This was a vicious storm which was first observed by the Barque Felicity in the Atlantic, far east of the Antilles, on August 12, 1837. The chances are that it came from the African Coast, near the Cape Verde Islands, as many of the worst of them do. By the time these faraway disturbances have crossed the Atlantic and approached the West Indies, they are usually major hurricanes, capable of wreaking great destruction. This one was no exception, but its path lay a little farther to the northward than usual and its most furious winds were not felt on land, even on the more northerly islands in the group.
Ships in its path reported winds which appeared to be of a “rotatory” nature when Reid plotted them on maps. On the fifteenth, the storm passed near Turk’s Island and on the sixteenth, was being felt on the easternmost Bahamas.
At this stage, the ship Calypso became involved in the storm and was unable to escape. The master, a man named Wilkinson, wrote an account to the owners, from which the following is taken:
“During the night the Winds increased, and day-light found the vessel under a close-reefed main-topsail, with royal and top-gallant-yards on deck, and prepared for a gale of wind. At 10 A.M. the wind about north-east, the lee-rail under water, and the masts bending like canes. Got a tarpaulin on the main rigging and took the main topsail in. The ship laboring much obliged main and bilge-pumps to be kept constantly going. At 6 P.M. the wind north-west, I should think the latitude would be about 27°, and longitude 77°W. At midnight the wind was west, when a sea took the quarter-boat away.
“At day-dawn, or rather I should have said the time when the day would have dawned, the wind was southwest, and a sea stove the fore-scuttle. All attempts to stop this leak were useless, for when the ship pitched the scuttle was considerably under water. I then had the gaskets and lines cut from the reefed foresail, which blew away; a new fore-topmast-studding-sail was got up and down the fore-rigging, but in a few seconds the bolt-rope only remained; the masts had then to be cut away.”
By this time the wind was even more furious and the seas so high none expected the Calypso to survive. The master continued his story:
“My chief mate had a small axe in his berth, which he had made very sharp a few days previous. That was immediately procured; and while the men were employed cutting away the mizenmast, the lower yard-arms went in the water. It is human nature to struggle hard for life; so fourteen men and myself got over the rail between the main and mizen rigging as the mast-heads went into the water. The ship was sinking fast. While some men were employed cutting the weather-lanyards of the rigging, some were calling to God for mercy; some were stupified with despair; and two poor fellows, who had gone from the afterhold, over the cargo, to get to the forecastle, to try to stop the leak, were swimming in the ship’s hold. In about three minutes after getting on the bends, the weather-lanyards were cut fore and aft, and the mizen, main, and foremasts went one after the other, just as the vessel was going down head foremost.
“The ship hung in this miserable position, as if about to disappear (as shown in the accompanying reconstruction of the scene by an artist who worked under the direction of the master of the Calypso) and then by some miracle slowly righted herself.
“On getting on board again, I found the three masts had gone close off by the deck. The boats were gone, the main hatches stove in, the planks of the deck had started in many places, the water was up to the beams, and the puncheons of rum sending about the hold with great violence. The starboard gunwale was about a foot from the level of the sea, and the larboard about five feet. The sea was breaking over the ship as it would have done over a log. You will, perhaps, say it could not have been worse, and any lives spared to tell the tale. I assure you, Sir, it was worse; and by Divine Providence, every man was suffered to walk from that ship to the quay at Wilmington.”
From such accounts the hurricane hunters gathered the facts which led to a better “law of storms” and made life at sea safer for the officers and men who struggled with sails and masts in tropical gales. But it is most likely that the experiences of the crews of those sailing ships that were caught in the worst sectors of fully developed hurricanes in the open sea were never told. It is not probable that any survived the calamitous weather on the right front of the storm center, where the sea, the atmosphere, the rotation of the earth, and the forward motion of the hurricane are combined in a frenzy of destructive power.