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The Mary Rose
265 Plays1 year ago
Music, beer, backgammon...life aboard the Mary Rose was pretty good. Until it wasn't.
If you are a fan of Killer Shipwrecks be sure to check out Killer Biographies: https://www.killerbiographies.com
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Transcript
Sponsorship by Harmony and Hanrahan
00:00:05
Speaker
Today's episode is brought to you by the law firm of Harmony and Hanrahan, who specialize in waterway litigation. Harmony and Hanrahan will get you back on the water.
Significance and Trivia of Episode Nine
00:00:38
Speaker
Episode number nine. Number nine. This is it before we get to double digits for the season. That's true. Nine is the highest single digit. You can, uh, it's the top dog among single digits. First odd, uh, non prime number. Correct. Beethoven wrote nine symphonies. Did he really? He did a lot. And you think about how long a symphony is and how many different instruments he has to write for within each symphony. That's a lot of work.
00:01:05
Speaker
Another good fact about number nine, did you know that the nine of diamonds is sometimes referred to as the curse of Scotland? Really? There's a bunch of explanations, none of which, you know, one is that there's a saying that every ninth king is a tyrant and sort of brings destruction upon the land. That sounds superstitious. Then there was some theory about a theft of some royal diamonds, I don't know.
00:01:31
Speaker
But yeah,
Listener Feedback: Blackbeard Episode
00:01:32
Speaker
so nine is good. I think we're on a roll. Well, and seasons one and two each featured 12 shows, 12 episodes. So if we were to follow that pattern, follow suit, if you will. Yeah, very good. We traded a couple of messages this week and you said, I got a good one on the line. I can't wait to reel this baby in.
00:01:51
Speaker
Before we get to it, congrats on last week's Blackbeard episode. For those who haven't listened, it was our most biography intensive of the various episodes that we've done. But in my mind, maybe the best. The stories behind Blackbeard, fascinating. And we got a lot of positive feedback. Well, we did.
00:02:10
Speaker
We did. First of all, thank you for the compliment. Second of all, we did get a lot of feedback. I wanted to run through quickly a couple of the emails. I'm glad that you've been doing that because Lizzie, I feel like hasn't checked the inbox quite as much as she used to. Well, what Lizzie said to me is that we haven't been telling people our email address.
00:02:28
Speaker
Killershipwrecks at gmail.com. Killershipwrecks at gmail.com. That's for Lizzie. Easy to remember because we're Killershipwrecks and everyone does gmail
Queen Anne's Lace Misidentification Inquiry
00:02:38
Speaker
.com. Some woman named Charlotte in England. Interesting. England. Was curious when I said Queen Anne's Lace seems to want to grow on my property and she sent me an email saying, oh, would you send me a photo, which I thought was weird. A photo of Queen Anne's Lace?
00:02:56
Speaker
Queen Anne's lace growing on my property. And of course, as soon as she said that, I knew like, okay, I'm sure I've misidentified it, but whatever. Sounds like you're being geotocated. Can't she look at the lat lounge of the photo? I don't know. So I sent a picture and I said, I, it's Queen Anne's lace, maybe baby's breath. And she said, no, and no, it's sweet Allison.
00:03:17
Speaker
Really? Yeah. So and now I'm probably mispronouncing it, probably get another email from Charlotte. But I'm less concerned with you mispronouncing more concerned if it requires me to go back and re edit anything. So let's just go with whatever. No, because if we were to start that, it's not just the flower. A gentleman who was who was also sort of persnickety, but was a little bit more gracious about it said that Blackbeard died at 38, not at 30.
00:03:45
Speaker
Interesting. Eight years differential, which is more than 20% of his life. So I guess considerable outside the margin of error. Yeah. And like I said, he said it in a nice way. He said, love the podcast, you know, all that.
Positive Framing in Feedback
00:03:57
Speaker
Like when people frame their criticism or let's say constructive criticism with something positive as well. Yeah. Unlike Charlotte. Okay. I'm not a horticulturist, you know?
00:04:07
Speaker
Wait, I'm saving the best for last.
Discovery via Golf Ball: Eduardo's Story
00:04:09
Speaker
We got an email from Eduardo in Arizona who said that he went golfing last summer on a par three course in the Traverse City, Michigan area.
00:04:24
Speaker
Are you familiar with that? Of course. Travis is in an incredibly beautiful area and also known for their Bing cherries. He says that he hit a ball into some bushes or something. He's looking for a ball. He says, look at what I found when I was looking for my ball. Sent me a photo. Guess what it was?
00:04:42
Speaker
I want to say it was that calculation coin. It was one of the 50 balls that we had made the first season with killer shipwrecks on the side. I swear of those 50, I think 30 still live in my garage.
00:05:00
Speaker
The idea that some dude found one on a par three course. That's insane. The guy had no idea what it was and he came home and Googled it and then found our podcast and has subsequently, he's a new follower. So welcome to Eduardo in Arizona. Fantastic. You know, it's a very difficult way to scale an audience in terms of like, if we're hoping that our golf balls somehow become the story of the century in terms of how we built our
00:05:25
Speaker
audience. Well, you know, one way to scale it is maybe order 100 golf balls next time. Or just do better podcasts. Okay. My last thing about Blackbeard.
Pirate Ship Names Humor
00:05:34
Speaker
So it was the Queen Anne's Revenge. And we talked about the fact that it was a pretty obvious name. Little bit. It's like, you know, okay, here we come. We're angry. We're the we're gonna get revenge.
