Coast (2005) s08e06 Episode Script
All at Sea
This is Coast.
You never master the sea, but you can work with her.
Rope and canvas can take you anywhere.
Every voyage is an adventure.
Now the Coast crew are casting off.
While l soak up the drama of competition on the waves .
.
historians Ruth Goodman and Nick Hewitt relive the sea's darker days when our briny depths concealed weapons of war.
There was a time when British waters were infested with German mines.
HEWlTT: This is a Soviet Foxtrot submarine, so if the Cold War had gone hot, they planned to swamp the North Atlantic with hundreds of these boats.
NlCK: Mark voyages back to the days of sail for a scandalous tale of savagery at sea.
This was a case of cannibalism, but even though the men had killed one of their crew, they fully expected to walk free.
NlCK: And l'm eating up the opposition in the toughest race of my life.
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
On thisjourney, we're all at sea.
l'm embarking on a circumnavigation, not of the globe but the lsle of Wight.
This stepping stone in the Channel is the perfect base for adventures all at sea.
The island's world-class sailing has a right royal reputation.
King Edward Vll became Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron while he was the Prince of Wales.
Edward's mother, the Queen, had fallen in love with the lsle of Wight.
''lt's impossible to imagine a prettier spot.
'' That's a quote from Queen Victoria.
She and her husband, Albert, were so taken with this pretty spot, they bought the land and built themselves a summerhouse.
Built in 1 85 1 in the ltalian style, Osborne House was the royals'holiday home where Prince Edward got his taste for competitive sailing.
And that's why l've come.
l'm told his mother's regal residence affords majestic views of the Solent, where my own sailing challenge awaits.
That's the Solent, the stretch of water between the island and the mainland.
Very shortly l'm going to be down there in a 40-foot yacht taking part in the Round the lsland Race.
lt's enormous.
There are 1 ,600 yachts taking part.
And unusually amateurs can race against professionals.
l'm very much in the amateur camp.
l'm nervous and l'm excited.
Sail Sail For over 80 years, on the last Saturday in June, crews have braced themselves for a test of skill and strategy.
Racing around the lsle of Wight, boats must battle each other and notoriously tricky waters.
The course is strewn with navigational hazards.
One of the first are the Needles, here on the western point of the island, a jagged reef of rock protruding into the course.
Right at the end there's a submerged wreck you've got to avoid.
Then it's down to the southern tip of the island, St Catherine's Point, where the waters get very churned up, so much so that they've ruined many a racer's chance of finishing.
Then it's round the eastern end of the island.
And then just you're entering what you might think is the final straight, you've got to avoid a sandbank, Ryde Sands here, before coming up here to finish at Cowes.
And then there's the sea itself.
lt's a complex puzzle of tides and currents buffeted by unpredictable winds.
The water sloshing around the island creates fearsome rip currents.
(Bell rings) These rips can carry a yacht off course like a matchstick, the sea winning out over wind.
Racers must be wary of riptides, as veteran competitor Graham Sunderland knows.
We're right where the tide is flowing at its fastest, out towards the open sea by this this is Sconce buoy, isn't it? GRAHAM: lt's one of the fastest rips we find here on the island.
So what's the effect of this tide on a boat, say, like this rib? We should be able to show you if we ask our rib driver, Jason, to cut the engine.
You should see the effect on the boat.
NlCK: So Jason's cut the engine.
We're now being ripped by the tide.
GRAHAM: We're already doing a knot and a half into the breeze.
NlCK: The wind's trying to push us back.
The tide's forcing us into the wind.
lt's that powerful.
The tide's pull defeating the wind's push.
These conflicting forces will be my challenge tomorrow.
To add to the fun, further along the first leg of the course are the Needles.
Graham, we're approaching one of the most famous but also lethal landmarks in British waters.
Tell me about the race tomorrow.
Typical hazards you've got here are the Needles itself, and then you've got a further hazard in the Varvassi wreck.
NlCK: The Varvassi, a 4,000-ton Greek steamer, was dashed onto the Needles in 1 947.
The broken-up ship lies just a metre below the surface, but navigating around her means losing precious time.
Do people try and cut inside the wreck, between the wreck and the lighthouse? lt's a good question, and the decision is gonna be down to each individual skipper to get that right, and the conditions that prevail will help them make a decision.
lt's high risk, there is room, but not much.
NlCK: Rocks, wrecks and ripping currents make the lsle of Wight a stupendous sailing challenge.
With the race less than 24 hours away, l'm starting to realise what it means to feel all at sea.
For me, taking the helm's a daunting prospect.
But all around our shores, dazzling displays of seamanship are part of the day's work for hard-grafting skippers.
From little coastal craft to ocean-going giants, boats buoy us up with the trade we desperately need.
One third of all our food floats into Britain.
Strangle our shipping and we'd soon be on our knees, as our enemies have always recognised.
Remarkable evidence of attempts to sink our sea trade survive in the Medway Estuary.
Naval historian Nick Hewitt is stalking fearsome prey.
l'm here to track down weapons of war.
This is a tale of two submarines.
This is a Russian Cold War submarine from the Soviet era, and this is a First World War German U-boat.
Amazingly, submarines like these are out there in the estuary.
HEWlTT: After the Great War ended in 1 91 8, German subs were beached and sold for scrap.
A few escaped that ignominious fate.
Now, after years studying them, l've got a chance to explore one of those U-boats, not in a museum but buried in the Medway mud.
That is absolutely amazing, sitting here for 1 00 years.
So l never thought l'd get the chance to touch one of these, and that's still pretty impressively intact steel plate.
lt's hard to imagine now because it's just sitting here and it looks so decayed and quiet and peaceful in a funny sort of way, but these things were such a menace.
The Germans started their unrestricted submarine warfare campaign in February 1 91 7, and within the first three months they'd sunk 500 ships.
Suddenly, in 1 91 7, Britain seemed on the brink of losing the First World War, not on land but at sea.
Only putting cargo ships into heavily protected convoys saved us.
Still, by the war's end, over 3,000 Allied ships had been sunk by U-boats.
This great big hole here, l'm pretty sure this is where they would have cut out the conning tower.
Everybody knows that wonderful image of a submarine with a sort of tower sticking up.
When these submarines were handed over to civilian scrap merchants, they had to be de-militarised, which involved removing the conning towers, removing the torpedo tubes, obviously, so that it was completely harmless.
l'm standing on a U-boat.
We saw off these subs, but their strategy to strangle Britain lived on into the Cold War.
This Foxtrot Class submarine was built in the 1 960s.
Now she's being restored to preserve a forgotten threat from the Soviet Union.
They planned to swamp the North Atlantic with hundreds of these boats.
What was life like for the submariners preparing to wage war on our isles? This is something else.
Officer's accommodation.
lt may not look like much, but actually, in terms of habitability, these things were streets ahead of the German U-boat that we saw earlier.
There's some degree of privacy.
And what you've got in here is the sonar fit, the famous ping of the submarine movies.
So that's the galley, the kitchen.
l can't believe that all the food for 7 4 men was prepared in that tiny space.
Always wanted to do that.
And this is the nerve centre of the boat.
All these bewildering instruments.
This is where the boat was fought from, steered from, everything ran from here.
And what we've got here is a very sobering reminder that these submarines are extremely dangerous places to live and work.
Each of these spaces was designed to be sealed off quickly in case of an emergency.
lf something happened and they had to shut the hatch quickly, these Morse code instructions were painted on the hatch so that they could explain, when they're frightened and panicking, what was going on to the people on the other side.
They might be going, ''lt's a fire.
'' Then the guys here would know what to do and hopefully be able to help them deal with it.
Can you imagine how terrifying that must have been? Wow.
So this is what Hollywood has trained us to expect from submarines, isn't it? You can just imagine if the Cold War had gone hot, the Soviet submarine commander sitting here, his boat deathly quiet around him, all his men waiting for his orders, as he peers through his periscope looking at a big fat merchant ship about to give the order to fire.
