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In the early morning hours of June 3, 1984, twenty-five years ago, the 
sail-training vessel Marques was lost just north of Bermuda sinking in less 
than a minute with the loss of nineteen young people and their instructors. 
Nine who were on deck at the time survived. Dan Parrott's "Tall Ships Down" 
provides an excellent, detailed account of the sinking, and I highly 
recommend it.

The Marques was engaged in a tall ships race. She had won the first leg of the 
race, and the second leg would take them from Bermuda to Halifax, Nova 
Scotia. While some sources attribute the loss of the Marques to a rogue wave 
or a micro-burst so fierce that no vessel could have survived, dozens of 
other traditional sailing vessels did survive the night, and the sinking was 
probably due fundamentally to the serious instability that resulted from the 
changes in rigging in the vessel's later years and also the large, open 
cargo-loading port which allowed Marques to flood rapidly after she was 
knocked down.

Many NavList members have heard the story before. Others who have not will 
recognize the name of Susan P. Howell who was lost on the Marques twenty-five 
years ago. Sue Howell wrote the very fine textbook "Practical Celestial 
Navigation" which is still available, though now a bit dated, and helped 
teach celestial navigation at the planetarium at Mystic Seaport, which was 
where I worked with her (while I was in high school and college). Don 
Treworgy, who navigated the first leg of the race and left at Bermuda, has 
continued teaching celestial navigation at Mystic Seaport using Sue's book 
for all these years. The memorial fund established in her name, funded by 
revenues from her book, has helped finance the "Celestial Navigation 
Weekends" in 2006 and 2008 which I have organized as well as a couple of 
seminars on lunars in 2004 and 2005.

If you've been to the planetarium at Mystic Seaport, recently re-named the 
"Treworgy Planetarium" in honor of Don's decades of service there, you've 
probably noticed that the planetarium classroom is named the "Susan P. 
Howell" classroom. There is a coincidence in naming a few buildings away. The 
apothecary exhibit at Mystic Seaport was named to honor Dr. Natalie Sheldon 
who was lost in the sinking of the sail-training vessel Albatross under 
remarkably similar circumstances back in 1961 (this sinking is also discussed 
in detail in Dan Parrott's book).

As I was driving through Chicago today, I was approaching an old landmark 
church on Ashland Avenua, built in 1869. Their carillon was playing a hymn 
which I thought I recognized over the sound of traffic. As it came to an end, 
I knew the words... "for those in peril on the sea." I can't say why they 
were playing it, but it was fitting for my memories.

-FER




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