SAO JOAO BABTISTA
Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 4:32 pm
She was built under the name SAO JOAO BABTISTA in 1621 on the Dockyard at Goa of Indian teak.
The Portuguese built many of their merchant ships in India. Timbers were scare and expensive in Portugal, and teak built ships were better and longer lasting than oak built.
An other reason was that ships built in Goa were cheaper due to labour cost.
The SAO JOAO BABTISTA was an Indiaman with a broad beam and a high poop and forecastle.
Her armament consisted of 18 guns, mounted on the forecastle and poop.
Crew around 150 men, and she sailed out on her maiden voyage on 1 March 1622 from Goa under command of Pedro de Morais, also on board were around 150 passengers including women and children, priest, soldiers and Indian cargo.
The holds were filled with spices, saltpeter, silks, cotton, pierce goods, carpets and hardwood; the deck was piled high with deck cargo.
When she sailed from Gao it was already late in the season, mostly the Portuguese vessels left from Goa around Christmas to miss the storms by rounding the south coast of South Africa and Cape of Good Hope.
By rounding Cape of Good Hope she was sighted by two Dutch merchantmen the MAURITIUS and WAPEN VAN ROTTERDAM, both ships were bound for Batavia.
After she was sighted the two Dutch ships bore down on her and the two Dutch vessels attacked the heavily loaded SAO JOAO BABTISTA.
For nine days she fought a running battle, people were killed or wounded on board, and her rudder shattered, mainmast and bowsprit shot away, the hull holed in several places even below the waterline.
The ship was slowly sinking.
The long fought action carried the ships to the south, very near to the Roaring Forties, Captain Morais decided to surrender, and two wealthy merchants on board the SAO JOAO BABTISTA were send across in a boat to the MAURITIUS to negotiate the surrender.
But before she could return a severe storm get up and the SAO JOAO BABTISTA became separated from her two attackers, after a few days drifting she sighted one of her attackers but quickly lost her out of sight.
Thereafter the crew rigged a jury-mast and made two sweeps from pieces of the mast, but still the ship was a wreck and in the mercy of the sea and currents.
Land was sighted on 29 September and the next day she drifted so close to the beach that an anchor could let go.
An officer with 15 men was send ashore to protect the landing of the crew and passengers on this wild and strange coast.
Still it was very difficult to land and one boat capsized and 28 persons drowned during the landings. The landing place was between the Fish and Kei River, but till today the exact place is not found.
After they landed they built shacks for shelter, and the first five weeks they stayed there, before they decided to move on. Command was taken over by an army officer Francisco Vas D’Almada. In these five weeks all usably parts were removed from the SAO JOAO BABTISTA, including the remaining provision, and then the ship was burnt and all iron, nails and copper hidden, what not could be carried.
When left behind the bartering value of that carried by the Portuguese was reduced.
After five weeks the people still alive, decided to march through unknown land to Delagoa Bay (Lourenco Marques, now Maputo) a distance of 600 miles.
06 November, 279 people in four groups set off from their camping place, and after a voyage with much hardship, most people died during this long march, thirty-one survivors of the SAO JOAO BABTISTA arrived, all passengers died, only crew and soldiers arrived the next year around August in Delagoa Bay.
On Ciskei 1994 1r05 sg 244
Source: Stories of famous shipwrecks by Len Ortzen.
The Portuguese built many of their merchant ships in India. Timbers were scare and expensive in Portugal, and teak built ships were better and longer lasting than oak built.
An other reason was that ships built in Goa were cheaper due to labour cost.
The SAO JOAO BABTISTA was an Indiaman with a broad beam and a high poop and forecastle.
Her armament consisted of 18 guns, mounted on the forecastle and poop.
Crew around 150 men, and she sailed out on her maiden voyage on 1 March 1622 from Goa under command of Pedro de Morais, also on board were around 150 passengers including women and children, priest, soldiers and Indian cargo.
The holds were filled with spices, saltpeter, silks, cotton, pierce goods, carpets and hardwood; the deck was piled high with deck cargo.
When she sailed from Gao it was already late in the season, mostly the Portuguese vessels left from Goa around Christmas to miss the storms by rounding the south coast of South Africa and Cape of Good Hope.
By rounding Cape of Good Hope she was sighted by two Dutch merchantmen the MAURITIUS and WAPEN VAN ROTTERDAM, both ships were bound for Batavia.
After she was sighted the two Dutch ships bore down on her and the two Dutch vessels attacked the heavily loaded SAO JOAO BABTISTA.
For nine days she fought a running battle, people were killed or wounded on board, and her rudder shattered, mainmast and bowsprit shot away, the hull holed in several places even below the waterline.
The ship was slowly sinking.
The long fought action carried the ships to the south, very near to the Roaring Forties, Captain Morais decided to surrender, and two wealthy merchants on board the SAO JOAO BABTISTA were send across in a boat to the MAURITIUS to negotiate the surrender.
But before she could return a severe storm get up and the SAO JOAO BABTISTA became separated from her two attackers, after a few days drifting she sighted one of her attackers but quickly lost her out of sight.
Thereafter the crew rigged a jury-mast and made two sweeps from pieces of the mast, but still the ship was a wreck and in the mercy of the sea and currents.
Land was sighted on 29 September and the next day she drifted so close to the beach that an anchor could let go.
An officer with 15 men was send ashore to protect the landing of the crew and passengers on this wild and strange coast.
Still it was very difficult to land and one boat capsized and 28 persons drowned during the landings. The landing place was between the Fish and Kei River, but till today the exact place is not found.
After they landed they built shacks for shelter, and the first five weeks they stayed there, before they decided to move on. Command was taken over by an army officer Francisco Vas D’Almada. In these five weeks all usably parts were removed from the SAO JOAO BABTISTA, including the remaining provision, and then the ship was burnt and all iron, nails and copper hidden, what not could be carried.
When left behind the bartering value of that carried by the Portuguese was reduced.
After five weeks the people still alive, decided to march through unknown land to Delagoa Bay (Lourenco Marques, now Maputo) a distance of 600 miles.
06 November, 279 people in four groups set off from their camping place, and after a voyage with much hardship, most people died during this long march, thirty-one survivors of the SAO JOAO BABTISTA arrived, all passengers died, only crew and soldiers arrived the next year around August in Delagoa Bay.
On Ciskei 1994 1r05 sg 244
Source: Stories of famous shipwrecks by Len Ortzen.