All four men were now grey-faced with exhaustion. Even when they were not at work on deck or at the pumps, the wild pitching of the ship made it impossible to rest, and none had slept for more than a few minutes since the storm began.
Tom had the afternoon watch with Richard and as he readied himself to call the next watch at four o’clock, he made up his mind to ‘heave to until the weather abated and the sea ran down a little’.
Stephens and Brooks came on deck after lying below in their oilskins, trying in vain to sleep. Tom told Stephens to take the helm while the squaresail was taken in. ‘We’ll have to reduce canvas or the gale will have the sticks out of her. She can ride out the storm under a backed jib and storm trysail.’
After hauling down the squaresail, they began securing everything before Stephens brought the yacht head to wind. Peering into the storm, he would try to pick a gap between the biggest waves in which to come around, but in the ten or twenty seconds as the ship swung slowly to face the wind, losing headway all the while, the sea would force her over until the keel was all but exposed.
Any big wave hitting her then, as she lay broadside to the sea, could broach and bury her. Even if she escaped that fate, the vicious stresses as the keel weight dragged the ship back to the vertical might snap her mast or spring her timbers.
Tom had no choice, however. The swell was becoming ever shorter and more ugly, and the gaps between the precipitous wave crests were now no more than a handful of seconds. If they continued to run before the wind, the Mignonette would not long survive such huge waves breaking over her stern. The only hope was to turn her head to the wind and ride out the storm.
When the wind was too strong for almost any sail to be carried without the risk of capsize, or when the following seas were so short and ugly that a yacht could not run before the wind without risk of the waves breaking over the stern and burying her, a sailing master could bring his craft around to lie-to before the gale.
Square-riggers had storm-staysails, which were used only for the purpose of bringing and holding the ship head to wind, but a yacht like the Mignonette would lie to under a backed jib and trysail.
Flying downwind a few moments before, the manoeuvre would bring the yacht to a standstill in short order. Without any further intervention from the helmsman, the bows would hold themselves within a few points of the wind, allowing the shock of the waves to be borne by the windward bow, with little water being shipped.
The helm would be lashed, but this was done as much to stop it thrashing from side to side as for any effect on the attitude of the ship, which would hold station and ride every wave while the crew snatched what rest they could, for the ship effectively sailed itself as long as the sails held.
If the force of the gale ripped the canvas free, however, the yacht was in immediate danger of foundering as the wind pushed her broadside before the sea. The only remedy then was to cut the lashings on the helm and bring her round to run before the wind until another sail could be jury-rigged.
The work of securing everything on deck took half an hour to complete. Brooks was reinforcing the lashings on the dinghy while Tom used the butt end of a hatchet to nail canvas over the aft skylight before giving the order to bring the Mignonette about.
At the helm, Stephens glanced around him and froze. A freak wave was sweeping down on them, a wall of water obscuring the horizon. It seemed to reach to the height of the masthead, sixty feet above the deck. A curling crest of foam spread along its entire length and spilled in streaks down its vertical face like the breaks in a waterfall.
The trough at the foot of the wave was so deep that it looked like a black hole in the sea. He gave a strangled cry. ‘I called, “Look out!” at the same time jamming the helm hard over to meet the wave square on, but the sea broke clean over her.’
The stern of the Mignonette plummeted downwards as it was plunged into the trough before the wave, throwing the bow up into the air. Then the grey wall collapsed and crashed down on the yacht, burying it under tons of water. As the wave struck, the Mignonette’s every timber shook to its core.
Stephens tried to cling to the helm, but was hurled back against the rail. He felt the bulwarks give way and fell with them, dangling over the boiling sea, his legs kicking like a hanged man’s, until the water from the monstrous wave at last flooded away.
Tom and Richard were on the lee side of the boom. ‘Mate, who was at the helm, cried, “Look out!” I ducked to look under the boom and saw a mountainous sea coming down on top of us. I caught hold of the boom. I wonder it did not break.’
Tom clung to the boom as his feet were swept from under him and hung there, like a ship’s pennant streaming in the wind. There was no up or down, no light or darkness, only the crushing weight of water and the relentless power trying to tear him free from the grip he had locked around the boom. He had no idea if it was still attached to the mast or had been ripped away and swept over the bulwarks; all he could do was cling to it as his lungs screamed for oxygen and the blood hammered in his ears.
Still at work lashing down the dinghy, Brooks had also seen the wave coming. ‘Stephens was at the helm. He had just been down below. Parker was standing to windward of the boom. I saw a tremendous sea reaching I should think quite half-way up to our masthead. I took two turns of the rope around my arms and hung on.’
As the wave swept the deck and engulfed him, the rope bit through his skin, burning deep weals into the flesh of his arms. The sail was rent and torn away in an instant.
Stephens dragged himself back on to the broken deck. ‘On recovering myself, to my horror I saw that the weather topsides and the bulwarks abaft the beam were stove in. I cried out, “My God, her top-sides are stove in, she is sinking.”’
Tom went to windward, ‘only to find the mate’s words were true: her butt ends on the starboard side had been laid clean open’, where the force of the wave had torn the garboard strakes from the keel.
The dinghy was tied down over the fore skylight and Tom shouted to Brooks above the howling of the wind, ‘Help me lower the dinghy.’
‘The mate sang out,’ Brooks said, ‘and we all looked over the side and saw there was a hole in her. We all rushed to the boat, but the mate, who was at the helm. I tried to cut the lashings off, which I could not.’
As Brooks struggled with the lashings, ‘Captain Dudley gave me an axe and I cut them off with two blows. I made one part of the ship’s painter fast to the boat before we shoved her off.’
They manhandled the dinghy over the side, but in the process they contrived to hole its flimsy, quarter-inch planking. It began to fill with water as the waves crashed over it.
Stephens still held the helm. Tom shouted to Richard to go below decks with him and bring up the breaker of water from the foot of the companionway. As he held it over the rail, Tom grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t drop it into the dinghy, you’ll stove in the bottom. Throw it into the sea and we’ll pick it up.’
Already half-empty, it floated high in the water and at once began to be carried away on the wind. Brooks and Richard clambered down into the dinghy.
‘I called the captain to come,’ Brooks said. ‘He came on deck and tried to slack the boat astern.’
Tom let out some rope on the painter, allowing the waves to carry the dinghy round to the stern of the yacht. He took a turn of the rope round a cleat on the taff rail, then threw the other end of it to Brooks.