Saturday, June 13, 2015

CSS Shenandoah Still Having Ice Problems

JUNE 14TH, 1865:  Lt. Waddell had worked the CSS Shenandoah free of the dangerous ice field that had provided him a safe breakwater in the icy storm (see 1-13 June) by running out warps "on the floe and grapnels hooked to large blocks of ice....One gathers experience under certain circumstances, and becomes accustomed to certain situations which create anxiety at first."

After meeting increasingly heavy drift ice that flowed to the westward, Waddell became convinced that to continue sailing in that direction would be useless.  "She was therefore run to the eastward and after knocking about till the 14th of June, I left the sea of Okhotsk and entered the North Pacific Ocean by the fifteenth parallel passage of Amphitrite Strait, and steering N.E. with a cracking southwester after us.

"When I gave the course N.E. it was to run the ship midway of the most western of the Aleutian and the most eastern of the Komandorski Islands, because currents about the islands are irregular in direction as well as in force.  In a few hours after leaving Amphitrite Strait the wind hauled more to the south then east of south, producting a condensation of the atmosphere which closed around the Shenandoah an impenetrable mist."

No Fun and Games on the Shenandoah.  --Old B-R'er

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