John Chancellor (1925-1984) Escape from Port William

Oil on Canvas
22" x 32"
Completed 26th October 1979 taking 300 hours at the easel





In John's (précised) words:

In order to establish actual sites where vessels might have taken the ground to load or discharge, I carried out an aerial survey of the north coast of Devon and Cornwall at low water, photographing any beach tucked away close on the east side of any headland which might have provided some protection from the swell. The subsequent study from the shore showed that of these selected from the air, a number were unlikely because of poor access from the hinterland or the absence of community or commerce which might have been served.

Of those selected as potential sites, the beach at Trebarwith Strand, four miles north-east of Port Isaac, was found to be a proven beach berth, known to the beaching vessels as 'Port William', and I decided to use this location for a painting.

The single berth at Port William is merely a strip of sand, barely 50 feet wide, bound on the south-western side by a 130 foot vertical cliff and on the north-eastern flank by a low rocky reef. It may have been used occasionally for general trade in the past, but I believe it was not until the quarry workers from Delabole Borethick installed mooring rings and carved a cart track round the cliff from the village to the berth that it was regularly used. I do not know the exact date of this development and I cannot therefore say when Port William first became one of the slate ports, but it is said that in 1829 the five main quarries were producing 8,000 tons annually and that the bulk of this was shipped coastwise.

In my painting 'Escape from Port William' I have endeavoured to reconstruct a situation which must frequently have occurred in the beach work on this coast – an attempt to chronicle the struggle between the master's intuition and seamanship, and the lethal and unpredictable 'ground sea' on this coast. I have featured the ketch 'Jane' of Padstow (built at Bideford in 1802 as a polacca brigantine). To appreciate fully the nature of the danger to these vessels, one needs only to have experienced grounding on a sandy bottom in a wooden vessel in the slightest of swells. The lifting by as little as eighteen inches of a loaded vessel, and the dropping of the vessel on her keel, are a sickening experience for those on board. The sand seems more like concrete and when one considers that in half an hour she will have to endure about three hundred such blows while the vessel is picking up, it is not surprising that she might make some water, with fastening started and caulking shaken out.

This is the story of a troublesome summer's day in about 1865, in the life of a little coasting ketch. To authenticate an imaginary situation such as this, it is necessary to draw on one's experience to invent the likely sequence of events and to develop the whole story from the beginning.

In the early morning when 'Jane' was towed into the berth by the village longboat, the weather was calm and fine. No sooner had she moored up and a southerly breeze began to make itself felt. Any seaman without an intimate knowledge of this stretch of coast would not be too concerned about this.

One would think that a cosier, more sheltered spot could not be found in a south or south-westerly breeze, but the master of the 'Jane' is of this coast and is concerned. He suspects that a rising sea may already be surging against the Longships, over fifty miles away to the south-west, and will be sweeping north-eastward up the Bristol Channel before long. He knows too that a full gale is not necessary to bring breakers into Trebarwith Bay and a swell into this sheltered berth.

At around 8am there is a dull thud as Jane's heel first gently touches the bottom, the point of no return. By 11 o'clock the work of loading is in full swing. The crew are working at a frenzied pace in the hold trying to keep up with the twin streams of slates reaching them. On deck light showers of drizzle are coming out of a low scurrying sky and there are signs of the ground sea building up as small breakers come in on to the beach. The cargo must be loaded and work is resumed with renewed zeal. It might be thought the human-chain method of loading slate by slate, would be slow, but in fact, with each man handling three to four tons an hour, it is amazing the tonnage which can be loaded in a short time.

As the last of the empty wagons disappears up the track and the rising tide licks at the ketch's rudder as each swell surges in, the crew, alone now, set to work battening down and preparing the vessel for sea. Everything possible must be made ready, for they know now that the Jane's departure will be a tricky business.

It is 5.15pm, an hour and a quarter before high water and this is the moment captured by the picture as the ketch's stern is lifted high on a sea. The wharp to the anchor cable can be seen leading from her stern and the master is at the mast winch, heaving on it. The hufflers' little boat is clear and running for the comparative shelter of the berth, where the longboat and the other little boat are watching anxiously. It is at this critical moment, with her stern presented to the seas, that she might 'start' her anchor, for she is not far from it now and a rope wharp does not have the weight of a chain. If this were to happen she would probably finish up on the reef, be holed and sink.

The Jane however has now just enough room to swing, and in a moment the wharp to her cable will be slacked right off and as the chain comes up tight on the windlass her stern will fly to leeward and around she'll go.

I hope this reconstruction of what must have been a fairly typical accumulation of circumstances will help to convey something of the hitherto unsung story of the men and vessels engaged in open beach work on this treacherous coast.