Peter Moore: The Golden Hind’s gangplank fiasco

Brixham’s Golden Hind has been closed due to health and safety issues. The gangplank did not have the right safety certificate. I wonder what Francis Drake would think.

It is a replica of the ship that took him around the world between 1577 and 1580. As far as I know he is no relation to Drake the Canadian rapper. 

On the voyage he lost four of his five ships. Of the 164 men only 59 returned. Not all were due to disease. Some followed battle or a shipwreck. This death rate was not unusual for the time. I do not think any died from walking up a gangplank which did not have the correct health and safety certificate. 

There was no NHS and medical care was basic. The barber-surgeon would have been mainly used for dressing wounds and setting broken bones. 

Surgical tools found in the wreck of the Mary Rose in Portsmouth Harbour has given us some insight into sixteen century medicine. They found a barber-surgeon’s chest with brass and pewter syringes for administering medicines, a mortar and pestle for grinding drugs, scalpels, a bleeding bowl and a large bone needle for suturing. Most worrying was a trepanning drill used for drilling holes in skulls. I’m sure they needed that like a hole in the head. 

The drugs included mercury to combat infections and jars of ointments, probably resin and frankincense.  More effective would be his nit comb. There was also a mallet which might have been useful before the days of general anaesthetic.

During the voyage the Golden Hind lost its chief surgeon leaving a young, inexperienced boy to take over.

The concept of bacteria was three hundred years away. Nearly four hundred years before antibiotics one of the main causes of death was infection. One crew member was not badly wounded when hit by an arrow but died of gangrene a few months later. 

There were eighty men living in damp, cold and cramped conditions on the Golden Hind. There was little fresh water and the same clothes were worn day and night. They slept on straw on the floor; hammocks were not introduced on English ships until 1596. Hygiene was a problem and dysentery or, as they called it “the bloody flux” was one of the causes of death. Drake tried to prevent some of these problems by demanding that the ships were cleaned and aired. 

One of the major diseases facing sailors on long sea journeys was scurvy. It was not until 1747 when James Lind, sailing from Plymouth conducted the first controlled trial and proved that scurvy was caused by a lack of fresh fruit. We now know that it is the vitamin C in the fruit that was needed. 

Although Drake did not know about vitamin C he tried to ensure that they had as much fresh fruit, vegetables and meat as possible. This meant stopping at various islands to stock up although he could not find any supermarkets. Following his leadership Drake had less deaths from scurvy than most long sea voyages at the time. 

Their diet also included penguins, seals, mussels. turtles and fish as well as fruit. It is not known how they removed the wrappers from the penguins but they must have enjoyed the chocolate. 

Sailing around the world also meant facing extremes of weather. The South Atlantic was bitterly cold and the tropics very hot. 

Dealing with this number of men in a small space meant he had to impose harsh discipline although no one took him to a tribunal accused of bullying. 

It is tempting to ask why would anyone volunteer to be a sailor? Life on land in Tudor England was though. People rarely left their village or town and lives were short. Sailors were, by the standards of the day, fairly well paid. Drake, as well as being an explorer was also a pirate although he would have preferred the term “privateer”. He acted as a pirate, attacking and stealing from other ships but did it in the name of Queen Elizabeth. Crew members might, if lucky, bring back some of the riches plundered on the voyage. 

Even with a dodgy gangplank the Golden Hind in Brixham was much safer than sailing on the original Golden Hind. Perhaps today’s owner could benefit from some of the plundered gold to buy a new gangplank.  

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