These subs have taken me back to a time when Britain faced down formidable foes, hidden beneath the waves.
lt may seem like the dim and distant past now, but when you consider that some 90% of British trade still takes place by sea, it's suddenly a very clear and present threat.
NlCK: Today's global economy demands super-size cargo ships.
They criss-cross vast waterways with ease, big powerful engines eat up distance, but once we travelled the oceans by sail.
All at sea, sailors harness the power of wind and tides.
But how exactly do you get where you're going when the wind's blowing against you? Fighting the breeze is a tricky task l've got to tackle off the lsle of Wight.
Soon l'll be embarking as a crew member on the Round the lsland Race.
How do these sailing boats go right around the island when the wind's only blowing in one direction? To practise manoeuvring a yacht in the breeze, l'm starting with something simpler, a blokart.
No sea, but still a challenge.
With the wind behind the kart, as soon Pete releases the break, he's gonna take off down the beach.
Chocks away, Pete.
The big question is how does he sail back into the wind? The solution to the sailors'dilemma can be illustrated with a different kind of craft.
Have a look at the shape of the wing on this model aeroplane.
The upper surface of the wing is curved, and that creates an aerofoil shape.
As the plane flies forward, the airflow from the front has further to travel over the upper surface than it does over the lower surface, and that creates high pressure beneath the wing and low pressure above the wing, and that gives the plane lift, so it rises up and keeps in the air.
Now, if you turn this plane on its side, you've got a wing that looks a bit like a sail on a sailing boat.
Now, if this sail is pointing straight into the wind, it's just going to flap, but if you turn the sail slightly to one direction or the other, the sail will fill with wind and form an aerofoil shape, and that converts what would have been lift in an aeroplane into forward drive in a sailing boat.
lf you want to sail from A to B straight into the wind, all you have to do is maintain the aerofoil shape of the sail.
So you make a series of turns, called tacks, like this.
That direction.
Turn through the wind.
Fill the sail from the other side.
Sail forward.
Turn through the wind.
Fill the sail from the other side.
Sail forward.
This zigzagging motion, or tacking, is a skill you must master to sail into oncoming winds.
Fine in theory.
What about in practice? He makes it look very easy.
One-time Olympic sailor Peter Newlands is a blokart demon, but it's my first time.
So, Pete, l feel as if l'm in a part-yacht, part flying machine.
- How does it work? - Pull the main sheet in to pull the sail in.
- That's this one here? - Yeah.
And you steer with the steering handles which controls the front wheel.
So just two controls, a rope and a pair of bicycle handlebars? Yeah.
No There's no brake.
Here we go.
Oh! And we're off.
Wow.
Hurtling down the beach.
These little karts really do fly.
Oh, bloody hell.
l'm battling to keep control.
l've got about three seconds to make a turn or l'm in the water! Round l go.
Pull the sheet in, pick up speed.
Oh! Lifted a wheel.
As if this isn't hard enough, l've got to follow a course Pete's setting for me.
Here he is at four times normal speed.
X marks the start.
And he expertly completes a couple of tacks into the wind.
Rather different once l'm at the helm.
With the wind, l career towards the start at X.
Oh! Whoa.
Oh, l got bogged down.
Oh! l'm back, and with a few more mishaps crudely tack back to the finish.
Wow.
That is really, really exciting.
lt's very easy going down the beach with the wind.
Turning round and trying to tack up into the wind is a lot more difficult.
lt's been far from plain sailing on dry land.
But tomorrow l'll be a crew member in one of the world's toughest yacht races.
With over 1,600 boats fighting tide and wind, it's going to be quite a day.
From ports around Britain, great and small, sailors head out to sea, and it can be a rocky ride.
There's one thing all would-be seafarers need.
' good sea legs.
Stomaching the sea is tough enough for professionals.
But that doesn't stop amateur fishermen in Whitby.
Here in the harbour, boats for hire allow day trippers to try their hand at fishing.
But heading into the rough North Sea, it's their stomachs that catch them out.
You will have a fishy on a little dishy You will have a fishy when the boat comes in That's our boat there, l think.
My name is Divine Charura, and today we're going out sea fishing, gonna go down on a boat, which we do every year, to go out to the sea.
Dance to your daddy Sing to your mummy Dance to your daddy My bonny lad DlVlNE: l absolutely love fishing.
l was born in Zimbabwe and that's where l started fishing from the age of about five.
- Hello, Paul.
- Morning.
Morning.
How's it going? Nice to see you.
lt's been a year.
lt's been a while.
l came to the UK when l was about 1 6, l think, 1 6 or 1 7, so l've continued and kept the faith fishing.
PAUL: That's it.
Big smile, big smile.
Right.
DlVlNE: l've brought some friends and family.
l've brought my dad Alloise, who's a veteran fisherman, and l've brought my brother, Talent.
- Right, this is it.
- This is it.
l've got another friend of mine.
He's never been fishing before.
ln fact, it's his first time fishing.
He might be sick or not.
(Laughs) - You feeling all right? - l am.
Yeah? On a scale of one to ten? - l'm on nine and a half.
- Nine and (Laughs) - Which is good.
- l'll ask you in a few hours' time.
What we're doing is wreck fishing.
The boat lf you imagine this is a wreck, the boat comes on top and then we have to put our lines down before the tide takes us past it.
So as soon as we get there, we have to put our rods in.
Lines down, boys.
Lines down.
DlVlNE: l'm looking forward to catching some seriously big fish.
Cod, ling and pollock.
There's some big fish about.
The question is, can you catch them? - Yes.
Yes, Divine.
- Fish coming up? PAUL: That's a ling.
There it is.
- l've got a ling.
Well, this is what we're talking about.
- l told you.
- This is nice.
Wow.
Very nice.
That's my bro.
So, Samuel, how are we doing? He's probably gonna get away because l'm feeling so weak.
(Laughter) - Again.
- Ooh, a beautiful cod.
How are you feeling now? Out of ten? - l'm five.
- (Laughter) Smells nice, yeah.
This is the life.
- lt's what we're talking about.
- Talking about.
Can somebody take a picture of me and this man? - Smile, boys.
- He's the man.
lt could have been calmer and hotter, but it's been a good day.
Good day.
- You don't feel sick there, boys? - No.
NlCK: lt's no pleasure cruise being all at sea when you're trawling for your life.
An undercurrent of peril is ever present.
Never more so than for trawlermen landing their deadliest catch during the Second World War at Milford Haven.
Ruth's discovering how unsung heroes foiled an enemy threat hidden in our seas.
There was a time when British waters were infested with German mines.
RUTH: ln 1 940, Luftwaffe bombers and the German Navy were dropping mines into our harbours under the cover of darkness.
Ships were being lost at an alarming rate.
The deadly mines threatened to sink Britain.
Then unlikely saviours sailed in from the Netherlands.
Dutch trawlermen were bringing their fishing boats to Britain to take on the Germans.
Some 600 fishermen made for our coast in May 1 940 after Hitler attacked the Low Countries.
NEWSREADER: This is the BBC Home Service.
The German Army invaded Holland and Belgium early this morning by land and by landings from parachutes.
RUTH: Before the Nazis reached the ports, the Dutch fishing fleet fled to Britain.
One of those fishermen was Antoon van Gils.
Now his son Johan has returned to Milford Haven.
lt's more than 70 years ago since your father came along here into the harbour.
l mean, it was safer than home here, but it wasn't exactly that safe.
- He came here to fight.
- Yes.
(ln Dutch) RUTH: Using their trawlers, the Dutch exiles were assigned by the navy to minesweeping duty, a deadly job that they had to learn quickly or die trying.
How did the Dutch fisherman use their knowledge of the sea to fight for their land? Nick Hewitt is back to give me some naval know-how.
So what was it about the Dutch fishermen that offered so much for minesweeping? The techniques used in sweeping mines are actually very, very similar to fishing.
The skills that they need, the way of driving a boat, is exactly the same.
And also their boats are uniquely suited to it.
