Frozen at Sea: Ships Encountering Snowstorms, Freezing Conditions, Iced-up Ports, Sea Ice and Icebergs

All kinds of freezing conditions affected ships and their crews, including ports that were iced up in winter and the hazards of icebergs and sea ice. Sea spray turning into ice made work exceptionally dangerous for crews, even causing vessels to founder, and frostbite was all too common. The sinking of the Titanic after hitting an iceberg led to improvements in safety at sea.

Over the centuries, rivers such as the Thames and Tyne, once crucial for maritime trade in Britain, froze so hard from time to time that fairs were even held on them. From mid-January 1814 the Tyne was covered in ice, and the Newcastle Courant described the thaw some three weeks later: ‘in the night of Sunday, the ice broke up in the Tyne about Newcastle bridge, happily without causing much damage. On Monday and Wednesday the masses floating down the Tyne nearly choaked the harbour at Shields; but few ships being in the port, trifling damage was done.’ Such an intense cold snap was unexpected: ‘It will be a memorable circumstance in the local history of the country, that so large and rapid a river should have been frozen to the thickness of 20 inches: and the Antiquarian Society of Newcastle have recorded the event on vellum, as a document to be referred to.’ 1 

Extensive trade took place with the Baltic nations, but because their ports froze every winter, merchant ships had to leave in good time or else risk becoming trapped and even crushed. Information about the state of ports was given in newspapers, as in March 1870 when Lloyd’s List reported that the Baltic and ‘near continental ports’ were ice-bound, causing widespread disruption, with one shipping agent noting: ‘Severe winter has prevailed in the Baltic and the Northern continental ports during the past month, and the navigation has been interrupted throughout the Baltic, where a number of steamers are now ice-bound ... In the Black Sea and the Danube the navigation has also been interrupted by ice.’ 2 The winter of 1892–3 was especially bad in northern Europe, and according to one newspaper in January 1893, shipping at Hamburg in Germany was at a standstill after a severe snowstorm: 

The harbour here is completely ice-bound, with the result that 6,829 vessels are lying at their moorings in enforced idleness, including 126 steamers, 101 sailing vessels, 600 barges, and fully 4,060 transport boats. Such a scene as is presented by the harbour is without parallel, and of course great loss is being experienced by the owners and traders. 3

The Times described several other ports that were affected: 

JAN. 16 ... The harbour of Kiel, the chief naval port of Germany, is completely frozen over, and ships can neither enter nor leave ... COPENHAGEN, JAN. 16. The island of Anholt in the Cattegat is completely cut off by the ice, and the mail boat carrying winter provisions for the island has stuck fast in the ice-pack on the coast of Jutland. Such a thing has not happened within living memory ... ANTWERP, JAN. 16. The navigation of the Scheldt only remains open for steamers with powerful engines able to break their way through the ice. Wooden ships of any description would run the greatest risk in trying to reach this port, even if towed by steam tugs.4  

The freezing point of fresh water is 0°C (32°F), but because of its salt content, sea water freezes at a lower temperature, about –1.8°C (28.8°F). Sea ice forms during the dark winters in the Antarctic and Arctic and in adjacent seas such as Hudson Bay. Initially, sea ice develops as ‘pancakes’, which then freeze together to create ice floes. Also referred to as pack ice or drift ice, sea ice floats on the surface of the oceans and constantly moves due to the winds and ocean currents (though some is held fast to the coastline). Sea ice covers several million square miles and differs in nature between the Antarctic and Arctic. In the Antarctic it is seasonal, melting from about October to March, but because the Arctic Ocean is almost completely surrounded by land, the sea does not move as freely, and so Arctic sea ice only partially melts and shrinks at the outer edges (from about March to September).5

In August 1932 one traveller watched drifting sea ice while aboard the tramp cargo ship Pennyworth, heading for the new Canadian subarctic port of Churchill in Hudson Bay. At the Hudson Strait, they were accompanied by an icebreaker: 

At times we were surrounded by drifting ice moving rapidly eastwards with the current. Several times we had to ring down to half speed or less for greater safety. Innocent enough those lumps of ice looked, many of them awash; but in salt water ice floats with only about one-ninth of its bulk above the surface. What might seem no more than a small slab that the ship’s stout plates would crush to fragments would be a formidable block that might have crumpled the ship’s bows or stove in her sides at the merest touch. 6  