00:05:42
Speaker
And you mentioned that ship that was called the Bad Meeting. Yeah. That's brilliant. That's a great name for a pirate ship. I agree. I would love to meet the guy who came up with the name and wonder if he had the same satisfaction and like nailed it and we're going to be the Bad Meeting.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah. Because that's super cool. Yeah. He watched them painting Queen Anne's Revenge on that one. He's like, someday when I get a boat, I'm going to know how to name it correctly. He was sitting there for weeks, doing the mundane tasks on the ship, just running through the names. Pretty good meeting, not that good meeting. Was he telling the guys who had no teeth, like, guys, do you get what it means? It's going to be a really bad meeting. Brilliant name.
00:06:26
Speaker
Yeah. So you think maybe he focus grouped it, ran it past the crew. I would say he probably pitched a variety of versions and then it was it's like a 70s rock band. It's like, hey, guys, are you going to see a bad meeting? I imagine him saying, like, OK, here's the name, bad meeting. What do you think? And one guy's like, I don't love it. And he just blows his head off.
00:06:44
Speaker
Like, that's how focus groups work out. That's how that meeting went for that guy, which was beyond bad. All right, but so here's the thing.
Mary Rose: Historical Context
00:06:51
Speaker
You did a great job, and Blackbeard, I believe, had English roots. True. So that took me to where we are today. And today's ship, we are going back to England.
00:07:03
Speaker
Oh boy. So let's just put our mind around that for a second. Okay. We're going to be in England and the year as we now build the context is 1545. 1545. Okay. You know, we're approaching 500 years. Yeah. So very early.
00:07:18
Speaker
Right. This is a long time ago. What's going on in 1545? You know, so 1545, that's when the ship actually sank. Okay. Okay. And it's in England and I'm not a big English history person. You know, this isn't my area of expertise, more of an early American history guy. In America, the 1540s, you've got DeSoto. He's meeting up with Spaniards and they're kind of getting into these battles with Native Americans. So it's a little crazy. Yeah. Down Florida way kind of thing.
00:07:44
Speaker
Yes. Today is Alabama. Okay. Great. 1545. Wait, I was going to say one other thing going on in England. Okay. The other important number to remember in relation to 1545 is like 1492. Isn't that when Columbus goes over across the ocean?
00:08:00
Speaker
Okay, so this is 50 years into the, you know, the big, exciting explorations of the New World. That's exactly right. So framing it nicely, it's a 50 years after Columbus, but the story actually starts even closer to that 1492 time period, because when you consider England in the late 15th century,
00:08:23
Speaker
They had been battling France, they had had all these issues. God, it feels like they're always battling France. Totally. Those two don't get along. Back then, you also had what was known as the War of the Roses, which was the Civil War in England. Yeah. That's the houses of York and Lancaster. And my point of even bringing that up is that it ended with Henry VII and the establishment of the House of Tudor.
00:08:47
Speaker
So the House of Tudor became the new ruling dynasty, and that's where we are. We're going to be in the House of Tudor period. Okay. Henry VII, that's not the guy with a billion wives. That's Henry VIII. We're going to get to Henry VIII. Okay. 1545. Let me just also say probably like a plague or some pestilence and things.
Henry VIII's Naval Expansion
00:09:08
Speaker
All kinds of problems.
00:09:09
Speaker
So in England at the time, not a big naval presence. Really? Like from 1422 until 1509, they had about six ships. 1509 is when the person you mentioned, Henry VIII, becomes the king of England in 1509.
00:09:24
Speaker
Yeah, we're not going to go down the Blackbeard level of biography. Thank God. Yeah, good job. Let's get back on track where this is a show about shipwrecks. So yeah, it's not gonna be all about Hank, but it is important to understand the context of him or the eighth became king of England. If you don't know him, and he immediately
00:09:42
Speaker
recognize that their Navy was not up to par. Yes. Okay. Now what you mentioned was he was known for his marriages. He was married six times, you know, and I think he died in his fifties. So that's a lot. And you know what he first was married to the Spanish princess, the Catherine of Aragon. I can never remember if Aragon is a place in Spain or it's a spice. Or is it a chemical element? It could be a chemical element. Is it on the periodic table? Aragon? Is that argon?
00:10:09
Speaker
Is that what Catherine was famous for? Maybe she had discovered an element on the periodic table, and that's why Henry got interested in her. Yeah. Yeah. Like he was attracted to women of science. I could see that. She was like the Marie Curie of her town. I'm pretty sure. French. You can double check, but I think that's what it was. I will do that research before next week's episode. So no, because Henry was really desperate for a male heir, back then you really wanted a boy.
00:10:34
Speaker
you know, just in terms of keeping the name or who knows if you got benefits at the club anyways. So he needed to get rid of Catherine. So he wanted to get an annulment and the Pope Clement the seventh at the time, uh, was not psyched about it. So that led Henry the eighth to start the English Reformation, you know, established the church of England away from, from papal authority. So anyways, the key there is that he appointed himself the supreme head of the church and he dissolved all the convents and monasteries.
00:11:02
Speaker
Because he was huge into religious doctrine, I'm sure. And divorces. I'm sure he knew his scripture inside and out. The important thing for this pod, as it relates to Henry VIII, is that he's really known as the father of the Royal Navy. He viewed the threats of Scotland to the north and France to the south as big time threats. So he said, you know what? We need a standing Navy. So he expanded from the five ships to nearly 60 ships over his lifetime. And keep in mind, he did not live a long life.
