Taming the Atlantic: The History of Man's Battle With the World's Toughest Ocean

By Dag Pike

The Atlantic Ocean has been and remains an often deadly challenge to mankind. This delightful and informative book chronicles the history of attempt to cross its hostile surface from the early days of sail to the most recent record breaking attempts in small ultra-fast craft. In between there have been fascinating sagas connected to pioneering discovery, the slave trade, mass emigration, the glamour and luxury of the famous shipping lines and war.The Atlantic has often been the testing ground for the latest technology and design. All this and more, such as navigation techniques and advance weather forecasting are covered. Despite mans best and most ingenious efforts all too often the Worlds toughest ocean comes out on top and, while it is today a major trade route, it remains one of the most daunting maritime challenges.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781526700841

Dag Pike

Dag Pike began his career as a merchant captain, went on to test RNLI lifeboats, and took up fast boat navigation, winning a string of trophies for powerboat races around the world, including navigating Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic Challenger on the record-breaking fastest Atlantic crossing by powerboat. He later became a navigation and powerboat journalist in demand all over the world.

Book preview

Chapter One

Winds, Currents and Wild Seas

The wind was screeching through the rigging, the note rising higher and higher as the storm grew in strength. Out to windward the white-crested waves were advancing in relentless fashion, rising to the height of the top of the funnel. The wind was going off the scale in the fierce gusts, causing the ship to heel under the hammer blows of the wind. It was a typical day on the Atlantic in winter and the cargo ship Marjata was hove to, riding out the storm while tossed and battered by the huge waves. Then from out of the blue came two larger waves, the towering crests hovering above the ship before crashing down onto the deck. As the ship rolled heavily to these waves there came a groaning, grinding sound from the bowels of the ship and she took on a list to leeward that made her even more vulnerable to the advancing waves.

In the lonely seas as she approached the Bay of Biscay the Marjata was in deep trouble. The horizon seemed to be playing tricks as it rushed up to meet the mast as the ship rolled over, further and further. That mast seemed intent on matching the horizontal line of the horizon and then only slowly, ever so slowly, did the roll stop and the ship hang for what seemed an eternity before mast and horizon parted company again and started to restore their normal relationship. That grinding sound was the shifting boards carrying away allowing the cargo of grain to slide over to leeward and causing the ship to list. These shifting boards are designed to stop the grain moving in the holds but first it was the boards in No. 2 hold that gave way, followed moments later on the next wave by the boards in No. 3 hold. A shift in one more hold would have been the end for us and there was no chance of survival in those wild seas if the ship had capsized.

It was a heart-stopping, knuckle-whitening moment as the ship fought for survival against the elements intent on her destruction. There was nothing we could do. Filling the ballast tanks would have created a free surface that would only have made matters worse; perhaps such an act would have been the straw that might have broken the camel’s back. Trying to shovel the sea of grain that filled the holds back into its rightful position would have been futile, since the shifting boards erected to keep the grain in place were now lying in a tangled and useless mess.

A French deep sea trawler at the mercy of an Atlantic storm. (Author)

For thirty-six hours the ship fought for her life out there on the lonely Atlantic, a battle made even more critical by the fact that her sister ship had capsized and sunk, having lost a similar fight only months before. On every roll it could have been the end; a roll that would have carried on until the ship capsized. As a young apprentice, ignorance, perhaps, prevented me from recognizing all the potential consequences of what was happening, or perhaps it was a form of fatalism inherited from generations of seafarers who have taken on the Atlantic and either won or lost at the whim of a capricious mistress.

Gradually the storm eased and four days later we limped into Liverpool Docks and safety. On one level, we became just another statistic, and a not very important one at that; a vessel whose cargo had shifted in heavy seas, just one of the thousands of ships that have got into difficulties in the North Atlantic. On a personal level the experience of spending thirty-six hours not knowing whether the next minute would be your last was one that was going to live with me throughout my seafaring days. It taught me respect and humility for the North Atlantic and it gave me an understanding of how centuries of seafarers, most of them far less well equipped than we were to cope with the situation, have battled with storms out on the lonely wastes of the Atlantic.

