Documentary, Shipwrecks Part: 1 Britain's Sunken History
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#Britain'sSunkenHistory #Shipwrecks #History #Documentary
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00:00We're all familiar with the story of how Britain conquered the sea.
00:21A story that rings with glorious naval victory and acts of heroism,
00:27which helped build a huge empire.
00:30But there's a less well-known maritime phenomenon
00:34that has shaped our history, our destiny and our national character.
00:40The shipwreck, the sailor's ultimate nightmare.
00:44So terrifying, but so much a part of the price paid for ruling the high seas.
00:49And once so common an occurrence
00:51that it's always been lodged deep in our psychological make-up.
00:55As an historian, this has always fascinated me.
01:02I grew up with dramatic tales of ships dashed on the rocks
01:06and their crews lost at sea.
01:08As a child, I saw these as just wonderful yarns to stir the imagination.
01:15Yet shipwrecks changed the course of our history.
01:18And without them, it's unlikely we'd be the same nation we are today.
01:23In this series, I will uncover stories of wrecks in far-flung exotic seas
01:32that reveal Britain's rise as an imperial power.
01:37But my journey starts on our own coastline.
01:41These charts simply littered with thousands of shipwrecks.
01:49Yes, we built the biggest maritime empire the world had ever seen.
01:54But we did so from an island
01:56which is surrounded by some of the most dangerous waters in the world.
02:00The combination of geography and global outreach
02:07would make Britain more prone to shipwrecks
02:10than practically anywhere else.
02:13Something that first became apparent 500 years ago
02:18when the Tudor navy began to flex its muscles
02:21at a time when King Henry VIII could only dream of ruling a maritime empire.
02:27Starting in the 16th century,
02:30I'll show how one of the largest mass shipwrecks in history
02:34propelled us on our global adventure
02:36and how remote disasters at sea
02:38would inspire some of the most memorable literature and art.
02:43Join me for the story of the shipwreck
02:45and the extraordinary role it has played
02:48in the shaping of Britain's history.
02:49The Maritime and Coast Guard Agency in Dover
03:06keeps watch over the English Channel,
03:09one of the most congested
03:10and potentially deadly shipping routes in the world.
03:14I'm going to one infamous spot off the south coast
03:37where the remains lie of over 2,000 ships.
03:41Over there, off the coast of Kent,
03:45are the Goodwin Sands.
03:48And it seems like the most innocuous stretch of coastline you can imagine,
03:52but this place is a graveyard.
03:55Under these waters
03:56lies the largest concentration of shipwrecks
03:59anywhere in the world.
04:01The Goodwin Sands has terrified sailors since the 16th century.
04:12It's even mentioned in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice
04:15as a place where the carcasses of many a sunken ship lie buried.
04:23Full of navigational hazards,
04:25the treacherous Goodwin Sands
04:27is the final resting place of a host of wrecked vessels,
04:31from Elizabethan galleons to U-boats.
04:38Many of these old historic wrecks
04:40have been located by the Alert,
04:43a rapid intervention vessel
04:44which pinpoints the precise location of shipwrecks
04:48in the English Channel.
04:49We're tracking up the eastern edge of the Goodwin Sands,
04:55trying to find the wrecks
04:56that are marked up on these screens here.
04:58And there are
04:591, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
05:04And just in a small area of sea.
05:07But we're hoping one of these wrecks
05:08is going to appear over there.
05:10What have we got over here?
05:11This is a multi-beam echo sander.
05:13So a standard echo sander
05:14would look straight beneath the ship
05:15and you just know exactly what was underneath your kill.
05:17This is looking out at 75 degrees either side of the vessel.
05:21So we've got a 360-degree view of the seabed.
05:25So we're able to get a picture
05:25of what's actually happening down there
05:27to determine whether the wreck is a danger.
05:31The Alert continues to patrol these waters
05:34because historic wrecks are liable to break up
05:37amidst the shifting seabed and tides,
05:40becoming a danger to shipping in this very busy trade route.
05:47If we cross a wreck,
05:49what's that going to look like on that screen?
05:51What is it going to look like?
05:51You're going to see some disturbances on the screen.
05:53If you imagine you're in a room
05:55and you shine a torch on a box,
05:58you get a shadow behind the box in a dark room.
06:00So we're looking for the shadow.
06:02There's a really, really big disturbance in this picture here.
06:18It's unmistakably something just lying on the seabed.
06:21This is an old wreck, so we don't know what it is.
06:23The shape of the shadows reveals a wreck
06:27that has begun to break up on the seabed,
06:30with its keel lying in two parts.
06:35We don't know the name of this vessel,
06:38but it could be part of one of the largest mass shipwrecks ever recorded.
06:42In November 1703,
06:53a massive storm tore across the south coast,
06:57destroying everything in its wake in a maelstrom of chaos,
07:01which spawned wind speeds of over 140 miles per hour.
07:12The only bona fide hurricane to ever hit our shores
07:17inspired writer Daniel Defoe to pen a famous journalistic account.
07:24No storm was like this, either in its violence or its duration.
07:29The greatest, the longest in duration, the widest in extent.
07:36Of all the tempests and storms that history gives any account of
07:40since the beginning of time,
07:42confusion seized upon all, whether on shore or at sea.
07:53For the many ships sailing the channel that night,
07:56there was no shelter from this hurling gale.
08:00Sailing vessels, built from wood and barely 100 feet long,
08:04were no match for the fury of what became known as the Great Storm.
08:08The bulk of the ships lost that night sank here on the Goodwin Sands.
08:18Thirteen warships and 40 merchantmen were driven onto the Goodwin Sands by the Great Storm.
08:28Men from the Port of Deal struggled out in open boats to try and save who they could.
08:34But 2,000 men lost their lives here.
08:39The remains of those ships sunk that night in the Great Storm are still here, beneath these waters.
08:49This mass shipwreck became the most obvious testament to the destruction wrought on the whole country.
