"Newly appointed captain Robert Stubbs had wagered that he could reach Jamaica in time. The stakes included the lives of everyone on board the Zorg, the profit of the venture, and the futures of men like the incapacitated captain and physician Luke Collingwood, deposed navigator James Kelsall, and Stubbs himself. Stubbs prudently followed the strong northwest trade winds toward his destination. Laughing gulls and tricolored herons accompanied the ship as it glided over the balmy Caribbean waters."
"Two or three days past Tobago, "on or about the twentieth or twenty first of November," someone on board the Zorg made a surprising discovery. Perhaps one of the Dutch crew members who was used to a more methodical monitoring of provisions under the printed instructions provided by the MCC, the Dutch slave-trade enterprise, to former captain Jan Wilton finally decided to conduct his own examination of the ship's supplies."
"At some point during the journey, perhaps during a bout of violent weather, "a large quantity of the water had leaked from the lower tier of water casks." Were these the casks that had been loaded back in Accra when the cooper was ill, and if so, were they not properly trimmed and prepared by the native coopers? Or did they just get damaged at some point along the way?"
Captain Robert Stubbs raced to reach Jamaica, relying on northwest trade winds to protect lives, profit, and the futures of key crew members. A few days past Tobago a crewman discovered that a prior check of the water supply had been inaccurate. A large quantity of water had leaked from the lower tier of water casks. The leak raised questions about casks loaded in Accra, possible improper trimming by native coopers or damage during the voyage. The crew responded by conducting a more careful examination of the ship's provisions as the voyage continued.
Read at Harvard Gazette
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