The Levin J. Marvel Story:

WHY DID THEY DROWN?

Bodies lie in the firehouse morgue at Chesapeake Beach.

The regularly scheduled vacation cruise of the 64 year old, three masted ram, Levin J. Marvel had been dogged by a short-handed crew, hurricane warnings and delays almost from the start. On Monday, August 8, the venerable old converted freight schooner had left her home port of Annapolis with four crew (a chief, messboy, skipper, and one teenage sailor) and 23 passengers bound on a week's sail of upper Chesapeake ports. At that time Hurricane Connie was whirling over the ocean about 500 miles east of Palm Beach — certainly too remote to give skipper John Meckling or his crew any inkling of the tragedy that would end the career of the Marvel and the lives of over half its still-innocent complement of passengers before the end of the week.

After a day's drifting in light airs and a drizzling rain, the Marvel anchored in the lee of Poplar Island Monday night — Connie was then about 300 miles ENE of Nassau heading for the coast. The following morning the old vessel upped anchor and drifted on to the sleepy village of Oxford, Md., where it tied up at the ferry wharf for the night — the first hurricane alert had been posted at 2 p.m. that afternoon, and NE storm warning followed at 9:50 that night. According to the Weather bureau a severe tropical hurricane was within 24 to 48 hours away, and NE winds up to 73 mph might be expected at any time before then.

Skipper Meckling and the Marvel hesitated. At noon on Wednesday, however, the weather continued fair and light, and since the passengers were anxious to get on with the trip the Marvel got under way for Cambridge, Md., some nine or ten miles distant. She was barely away from the dock when she entered her last 48 hours remaining afloat, but if any premonition of disaster occurred aboard it was shrugged off.

How do you spend your last 48 hours of life? The passengers of the Marvel did mundane little things. Arriving in Cambridge at 8 p.m. in the evening, some went ashore to wander around the town, a few went to the movies, and most wound up back aboard late in the evening chatting in the saloon and drinking coffee before turning in for the night. The next morning ... but let half-owner and skipper of the Marvel, 37-year-old John Meckling tell about it.

"We got up the following morning (this was the last sleep Meckling was to have until after the tragedy) and the weather was wonderful ... at 9:00 we had the radio on and got the Coast Guard broadcast and the weather for the day and for the next 24 hours. The hurricane warning had been lifted ... (and) Hurricane Connie had turned westward and was going inland and was going to miss the Chesapeake Bay area completely ... and we were to expect here at the most, northeasterly winds from 10 to 25 mph. ..."

"So that ... was a very favorable report and everyone was overjoyed that we were going ot be able to get out of Cambridge and go on with the rest of our trip. ... I was a little hesitant at the time ... (but) the weather stayed the same, and the news broadcasts kept coming favorable, and the passengers were a little unrest(ful) and were saying, 'Let's go, let's go,' and around noon when the weather was favorable ... I said, 'Well let's go on up the Bay and possibly get into St. Michaels,' which we had missed on the way. And with that in mind, just shortly after the noon meal we got underway from Cambridge and dropped on out into the Choptank and headed for the Bay."

Throughout the time surrounding this decision, the captain relied only on his radio, and while it was true that the hurricane alert had been discontinued, the Marvel put out in the face of NE storm warnings which were displayed in plain sight at the Cambridge Y.C. and were being relayed throughout the state on a five station radio network. What of these flying flags of omen?

Meckling scarcely observed them. Later he said he saw "something flying" at the Cambridge Y.C., but could not identify what flags they were or state what a NE storm warning looked like in flag hoist, except that it was a "flag with a black dot in it." In addition, he later admitted that he had never taken a course in seamanship or navigation, held no ticket or license and never made his own estimations of the weather in the fashion of most seamen, but relied on his radio so exclusively that he didn't always carry a barometer on board. "There's a time delay" between weather and a barometer's reaction, he said, not taking into consideration the delay between Weather bureau observations, formulations, transmission of date and final broadcast much later.

Yet even with these casual methods of observing weather, he had been reluctant to sail. Why then had he given in and gotten under way? We can only guess.

He had on board 23 passengers who had paid good money for a cruise they wanted to continue. City people, most of them, they had a city person's faith in the vessel — the same kind of faith they had in subways, busses, airplanes, running water and flushing toilets. The vessel was large (179' overall, 183 tons) and the weather was fine — in their inexperienced eyes there was no reason to stay in port.

Their unrest and pressure focused on Meckling, a good looking young man with a lot of responsibility and not too much experience. He had begun sailing in 1936, had crewed on a few Great Lakes yachts, sailed small boats and put in time in the C.G. during the war although he served mainly below decks as a fireman second class. With only one previous season's experience on the Marvel under his belt, it can be concluded that he too possibly saw little reason for caution. Whatever misgivings he had, he yielded to the passengers in his decision and left Cambridge, the last port many of them were ever to see. A pleasant, quiet town.

Shortly after the Marvel left Cambridge, the passengers got the urge for a swim, and the vessel lay to while they enjoyed the waters of the river. A shower was rigged on deck for them, and everyone had a good time. A small yawl boat was dispatched to Oxford to pick up additional food supplies, and when it returned, the Marvel resumed her way down the wide Choptank River heading for the Bay itself.