You could just literally take the trawling gear off the back and put the minesweeping gear on instead.
- So is this what we're talking about? - This is it.
This is a contact mine.
They're deployed off the back of a ship with a weight, called the sinker, takes it down to the bottom of the sea, cable plays out and then the mine is set to hold just below the surface of the water.
A ship comes along, the bow wave pushes the mine out of the way and then it pendulums back against the side of the ship and explodes.
RUTH: So how exactly does the minesweeping work? What they did was, if you have a look at this drawing here, you have your minesweeper, you have a long cable, the sweep wire, that comes out from the back of it and is attached to a float.
That's so that the wire goes out to the side of the boat, not behind it.
The wire's serrated.
lt cuts through the cable that's holding the mine to the bottom of the water.
The mine then bobs up to the surface.
lt's very simple then.
They shoot the prongs with rifles and blow it up.
RUTH: Mine sweeping was fraught with danger.
But Dutch sailors also landed a much happier catch.
Romantic entanglements weren't uncommon.
As Welshman Graham van Wert can testify.
His father was stationed up the coast at Holyhead.
Graham's meeting Johan to share stories of what their Dutch dads did in Wales during the war.
(Speak Dutch) GRAHAM: That's a photo of my father.
- Young man in a Dutch uniform.
- Yes.
- Oh, and there's yours as well.
- This is my father.
- Also in his Dutch naval uniform.
Yeah.
lt's been reported that there was over 1 05 marriages in Holyhead between local girls and Dutchmen, which surprised me because l didn't realise there were so many.
lt was quite a culture shock for the local people because they hadn't seen foreigners like this before, and you have this influx of, as l was told, handsome but rather on the wild side Dutchmen.
And the population thought a lot of them and brought them into their own homes.
RUTH: Graham's father was one of many to tie the knot with a local girl.
But Johan's father was already married, his wife stowed away with the fishing fleet.
- You were born here? - Born here, yes.
So you were here as a Welshman for the first few years of your life? Yeah, yeah.
RUTH: The bonds of love forged between foreign lands were often torn apart in the cruel seas.
The mines were indiscriminate killers.
Scientist Ewan McLaughlin knows the secret of how contact mines are triggered.
lf this was a real mine, this would be the mine casing, the outer steel shell of it.
Tucked in here is where an enormous amount of explosives would reside.
NEWSREEL: lnside is a load of mischief.
Maybe you'd like to examine this interesting toy in detail.
This is the Hertz horn itself which is made of lead.
You need to give it quite a clout, but that'll bend.
NEWSREEL: When the horn is bent, the trouble starts.
The whole of the intricate mechanism is set in motion.
And inside, this is a glass vial which would have acid in it, so if anything hits that, that'll crack and that will deposit all this acid into the electrodes underneath.
The breaking of the glass container causes a solution to flow over the battery plates towards the electric detonator.
lt generates almost two volts and quite a hefty current, so that's quite good for setting off a detonator circuit.
l thought you'd prefer the small light to having the explosives.
RUTH: Can we smash it? (Laughter) EWAN: l'll give it a go.
But now l've joined the navy l'm called a man of war RUTH: A trawler had a fighting chance of avoiding contact with a mine.
The boat's shallow draught meant they could glide over the submerged threat, if they were lucky.
Don't haul on the rope Don't climb up the mast lf you see a sailing ship it might be your last Get your civvies ready for another run ashore A sailor ain't a sailor ain't a sailor any more So it must have been dangerous here.
RUTH: One trawler that never made it home was the Caroline.
On 28th April, 1 94 1, she struck a mine in the Haven.
All of the 1 5 Dutch crew were killed.
Come on, guys.
We're just coming up to the wreck now.
RUTH: The wrecked trawler is a poignant sight for Johan.
RUTH: Today Johan and Graham pay their respects to those who risked their lives to keep our shipping safe.
Their fathers survived, but thousands of their Dutch and Allied comrades did not.
These were young men, stripped from their homeland by war, using those skills in seamanship that they had at their fingertips to save ultimately their own land and ours.
NlCK: We're all at sea.
And for one weekend in June there's nowhere more exciting to sail than the lsle of Wight.
6am on the morning of the Round the lsland Race and it's wet and gusty.
After all my preparation, it's time to put the theory into practice.
l'm pretty nervous.
This is my first sailing race and for reasons l'm beginning to wonder about l seem to have chosen one of the most challenging in the world.
lt's going to be a really big test.
l'll be crewing on the yacht Ortac.
Our skipper is Richard Webley.
Competition will be fierce.
One of Richard's biggest rivals is Tom Farnworth on Nereus.
We've got two competing skippers here, Richard and Tom, adjacent boats.
You're pretty equally balanced in terms of your boats? Yeah, very equally balanced.
lt's all down to crew, skipper and tactics.
- Yeah.
- Who's got the upper hand there? l think Tom's got more experience of the race, but l've got the better crew.
Well, there's only one way to find that out.
There is only one way to find that out.
NlCK: Richard thinks we have the best crew, a crew which includes me.
l've got a lot to live up to today.
We're now out on the water moving off towards the start line.
There are boats absolutely everywhere.
Must be just a few seconds, five or six seconds.
No, wait for it.
- That's the start! - We're off.
Really good blow.
Helicopter hovering overhead.
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
The first leg of the race runs southwest from Cowes to the Needles.
The start is chaos, every yacht competing for water, wind and tide.
lt's a case of getting out quick and avoiding collisions.
That was my first hands-on proper tack and l didn't muck it up.
Breaking free of the pack, we've stolen a march on our rivals.
Yeah! NlCK: That boat over there with a blue hull is Tom.
We're about that far ahead of him.
That's how close it is.
We're doing well, but obstacles await, the Needles and the wreck submerged just beyond.
Sail close and you shave off valuable seconds, but it's a gamble.
RlCHARD: We've cut it a little bit fine.
But we didn't run aground and now we can get ready to bear away to St Catherine's Point.
Wave! NlCK: Richard's nifty turn around the Needles keeps us in front of our rivals on Nereus.
TOM: We had a reasonably good start.
We were ahead of Ortac for the first half of the windward leg.
And then Ortac seemed to overtake us and we've lost them somewhere over there.
NlCK: Our next gamble is to come wide.
Further offshore the winds should be stronger, but it means battling against stronger currents.
l'm at the helm trying to follow Richard's plan.
So at the moment we're right on the outside of the fleet pretty much? We are.
Most of the people have gone shallow.
We're on the outside doing a straight line.
lt's a compromise and we'll see how it pays off when we finish.
NlCK: We're making for the exposed headland of St Catherine's Point.
Then we'll have the strong southwesterly blowing behind us.
lt's a keen turning point, an opportunity to race harder.
What we've decided to do is to put a bigger sail up, the spinnaker, as we go round the point, to give us extra speed down to the eastern end of the island.
Spinnakers catch huge amounts of wind, boosting speed, but they're risky.
The sails are unwieldy and can destabilise the boat.
l'm manning the spinnaker rope.
Another of my big moments.
l've not done this before in my life.
RlCHARD: Ease that sheet.
WOMAN: Yeah, it's eased.
lt's eased.
Oh, my God! Get that sheet over there, through there and up to that winch.
No, it's caught round that block.
NlCK: One of the ropes is stuck.
We can't rein in the sail.
WOMAN: l'm ready.
Yeah.
You're ticking in? MAN: The handle The handle's come off.
NlCK: The boat keeps going over, or broaching.
RlCHARD: On the right one.
On the right-hand side of you.
We had trouble getting the spinnaker up.
We've just broached three times.
The rail's gone right under.
MAN: Right.
RlCHARD: The one on the The green one.
- We're trying to regain control.
- l need you now! - Nick! - Sorry.
You're gonna have to stop.
l need you now.
Can you get NlCK: No time for talking.
RlCHARD: The halyard on theon the winch.
(Shouting) We have to free the rope, get the spinnaker down, or our race is over.
WOMAN: OK.
Ease more, more.
Quicker.
