Terra Nova, The

DESCRIPTION: "One Monday morning March the tenth, it opened fine and clear." "Slob ice" was to be seen, but Captain Kean still takes the Terra Nova sealing. Blocked by a pan, three men die before they escape. The song describes the three dead men
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1967 (collected from Norman Payne by Halpert & Fiander)
KEYWORDS: hunting ship death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1924 - The deaths of the three sailors
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Ryan/Small-HaulinRopeAndGaff, p. 98, "The Terra Nova" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Michael C. Tarver, _The S. S. Terra Nova (1884-1943)_, Pendragon Maritime Publications, 2006, pp. 166-167, "The Terra Nova" (1 text)
Roud #V44877
NOTES [2799 words]: "Terra Nova" was one of the old names for Newfoundland, so little wonder to find a Newfoundland ship by that name!
I don't know how many sealers were given the name Terra Nova over the centuries; at least one small one sailed from Conception Bay in 1833 (Ryan-Ice, p. 475), one was lost in the ice in 1862 (Galgay/McCarthy, p. 102), and there was a later motor vessel MV Terra Nova (Ryan/Drake, p. 82), plus a former ferry named Maneco was renamed Terra Nova and sent to the ice in 1963-1964 (Candow, p. 112), but none of these left much of a mark in the historical record. There is no doubt about which Terra Nova was the most famous; spending almost sixty years in various tasks mostly around Newfoundland. Feltham, p. 132, declares her "undoubtedly the most famous of all the wooden steamers that were built to prosecute the Newfoundland seal fishery." It shows in the number of books about her, of which the most complete is probably Tarver's -- although that is mostly about her polar exploration trips; those interested in her time as a sealer will surely find it somewhat limited (this cuts both ways; England's book about one of her sealing voyages is surely the most detailed account of such a voyage ever written, but you'd think he'd never heard of the ship's polar history). The full title of Tarver's book is The S. S. Terra Nova (1884-1943): From the Arctic to the Antarctic, Whaler, Sealer and Polar Exploration Ship, 2006. There is also Edward Adrian Wilson's Diary of the Terra Nova Expedition to the Antarctic, which of course ends with Wilson's death in 1912 as part of Scott's expedition, and England's book, which describes several weeks he spent aboard her in the 1920s. Sadly, most of her logbooks seem to have been lost; they were likely destroyed when the Liverpool offices of her owner Bowring's were bombed in World War II (Tarver, p. 188).
Built in 1884 (Paine, p. 509) in Dundee (Ryan/Drake, p. 29), at a cost of 16,000 pounds (Archibald, p. 66), she was the very last whaler built in Dundee (Archibald, p. 105); her builders Alexander Stephen and Co., the greatest builders of steam whalers, closed up shop after that and moved to the banks of Clyde to build ships of other types -- presumably because 1885-1886 saw a big decline in whales taken (Watson, p. 93); the industry had so depleted the fishery that there weren't enough whales to justify more ships.
The Terra Nova began her career as a Newfoundland-based sealer in 1885 (O'Neill. p. 964). At 450 tons, she was one of the largest sealers of the time (Ryan-Ice, p. 150; Tarver, p. 26, gives her as 744 gross tons; similarly Watson after p. 84, who says she was 740 tons, but that's a different measure. He cites a newspaper which claimed she could carry 40,000 seal pelts). In 1903, her ability as an icebreaker had caused her to be sent to rescue Robert Scott's Discovery expedition; at the time, she was called "the roughest and toughest icebreaker to be had" (O'Neill, p. 964). Certainly her 140 horsepower engine (Feltham, p. 132) exceeded that of most other sealers of her age.
