Wreck of the Mentor Chapter

Introduction to Wreck of the Mentor

The whaleship Mentor and its crew of twenty-two were in trouble. On May 18, 1832, soon after passing to the north of Morotai Island, in between the western edge of New Guinea and the Philippines, the weather turned nasty. For three days, terrific south-south-westerly winds, torrential rains, and building seas buffeted the ship. Captain Edward C. Barnard ordered his men to take in all the sails except the foresail, the fore topmast staysail, and the close-reefed topsail, to keep the masts from snapping or the ship from capsizing. Unable to rely on celestial navigation due to thick cloud cover, Barnard did his best to steer as the Mentor sliced through mountainous waves that violently pitched the ship about. He remained cool and in control, however, for he thought the ship was in open water, and therefore in no immediate danger of crashing into land. As to where they were, his best guess, taking into account the wind direction, ship’s speed, compass readings, and the time and distance elapsed since leaving Morotai behind, was that the Mentor was about 150 miles northwest of the Palau with plenty of sea room. But he was wrong. Just before midnight on May 21, at the turning of the watch, the Mentor struck a reef with savage force, lurching three times and unhanging its rudder.

On the third bounce, Horace Holden, a green hand on his first voyage, flew from his berth, smashing into the hull across the way. Struggling to his feet and in great pain, he rushed up to the main deck where “all was confusion, horror, and dismay.” No sooner had he come up than the ship swung around, exposing its starboard side to the full fury of the wind. Suddenly the Mentor was thrown on its beam ends with its portside partially submerged and wedged against the jagged coral heads. Towering waves continued to pummel the ship, breaking over the exposed hull and threatening to break the Mentor apart. Amazingly, none of the crew had been pitched over the side or gravely injured, despite the terrific assault on the ship. Barnard yelled over the din to the second mate, Peter O’Connor, “where are we?” O’Connor had no idea, but said that he thought he saw land to the leeward, not far off.

It was painfully obvious that the Mentor was done for, its sailing career over. The main question, indeed the only real question, was whether the crew should immediately abandon ship or hold on until the morning light enabled them to get their bearings before heading off into the unknown. While the waist boat had been smashed in the collision there were still three other whaleboats on board, which could hold all the men should they decide to leave.

The formerly cohesive crew that had answered unswervingly to Barnard’s direction, was suddenly splintered. While the general laws, rules, and customs of maritime commerce and law required crewmen to follow the captain’s orders during a voyage, after a wreck the captain’s absolute authority evaporated. And in the current chaotic and alarming situation on the Mentor, many of the men on board had but one thought—how do I save myself?

While some looked to Barnard for guidance, others calculated their best move, hierarchy be damned. Without consulting Barnard, the first mate, Thomas N. Colesworthy, fearing that the Mentor would soon disintegrate and preferring his chances afloat, ordered the portside quarter boat to be lowered from the davits. Nine men joined Colesworthy in his precipitous flight, but before they departed, they called for and received a hatchet from the ship so they could sever the ropes holding the oars fast to the sides of the boat. Once the oars were free, the men shoved off into the roiling waters and were soon out of sight.

With the ship heeling over a bit more with each crashing wave, and the main deck heaving upwards under the strain, Barnard came to the same conclusion as Colesworthy, and decided to abandon ship, fearing that it would not hold together until dawn. Much of the remaining crew, however, preferred to remain on board, especially since the storm showed signs of abating or, at least, not worsening. They pleaded with their captain to stay, but Barnard would not be dissuaded, and he ordered those still willing to follow his lead to ready the starboard whaleboat for lowering.

There was a problem with Barnard’s plan. The ship was canted so far over that it was virtually impossible to get the boat into the water. Holden, who had already decided to stay with the ship, yelled for the men to cut away the masts and rigging. More hatchets were quickly retrieved, and after a few minutes of furious chopping, the ship righted enough for the starboard whaleboat to swing clear.

Able seamen Charles C. Bowkett and William Sedon, and green hand William Duff scrambled into the boat along with Barnard, who brought along navigational instruments, the logbook, a bag of clothes, hardtack in a tin chest, a hatchet, and a keg of water. As an added measure of security, and in a nod to self-preservation, Barnard fastened a rope around his waist, the other end of which was tied off on the ship. That way, he hoped that he could be hauled to safety in the event that the boat capsized after launching, and if all the rope played out and it appeared as if the boat would survive, he could cut or untie his end and be free of the Mentor. The other three men joining Barnard on the boat took their chances.

While the remaining crewmen struggled to lower the whaleboat, a massive wave smashed it to pieces, sending its occupants flying into the darkness. Sedon managed to grab onto the rope dangling from one of the davits and climbed back onto the ship. The other three men were pitched into the water. Duff was seen floating face down before disappearing into the gloom. Bowkett, an excellent swimmer—quite unusual for mariners of the day—swam furiously to the leeward side of the Mentor and scrambled up the rigging hanging over the side onto the main deck. As for Barnard, the strong current and waves dragged him more than one hundred yards from the ship before the men on board grabbed hold of the rope. With the “utmost difficulty” they began drawing it in, much of the time with Barnard’s screams for assistance being heard in the distance. After about ten minutes of laborious work, they hauled the “old man,” as they called him, back onto the main deck. He was exhausted by his ordeal, but not seriously injured.

The eleven men left on the Mentor spent the long and terrifying hours until dawn either holding onto the rigging or lashing themselves to the ship to keep from losing their footing on the heavily tilted deck and being washed overboard. The unrelenting wind, roaring in their ears, and the walls of water pounding the ship and, at times, their bodies, were their ceaseless companions. Reflecting on their perilous situation, Holden recalled, our “prospects during that awful night were such, that no ray of hope was permitted to penetrate” our thoughts, which “continually visited the homes we had quitted, probably forever,—and [we] offered prayers for the dear friends we had left behind. Every succeeding wave that dashed over us threatened to sweep us into an untried eternity.”

