[326] 4. THE STORM. (XXVII 13) AND WHEN A MODERATE SOUTHERLY BREEZE AROSE, SUPPOSING THAT THEY HAD GOT THEIR OPPORTUNITY, 1 THEY WEIGHED ANCHOR AND SAILED ALONG THE CRETAN COAST CLOSE IN. (14) BUT AFTER NO LONG TIME THERE STRUCK DOWN FROM THE ISLAND A TYPHONIC WIND, WHICH GOES BY THE NAME EURAQUILO. (15)AND WHEN THE SHIP WAS CAUGHT BY IT, AND COULD NOT FACE THE WIND, WE GAVE WAY AND LET THE SHIP DRIVE. (16) AND, WHEN WE RAN UNDER THE LEE OF A SMALL ISLAND, CAUDA BY NAME, WE WERE ABLE WITH DIFFICULTY TO HAUL IN THE BOAT. (17) AND HAVING UNDERGIRDING IT; AND BEING IN TERROR LEST THEY BE CAST ON "THE GREAT QUICKSANDS,"THEY REDUCED SAIL, AND LET THE SHIP DRIFT IN THAT POSITION (viz., laid-to under storm -sails).

One morning, after the council, their chance came with a moderate south wind, which favoured their westerly voyage. At this point the writer says that they [327] went close inshore; and this emphatic statement, after they had been on a coasting voyage for weeks, must in a careful writer have some special force. Cape Matala projected well out to the south about six miles west of Fair Havens, and it needed all their sailing power to clear it on a straight course. From Luke's emphasis we gather that it was for some time doubtful whether they could weather the point; and in the bright late autumn morning we can imagine every one gathered on the deck, watching the wind, the coast and the cape ahead. If the wind went round a point towards the west, they would fail; and the anxious hour has left its record in the single word of v. 13 ({asson}), while the inability of some scribes or editors to imagine the scene has left its record in the alteration ({thasson}).

After passing Cape Matala, they had before them a fair course with a favouring breeze across the broad opening of the Gulf of Messara. But before they had got halfway across the open bay, 2 there came a sudden change, such as is characteristic of that sea, where "southerly winds almost invariably shift to a violent northerly wind". There struck down from the Cretan mountains, which towered above them to the height of over 7000 feet, a sudden eddying squall from about east-north-east. Every one who has any experience of sailing on lakes or bays overhung by mountains will appreciate the epithet "typhonic,"which Luke uses. As a ship-captain recently said to me in relating an anecdote of his own experience in the Cretan waters, "the wind comes down from those mountains fit to blow the ship out of the water".

[328] An ancient ship with one huge sail was exposed to extreme danger from such a blast; the straining of the great sail on the single mast was more than the hull could bear; and the ship was exposed to a risk which modern vessels do not fear, foundering in the open sea. It appears that they were not able to slacken sail quickly; and, had the ship been kept up towards the wind, the strain would have shaken her to pieces. Even when they let the ship go, the leverage on her hull must have been tremendous, and would in a short time have sent her to the bottom. Paul, who had once already narrowly escaped from such a wreck, drifting on a spar or swimming for a night and a day (II Cor. XI 25), justified in his advice at Fair Havens not to run the risk of coasting further in the dangerous season on a coast where such sudden squalls are a common feature. In this case the ship was saved by getting into calmer water under the shelter of an island, Cauda (now Gozzo), about twenty-three miles to leeward.

At this point Smith notices the precision of Luke's terminology. In v. 4 they sailed under the lee of Cyprus, keeping northwards with a westerly wind on the beam ({hupepleusamen}); here they ran before a wind under the lee of Cauda ({upodramontes}).

The sailors knew that their only hope was in the smoother water behind Cauda, and kept her up accordingly with her head to the wind, so that she would make no headway, but merely drifted with her right side towards the wind ("on the starboard tack").

Here three distinct operations were performed; and it is noteworthy that Luke mentions first among them, [329] not the one which was the most important or necessary, but the one in which he himself took part, viz., hauling in the boat. In the light breeze it had been left to tow behind, and the squall had come down too suddenly to haul it in. While the other operations required skill, any one could haul on a rope, and Luke was pressed into the service. The boat was waterlogged by this time; and the historian notes feelingly what hard work it was to get it in, v. 16.

While this was going on, ropes were got out, and the ship undergirded to strengthen her against the storm and the straining of her timbers. The scholars who discuss nautical subjects seem all agreed that undergirders were put longitudinally round the ship (i.e., horizontal girders passed round stem and stern). If any of them will show how it was possible to perform this operation during a storm, I shall be ready to accept their opinion; but meantime (without entering on the question what "undergirders, {hupozõmata}, were in Athenian triremes) I must with Smith believe that cables were passed underneath round the ship transversely to hold the timbers together. This is a possible operation in the circumstances, and a useful one.

Luke mentions last what a sailor would mention first, the most delicate and indispensable operation, viz., leaving up just enough of sail to keep the ship's head to the wind, and bringing down everything else that could be got down. It is not certain that he fully understood this operation, but perhaps the Greek ({chalasantes to skeuos}) might be taken as a technical term denoting the entire series of operations, slackening sail, but leaving some spread for a special purpose.

[330] This operation was intended to guard against the danger of being driven on the great quicksands of the African coast, the Syrtes. These were still far distant; but the sailors knew that at this late season the wind might last many days. The wind was blowing straight on the sands; and it was absolutely necessary, not merely to delay the ship's motion towards them, but to turn it in a different direction. In the Gulf of Messara, the wind had been an eddying blast under the mountains; but further out it was a steady, strong east-north-easterly gale.

Dragging stones or weights at the end of ropes from the stern, which is the meaning elicited by some German commentators and writers on nautical matters, might be useful in other circumstances; but how that meaning can be got from the Greek words (chalasantes to skeuos}), I confess that I cannot see. Moreover, as we have said, what the sailors wished was not merely to delay their course towards the Syrtes, but to turn their course in another direction.

Accordingly, the ship drifted, with her head to the north, steadied by a low sail, making lee-way proportionate to the power of the wind and waves on her broadside. As Smith shows in detail, the resultant rate of motion would vary, according to the size of the ship and the force of the wind, between 3/4 and 2 miles per hour; and the probable mean rate in this case would be about 1 1/2 miles per hour; while the direction would approximate to 8 degrees north of west. The ship would continue to drift in the same way as long as the wind blew the same, and the timbers and sails held; and at the calculated rates, if it was under Cauda towards evening, it would on the fourteenth night be near Malta.

FOOTNOTES:

1 Literally, had got their purpose.

1 Seventeen miles from shore to shore on their course, according to Smith.