Icebergs are huge lumps of ice that have broken off (calved) into the sea from glaciers or ice shelves, something that occurs with the onset of warmer weather. Composed of frozen fresh water, they are largely submerged, with only a small part visible. Most appear white in colour, while others look blue or green. Icebergs can cover hundreds of square miles, while ‘bergy bits’ are smaller, having broken off icebergs, and ‘growlers’ are smaller still. They start to melt when in contact with salt water and when drifting in warmer seas, though some can survive for years. In the western North Atlantic, icebergs pose a particular hazard in April and May. Most originate in Greenland, where long fjords greatly increase the extent of coastline where glaciers reach the sea and icebergs break off, from where they can drift south and pose a hazard to shipping.7

While steamships could head further south to avoid icebergs, sailing ships were at the mercy of the winds and more restricted in their movements. The loss in 1841 of the wooden ship Isabella nearly 500 miles south-east of Newfoundland was typical of many. Built in 1833, the 665-ton vessel traded with Quebec and was rated Æ1 by Lloyd’s Register, whose volume for 1841 has the word ‘Foundered’ stamped in the margin. The Times newspaper described what happened: 

ANOTHER LOSS BY ICE. – The ship Isabella, Meredith, from London for Quebec, was struck by an iceberg on the 9th of May, in lat. 42.2, long. 43.45. The iceberg broke through the bows, and caused the ship to fill with water so fast, that the crew had barely time to take to the boat, without water, provisions, or clothing. The ship immediately went down or disappeared in the fog. The crew continued in the boat, at the mercy of the waves, till the afternoon of the 11th, when they were picked up by the Kingston, of Hull, bound to Pictou, and kindly treated. They arrived at Pictou on Thursday last. One man, George Moore, died in the boat.8   

It was relatively unusual to have survivors who could give accurate details about a ship hitting an iceberg. As ships became larger, with continued safety improvements, confidence grew about their ability to avoid hazards, and in 1893 one newspaper even stated: ‘Mid ocean on a liner is the safest place in the world after all, as shown by the fact that only one passenger in every 2,708,333 was lost. Seagoing is by this calculation safer than railways or any other form of travelling.’9 That complacency was wrecked when the White Star Line’s ship Titanic struck what became the world’s most famous iceberg just before midnight on Sunday 14 April 1912 on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic to New York. She sank less than three hours later. 

That April, there was a significant amount of sea ice and icebergs below the latitude of 48°N, but it was not exceptional, and the iceberg struck by the Titanic had probably broken off a glacier in a fjord of south-west Greenland a few months earlier. Before the era of wireless communication, information about dangerous ice was passed from ship to ship whenever they met, and the information was also shared in ports. The Titanic had the new Marconi wireless telegraphy system, and although several warnings were received from nearby ships about icebergs and sea ice, there was no system of prioritising emergency messages. The temperature had also dropped significantly, but perhaps because the Titanic was deemed virtually unsinkable, the warnings were not heeded. When the ship sank, some 1,500 people died in the freezing conditions.10 

So shocking was this tragedy that it led to global changes in safety and navigation at sea, including the adoption of the Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) in 1914. In 1913 the International Ice Patrol (IIP) of the United States Coast Guard was established to collect data on icebergs and sea ice in order to prevent another major disaster. This Ice Patrol still operates, but tracking of icebergs is done from the air and by satellite imagery. The U.S. National Ice Center (USNIC) monitors and forecasts ice and snow at sea, including the naming and tracking of Antarctic icebergs in excess of 20 square nautical miles.11 

Antarctica is a land mass that is largely covered by ice sheets and is completely surrounded by the Southern Ocean, so that the sea ice moves freely before melting in warmer waters. At the continent’s edges are vast ice shelves, from which icebergs break off as the weather becomes warmer. To ship crews, icebergs and sea ice were equally perilous, and when rounding Cape Horn the presence of icebergs could force vessels towards the treacherous coast.

