Will your anchor hold

mark_in_manchester

I was reading Acts 27, where Paul is on his way to Rome as a prisoner. You might remember the story - they are making poor progress on account of the weather and wind direction, and set out from Crete in late Sep or early Oct when Paul tells them is it already too risky and they need to spend the winter where they are, until the weather presumably improves in the spring.

It suddenly struck me that if this was normal, then sea-going transport must have stopped for 6 months of the year. Are any classical scholars able to add anything to this? What did all those ships' crew do, holed up in odd places for long periods? How did they eat?

Gramps49

My reading of Acts 27 is a little different. It appears the storm lasted fourteen days. Not sure of the meteorological conditions of the Mediterranean in Paul's time but having to stay in a shelter for six months seems very long. I would have said maybe for three months at the longest.

In some ways, the story in Acts reminds me of the story in Jonah at least in the description of the very rough seas.

Shakespeare's The Tempest also comes to mind, though Shakespeare is describing a hurricane out in the Atlantic. Of course, in The Tempest we have the story moving from revenge to forgiveness.

In all three stories, it is not about the anchor that is holding but of transformation. Jonal gets recommissioned. A broken crew finds safety. Prospero forgives.

Lamb Chopped

I think it might be useful to note that Acts gives us a beginning date for avoiding sea travel (Yom Kippur, I think) but not an ending date—and so we may not be looking at a full six months, but instead whatever the local “danger” period is—which might not coincide with our notions of winter. For example, I grew up knowing that January was the rainy season in my part of Southern California, but we would not have worried at all about having a Christmas event outside (except for the cold). It was winter, yes, but our danger season was a lot more circumscribed.

mark_in_manchester

This may be my UK perspective - when the weather gets bad and unpredictable, it stays at least as bad and unpredictable until March-April. Hmm. Paul does say something along the lines of finding somewhere to over-winter...so I wonder how long it was. They were on a merchantman I think - maybe the soldiers and prisoners could have expected to hole up in a garrison somewhere, but what about seaman in general I wonder.

Lamb Chopped

I've just consulted Dr. Google and everybody seems to agree that sailing season in the Mediterranean is April to October--and that includes the "iffy" months, so safety would suggest May to September, especially in those days without forecasting, possible rescue help, etc.

I would really like to know what sailors stuck on shore for months did for a living. It has to have been a problem in many parts of the world. Road mending? Something agricultural that can go on even in the cold months?

MaryLouise

Cape Town is located on a peninsula at the foot of southern Africa where two oceans meet: the Atlantic and Indian oceans.. The old name of the Cape was Cabo das Tomentosa, Cape of Storms, and it is still one of the most remote ( from Europe) and dangerous sea routes in the world, in part because of the convergence of the warm Agulhas current and cold Benguela current. The coastal waters are the site of innumerable shipwrecks and for centuries, sailors over-wintered at the Cape, especially in False Bay as a safer anchorage.

The Cape was the hub of the Indian ocean slave trade for the Portuguese, Dutch and British; it therefore connected to the intricate Mediterranean slave and trade routes. Both Muslim and Christian powers operated through military conquest and piracy, raiding coasts and controlling port markets, with significant trade routes connecting North Africa, the Balkans, the Black Sea, and Sub-Saharan Africa to major Mediterranean ports like Venice and Genoa.

So when we talk about shipping routes and over-wintering, we're not just talking about sailors in harbour repairing damaged ships or building smaller vessels, taking on artisanal jobs or trading in barter arrangements for food, but a regular influx of armed men using brothels, terrorising local ports and towns by carrying out coastal raids and capturing local inhabitants as slaves. Many of the 'cargoes' were human beings as well as livestock, so they had to be sold, or fed and sheltered until the journey could resume.

mark_in_manchester

Here's a link to a historical paper about sailing in the med in winter. Some of it is taken from clay tablets. To my non-historian mind, it is absolutely nuts that we know things about the world from this far back. And when you think about it, what we don't know from pre-history is even more nuts.

From the paper, people were quite bothered to write to ship owners to let them know their ship, crew and cargo were held up but safe (possibly with a 'hey king, it's all cool...DON'T INVADE ME' thing going alongside?). They even (if you read the long linked doc) sent letters to argue politely about who was going to stump up for the fare of passengers x and y who got held up when their main ship got diverted, and needed a local sea-cab. And even wrote to reassure someone that their cushions would be forwarded on when sea-going transport resumed.

I don't doubt that @MaryLouise paints a true picture of some really hellish things going on. But normal life in the med seems to have been pretty mundane in spots. So what fed all those sailors in the winter? Maybe ship-building?

jay_emm

Lamb Chopped wrote: »

I think it might be useful to note that Acts gives us a beginning date for avoiding sea travel (Yom Kippur, I think) but not an ending date—and so we may not be looking at a full six months, but instead whatever the local “danger” period is—which might not coincide with our notions of winter. For example, I grew up knowing that January was the rainy season in my part of Southern California, but we would not have worried at all about having a Christmas event outside (except for the cold). It was winter, yes, but our danger season was a lot more circumscribed.

Interesting thought. It could well be that the autumn/spring changes are more significant.

They also have a specific route, and seems to plan a relatively open sea journey, maybe coast hugging on good days is still fine, so you can trade between city to city but not viably country to country.

More organised trade may be able to arrange to be travelling in the right direction if seasonal winds make a difference?

Given that they go anyway, it may be that Paul's "don't travel" season was the landlubbers season, and real sailors could normally expect another month of difficult but sailable weather (making the storm a wildcard).

Lamb Chopped

Paul's a pretty seasoned traveler, so his opinion is probably worth something--though I'm not surprised they ignored him. And I wonder if the general insistence on trying to get to Phoenix might have had something to do with the sailors' needs as much as the ship's safety.

mark_in_manchester

That paper suggests open sea journeys are more of a go-er than coast-hugging in questionable weather - you'll end up lost, if you're really unlucky you might run out of water, but at least you won't get smashed up on a shore. And that's what Paul does - they have to leave the coast of Crete when the storm gets up, go for open water, and get wrecked on (if I remember) Malta when (with no stars or sun for days) they have no idea where they are.

(and...'anchored firm and deep in the saviour's love'...if the wind was blowing you on-shore and your anchor held in deep sand or mud then great! (major understatement). What then? Did you cut the anchor which was firm and deep and you couldn't get it back out - were they disposable? OK, that's a hymn, not the bible, so a bit tangential for this bit of the forum!).

BroJames

The storm they endure is so violent that it threatens to break the ship up. As the NRSV puts it they ‘undergird’ the ship (apparently the nautical term is ‘frap’ the ship). And they start jettisoning the cargo.

The Mediterranean can be a surprisingly ferocious sea.