Two Years Before the Mast

Last year I read Two Years Before the Mast by RH Dana. The following is a synopsis of the book prepared for me by ChatGPT.

Two Years Before the Mast is a memoir by Richard Henry Dana Jr. about his experiences on a two-year voyage from Boston to California on a merchant ship, the Pilgrim. The book covers his experiences on the ship, including the harsh living and working conditions, the camaraderie among sailors, and the dangers of the sea. He also describes the various ports they visited and the people they met, including a brief stay in California during the Mexican-American War.

Dana, a Harvard student, left his studies to go to sea in 1834 to recover from an eye injury. The book provides a detailed and accurate portrayal of the life of a sailors at sea in the mid-19th century, with descriptions of the daily routine, the weather, and the relations between the sailors. He also writes about the ports they visited and the different cultures they encountered.

The book is considered an important historical document as it provides a rare first-hand account of the conditions of American sailors at the time, and the challenges they faced. It is also notable for its descriptions of the California coast, which was still a remote and little-known part of the world at the time.

The thing that struck me from the book is the ability of humans to cope with intensely difficult circumstances. The desperate conditions that the sailors coped with during frequent storms were almost unbelievable.

I have read several accounts of British sailing ships during the Napoleonic wars. They always had a large number of sailors. I presume they needed a big crew so that sails could be changed quickly during the manoeuvring of a battle with the enemy. They had sufficient sailors to change the sails on all the masts at the same time.

The merchant ships Pilgrim and the Alert on which RH Dana sailed had very small crews; only about twelve men, which meant about six in each watch. When one was sick, they often had only five sailors on a watch. When the sails need to be changed, they often had to do one mast, before moving on to do the other two.

When they sailed around Cape Horn, on both the way out and the way back, they experienced terrible storms. The temperature dropped below freezing, and icebergs in the sea had to be avoided. The sailors were constantly sent up the mast to change the sails in stormy conditions. While on the decks, they wore gloves to keep their hands warm, but they had to take them off before they went up the mast, because it was two hard to grip the rigging while wearing gloves. After being on the masts for several hours, their hands got so cold, they had to bang them repeatedly against the sails to thaw them sufficiently that they could grip the sail they were furling or reefing.

I was also amazed by the engineering of these ships. The crew could remove the top half of a mast if a storm was coming, or replace a mast or spar that got broken while at sea. All this was done with blocks and tackle and some men straining on a capstan to raise and lower the heavy mast with ropes. I am amazed that they even attempted to do such a complex task.

I was intrigued by the way the captain and officers constantly kept the men working. Once the basic work was done each day, they would be set to work cleaning the decks and repairing ropes and sails. I presume that the officers felt they needed to keep the men busy so that would not get troublesome. The officers would often find a reason why they had to work on Sunday, which was supposed to be a day off.