Tom Cunliffe explains: “So Cabot has got his charter, he’s got his money, and he’s got his men - and now, we’re going to go to sea on The Matthew and find out what it really felt like out there.
Seeing her out in the water for the first time, it’s obvious that she is definitely not built for speed. But she feels like an honest boat, and she is all Cabot had, and for better or worse - from now on his fate and The Mathew’s would be inextricably linked.
So in May 1497, Cabot and his men pushed off into the unknown. And with good weather ahead of them, the crew hoisted sail in the hope of catching a fair wind westward.
[On the deck of The Matthew]
Up here now, the guys are preparing the foresail for hoisting. There’s something really interesting about this. A) it’s taking half a dozen guys to hoist what is quite a small sail. Probably always was like that - this is a labour-intensive rig and there were plenty of men available. But the second thing that is really interesting is that the sail is being hoisted from the deck.
Modern square-riggers tend to keep their yards permanently aloft. But on The Matthew, the yards are stored on deck. The sails are prepared down there, and then the whole shooting match is hoisted up the mast.
It’s tough, heavy work. But with a new crew keen to get going and put on a good show for their captain, they’d have been no shortage of willing hands - motivated to ring every knot of speed from their boat.
Once the sails were set, The Matthew would be hoping for strong easterly winds. Because of her rig, her progress is limited to sailing with the breeze. If the weather was coming from the wrong direction, the crew would be struggling to make any headway.
Even more frustrating would be no wind at all. That’s how the sea deals with you very often, looking up aloft at these sails slashing against the mast - how many times have I sat mid-ocean looking at that? Just praying for God to send me some wind. It absolutely drives you nuts. Everything is crashing and banging about because there are always waves slopping around - leftover from the last bit of breeze that you had. The sea is never quiet, the sails are banging, the ropes are chafing, you can’t get a moment’s sleep. Plus you’re going nowhere. And actually, if you are trying to get to Newfoundland or Nova Scotia across the North Atlantic, you are going backwards at 20 miles a day because that is where the current is taking you. So that is the sort of frustration and sheer agony that Cabot must have gone through when his ship was short of a breeze.
That agony would have been felt throughout the crew. And to make matters worse, compared to today’s comfort on the high seas, living conditions would have been pretty gruesome. And Rob Salvage who looks after this perfect replica of The Matthew has a good idea of what life was like.
[Below deck]
Rob Salvage: “We have these canvas cots where we sleep now very basic, but actually it wouldn’t have been like this. This would have been chocked full of stores and provisions. There would have been barrels, lots of sacks of grains and some root vegetables they would have brought - everything they needed for the voyage, and certainly, the foodstuff would have been down here."
Tom: “They really didn’t live down here at all?”
Rob Salvage: “No I don’t think so, they would have lived mostly on deck. They would have been working hard so they would have all been up on deck for many hours at a time, they would have been getting exhausted. Once they got on this ship, and once they were up-and-running, and once they got into the routine of flattening things down, going through some heavy weather, drying out, getting things sorted out, mending - that routine of daily life on board would have been all they would have thought about."
Tom: “Working in ships night and day, the men would need proper rest. But with the only real cabin of the ship taken by Cabot, the ship’s master and a priest, the sleeping arrangements would have been far from comfortable. And not only that, but the crew would have been bedding down with the livestock.
As you can see, there’s enough space for me up here - I could doss down I suppose on a quiet night, but if I had ten or a dozen shipmates it would be no joke at all. But that is how it was. You can’t imagine really, how these chaps managed to survive with this. There was absolutely no comfort at all. Let alone luxury.
If the sleeping quarters were this rough, I wasn’t holding out too much hope for the food. Bill Jones, The Matthew’s chef, has researched they’d have taken on the voyage. He’s preparing me a dish that is typical to what they would have tucked into five hundred years ago. What’s cooking Bill?"
Bill Jones: “Well I’ve got you a bit of gruel, a bit of Medieval gruel. That will be nice, won’t it?"
Tom: "I don’t know, I don’t like the sound of that. What’s in it?
Made from oat grains called groats, the ships cook would have added salt and anything else he had to hand. Stirring the whole lot into a savoury mush.
They needed ingredients that would keep for months, and in those days there wasn’t much around."
Bill: “Well of course that hadn’t discovered a lot of ingredients that we use. They didn’t have potatoes, they didn’t have tomatoes, they didn’t have chillis, capsicums and things like that. But they did have spices because they had got them from the Middle East. Things like cloves, pepper they used a lot of."
Tom: "Anything to disguise the taste of the bland ingredients."
Bill Jones: "They liked sweet stuff as well as savoury. A lot of honey was used in cooking."
Tom: "Today, The Matthew is fitted with a modern galley, complete with gas and running water. But back in 1497, cooking facilities would have been far more basic."
Bill: "They would have cooked everything on deck, and they would have had an open fire in what was called a firebox, which was a metal box that they would have had the fire in. So it would have been on the open deck, they would have had some cover if it was bad weather - everything would be done outside."