08:58A day of fasting was called and church pulpits hosted sermons describing the disaster as a punishment from God for the sins of the whole nation.
09:09Across the coast of Britain, so many ships were sunk that one in five sailors from the Royal Navy were lost,
09:20and with them, thousands of men from merchant ships.
09:23One of the ships which was caught in the Great Storm was HMS Mary,
09:36which now lies 100 metres west of the Goodwin Sands.
09:42Commanded by Rear Admiral Basil Beaumont,
09:45it suffered the single largest loss of life on that terrifying night.
09:49268 men were killed, with only one solitary survivor.
09:59The loss of the Mary, and Admiral Beaumont along with it,
10:03was recorded in a remarkable painting now held at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
10:13In this painting, Rear Admiral Beaumont stands with a hand on his anchor,
10:18while in the background, the Mary, the ship that he actually went down on,
10:23struggles to stay afloat during the Great Storm.
10:27It's a haunting image, part portrait, part visual document of his death,
10:32and it's a powerful reminder that the Great Storm left deep psychological scars on our island nation.
10:40Yet, while the wrecking of so many British ships was unprecedented,
10:55the remains of these vessels are only a small contingent of the thousands of wrecks
11:01which litter almost every mile of our coastline,
11:04from the Isles of Scilly to the north of Scotland.
11:11But they lie out of reach, hidden from us,
11:15in the murky depths of the seas that surround our island.
11:19And over centuries, the majority of historic wrecks disintegrate on the seabed.
11:24But 30 years ago, something remarkable happened.
11:40An event that entranced the nation
11:43gave me my first ever glimpse of a real shipwreck.
11:47A stricken flagship of Henry VIII's Tudor navy.
12:03I remember seeing a longbow,
12:06and, even more remarkably,
12:09what seemed to be the bones of the bowman it belonged to.
12:13And then, one of 39 cannons being lifted from the seabed.
12:26I watched captivated, along with the rest of Britain,
12:31as the Mary Rose returned to the surface after over 400 years.
12:40There is the wreck of the Mary Rose.
12:42It has come to the surface.
12:44There is the first sight of this flagship of Henry VIII.
12:49It's the first time we have seen this in 437 years.
12:55Today, the wreck is held in a specially built dehumidifying chamber,
13:01where conditions are controlled
13:02to maintain the right air temperature to preserve the timbers.
13:06From the moment that she was raised in the 1980s,
13:15the Mary Rose became one of our greatest national treasures.
13:18But the harsh truth is that,
13:20by the time that she sank,
13:22she was a badly designed and dangerous ship.
13:24And the men that we really need to thank
13:26for giving us this time capsule of Tudor life
13:29were the shipwrights and designers of Henry VIII's navy.
13:32Their construction plans
13:36miscalculated the ship's sea-handling capability.
13:43The Mary Rose may have embodied
13:46the very character and physical stature
13:48of Henry VIII himself,
13:50powerful, imperious and swaggering.
13:53But there were fatal flaws in her design,
13:58which meant her sinking was almost inevitable.
14:05Weighing over 700 tonnes
14:07and decked out with dozens of cannons,
14:10colourful flags and high turrets,
14:14to her enemies, the Mary Rose
14:16would have been a magnificent maritime fortress.
14:23On the 19th of July, 1545,
14:32the French fleet entered the Solent
14:34and the Mary Rose was prepared for battle.
14:38Men, arms and guns were readied for action.
14:45From the moment that the last of these cannon
14:48were loaded on board,
14:50the Mary Rose was dangerously top-heavy
14:52and her gun ports were too close to the waterline.
14:55She was doomed.
15:06Attempting a simple manoeuvre,
15:08the Mary Rose listed sharply to her starboard side
15:12and suddenly sank,
15:14taking almost 400 men to their deaths.
15:17She had been fitted with a new gun deck
15:23that had destabilised her.
15:27It was an alteration that proved costly.
15:40This ship is the product of a nation,
15:43the England of Henry VIII,
15:44that was not yet a true maritime power.
15:47Henry's was a navy built for flag-waving and prestige
15:50more than it ever was for fighting.
15:59Henry's maritime ambitions took a knock that day in the Solent.
16:03The recovered wreck of the Mary Rose continues to fascinate us,
16:11though its actual sinking is far more significant.
16:16It tells us that Britain was not yet ready to sail the seven seas
16:21and conquer the world.
16:23In fact, it would take a highly fortuitous act,
16:2840 years later and just up the coast,
16:31to change our destiny.
16:35This is Plymouth Ho,
16:38where Sir Francis Drake famously finished his game of bowls
16:41before sailing off to defeat the Spanish Armada.
16:44It's become part of our traditional story of the Armada,
16:48a story that tells of how nimble English ships
16:51sailed out and defeated the cumbersome Spanish,
16:54saving England from invasion.
16:55But there's another way of thinking of the events of 1588,
16:59and that's to see it not as an English naval victory,
17:03but as one of the greatest mass shipwrecks in history,
17:07caused by the terrible dangers of the British coastline
17:10and by the awesome power of the weather.
17:12In July 1588,
17:22a huge amphibious invasion force
17:25appeared off the south-west coast of England.
17:30The Spanish Empire had sent over 120 ships
17:35to land, invade and conquer the country.
17:38It was Queen Elizabeth,
17:44daughter of Henry VIII,
17:46who had to stand up to the massed ranks of Spanish power
17:49in a war fought over empire and religion.
17:54A small Protestant island nation
17:57versus a colossal Catholic superpower.
18:00The propaganda machine cracked up.
18:07The Spanish were coming to hang everybody over the age of seven.
18:11They were going to kill every man, woman and children.
18:13There was a shipload of hangman's nooses.
18:16They had special whips to deal with flogging women.
18:23The powerful Spanish fleet swept confidently
18:26from the Bay of Biscay along the south-west coast.
18:30If Elizabeth hoped they would founder
18:34on one of the many navigational hazards
18:36that lay in these offshore waters,
18:38she was to be disappointed.
