Eleanor Creesy Helped Guide One of the Fastest Sailing Ships Ever Built

 

STEVE EMBER: I’m Steve Ember.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: And I’m Shirley Griffith with EXPLORATIONS¹ in VOA Special English. Today, we tell about Eleanor Creesy. She helped to guide one of the fastest sailing² ships ever built.

(MUSIC)

STEVE EMBER: The name Eleanor Creesy is almost unknown today. But in the middle eighteen hundreds she was a famous woman. Those were the days of wooden sailing ships. It was a time before ships had engines. Cloth sails were used to catch the wind to move a ship through the water.

A ship that sailed from New York to San Francisco had to travel around the bottom of South America. Such a trip could take two hundred days to complete. Not all ships completed the trip. The high winds and angry seas in this area of the world created deadly storms. Ships often sank. No one could survive the freezing waters in this dangerous area if the ship went down.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: One hundred fifty years ago, women did not receive much education. Most women were expected to learn to read and write. But they almost never held positions of great responsibility⁴. Eleanor Creesy was different. She was the navigator for a ship. A navigator is responsible⁵ for guiding a ship safely from one port to another.

A model of the Flying Cloud

Eleanor’s father taught her to navigate⁶. She wanted to learn this difficult skill because she liked the mathematics⁷ involved. A navigator also had to know how to use a complex⁸ instrument called a sextant. It was used to gather information about the sun, moon, and some stars to find a ship’s position at sea.

Eleanor married a captain of a ship, Josiah Perkins Creesy, in eighteen forty-one. It was not unusual for a ship captain to take his wife with him on long trips. A captain’s wife often acted as a nurse, which Eleanor did. But she did a lot more. Josiah Creesy quickly learned⁹ that his wife was an extremely¹⁰ good navigator.

Eleanor was the navigator on each ship that Josiah commanded during all their years at sea. They were husband and wife, but they also enjoyed working together.

STEVE EMBER: Eleanor and Josiah Creesy are forever linked to one of the most famous ships in American history. That ship is the Flying Cloud. It was designed and built at the shipyard of Donald McKay in the eastern city of Boston. Grinell, Minturn and Company bought it. Captain Creesy worked for Grinell, Minturn. Company officials chose him to be the captain of the new ship.

The Flying Cloud was a new kind of ship. The front was very narrow and sharp. This helped it cut through the water. The ship itself was narrow and long. This also added¹¹ to its speed. A New York newspaper wrote a story about the ship when it was new. The paper said it was extremely beautiful. The world soon learned it was one of the fastest sailing ships ever built.

The large number of sails the Flying Cloud could carry increased the speed of the ship. It usually carried at least twenty-one large sails. The crew¹² often added many more to increase the speed.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: It was the second day of June eighteen fifty-one. Goods and passengers had been loaded on the Flying Cloud. The ship quietly sailed out of New York City on its way to San Francisco.

Very quickly it became evident¹³ the ship was special. Part of Eleanor Creesy’s work was to find out how far the ship had traveled each day. This involved doing complex mathematics and usually took Eleanor several hours. The first time she completed her work, she could not believe the results. She did the mathematics again, carefully looking for mistakes. There were none.

The ship had traveled almost four hundred eighty kilometers in twenty-four hours. This was an extremely fast speed. Few ships had ever sailed this fast.

STEVE EMBER: The captain of a ship keeps a written record of each day’s events when a ship is at sea. This record is called a ship’s log¹⁴. On May fifteenth, just seventeen days after leaving New York, Captain Creesy wrote this in the Flying Cloud’s log:

“We have passed the Equator¹⁵ in two days less time than ever before. We have traveled five thousand nine hundred and nine kilometers in seventeen days!”

As the Flying Cloud sailed south, each day was extremely exciting. As it neared the South Atlantic, however, storms began to cause great concern.

For Eleanor Creesy to learn the correct position of the ship each day, she had to be able to see the sun, the moon or stars. This was impossible when the ship entered an area of storms. It was then that her greatest skill as a navigator became extremely important.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: When bad weather prevented navigators from seeing the sun, moon or stars, they had to use a method called “dead reckoning¹⁶” to find the ship’s position.

Dead reckoning is not exact. A navigator would take the last known³ position of the ship, then add the ship’s speed. The navigator also had to add any movement of the ship to the side caused by waves or the wind. But this information was only a guess. Even a good navigator could be wrong by many kilometers.

If a ship was sailing in the middle of the ocean, a navigator could make mistakes using dead reckoning and no harm would be done. However, when a ship was near land, dead reckoning became extremely dangerous. The ship might be much closer to land than the navigator knew. In a storm, the ship could be driven on to land and severely¹⁷ damaged or sunk. Using dead reckoning near the southern most area of South America called for an expert.