00:11:29
Speaker
orders two very
The Mary Rose: Design and Success
00:11:31
Speaker
large ships. Oh, no, here we go. This feels like he's gonna go down the Gustav train here. One of the ships is the Mary Rose. Oh, yes. Yes. And the other ship is the Peter pomegranate. Seriously? Yes, this is not made up. It sounds like a children's book like
00:11:47
Speaker
Sounds like that XTC song, Peter pumpkin. It's bizarre. It later becomes known as Peter, but it really did start out as Peter, Peter pomegranate, a lot of debate around the naming. Uh, some people think Mary Rose was named for his sister, Mary Tudor. Some people think it was a religious thing. Um, and pomegranate and Rose have some meaning in the families. I don't know. The point being that he ordered these two very large ships.
00:12:12
Speaker
He gravitated towards the Mary Rose. It's a better name. Definitely a better name. The Mary Rose was larger, which I can 600 tons, Peter Pomegranate or in the 450 range, but more importantly, they're both Carrocks, which are like these sailing type of warships. Both purpose built warships. Purpose being shopping.
00:12:32
Speaker
Well, not commerce, but shopping for victories. The Mary Rose was of the two, the ones designated to carry large guns. She wasn't a melee ship. In other words, like the boarding stuff. She was going to have eight large guns. That's a great term. There's a term, melee ships. It comes up all the time. Nice.
00:12:51
Speaker
And so she required new design features, the gun ports. So she was going to be more state of the art. We can launch cannons. You say gun ports. I get nervous. I hope they made them higher above the surface of water than. When I say we've been down the shipping lane before.
00:13:07
Speaker
Unfortunately, given the name of the show, this is going to happen. But a lot of people think Henry the eighth, again, we keep talking about Henry. A lot of people think Henry the eighth was actually part of the design team. And that's why he was so invested in it. Kings need to stay out of the boat building. Like write the check. Don't, don't sit down at the draft, uh, at the drafting table. You know, you're a king.
00:13:30
Speaker
I agree. Stay in your lane. Focus on a male heir. Let the shipbuilders do what they do. Constructing the warship, the Mary Rose, is a huge undertaking. Everyone knew about it. It took two years. When it was finally completed in 1511, one of the things that they decided was, you know what? This looks like it is quite the ship.
00:13:52
Speaker
And Admiral, there's an admiral named Admiral Howard in 1513. He says, you know what? We're going to race the Mary Rose along the coast of Kent and we're going to test the Mary Rose's abilities and we're going to race her against all of our other ships. Cool. I like the cut of this guy's jib. And here's the thing. The Mary Rose finished a half a mile ahead. Wow. Of the next fastest ship.
00:14:18
Speaker
Okay. Okay. So this is not a Vasa ship. This is not a ship that like 10 minutes after it launches, it's at the bottom of the ocean. It was declared the noblest ship of any great ship. Okay. This, this was the ship. It was the ship and it was the ship. It really was. And so Henry VIII feeling really
Renovations and Stability Issues
00:14:37
Speaker
good about it. Yeah. He's also under this pressure to have a son. So he marries Anne Boleyn and you may remember things don't go well.
00:14:45
Speaker
for Anne Boleyn. I do. She has like an aunt named Anne Boleyn or something who is like a 17th cousin once removed or some crazy thing for me. Well, I don't mean to drum up any family history, any family drama, and I certainly don't mean to uncover any family secret.
00:15:04
Speaker
I have a vague memory that things don't work out well for the anvil in your reference. This is all public knowledge. This is not me digging into your family history. And and ends up getting executed. Bottom line is the very day after she was executed, Henry, who's 45 at the time, gets engaged to one of her ladies in waiting or whatever, a woman named Jane Seymour.
00:15:27
Speaker
Her name is not Jane Seymour. That's a TV actress. Okay. This was before she was Dr. Quinn, medicine woman. This was Jane Seymour who, you know, by the way, Jane Seymour, who's also English and had four husbands. So who knows? Well, also I feel like maybe in a past life, the current Jane Seymour was Henry VIII. And so she's still working out all the trauma around all the marriages and everything.
00:15:50
Speaker
But here's my next question. So he had, he had the morning period down to a tight 24 hours, basically when he would, it was definitely less, but probably a solid 12 kind of a sundown to sun up while he's sleeping. We'll just count that for 12 hours a morning. Can we get rid of the morning snacks? Uh, I didn't said morning. I mean morning MOU, can we get rid of all this food people brought over? I have a new bride. She doesn't want to be inundated with snacks.
00:16:16
Speaker
And so Jane ends up having a son and that was Prince Edward and he did become King, albeit when he was nine years old. But here's the thing I will say about Henry. I just think of very portly and like he's always got like, he's like the, um, you know, the guy at the Renaissance fair with like the huge leg of mutton or something. And he's just gnawing on it. Exactly. And like fat hands with the rings on them and stuff, you know,
00:16:42
Speaker
And you're not incorrect. The interesting thing is he didn't start out that way. So when he became king, like he was very fit. He was very athletic. He was very striking. He became incredibly portly. Like he sort of became the glutton you described. And we're not going to make this episode about Henry VIII. Suffice it to say he did become obese. His waist was rumored to be more than 54 inches. These are 34s and these are loose.
00:17:08
Speaker
Now, how does that stack up again? Who was the American president? You're thinking of Taft, William Taft. Taft. They had to have like the double wide bathtub. So how do you think the Henry waistline matched up against Taft?
00:17:22
Speaker
You know, I'm not an expert in that area, but what I will say in my research and I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on Henry VIII is later in life, he had to be moved with mechanical devices. No, he didn't. He was also filled with pus-filled, painful boil, which to me sounds both unattractive and incredibly painful. And then they're saying on top of which he probably suffered from gout. So he didn't have a great ending. I'm sorry, but the gout is the least of his worries.