"It got dark a little early that evening, and the skies had clouded over but not to the extent where it was going to be a threatening situation. The winds were still very light — maybe at the most 10 or 15 mph," Meckling's story continues.

"We had a delightful sail that evening. There were stars. There was no moon, but there were definitely stars out, and everyone was on deck admiring the beautiful Milky Way that was displayed that evening. It was really a delight, and as we swung on a northerly course on up off Tilghman's Island — heading up towards Poplar Island and Coach's Island — the weather was very, very wonderful."

Even then the Marvel was ghosting slowly into what would prove a hopeless position. Behind her lay the last good, nearby shelter from NE winds which were now beginning to build up as the NE storm warnings had been predicting since Tuesday evening two days earlier. To leeward was the empty Western shore of the Chesapeake with its nearest refuges 13 miles approximately NxW (West River) and 21 miles approximately SxW (Patuxent River) unless you wish to include the Eastern Shore's Little Choptank River directly over the Marvel's stern 11 miles distant approximately SxE. Dead to leeward there was no conceivable hurricane hole unless you consider the negligible indentation of Herring Bay on the Western shore, an anchorage exposed to winds ranging from SE to NNE, or precisely those winds which had been predicted in gale force for over two days now.

What was going on aboard the Marvel? "... the passengers mostly bedded down sometime around 1 p.m. or so, and we continued on our way up the Bay and holding it so close to the breeze — a very light breeze, and we had very little headway, and we were making possible about two knots, so you can see — we were a very slow moving thing. ... the winds toward morning began to get gusty. We could see these cloud pillars building up eastward of us, and I remarked to two other members of the crew that it looked like we were going to get some rain after all, even if Connie was going to go her way westward."

Actually Connie was recurving that night and early morning and heading approximately toward the Marvel. Meckling did not listen to the radio during the wee hours because he didn't want to disturb the sleeping passengers, but if he had he would have learned earlier that hurricane warnings had been hoisted to Delaware breakwater along the seashore and that winds in the lower Chesapeake were expected to increase to gale force on Friday, that the seas would be increasingly rough and tides above normal. Generally speaking, the entire Chesapeake area was now closer to the projected storm path than had earlier been expected, and anything might be expected to happen within the next 24 hours despite what the radio might have to say about it. Certainly the continuing Weather Bureau forecasts urged that "all preventative precautions should be continued."

How were they observing precautions and NE storm warnings back aboard the Marvel? "... just about daylight that (Friday) morning, we broke clear of (the lee of) Poplar Island and headed towards Bloody Point light, and it was there that we got our first terrific gusty condition of wind. (It) was a northeasterly breeze and it changed our course. We had to run according to the wind to get the best working condition out of the boat and out of the sails. (The Marvel was carrying stays'l, fores'l and spanker.) And as we were working our way up, it kept getting more violent and more violent. I could see then that we were not going to be able to get back (to Annapolis) and I mentioned ... that we would drop into South River and find an anchorage there. ... I suppose gusts were coming at us between 35 and 50 mph."

Meckling claimed that the Marvel could sail within 45 degrees of the wind with her centerboard down, although her ability to make this course good to windward is open to some debate. Still, South River lay almost 70 degrees off the wind and West River almost 90 so both havens were, according to skipper Meckling, well within the capabilities of a 179', 183-ton vessel operating in winds of no more than 40 mph. Events soon proved otherwise, however, and presented him with a fatal decision.

A gust of wind occurred about daylight that ripped the fores'l and threatened the rest of the gear. Meckling yelled below to the passengers to help him and his only other deckhand, 17-year-old Steve Morton, get sail off the Marvel. Several male passengers stumbled up on deck and helped the skipper perform an operation he termed, taking his "mainsheet canvas in." The fores'l proved tougher to handle because, again according to the skipper, the "wind blew out my lazyjacks."

Since the mains'l wasn't even set according to Steve Morton, since the mainsheet and canvas are two different things and since it should ordinarily take more than 40 mph of wind to "blow out" the cat's cradle of lines ordinarily known as lazyjacks, the exact nature of the deck work is a little unsure. Whatever the terminology, however, Steve Morton says they took off all sail and allowed the old ram to fall off broadside to the wind. Meckling sent the boy to try and start the motor yawl boat, a small 20' l.o.a. launch without about a foot of freeboard that was ordinarily used only in docking and undocking according to the skipper. Amid the wind and yelling, Steve dropped into the yawl boat only to discover that water had come up over the floorboards covering the transmission and otherwise making the motor unworkable.

Meckling's plan had been to push the old ram back into the lee of Poplar Island with the yawl boat, but it wouldn't run. What to do? There are two slightly differing versions given by John Meckling as to just what was running through his head as he stood on the deck of the bare-poled vessel now drifting helplessly before an ever-increasing NE wind.

Did he think about West or South Rivers now? In a radio interview later he stated, "... rather than put an extra strain on the passengers because of the list (angle of heel) the boat would develop (reaching) in that type of wind and everything, I thought, 'Well, it was going to be best for me to run before this (wind) and get into a harbor,' because apparently Connie had changed her course."

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