Ship’s Bell

Few items onboard account for more nautical lore than the ship’s bell.

It is not known exactly when the bell came from land to ship. However, we do have documentary evidence from the accounts and inventories of William Soper, Keeper of the King’s Ships, 1422-1427, that at least one English royal vessel, the Rodcogge de la Tour, had a brass bell “to mark the watches of the sailors”. The Rodcogge, originally a prize vessel, was taken into Henry VI’s Royal Squadron in June 1414 and it seems reasonable to assume that a brass bell was part of her inventory at that early date.

HMS Victory Ship’s bell and the bell from Queen Anne’s Revenge, 1705

The bell was usually cast of brass with the name of the ship on it and had an artistically knotted toggle. Its main task was to indicate the time which - unlike church bells, for example, which regularly ring every quarter of an hour - is announced every half hour: one chime (a bell) means half an hour, the chimes are grouped together in pairs. But also the signaling in fog was one of their tasks.

The Sailors believed if an accidentally struck bell produced a bell-liketone within the mess deck, drowings were sure to follow unless the sound was stopped.

Ship’s bell of HMS Erebus, 1845 and the bell of the Whydah, before 1717

It was considered extremely bad luck to re-engrave a ship’s bell upon renaming a vessel, and numerical errors while strinking the bell was a harbinger of misfortune, requiring the stroke be muffeld and countered by a backward stroke. The ship’s bell is one of the few things on board that still exists today.  In the event of a failure of the electronic system, it must transmit the signals in case of danger. 

Captain Aubrey with 1.Lt. Pullings and 2.nd. Lt. Mowett

The Cutty Sark

She was built in Dumbarton (Scotland) on the River Leven at the Scott & Linton shipyard for the London shipowner John Willis as a tea clipper (the last of her kind) and was launched on 25 November 1869. Her motto on the bow: “Where there’s a Willis a way - Where there’s a will is a way” - a pun on the name of the shipowner Willis, who always wore a tall white top hat. Scott & Linton, who had agreed a price of £16,500 for the ship, had to declare bankruptcy at the end of the construction period - the Cutty Sark was their only large ship ever built. The shipyard William Denny and Brothers completed the construction.

Cutty Sark photographed at sea by Captain Woodget using a camera balanced on two of the ship’s boats lashed together, before 1916 (x)

Initially, the clipper was used in tea transport until 1877. The ship never won any of the famous tea races, partly because of the prudence of her captains G. Moodie and F. W. Moore. After the opening of the Suez Canal (17 November 1869), tea transport was taken over by steamships, which made the sea route from Shanghai through the Suez Canal to England in 42 days, while the Cutty Sark needed 102 days for the journey around the Cape of Good Hope.

Sail Plan for ‘Cutty Sark’ (1869), G. F. Campbell

Later she sailed as a tramp steamer with various cargoes. After a hard time between 1877 and 1882, the Cutty Sark became the fastest sailing ship of her size and time with wool cargoes around Cape Horn in 1885 under her 7th and longest serving Captain Richard Woodget, setting several records and also beating her old rival Thermopylae.

Cutty Sark in port, East Circular Quay, Sydney, by Allen C. Green, before 1916 (x)

Captain Woodget first had the spars and mainmast shortened around the skystay and also removed all the leeward sails that were not needed for the voyages in the Roaring Forties, which made it possible to reduce the crew from 28 to 20 men. Once he was satisfied with the altered rig, Woodget set off with the ship on his first voyage to Australia, running the ship for ten years and making her famous.

Sold in 1895 for £2100 to the Portuguese shipping company “J. A. Ferreira & Companhia” and renamed Ferreira, she was re-rigged as a barquentine after de-rigging in 1916 near the Cape of Good Hope for cost reasons.

The restored ship in her glass dock (x)

In 1922, she was sold to the Companhia Nacional de Navigação and renamed Maria do Amparo. In the same year, the desolate ship, coming from a repair stop in London, entered the port of Falmouth due to a storm. Retired Captain Wilfred Dowman recognised the 53-year-old ship, which he had always held in high esteem as a ship’s boy, and bought her from the Portuguese owner in Lisbon for £3,750, brought her to Falmouth and restored her to her original condition with the assistance of his wife, who shared his enthusiasm for the beautiful vessel.

Cutty Sark as training ship, by Jack Spurling (x)

She served in Falmouth as a stationary training ship until 1938. In 1938, the Cutty Sark came to the Thames Nautical Training College in Greenhithe (until 1949) as a gift from Captain Dowman’s widow. In 1954, the famous ship was transferred on her last sea voyage to the purpose-built dry dock in Greenwich, where she has been accessible as a museum ship since 1957.

In early October 2006, the ship was closed for extensive restoration work and was due to reopen in 2009. On 21 May 2007, a fire occurred, presumably caused by a defective hoover, which burnt out most of the hull.

The Cutty Sark after the fire 2007 (x)

Fortunately, about half of the ship’s equipment - for example, the masts and steering wheel - had been removed from storage at the time because of the work, and 19th century teak (worth £400,000) provided for restoration purposes had not yet been installed. Nor was the steel skeleton completely destroyed by the fire. Thanks to these circumstances, her complete restoration was possible; the ship was reopened on 25 April 2012 in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. On 18 October 2014, the ship was damaged by a fire on deck and was also restored. Since then, she can be visited again in her usual dock. 

@villierscy was so nice to let me know that you can climb the rigging. Here are more infos about it. https://www.rmg.co.uk/cutty-sark/attractions/cutty-sark-rig-climb-experience

By the way, if you ever come to Hamburg,Germany, you can also do this on the Rickmer Rickmers, so if you’re not afraid of heights, you can have a great view of the harbour and the city from there.

Have you ever noticed that in many old seaside towns there is at least one pub called Pig& Whistle?

Pub signs - The Pig& Whistle (x)

This has to do with Sailors superstition. Because whistling was forbidden on board. It could challenge the wind and cause a storm. Or an opponent who had good ears and could hear the whistle. The pig, a cute pink meat giver, but also a bad luck bringer. If they called it a pig. So pig was forbidden, thats why the animal on board was called hog or sow.

Now all these rules applied at sea but not on land. And what better way to live out all that was forbidden on board during a shore leave in the Pig & Whistle.

Above Deck

The term originates from the time when pirates hid most of their crew behind bulwarks or below deck to fool unsuspecting victims into believing that they had only a small crew. It followed that anyone who openly displayed his crew on deck was an honest sailor. But, yes there is a but here. Because the term can mean something else. Namely, it referred to the early merchants who stowed their legal goods visibly on deck. The illegal, however, was below deck and well hidden. Here, too, whoever showed his goods openly and did not hide them was an honest sailor.