Page 12 - Bulletin 22 2019

9

The third biggest cause of death was shipboard accidents. Crew would lose their grip whilst

up in the rigging and fall to the deck. If they weren’t lucky enough to kill themselves, they
would have to face the ship’s surgeon. The surgeon worked in filthy cramped conditions,

with no anaesthetic or detergents, so infection and gangrene were commonplace. During
skirmishes with other ships, injury was rife and often the surgeon would be killed in the line

of fire. The captain would have to allocate the position of surgeon to another crew member –
often selected because of his ability to read Latin as all medication and instructions for use

were in Latin.

Little seems to have been learnt since those early days – as I experienced when busy with a

salvage contract on Robben Island in 1998. The island’s medic was given responsibility for

overseeing the welfare of the island’s personnel after passing his driving test to drive the
island’s ambulance!

So there were multiple challenges in a life at sea, yet they persevered in the face of stormy

weather and sea sickness, low energy and low morale. Ships were often becalmed in extreme
heat for weeks at a time and tropical diseases such as malaria all added to the hardships of a

sailor. One must surely wonder how these men could muster the energy to deal with a

grounding or sinking ship.

Which part of all of this can be aligned with the ‘romance of sail’, remains a mystery !!!

Sailing ship wrecks in False Bay

Many sailing ships have been wrecked over the centuries on submerged rocks and reefs in
False Bay while others have gone aground in the few bays and inlets along its perimeter. This

section deals with a selection of them.