Yeah, more turns off.
Two turns on.
Yeah.
Ease quicker.
RlCHARD: Let the halyard go.
Can you help get it down the hatch? Get it in quick.
WOMAN: ls it off? ls it running? - Yeah, it's running.
RlCHARD: Well done, guys.
WOMAN: OK, it's off.
Right, spinnaker's down.
- Big, big drama.
RlCHARD: Well done, guys.
Good drop! NlCK: Our troubles with the spinnaker have cost us dear and allowed our rivals, skippered by Tom, to overtake.
But we're still in with a shout.
l've got a feeling the adventure isn't over yet.
Striking out across the sea, boats and their crews must fend for themselves when waters run wild.
Sailors in life and death situations fall back on something known as the ''custom of the sea''.
This code of conduct guides their moral compass.
But back on shore, a different set of rules holds sway.
The law of the land.
When these two worlds collide, sailors beware.
lt's a hard lesson they've learnt in Falmouth.
Back in Victorian times, following a notorious shipwreck, a band of survivors arrived here.
Mark knows their astonishing story.
MARK: This is a murderous tale that affects the law even today.
ln 1 884, when this yacht sank, one of the sailors was killed by his crewmates.
Back in Falmouth, they were arrested.
The trial consumed the whole nation.
The lllustrated Press provided graphic details of the case.
When they say ''worse things happen at sea'', this is what they mean.
This was a case of cannibalism, but even though the men had killed one of their crew and fed from his body, they fully expected to walk free.
Maritime tradition condoned cannibalism to survive.
But should the law ever excuse murder? The case caused a legal dilemma for those back at home.
How did a brutal custom of the sea come to shape the law of the land? This true crime story begins in the South Atlantic.
A yacht, the Mignonette, is struck by a terrible storm and sinks.
MAN: Abandon ship! Over 600 miles from land four sailors must save themselves.
The crew's lifeboat soon became their prison, adrift on the open ocean.
For 24 dreadful days they languished, starved and exhausted.
Royal Navy surgeon Dennis Freshwater knows the medical plight of the wrecked sailors.
lf you've been adrift on a boat for 1 5, 1 7 days without any food or water, l mean, what happens to your body? Well, the major thing is the dehydration.
MARK: No water? Water all around them and not a drop to drink.
DENNlS: Of course, that's very true because when you take in saltwater, you actually become more dehydrated, it worsens things, and then eventually death.
MARK: On the brink of death from dehydration, Captain Tom Dudley knew there was only one thing left to drink.
' blood.
The men's desperate gaze fell on the sickly cabin boy, Richard Parker.
By the morning of the 1 8th day, Richard Parker was lying in the bottom of the boat near to death.
Now, Tom Dudley said to the others ''Something must be done'', and by which he meant ''We have to kill Richard Parker.
'' And Tom Dudley then took a knife and cut Richard Parker's throat.
MARK: lt sounds horrific now, but in the days of sailing ships it wasn't so shocking.
Author Neil Hanson has researched Captain Dudley's dilemma.
lt's important to remember this wasn't something that suddenly occurred to Tom Dudley out of the blue.
For decades before this, ships had been wrecking, seamen had been cast adrift, and over years and years, as many people resorted to cannibalism, what was called the ''custom of the sea'' evolved.
But they were still undertaking murder.
lt was what seamen did, and it had been practised for so long, it seemed to them to have a judicial force.
MARK: The men thought they'd never face trial, even if they did get home.
MAN: Shark! But with sharks circling the blood-soaked boat, the law was the least of their concerns.
MAN: Over here! Then, miraculously, a sail.
The ill-fated crew were saved.
The survivors sailed back to Falmouth.
(Cheering) The seafaring community were sympathetic to the plight of the shipwrecked men.
However, miles away, the long arm of the law was beginning to flex its muscles.
The home secretary, Sir William Harcourt, seized on the case to assert his authority over the unofficial and antiquated ''custom of the sea''.
He wanted to make an example of the men, but the people of Falmouth had other ideas.
Their public donations paid for a top defence QC.
He would try to challenge the law of the land.
(Bangs gavel) JUDGE: Order! Order in court.
The defence barrister pleaded that the accused were not guilty by reason of necessity.
lt was a landmark legal moment.
The defence of ''necessity for murder'' didn't exist in English law.
The trial took the court back to the men's ordeal at sea.
Why didn't they let the sickly cabin boy die naturally and then drink his blood? Why did the crew think they had a ''necessity to murder'' their crewmate? The argument was advanced that they had to kill him to drink the blood before the blood congealed.
By cutting the throat while the heart is still pumping the blood is pumped out of the body so they can access it.
Whereas after death, they may have been able to get into the vessels but there's nothing to pump the blood out.
MARK: Captain Dudley, who stabbed the cabin boy, had been a ship's cook, so he understood butchering and bloodletting.
But common law is based on precedent.
lf the men were freed, would it allow otherjustifications for murder? The case went to the High Court to pronounce judgement.
(Bangs gavel) Lord Coleridge read out the final sentence.
They should be taken from this place to a place of execution, ''where you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead''.
JUDGE: Take them down.
MARK: The law of the land prevailed over the custom of the sea.
But public sympathy for the seafarers meant their executions were never carried out.
Shortly after the verdict, Queen Victoria commuted the death sentence to that of six months imprisonment.
Crucially, she stopped short of a full pardon for the convicted cannibals.
Over a century later we still live with the deadly events of that shipwreck from 1 884.
lt's studied by law students and cited in modern murder trials.
The case of the Queen versus Dudley and Stephens established that in English Law there is no defence of necessity for murder.
But the big question remains, would you kill to survive? (Blood-curdling cry) On this journey we're all at sea.
And l'm sailing for my life around the lsle of Wight.
Sail Sail Sail Sail Would you mean it if l say it? We've been at sea six and a half hours, one of 1,600 yachts competing in the Round the lsland Race.
Among the competitors there's one rival yacht, Nereus, that we're determined to beat.
After the turn at St Catherine's Point, we've rounded the eastern tip, approaching the home stretch to Cowes.
Nereus isjust ten minutes ahead.
Now the whole fleet is funnelling down for a sprint finish.
Our skipper's Richard Webley.
So it's just a drag race, who can sail the fastest, win the cleanest air, to get to the forks, and then it becomes a fight up to the finish.
We aren't just battling other boats.
We're also fighting the full force of wind and tide, straining hard on the rudder to steer true.
There's one last hazard to surmount.
Ryde Sands lie just beneath the waves, waiting to scupper any yacht tempted to take a short cut home.
To avoid the sandbank, we keep one eye on the depth gauge and the other on our rivals.
But there's one threat we're not looking out for.
We've lost rudder! NlCK: The rudder linkage has snapped.
The sails take over steering.
We're not just helpless, we're dangerous.
We've lost rudder! We've lost rudder! Clear off! NlCK: A missile guided by the wind.
We need to get that under control.
Let's just try and bundle that up.
Can we get the main in, please? lf you've got any control, if you just steer us out of this line of boats.
Big drama.
Lost a rudder.
Which is about as serious as things can get when you're sailing pretty quick in a big boat.
And so really effective team work getting the sails down rapidly.
All our efforts blown out of the water by a single mechanical failure.
Our race is run.
So near, so far.
We're travelling back to Cowes under motor without the sails.
Ahead of us yachts cross the finishing line, including our rivals on Nereus, skippered by Tom, who came home in a time of seven hours 56 minutes.
Champagne for some.
But for our brave team, the ending is a little less glamorous.
We were sailing so well.
We were ahead of many boats that should have been faster than us.
The tactics that Richard adopted were brilliant.
Then in the home straight the rudder broke.
Richard's steering us back with a pair of rusty bicycle handlebars.
Contests come and go, but the restless sea's eternal.
We competed against the best, but ultimately our destiny was decided by a greater power.
lt's wonderful, it's unpredictable and sometimes it's cruel.
But the sea's siren call tempts each generation anew.