18:44The Armada steered clear of the Scilly Isles,
18:48narrowly avoided running aground on the Isle of Wight
18:50and evaded the notorious Goodwin Sands.
18:53They were now on course to land troops off the east coast
19:01and march on London.
19:05And the only thing standing in their way
19:08was the Tudor navy.
19:10But although Elizabeth could call on the services
19:13of Sir Francis Drake,
19:15her navy was not yet the world-famous fighting force
19:18we would come to know.
19:24People often make the mistake of assuming
19:26that the English navy then
19:27was like the navy in Nelson's time.
19:30It wasn't at all.
19:32I'm sure Francis Drake and John Hawkins
19:34and the others were all patriotic Englishmen,
19:36but their prime motivation for all the voyages they made,
19:39and indeed for joining the battle against the Armada,
19:41was not patriotism,
19:42it was the profit motive.
19:44They were there to try and capture Spanish ships
19:46and take them as prizes
19:48and claim the value of all the ordnance,
19:50all the treasure and everything else on board.
19:53A Spanish ship at the bottom of the ocean
19:55was a disaster not just for the Spaniards,
19:57but for the English too,
19:58because a ship at the bottom of the ocean
19:59couldn't be looted.
20:00The two fleets finally engaged
20:14off the Flanders coast at Graveline.
20:20And during an eight-hour confrontation,
20:23the English succeeded in scattering the Spanish fleet.
20:30But this was not a killer blow.
20:40The Spanish had only lost three ships
20:43and were still a potent fighting force.
20:46The Spanish commander then took a fateful decision
20:59to retreat from the English navy
21:02and head up the North Sea towards Scotland.
21:07As the Spanish fleet edged northwards,
21:09the weather began to close in.
21:12A natural defence of gale-force winds,
21:17huge breaking waves
21:19and a deluge of freezing rain
21:22dashed any last hopes the Spanish had
21:25to land their forces.
21:28A moment when they lose the status of a fighting force
21:33and become frightened men fleeing for home
21:36comes off Newcastle
21:37when they throw the horses and the artillery mules
21:41over the side
21:42because they haven't got enough water.
21:46And that's saying,
21:49we aren't ever going to land.
21:51The Spanish admiral,
21:53the Duke of Medina Sedona,
21:55then issued his final orders
21:57to flee for home
21:59around the west coast of Ireland.
22:01He added what would turn out
22:04to be a prophetic warning
22:06to avoid the perils
22:08of the jagged Irish coast.
22:11Whereupon he ordered full sail
22:14and the slower ships,
22:16he coldly and calculated,
22:18said,
22:19you're on your own.
22:20This Mediterranean invasion force
22:35sailed blind along the coast of Scotland,
22:38trying to avoid the north-west of Ireland.
22:43Lost in foreign waters,
22:45with no local pilots to guide them safely,
22:47the fleet began to be split up,
22:51blown off course.
23:01By September 1588,
23:04the Armada was a broken,
23:05battered and motley collection of ships
23:07and they began to appear here
23:09in Ones and Twos
23:10off the coast of Northern Ireland.
23:12This entire scenario
23:14was completely unexpected.
23:16The Duke of Medina Sedona
23:18had specifically ordered his captains
23:20to avoid the coast of Ireland
23:22and the Spanish chart
23:24actually ended at the Moray Firth
23:26on the north-east coast of Scotland.
23:29And so the Spanish captains
23:30had no detailed knowledge
23:32of this terrible coastline
23:33and they were entirely unprepared
23:35for the tempestuous weather
23:36of the North Atlantic.
23:38The retreating armada
23:59ran into a month-long wall of stormy weather
24:02which drove the ships
24:04and their crews to their deaths.
24:06In one day alone,
24:11six of them were wrecked.
24:17The magnificent El Gran Green,
24:21a 1,200-ton behemoth,
24:23was smashed to pieces
24:24off the coast of County Mayo.
24:27Within a 200-mile stretch
24:30of the west coast of Ireland,
24:31over 20 Spanish ships were lost.
24:41In the aftermath,
24:43there were horrific scenes
24:44all along the shoreline.
24:47On one beach,
24:49the bodies of 1,500 drowned sailors
24:52were found
24:53and any survivors
24:55faced an equally heartless fate.
25:00Those who had survived
25:02the wrecks of their ships
25:03and who were lucky enough
25:04to have made it ashore
25:05now faced a new set of dangers.
25:08English soldiers were garrisoned
25:09all along this coast
25:10and the Spanish didn't know
25:12how the Irish,
25:13their brother Catholics,
25:14would react.
25:15It often hinged
25:17on the question of money.
25:18The rich Spaniards
25:19were held captive and ransomed,
25:21while many of the ordinary
25:23soldiers and sailors,
25:24the men who had survived
25:25fleet battle,
25:26storm and now shipwreck,
25:28were either murdered by the Irish
25:30or executed by English soldiers.
25:32History has taken a harsh judgment
25:40on the Irish population
25:42for what had happened.
25:44I think that's unfair.
25:46I believe at that time
25:48in the 16th century,
25:50in the west of Ireland,
25:53there was a very prevalent superstition
25:56that the sea always claims its own.
25:59And if you allow someone
26:02to be saved,
26:04then the sea would later
26:05wreak vengeance
26:06either on you
26:07or on one of your own kin.
26:09And that's what drove them.
26:11That's what made them
26:13seem to be so cruel.
26:14It was this fear
26:16of retribution by the sea.
26:20But hundreds of Spanish sailors
26:22were rescued from the sea
26:23by the Girona,
26:25one of their own ships.
26:27As it made its way
26:29along the coast
26:29towards the giant's causeway,
26:32it arrived here
26:33at La Carta Point,
26:35a notorious headland
26:37full of jagged rocks
26:38hidden just beneath the surface.
26:42On the night of October 28th,
26:44the Spanish galleas Girona
26:46smashed with incredible force
26:48into the rocks behind me.