The Flying Cloud was near land at the end of the South American continent. Eleanor Creesy used all her skill to find a safe path for the huge ship.

STEVE EMBER: Captain Creesy was responsible for the safety of the Flying Cloud, the passengers and crew. He would be blamed for any serious accident. Most captains did their own navigating¹⁸. Perhaps no other captain sailing at that time would think to have a woman do this extremely important work. However, Josiah Creesy never questioned his wife’s sailing directions.

He would often stand on the deck¹⁹ of his ship, in the cold rain and fierce²⁰ winds. He would shout below to Mrs. Creesy and ask for a new sailing direction. She would quickly do the work required for a new dead reckoning direction and pass the information to her husband. Captain Creesy would give the orders to turn the big ship.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: The storm began to grow. The crew put out the fires used for heat and cooking. Fire was a great danger at sea. No fires were ever permitted²¹ on a ship during a storm. Not even lamps were lit. Everyone ate cold food. The temperatures were now near freezing.

Hour after hour Eleanor Creesy worked to find the ship’s dead reckoning position.

When the storm ended, the crew of the Flying Cloud could see the very southern coast of South America -- a place called Tierra del Fuego. They could see the snow-covered mountains and huge amounts of blue ice. It was an area of deadly beauty. And, it was only eight kilometers away. Eleanor Creesy had guided the ship perfectly²².

(MUSIC)

STEVE EMBER: The Flying Cloud sailed north toward²³ San Francisco traveling at speeds no one thought possible. On July thirty-first, the ship traveled six hundred and one kilometers in only twenty-four hours. No ship had ever sailed that far in one day. The Flying Cloud had set a world record. That record belonged to the ship, the crew, the captain and the navigator.

On August thirty-first, the Flying Cloud sailed into San Francisco Bay²⁴. The Flying Cloud had set a record for sailing from New York to San Francisco. It made the trip in eighty-nine days, and twenty-one hours. Newspapers across the country spread the news. Josiah and Eleanor Creesy were famous. Newspapers wrote stories about them and their beautiful ship. People wanted to meet them. But soon the two were back at sea. Two years later Captain Creesy and his wife again took the Flying Cloud from New York to San Francisco.

This time they made the trip in eighty-nine days, eight hours. This record would stand unbroken for more than one hundred years.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Josiah and Eleanor Creesy went on to sail in other ships. They continued to work as a team until they left the sea in eighteen sixty-four. They retired²⁵ to their home in Massachusetts.

Captain Josiah Creesy died in June of eighteen seventy-one. His wife lived until the beginning of the new century. She died at the age of eighty-five, in August of nineteen hundred.

Eleanor Creesy is remembered by anyone who loves the history of the sea. She is honored²⁶ for her great skill as navigator of the Flying Cloud, one of the fastest sailing ships the world has ever seen.

(MUSIC)

STEVE EMBER: This program was written by Paul Thompson. It was produced by Cynthia Kirk. I’m Steve Ember.

STEVE EMBER: And I’m Shirley Griffith. You can read scripts²⁷ and download audio²⁸ on our Web²⁹ site, voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for Explorations in VOA Special English.

1 explorations   

探险旅行( exploration的名词复数 )； 搜寻； 考察； 勘探

参考例句：

• Our underwater explorations also helped to confirm the theory. 我们的水下考察也有助于证实这个理论。
• The geographical explorations had revealed the inadequacies of the existing maps. 地形勘查揭露出现有地图的不妥之处。

2 sailing   

n.航行，航海术，启航

参考例句：

• Experienced seamen will advise you about sailing in this weather.有经验的海员会告诉你在这种天气下的航行情况。
• The operation was plain sailing.手术进行得顺利。

3 known   

adj.大家知道的；知名的，已知的

参考例句：

• He is a known artist.他是一个知名的艺术家。
• He is known both as a painter and as a statesman.他是知名的画家及政治家。

4 responsibility   

n.责任，职责

参考例句：

• The safety of the ship is the captain's responsibility.确保船的安全是船长的责任。
• The matter is outside my area of the responsibility.此事超出我的责任范围。

5 responsible   

adj.有责任的，应负责的；可靠的，可信赖的；责任重大的；vi.休息，睡；静止，停止

参考例句：

• He must be responsible to me for this matter.这件事他必须对我负责。
• The police are responsible for the preservation of law and order.警察负责维持法律与秩序。

6 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

7 mathematics   

n.（用作单）数学；（用作单或复）计算(能力）

参考例句：

• He has come out in front in the study of mathematics.他在数学方面已名列前茅。
• She is working at a difficult problem in mathematics.她在做一道数学难题。

8 complex   

adj.复杂的，合成的，综合的；n.联合体

参考例句：

• What he said was too complex for me to understand.他说的太复杂了，我无法了解。
• Justice is part of the complex machinery of the law.正义是复杂的法律机器的一部分。