The one thing that all of us as islanders can share is the temperamental seductive sea.
You never master the sea, but you can work with her.
Rope and canvas can take you anywhere.
Every voyage is an adventure.
Now the Coast crew are casting off.
While l soak up the drama of competition on the waves .
.
historians Ruth Goodman and Nick Hewitt relive the sea's darker days when our briny depths concealed weapons of war.
There was a time when British waters were infested with German mines.
HEWlTT: This is a Soviet Foxtrot submarine, so if the Cold War had gone hot, they planned to swamp the North Atlantic with hundreds of these boats.
NlCK: Mark voyages back to the days of sail for a scandalous tale of savagery at sea.
This was a case of cannibalism, but even though the men had killed one of their crew, they fully expected to walk free.
NlCK: And l'm eating up the opposition in the toughest race of my life.
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
On thisjourney, we're all at sea.
l'm embarking on a circumnavigation, not of the globe but the lsle of Wight.
This stepping stone in the Channel is the perfect base for adventures all at sea.
The island's world-class sailing has a right royal reputation.
King Edward Vll became Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron while he was the Prince of Wales.
Edward's mother, the Queen, had fallen in love with the lsle of Wight.
''lt's impossible to imagine a prettier spot.
'' That's a quote from Queen Victoria.
She and her husband, Albert, were so taken with this pretty spot, they bought the land and built themselves a summerhouse.
Built in 1 85 1 in the ltalian style, Osborne House was the royals'holiday home where Prince Edward got his taste for competitive sailing.
And that's why l've come.
l'm told his mother's regal residence affords majestic views of the Solent, where my own sailing challenge awaits.
That's the Solent, the stretch of water between the island and the mainland.
Very shortly l'm going to be down there in a 40-foot yacht taking part in the Round the lsland Race.
lt's enormous.
There are 1 ,600 yachts taking part.
And unusually amateurs can race against professionals.
l'm very much in the amateur camp.
l'm nervous and l'm excited.
Sail Sail For over 80 years, on the last Saturday in June, crews have braced themselves for a test of skill and strategy.
Racing around the lsle of Wight, boats must battle each other and notoriously tricky waters.
The course is strewn with navigational hazards.
One of the first are the Needles, here on the western point of the island, a jagged reef of rock protruding into the course.
Right at the end there's a submerged wreck you've got to avoid.
Then it's down to the southern tip of the island, St Catherine's Point, where the waters get very churned up, so much so that they've ruined many a racer's chance of finishing.
Then it's round the eastern end of the island.
And then just you're entering what you might think is the final straight, you've got to avoid a sandbank, Ryde Sands here, before coming up here to finish at Cowes.
And then there's the sea itself.
lt's a complex puzzle of tides and currents buffeted by unpredictable winds.
The water sloshing around the island creates fearsome rip currents.
(Bell rings) These rips can carry a yacht off course like a matchstick, the sea winning out over wind.
Racers must be wary of riptides, as veteran competitor Graham Sunderland knows.
We're right where the tide is flowing at its fastest, out towards the open sea by this this is Sconce buoy, isn't it? GRAHAM: lt's one of the fastest rips we find here on the island.
So what's the effect of this tide on a boat, say, like this rib? We should be able to show you if we ask our rib driver, Jason, to cut the engine.
You should see the effect on the boat.
NlCK: So Jason's cut the engine.
We're now being ripped by the tide.
GRAHAM: We're already doing a knot and a half into the breeze.
NlCK: The wind's trying to push us back.
The tide's forcing us into the wind.
lt's that powerful.
The tide's pull defeating the wind's push.
These conflicting forces will be my challenge tomorrow.
To add to the fun, further along the first leg of the course are the Needles.
Graham, we're approaching one of the most famous but also lethal landmarks in British waters.
Tell me about the race tomorrow.
Typical hazards you've got here are the Needles itself, and then you've got a further hazard in the Varvassi wreck.
NlCK: The Varvassi, a 4,000-ton Greek steamer, was dashed onto the Needles in 1 947.
The broken-up ship lies just a metre below the surface, but navigating around her means losing precious time.
Do people try and cut inside the wreck, between the wreck and the lighthouse? lt's a good question, and the decision is gonna be down to each individual skipper to get that right, and the conditions that prevail will help them make a decision.
lt's high risk, there is room, but not much.
NlCK: Rocks, wrecks and ripping currents make the lsle of Wight a stupendous sailing challenge.
With the race less than 24 hours away, l'm starting to realise what it means to feel all at sea.
For me, taking the helm's a daunting prospect.
But all around our shores, dazzling displays of seamanship are part of the day's work for hard-grafting skippers.
From little coastal craft to ocean-going giants, boats buoy us up with the trade we desperately need.
One third of all our food floats into Britain.
Strangle our shipping and we'd soon be on our knees, as our enemies have always recognised.
Remarkable evidence of attempts to sink our sea trade survive in the Medway Estuary.
Naval historian Nick Hewitt is stalking fearsome prey.
l'm here to track down weapons of war.
This is a tale of two submarines.
This is a Russian Cold War submarine from the Soviet era, and this is a First World War German U-boat.
Amazingly, submarines like these are out there in the estuary.
HEWlTT: After the Great War ended in 1 91 8, German subs were beached and sold for scrap.
A few escaped that ignominious fate.
Now, after years studying them, l've got a chance to explore one of those U-boats, not in a museum but buried in the Medway mud.
That is absolutely amazing, sitting here for 1 00 years.
So l never thought l'd get the chance to touch one of these, and that's still pretty impressively intact steel plate.
lt's hard to imagine now because it's just sitting here and it looks so decayed and quiet and peaceful in a funny sort of way, but these things were such a menace.
The Germans started their unrestricted submarine warfare campaign in February 1 91 7, and within the first three months they'd sunk 500 ships.
Suddenly, in 1 91 7, Britain seemed on the brink of losing the First World War, not on land but at sea.
Only putting cargo ships into heavily protected convoys saved us.
Still, by the war's end, over 3,000 Allied ships had been sunk by U-boats.
This great big hole here, l'm pretty sure this is where they would have cut out the conning tower.
Everybody knows that wonderful image of a submarine with a sort of tower sticking up.
When these submarines were handed over to civilian scrap merchants, they had to be de-militarised, which involved removing the conning towers, removing the torpedo tubes, obviously, so that it was completely harmless.
l'm standing on a U-boat.
We saw off these subs, but their strategy to strangle Britain lived on into the Cold War.
This Foxtrot Class submarine was built in the 1 960s.
Now she's being restored to preserve a forgotten threat from the Soviet Union.
They planned to swamp the North Atlantic with hundreds of these boats.
What was life like for the submariners preparing to wage war on our isles? This is something else.
Officer's accommodation.
lt may not look like much, but actually, in terms of habitability, these things were streets ahead of the German U-boat that we saw earlier.
There's some degree of privacy.
And what you've got in here is the sonar fit, the famous ping of the submarine movies.
So that's the galley, the kitchen.
l can't believe that all the food for 7 4 men was prepared in that tiny space.
Always wanted to do that.
And this is the nerve centre of the boat.
All these bewildering instruments.
This is where the boat was fought from, steered from, everything ran from here.
And what we've got here is a very sobering reminder that these submarines are extremely dangerous places to live and work.
Each of these spaces was designed to be sealed off quickly in case of an emergency.
lf something happened and they had to shut the hatch quickly, these Morse code instructions were painted on the hatch so that they could explain, when they're frightened and panicking, what was going on to the people on the other side.
They might be going, ''lt's a fire.
'' Then the guys here would know what to do and hopefully be able to help them deal with it.
Can you imagine how terrifying that must have been? Wow.
So this is what Hollywood has trained us to expect from submarines, isn't it? You can just imagine if the Cold War had gone hot, the Soviet submarine commander sitting here, his boat deathly quiet around him, all his men waiting for his orders, as he peers through his periscope looking at a big fat merchant ship about to give the order to fire.