26:49She was fatally overloaded
26:54with more than 1,000 men on board
26:56and her rudder
26:57had already been broken
26:58by the storm.
27:00She split into two,
27:01sank immediately,
27:03killing nearly all
27:04of the men on board.
27:05The Girona was wrecked
27:16within a few miles
27:17of Dunluce Castle,
27:19home to the wonderfully named
27:21Sawley Boy Macdonald,
27:23a firebrand Irish chief
27:25who was himself entangled
27:27in his own bloody
27:28territorial conflict
27:29with the English army.
27:31Macdonald retrieved
27:36over 200 bodies
27:37from the wreck
27:38and ensured
27:39they received
27:40a Catholic burial.
27:48Local tradition claims
27:50that the victims
27:51of the Girona
27:51were buried here
27:52at St Cuthbert's Churchyard.
27:55We don't know exactly where.
27:56It's one of those details
27:57that's been lost to history.
27:58But it's just one
28:00of several traditions
28:01and folk stories
28:02that are linked
28:02with the wreck
28:03of the Girona.
28:04One claims
28:05that some of the survivors
28:07were actually taken in
28:08by the Macdonalds
28:09of Dunluce Castle
28:10and another
28:11that some of the Spanish
28:13soldiers and sailors
28:14actually stayed,
28:15married local women
28:16and merged
28:17into the local population.
28:24The most tangible trace
28:26of the Armada
28:27that remains today
28:28is a treasure trove
28:30of gold
28:30recovered from
28:31the Girona
28:32in the 1960s.
28:43The divers
28:43who discovered
28:44the Girona
28:45found a huge
28:46hall of treasure
28:47that had lain untouched
28:48for almost 400 years
28:50and you can see it today
28:52here in the Ulster Museum
28:54in Belfast.
29:02Now this little guy
29:03is fantastic.
29:05It's a gold salamander brooch.
29:08A salamander is a reptile
29:09that's native to Mexico.
29:11We know that the gold
29:13came from South America
29:14and that the rubies,
29:15of which there are three,
29:17and there are spaces
29:18for six more,
29:19actually came from Burma.
29:22It's a wonderful piece
29:23of jewellery
29:24that says so much
29:25about the wealth
29:26and also the outreach
29:28of the Spanish Empire
29:29in the middle
29:30of the 16th century.
29:31And just look
29:38at these gold coins.
29:40There are 20 or so here,
29:42but they recovered
29:42hundreds of gold
29:44and silver coins
29:45from the wreck
29:46of just one ship alone.
29:49These Spaniards
29:49were carrying the wealth
29:50of the Empire
29:51with them.
29:54But my favourite piece
29:56is this amazing
29:57gold chain.
29:59It weighs about the same
30:01as a bag of sugar
30:01and it's six feet long.
30:07It would have gone
30:08round someone's neck
30:09three or four times.
30:11These guys were going
30:12to war,
30:13but they were going
30:14to look good
30:14while they were doing it.
30:28This coastline
30:29shattered the Spanish Armada.
30:31A third of the fleet
30:33was wrecked here
30:34and more ships
30:35were scuttled
30:36or lost
30:37in the Atlantic Ocean
30:38and North Sea.
30:40Eventually,
30:42five months
30:43after they had first
30:44set out from Spain,
30:4563 ships
30:47limped back home,
30:49half of the original contingent.
30:52Over 20,000
30:54Spanish soldiers
30:55soldiers and sailors
30:55had lost their lives.
30:59As soon as the shadow
31:00of the Armada
31:01departed our shores,
31:03the story of this
31:04mass shipwreck
31:05was retold
31:06as a stirring victory
31:07for Elizabeth's
31:08Protestant island.
31:10It was proof
31:11that the nation
31:12could rely on
31:13divine intervention
31:14to save them
31:15from Catholic invaders.
31:18Tudor propagandists
31:19even coined
31:20a new term
31:21that summed up
31:22this righteous victory.
31:24They said
31:25that England
31:26had been saved
31:26by a Protestant wind.
31:33This was only
31:34the beginning
31:35of the myth-making
31:36that has shaped
31:37our understanding
31:38of the Armada.
31:40What we now know today
31:41as Elizabeth's
31:43most famous speech
31:44made to her troops
31:46at Tilbury,
31:47where she is said
31:48to have declared,
31:49I know I have
31:51the body
31:51of a weak,
31:52feeble woman,
31:53but I have
31:53the heart
31:54and stomach
31:55of a king,
31:56was, in fact,
31:58part of this strategy
31:59to repackage
32:00the Armada,
32:02not as a lucky escape,
32:04but as a glorious victory,
32:06led by a monarch,
32:07backed by God.
32:10We think that
32:11Alistair Campbell
32:12and Tony Blair
32:13invented spin-doctoring
32:15and image control,
32:16and it's absolutely
32:16not true.
32:17Queen Elizabeth
32:18was a past master
32:19at it.
32:20The famous speech
32:21she made at Tilbury
32:21when she inspired
32:23her troops
32:23allegedly to defeat
32:24the Armada
32:25was only made
32:26when she knew
32:26the Armada
32:27had already been defeated
32:28and was being driven
32:29away up the North Sea.
32:31And the proof of that
32:31is that when the Armada
32:32was off the coast,
32:33Queen Elizabeth
32:33was actually at
32:34Hampton Court,
32:35surrounded by
32:36a 10,000-man bodyguard.
32:39And the speech
32:39she gave at Tilbury,
32:40which has come down
32:41to us through history,
32:42isn't actually
32:43the one she gave.
32:44The only witness
32:44to record a version
32:45of that speech
32:46recorded a very different one.
32:47But it was then
32:48taken back to Whitehall Palace,
32:50worked on to give it
32:50a much more Shakespearean tone,
32:52and it was then
32:53disseminated through
32:54the only mass media
32:55there was at the time,
32:56church pulpits.