00:17:50
Speaker
Sounds like a thoroughly unappealing guy by the end. Um, not good at the end. So let's get back to the Mary Rose and she represented, you know, this sort of milestone, right? Because as mentioned since ancient times, most of the battles were fought on land or on other battleships and melee weapons, mainly bows and arrows. The Mary Rose was taking a different path, more of a gunboat. Okay. Now the Mary Rose, um, sounds great.
00:18:18
Speaker
Great. Sounds like whatever his personal failings or faults were, he did oversee the building of a great boat. Fantastic Navy. And again, he's known as the father of the Royal Navy. So the Mary Rose, though, in 1536, undergoes a major renovation. Okay, so this is about 25 years or so into her run as a warship. And she becomes like a cruise ship, like more of a tourist thing.
00:18:45
Speaker
No, she is now gonna up the ante, so to speak, with respect to her guns. So they're gonna essentially take a ship that's about 500 tons and turn her into a 700 ton ship. And they're gonna add, this is gonna sound familiar, an extra tier of broadside guns to this style ship. Does that remind you of anything? This is an extra tier. The Vasa. Exactly right. The Vasa.
00:19:10
Speaker
It does feel like these kings are always obsessed with the number of cannon they can load onto a ship. You're seeing a pattern. I'm worrying that what was great at 500 tons and was beating other boats in a race, when you add 200 tons onto something that wasn't designed for that. A lot more cannons. A whole nother level. We're talking a whole nother level of gun ports. Now I feel like this is where we're going to get into the, it's going to sink.
00:19:37
Speaker
Now it did have a low waste. Hello. We're not talking about pants style. It had a low waste of open decking in the middle. I got no problem with the low waste. If the thing's still gonna, it is still gonna run. If it's still gonna work. Yes. And that, you know, reflects the ship's use as a platform for heavy
Gunship Enhancements
00:19:53
Speaker
guns. That's sort of that style on the main deck level had seven different gun ports on each side. And they had heavy lids, which were essentially there to help it remain watertight when it was closed. Right.
00:20:05
Speaker
Boy, imagine being a French ship and the Mary Rose pulls up saying, oh boy, we're literally outgunned here. No, remember when they held that contest and it outperformed? Yeah, but that's when it was 500 tons. Correct. It was lighter. So as it became heavier, one expert was supposedly remarking about the ship as having the handling of a wet haystack.
The Mary Rose's Final Voyage
00:20:31
Speaker
Now I've never handled a wet haystack. Yeah. I was going to say, I mean, I feel like even a dry haystack wouldn't be something I'd want to steer. Would require a lot of torque or something, a lot of muscle. Well, it also strikes me that the boat is doing the same thing Henry's doing. It's putting on a lot of weight and I wonder if it's a good thing. Interesting. That makes sense. So yes, the, the guns became heavier and she was taking more of them.
00:20:55
Speaker
So they needed to put them lower in the ship, closer to the water line, because otherwise it would make it too unstable. So more gun ports are cut into the hole. Do you know had she been in battle yet before the retrofit? Oh, she had a lot of great battles. Okay. Had performed admirably. Nice. Whoa, what? Cool. Did you hear a ship boat? Yeah, that was interesting.
00:21:19
Speaker
The ship bell is a signal that it is time to hear from our sponsor. You know, we have been told that we're getting lax. Oh, okay. Let's hear from our latest sponsor, um, who Lizzie brought in, uh, our friends at the law firm, Harmony and Hanner hand. And then we will come back and continue the story of the Mary Rose. Oh, I can't wait. Also great job, Lizzie. Great job. This we're, we're loving this sponsor. Great sponsor.
00:21:43
Speaker
Nothing ruins a day on the water like getting cited for operating while impaired. This happens to you or a loved one called Harmony and Hanrahan. With offices in both Springhill and Bayport, Harmony and Hanrahan specializes in waterway litigation. This includes unlawful boat repossessions, riparian rights, disputed access points, and boats jeopardized by divorce proceedings or regulatory action.
Capsize Tragedy
00:22:08
Speaker
Harmony and Hanrahan will get you back on the water.
00:22:12
Speaker
Great firm. Not as much fun as that ship, Bill. That is genius. Again, Lizzie, great idea. The armament on the ship, a lot of iron, a lot of bronze, very different sizes and ranges. It's a little ragtag. Again, 1500s. I'm not going to say ragtag. This sounds like an impressive ship. I'm scared. I'm scared if I'm on the other side of it in battle and the broad side pulls up and those gun ports open up. I'm scared.
00:22:41
Speaker
you'll be even more scared to know that she also contemplated the boarding style really battles. So she carried a large stock of what they referred to as melee weapons. So pikes and bills. She had netting across the ship so that the people couldn't board the ship. She brought 250 longbows. Fantastic.
00:23:03
Speaker
4000 arrows, you know, so this was a ship built to sort of not only use the cannons, but leverage all of the artillery that they had on board, which included, as I mentioned, melee weapon. Yeah. And as you said, then that also affects the profile of the crew on board. So that means you can't just have the more heavyset dudes who are loading the cannons and lighting the can, you have to have the more agile people who can hop over onto another boat and raise hell.
00:23:33
Speaker
Again, if I could give you an award for predicting so much of what I'm going to tell, it's astounding, very prescient. But let's go on. One of my favorite facts about the sailors who were put on board the Mary Rose to be, as you described, the people in charge of the battle, which would be a combination of both cannon fire and prowess with a bow and arrow, melee prowess.
00:23:55
Speaker
Each sailor had a ration of one gallon of beer per day. Can you keep it down to a gallon a day, guys? That's all I asked. A gallon a day. Beer was a very important part of their diet. To provide a lot of calories was a good source of vitamin B.
