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The loss of the
"Captain."
About the time I completed my course in the “Excellent,” in the
spring of 1870, there was waiting to be commissioned for service a new
battleship of novel construction, the “H.M.S. Captain.” I was in the draft
that comprised her first compliment, which was a crew of six hundred and
thirty-seven officers and men. She was flat bottomed, carried the turret guns
which were just coming into vogue, and the whole ship was considered in the
light of an experiment. Almost as soon as she put to sea the word went around
that she was top heavy.
We joined the channel fleet, and for six weeks cruised about the coast of
Spain, calling at many points in the Mediterranean. The weather was fine and the
ship acted splendidly. While ploughing our way through the Bay of Biscay in fan
formation, the Admiral of the fleet signaled an invitation to the various
captains to dinner on the flagship, which included the designer of the
“Captain,” whom we had aboard. The sea was calm when the boats put off, and
a gentle breeze was coming from the east. At eight bells that evening the party
dispersed to their ships in a stiffening wind that was brewing in the southwest,
and the captains’ galleys had to pull hard to reach their ships.
All through the first watch the gale increased in violence; the ships
began to separate; and it was every one for himself. The “Captain” was a
full rigged ship, and we were under double-reefed topsails and unreefed courses.
The propeller having been unshipped and hoisted, she was breaking through
mountainous seas with the wind before the beam. At six bells we cast the log,
but the line was snapped off before we could count the knots. The loss of the
log, while not serious, threw our course into dead reckoning and we were running
wild. This continued until eight bells (midnight), which was the time to change
watches.
The rule was to call the watch below from their hammocks on the stroke of
the bell, and muster them five minutes later by calling their names as they
passed around the captain, the first watch remaining on duty until the middle
had been mustered. It was this fateful five minutes that caused the loss of the
“Captain,” her designer, and all but nineteen of her crew. The toll of the
midnight bell had hardly ceased when a heavy gust of wind struck her. The order
from the bridge “Watch up course!” was taken up by the boatswain’s mate
and resounded through the ship, but there was no one to obey it. The first watch
was rushing down the Hatchways to their hammocks while the watch just called was
declaring they were not on duty until they were mustered. In this way both
watches were below with the ship heeling over and the water pouring down the
hatches. Again the cry from the officer of the watch, “All hands save ship!”
rang through the lower deck, but the panic stricken crew could go neither up nor
down, and the ship was nearly on her beams ends in the trough of the sea with
the fore and mainsail full of water holding her down. As officer of the
fo’castle. I clung to the upper works along with a few stragglers who did not
get below, and endeavored to unlace the canvas cover from one of the launches
that were carried in the waist of the ship. None of the men had a knife to cut
the rope, but I found a small penknife in one of my pockets and this saved our
lives. The cover was ripped off and all of us clambered into the boat as a
sudden lurch lifted it out of the crutches and we were afloat. The oars were
shipped and we pulled frantically from the suction of the sinking ship as she
gradually rolled more and more until she was bottom up. We lost sight of her in
this position, but it could not have been more than a few minutes before she
took her final plunge, carrying with her more than six hundred lives.
The launch was equipped with sails as well as oars, but the wind was so
fierce that the men could not step in the mast. With the oars we kept her head
to the wind until morning, when we sighted land. We stepped out on the shore of
Cape Finnisterre and found shelter in some fisherman’s homes.
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