32:59So the great myth
33:00of Queen Elizabeth
33:01as the inspiration
33:02of her troops
33:03and the Protestant wind
33:04came down to us
33:05that way.
33:06A heavily mythologised version
33:11of the sinking
33:12of the Armada
33:13was commemorated
33:14in art, too,
33:16as in this allegorical
33:17painting of Elizabeth
33:18presiding over the victory.
33:22And it shows
33:23Elizabeth
33:24in imperial splendour.
33:31Behind her,
33:32on one side,
33:32are the English fire ships
33:33destroying the Spanish fleet.
33:35On the other side,
33:36there's a portrayal
33:37of the Spanish Armada
33:38being dashed to pieces
33:39on the rocks.
33:42But on the chair,
33:43there's a mermaid.
33:45That's all about
33:45feminine wiles
33:47luring unwary sailors
33:49to their deaths.
33:51And that's what she felt
33:52she wanted to portray.
33:54She may have had
33:55the body of a weak
33:56and feeble woman,
33:57but she could defeat
33:59the Spanish Armada
34:00just by slitting
34:01her fingers.
34:01fortuitous or not,
34:21the wrecking of the Armada
34:22was a turning point,
34:24giving an island nation
34:25the confidence
34:26to expand
34:27its maritime operations.
34:29This was the beginning
34:39of a new,
34:40exciting global era.
34:42Just a decade
34:43after the Armada
34:44had smashed itself
34:45to pieces,
34:46Queen Elizabeth
34:47granted a charter
34:48to a group
34:48of ambitious London merchants
34:50to pursue trade
34:51around the world.
34:53This group
34:53would become known
34:54as the East India Company,
34:56and they were in the vanguard
34:58of an ambitious scramble
34:59to beat our European rivals,
35:01conquer the new world,
35:03and bring exotic goods
35:04like tea and sugar
35:06back home.
35:07And where the East India Company
35:09went,
35:09the British Empire
35:10would follow.
35:13Our ships subsequently
35:15went south and east
35:17to Africa,
35:18India,
35:19and China,
35:20and west
35:21to North America
35:22and the Caribbean.
35:27The rewards were high,
35:30but so were the risks.
35:33Venturing into remote
35:34and unexplored waters,
35:36one in five ships
35:38never returned,
35:41wrecked in far-flung seas.
35:43It's not surprising
35:49that so many ships
35:51are shipwrecked.
35:52Wood itself
35:53is a vulnerable material,
35:55but also,
35:56and more profoundly,
35:58there is no reliable
35:59charting
36:00of most of the waters
36:01of the world.
36:02So nobody knows
36:03where there are large rocks
36:04just underneath
36:05the water's surface,
36:07and a wooden ship
36:08goes on that
36:08and it rips the bottom out.
36:10Most people in those days
36:11couldn't swim,
36:12so a ship would go
36:13to the bottom
36:13and most of the crew
36:14would drown.
36:23Shipwrecks were costing
36:25the wealthy merchants
36:26and aristocrats
36:27who backed
36:28the East India Company
36:29serious money.
36:32They needed to be able
36:34to guarantee
36:35a safe passage
36:36beyond home waters.
36:38But what kind
36:42of navigational aids
36:43were available
36:44to seafarers
36:45at the time?
36:46I'm going to test out
36:47some of the tools
36:48they used
36:49to sail through
36:50uncharted waters.
36:52To help me out,
36:54I'm meeting
36:54Tristan Gooley,
36:56a navigator
36:56and maritime adventurer.
37:00One of the first things
37:01that mariners
37:02need to understand
37:02is how fast
37:03they're going.
37:04What is this?
37:05This is called
37:06the chip log
37:07and in the 16th century
37:09this was the most
37:10accurate method
37:11of working out
37:11how fast the boat
37:12was going.
37:14How?
37:15Well, it's very simple.
37:16It's a board.
37:17We've got the lead weight
37:17here, which means
37:18this end is going to go
37:19and stay at the bottom.
37:20It's going to be weighed down.
37:21And think of it
37:22like a parachute.
37:23It just sits there
37:24and it breaks in the water
37:25and then the line runs out
37:27and we have knots marked
37:29at intervals.
37:30Yeah, that's one.
37:31And the number of knots
37:33that pass through our hand
37:34in 14 seconds
37:35is going to tell us
37:36how fast this boat is going.
37:38Are you ready to give it a go?
37:39Let's do it.
37:39Right.
37:40Here we go.
37:48I'm now timing 14 seconds.
37:50That's five.
38:01Ten.
38:04And that's 14.
38:06Stop the line there.
38:07OK, we've got a knot
38:09just there.
38:09Absolutely right.
38:11OK, so that knot
38:12you've got there
38:13we're going to count the knots
38:15back from there.
38:18And that's our lot.
38:19We're into the stray line
38:20as it's called now
38:21just the bit
38:22that goes out
38:22at the beginning
38:23to keep it clear of the boat.
38:24So we reckon the boat's
38:25going three knots, I think.
38:26Three and a bit
38:27because there was
38:27that extra bit of rope
38:29left before it came back
38:30to the reel.
38:31Yes, three and a bit.
38:32Three and a bit knots.
38:33Let's check with Bob.
38:34Bob, what are we actually doing?
38:35By the log, 3.2 knots.
38:37Hey.
38:38The bit that, yeah.
38:40The bit on the end,
38:400.2 of a knot.
38:41That's amazingly accurate.
38:43It is, yeah.
38:44That's a fantastic bit of kit.
38:48When land is sighted
38:49a basic navigation trick
38:51is needed
38:51to stop the ship
38:52running aground.
38:54This is known as depth sounding.
38:59We've got one of the oldest,
39:01lowest tech bits
39:01of navigation equipment
39:02in the world,
39:03the lead line.
39:04Drop it over the side.
39:06When it hits the bottom
39:06the line goes slack.
39:08We know how deep the water is
39:10by how much line there is.
39:11Okay.
39:21There we go.
39:21That's tense there.