Certainly the experience taught me to observe due reverence and respect for the Western Ocean, a wild stretch of sea that for centuries has been both a route for commerce and a barrier to trade. Even in more modern times the Atlantic still takes its toll; one of the latest mysteries is the loss of the modern container ship Munchen, apparently overwhelmed in mid-Atlantic despite having size on her side plus all the latest safety equipment. The Atlantic has been, and still is, a challenge to new maritime developments and technology, but above all the Atlantic Ocean is a testing ground for seamanship. It is an ocean with many changing moods, sometimes calm but more often rough and occasionally possessed of the blind and senseless violence of a major storm. While sailors may call her ‘The Pond’, with typical understatement, no seaman worth his salt is going to take the Atlantic for granted. The seabed of the Atlantic is littered with wrecks, some caused by war but most from ships that simply lost the battle with the storms of this mighty ocean.

There was a time, so the geologists would have us believe, when the Atlantic wasn’t even there. Long before history began, there was a single large land mass on Earth from which the continents as we know them today slowly separated out. This movement continues today at an infinitesimally slow but measurable rate, the chain of volcanic activity running down the centre of the Atlantic being visible evidence of shifts and change in the Earth’s crust. Perhaps the legends of the lost lands of Atlantis represent dim, distant folk memories of such times; however, the main visible changes in the Atlantic are not those affecting the land features on the ocean’s rim but those arising from the daily, sometimes hourly, changes in the sea and the weather that can affect the largest and stoutest of modern ships. The mighty cruise ships, container ships and tankers that ply these waters treat the Atlantic with respect and plan their routes with caution.

The Atlantic is no respecter of size as these large warships struggle with storm conditions.

It is the wind that is the main cause of waves at sea and it is the waves that create most of the problems for shipping, but these elements are just two of the many factors that can make the surface of all the oceans such wild and inhospitable places at times. The North Atlantic, like other oceans, is a constantly churning, constantly moving body of water with ocean currents shifting huge volumes of water in three dimensions. Added to this mixture of wild waters are the hazards created by fog, icebergs and off-lying rock shoals, all of which lie in wait for the unwary ship. It is easy to see why the Atlantic Ocean has established a fearful reputation over the years and why it has been so respected and feared by seamen throughout the ages. With largely overcast skies during the winter months, navigation was always a mixture of experience and guesswork until the introduction of first the Loran electronic navigation system and more recently the highly-accurate GPS. Now at least ships know where they are with a degree of certainty unknown in the past, making the Atlantic a safer place for the navigator trying to make a landfall in challenging conditions.

The Plimsoll line painted on the hull sides of all cargo ships is an indication of this respect for the Atlantic. Introduced in the 1800s, the Plimsoll line appears as a series of horizontal lines marked on the hull showing how deeply the ship can be loaded in different oceans and different conditions. It was introduced to prevent ships from being dangerously overloaded by unscrupulous owners seeking higher profits. A series of lines is necessary to allow for the different water densities and the different sea conditions in various oceans with the top line allowing for a deeper draft in less dense fresh water. Then come load lines for normal summer and winter use in sea water, and right at the bottom is a line marked with the letters WNA, standing for Winter North Atlantic. This is the only ocean region that has its own special load line, reducing the amount of cargo that can be carried on North Atlantic routes in the winter months and adding a bit extra to the safety margins. It is a reflection of the awesome sea conditions that can be found during the winter in the North Atlantic. Here the authorities have decreed that extra safety margins are required in order to try to ensure the safe conduct of shipping.

The Atlantic has earned itself this reputation over the centuries as trade routes have developed across the globe. This ocean has taken a higher toll on shipping than any other, and not solely because of the density of shipping crossing this stretch of water between the Old and New Worlds. Initially the dream of European sailors was just to find what lay on the other side of this great oceanic divide. Then it was the prospect of riches in the form of gold and silver, spices and other valued products that lured adventurous seamen across the ocean. They were followed in time by colonists and traders and the need for regular communication. Two-way trade between the two main industrial regions in the world added to the shipping traffic as North America itself developed a commercial base. For passengers wanting to make the journey there was intense competition between shipping companies to offer the fastest crossings. High speed and rough seas are not a happy combination for the large ocean liners and if you throw fog and icebergs into the mix the risks are high. The captains of Atlantic passenger ships were required to maintain tight schedules even in adverse conditions so that in some, perhaps in many cases, the need for speed and keeping to schedules overcame common sense and seamanlike caution.