These subs have taken me back to a time when Britain faced down formidable foes, hidden beneath the waves.
lt may seem like the dim and distant past now, but when you consider that some 90% of British trade still takes place by sea, it's suddenly a very clear and present threat.
NlCK: Today's global economy demands super-size cargo ships.
They criss-cross vast waterways with ease, big powerful engines eat up distance, but once we travelled the oceans by sail.
All at sea, sailors harness the power of wind and tides.
But how exactly do you get where you're going when the wind's blowing against you? Fighting the breeze is a tricky task l've got to tackle off the lsle of Wight.
Soon l'll be embarking as a crew member on the Round the lsland Race.
How do these sailing boats go right around the island when the wind's only blowing in one direction? To practise manoeuvring a yacht in the breeze, l'm starting with something simpler, a blokart.
No sea, but still a challenge.
With the wind behind the kart, as soon Pete releases the break, he's gonna take off down the beach.
Chocks away, Pete.
The big question is how does he sail back into the wind? The solution to the sailors'dilemma can be illustrated with a different kind of craft.
Have a look at the shape of the wing on this model aeroplane.
The upper surface of the wing is curved, and that creates an aerofoil shape.
As the plane flies forward, the airflow from the front has further to travel over the upper surface than it does over the lower surface, and that creates high pressure beneath the wing and low pressure above the wing, and that gives the plane lift, so it rises up and keeps in the air.
Now, if you turn this plane on its side, you've got a wing that looks a bit like a sail on a sailing boat.
Now, if this sail is pointing straight into the wind, it's just going to flap, but if you turn the sail slightly to one direction or the other, the sail will fill with wind and form an aerofoil shape, and that converts what would have been lift in an aeroplane into forward drive in a sailing boat.
lf you want to sail from A to B straight into the wind, all you have to do is maintain the aerofoil shape of the sail.
So you make a series of turns, called tacks, like this.
That direction.
Turn through the wind.
Fill the sail from the other side.
Sail forward.
Turn through the wind.
Fill the sail from the other side.
Sail forward.
This zigzagging motion, or tacking, is a skill you must master to sail into oncoming winds.
Fine in theory.
What about in practice? He makes it look very easy.
One-time Olympic sailor Peter Newlands is a blokart demon, but it's my first time.
So, Pete, l feel as if l'm in a part-yacht, part flying machine.
- How does it work? - Pull the main sheet in to pull the sail in.
- That's this one here? - Yeah.
And you steer with the steering handles which controls the front wheel.
So just two controls, a rope and a pair of bicycle handlebars? Yeah.
No There's no brake.
Here we go.
Oh! And we're off.
Wow.
Hurtling down the beach.
These little karts really do fly.
Oh, bloody hell.
l'm battling to keep control.
l've got about three seconds to make a turn or l'm in the water! Round l go.
Pull the sheet in, pick up speed.
Oh! Lifted a wheel.
As if this isn't hard enough, l've got to follow a course Pete's setting for me.
Here he is at four times normal speed.
X marks the start.
And he expertly completes a couple of tacks into the wind.
Rather different once l'm at the helm.
With the wind, l career towards the start at X.
Oh! Whoa.
Oh, l got bogged down.
Oh! l'm back, and with a few more mishaps crudely tack back to the finish.
Wow.
That is really, really exciting.
lt's very easy going down the beach with the wind.
Turning round and trying to tack up into the wind is a lot more difficult.
lt's been far from plain sailing on dry land.
But tomorrow l'll be a crew member in one of the world's toughest yacht races.
With over 1,600 boats fighting tide and wind, it's going to be quite a day.
From ports around Britain, great and small, sailors head out to sea, and it can be a rocky ride.
There's one thing all would-be seafarers need.
' good sea legs.
Stomaching the sea is tough enough for professionals.
But that doesn't stop amateur fishermen in Whitby.
Here in the harbour, boats for hire allow day trippers to try their hand at fishing.
But heading into the rough North Sea, it's their stomachs that catch them out.
You will have a fishy on a little dishy You will have a fishy when the boat comes in That's our boat there, l think.
My name is Divine Charura, and today we're going out sea fishing, gonna go down on a boat, which we do every year, to go out to the sea.
Dance to your daddy Sing to your mummy Dance to your daddy My bonny lad DlVlNE: l absolutely love fishing.
l was born in Zimbabwe and that's where l started fishing from the age of about five.
- Hello, Paul.
- Morning.
Morning.
How's it going? Nice to see you.
lt's been a year.
lt's been a while.
l came to the UK when l was about 1 6, l think, 1 6 or 1 7, so l've continued and kept the faith fishing.
PAUL: That's it.
Big smile, big smile.
Right.
DlVlNE: l've brought some friends and family.
l've brought my dad Alloise, who's a veteran fisherman, and l've brought my brother, Talent.
- Right, this is it.
- This is it.
l've got another friend of mine.
He's never been fishing before.
ln fact, it's his first time fishing.
He might be sick or not.
(Laughs) - You feeling all right? - l am.
Yeah? On a scale of one to ten? - l'm on nine and a half.
- Nine and (Laughs) - Which is good.
- l'll ask you in a few hours' time.
What we're doing is wreck fishing.
The boat lf you imagine this is a wreck, the boat comes on top and then we have to put our lines down before the tide takes us past it.
So as soon as we get there, we have to put our rods in.
Lines down, boys.
Lines down.
DlVlNE: l'm looking forward to catching some seriously big fish.
Cod, ling and pollock.
There's some big fish about.
The question is, can you catch them? - Yes.
Yes, Divine.
- Fish coming up? PAUL: That's a ling.
There it is.
- l've got a ling.
Well, this is what we're talking about.
- l told you.
- This is nice.
Wow.
Very nice.
That's my bro.
So, Samuel, how are we doing? He's probably gonna get away because l'm feeling so weak.
(Laughter) - Again.
- Ooh, a beautiful cod.
How are you feeling now? Out of ten? - l'm five.
- (Laughter) Smells nice, yeah.
This is the life.
- lt's what we're talking about.
- Talking about.
Can somebody take a picture of me and this man? - Smile, boys.
- He's the man.
lt could have been calmer and hotter, but it's been a good day.
Good day.
- You don't feel sick there, boys? - No.
NlCK: lt's no pleasure cruise being all at sea when you're trawling for your life.
An undercurrent of peril is ever present.
Never more so than for trawlermen landing their deadliest catch during the Second World War at Milford Haven.
Ruth's discovering how unsung heroes foiled an enemy threat hidden in our seas.
There was a time when British waters were infested with German mines.
RUTH: ln 1 940, Luftwaffe bombers and the German Navy were dropping mines into our harbours under the cover of darkness.
Ships were being lost at an alarming rate.
The deadly mines threatened to sink Britain.
Then unlikely saviours sailed in from the Netherlands.
Dutch trawlermen were bringing their fishing boats to Britain to take on the Germans.
Some 600 fishermen made for our coast in May 1 940 after Hitler attacked the Low Countries.
NEWSREADER: This is the BBC Home Service.
The German Army invaded Holland and Belgium early this morning by land and by landings from parachutes.
RUTH: Before the Nazis reached the ports, the Dutch fishing fleet fled to Britain.
One of those fishermen was Antoon van Gils.
Now his son Johan has returned to Milford Haven.
lt's more than 70 years ago since your father came along here into the harbour.
l mean, it was safer than home here, but it wasn't exactly that safe.
- He came here to fight.
- Yes.
(ln Dutch) RUTH: Using their trawlers, the Dutch exiles were assigned by the navy to minesweeping duty, a deadly job that they had to learn quickly or die trying.
How did the Dutch fisherman use their knowledge of the sea to fight for their land? Nick Hewitt is back to give me some naval know-how.
So what was it about the Dutch fishermen that offered so much for minesweeping? The techniques used in sweeping mines are actually very, very similar to fishing.
The skills that they need, the way of driving a boat, is exactly the same.
And also their boats are uniquely suited to it.
You could just literally take the trawling gear off the back and put the minesweeping gear on instead.