20th Century Salvage Operations
00:24:12
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, it might be a good source of vitamin B, but would it be good for like aiming your arrow? I mean, if the person's half in the bag. All different tolerance levels, right? Yeah.
00:24:23
Speaker
Wow. That's incredible. A gallon a day per crew member. That was, that was the other, that's how they got from 600 to 700 tons was the alcohol. We are a great worship. We're called the Budweiser. Okay. On the 12th of July, 1545, the French set sail and they are sailing up the Sussex coast. Gotcha. Okay. That's their direction.
00:24:46
Speaker
So they have some insignificant raids, you know, sort of encounter some skirmishes and they enter what's known as the Solent, S-O-L-E-N-T, which is a straight. This is called the Solent Straight. The Solent Straight is between the Isle of Wight and I did not say right. There's no R. It's just the Isle of Wight, but it's G-H-T. Yeah. I feel like one of the, uh, did Jimi Hendrix like do a great concert there or something? I feel like the Isle of Wight is just some place where they have like a killer music festival or something.
00:25:15
Speaker
And I think the Isle of Man is where they have that crazy motorcycle race. All right, so the French are coming up. Coming up the Solent Strait. So it's between mainland Great Britain and the Isle of Wight. It's about 20 miles. The night before King Henry VIII was dining right near Seattle. Of course he was. And he appointed a guy named George Carew. No relation to Rod Carew, the baseball player. Are you sure? That we know of. We don't have time to turn this into a genealogy show.
00:25:42
Speaker
But that could be another brainstorm endeavor. Killer genealogy. So cool if Rod Carew is related to that guy. What did old Henry VIII put Mr. Carew in charge of? Felt good about him. He pointed him vice admiral of the entire fleet and commander of the Mary Rose for the next day's battle. His idea was the Mary Rose would lead the attack on the French as it came up the Solent Strait.
00:26:06
Speaker
They had the redesign by now. That was a few years in the past. So the Mary Rose has been, it's seaworthy. I mean, it works even with the added weight. So, okay. Yeah. Although not a lot written about battles since the retrofit, which finished somewhere in the late thirties. Yeah, but now it's 1545. I mean, anyway, my point is the boat seems to be working and they put, um, you know, a crack guy and a crack staff, uh, in charge of it. Mr. Caru. Everyone's ready to go. Yeah, let's do it.
00:26:35
Speaker
Truly in the battle, Mary Rose goes out there and pretty much immediately something starts to go wrong. And it leans a little bit. So water starts to rush into those gun ports that you referenced earlier. Oh no, it really is always the gun ports.
00:26:51
Speaker
It was the gun ports and it kept going, more water coming in. And as she kind of leaned over, everything started to move and come loose. There was major chaos on board. So think of like the lurk test and all that. These are like containers and like a brick oven literally collapsed and was all sliding around. Copper cauldrons, heavy guns came loose and they were slamming into the sides of the ship and crushing men.
00:27:17
Speaker
And, and not to beat a dead horse, but I would also want to know, like, has everybody already finished their gallon of beer for the day? Cause that could also affect a lot of people rushing to finish a lot of people making trades. A lot of people asking if other guys are going to finish. I'll give you my last three arrows. If you'll give me the rest of your gallon.
00:27:36
Speaker
Excuse me, I noticed you're crying. Are you going to finish your beer? Because I could... Okay, so everyone is getting crushed. There was a gust of wind and the ship just kind of rolled over. All the gun ports were open and the final nudge of wind just dipped it below the water line. So that's what happened. And it all went down. They said, very much like the Vasa. Of the 500 or so men on board, no more than 35 survive. Give me those numbers again. We have about 500 people on board. 35 survive, roughly.
00:28:05
Speaker
a lot of them were killed immediately and injured by these horrible moving objects that were everywhere and very little time the guys that were all manning the guns on the main deck they tried to get up to the upper deck but there was netting that was supposed to prevent the boarding so they could see their people like they were right there but they couldn't get above the netting they then had no choice but to get dragged down with the ship and that is awful yeah so it's a casualty rate over 90 which is not good
00:28:31
Speaker
Now one testimony of a surviving crewman, he was a Flemish fellow. He said they fired all their guns, which to me harkens back to the Sammy B. I think she was very much about firing all the guns first. That's what this ship was known for, but that she happened to just get caught in a big gust of wind and those gun ports sank. Unbelievable.
00:28:50
Speaker
Someone else said that she showed signs of instability the minute those sales were raised. I bet you that there were some French naval officers who then went home and claimed that they had done it. I'm like, oh yeah, no, we landed a couple of good hits. That's what took her down. Amazing the way you can predict exactly what's coming, because that did happen. There was revisionist histories. That's what I would do. And some of the French were like, yeah, no, no, no, it wasn't that big as two.
00:29:19
Speaker
We bombed it. I 100% would have done the same thing. I would have reported back to my supervisor. We were firing for hours and then finally she sang. One thing I will say, despite the tragedy of the Mary Rose sinking, Henry VIII's pride and joy, if you were to look at this from the cup half full perspective was actually the only loss of the battle.
Raising and Preserving the Mary Rose
00:29:39
Speaker
Like they actually won the battle against the French
00:29:41
Speaker
it just the mary rose was so woefully poorly balanced and not seaworthy given her retrofit that she sank right away but they ended up succeeding in the battle so they won the battle yeah that's cool but five hundred almost five hundred people that's a negative.