Storm conditions south of Iceland. (Author)

At the same time, the Atlantic has always been the prestige route for passenger traffic, and technological advances have taken place largely under the impetus of the speed, luxury and size requirements of making the crossing in the shortest possible time. The Atlantic Ocean has always been a testing arena and a proving ground for both man and his technology. Providing some of the most challenging sea conditions for seamen, it is small wonder that the Atlantic has also been chosen as the arena for those who want to pit themselves against the forces of nature in smaller craft. There are men and women who are always looking for new challenges and new worlds to conquer and the Atlantic, because of its raw power and unpredictability, is still able to offer such an opportunity. In some of these personal challenges there can be a narrow line between a challenge that can be a worthwhile risk and foolhardiness that may ignore the dangers. Over the years people have attempted to cross the Atlantic in almost every conceivable type of craft and in some cases the authorities have made attempts to stop some of the more hare-brained attempts. However, it is very difficult to draw the line between potential success and disastrous failure and the truth of the situation appears to be that if you get away with it and make the crossing you are a hero; fail, and you may be called a fool for even thinking you could take on the might of the Atlantic Ocean.

The North Atlantic Ocean stretches from the Tropics to the Arctic.

The record of fine, well-found ships coming to grief in the stormy waters of the Atlantic is far too extensive for comfort. Perhaps surprisingly, although fewer in number, the small boat sailor has a safety record which matches or even betters that of commercial vessels, but such men and women are often unfairly criticized for trans-oceanic voyaging. To set a new record across the Atlantic is probably more of a personal matter than a risk but where criticism can be levelled is in the experience of some of the protagonists who take on the Atlantic. Experienced seamen may not want to attempt some of the more extreme Atlantic ventures, however, and thus these then tend to be left open to the inexperienced or foolhardy. This is where the risks can arise and where the element of foolhardiness enters into the equation, but such is the unpredictability of the Atlantic that a surprising number of these inexperienced sailors succeed in making safe crossings. It is worth noting though that most of the early small boat crossings were made by sailors who were experienced, knew what they were doing and relished the challenge.

The Atlantic Ocean is a setting of immense proportions for any attempt to cross it, whether it be for ship cargoes crossing on a safe and regular basis, to transport passengers at high speed, or simply an individual seeking to prove that something can be done. In this book we are looking mostly at the North Atlantic because the main trade routes have crossed this ocean for centuries and this has been the primary arena for both the personal and the technical challenge to the power and might of the oceans.

The North Atlantic stretches roughly from the Equator to the Arctic. There are no hard boundaries to this mighty ocean except the land, and the division between the North and South Atlantic oceans varies with the time of year. Because the Caribbean Sea, the South Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean contribute to the water circulation of the North Atlantic, these have to be considered in the equation and in reality oceans know only the limits set by the land at their edges.

The power of the sea is very evident from this photo of a warship in a storm.

The wind and water circulation of the North Atlantic played a very important part in the way the exploration of the New World occurred. We are talking here about the water circulation on the surface of the oceans that affects shipping directly, but in fact the water circulation throughout the oceans is very much a three-dimensional affair and there are deep ocean currents that keep the whole of the ocean on the move. Surface currents are largely generated by the prevailing wind patterns that pick up the surface water and force it along in the same direction as the prevailing wind. The combination of wild winds and mighty ocean currents means that the Atlantic is an ocean in turmoil and never easy to predict.

If the world was an ideal place, then there would be a predictable wind pattern across the Atlantic. With the Earth being much hotter at the Equator than at the poles through the differential heating of the sun, the air at the Equator rises as it becomes heated and this warm upper air then flows northwards and southwards towards the poles, with colder air from the poles flowing at a lower level towards the Equator to take its place. This north/south air flow is the basic pattern in the Northern Hemisphere but nothing is simple when it comes to weather and in fact there is a sort of circular flow of air around the Atlantic, generally flowing to the east in the northern parts and to the west in the southern parts towards the Equator.

Much of the weather found in the North Atlantic starts life over the extensive mainland of North America. Here, heat differences combined with the major air flows start off a series of depressions that start to whistle their way out to sea and across the ocean. The main meeting-point between the winds flowing to the north and those flowing south is an area of turmoil and this is the location of the mighty jet stream that acts as a catalyst for those areas of low pressure which are a constant feature of Atlantic weather and generate most of the violent winds in the region. They tend to follow the line of the jet stream which pours eastwards high in the stratosphere and the meeting line between the two winds, the hot and the cold, will vary according to the season, moving north in the summer and drifting south in the winter. The drift south in the winter brings the area of violent winds right across the major trade routes and helps to give the North Atlantic the fearsome storm reputation discussed earlier. The deeper and more violent depressions produce winds that quickly reach gale force or more and they generate the mighty waves that roll across the ocean.