39:22So this knot,
39:34you can see
39:34it's dry on one side of it,
39:36wet on the other.
39:38And if we work our way
39:39all the way back
39:40to this red one...
39:41What does that red one mean?
39:43That red one means
39:44seven fathoms.
39:45And that knot there
39:46will be one more fathom.
39:48So we're in
39:48eight fathoms of water.
39:50But,
39:51that's not all this
39:52not very high-tech
39:55bit of kit
39:55will tell us,
39:56hopefully.
39:59There we go.
39:59What have we got?
40:00There we go.
40:01Let me just pass that over.
40:03Ah!
40:05Looks like we've pulled up
40:06some mud and sand to me.
40:07Is that what it looks like to you?
40:08Yeah, let me just have a look.
40:10Taste it.
40:11Best way of doing it.
40:13Oh, that's disgusting
40:14but it's definitely sandy.
40:16It's not just mud.
40:17That's the key bit of information.
40:19Sailors of the past
40:20would have used that
40:20to understand where they are,
40:22what the land they're approaching
40:23is like
40:24and, very importantly,
40:25whether they could
40:26drop the anchor there.
40:28Because if the seabed
40:29isn't right for an anchor
40:30there's no point dropping it.
40:31And this is one way
40:31of saving a lot of time and effort.
40:35Simple, but effective.
40:37However,
40:37when it came to
40:38more difficult calculations
40:40like accurately measuring
40:42the altitude of the sun
40:43which was needed
40:44to work out
40:45an exact position at sea
40:47a more complex
40:48and innovative solution
40:49was needed.
40:51And it was provided
40:52by an Englishman
40:53named John Davis
40:54in 1594.
40:57I'd say the vast majority
40:59of all navigational instruments
41:00anybody ever thinks of
41:02are concerned with
41:03measuring angles
41:04and in particular
41:04the angle of the sun,
41:05the moon and the stars
41:07above the horizon.
41:08And this is a very early tool
41:10which they used to do that
41:11and it's a particularly
41:12clever one, isn't it?
41:13It is very clever.
41:14This is the backstaff.
41:15How does it work?
41:17Okay.
41:17What we do is
41:19we create a shadow
41:21using what's called
41:22a shadow vein
41:22on this little window here
41:24and then looking through
41:26this sighting vein here
41:27we look at the horizon
41:29and that just forms
41:30a nice simple triangle
41:31from there to there
41:32back up to here
41:33up to the sun
41:34and that measures
41:35the angle for us.
41:36Right, let's have a go
41:37see how this works.
41:38There you go.
41:41I'm going to look through
41:42this to find the horizon
41:43and then adjust this
41:46until the shadow.
41:49There we go.
41:50There we go.
41:50Okay, great.
41:51So now we take it down
41:52and some very, very
41:54simple calculations.
41:56You've just got to
41:56add the number here
41:57to the number here
41:58and you've got the angle
42:00of the sun above the horizon.
42:025, 10 here
42:02and then 25 there
42:04so we're looking at
42:0435 degrees.
42:0535 degrees, yeah.
42:06We're not quite at the
42:07midday point now
42:09but we have just taken
42:10an altitude of the sun.
42:11We have just worked out
42:12how high it is
42:13and that simple measurement
42:14could tell a sailor
42:16how far north or south
42:17they are in the world.
42:17There are no mirrors,
42:18there are no magnifying glasses,
42:20there are no moving bits,
42:21it's just a stick.
42:22Absolutely
42:22and it wasn't perfect
42:24otherwise we wouldn't have
42:25had things like the octant
42:26and the sextant
42:26coming along later
42:27and displacing it
42:29but for approximately
42:30130 years
42:32from about 1600
42:33to about 1730
42:34this was cutting edge.
42:38Armed with this
42:39navigational equipment
42:41a fleet of seven ships
42:43left Plymouth Harbour
42:44on the 2nd of June 1609.
42:50They were bound
42:51for Jamestown, Virginia
42:53a settlement colonised
42:55only 20 years
42:56after the defeat
42:57of the Armada.
43:02Led by its flagship
43:04the Sea Venture
43:05the flotilla consisted
43:07of boats typical
43:08of the period.
43:11Made from wood
43:12powered by sail
43:14and barely 70 feet long
43:16they would have to brave
43:18the weather
43:19of the Americas
43:20a sort of tropical hurricanes
43:28that no Englishman
43:30had ever witnessed
43:31off his own coast.
43:39Six weeks after leaving
43:40the Devon shoreline
43:41the boat sailed
43:43into the eye
43:43of a ferocious storm.
43:47Separated from the rest
43:49of the group
43:49the Sea Venture
43:50was at the mercy
43:52of this tropical onslaught
43:53unable to master
43:55the elements
43:56and unable
43:57to maintain
43:58her course.
44:01Of course
44:02a wooden ship
44:03is far more vulnerable
44:05so it can literally
44:06be blown
44:07on a rocky shore
44:08where it can be shipwrecked
44:09even if
44:10it realises
44:11it's in terrible danger.
44:13You can have scenarios
44:18where you can see
44:19the danger
44:20the rocky shore
44:21you know you want
44:22to keep off that shore
44:23but the wind
44:24and the current
44:25is driving you on it
44:26and you cannot stop it.
44:30The Sea Venture
44:31was smashed
44:32onto the rocky reefs
44:33of what proved
44:34to be
44:34the island of Bermuda.
44:36Remarkably
44:44all 150 people
44:46on board
44:47survived
44:48this crash landing
44:49and now
44:50they found themselves
44:51shipwrecked
44:52on a beautiful
44:53but deserted island.
44:57To us today
44:58the beach is paradise
44:59it's where we dream
45:01of going on holiday
45:02but that idea
45:03would have seemed
45:04like utter madness
45:05to anyone
45:06in the 16th
45:07and 17th centuries.
