My father tells a story of a ship that went aground, on a celebratory night of the year. A subsequent official inquiry reached the conclusion that the officer of the watch was thoroughly negligent but that he should not be punished “as on no account should the officer of the watch have been the cabin boy” [while the master and officers partied, one assumes].
My father tells the story as being that of a particular vessel on a particular date. Research suggests that he is not correct, at least on that score. I’m not going to bias you by telling you when and where he says this was. I have a theory that he may have conflated several stories, or that it may all be a UL.
Considering you don’t want to give a date, or a country, or if on an ocean or fresh water lake or river, or name of the ship or type of vessel or persons involved, I doubt anybody can find a particular incident for you in the multitude of ships that plied the world in known history.
But the skillfulest mariner cannot know what to-morrow may bring forth.
How was even an “Admiral of the Ocean Seas” to know that when he went to
bed on Christmas Eve, his helmsman would soon sneak from his post and
hand the rudder to a little cabin-boy. The night was calm and warm, as
December generally is in those southern waters. The Admiral had been up
night and day when cruising along the Cuban coast, and now thought he
might safely take a few hours’ repose. Few hours, indeed, for soon after
midnight he hears the cabin-boy screaming “danger!” http://mirror.pacific.net.au/gutenberg/etext04/chclm10.txt
Is that the incident you mean?
And aren’t you a maritime lawyer with a specialist knowlege of this sort of thing?
March 24th is Houdini’s birthday. Exxon Valdez celebrated by making part of the hull disappear. ::rimshot::
Oddly, the Valdez ran aground at four minutes past midnight. Had they sailed just a few minutes earlier, they would have passed Bligh Reef on March 23rd which is, believe it or not, Near Miss Day.
Harmonious, I fully appreciate that this is a difficult question. There’s no point in me telling you the name of the ship and date etc that my father thinks this was, because pretty much the only thing I have been able to establish is that he’s wrong on that score. But he’s adamant about it and I figure he must have heard this story somewhere.
If I had any more clues, I’d have given them. I’m hoping there’s just someone out there who knows.
As to Columbus, it’s an intriguing possibility. However, for my father, the highlight of his anecdote is the droll way the Inquiry words its finding. It seems doubtful there was an inquiry into Columbus’ mishap.
Every now and again, I am reluctantly forced to the conclusion that I don’t know everything
