Some Life Defining Moments
Does the picture below scare you just a little? It's borrowed from Commodore Robert G. Thelwell's book - “I Captained the Big Ships” as the closest picture I have available to illustrate my scariest trip at sea.
This at a time when the future already seemed entirely uncertain. Instead of an Autumn cruise to the Mediterranean, Caronia was sailing back from the US to the UK empty ahead of a major refit intended to help her compete in an ever more acute cruise market.
We were warned that 2 days out of New York we would probably catch the back end of Hurricane Carol! The next morning the signs were ominous. We were already being tossed about in some rough seas. The first job of the day was to ensure that all deadlights on every deck were tightly secured.
When you study this picture, remember that normally a ship's wake will trail behind sometimes for miles. Here we see that the sea has overcome almost all of it as its power builds that mountain of water. What the picture obviously fails to convey is the sound. The sheer scream of the winds as they attempt to tear the ship apart just add to the scariness.
Deadlights
Deadlights are thick and heavy metal backings to the glass in port-holes. These are fixed closed with huge brass fastenings on steel bolts with threads of ¾ins. diameter. Soon the orders were that the foredeck, aft crew deck and all decks above Main Deck, including the fully enclosed Promenade Deck were “totally out of bounds” to all crew members, other than to assigned watch-men.
More and more the ship feels like a bobbing cork. When I went, or should I say stumbled, through the Sandringham Restaurant there were several of the larger round tables simply ripped out of their strong deck fastenings and just rolling around like mushrooms! I was making my way to the only place where I would be able to get a glimpse of the outside of the ship.
A Grave Respect!
I eventually made my way up to Main Deck and walked back to the Raleigh Room. The entry doors were roped shut, but I was able to see through the glass panels in the doors where I was faced with a moving image of what's depicted above.
I might have been on a 34,000 ton liner, but at that moment I was transfixed! It felt as if I was astride a match-stick in a very angry puddle! Usually you would see a long trail of foam behind the ship. In this storm it was very difficult to predict which way the ship would be tossed. I cannot find words to describe how insignificant such seas can make you feel!
The mountain of water was actually moving toward and, because I was looking aft, seemingly faster than the ship. At one moment it was towering above us, the next the ship's stern was up in the air with nothing visible but a grey and angry sky, followed by an eerie shudder as the propellers below partly beat fresh air.
This until we dive back into the next trough and endlessly repeat the process. At times it seemed as if the ship had actually stopped and we were being dropped backwards into yet another angry maelstrom. As Commodore Thelwell recounts: “the power of an Atlantic storm must be seen to be believed!”. I cannot disagree!
Tipped-Up
The worst of the storm happened at around 4pm that afternoon. From 2pm to 6pm was a normally sacrosanct “siesta” time in the crew quarters, but I got very rudely awoken. My bunk faced from port to starboard across the ship and I suddenly found myself in a curled-up heap at the bottom of it, holding on for dear life!
In the next cabin there was a resounding crash as a prized reel-to-reel tape recorder took off from its fairly safe position atop a wooden locker and disintegrated on the deck below. In the space of little more than 48 hours, we had lost around 18 hours of progress. We arrived home a day later than planned.
An Awkward Gait
At first, I had some difficulty with getting used to the Caronia in anything like a rough sea. Her gait was quite unlike any other ship I had been on. Quite apart from the side to side roll and the fore and aft pitching, there was an extra element which took a lot of getting used to.
The only way I can describe this is by getting you to imagine that the bow is attached to a helix whose radius equates to the depth of the swell. So, from every peak through trough back to peak in a 10 foot swell, the bow of the ship would corkscrew, following this helix guide and describe very nearly a 20 foot diameter circle.
Having pitched up and down and rolled from side to side as well, the more toward the fore of the ship you were, the more you felt this motion. With our accommodation well into the bow of the ship and having a cross-ship facing top bunk there were times when I'd be made to feel way more drunken than I actually was.
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