Archibald, p. 197, says, "Known familiarly as 'Novey', Terra Nova was the last Dundee built whaling ship and arguably the best. She was built to replace the successful whaling ship Thetis, which had been sold to the United States Government. All the skill and experience of the previous two decades of whaling ship construction created what was undoubtedly a superb example of an Arctic-worthy hunting vessel.... Terra Nova was a fast ship, with a record passage of 11 days on her maiden voyage from Dundee to St. John's in February 1885." (This implies that she could sustain a speed of about ten knots, give or take, over that long voyage, which is indeed a pretty good clip for a whaler although, even in 1885, it would have been regarded as slow for a passenger ship. Little wonder she was racing the Polynia in "The Old Polina.")
Similarly Greene, p. 53, declares that "The finest, if not the largest of [the wooden-walled sealers], were named the Terra Nova and the Neptune -- each of them having for many springs their fighting claims to be the Commodore of the Fleet's command."
From 1885 to 1898, the Terra Nova worked for her builders. Yet she was not a financial success as a whaler; she is said to have lost more than 12,000 pounds in 1896-1897 alone (Watson, p. 137), after which she was sold to Bowring Brothers, the leading Newfoundland sealing firm. In later years, she was purchased by the British Admiralty in 1903 to rescue the Discovery in Antarctica, then went on an arctic rescue trip; she went back to sealing in 1906 (Ryan/Drake, p. 29; Tarver, pp. 58-59). She had a relatively bad year at the seal fishery in 1908, and was significantly damaged (with her bows pierced and her rudder broken, plus she ran out of coal), but she made it home (WInsor, p. 63)
Her work in Antarctica so impressed Robert Scott that he bought her in 1909 (Feltham, p. 132) so that, in 1910, he could take her to Antarctica on his last expedition (Paine, p. 510; O'Neill, pp. 964-965; Tarver, p. 65, says that she was the "obvious next choice" once it was clear that Scott's old ship the Discovery was not available. Indeed, she was probably a better choice, given that the Discovery, although well suited for scientific work, had been badly designed and constructed for dealing with ice; Larson, pp. 115-116). After the end of Scott's expedition, Bowring's, the company that had sold her to the British government, took her back (it had been agreed when she was sold that Bowring's would have the option to do so; Keir, p. 203) and returned her to the sealing fleet; she took part in the attempt to rescue the survivors of the Florizel in 1917 (see the notes on "The Wreck of the Steamship Florizel"; also O'Neill, p. 962, or Brown, pp. 184-185, 192, 205-207).
It will perhaps tell you something about what sealing steamers were like that England on several occasions said that the Terra Nova was such a mess that she should be scrapped (after all, she had already been leaky at the time of Scott's voyage more than a decade earlier; Riches, p. 4), but that sealer Wilfred Andrews, who sailed on her somewhat after England did, said that she was a good ship still (Ryan-Last, p. 112) -- at least compared to the other wooden steamers he sailed in.
She underwent a rebuild in 1938, mostly to repair all the damage she had taken over the years (although her woodwork was found to be in surprisingly good shape for a ship that was half a century old), but while they were at it, they moved her bridge forward of her funnel (Tarver, pp. 187-188), which surely made her a better ship.
She lasted until World War II. Her last year as a sealer was 1941; after that, because so few ships were available for dealing with the ice, she was chartered into service carrying freight to Greenland (Feltham, p. 139; Tarver, p. 189; Riches, p. 6). On May 28, 1943 (so O'Neill, p. 965) or May 29 (so Tarver, pp. 189-190), she left St. John's with a cargo intended for American bases in Greenland. (The discrepancy in dates may have arisen because her captain Llewellyn Lush seems to have later mis-stated when she sailed; see Tarver, p. 193.) She was damaged in the ice, and although she made it to Greenland, there was no suitable dock there (Tarver, p. 193). Although she had been partly repaired, she began to leak badly on her way home in September -- with water interfering with power to the pumps, so she couldn't be kept dry. She sank on September 13, 1943 (Feltham, p. 139 says September 12; O'Neill, p. 966, says it was September 14, but Tarver, p. 189, has a September 13 report describing her loss, and p. 225 prints the Atak's September 13 log entry of her sinking). The crew was rescued by the USCGS Atak, which then shelled her to hasten her end (Tarver, pp. 189-191); witnesses disagree on whether she was on fire when she went down. There is a map of her final voyages on p. 190 of Tarver.; Riches, p. 7, has a (tiny) photo of the Atak.