Therefore in the northern areas of the Atlantic, the general pattern of the weather shows a series of depressions running across from west to east, while further south the Azores high-pressure area brings more moderate winds and more predictable weather. If the Azores high strengthens, it pushes the depressions further north and this can bring fine weather to most of the maritime routes across the Atlantic. More frequently, this high-pressure area is beaten south and it is rarely able to fend off for long the assault from the depressions, determined in their eastward path across the North Atlantic in winter.

Between the Azores high and the Equator you get the north-east trade winds; predictable and consistent winds that were so favoured by sailing ships. South of these winds are the Doldrums, an area of fitful, unreliable winds where ships can experience violent thunderstorms creating an area that was and still is a major problem region for sailing vessels.

In many ways the surface currents in the North Atlantic follow the pattern of the winds with the Gulf Stream flowing from the coasts of Florida bringing warm water to the shores of the British Isles and further north. To the south there is the return flow across the ocean some way north of the Equator providing favourable currents for an east/west crossing spurred on by the reliable Trade Winds. These two currents set up a sort of circular flow around the North Atlantic centred roughly around the Azores High that can be used by low-powered ships to get a helping hand on ocean voyages. Added into this mix is the cold Labrador Current that flows down from the Arctic along the shores of Canada and across the Grand Banks, bringing with it the series of icebergs and fog that can be such a hazard to shipping in the North Atlantic.

The cold Labrador Current has a lot to answer for when it comes to creating difficult sea conditions for shipping. Flowing down through the Davis Straits from the icy wastes of the Arctic, it brings with it large quantities of floating ice. Much of the region through which this current flows is so cold in the winter that the sea freezes over and is a mass of solid ice, but in the early summer the ice starts to break up and melt. This ‘first-year’ sea ice is not too much of a hazard to navigation and most of it melts before it is carried very far south in the Labrador Current, but each summer huge sections break from the glaciers that run down from the Greenland ice cap into the Davis Strait and it is these icebergs heading south in the current that present a major hazard to shipping.

It may take a couple of years for an iceberg to reach the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and then head even further south into the major shipping lanes. Many of these icebergs are so large that they ground on the shallow waters of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, which stretch some 300 miles to the seaward of Newfoundland. Such huge bergs may stay grounded until they melt sufficiently to continue their southward journey over the shallow water. Eventually they are caught up by the relatively warm waters of the Gulf Stream when melting is rapid. Few icebergs reach more than 358 west before they are picked up and destroyed by the warm Gulf Stream, but the bergs that stay closer inshore, in the colder current, may occasionally get down as far as 408 north. Most of the icebergs that keep inshore tend to congregate just south of Cape Race on the south-east corner of Newfoundland where they eventually break up or melt.

The build-up of ice on ships is a constant threat in the seas around Iceland. (Author)

Icebergs are a threat in many of the shipping routes across the Atlantic. (US Coast Guard)

The movement of icebergs is affected by both currents and winds and is difficult to predict. The RMS Titanic disaster brought home to the public at large the risks posed to shipping by icebergs. In the days of sailing ships and in the early days of steam ships most vessels took a course directly across the Grand Banks when coming from Europe in order to pick up the favourable Labrador Current which could help them down the coast towards the ports of Boston and New York. This took ships through the ice zone during a large part of the year but as the speed of shipping rose and the consequences of a collision with an iceberg increased there were attempts to route ocean traffic away from the ice danger. An international conference on the safety of life at sea, held in London in 1913 following the Titanic disaster, led to the introduction of the International Ice Patrol and although this is a service managed by the US Coast Guard, it is funded by most of the major maritime nations. The ships and aircraft of the Ice Patrol keep track of all the icebergs each season and use computer programs to predict their future positions, so warning vessels in their path. Yet ice still remains an ever-present danger, particularly when the fog often found in these latitudes reduces visibility. Fog and icebergs are not a happy combination for shipping.

Fog can be a hazard to shipping throughout much of the North Atlantic but it is particularly prevalent on the coasts of North America. Here, once again, it is the Labrador Current that is the main culprit. The meeting of the cold water of this current with the warm moist air sweeping up from the south-west creates prime conditions for fog to form. During the summer months fog on the east coast and out over the Grand Banks can occur as often as one day in two and the fog can stretch for hundreds of miles. In addition to the hazards of fog and ice, the fact that the fog is generated by a wind-against-current situation can