The Cape Horners Of Copperopolis
THE CAPE HORNERS OF COPPEROPOLIS
For many years on the approach to Swansea along Fabian Way, there stood a dilapidated pub with a sign depicting a square rigged sailing ship and the name “The Cape Horner”. The name links to Cape Horn being the tip of south America (Tierra del Fuego) that juts into the south Atlantic and surely some of the most mountainous and stormy seas on the planet.
In nautical history, Cape Horners were sailing ships that plied their trade through those waters to carry copper ore from the Chilean port of Valparasio to the smelting furnaces of Copperopolis (after having first taken a cargo of Welsh coal to South America). Such vessels and their intrepid crews would have taken more than a year to make the journey from Swansea to Chile and back.
What follows is based on an article from the Swansea Museum entitled “The Dangers of Sailing”
At the other end of the world to us, Cape Horn is a desolate and fearsome place, the most dangerous part of a voyage to bring Copper ore to Swansea. Bitter winds blow ceaselessly from west to east, and massive green waves up to thirty metres high roll across the ocean, so strong they can smash a ship to pieces, in storms that rage all winter long. The men who sailed those seas were the toughest and most skilled seamen. Their life was hard, but their pride and fellowship were great. It was the Copper trade with Chile – the terrible journey round Cape Horn, and the perils of the voyage home – which made Swansea’s ships and sailors famous. To be called a Cape Horner was the highest accolade a seaman could earn. Few ports had more Cape Horners than Swansea in those days
It was a dangerous, harsh and harrowing life. Men who survived it were tough, rugged, and brave. It could take many weeks to sail round the Horn as the trepid sailors incrementally tacked their vessels into the face of raging stormy seas to make westward progress. The whole voyage, from Swansea to Chile and back again typically took a year or more. Crammed into the dark, dank forecastle, or crews’ quarters aboard ship, fifteen or more men slept in wooden bunks with mattresses filled with straw. In rough weather everything got wet and it was a place for
A long hard battle with the elements. As the copper trade ships drew near to Cape Horn from the Atlantic Ocean the crew prepared for the battle ahead. The ship had to be in prime condition to survive the vicious wind and waves. They would check the sails for tears and damage, and the rigging for frayed or broken ropes.
Round the Horn with icy sails and rigging. Sailors, working high in the rigging, would have clung for their very lives to ice-covered sails and ropes with frozen hands, battered by wind and waves. Terrible accidents happened. Men fell into the sea, or onto the deck far below, and massive waves could wash them overboard, and snap ships’ masts like matchsticks. Other hazards lurked, such as thick fogs that came drifting off the land and blocked out sight and sound. The rocks around that wild coastline, and worse still, icebergs, could sink a ship and drown its crew. Winter was the worst time to make the voyage. Summer weather was not so bad, with lighter, warmer wind, more gentle waves, and then the sailors could see the wild beauty of the Cape Horn coastline.
The living was rough. Fresh food did not last long. For most of the voyage, all the men could eat was salted meat, ships biscuits, dried beans, potatoes, onions and maybe fish, if they had time – or luck – to catch some. Rats nibbled the stores, and sea water soaked the ship, sometimes putting the galley fire out and then nothing could be cooked. Sailors needed a sense of humour and a strong stomach to be able to eat the food, even the “hard tack” biscuits had maggots or weevils in and were best eaten with eyes closed.
Homeward Bound – eventually. If they survived – and many did not – then as the homeward bound ship, passing the Falkland Islands, would run before westerly winds and waves that carried them unhindered for thousands of miles … and home.
Tony Hodge