This article was taken from our archives. It first appeared in the March 1971 issue of The Bermudian. It appears here exactly as it did originally.
Like most island peoples, Bermudians have always had an affinity with the sea, and from the early years after it was founded until about a century ago, the forebears of most old Bermudian families were involved in seafaring and shipbuilding. There were days when almost every cove along the North Shore echoed with the clamour of mallets and caulking irons.
The islands produced a race of hardy sailormen, steeped in the lore of the sea and ships. The craft of the mariner is intricate and exacting, and while celestial navigation can be learned in a few weeks by an intelligent student, it takes years to make a proficient seaman. In the days before steam, learning to hand, reef and steer, fashion bends and hitches, knots and splices, was only a beginning; the sailor had to learn to furl and set sail, traditionally using one hand for the ship and the other for his personal safety when aloft; to stream a logship to estimate the speed of the ship; to take soundings with lead and line to determine depth of water and the nature of the bottom; to cope with tricky currents in pilotage waters; to rig sheerlegs; to adjust magnetic compasses; to point ship to ascertain deviation; to stow cargo; to lay out a kedge to haul the ship off a sand bar or shoal, and all the multitudinous bits of nautical know-how which can be acquired only by experience.
In an article printed in this magazine, 15 years ago, the late P.M. Wright wrote: “Some day when you are out in the Great Sound watching the yacht races, keep a weather eye open for boats flying the gold Maltese Cross on a blue field. Those craft belong to the Triminghams…. The Triminghams have been there or thereabouts for more than three centuries…. No other family on this side of the Atlantic can claim such a long continuous trick at the tiller as the Triminghams of Bermuda….
Nowadays they sail just for the pleasure they get out of it, but time was when they had to do it the hard way. There was little or no joy or ease in the days when John Trimingham was Governor of Bermuda (1649) and his son, Paul, was a tribe gentleman; and still less between 1750 and 1836. Those years were fraught with every known mischance of the sea – shipwreck, financial loss, drama and stark tragedy. So whatever enjoyment they get out their sailing today, the Triminghams have paid for it in full measure.”
Between 1786 and 1800 the Trimingham family was operating a fleet which had grown to eleven ocean-going ships by the turn of the century. Between 1801 and 1803 six ships with their crews were posted missing.
Daniel Trimingham, father of the Trimingham fleet, built eight new ships in the next eight years. In 1821 one was lost with all hands, and in the next three years the rapacious sea took all the others. By 1825 the Trimingham fleet was gone. However, the family raised the money to buy five large vessels and for the next few years all went well.
Then in 1828 a Trimingham brig was lost off Barbados with all hands. By the end of 1829 the others had gone, where eland their liven plant, went into the rag business.
In the years between 1685 and the middle of the following century Bermudians did their share of piracy and privateering, moving Governor John Hope (1722-1727) to complain that piracy and “accessories to piracy” were as common among Bermudians as smuggling was among Englishmen, and considered no more serious. The distinction between piracy and privateering was at best hazy and ill-defined. Privateers looted or captured ships of the King’s enemies, licensed by letters of marque freely issued by the Crown. Like the buccaneers plying the seas under the Jolly Roger, officers and crew of the privateer received no pay but shared in the plunder.
Even the royal Governors were not above sharing in such profits and the record suggests that Governor Isaac Richier (1691-1693) actually entered into partnership with two notorious pirates. It was believed that Richier even sponsored raids on merchantmen flying the same flag as he himself served.
Bermuda’s privateering vessels ranged from craft as small as 18 tons and as large as 100 tons. They were speedier than most and, handled by consummate sailormen, they fared well in the dubious profession. Governor William Browne (1782-1788) said: “The superiority of our ships and sailors has long been universally acknowledged.”
Probably the most famous of Bermudian pirates was Nathaniel North, whose career was as colourful as those of Henry Morgan and Capt. Kidd. North got his early training under some of the most feared pirates of the day, and proved himself an apt pupil. He soon had his own command, operating effectively in the Indian ocean.
