My Father's Epic Cape Horn Voyage by Robert Bahnsen In 1905 , 17-year-old Detlef Bahnsen was a seaman on the drown . I twisted and tugged ; then I felt the spar settle back German sailing ship Susanna, which was making maritime suddenly along its whole length. A frantic pain burned through history by taking a record 99 days to round Cape Horn. From my legs. The thought flashed through me: now your good late August all through September, October and most of bones are done for forever. Then everything went black." His shipmates dove into the frigid , surging water to save November, the battle raged in the teeth of ferocious storms young Herman. After a struggle, they pulled him from under accompanied by freezing rain, sleet and snow . By the time the ship reached Caleta Buena, Chile, after 189 the spar. His account, published in Villiers's War with Cape days at sea with a cargo of Welsh coal, only eight men were fit Horn , continues: "Whether it was worthwhile, no one knew. J to work the ship . The rest of the 23-man crew were disabled by lay in the arms of my companions without a sign of life as they injuries, frostbite, typhus and scurvy . My father was one of carried me to my berth. They told me I sti ll held those kettles!" Thrown o ut of his bunk later by the ship's violent motion, those taken to hospital with scurvy. But he couldn't have Herman Piening came to, staggered to his feet and rejoined his suffered any lasting ill-effects, because he lived to 98! comrades on deck in the fight to work the ship. * * ** * Another among the ship' s casualties was Smut the cook, Of Danish descent, Detlef Bahnsen was born in the small village of Emmelsbull, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, near who suffered broken ribs and interna l injuries when he was washed about on the deck by a huge wave. And Second Officer the border with Denmark and close to the North Sea. Ships and sa ilors were part of his life almost from infancy, Bansen, who was recuperating from a broken nose, gashed and he ran away to sea at age thirteen. He first saw the Susanna face and concussion, also narrowly escaped drowning when he at Port Talbot near Cardiff, Wales, when he was one month shy was washed from his bunk in the sick bay by water surging of his seventeenth birthday: "She was a beautiful full-rigged back and forth through the ship as she rolled and pl unged. The pounding caused Susanna's steel hull to spring a leak, ship. She had only been built about twelve years and was as clean as a whistle-three masts, steel hull , teak decks, 265 feet and at one stage there was six feet of water in her hold . So, the long. When she was under full sail she was a magnificent sight. crew had to pump continuously to keep their ship afloat. At one point, Third Mate Schmutsch wrote in hi s diary: I thought I was made when I signed on her." The contrast between his childhood and ours could hardl y " Day after day the wind blows from the west with huge snow have been more striking. We, his children, grew up on drought- drifts . Almost all of the crew have their fingers frozen, I also, prone outback Australian wheat farms in the twenties and although not seriously. Susanna often has her whole bow thirties. None of us saw the sea until we were in our teens. His under water. Twice in the night huge waves broke over the ship tales of hi s sailing days were one of our main sources of fore and aft. When the waves subsided, the water did not drain away . That was cause for concern." entertainment. As the wind in one storm rose to force twelve on the But we often found the stories hard to believe and thought he was spinning a sailor's tall tales. "The waves were enor- Beaufort Scale, Susanna's master, Captain Jurgens , wrote mous," he used to say in his thick Scandinavian accent. "As terse notes in his log: "Lower topsails." Then , one hour later: true as I'm standing here, when the ship lay over in the wind, "Storm sail." For the next watch: " No sail can take it." Schmutsch wrote: " One scarcely knows how one is supsome of those waves were higher than the tops of her masts. The winds were so strong, sometimes they blew us backwards posed to set sails, because snow falls continually, waves break for hundreds of miles ." over the deck, and all moving parts are covered with ice, so We young landlubbers took it all with a grain of salt. "How that they don't work anymore." high were her masts?" we would ask. In another entry , before scurvy broke out, he wrote: "Often " About twice as high as the big pine trees by the dam," he we had so much water in the ship that we had to be careful to would reply . Looking up at the tops of those trees , we won- keep above water. At least we have managed to keep scurvy at bay. But against hurricanes and greybeards there is no known dered how it could possibly be true. Yet I found it was all in the record-in the captain's log, in herb. All we have is our sailors ' intuition to do the right thing letters the sailors had written home from Caleta Buena, and in at the right time, and a good , well-built, stable ship, well a diary kept by the third mate, H. Schmutsch. When I began ballasted, and a crew that fears neither death nor devil , but researching his story, I found that he hadn 't been exaggerating sings when the weather throws them into such a pred icament. " Nor were their troubles confined to the weather. Captain at all. If anything, the reality was worse! Jurgens ' s chronometer was faulty , and without radio he could * * ** * Youngest among the crew was 15-year-old Herman Piening, on ly fix his position by taking lunar readings. But lunar who later told Alan Villiers: "One day I had started to take the readings were impossible for many weeks because of continucoffee kettles to the galley, just as the command, ' Weather ous cloud cover. And without fixing his position, he didn ' t main brace! ' rang out. I had just stepped out of the shelter of dare turn north for Chile. our deckhouse when a big sea came over the lee bulwarks. Food ran short and had to be rationed; and Susanna's water Before I could get hold of the life line, the heaving mass supply was exhausted after 140 days at sea. Her crew survived washed me away with both my kettles. I couldn ' t stand. A by breaking ice off the rigging and melting it. " It tastes violent roll sent me pitching just as the mass of water lifted up brackish, but it fulfills its purpose," Schmutsch commented. one of the heavy spare spars which were lashed by chains along On the same day he wrote: "Seven men lie in the sick bay with the deck. The water flung me across the deck, still clinging to broken or frozen limbs. There are not enough healthy men on these precious kettles , with both legs stuck out in front, and board. Nowhere in this almost Antarctic sky is there a hint of rammed me like a wedge under the spar while it was lifted. improvement in the weather. Heavy seas break over the ship, Then it slipped back a bit, jamming me there. I lay helpless, the worst over the deckhouse. They break open the cabin locked fast with feet of sea above me. I was sure I would skylights. Cabins and bunk rooms are under water. All books 46
SEA HISTORY 58, SUMMER 1991