1 Unpredictable weather
How a rogue gust could have caused the ship to capsize
The only confirmed eyewitness account from onboard the ship comes via the ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor, François van der Delft. In a letter to Charles V on 24 July 1545, he claims to share the testimony of an unnamed Flemish man “amongst the survivors” of the wreck, who stated that the Mary Rose “heeled over with the wind” and that “water entered by the lowest row of gun ports which had been left open after firing”. There is also archaeological evidence that the gun port lids on both sides of the ship were open when it sank. Could flooding and a sudden gust of wind have combined to set off a fatal chain of events?
If water flooding the gun ports was a risk, wouldn’t experienced sailors have known to close them? “In the heat of the moment, things do go wrong,” says Christopher Dobbs, one of the original diving team who helped salvage the Mary Rose (see box on page 58). “Many people will remember the sinking of the MS Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987, where the bow doors were left open – unfortunately, sometimes it’s a case of human error.”
It’s also been suggested that, when it sank, the Mary Rose’s mainsail was upwards and flapping in the wind, leading those onshore to attribute its demise to unruly weather. However, according to geographer and battle of the Solent expert Dr Dominic Fontana, that was probably for good reason. “If you’re trying to stop a ship from sinking,” he says, “the first piece of advice is to stop. If not, more water is pushed into the ship.” Cutting lines to the sail, causing it to fly up the yardarm, was one way to do this.
While the Solent can be unpredictably choppy, the chances of a gust of wind being precisely timed and monumentally large enough to blow over a warship on a hot summer’s day is unlikely. Could the Mary Rose have been sinking for an entirely different reason already?