SUSAN P. HOWELL
Loss of the Marques Early on Sunday morning, June 3, the bark Marques was lost at sea about 75 miles north of Bermuda, on the Bermuda-Halifax sail training race. Commanded by Captain Stuart A . Finley, Marques was overpowered by a violent squall which sank her in less than a minute. Of the ship's complement of 28, only nine were saved . Among those lost were ASTA counselor Susan Howell. " In the 28 years that the Sail Training Association and the American Sail Training Association have been organizing 'Tall Ships' races and sail training cruises,'' observed Henry H. Anderson, Jr. , Chairman of ASTA , " there has never before been a fatality-or even a life-threatening injury. This loss is a tragedy which has deeply affected the sail training community." Following are excerpts from Chairman Anderson's report: At the start , the sky was clear; seas were a little rough from an earlier front . As co-organizers of the race, ASTA had consulted satellite data and local sailing experts- all of which indicated that conditions would soon improve. As they lost sight ofland , the " Tall Ships" fleet experienced steep seas and strong winds: by midnight, the latter was at a speed of 25 to 30 knots , and fairly steady. During the evening other ships in the race had radio contact with Marques, and all was well aboard. One of the final known radio conversations-with Our Svanen about 2330-revealed that Marques was sailing well and falling off a little to a more comfortable course for the night. ...The Captain, who had spent a large part of the night topside keeping an eye on weather and sail , finally went below about 0400. The two ASTA counselors-who had been on deck working with trainees and attending to their needsalso picked up their normal watch routine. The moon was out and there were some stars. The wind was from the west; seas were 12 to 15 feet. The ship was heeled over some, under approximately one third sail ; her lee rail was not under, but there was some water on deck from wave and spray. The crew remember it as an exhilirating sail , although the heavy sea and accompanying ship action made many seasick who had not been so before. According to statements of surviving crew members, soon after the end of the midwatch, a sudden and unexpected local squall of undeterminable violence struck the vessel. The storm was upon the ship in seconds; the masts , already leaning toward the water as she skimmed along, began to be driven dangerously close to the horizontal. The crew remember a mate yelling, "veer off, veer off," and the helmsman struggling to turn the wheel so as to swing the ship's bow away from the wind, easing the pressure on its sails. It would have taken about fifteen turns of
SEA HISTORY, FALL 1984
the wheel to bring Marques ' rudder completely around; the helmsman managed only one or two before the wind had its way. Some crew members and trainees sprang to the lines, trying desperately to cut them and divest the ship of the pull created by her canvas sails. But, although the ship made a brief attempt to right herself, the forces which were driving Marques down were too powerful to be reversed. The momentum of the ship-and two waves (estimated by survivors to have been approximately thirty feet)-sent her bow slicing forward and down into the water; her stern came up, bring the rudder above water, and making it totally useless. The surviving crew state that the ship was completely under water within a minute, and they had to fight the suction caused by its downward motion to prevent being drowned. Those who had been on deck, and those in the companionway- just having gone below after their watch , and then responding to the cry of "All Hands on Deck! "-who had been able to make their way topside, now found themselves in the water.
The ship's liferafts inflated automatically and floated off the sinking hull as they were designed to; competitors, nearby merchant vessels, and Coast Guard and Naval forces joined in the search for survivors; ultimately only nine were recovered from the rafts, and the body of one trainee. The rest clearly went down with the ship. In the memorial service held in Bermuda Cathedral a week later, Bishop Ellison said: One of the ways in which the free spirit of man expresses itself most definitely is in the desire for adventure. It is part of man's very being that he longs to uncover the hidden , to know more about himself and his surroundings, to stretch out into the unknown; to find what lies on the other side of the mountain. We here in Bermuda are very conscious of our debt to this questing spirit of man. For we attribute our very existence to that spirit so strong some four hundred years ago in England which drew men and women away from their comfortable homes to seek new worlds across the seas. It is the same spirit which compels people to achieve great things-to climb mountains, to discover new lands, to penetrate outer space, to create new artistic forms . And it is this spirit which inspires men to pit their skill and wits against the forces of nature, to learn the thrill of danger and the satisfaction of success. Man would not be man ifhe were merely an automaton . He becomes what God intends him to be ¡when he ventures forth upon the unknown and challenges the unpredictable.
Lost in the sinking of Marques was Susan Peterson Howell, ASTA's Chairman of Sail Training and Education who was acting as counselor for the nine trainees aboard. Raised on the coast of Maine, Sue had a deep love for the sea . She sailed frequently with her parents , Murray and Susan Peterson, on schooners of her father's design-and in her own catboat , Frolicbecoming a fine sailor. Sue graduated valedictorian of her class from Oak Grove School in 1964, having become an avid horseback rider while there. In 1968, she graduated from Mount Holyoke College (with a mathematics major) , married David S. Howell, and joined the staff of the Mystic Seaport Planetarium , becoming Associate Planetarium Director in 1981. Many new programs at the Seaport Planetarium were brought to fruition through Sue's boundless energy and enthusiasm . She developed and taught courses in piloting and navigation , gave weekend seminars, and wrote and published a series of review problems in celestial navigation every two months for the past ten years . Sue wrote and published Practical Celestial Navigation, an excellent text with practice problems, revised and reprinted a limited edition ofWilliam Tyler Olcott's Field Book of the Skies, and wrote many articles for various publications. She was also an invited speaker on navigation education at the National Conference on Navigation sponsored by the US Naval Academy and held at the War College in Newport, Rhode Island in 1980. Sue is survived by her husband, David S. Howell; her three children: Heather (11), Kristen (8), and Timothy (6) ; her mother, Mrs. Murray Peterson; and three brothers: William , John, and Harry. In addition to being a loving wife and mother, Sue managed her professional life with the highest integrity, enthusiasm and dedication. Although her accomplishments will live on far into the future, her presence with us will be sorely missed.
Donations may be made to the Susan P Howell Memorial Fund and mailed to Connecticut National Bank, 54 Ui'st Main Street, Mystic CT06355. This fund will be used to advance youth educational programs at Mystic Seaport and other nonprofit institutions.
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