The 1890s were especially severe in the South Atlantic for the number of icebergs and the amount of sea ice that drifted northwards towards Cape Horn and the Falkland Islands.12 The Wanderer, a four-masted steel barque, was immortalised by John Masefield in his The Wanderer of Liverpool, published in 1930. Built at Liverpool in 1890, she was launched the year after, but her disastrous first voyage was abandoned. Finally, in November 1891, she set sail for San Francisco and in August 1892 left that port with a cargo of wheat.13 Captain Brander subsequently reported that in October they had encountered icebergs:    

After rounding Cape Horn had north wind and very cold in lat W. On Oct –– sighted icebergs for three days. Ship surrounded with icebergs, fields of drift ice, some bergs very large and many level with the water, most dangerous to ships running in at night ... I had to heave to for three nights, could not see way to clear it. 14 

In 1906 James S Learmont became master of the Bengairn, formerly the Pass of Brander, a four-masted steel barque built in 1890. In August 1908 they left the port of Antofagasta in Chile with a cargo of nitrate, rounding Cape Horn in a blizzard. By 1 September the Bengairn was south-east of the Falklands heading east-north-east, but that evening Learmont was summoned by the mate: 

As soon as I came on deck he very quietly said, ‘Ice ahead, sir.’ Without hesitation I gave the order ‘Wear ship!’ ... and as she came round we in the darkness could see lumps of ice floating under the quarter. As soon as we got her round the topgallant sails were furled, the courses were hauled up and we stood away to the S.W. close to the wind.15   

They were now heading away from their intended course, and Learmont stayed on deck until early morning, when he left the mate in charge. Soon after he was called back and once again they narrowly avoided a collision with another iceberg, this one about 2 miles long and 400 feet high. An east-north-easterly course was resumed: 

When day broke the scene that met our eyes was one that I will never forget. The horizon was studded with huge ice-islands stretching away from north to south east ... Ice that breaks away in the Antarctic is quite flat when it leaves the Barrier. After months, perhaps years, of drifting, in the process of melting the bergs or islands alter in shape. Some of them were reared towards the sky, while others were listing as if they were going to turn turtle.16 

With gaps still visible between the icebergs, Learmont decided to try to push through quickly, but it took an entire day before they were clear of the ice. Claude Woollard commented on a similar experience as an apprentice on board the Penrhyn Castle in March 1903: ‘These bergs ... take their yearly toll of stout ships and human lives in their attempt to round the Dreaded Cape. Lloyd’s Overdue and Missing list gave the names of these, scores of them, year by year, for it was by no means an uncommon fate of a sailing ship to founder with all hands at the foot of an iceberg.’17 

The Panama Canal allowed steamships to avoid the potential dangers of ice around Cape Horn, and the development of metal hulls and steam power were great improvements, but the tragic sinking of the Titanic showed just how dangerous ice could be. Conditions on board vessels of all sizes were also affected by freezing temperatures and snowstorms, including sea spray instantly becoming ice. Newspapers often carried stories of remarkable survivals, as happened in February 1894 with the fishing schooner Carrie W Babson, 85 tons, from Gloucester, Massachusetts: 

When off the Newfoundland coast the thermometer fell to 20 degrees below zero, and the vessel became covered with ice. The rigging, sails, and nearly everything else became sheets of ice, so that the sailors could do nothing with them. The bobstays got broken in the ice, and the extra weight broke the jibboom and a portion of the bowsprit ... The crew could do nothing with the ship, which was so weighted down with an immense belt of ice that she was held down on her side and could not be righted.18  

Once warmer winds were met with, the ice started to thaw, and the crew managed to right the vessel and return to the port of Gloucester, though two men who had been swept overboard were never found. 

A worse weather system occurred in the Atlantic five years later, in February 1899, as reported by The New York Times: ‘Three large vessels besides some minor craft, went ashore yesterday in this vicinity, several came in from sea heavily encrusted with ice, and others were dragged hither and thither about the harbor with the ice floes, which moved with the ebb and flood of the tide.’ One vessel was the Fürst Bismarck steamship of the Hamburg-American Line, whose chief officer (William Muller) said that two days earlier, the temperature was 19 degrees below zero: ‘The windows of the wheel house became incrusted with ice and it was necessary to break them out in order that the man at the wheel could see and hear the officers on the bridge.’ The newspaper report described the ship’s arrival: 

As she came up the bay, she presented an unusually brilliant spectacle. Her hull was armored with ice; bulwarks and rails were swollen to an abnormal thickness, her bridge, rigging, and top hamper generally were massive in frozen spray, and although only ice incased her, it was so white that she looked as though a heavy clinging snow had fallen upon her.19

