It will be noticed from Captain Pattman’s letter on his run home in 1892 that Strathdon and Loch Torridon encountered ice to the south’ard. And they were not the only ships to do so.
In the years 1892 and 1893 a tremendous drift of field ice and huge bergs, many of them over 1000 feet in height, blocked the way of ships in the Southern Ocean, as the following reports will show:—
| 1892. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April | Cromdale encountered ice | 1000 | feet high in | 46° S. 36° W. |
| May | Strathdon encountered ice | 1000 | feet high in | 45 S. 25 W. |
| June | County of Edinbro encountered ice | 900 | feet high in | 45 S. 37 W. |
| Sept. | Loch Eck encountered ice | 1000 | feet high in | 44 S. 2 W. |
| Oct. | Curzon encountered ice | 1000 | feet high in | 44 S. 31 W. |
| Oct. | Liverpool encountered ice | 800 | feet high in | 55 S. 94 W. |
| 1893. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. | Loch Torridon encountered ice | 1500 | feet high in | 51° S. 46° W. |
| Feb. | Cutty Sark encountered ice | 1000 | feet high in | 50 S. 43 W. |
| Mar. | Turakina encountered ice | 1200 | feet high in | 51 S. 47 W. |
| April | Brier Holme encountered ice | 1000 | feet high in | 49 S. 51 W. |
| May | Charles Racine encountered ice | 1000 | feet high in | 50 S. 52 W. |
The Cromdale had a very exciting experience, and Captain E. H. Andrew wrote the following account to the secretary of the London Shipmasters’ Society:—
We left Sydney on 1st March, and having run our easting down on the parallel of 49° to 50° S., rounded the Horn on 30th March without having seen ice, the average temperature of the water being 43° during the whole run across.
At midnight on 1st April in 56° S., 58° 32′ W., the temperature fell to 37½°, this being the lowest for the voyage, but no ice was seen though there was a suspicious glare to the southward.
At 4 a.m. on 6th April in 46° S., 36° W., a large berg was reported right ahead, just giving us time to clear it. At 4.30 with the first signs of daybreak, several could be distinctly seen to windward, the wind being N.W. and the ship steering N.E. about 9 knots. At daylight, 5.20 a.m., the whole horizon to windward was a complete mass of bergs of enormous size, with an unbroken wall at the back; there were also many to leeward.
I now called all hands, and after reducing speed to 7 knots sent the hands to their stations and stood on. At 7 a.m. there was a wall extending from a point on the lee bow to about 4 points on the lee quarter, and at 7.30 both walls joined ahead. I sent the chief mate aloft with a pair of glasses to find a passage out, but he reported from the topgallant yard that the ice was unbroken ahead. Finding myself embayed and closely beset with innumerable bergs of all shapes, I decided to tack and try and get out the way I had come into the bay.
The cliffs were now truly grand, rising up 300 feet on either side of us, and as square and true at the edge as if just out of a joiner’s shop, with the sea breaking right over the southern cliff and whirling away in a cloud of spray.