- So is this what we're talking about? - This is it.
This is a contact mine.
They're deployed off the back of a ship with a weight, called the sinker, takes it down to the bottom of the sea, cable plays out and then the mine is set to hold just below the surface of the water.
A ship comes along, the bow wave pushes the mine out of the way and then it pendulums back against the side of the ship and explodes.
RUTH: So how exactly does the minesweeping work? What they did was, if you have a look at this drawing here, you have your minesweeper, you have a long cable, the sweep wire, that comes out from the back of it and is attached to a float.
That's so that the wire goes out to the side of the boat, not behind it.
The wire's serrated.
lt cuts through the cable that's holding the mine to the bottom of the water.
The mine then bobs up to the surface.
lt's very simple then.
They shoot the prongs with rifles and blow it up.
RUTH: Mine sweeping was fraught with danger.
But Dutch sailors also landed a much happier catch.
Romantic entanglements weren't uncommon.
As Welshman Graham van Wert can testify.
His father was stationed up the coast at Holyhead.
Graham's meeting Johan to share stories of what their Dutch dads did in Wales during the war.
(Speak Dutch) GRAHAM: That's a photo of my father.
- Young man in a Dutch uniform.
- Yes.
- Oh, and there's yours as well.
- This is my father.
- Also in his Dutch naval uniform.
Yeah.
lt's been reported that there was over 1 05 marriages in Holyhead between local girls and Dutchmen, which surprised me because l didn't realise there were so many.
lt was quite a culture shock for the local people because they hadn't seen foreigners like this before, and you have this influx of, as l was told, handsome but rather on the wild side Dutchmen.
And the population thought a lot of them and brought them into their own homes.
RUTH: Graham's father was one of many to tie the knot with a local girl.
But Johan's father was already married, his wife stowed away with the fishing fleet.
- You were born here? - Born here, yes.
So you were here as a Welshman for the first few years of your life? Yeah, yeah.
RUTH: The bonds of love forged between foreign lands were often torn apart in the cruel seas.
The mines were indiscriminate killers.
Scientist Ewan McLaughlin knows the secret of how contact mines are triggered.
lf this was a real mine, this would be the mine casing, the outer steel shell of it.
Tucked in here is where an enormous amount of explosives would reside.
NEWSREEL: lnside is a load of mischief.
Maybe you'd like to examine this interesting toy in detail.
This is the Hertz horn itself which is made of lead.
You need to give it quite a clout, but that'll bend.
NEWSREEL: When the horn is bent, the trouble starts.
The whole of the intricate mechanism is set in motion.
And inside, this is a glass vial which would have acid in it, so if anything hits that, that'll crack and that will deposit all this acid into the electrodes underneath.
The breaking of the glass container causes a solution to flow over the battery plates towards the electric detonator.
lt generates almost two volts and quite a hefty current, so that's quite good for setting off a detonator circuit.
l thought you'd prefer the small light to having the explosives.
RUTH: Can we smash it? (Laughter) EWAN: l'll give it a go.
But now l've joined the navy l'm called a man of war RUTH: A trawler had a fighting chance of avoiding contact with a mine.
The boat's shallow draught meant they could glide over the submerged threat, if they were lucky.
Don't haul on the rope Don't climb up the mast lf you see a sailing ship it might be your last Get your civvies ready for another run ashore A sailor ain't a sailor ain't a sailor any more So it must have been dangerous here.
RUTH: One trawler that never made it home was the Caroline.
On 28th April, 1 94 1, she struck a mine in the Haven.
All of the 1 5 Dutch crew were killed.
Come on, guys.
We're just coming up to the wreck now.
RUTH: The wrecked trawler is a poignant sight for Johan.
RUTH: Today Johan and Graham pay their respects to those who risked their lives to keep our shipping safe.
Their fathers survived, but thousands of their Dutch and Allied comrades did not.
These were young men, stripped from their homeland by war, using those skills in seamanship that they had at their fingertips to save ultimately their own land and ours.
NlCK: We're all at sea.
And for one weekend in June there's nowhere more exciting to sail than the lsle of Wight.
6am on the morning of the Round the lsland Race and it's wet and gusty.
After all my preparation, it's time to put the theory into practice.
l'm pretty nervous.
This is my first sailing race and for reasons l'm beginning to wonder about l seem to have chosen one of the most challenging in the world.
lt's going to be a really big test.
l'll be crewing on the yacht Ortac.
Our skipper is Richard Webley.
Competition will be fierce.
One of Richard's biggest rivals is Tom Farnworth on Nereus.
We've got two competing skippers here, Richard and Tom, adjacent boats.
You're pretty equally balanced in terms of your boats? Yeah, very equally balanced.
lt's all down to crew, skipper and tactics.
- Yeah.
- Who's got the upper hand there? l think Tom's got more experience of the race, but l've got the better crew.
Well, there's only one way to find that out.
There is only one way to find that out.
NlCK: Richard thinks we have the best crew, a crew which includes me.
l've got a lot to live up to today.
We're now out on the water moving off towards the start line.
There are boats absolutely everywhere.
Must be just a few seconds, five or six seconds.
No, wait for it.
- That's the start! - We're off.
Really good blow.
Helicopter hovering overhead.
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
The first leg of the race runs southwest from Cowes to the Needles.
The start is chaos, every yacht competing for water, wind and tide.
lt's a case of getting out quick and avoiding collisions.
That was my first hands-on proper tack and l didn't muck it up.
Breaking free of the pack, we've stolen a march on our rivals.
Yeah! NlCK: That boat over there with a blue hull is Tom.
We're about that far ahead of him.
That's how close it is.
We're doing well, but obstacles await, the Needles and the wreck submerged just beyond.
Sail close and you shave off valuable seconds, but it's a gamble.
RlCHARD: We've cut it a little bit fine.
But we didn't run aground and now we can get ready to bear away to St Catherine's Point.
Wave! NlCK: Richard's nifty turn around the Needles keeps us in front of our rivals on Nereus.
TOM: We had a reasonably good start.
We were ahead of Ortac for the first half of the windward leg.
And then Ortac seemed to overtake us and we've lost them somewhere over there.
NlCK: Our next gamble is to come wide.
Further offshore the winds should be stronger, but it means battling against stronger currents.
l'm at the helm trying to follow Richard's plan.
So at the moment we're right on the outside of the fleet pretty much? We are.
Most of the people have gone shallow.
We're on the outside doing a straight line.
lt's a compromise and we'll see how it pays off when we finish.
NlCK: We're making for the exposed headland of St Catherine's Point.
Then we'll have the strong southwesterly blowing behind us.
lt's a keen turning point, an opportunity to race harder.
What we've decided to do is to put a bigger sail up, the spinnaker, as we go round the point, to give us extra speed down to the eastern end of the island.
Spinnakers catch huge amounts of wind, boosting speed, but they're risky.
The sails are unwieldy and can destabilise the boat.
l'm manning the spinnaker rope.
Another of my big moments.
l've not done this before in my life.
RlCHARD: Ease that sheet.
WOMAN: Yeah, it's eased.
lt's eased.
Oh, my God! Get that sheet over there, through there and up to that winch.
No, it's caught round that block.
NlCK: One of the ropes is stuck.
We can't rein in the sail.
WOMAN: l'm ready.
Yeah.
You're ticking in? MAN: The handle The handle's come off.
NlCK: The boat keeps going over, or broaching.
RlCHARD: On the right one.
On the right-hand side of you.
We had trouble getting the spinnaker up.
We've just broached three times.
The rail's gone right under.
MAN: Right.
RlCHARD: The one on the The green one.
- We're trying to regain control.
- l need you now! - Nick! - Sorry.
You're gonna have to stop.
l need you now.
Can you get NlCK: No time for talking.
RlCHARD: The halyard on theon the winch.
(Shouting) We have to free the rope, get the spinnaker down, or our race is over.
WOMAN: OK.
Ease more, more.
Quicker.
Yeah, more turns off.
Two turns on.