Even in the safety of port, disasters could occur. The New York Times related how this same storm affected the liner Germanic: ‘The overdue White Star steamship Germanic came in yesterday also, and she, too, was coated with ice. Hull, rail, boats, bridge, and rigging, and far up the masts, all was ice. She looked like a visitor from the arctic regions. It was estimated that there were at least 500 tons of ice on her.’ The vessel had a starboard list, and once the passengers left and the cargo was discharged, coaling began, which was interrupted by further snow and ice, causing the vessel to list unexpectedly to port. Water poured in the open coaling ports, and she sank at her berth. It took 10 days to raise the ship, and it was speculated that she was destined for the scrapyard, but at immense cost she was refurbished and put back into service.20 

Being in a snowstorm was also perilous, especially with reduced visibility. In February 1899 the Cunard Line ship Etruria reached New York a day after the Germanic, missing the worst of the icy conditions, but The New York Times reported that the snow had caused trouble: ‘The snow was described by the Captain yesterday as being frozen fog. By that he meant a very fine snow that cut painfully one’s face, and so thick that one could not see more than a few feet.’21 In October 1925 the explorer Desmond Holdridge experienced similar conditions off the Newfoundland coast in the 30-foot Dolphin schooner: ‘It began to snow ... hard, tightly frozen particles, fine, that cut the face and hands. It gathered in small heaps in any lee it could find; otherwise it drove on ahead of us and it was as bad as fog, for it blotted out everything.’22 

Especially on sailing vessels, crews struggled in freezing conditions, not just with snow and hail, but also frozen sails and rigging, and the mariner Alan Villiers said: ‘Except at the wheel, no one worked in gloves, for fumbling hands aloft could send a man pitching to his death quicker than anything.’23 Even so, working without gloves, especially on iron and steel vessels, was immensely difficult in cold weather, and frostbite was common. Captain William H S Jones started his sailing career as an apprentice in the British Isles, and on his first voyage they left Port Talbot in June 1905 with a cargo of coal, destined for Pisagua in Chile. At Cape Horn he reckoned that the temperature must have been 20 degrees below freezing, since a heavy hoar frost developed all over the ship: 

In these circumstances, to touch any ironwork or wire with bare hands meant an instant and severe “frost-burn” or frost-bite, resulting in swollen and inflamed fingers, so painful as to incapacitate a man suffering from this injury, as he could no longer hold on aloft or to the lifelines on deck, or use his fingers for any kind of work. In the same way, water freezing inside sea-boots could cause frost-bitten toes, which swelled up and made it impossible for the sufferer to put on his boots, or to work any more on deck or aloft.24 

Seventeen seamen had frostbite, but Jones explained that the treatment for this condition was basic: 

These men were in agony, as there was no known cure for severe frost-bite, except to wrap the injured parts in bandages smeared with vaseline, and hope for the best. In some cases gangrene set in, and fingers or toes festered and eventually dropped off, after a prolonged period of intense pain. In other cases the sufferers slowly recovered the use of their limbs, but not for several weeks.25

To Alan Villiers, this was unforgivable, as the British Isles had plenty of coal, and the frostbite should have been treated by warming the affected limbs before gangrene set in.26

The three-masted wooden barque Huntress was built at Salcombe in Devon in 1862 and rated A1 by Lloyd’s Register. In February 1886, on passage from Vitoria in Brazil to New York, she was badly damaged by several storms, along with intensely cold conditions off  the North American coast, as newspapers reported: ‘As quickly as the water came on deck it was frozen, so that in a few days it was several feet deep on the decks.’ By the time a passing steamer took her in tow to New York, most of the crew was frostbitten and the vessel in a deplorable state, with dangerous icicles hanging from the yards: ‘she was drifting aimlessly on the ocean, her rudder frozen, her decks covered with a dome of ice, and her hull, spars, and ropes all similarly encased. The ice on deck was several feet thick.’27 

Sightings of phantom or ghost ships include some that were trapped in ice and disappeared, and others that are believed to drift endlessly, covered in ice, with their crews frozen to death. Many familiar ones have a supernatural or fictional element, and the Huntress was fortunate not to have joined their numbers. 

• RMS Titanic Facts – Royal Museums Greenwich
• RMS Titanic – History and Significance – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• The Amazing History of Icebreakers  – The Mariner's Mirror Podcast 
• Freed from the Ice: The Last Entry of the Logbook of the Whaler Swan – The Mariner's Mirror Podcast  
• NSIDC – National Snow and Ice Data Center
• Polar Portal: Monitoring Ice and Climate in the Arctic
• Changing Antarctic Sea Ice – Antarctic Glaciers
• Sea Ice: Explained – Met Office
• World’s largest iceberg grounds near sub-Antarctic Island of South Georgia – British Antarctic Survey