00:29:56
Speaker
That is a negative. And I feel really bad about that netting. I mean, you can see through to above where people are going to be able to dive into the water, but you're stuck underneath the netting. No, you'd think someone would have a knife like you cut the netting. Like, why wasn't there so... Although honestly, it's not like just being able to dive into the water is an automatic guarantee of survival either. I mean, I'm sure... I wonder about that Karoo guy. Any news on whether Karoo's arrived yet?
00:30:24
Speaker
He didn't make it. People claim that he had concern about the stability. You know, we have seen that threat of weight being an issue with certain ships. He had a premonition, and that premonition driven by the fact that the ship was woefully unstable in wind, yet it was a karak style ship built for wind. So it sank to 40 feet below the surface.
00:30:44
Speaker
And they quickly tried to send these salvage teams, this is sort of 1547, 1549, to raise the guns. Yeah, that's a lot of money down there on the on the floor of the ocean. Henry VIII died in 1547, and it was as late as 1549 that the last guns from the Mary Rose were brought to the surface.
00:31:04
Speaker
Oh, so they were able to, they did get some of the guns up. And you said, this is in about 40 feet of water, huh? It's about 40 feet of water, 50 to 49. And there's tidal patterns and currents, um, that occasionally would expose some of the timbers briefly in 1836, someone actually saw the timbers. So they're able to locate it, but they didn't know how to get to it. And then they lost it again.
00:31:28
Speaker
they actually found the ship in 1971. What kind of shape was it in? About 40% of the ship remained. Once they made it publicly known that they had discovered it, it got a lot of media attention and a lot of money. And so they were able to hire a salvage vessel. Great. And believe it or not, it was the same craft that was used for diving operations on the Vassa.
00:31:50
Speaker
No, really the, is this the Neptune company? It's a different company, but they use the same vessel. Gotcha. Well, you got to figure that somebody that does cause they did an amazing job with the Vasa. Incredible. And also it's like, it's not, it's a niche kind of niche kind of thing. Incredibly difficult. Yeah. And they spent four diving seasons diving 22,000 hours.
00:32:17
Speaker
which is almost 12 man years to get this ship ready to go. Coincidentally, similar to the Vasa, people had recommended putting ping pong balls. What is it with everybody like with the ping pong balls? You picture it's like the same, you know, primary school that's like sending it to every shipwreck. Hey, we have an idea. One of them is bound to take the bait. So 71, they've located it and then
00:32:43
Speaker
Four seasons they're working hard on it. 1982 they're still figuring it out and they're using the same methods as the Vasa. So the Vasa laid the groundwork for bringing this ship up. Yeah, I mean with the Vasa they brought it up and then like floated it into the harbor.
00:33:01
Speaker
And we're going to get to this. They had a lot of artifacts to extract and they decided to bring up all that content first. Bottom line is on the morning of the 11th of October, 1982, they're ready to do the final lift. Guess who was there? I think royalty. Yeah. I was going to say Queen Elizabeth. Prince Charles.
00:33:20
Speaker
She sent the prints. Charles was there as well as a lot of people and at 903 a.m. the first timbers of the Mary Rose broke the surface and everyone could see the Mary Rose after nearly 500 years. Amazing. They talk about it as a Tudor time capsule.
00:33:36
Speaker
Well, I was impressed when you were just listing all the different kinds of weapons they had on that ship. Were they able to find some of the, especially the melee weapons?
Insights from Artifacts
00:33:47
Speaker
Perfectly. Many of the cannons and the other weapons have provided invaluable physical evidence of how 16th century wars were fought and in particular weapon technology.
00:33:57
Speaker
So they have gun shields. They have small cast iron hail shot, which is unique to a certain type of weapon. They have a lot of bows and arrows, thousand that they were able to bring up. Have you ever heard of this thing? I don't know if they had it, but apparently there was a weapon back in the day called a dolphin and it was like, what was that?
00:34:18
Speaker
It's like a really heavy weight. It was like maybe round on the front and then it had a bit of a tail to it, but it was like really heavy that they would suspend from the yard arm of the attacking ship and just drop it down through the deck of the ship next to it. But the reason I ask is though they know that those things were used, but it's very rare that they ever find one of those. So.
00:34:43
Speaker
But anyway, they discovered two fiddles. They found an instrument called a shawm. It's like an early oboe for which there was no other example. Wow. And it survived under the water. It survived under the water. They found a specific drumstick, obviously for the personal enjoyment of the crew and to provide rhythm to the work, like the rigging. Rhythm to the work? Yeah, to all the rigging. Nice. To provide rhythm for it. Yeah. Well, especially because everybody's half in the bag. Everybody's drinking their gallon of alcohol.
00:35:11
Speaker
I mean, this is not a worship. This is not like the Philharmonic. I'm shocked that they found all this stuff because it was 500 years. And then also because sometimes when you have the really good preservation, it's because it's like in super cold water or it's under a lot of sand or I'm surprised that some of this stuff like like fiddles or this like proto oboe or whatever was found. That's incredible. There really are a lot of eerie parallels between this and the Vasa.
00:35:40
Speaker
The Vassa, wait, the Vassa was 1628. Right. I believe so. Okay. This one goes down in 1545. 1545. So it also had a nine men's that called Morris board scratched into the end of a barrel.
00:35:56
Speaker
No. So this is like a strategy game. They were playing. They found 11 dice. Okay. You know what? It sounds like a fun ship. I mean, it sounds like a cruise ship. It sounds like carnival. Until it sank. It sounds like, you know, they had a band, they had a lot of alcohol, they had a lot of games of chance, games of diversion. Early as dated set of navigation instruments found on the merry run. Really? Here's another callback. They found a cabin they believe belonged to what they called the barber surgeon.