45:09Back then
45:09the beaches
45:10of the new world
45:10weren't paradise
45:11they were hell on earth
45:13and if you found yourself
45:15on one
45:15you wouldn't break out
45:16the sun lotion
45:17you'd sink to your knees
45:18in despair
45:19because the odds were
45:21that you were
45:21a shipwrecked sailor
45:22and you were
45:23almost certainly doomed.
45:24many of those
45:33marooned
45:33by the sea venture
45:34on the Caribbean
45:35island of Bermuda
45:36did die from
45:37starvation
45:38or disease
45:39but the remaining
45:44crew
45:44built two
45:45improvised craft
45:47after salvaging
45:48parts from the wreck
45:49they named them
45:52Deliverance
45:53and Patience
45:54and eventually
45:55some did
45:56make it back home
45:57finding a passage
45:59from their original
46:00destination of Virginia
46:01and two of the crew
46:04published a gripping tale
46:06of their battle
46:07for survival.
46:10For four and twenty hours
46:12the storm
46:12in a restless tumult
46:14had blown so exceedingly
46:15as we could not
46:16apprehend in our imagination
46:18any possibility
46:19of greater violence.
46:22Fury added to fury
46:24and one storm
46:25urging a second
46:26more outrageous
46:27than the former
46:28nothing heard
46:30that could give comfort
46:31nothing seen
46:32that could give hope.
46:36These testimonies
46:37were the first
46:38ever accounts
46:39of surviving a shipwreck
46:41in the new world.
46:43Sylvester Jourdain
46:43and William Strachey
46:45published their narratives
46:46in 1610
46:48just months
46:49after returning
46:50to London
46:51and what they described
46:52captured the public imagination.
46:55They detailed
46:56swimming in crystal clear waters
46:58foraging for exotic fruit
47:00and hunting brightly coloured fish.
47:02They bear a kind of berry
47:07black and round
47:08as big as a damson
47:09which about December
47:11were ripe and luscious.
47:14Other kinds of high
47:15and sweet swelling woods
47:16there would be
47:17and colours black
47:18yellow and red
47:19and one which bears
47:21a round blueberry
47:22much eaten
47:22by our own people.
47:25We have taken
47:265,000 small
47:27and great fish
47:28at one hail.
47:29I think that no island
47:31in the world
47:32may have greater store
47:33or better fish.
47:37For many readers
47:39this was their first taste
47:41of global travel
47:42and adventure.
47:46These books
47:47were widely read
47:48and you could just imagine
47:49people talking excitedly
47:51about Jourdain
47:52and Strachey's encounters
47:53with this strange environment.
47:56The possibilities
47:57of exploring
47:58the exotic
47:59and otherworldly nature
48:01of these far-flung islands
48:02also fascinated
48:04the most famous playwright
48:05of the Elizabethan age.
48:08The travails
48:09of the sea venture
48:10inspired
48:10one William Shakespeare
48:12to write a story
48:13that began
48:14with a shipwreck
48:15in a foreign sea.
48:16The Tempest
48:22opens with a ship
48:24battling to stay afloat
48:25amidst the uproar
48:27of a tropical storm.
48:31Shakespeare uses
48:32the shipwreck
48:33as a dramatic device
48:35to create a gateway
48:36to propel us
48:38into a fantastical world.
48:47Through the shipwreck
48:48and subsequent marooning,
48:51Shakespeare introduces us
48:52to the weird and wonderful characters
48:55who inhabit
48:56a strange island.
49:00There is the spirit,
49:02Ariel,
49:03who uses magic
49:04to conjure up the tempest
49:06which wrecks the ship
49:07at the start of the play.
49:11And then
49:12there is Caliban,
49:14half-demon,
49:16half-man,
49:17a wild savage
49:18who fascinates
49:19and terrifies us.
49:24Shakespeare revels
49:26in disaster at sea
49:27as a means
49:28to take us away
49:29from civilisation.
49:35So what the shipwreck
49:37in that context
49:38enables you to do
49:39is to think
49:40outside
49:41the imaginative chains
49:43of your own society.
49:44you can imagine
49:45a world
49:46without religion
49:47of the form
49:48that you might have
49:48in Europe.
49:49You can imagine
49:50a world
49:50which isn't dominated
49:51by human beings.
49:56One can imagine,
49:58in short,
49:59the opportunity
50:01to put yourself
50:03in a context
50:04in which you
50:06and your imagination
50:08are interacting
50:10with anything
50:11that you can take
50:13and derive
50:13from this new environment.
50:15And that was
50:16really potent.
50:22Shakespeare
50:23stretched our imaginations
50:25through his shipwreck
50:27in The Tempest.
50:28And he did so
50:29in an age
50:30when Britons
50:30were taking
50:31their first
50:31tentative steps
50:33in a new era
50:34of travel and adventure.
50:37The Tempest
50:37was more science fiction
50:39than reality.
50:40But throughout
50:41the 17th century,
50:42as the British Empire
50:43expanded into uncharted waters,
50:46more and more
50:47real-life accounts
50:48of shipwrecked sailors
50:49began to emerge.
50:51And they
50:52sparked an appetite
50:53for maritime stories
50:55that were so believable
50:56that few people
50:57could tell the difference
50:58between what was fact
51:00and what was fiction.
51:01fact and fiction collided here
51:08at this pub
51:09the Landogger Trow
51:11in Bristol.
51:12Two men
51:12sat at the bar
51:13deep in conversation.
51:15One of those men
51:16was a Scottish sailor
51:18and he was telling
51:19his story
51:20of how he had been
51:21marooned on a tropical island
51:22for four and a half years.
51:24The other man
51:25hung on his every word,
51:27scribbling down details
51:28of the tale
51:29in his notebook.
51:31That man
51:31was a journalist
51:32named Daniel Defoe
51:33and this barroom conversation
51:35went on to inspire
51:36one of the greatest
51:37of all English novels.
51:39The life
51:41and strange surprising adventures
51:43of Robinson Crusoe.
51:44The adventures of Robinson Crusoe
52:00was presented
52:01as a real account
52:02told in the first person
52:04with Defoe's name
52:06redacted
52:07from the earliest edition.