As the sun rose over the horizon, brilliantly illuminating the scene, the wind and seas calmed down and the land that O’Connor had spied earlier revealed itself as a small sandy cay about three miles away. In another direction, about ten or fifteen miles distant, they could just make out a much larger island.

They had no other option but to strike out using the Mentor’s last whaleboat. This was a sobering and slightly fearful proposition. The whaleboat had been beaten up earlier in the voyage and was in rough condition. Resigned to their uncertain fate, the men loaded the whaleboat with a keg of water, a small chest of hardtack, clothes, an empty canister of gunpowder, one musket, a pair of pistols, a quadrant compass, a sextant, three cutlasses, and a tinder box. Then, they left the Mentor and began rowing for the cay, “not without feelings of deep sorrow,” Holden recalled, “and with small hopes of improving our forlorn condition.”

Along the way a question was answered—what had happened to the portside quarter boat and its ten occupants? A considerable distance from the ship the men saw the boat, overturned and stove in, bobbing in shallow water just a few feet above a reef. It was tethered in place by a harpoon and lance that were wedged into coral crevices below. Whether the whaling implements had been placed there intentionally in an effort to arrest the boat’s progress over the waves, or by accident, was not known. The ten men were nowhere to be found, and were never seen again.

The cay was barely a speck upon the ocean, about 250 feet long, and perhaps 50 feet wide. Still, it felt good to be on solid land after such a horrific night. They pulled the boat onto the beach, and then inspected their diminutive domain. In the middle of the cay was a depression filled with loose sand. Employing a few large clam shells scattered in the wrack line on the beach, they dug down about four feet, whereupon the hole filled with water. While it was less salty than the ocean, having been somewhat filtered as it traveled through sand, it was undrinkable and therefore of no use to the men.

Near the hole was a stone wall, comprised of broken coral and in the shape of an H. Barnard thought that natives built it as a shelter against the monsoons, since in and around it were remnants of fishing nets, fish bones, and coconut husks, indicating that fishermen had been there recently. Although many islands in the Pacific were deserted, as this one was now, the evidence of natives made it clear that inhabited islands were nearby.

At the edge of the cay, amongst the rocks, the whalemen caught a few fish, crabs, and mollusks. They were cooked on a fire kindled using flints and steel brought from the ship and driftwood collected on the earlier perambulation of the cay. Combined with a bit of hardtack and water, the roasted victuals made for a welcome though not filling repast.

Around noon, with the temperature in the low 80s and the brilliant sun beating down, Barnard used the Mentor’s sextant to determine the latitude of their location. He was now virtually certain. They were on one of the numerous islands that made up Palau.

Although the men of the Mentor didn’t know where they were in the archipelago, they were on a cay off the island of Kayangel, at the northernmost reaches of Palau. One can’t help but wonder how the story of the Mentor might have unfolded differently had it sailed just a few miles farther to the north on that stormy night in May 1831. It would have missed Palau entirely, and might have made it safely all the way to Guam, the intended destination. But this is a common tale in history. Small changes in one direction or another, or different decisions made by key individuals, can have major ramifications.

Since the whaleboat leaked at an alarming rate, the men decided to remain on the cay overnight and visit the wreck in the morning to salvage wood, tools, and nails for repairs. They spent the remainder of the day scanning the horizon, wandering about the cay, and using their clothes, oars, and canvas remnants to erect a tent near the boat.

They couldn’t stay there long, since there was little to sustain them, and they were dangerously exposed. Two options presented themselves. Either they could head out into the open ocean in what Holden referred to as their “crazy boat,” and hope to be rescued by a passing ship, or they could row to Kayangel and take their chances with the natives they assumed would be there. Given the boat’s condition, their resources, and that Palau was far from the most traveled commercial routes, it was really no choice at all. The only reasonable course was to try for the island the next day despite the risks.

That night, the men took turns sleeping and keeping watch. Just before the sun rose, the watchman alerted the others. A large canoe was swiftly approaching. Slicing through an opening in the reef encircling the cay, and coming to a stop just offshore, the canoe had about twenty natives on board. They stared intently at the strange visitors, evincing some fear, and apparently wondering what to do next. Barnard told his men that they would soon be surrounded, and he recommended that they calmly submit, as they had no other choice, since fighting would most certainly end in their immediate death.

To signal friendship or, at least, a welcoming disposition, Barnard hoisted an oar with a shirt hanging from it, and waved it back and forth. Almost immediately, the natives rowed to the shore, pulled their canoe up the beach, and stepped boldly onto the sand. They were stark naked, with long hair, jet-black teeth, and tattoos, especially on their legs. More alarming, they were heavily armed with battle axes, clubs, and spears. The men of the Mentor looked upon the visitors nervously, unsure whether they came in peace or had deadly designs.

The foundering of a ship in the early 1800s was an unusual event, although hardly unheard of. Each one of the many thousands of voyages that Americans, or any westerners for that matter, made into the Pacific was a proverbial roll of dice. Sailing those great, capacious, often tempestuous, and poorly mapped waters was to court disaster and death. While most ships completed their trips, many did not.

The Mentor, however, is not just another example of a shipwreck during the Great Age of Sail. It is one of the most complex and intriguing such stories ever told, and also one that is unique. It spans multiple years and islands, and provides insights into the clash of civilizations and cultures that attended the West’s commercial onslaught in the Pacific. The case of the Mentor is a compelling saga full of surprising twists and turns, along with a cast of fascinating characters that are forced by dramatic circumstances into a sometimes deadly and almost always fraught embrace.

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Eric Jay Dolin