Tom: "The proof is in the porridge you might say. I’ve eaten some dire concoctions on long voyages before, so I wonder how I’ll fair this time? Well, it’s lunchtime, and despite Bill’s assurances, non of the hands up there seem to be up for having the real thing. Here goes...I’ve never had anything quite like that in my life. In texture, it’s a cross between a risotto and porridge, but in taste - it tastes great. Not too salty. I reckon if the lads ate this all the way across the Atlantic, they would have arrived well-fed, happy, and as long as the chef kept his duties going morale would have been sky high.
Keeping morale up would have been crucial on a small boat like The Matthew. When the monotony and uncertainty could drive even a season sailor round the bend.
With all the preparation in the world they really were playing a waiting game. Day after day, it would be the same old horizon, an unchanged sea, a familiar cloud pattern, and the constant motion of this lumbering boat.
[on The Matthew] These guys most have been sat mid-ocean just rolling about like this.
My first lesson in 15th-century seamanship is definitely patience, and I’m slowly beginning to understand how this ship sails.
So here we are, the guys wrestling to get the last tiniest little fraction of a knot out of the vessel - as they are taking an inch or two on the sheet here, slacking away on a brace, doing their level best to see what they can get out of the boat. And actually what they are getting is about a knot and a half. What’s that? A mile and a half an hour. You see in landman’s terms that is nothing. But look at it like this, a day at sea is 24 hours, and a knot and a half in 24 hours is 36 miles.
And that is how The Matthew crossed The Atlantic. On a bad day, she’d do 36 miles. On a good day, 100 plus. And inch by inch, mile by mile - she’d clawed her way across an unknown ocean.
When I am sailing an ocean myself I always like to show our progress on the chart to keep morale up. But The Matthew didn’t have a chart, because nobody knew where they were going. So just how did Cabot and his crew record The Matthew’s progress?
This is a traverse board. This is a method for recording the distances they were running and the courses they were steering. So every half hour they would have been putting a peg in one of the concentric rings on the board for direction, and putting a peg in the board down here for speed. There are eight rows of holes for potential one to eight(ish) knots. Many of the guys on the ship wouldn’t have been able to read or write, except for guys like Cabot, maybe the priest, educated people - and so the rest of the watchers and crew, would have been recording that critical information of course and speed on this board.
As The Matthew sailed West, the mood must have grown tenser by the day. 18 tough Bristol seamen, and one increasingly nervous Italian who had sold them his wild theory about the land to the West. But then, somebody would have given the shout that got Cabot off the hook, and makes every navigator’s heart soar...“Land ahoy!”.
Landfall after an ocean passage in a small sailing boat is an absolutely magical experience. You’re a long time out there. It might be for two weeks but it could easily be five or six. Sometimes more for guys like Cabot. They weren’t even sure where they were going to get to until they arrived. Finally, he sees a coast like that [looking at Newfoundland], and he thinks to himself have I made it? Is this it? Is this where I make my name? He wasn’t to know. But what he did know was the wind was perhaps dying on him like this, so often does at the end of the day when close to land. He could settle down, let the boat drift, let her roll. Be at peace, knowing at least for now, he’s arrived somewhere new.
After 2000 miles, a month at sea, The Matthew arrived somewhere that is now known as Eastern Canada. They then sailed along the coast only to find an endless wilderness that stretched out for miles in either direction. They ventured ashore just once, but there was no sign of the Native Americans whose lives would ultimately be so disaster affected by the discovery.
Cabot decided to call it Newfoundland, a name which still stands today. With suppliers running out, he still wanted to make sure he could make it back to Britain with the triumph news that he discovered a new continent. So just after three days, the order was given to bring the ship around. This boat, The Matthew, has bravely brought them all this way and now they were ready to return home. Having claimed what would become North America for Britain, as Columbus had claimed the Caribbean for Spain.
By the time Cabot and his crew got back to Bristol, I wondered just what their mood would have been? They’d discovered the country that would one day be Britain’s most influential colony. But they weren’t exactly weighed down by the spices, gold and silver Cabot had promised.
Well, I’ve been for a sail on The Matthew. I’ve stepped off her and have some incline now to what it must have been like to cross The Atlantic on her. But, he didn’t come home ladened with the pearls of the Orient did he? I wonder if by the standards of his day if the voyage was considered a bit of a damp squib?"
Dr Evan Jones: “Well yes. As you say, they were looking for China, they came back and all they found was North America. I’m mean what use was that? So, it didn’t make any money at the time but by the end of the 16th century the British Empire was being founded, the voyage began to be recognised as England’s first attempt to establish a maritime empire. Later on, 16th century, 17th-century people became very interested in these voyages as an example of that.
And today, we’re standing here by Cabot Tower. This was built in 1897, just one of the monuments built to celebrate what at that time was seen as a great imperial achievement."
Tom: “Looking out over the harbour from which The Matthew set sail, today Cabot Tower is only one of the landmarks commemorating Bristol’s favourite adopted son.
But what happened to Cabot?
Having found the land he wanted to learn more about this great continent to the west and set out on another far bigger expedition. This time, he was never heard of again.
But his discovery was the beginning of a new era, and it was The Matthew that took him there. This boat opened the door to an unknown continent. A voyage showed Britain a world beyond her shores and started a thirst for knowledge and exploration that would change this island and the people that live here forever."