Tarver, pp. 242-244, has portions of Bowring's balance sheet for 1943; it lists the Terra Nova as a total loss (naturally) and lists her value as $12,500. The only other sealer still on their books, Eagle, was listed at $8000, but that was a depreciated value -- they had listed her at $11,500 at the start of 1943. Presumably the Terra Nova was also being depreciated; she was insured for $60,000. Terra Nova was rented for $4,899.76 in 1943, so she was earning money faster than she was being depreciated, at least.
The wreck of the ship was found off Greenland in 2012. Riches, p. 37, has two small underwater photos of the wreck. They don't look like anything except a few bright spots to me, but reportedly they show that she really was consumed by fire. I do not know if there has been any follow-up. I hope there will be; if any ship in Newfoundland history deserves a to be remembered and maintained, it is the Terra Nova.
Her final tally as a sealer was more than 850,000 pelts, making her third all-time (Watson, p. 177), behind the Neptune (the only ship to take over a million seals) and the Ranger. Much of that was due to their longevity (those three ships and the Eagle were the last four sealing steamers), but the Terra Nova was newer than Neptune and Ranger by a dozen years, so she was probably the most successful while she lasted.
Because of her long and distinguished service, it's easy to find photos of her; Tarver is of course full of them, and on p. 66 has a plan of her layout as she was modified for the Scott expedition (a substantial refit -- e.g. all her blubber tanks were taken out, and much work was done to clean out the stinks that pervaded all wooden sealers; Tarver, pp. 68-69). Tarver, pp. 210-223, also reproduces a description of the rebuild, although he notes enough historical inaccuracies that I'm not sure it should be cited. PontingEtAl also includes dozens of photos of the ship, although all are during Scott's expedition and all show her after her rebuild. Nonetheless several of them show just how crowded she was during Scott's expedition -- and she carried far fewer men on that trip than on her sealing cruises, although much space was given over to cargo, dogs, and ponies, so perhaps she was almost as crowded in 1910 as when Abram Kean was her commander.
Keir, facing p. 204, O'Neill, p. 942, Paine, p. 510, and Ryan/Drake, p. 29, all show images of her in the Antarctic. (According to the caption to the O'Neill photo, that image "has become the logo of her owners, Bowring Brothers") Feltham, p. 180, has two pictures of her, one in port, one in the ice. Ryan-Ice, p. 149, also has a picture of her in the ice; so does Greene, facing p. 156. Chafe, facing p. 60, shows her frozen in at St. John's; Ryan/Drake, p. 52, shows her crew in 1934 preparing to blast her out. England, facing p. 180, has what is surely the first-ever aerial photo of her. Watson, after p. 84, has a photo in which she looks so clean that I almost wonder if it was a publicity shot, and after p. 148 has a picture of her with an inset image of Scott. Kean, facing page 1, also has a photo; so does Winsor, p. 63. Plus Australia issued a stamp of her in as an explorer (far too clean to be real), and there is also an Isle of Man commemorative series of Scott's expedition.
Other items in the Index which mention the Terra Nova include "The Sealer's Song (II)," "A Sealer's Love Letter," "Arctic Ice and Flippers," and "The Old Polina"; in the latter, she races the Polina to St. John's -- interesting in light of the comment that the Terra Nova was an unusually fast whaler. Ryan/Small-HaulinRopeAndGaff treat a mention of "Terra Nova" in "Au Revoir To Our Hardy Sealers" as a reference to her as well, but it appears to me to be a reference to Newfoundland. "A Noble Fleet of Sealers" also refers to a ship Terra Nova, but this appears to be the MV Terra Nova rather than the SS Terra Nova.
