22. How far could the crews of Erebus and Terror see?

  I am indebted to Captain David Woodman for corresponding with me after Roobol (2019) was published.  He drew my attention to a critical fact I had overlooked.  This is the distance that can be seen from the deck of a ship due to the curvature of the earth.  The fact is important as it helps understand the positon of the remanned Erebus after she was released by the ice probably in late 1848.  In Roobol (2019) I had placed the ship off Imnguyaaluk Island off  Cape Crozier – the western point of  King William Island – some 23 miles (37 km) from Terror Bay. This was because of modern Inuit testimony describing a ship in the ice and a hunting camp there where the ground is soaked in oil from cooking over blubber fires.

     However there is an important clue in the testimony of the ‘Black Men’  (discussed later). In this testimony an Inuit visits a ship with a small crew and one officer.  The crew are of black men and the testimony describes ‘a great many men’ who surrounded and frightened the Inut.  However Charles Francis Hall who collected the testimony recorded that at the time the Inuit counted only up to five and any more were ‘very many’.  The captain from the ships deck points to a black tent visible on  the adjacent land and warns the Inut not to go there because there are more ‘black men’ there.

       Captain Woodman had pointed out that the curvature of the earth is such that distances seen at sea to the horizon are surprisingly short.  From the deck of a ship about 6 feet (1.8 m) above sea level, the horizon is only 3 miles (4.8 km) away.  For a ship with a deck 10 feet (3 m) above sea level, a six foot (1.8 m) tall person will see the horizon 4.9 miles (7.9 km) away. On Erebus the crow’s nest was rigged on the main top-gallant mast 100 feet (30 m) above sea level. The horizon seen would have been 12.2 miles (19.6 km) away. Ships viewed at sea to be ‘hull up’ are at distances of about 24 km on a clear ocean horizon.   The maximum visible distance between the Franklin ships, viewed from their crow’s nests, would be around 22 km. Fitzjames described in his diary (sent from Greenland) and illustrated the crow’s nest on Erebus (reproduced in Savours, 1999, p.181). He wrote:

June 17th: ‘The ‘crow’s nest’ is up – which is usually a cask lined with canvas – at the fore-top masthead, for a man to stand in and look for channels in the ice.   With us, it is a sort of canvas cylinder, hooped, and is at the main-top-gallant-mast-head (if you know where that is). Reid, who will have the particular privilege of being perched up there, says it is a very expensive one’.

     In order to test the distance between a ship and the black tent pointed out by her captain, some measurements were taken on the coast of Wales where I live.         On the coast of Wales from the sands of Marloes beach to 5km (3.1 miles) offshore on Skolkholm Island, cottages are clearly visible.  From St. Brides Haven 13 km (8 miles) due north across St Brides Bay, the houses of Solva village are clearly visible as small white specks. The tent described in the above testimony is likely to have been between 5 and 8 km from the ship.  This places the ship, not at Imnguyaaluk Island (some 23 miles or 37 km away) but right in Terror Bay.  At 5 km the ship was well inside the head of the bay and at 13 km it would be at the entrance to the bay.

    The remanned Erebus may have spent two years in the Imnguyaaluk Island – Terror Bay area where her crew met and hunted with the Inuit.  After the 1850 retreat there was a small crew and a single officer aboard her and some men in a sick tent ashore.  After the 1850 retreat she escaped with her small crew and one officer and was sailed south to Wilmot and Crampton Bay, where her wreck has now been found.   A deserted Terror, possibly with bodies aboard later drifted into Terror Bay, where the Inuit cut a window in her lower hull that caused her to flood and sink.

QUESTION: Was the manned ship in Terror Bay within sight of a shore tent HMS Terror or HMS Erebus?

QUESTION: Were both ships in Terror Bay at different times?