52:08The novel detailed
52:13the daily battles
52:14Crusoe faced
52:15such as the search
52:16for fresh water
52:17and it revealed
52:19the psychological effect
52:21of being shipwrecked
52:23alone.
52:24When he is shipwrecked
52:26on the desert island
52:27he's initially
52:27of course
52:28absolutely shocked
52:29and he spends time
52:30looking for water
52:31and getting himself
52:32sorted out
52:32in terms of basic survival
52:33so he's instantly
52:35a very pragmatic figure
52:36and it's only subsequently
52:37that he starts
52:38to break down psychologically
52:39and we hear about
52:41his traumatic
52:42psychological breakdown
52:43as the reality
52:44of his loneliness
52:44and isolation
52:45dawn upon him.
52:50Through the process
52:51of writing a journal
52:52notching up the days
52:53in other words
52:54bringing European time
52:55onto a timeless island
52:57he recovers a sense
52:58of self-possession
52:59and interestingly
53:00that translates
53:01into a possession
53:02of the island
53:02so he literally
53:03takes possession
53:04of the island
53:05that he finds himself on.
53:07It was rare
53:08that any fictional
53:09writings had presented
53:10a human predicament
53:11with that kind
53:12of psychological intensity
53:13and that attention
53:14to detail.
53:16The man Defoe
53:17was talking to
53:18in this pub
53:19that night
53:20was a sailor
53:21named Alexander Selkirk.
53:24He had been travelling
53:25on a ship
53:26the Sankports
53:27and had expressed
53:28grave reservations
53:29about the vessel's
53:31seaworthiness.
53:33After a dispute
53:33with the captain
53:34Selkirk was abandoned
53:36on a Pacific island
53:37400 miles
53:39from the coast
53:40of Chile
53:40and this
53:42inspired Robinson Crusoe's
53:44epic survival tale.
53:51Selkirk was set ashore
53:53with his sea chest
53:54with powder and shot
53:55for his musket
53:56and just two days
53:57worth of food
53:58and just as the captain
54:00was preparing to leave
54:01Selkirk apparently
54:02changed his mind
54:03but the captain
54:04now completely fed up
54:06with Selkirk's behaviour
54:07refused to take him
54:08back on board
54:09leaving him marooned
54:10on that island.
54:20The strangest thing
54:22about the whole story
54:23is not that Selkirk
54:24survived four years
54:25of hardship
54:26and solitude
54:27but that he was right
54:28about one critical detail.
54:30The Sankports
54:31the ship that he had said
54:33was unseaworthy
54:34the ship
54:34which had sailed away
54:35abandoning him
54:37did sink
54:38taking with her
54:39much of her crew.
54:45Selkirk's four years
54:47and four months
54:47on the island
54:48ended
54:49when he was picked up
54:50by an English ship.
54:53He sailed with her
54:54for a further two years
54:55before finally
54:57arriving home
54:57in October 1711.
55:03Soon after
55:04Selkirk
55:05would have his famous
55:06meeting with Daniel Defoe
55:07in the Landogger Trough
55:09and a literary legend
55:11was born.
55:15But Defoe
55:16didn't just detail
55:17Crusoe's skillet's survival.
55:19The novel also works
55:21as a powerful metaphor
55:22for Britain's rise
55:24as a colonial power.
55:29Crusoe is depicted
55:30as the enlightened man
55:32importing Western civilisation
55:34to the barbarous
55:35and exotic island.
55:37He builds a home
55:38rears animals
55:39and cultivates the land.
55:45As the self-styled
55:46governor of the island
55:48Crusoe is the arch colonist
55:50a symbol
55:51of Britain's outreach
55:53in this era.
55:54This is most evident
55:56in his relationship
55:57with Man Friday
55:58the native he rescues
56:00from cannibals
56:01and who becomes
56:02his faithful servant.
56:07This isn't an equal
56:09relationship
56:09between two men.
56:12Crusoe is very much
56:13the master
56:14of Man Friday.
56:16Pious,
56:17enlightened,
56:18a natural leader.
56:19Crusoe is the symbol
56:21not only of colonial conquest
56:22but of the racial politics
56:24that justified
56:25Britain's increasing
56:26involvement
56:27in the Atlantic slave trade.
56:29It's no coincidence
56:30that Crusoe was wrecked
56:32on the way
56:32to collect slaves
56:33for his own plantation.
56:36And so,
56:36through this fictional shipwreck
56:38we catch a glimpse
56:40of the course
56:40that Britain was plotting
56:42through the 18th century.
56:43Robin St. Crusoe
56:49was published
56:50in 1719
56:51at the very beginning
56:53of the Georgian period.
56:55An era
56:55that would transform
56:57an island nation
56:58once terrified
56:59of its own
57:00treacherous coastline
57:02into the world's
57:03most powerful
57:04trading empire
57:05policed
57:06by the increasingly
57:08dominant
57:08Royal Navy.
57:09But with more
57:14British ships
57:15at sea
57:16and greater fortunes
57:17at stake
57:18the shipwreck
57:19would loom
57:20even larger
57:21in the national
57:22consciousness.
57:24The Georgians'
57:25global adventure
57:26came at great
57:28human cost.
57:30More than ever
57:31the shipwreck
57:31was Britain's
57:32Achilles heel
57:34threatening to ruin
57:36its now
57:36grand ambitions.
57:37Next time
57:44mutiny
57:45slave rebellions
57:48and murderous
57:50wreckers
57:50how the shipwreck
57:52turns the order
57:54and hierarchy
57:55of Georgian
57:56Britain
57:56upside down.
57:58Mussononds
58:00won't cause
58:01nothing
58:03This one
58:04went
58:06in
58:08its
58:09work
58:09AGAIN
58:10what
58:10the shipwreck
58:11became
58:11reminds
58:12ofAUG
58:12about
58:12ESS
58:13an
58:13make
58:14these
58:23全部
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