There were several Captains Kean, patriarch Abram and his sons (for Abram Keen, see "Captain Abram Kean"), two of whom at one time or another commanded the Terra Nova; according to Feltham, p. 134, A[bram] Kean was her skipper in 1906-1908, 1917-1926, and 1932-1933; and W[estbury] Kean, 1927 -- but the fact that the song sees no need to distinguish which one is meant strongly implies that Abram is meant.
Abram Kean wrote of what appears to be this particular incident in his biography (p. 58, and again on p. 92 in a discussion of raftering ice), although I would take his version with enough salt to supply his entire crew -- he calls it the "only accident" of his sealing career, which flatly ignores the Newfoundland Disaster. Tarver, pp. 165-166, summarizes and amplifies his account by saying that, in 1924, the sealing fleet, including Kean in the Terra Nova, set out from St. John's and almost immediately found themselves in ice. Men often went out on the ice to haul or cut a path as ships pushed through the pack (Ryan/Drake, p. 50, has a photo of sealers pulling the Southern Cross out of St. John's in just this way), and as this was happening, three men fell through a "deceitful pan" and drowned. It took the Terra Nova two days to get through the ice outside St. John's to start their trip to where the seals were.
Ryan-Last, p. 445, lists the names of the three men: David Whelan, Maurice Breen, and Hubert Hiscock.
According to Rosenberg, p. 86, the sealers admired his drive but were bothered by how he failed to care about his men. They wanted a "skipper [who] was concerned for their safety. It is in this quality that the sealers found Abram Kean lacking, but interestingly, it is not Kean's role in the Newfoundland disaster which earned him the animosity of the sealers." Rather, it was this event. "He kept backing down and butting ahead at the ice until the ship finally broke free. When this happened, thirty or forty men went into the water: '... he lost three men dere. And he didn't seem to trouble any more about 'em. After he had the rolls called, he saw ther was three men misssin, an' that was it. He went on then. Didn't trouble any more about it. He was a hard old dog.' Another man... adds, 'And we knew nothing about it. He never even put the flag at half mast, an' he never came back, he went on'" (Rosenberg, pp. 86-87).
This incident was apparently legendary among sealers -- it was well enough known that the details became blurred; Thomas Hayden, e.g., recalled that five men died, not just three (Ryan-Last, p. 300); Roy Keel thought there were just two (Ryan-Last, p. 302); William Lowe recalled three dying out of two hundred who were hauling, but thought it took a week, not just two days, to get through the ice in the St. John's Narrows (Ryan-Last, p. 402).
Jesse Codner, who sailed under Kean, also appears to refer to this incident in calling Abram Kean "an old bastard": "He drowned men, sure, and everything. He drowned them there in the Narrows, hauling them out through on the line, left the blood on the ice where the fellows went and got you in the blades. All blood on the water and ice and everything. He got away with that" (Ryan-Last, p. 149). Jack Boone's version was that Kean "runned over and cut up men in the Narrows going out. They were out on the line hauling her. They bust through and he steamed on over them" (Ryan-Last, p. 297).
Wilfred Tucker also described the incident: Kean "sung out for us to get a line and put to her quarter and try to twist her head out of the bay.... So all the crew got on the line and down went 10 or 15 men in a hole together. Most of them held on to the line, and them men on the outside pulling, pulled them out, but some of them let go and three were lost.... We all came on board and we called the roll and there were three men missing. We stayed around and couldn't find nothing, and then went on" (Ryan-Last, p. 237).
It will perhaps tell you something about Kean that he spent as about much space boasting about the seals he took soon after the incident as he did describing the death of three men (Tarver, p. 168, has the text, which is mostly from the account Kean gave on p. 92).
Kean, p. 43, has what appears to be another allusion to the incident, in which he describes politicians saying that it wasn't his fault. (And certainly things like this happened a lot in sealing expeditions). But Kean, p. 48, says that, without telling him, his parliamentary allies removed his name from the parliamentary ballot for that year. Kean was the most successful sealer of all time, and the Terra Nova was the ship probably most associated with him, but he had absolutely no sympathy for his sailors or their lives, and it probably hurt his political career. - RBW
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