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Into the Screaming 50s (Cont.) IT'S DARK BY THE TIME WE MOTOR into the little caleta, or cove, at the end of Bahía Orange. Somewhat unnervingly, Novak remains belowdecks, deducing our location from the green shapes floating on his radar screen and occasionally calling up course corrections to the helmsman. After dinner, John Rice reminds us why we're here: He spreads a broad chart across the galley table, passes out a few photocopies of sketches made by his great-grandfather, and, though we are all familiar with it by now, takes us through the story one more time. Edmund Stewart Rice was born in 1842 in Workington, a little town in northern England famous for producing mariners. His father was a sea captain, as were two of his three brothers. So it was no surprise when, at age 33, Edmund was made the master of the River Boyne, a three-masted, 154-foot iron windjammer. On July 15, 1875, the River Boyne sailed from Liverpool for Valparaíso, Chile, with 700 tons of coal. Eighty-three days later the ship cleared Cape Horn, and six days after that, on October 13, the crew noticed smoke and a strong smell of gas. Four hours later, Captain Rice logged the following entry: "1 pm smoke gaining, coming up the fore hatch in dense volumes, wind SW, hard gale increasing, deemed it advisable to batten down and run back to anchorage to E of Wollaston Island where we shall have smooth water." By that evening the River Boyne was smoking so heavily that it was no longer possible to go belowdecks. Rice was unable to retrieve all of his charts. Still, the next morning, as the ship approached False Cape Horn, some 35 miles west of Cape Horn itself, he managed to anchor in an unknown bay, in six fathoms of water. For the next three days, working through snow, sleet, and rainstorms, and sleeping on deck, the crew of 20 pumped and drew water on board in a vain effort to put the fire out. Sensing that the problem was more serious in the bow, Rice "set a gang to heave coals overboard out the after hatch in order to bring the ship more by the head." More than 60 tons were jettisoned. Finally, on the morning of October 17, he gave up, realizing that the only way to save his ship was to scuttle her. Using his anchors as grappling hooks, Rice winched the ship into the beach at a spot "abreast a stream," and laid her aground on a falling tide. A day later, with all her ports open, the River Boyne was filled by the high tide. The fire was out, but now a new problem loomed: how to get her afloat again. Subsequent tides filled her twice more, despite the desperate pumping of the crew, but four days later the sailors finally prevailed—and the ship drifted free of the beach.
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