Sudden storm sank warships?
Documentary floats theory on how Scourge, Hamilton went down
April 09, 2010
Mark McNeil
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/750549
The Scourge and Hamilton quickly plunged to the bottom of Lake Ontario 200 years ago because the makeshift warships were unable to withstand a sudden "microburst" storm, producers of a new film believe.
The documentary Warships Down -- produced with assistance from the City of Hamilton and Parks Canada -- argues cavernous holds on the War of 1812 schooners would have quickly filled with water, taking the vessels down in minutes or even seconds.
Using a remote-controlled submersible, researchers managed to film inside the Hamilton for the first time since it sunk. They could not guide the camera into the Scourge but presume its hold was similar to the Hamilton.
"These ships were not the most seaworthy ships for the purpose they were being used. That's for sure," says the film's co-producer Elliott Halpern. "When you combine that with this powerful freak microburst, they didn't have a chance.
"They were clearly top heavy because of the weight of the guns. The big cannons on both ships would have made the ships highly unstable."
It's known from a published witness account from 1813 that a sudden squall came out of nowhere to take down the ships that were in full sail. But Halpern believes it was a very specific type of rare storm, a so-called microburst.
That's also what a prominent meteorologist believes happened seven weeks ago with the sailing school tall ship The Concordia that suddenly was struck with an intense blast of air moments before it sank off the Brazilian coast.
Ian Kerr-Wilson, manager of Museums and Heritage Presentation with the city of Hamilton, says, "I certainly would not discount" the theory that a sudden microburst storm sank the 1812 ships top heavy with guns.
And he says, "at the beginning of the war, both sides were taking anything bigger than a log, putting a gun on it and calling it a ship."
Filming inside one of the ships for the first time gave "some real evidence that these vessels were unsafe and of course they sank quickly."
The Scourge and Hamilton were both merchant ships before being thrust into service with the American navy. In civilian life they would have had a crew of less than 10, as warships nearly five times that.
Halpern, from the Toronto-based television production company Yap Films, says if the cargo hold had been modified with interior walls or bulkheads for its military use, it would not have filled with water as quickly. And the men would have had more time to escape the ships.
The vessels foundered on Aug. 8, 1813, with more than 80 sailors losing their lives, the largest single loss of life on the Great Lakes during the War of 1812.
The schooners, in 90 metres (300 feet) of water near Port Dalhousie, are owned by the City of Hamilton. The site is outfitted with a $200,000 radar surveillance system to keep souvenir hunters away and warns when ships get too close.
The film, which features "dive detectives" Mike Fletcher and son Warren Fletcher of Port Dover, shows the outside of the ships are thickly covered in zebra and quagga mussels. But inside the Hamilton, the mussels are not nearly as visible.
That's likely because the mollusks prefer steady moving water that can bring food. Inside the ships, the water would be relatively still.
Kerr-Wilson says the footage from the Yap Productions-funded dive will be used by the city to compare to previous dives to the site to keep track of the mussel infestation.
Mike Fletcher says the ships are thickly covered in mussels but the creatures also make the water clearer so visibility is better than it used to be.
It's sad, he says, that the appearance of the ships has been so radically transformed. But he contends, "What the city has in those two ships is unique in the world."
The first episode of Dive Detectives, broadcast March 31, argued that a rogue wave, not human error, was the cause of the sinking of the U.S. freighter the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975.
The ship was the subject of Gordon Lightfoot's famous song the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and the songwriter has changed the words to the song for future performances to reflect the finding.
NEED TO KNOW
* A free screening of Warships Down will take place at 7:50 p.m., April 23, at the Lincoln Alexander Centre, Crowne Plaza Hotel, 150-160 King Street East as part of the symposium, Creating 1812: Commemoration, National Identity and Role of the Arts. Call 1-905-984-3626 ext. 3456 or e-mail
[email protected]
* Warships Down, an episode of the Yap Films' series Dive Detectives, will air May 5 at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. on the History Channel.
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