00:36:23
Speaker
Now in his cabin, they found surgical tools. They found a copper syringe, which they said was for wound irrigation and the treatment of gun area. They found one of those urethral syringes for the injection of mercury, which not only did not work, but makes you go mad. So what like these guys were about to die a few hours later. Anyway, you and I both fans of dogs. No, they found the skeleton of a dog.
00:36:47
Speaker
No. The first scientifically confirmed ratter. It was a terrier. Spent his short life on the Mary Rose. They did DNA. They named him Hatch because he was found right by like the carpenter's hatch. He was a young adult male, about two years old. He had a brown coat and his skeleton is on display at the Mary Rose Museum. Incredible. It was a ratter. It would help get the rat
00:37:12
Speaker
Very few rats on board. They said he did a good job. I think three rats. Unbelievable. This is an incredible shipwreck. I can't believe they found all this stuff, especially in a straight. I think of a straight as like having some current to it. And like I just would have thought this would be spread out in a stone in a debris field miles long.
00:37:34
Speaker
And you'd think that people would be all over this. As Henry VIII, his favorite ship, it's not that far out, it's only 40 feet down. And sometimes the tide goes down and like the timber pops up, you know. I feel like we could go online, find out something about the tides, go out there with snorkeling gear and a diving bell. I can't believe they found the dog skeleton and they did the DNA test on it.
00:37:56
Speaker
wood, silk, leather, all survived. So they found a collection of 200 or so shoes, leather shoes. They found jerkins that still had powder stains on them from blasting. Parents of shoes. Yes, leather shoes. I don't know. I'm trying to picture guys on a battleship in 1545 and what would have been the go-to footwear for those guys.
00:38:23
Speaker
Whoa, whoa, I, Lizzie, so funny. I mean, she's, it's so, okay, we get it. Is that time for Terry's? It's time for Terry. So glad Terry's doing well. Let's do a quick word from Terry and then I'm going to give you the rest of the details about the Mary Rose.
00:38:41
Speaker
Whether you're thinning varnish or paint, cleaning wood stains, making moth repellent at home, or just maintaining industrial equipment, Terry's Turpentine has you covered. Terry's Turpentine has been family owned and operated since 1993. Terry's Turpentine, natural solvents of unnatural quality.
00:39:00
Speaker
Thank you, Terry. There isn't a better turpentine on the market as far as I'm concerned.
Exhibition at the Mary Rose Museum
00:39:05
Speaker
No, and I'm not an expert in solvents. So I know you're into bones. Yeah. You surprised me not only were there the little rat bones but a full dog skeleton. So I'm already happy. But if you're going to sit here and tell me there were some human bones, I'm going to tell you that they brought up over
00:39:21
Speaker
half of the crew. You've got to be kidding me. 179 people. No. 92 complete skeletons. That's insane. So they were able to do a lot of research and what they found was that a lot of the crew had rickets, scurvy, a lot of other deficiency diseases.
00:39:38
Speaker
And a lot of them also developed arthritis very early from all the heavy lifting. Part of me thinks like, well, what the hell? This boat's not going back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean. They couldn't just stock up on some decent food on the mainland. I mean, they're basically on the coast there. But then the other part of me thinks, I bet just your average Joe on the street in England in 1545 probably was not a great
00:40:01
Speaker
shape, you know? I cannot believe they found that. Wait, give me the number again. How many full skeletons did they bring up? 92. This is 500 years later. Like, Hello, what took you so long? I'm in 40 feet of water. This is my favorite shipwreck ever. I can't believe 92 skeletons from 500 years before. 179 people. 92 were just complete. Wow. Could they do DNA on these guys?
00:40:26
Speaker
They did. The only person they were able to positively identify turned out to be George Carew, the Vice Admiral. Rod Carew's great, great grandfather, I believe. Unclear. I always think when I wonder about extracting DNA from these ancient shipwrecks that they'd be like, yeah, we don't know the identity of him, but we do know that a distant descendant of his is wanted in a cold case in Iowa.
00:40:58
Speaker
No, nowadays they solve all these cold cases just based on the fact that the rest of the world is like putting their DNA online in their family tree, which, full disclosure, I did myself. So anybody in my family that's contemplating a felony, just know that. See, I'm sort of hoping the opposite. Like, Oh, I just won the lottery. I should trace all my relatives and give them a portion. Whoa, who's David? Oh, interesting. Let's email killer shipwrecks at gmail.com.
00:41:13
Speaker
I thought you were going to say it's a Hall of Famer for the Minnesota Twins. I'm like, wait.
00:41:25
Speaker
I'm shocked that Karoo is the only one. Well, you figured they didn't have records with a lot of people. I would have thought that you'd get enough DNA that you'd say, like, I don't know who this dude was, but he is related to, you know, a certain number of people in England today who've put their DNA online. You know what I mean? True. It's probably it's like, hey, good news. You're related to George group. Bad news. You're the Idaho killer. So you're coming back to Washington.
00:41:50
Speaker
But here's the thing. The analysis, unlike the VASA, no females on board. So they were able to determine that the crew was entirely male. That's the good news. That is the good news because the VASA had not just females, but children. Unfortunately, they said some of the people on the ship may be 11 to 13. I guess child labor, there wasn't the stigma about child labor back then that there is now.
00:42:12
Speaker
Yeah, it was a whole different world back then. I just imagine, like, the cabin boys, like, they were also the ones who, you know, would, like, give some scraps to the dog or were nice to the dog. You know, you picture him running around with that scruffy little... Come here on the nails, on the boards. Yeah, and the mean sailors, but, like, the little 10-year-old cabin boy, like, has a good relationship with Hatch. Laughing as he goes up the steps, like, the crude wood steps with the nails, like, getting up to the top deck. You know, cute.
