Friday, June 5, 2015

The CSS Shenandoah Continues Her Frigid Voyage-- Part 2: Gales and Ice Floes

In this chill sea, the Shenandoah met severe gales.  "The damage from these gales is much increased by the heavy ice which a vessel is likely to be driven on and wrecked.  We encountered the first one of those gales to windward of twenty miles of floe ice, and  if we had been lying to with the ice under our lea, the Shenandoah would probably have been lost with her entire crew.

"It became imperatively necessary to relieve the ship of her perilous situation.  She was a run a little distance from and along the floe until a passage was seen from aloft through it with open water beyond.

"Into this passage she was entered and in a short time she was lying to under close reefed sails with the floe to windward, and this was the solution of the seamanship problem alluded to a little time before, for our dreaded enemy was now become our best friend, the fury of the sea  was expended on it and not against the Shenandoah.  It was a breakwater for the ship."

I Don't Think i Would Have Liked to Be Along With Them.   BBBrrr!  --Old B-Runner

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