Ships & Ways of Other Days

by E. Keble Chatterton

A Traverse-Booke made by M. John Davis in his third voyage for the discoverie of the North-West passage, Anno 1587.

Moneth. May.	Dayes.	Houres.	Course.	Leagues.	Elevation of the Pole.		The Winde.	The Discourse.
					Deg.	Mins.
	19		W S W Westerly		50	30	N E	This day we departed from Dartmouth at two of the clocke at night.
	20
	21	35	W S W Westerly	50	50		N E	This day we descried Silly N W by W from us.
	22	15	W N W	14			N E by E	This day at noone we departed from Silly.
	22	6	W N W	6			N E by E
	22	3	W N W	2
	23	15	N W by W	18			N E
		39	W N W	36	50	40		The true course, distance and latitude.
		3	W N W	2			N N E
		6	N W by W	5			N E by N
		3	W N W	3			N N E
		12	W N W	12			N E
Noone the 24		24	W N W Northerly	25	51	16		The true course, distance and latitude.
		3	W N W	3			N N E
		3	W N W	2½			N by E
		6	W by N	5			N
		6	W by N	5			N
		2	S	½			N	Now we lay upon the lee for the Sunshine, which had taken a leake of 500 strokes in a watch.

The phrase “lay upon the lee” is just another way of saying they hove-to. “A leake of 500 strokes in a watch” was identical with saying that they had to work the pumps to that number in such a period. It should be added, further, that by “elevation of the pole” is, of course, meant the ship’s latitude.

Some of the vessels of the sixteenth century were terribly slow creatures. There was a nickname given to those lethargic coasters which, because they could not do much against the current and had to proceed from one roadstead to another and there anchor till the tide turned, were known as “roaders.” No one who has made himself familiar with their long and trying voyages could ever accuse the Elizabethan seamen of cowardice in bad weather. Once, Davis relates, when his ship was fighting her way through a storm, her mainsail blew right out of her; whereupon the master of the ship crept along the mainyard, which had now been lowered down to the rails, and gathering the sail as it was hauled out of the sea, gallantly fought with it and succeeded in bending it again to the yard, “being in the meane while oft-times ducked over head and eares into the sea.”

The reader will remember just now in the extract from Smith the expression “she lusts” for “she lists.” Among hundreds of our English seamen in this twentieth century “lust” is still used to mean “list.” Smith, as we saw, also wrote “spoune before the wind.” Davis, too, related that “we spooned before the sea,” the exact meaning being that they drove before the gale under bare poles. The latter also uses the expression “a mighty fret of weather” to mean “a mighty squall.” Those who are familiar with the language of the fishermen on the north-east coast of England will call to mind their word “sea-fret” to denote a fog approaching the land.

Sixteenth-Century Seamen Studying the Art of Navigation.

After a Contemporary Artist.

Notice the compass, the hour-glass, globes, cross-staff, charts, etc.

Few nautical words are so well known to us as “skipper.” Before the sixteenth century was ended the Dutch seamen had fraternised a good deal with the sailors of England. The Low Countries were fast becoming great shipbuilders and navigators, and not unnaturally some of their phrases began to be used by our men. The Dutch word to this day which is used to mean captain is still “schipper,” and among the English seamen at the end of the sixteenth century the equivalent “shipper” was employed to refer to the same personage. There were other slang phrases prevalent, such as a “light-horseman” to mean a fast-pulling gig. So also Davis speaks of a “trade” wind to mean regular and steady. “The wind blowing a trade,” he remarks. But some of these phrases employed by seamen of those days are a little less obvious. “Tressle-trees,” for example, might puzzle many a modern sailorman. “This night we perished our maine tressle-trees, so that wee could no more use our maine top-saile.” These trestle-trees were just a couple of strong pieces of wood, or of iron, and were fitted one on either side of the lower masthead so as to support the heel of the topmast. Such expressions as “ground-tackle” are as frequently employed to-day as then, but over and over again we find that a ship “came roome,” “bare roome with her,” to mean that the former came to leeward, put up her helm and bore away.