They Stuck to the Ship: Schooner Days MXXXVI (1036)

by C. H. J. Snider

"WHAT do you think now," asks Cynie Cuss by today's mail, "of your stay-put hero Kurt Carlson of the Flying Enterprise? Do you agree, with the criticisms before the Coast Guard Board that he should have sent out a distress call immediately after the ship cracked in the hurricane, and that he should have headed for the nearest port as soon as the seas calmed, and that improper stowage of cargo was the cause of the disaster?"

Schooner Days only knows what the newspapers have printed. Perhaps that, and experience of winning a livelihood from water as a hired hand and a master and an owner, all in a small way, excuses one for holding an opinion. If it does, I think Kurt Carlsen is a great hero, and should be honored as such. And so is Ken Dancy, the volunteer tug sailor who stood by him to the last; when all the critics were safe ashore by Carlsen's orders.

FOUND FAITHFUL

They both deserve the highest honors that can be paid to seamen. Carlsen was faithful to his owners, faithful to his passengers, faithful to his crew. Both he and Dancy, who came to his aid, were faithful to the ship. To the very last. When she rolled down before her final plunge she left them in the water. They did not abandon her.

Both men went the limit in devotion to a cracked mass of steel plates, pig iron, coffee and art treasures — and to something else in devotion to the proposition that it is not always better to be a living dog than a dead lion. It is better to die a king than to live a cur. By the grace of God Carlsen and Dancy, faithful unto death in deep waters, are diving still, kings in their calling.

That is my opinion.

As for the criticisms, they can be taken for what they are worth when all the facts are established. I have never accepted the theory of the divine right of kings, nor the worse fiction that the king can do no wrong.

OWNER IS THE GOAT

It has been customary, in the calling of the sea, to blame everything on the owner. Not altogether unfairly, either, for the owner is the ultimate beneficiary. He gets the profits — if any. So he should take the blame — if any.

Voyages are made and cargo is carried on the owner's orders and the master's judgment, but the latter is not an independent, nor an overriding authority. Cargo may arrive in such order that it cannot be stowed in the most desirable fashion, and yet may not be improperly stowed. The master who refuses to load cargo at all would have no vessel to command.

It should be remembered also that a ton of coffee is just as "heavy" as a ton of pig iron; no more and no less. I have never been shipmates with a coffee cargo. Maybe it is more dangerous than pig iron in a hurricane. Flax seed would be, for it is "heavy" and fluid. The slippery little seeds hop over one another like bouncing atom bombs.

BOUNCING BEANS

And dry beans! You might think them the most innocent of cargoes. We did; but a small consignment of them in jute bags almost did for a fine steel sea-barge in which I made a voyage under sail up the North Sea.

They were stowed on the main hatch, with tarpaulin over the hatch of course and another big tarp over the beans, well lashed down. It held the bags in place, but the little devils, hard as steel bearings, cut through their jute bags, and sawed the hatchcover to ribbons. In a seaway we were in danger of foundering, for those barges loaded almost decks awash, and their main hatch was their principal freeboard. Its coamings were two feet high.

THE HURRICANE TO BLAME

The Flying Enterprise was not the only ship wrecked in the hurricane. Others went in a matter of hours, even minutes. That she stayed afloat for nearly a fortnight after "cracking" shows strong construction.

Not every ship that cracks goes down. Carlsen was satisfied that she was strong enough to reach port, even if she had to be dragged side-wise on her ear. He staked his own life on that, and almost won. Had there not been a succession of heavy gales, and had his crew stood by him when the passengers were taken off-—even a dozen sailors like the God-sent Ken Dancy-—there would have been enough manpower to lead the towing cables to the proper points of attachment or to shackle them to her own anchor cables. The ship might have been saved.

RUDDERLESS 1,300 MILES

Since a sailor has become a "crewman," or, just as bad, a "crew member," his lot has been so improved that he is not called upon to display more courage in his calling than is a streetcar "operator." It was different fifteen years ago, when we still had sailing sailors. On Feb. 3rd, 1937, the big three-masted schooner E. P. Theriault much like the J. T. Wing at Detroit, and like her "French-built" at Weymouth, N.S.) lost her rudder on her way home with a cargo of Turk's Island salt. She was 1,300 miles from LaHave, N.S., where she was owned, and seemed to have no way of getting there. She was worse off than the Flying Enterprise on Dec. 27.

Capt. George Corkum called his crew of four men and a mate aft and said: "Boys, there is no insurance on this vessel, and if we quit her the owners won't have to pay us any wages. If we stick to her they will. We can keep her afloat and get her home, if we have luck, and get paid. Or when the first vessel comes along we can abandon her and get nothing. What do you say?"

"Get her home, cap," said they all.

So for 46 days they baffled about in the North Atlantic. If the wind was astern they set their headsails, and she might make 30 miles a day northwards. If the wind was abeam they could carry the foresail and mainsail and riding sail or trysail, and sometimes make as much as 100 miles of northing in 24 hours. If the wind was ahead — and it often was — they had to take in all sail and let her drift back almost as fast as she had been going ahead.

Twice they ran out of provisions, and twice they were supplied by passing vessels — a Lunenburg motor vessel and a Dutch steamer — and twice they politely declined to be taken off. On March 13th they were within 10 miles of La Have. A government patrol tug sighted them and towed them into La Have river, which is a good safe port. When she had unloaded her 10,000 bushels of salt, the E. P. Theriault went on the drydock for a new rudder. Capt. Corkum and his crew got their wages. And that was that.

"The E. P. THERIAULT was much like the J. T. WING (above), now the Detroit marine museum."