Yeah.
Ease quicker.
RlCHARD: Let the halyard go.
Can you help get it down the hatch? Get it in quick.
WOMAN: ls it off? ls it running? - Yeah, it's running.
RlCHARD: Well done, guys.
WOMAN: OK, it's off.
Right, spinnaker's down.
- Big, big drama.
RlCHARD: Well done, guys.
Good drop! NlCK: Our troubles with the spinnaker have cost us dear and allowed our rivals, skippered by Tom, to overtake.
But we're still in with a shout.
l've got a feeling the adventure isn't over yet.
Striking out across the sea, boats and their crews must fend for themselves when waters run wild.
Sailors in life and death situations fall back on something known as the ''custom of the sea''.
This code of conduct guides their moral compass.
But back on shore, a different set of rules holds sway.
The law of the land.
When these two worlds collide, sailors beware.
lt's a hard lesson they've learnt in Falmouth.
Back in Victorian times, following a notorious shipwreck, a band of survivors arrived here.
Mark knows their astonishing story.
MARK: This is a murderous tale that affects the law even today.
ln 1 884, when this yacht sank, one of the sailors was killed by his crewmates.
Back in Falmouth, they were arrested.
The trial consumed the whole nation.
The lllustrated Press provided graphic details of the case.
When they say ''worse things happen at sea'', this is what they mean.
This was a case of cannibalism, but even though the men had killed one of their crew and fed from his body, they fully expected to walk free.
Maritime tradition condoned cannibalism to survive.
But should the law ever excuse murder? The case caused a legal dilemma for those back at home.
How did a brutal custom of the sea come to shape the law of the land? This true crime story begins in the South Atlantic.
A yacht, the Mignonette, is struck by a terrible storm and sinks.
MAN: Abandon ship! Over 600 miles from land four sailors must save themselves.
The crew's lifeboat soon became their prison, adrift on the open ocean.
For 24 dreadful days they languished, starved and exhausted.
Royal Navy surgeon Dennis Freshwater knows the medical plight of the wrecked sailors.
lf you've been adrift on a boat for 1 5, 1 7 days without any food or water, l mean, what happens to your body? Well, the major thing is the dehydration.
MARK: No water? Water all around them and not a drop to drink.
DENNlS: Of course, that's very true because when you take in saltwater, you actually become more dehydrated, it worsens things, and then eventually death.
MARK: On the brink of death from dehydration, Captain Tom Dudley knew there was only one thing left to drink.
' blood.
The men's desperate gaze fell on the sickly cabin boy, Richard Parker.
By the morning of the 1 8th day, Richard Parker was lying in the bottom of the boat near to death.
Now, Tom Dudley said to the others ''Something must be done'', and by which he meant ''We have to kill Richard Parker.
'' And Tom Dudley then took a knife and cut Richard Parker's throat.
MARK: lt sounds horrific now, but in the days of sailing ships it wasn't so shocking.
Author Neil Hanson has researched Captain Dudley's dilemma.
lt's important to remember this wasn't something that suddenly occurred to Tom Dudley out of the blue.
For decades before this, ships had been wrecking, seamen had been cast adrift, and over years and years, as many people resorted to cannibalism, what was called the ''custom of the sea'' evolved.
But they were still undertaking murder.
lt was what seamen did, and it had been practised for so long, it seemed to them to have a judicial force.
MARK: The men thought they'd never face trial, even if they did get home.
MAN: Shark! But with sharks circling the blood-soaked boat, the law was the least of their concerns.
MAN: Over here! Then, miraculously, a sail.
The ill-fated crew were saved.
The survivors sailed back to Falmouth.
(Cheering) The seafaring community were sympathetic to the plight of the shipwrecked men.
However, miles away, the long arm of the law was beginning to flex its muscles.
The home secretary, Sir William Harcourt, seized on the case to assert his authority over the unofficial and antiquated ''custom of the sea''.
He wanted to make an example of the men, but the people of Falmouth had other ideas.
Their public donations paid for a top defence QC.
He would try to challenge the law of the land.
(Bangs gavel) JUDGE: Order! Order in court.
The defence barrister pleaded that the accused were not guilty by reason of necessity.
lt was a landmark legal moment.
The defence of ''necessity for murder'' didn't exist in English law.
The trial took the court back to the men's ordeal at sea.
Why didn't they let the sickly cabin boy die naturally and then drink his blood? Why did the crew think they had a ''necessity to murder'' their crewmate? The argument was advanced that they had to kill him to drink the blood before the blood congealed.
By cutting the throat while the heart is still pumping the blood is pumped out of the body so they can access it.
Whereas after death, they may have been able to get into the vessels but there's nothing to pump the blood out.
MARK: Captain Dudley, who stabbed the cabin boy, had been a ship's cook, so he understood butchering and bloodletting.
But common law is based on precedent.
lf the men were freed, would it allow otherjustifications for murder? The case went to the High Court to pronounce judgement.
(Bangs gavel) Lord Coleridge read out the final sentence.
They should be taken from this place to a place of execution, ''where you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead''.
JUDGE: Take them down.
MARK: The law of the land prevailed over the custom of the sea.
But public sympathy for the seafarers meant their executions were never carried out.
Shortly after the verdict, Queen Victoria commuted the death sentence to that of six months imprisonment.
Crucially, she stopped short of a full pardon for the convicted cannibals.
Over a century later we still live with the deadly events of that shipwreck from 1 884.
lt's studied by law students and cited in modern murder trials.
The case of the Queen versus Dudley and Stephens established that in English Law there is no defence of necessity for murder.
But the big question remains, would you kill to survive? (Blood-curdling cry) On this journey we're all at sea.
And l'm sailing for my life around the lsle of Wight.
Sail Sail Sail Sail Would you mean it if l say it? We've been at sea six and a half hours, one of 1,600 yachts competing in the Round the lsland Race.
Among the competitors there's one rival yacht, Nereus, that we're determined to beat.
After the turn at St Catherine's Point, we've rounded the eastern tip, approaching the home stretch to Cowes.
Nereus isjust ten minutes ahead.
Now the whole fleet is funnelling down for a sprint finish.
Our skipper's Richard Webley.
So it's just a drag race, who can sail the fastest, win the cleanest air, to get to the forks, and then it becomes a fight up to the finish.
We aren't just battling other boats.
We're also fighting the full force of wind and tide, straining hard on the rudder to steer true.
There's one last hazard to surmount.
Ryde Sands lie just beneath the waves, waiting to scupper any yacht tempted to take a short cut home.
To avoid the sandbank, we keep one eye on the depth gauge and the other on our rivals.
But there's one threat we're not looking out for.
We've lost rudder! NlCK: The rudder linkage has snapped.
The sails take over steering.
We're not just helpless, we're dangerous.
We've lost rudder! We've lost rudder! Clear off! NlCK: A missile guided by the wind.
We need to get that under control.
Let's just try and bundle that up.
Can we get the main in, please? lf you've got any control, if you just steer us out of this line of boats.
Big drama.
Lost a rudder.
Which is about as serious as things can get when you're sailing pretty quick in a big boat.
And so really effective team work getting the sails down rapidly.
All our efforts blown out of the water by a single mechanical failure.
Our race is run.
So near, so far.
We're travelling back to Cowes under motor without the sails.
Ahead of us yachts cross the finishing line, including our rivals on Nereus, skippered by Tom, who came home in a time of seven hours 56 minutes.
Champagne for some.
But for our brave team, the ending is a little less glamorous.
We were sailing so well.
We were ahead of many boats that should have been faster than us.
The tactics that Richard adopted were brilliant.
Then in the home straight the rudder broke.
Richard's steering us back with a pair of rusty bicycle handlebars.
Contests come and go, but the restless sea's eternal.
We competed against the best, but ultimately our destiny was decided by a greater power.
lt's wonderful, it's unpredictable and sometimes it's cruel.
But the sea's siren call tempts each generation anew.
The one thing that all of us as islanders can share is the temperamental seductive sea.