9 learned   

adj.有学问的，博学的；learn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He went into a rage when he learned about it.他听到这事后勃然大怒。
• In this little village,he passed for a learned man.在这个小村子里，他被视为有学问的人。

10 extremely   

adv.极其，非常，极度

参考例句：

• The film is extremely good,I just cannot miss it.这部电影太精彩了，我非看不可。
• The old man was extremely difficult to get along with.这个老人极难相与。

11 added   

adj.更多的，附加的，额外的

参考例句：

• They have added a new scene at the beginning.在开头他们又增加了一场戏。
• The pop music added to our enjoyment of the film.片中的流行音乐使我们对这部电影更加喜爱。

12 crew   

n.全体船员，全体乘务员；vi.一起工作

参考例句：

• A captain controls his ship and its crew.船长管理他的船和船上的船员。
• The captain kept his crew at a distance.船长与他的船员总保持一段距离。

13 evident   

adj.明显的，显然的，明白的

参考例句：

• It's evident to me that they have no experience in this work.在我看来，他们干这项工作没有经验是显而易见的。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

14 log   

n.记录，圆木，日志；v.伐木，切，航行

参考例句：

• They log for a living.他们以伐木为生。
• And then what do you do with that log?然后你要拿那些记录做什么呢？

15 equator   

n.赤道，（平分球形物体的面的）圆

参考例句：

• Singapore is near the equator.新加坡位于赤道附近。
• The United States is north of the equator.美国位于赤道以北。

16 reckoning   

n.结帐；(喻)算帐；惩罚

参考例句：

• Phelan is fit again and could come into the reckoning. 菲兰已经恢复了体力，有可能获胜。
• The reckoning up of revenue and expenditure shows a small surplus. 收支相抵，略有剩余。

17 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

18 navigating   

v.给（船舶、飞机等）引航，导航( navigate的现在分词 )；（从海上、空中等）横越；横渡；飞跃

参考例句：

• These can also be very useful when navigating time-based documents, such as video and audio. 它对于和时间有关的文档非常有用，比如视频和音频文档。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Vehicles slowed to a crawl on city roads, navigating slushy snow. 汽车在市区路上行驶缓慢，穿越泥泞的雪地。 来自互联网

19 deck   

n.甲板；公共汽车一层的车厢；纸牌；vt.装饰

参考例句：

• Let's have a walk round the deck.我们去甲板上散步吧。
• The sea wind swept over the deck.海风席卷过甲板。

20 fierce   

adj.凶猛的，残忍的；狂热的，强烈的

参考例句：

• The soldiers got ready for a fierce battle.战士们准备进行一场恶战。
• What he said met with fierce opposition.他的话语遭到激烈反对。

21 permitted   

允许( permit的过去式和过去分词 )； 许可； 许用

参考例句：

• Radios are not permitted in the library. 图书馆内不许使用收音机。
• Entrance is permitted only on production of a ticket. 出示门票才可进入。

22 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

23 toward   

prep.对于，关于，接近，将近，向，朝

参考例句：

• Suddenly I saw a tall figure approaching toward the policeman.突然间我看到一个高大的身影朝警察靠近。
• Upon seeing her,I smiled and ran toward her. 看到她我笑了，并跑了过去。

24 bay   

n.海湾，狗吠声，月桂；vt.吠，使走投无路；vi.吠

参考例句：

• I enjoy the view of the bay in the starlight.我喜欢星光下的海湾风景。
• Dogs sometimes bay at the moon.狗有时会朝着月亮吠叫。

25 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

26 honored   

adj.光荣的：荣幸的v.尊敬，给以荣誉( honor的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I hope to be honored with further orders. 如蒙惠顾，不胜荣幸。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This is a time-honored custom. 这是一个古老的习俗。 来自《简明英汉词典》

27 scripts   

剧本( script的名词复数 )； 文字； 笔迹； （一种语言的）字母系统

参考例句：

• Many felt he was prostituting his talents by writing Hollywood scripts. 许多人觉得他给好莱坞写剧本是滥用自己的才华。
• The scripts had a rather tired plot. 这部陈旧的剧本的情节是非常俗套的。

28 audio   

n./adj.音频(响)(的)；声音(的)，听觉(的)

参考例句：

• Often,the meeting is recorded on audio or video media for later reference.通常这种会议会以视频或者音频形式记录下来，供以后查阅。
• You don't even have to pay for audio programs.你大可不必为自己听这些节目付费。

29 web   

n.网，蛛丝，蹼，织物，圈套，卷筒纸；vi.生蹼，形成网；vt.织蜘蛛网于，使落入圈套

参考例句：

• The spider weaves a web.蜘蛛织网。
• You mean the World Wide Web?你是说国际互联网？