Word: shipping
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...collision stove a hole below the Brunswick's waterline, breaching the wooden planking and the copper-alloy-sheathing of her hull. Afterward, the ship's officers and crew had done their best to still the rush of sea-water into the ship's holds. But the ship's master, Alden T. Potter, knew that, with over a thousand miles of water between them and the nearest shipyard, he and his crew had little hope of repairing the vessel. In the meantime, all he could do was what American captains had always done in such situations: raise Old Glory upside down...
...other whaling vessels answering the Brunswick's distress flag arrived, each vessel's master-as captains of commercial ships are usually called-came aboard to survey the damage. And each, in turn, concurred that the listing ship was a lost cause. They also agreed with Captain Potter that his only recourse was to fall back on the general custom under the circumstances: condemn the ship and auction off her cargo, whaleboats and whatever gear that could be hauled off the vessel. At the least, the Brunswick's master could reduce some of the losses to his ship's owner...
...Decision made, they set to business and by the early morning of June 28, the auction had concluded. But as accounts were being squared and sailors from the nine other whaling vessels were busy removing barrels and crates from the crippled Brunswick, yet another ship hove into view, from the south. Observing the ship's three masts and the plume of smoke rising from her, the whaling masters immediately concluded that she was an auxiliary steamer-so-called because she was powered by both wind and a steam-engine powered iron-screw propeller. Such vessels were rare, if not unknown...
...passage out of this icy realm. Captain Jeremiah Ludlow of the Isaac Howland, one of the whaling vessels gathered around the Brunswick, agreed to carry Potter's request to the steamer. Dispatched in a whaleboat, he soon stood on the steamer's deck. Ludlow failed to learn the mystery ship's identity, and his reception by her officers had been a bit frosty. But they seemed to have expressed, albeit in vague language, a willingness to provide passage for Captain Potter...
...prize parties from the Shenandoah were scurrying about all eight of the doomed vessels. In accord with the Confederates' usual procedures, all crew members and living animals were removed from each ship. Likewise, all useful equipment, gunpowder, or stores were confiscated and taken back to the Shenandoah. Afterward, the parties searched the whaling vessel's holds for any available combustibles, including whale products, pitch, tar, and turpentine. These they spread throughout the vessels. Bulkheads, the upright walls compartmentalizing each vessel were torn down and piled in cabins and forecastles; the bulkheads' destruction at once created fuel and improved draft...