He even established a small colony in Madagascar over which he reigned benignly for five years. Another Bermudian, Nicholas Trott, was named by the Governor of New York as “the greatest pirate-broker that was ever in America.” The Governor doubtless knew what he was talking about, for he himself was a shareholder in Capt. Kidd’s last expedition.
Other Bermudians who achieved various degrees of fame in piracy or privateering included John Dickinson, William Outerbridge, Richard Gilbert and Robert Tucker, each bearing names familiar in Bermuda’s history from the early years of settlement to the present day.
By 1789 Bermuda-built ships were operating in the seas of the world, and in that year, of the 180 vessels entered at the Customs House and representing a total tonnage of 18,820, no less than 17,991 tons were Bermuda ships owned by Bermudians. But even this is not an accurate picture, for many a privateer sneaked along familiar channels under cover of darkness to moor at a private wharf, discharge her goods, and departing before daybreak without observing the formality of entering the ship at Customs.
Governor Browne recorded that in those times fully one third of the ships arriving in Bermuda departed again without making official entry.
As far as Bermuda was concerned the end of the privateering era came in the early 19th century with the evolving of large, well-armed ships capable of easily overwhelming the small Bermuda sloops, and the colonists had to turn their seafaring talents to more legitimate business. With the advent of steam-driven vessels during the middle 19th century, shipbuilders everywhere strove to construct vessels which could maintain the supremacy of sail. The result was the beautiful, graceful and fast clipper ship.
Tiny Bermuda made her contribution and within eleven years sent down the ways her five largest and speediest clipper barques. First was the Sir George F. Seymour in 1853, 108 feet long and 267 tons, one of the fastest ships ever built in Bermuda. Then came the Koh-i-Noor and Pearl in 1855, the Cedrine in 1862, and the Lady Milne in 1864.
The American Civil War brought rich opportunities to Bermuda seamen and shipowners. The harbours here, especially St. George’s, were crowded with blockade runners. Bermuda vessels and the seamen to man them were available to the beleaguered Confederacy at fantastic prices. Shipmasters earned as much as $5,000 for a round-trip to Wilmington, Delaware.
Bermudian captains had little hesitation about taking their swift copper-keeled ships out from St. George’s, laden with desperately-needed supplies for the South, and running the blockade through the cordon of Federal cruisers throttling the southern seaports.
When the Confederate government in Richmond, Virginia, ordered its own special seal to be cast in London, the seal and its press were shipped to Bermuda for transshipment to Richmond. A Bermudian vessel was chosen to run the ever-tightening blockade and deliver the seal in Wilmington. But the seal never reached its destination, for after three abortive attempts had been made to break through the blockade, Lee had surrendered at Appomatox and the war was over.
Although Bermuda no longer builds ocean-going ships, she is still wedded to the sea. To the yachting world she contributed the Bermuda rig, now used in practically all classes of racing yacht, including the huge sloops which contend for the America’s Cup.
Her sporty fitted dinghies, spectacularly over-canvased, provide as exciting and strenuous action as any racing craft anywhere.
The Royal Bermuda Yacht Club was founded in 1844. Five years later the American schooner Brenda, from Boston, challenged the Bermudian sloop Pearl to a race in Great Sound. The Pearl won by 55 seconds. That, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, was the first international yacht race. Today the islands are a famous yachting venue and Bermuda yachtsmen compete with distinction in the waters of many countries, and in the Olympic Games.
Last year, in the biennial ocean race from Newport, R.I. to St. David’s Head, there were six entries from this tiny colony. Not surprisingly, three of them were owned and skippered by Trimminghams.
Bermuda yards no longer turn ocean-going ships, but they still build small craft, the most spectacular being the fitted dinghies, startlingly over-canvased and requiring sailormen of muscle and agility.
