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VOICE ONE:
I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Shirley Griffith with the VOA Special English Program,People in America. Today, we tell about Eleanor Creesy. She helpedto guide one of the fastest sailing ships ever built.
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VOICE ONE:
The name Eleanor Creesy is almost unknown today. But in themiddle Eighteen-Hundreds she was a famous woman. Those were the daysof wooden sailing ships. It was a time before ships had engines.Cloth sails were used to catch the wind to move a ship through thewater.
A ship that sailed from New York to San Francisco had to travelaround the bottom of South America. Such a trip could taketwo-hundred days to complete. Not all ships completed the trip. Thehigh winds and angry seas in this area of the world created deadlystorms. Ships often sank. No one could survive the freezing watersin this dangerous area if the ship went down.
VOICE TWO:
One-hundred-fifty years ago, women did not receive mucheducation. Most women were expected to learn to read and write. Butthey almost never held positions of great responsibility.
Eleanor Creesy was different. She was the navigator for a ship. Anavigator is responsible for guiding a ship safely from one port toanother.
Eleanor’s father taught her to navigate. She wanted to learn thisdifficult skill because she liked the mathematics involved. Anavigator also had to know how to use a complex instrument called asextant. It was used to gather information about the Sun, moon, andsome stars to find a ship’s position at sea.
Eleanor married a captain of a ship, Josiah Perkins Creesy, inEighteen-Forty-One. It was not unusual for a ship captain to takehis wife with him on long trips. A captain’s wife often acted as anurse, which Eleanor did. But she did a lot more. Josiah Creesyquickly learned that his wife was an extremely good navigator.
Eleanor was the navigator on each ship that Josiah commandedduring all their years at sea. They were husband and wife, but theyalso enjoyed working together.
VOICE ONE:
Eleanor and Josiah Creesy are forever linked to one of the mostfamous ships in American history. That ship is the Flying Cloud. Itwas designed and built at the shipyard of Donald McKay in theeastern city of Boston. Grinell, Minturn and Company bought it.Captain Creesy worked for Grinell, Minturn. Company officials chosehim to be the captain of the new ship.
The Flying Cloud was a new kind ofship. The front was very narrow and sharp. This helped it cutthrough the water. The ship itself was narrow and long. This alsoadded to its speed. A New York newspaper wrote a story about theship when it was new. The paper said it was extremely beautiful. Theworld soon learned it was one of the fastest sailing ships everbuilt.
The large number of sails the Flying Cloud could carry increasedthe speed of the ship. It usually carried at least twenty-one largesails. The crew often added many more to increase the speed.
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It was the second day of June, Eighteen-Fifty-One. Goods andpassengers had been loaded on the Flying Cloud. The ship quietlysailed out of New York City on its way to San Francisco.
Very quickly it became evident the ship was special. Part ofEleanor Creesy’s work was to find out how far the ship had traveledeach day. This involved doing complex mathematics and usually tookEleanor several hours. The first time she completed her work, shecould 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 intwenty-four hours. This was an extremely fast speed. Few ships hadever sailed this fast.
VOICE ONE:
The captain of a ship keeps a written record of each day’s eventswhen a ship is at sea. This record is called a ship’s log. On MayFifteenth, just seventeen days after leaving New York, CaptainCreesy wrote this in the Flying Cloud’s log:
“We have passed the Equator in two days less time than everbefore. We have traveled five-thousand-nine-hundred and ninekilometers in seventeen days!”
As the Flying Cloud sailed south, each day was extremelyexciting. As it neared the South Atlantic, however, storms began tocause great concern.
For Eleanor Creesy to learn the correct position of the ship eachday, she had to be able to see the Sun, the moon or stars. This wasimpossible when the ship entered an area of storms. It was then thather greatest skill as a navigator became extremely important.
VOICE TWO:
When bad weather prevented navigators from seeing the Sun, moonor stars, they had to use a method called “dead reckoning” to findthe ship’s position.
Dead reckoning is not exact. A navigator would take the lastknown position of the ship, then add the ship’s speed. The navigatoralso had to add any movement of the ship to the side caused by wavesor the wind. But this information was only a guess. Even a goodnavigator could be wrong by many kilometers.
If a ship was sailing in the middle of the ocean, a navigatorcould make mistakes using dead reckoning and no harm would be done.However, when a ship was near land, dead reckoning became extremelydangerous. The ship might be much closer to land than the navigatorknew. In a storm, the ship could be driven on to land and severelydamaged or sunk. Using dead reckoning near the southern most area ofSouth America called for an expert.
The Flying Cloud was near land at the end of the South Americancontinent. Eleanor Creesy used all her skill to find a safe path forthe huge ship.
VOICE ONE:
Captain Creesy was responsible for the safety of the FlyingCloud, the passengers and crew. He would be blamed for any seriousaccident. Most captains did their own navigating. Perhaps no othercaptain sailing at that time would think to have a woman do thisextremely important work. However, Josiah Creesy never questionedhis wife’s sailing directions.
He would often stand on the deck of his ship, in the cold rainand fierce winds. He would shout below to Missus Creesy and ask fora new sailing direction. She would quickly do the work required fora new dead reckoning direction and pass the information to herhusband. Captain Creesy would give the orders to turn the big ship.
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The storm began to grow. The crew put out the fires used for heatand cooking. Fire was a great danger at sea. No fires were everpermitted 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 deadreckoning position.
When the storm ended, the crew of the Flying Cloud could see thevery southern coast of South America…a place called Tierra delFuego. They could see the snow-covered mountains and huge amounts ofblue ice. It was an area of deadly beauty. And, it was only eightkilometers away. Eleanor Creesy had guided the ship perfectly.
(((MUSIC BRIDGE)))
VOICE ONE:
The Flying Cloud sailed north toward San Francisco traveling atspeeds no one thought possible. On July Thirty-First, the shiptraveled six-hundred and one kilometers in only twenty-four hours.No ship had ever sailed that far in one day. The Flying Cloud hadset a world record. That record belonged to the ship, the crew, thecaptain and the navigator.
On August Thirty-first, the Flying Cloud sailed into SanFrancisco Bay. The Flying Cloud had set a record for sailing fromNew York to San Francisco. It made the trip in eighty-nine days, andtwenty-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 FlyingCloud from New York to San Francisco. This time they made the tripin eighty-nine days, eight hours. This record would stand unbrokenfor more than one-hundred years.
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Josiah and Eleanor Creesy went on to sail in other ships. Theycontinued to work as a team until they left the sea inEighteen-Sixty-Four. They retired to their home in Massachusetts.
Captain Josiah Creesy died in June of Eighteen-Seventy-One. Hiswife lived until the beginning of the new century. She died at theage of eighty-five, in August of Nineteen-Hundred.
Eleanor Creesy is remembered by anyone who loves the history ofthe sea. She is honored for her great skill as navigator of theFlying Cloud, one of the fastest sailing ships the world has everseen.
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VOICE ONE:
This Special English program was written by Paul Thompson. It wasdirected by Cynthia Kirk. Our studio engineer was Holly Capehart.I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Shirley Griffith. Join us again next week for anotherPEOPLE IN AMERICA program on the VOICE OF AMERICA.