00:42:41
Speaker
So anyways, they found a group of six skeletons very close together around a two-ton browns hulverin on the main deck. They believed that that was like a gun crew and they were very well muscled, so engaged in a lot of heavy pulling and pushing. Unbelievable. How do they know that they're well muscled? Based on the analysis of the bones. They somehow know that they were built up. I mean, that makes sense. You want your buff guys manning the cannon.
00:43:06
Speaker
So they found 300 longbows, thousands of arrows. So when they looked at the skeletal remains, they found a disproportionate number of men that had a certain condition with their shoulder blades, identical to a condition that modern elite archery athletes have. Get out of town. I'm not kidding. I mean, what's the thing? It's called acromial. It's a condition in the shoulder blades that modern Olympic archery athletes also suffer from.
00:43:33
Speaker
A-C-R-O-M-I-A-L-E. That's unbelievable. Wow. So they also found someone who they believe was the purser, because alongside the body, there was a chest, which you will appreciate had a large number of gold and silver coins. Oh, God. My heart opens up when I hear that. There's the chest. Shiny coins. Shiny coins.
00:43:57
Speaker
They also found fine pewter dishes, plates, a lot of spoons. You know, they found tankards, obviously all that beer, wooden bowls. So many interesting things about it, but also just the horrendous health that they were. No one in good shape, but drunk enough where they were probably fine. No, they ended up building similar to the Vasa.
00:44:17
Speaker
They built a museum called the Mary Rose Museum, basically around the ship. Fantastic. We got to do this. We got to do a trip. We hit that one. We hit the Vasa Museum. Maybe depending on whether we're physically fit at that point and feeling brave. We do a little snorkeling over the Delman Horst area.
00:44:39
Speaker
Um, but we gotta, we gotta get out and, and see these things in person. Incredible because again, some of these just require walking, a good walking shoes because there's the museums, which I think is fantastic. Like both the Mary Rose and the Vassa hold so much, you know, in terms of historical significance, given that the country was invested in these ships.
00:45:01
Speaker
incredible find this one to me this one to me beats the Vasa this one with the um I mean the Vasa has an incredible story has its own charms but just in terms of the artifacts and the skeletons the artifacts seriously they found like 15 000 art like i'm not exaggerating and the skeletons and to be able to sit there and say what their health was who was muscled who wasn't that you can tell you know they have a
00:45:28
Speaker
particular syndrome in the shoulder blades that people still have to this day from, I'm glad I didn't become a, um, elite Olympic level. Yeah. Sounds annoying. It sounds like you're a lot of adverse, but I wonder like if at night on the ship, like what I have hung out with the guys playing backgammon because you know, you think of there's 500 people on the ship or 400, they only found one backgammon. So is it like six, seven people every night? I'd love to be in that court with a gallon of beer at a backgammon. And it,
00:45:56
Speaker
Yeah. And is it like a pool table where it's like, you know, you're waiting to get in on the game and like some somebody's got to lose and then you get a shot. You would have loved hatch. It sounds like a really good dog and a good ratter. Right. You kind of saw my thunder. You know, I was really in searching around for next week's wreck. I really wanted to find a wreck with some bodies. And one of the first things that popped up is I found a wreck and they were like, yeah, they found a body on this. But it was the body of a diver who was diving on the wreck. And I was like, no.
00:46:26
Speaker
Oh, geez. That's a jump the shark territory. But this number of bodies, I cannot believe I and, you know, we always have the thing like, oh, what am I going to jump online and look into? To me, it's going to be all about the DNA from those bodies and what, you know, what they learned and, you know, have people been able to people living today been able to connect back and realize, hey, wait a minute, that was one of my relatives
00:46:55
Speaker
Now, are we teasing next week? Well, you know, that was going to be my big tease is they're going to find some bones. Right. Had never heard of the Strait of Solent, by the way. Neither had I. Yeah. Interesting. Straight. Not one of the top straights, right? Like Gibraltar or whatever. Name one straight. Yeah. Gibraltar. Gibraltar to me sets the standard classic.
00:47:15
Speaker
It's the standard for a straight. Solent feels like a little bit of it, but also ran in terms of straights. This really was fantastic. I feel like we're building a good momentum. Excellent work. Thank you for sharing the incredible tale of the Mary Rose.
00:47:32
Speaker
had everything interesting mix of of the history and the shipwreck tutor time capsule it had a little doggy it had skeletons it had the big beefy um uh henry the eight yes gnawing on the gnawing on a leg of mutton and it had the the skeletons of the gunpowder crew six guys together that kind of reminds me of like the sammy bee like this has been happening for hundreds
00:47:55
Speaker
Well, that's the other thing that connects all the shipwrecks is, like I said, you know, across time, you know, you think, Oh, this thing is one of a kind. But then when you zoom out, you're like, man, this same story keeps happening over and over. Kings trying to load up more and more guns, you know, ships that aren't quite ready to sail, like guys acting heroically trying to man the guns, but going down with the ship, you know,
00:48:17
Speaker
and playing backgammon drinking beer. What's with the backgammon? It's definitely a popular game, you know, more so than I knew. Yeah. I guess it would be like bad juju to be playing like battleship on a ship. Right. You know, you play a little Morris, you do a little strategy on the barrel or you play back. Yeah. But or just drink and look at the stars. A gallon per crew member. Great ship. Excellent work. Thank you very much. Well, let's play our outro music. We will see you next week. Sounds good.