgrims

by Robert Walter Weir. 

 William Bradford is depicted at center, kneeling in the background, symbolically behind Gov. John Carver (holding hat) whom Bradford would succeed.

Ancient Ships: The Mayflower

The Mayflower was the ship that transported English and Dutch Separatists and other adventurers referred to by the Separatists as "the Strangers" to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620.

The Mayflower has a famous place in American history as a symbol of early European colonization of the future United States.

The main record for the voyage of the Mayflower and the disposition of the Plymouth Colony comes from the letters and journal of William Bradford, who was a guiding force and later the governor of the colony.

"Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor," by William Halsall, 1882 at Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

The seamen on the Mayflower had four devices to help them during their journey. They charted their course with a compass. They measured their speed with the log and line system. The log and line system was a board attached to a line, which was tossed over the stern. The line was marked with a knot at regular intervals related to the length of a nautical mile. Time was measured with hour glasses; for example, "when the hour glass had emptied at the top vessel, a sailor would strike a bell, and another sailor would count how many knots of line had run out". The speed of the ship in nautical miles per hour (still called "knots") would then be known.

Ancient Ships: Japanese Red Seal Ship

Red seal ships were Japanese armed merchant sailing ships bound for Southeast Asian ports with a red-sealed patent issued by the early Tokugawa shogunate in the first half of the 17th century. Between 1600 and 1635, more than 350 Japanese ships went overseas under this permit system. 

 Besides Japanese traders, 12 European and 11 Chinese residents, including William Adams and Jan Joosten, are known to have received permits.

 

A 1634 Japanese Red seal ship, incorporating Western-style square and lateen sails, rudder and aft designs. The ships were typically armed with 6 to 8 cannons. Tokyo Naval Science Museum.

Ancient Navigators: William Adams

 
1707 map of Japan, with a cartouche representing the audience of William Adams with the Shogun. From Naaukeurige Versameling der Gedenk-Waardigste Zee en Land-Reysen (a series of accounts of famous voyages). Thought to be by Pieter van der Aa.

First foreign samurai: William Adams

William Adams is known as the first and only officially-recognized foreign samurai

William Adams (24 September 1564 – 16 May 1620), also known in Japanese as Anjin-sama (anjin, "pilot"; sama, a Japanese honorific) and Miura Anjin ("the pilot of Miura"), was an English navigator who traveled to Japan and is believed to be the first Englishman ever to reach that country. He was the inspiration for the character of John Blackthorne in James Clavell's bestselling novel Shōgun.

Soon after Adams' arrival in Japan, he became a key advisor to the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and built for him Japan's first Western-style ships. Adams was later the key player in the establishment of trading factories by the Netherlands and England. He was also highly involved in Japan's Red Seal Asian trade, chartering and captaining several ships to Southeast Asia. He died in Japan at age 55, and has been recognized as one of the most influential foreigners in Japan during this period.

The shogun took a liking to Adams and made him a revered diplomatic and trade advisor and bestowed great privileges upon him. Ultimately, Adams became his personal advisor on all things related to Western powers and civilization and, after a few years, Adams replaced the Jesuit Padre João Rodrigues as the Shogun's official interpreter. Padre Valentim Carvalho wrote: "After he had learned the language, he had access to Ieyasu and entered the palace at any time"; he also described him as "a great engineer and mathematician".

Ancient Navigation: Sounding Weights

SOUNDING WEIGHTS
 
Today, a relatively inexpensive G.P.S. receiver can indicate the position of a ship within a few meters, and moving charts on a video screen facilitate navigation. Until relatively recently, however, the compass was not particularly accurate, and navigators were dependant on charts of widely varying accuracy. Since the depth of water beneath a hull is always a primary concern, the sounding-weight—known in the Mediterranean by at least the sixth century B.C.—remained a critical navigational aid on seas and rivers well into the twentieth century.

A sounding-weight is a roughly bell-shaped mass—usually made of lead—averaging about five kilogrammes in weight, with a sturdy attachment lug at its apex and a tallow cup in its spreading base. Ancient mariners used sounding-weights, the oldest known marine navigational instrument, not only to determine the depth of water, but also to bring up samples of the bottom, comparing the result with their knowledge of coastal geography and river behavior.

Age of Discovery: Vasco da Gama

"Vasco da Gama Leaving Portugal," by John Henry Amshewitz, early 1900's

Vasco da Gam, aPortuguese explorer, was one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India.

He is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Discovery Ages, being the first European to reach India through sea. This discovery was very impactful and paved the way for the Portuguese to establish a long lasting colonial empire in Asia. The route meant that the Portuguese wouldn't need to cross the highly disputed Mediterranean nor the dangerous Arabia and that the whole voyage would be made by sea.

After decades of sailors trying to reach India with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, Gama landed in Calicut on the 20 May 1498. Reaching the legendary Indian spice routes unopposed helped the Portuguese Empire improve its economy that, until Gama, was mainly based on trades along the Northern and coastal West Africa. These spices were mostly pepper and cinnamon at first, but soon included other products, all new to Europe which lead to a commercial monopoly for several decades.

Age of Discovery: Henry The Navigator

Henry the navigator was a Portuguese prince and the organizer of the first expedition of Europeans to the new land.

An important figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and the Age of Discoveries in total. He was responsible for the early development of European exploration and maritime trade with other continents.

Age of Discovery

Age of Discovery called discovery, made by European travelers in late XV - in the first half XVII. The impetus for these Europeans were searching for a new sea route to India around the Ottoman possessions. The first started looking for new ways to Eastern countries Portugal and Spain.

This is the world in the imagination of Europeans before the Age of Discovery. 
(World Map, compiled in 1436)