The process of ships 'speaking' to each other

[Mart 'n' Al]

I am researching the voyages of a particular ship's master between about 1850 and 1880.  From the British News Archive I have many reports of ships 'speaking' to each other as they passed.  I assume that this was mostly by heliograph. 

I know this is a very vague question, but I am trying to get some idea of the time it took for these reports to get back to London, for publication in the press, especially Lloyds List and the Shipping and Mercantile Gazette.  (I know they merged in 1884).  Also, what technology was used for getting this information back to London?  It gets particularly confusing when a ship visited, say, several ports around the Far East.  It is hard to tell the order of the visits.

Did ships just keep a record of the 'speakings' until they reached an intermediate port or the final destination?  I assume that the impending arrival of a ship meant that all sorts of activities took place, ready for receiving a new cargo, such as local markets and distribution transport.

I apologise for such vague questions.  I'm a landlubber.

Martin

[mazi]

Until the invention of communication by radio using morse code there was no way, so the info. Would reach London when the ship arrived there.

I was researching marine insurance for someone, and it became clear that you waved your ship goodbye and may know nothing until it returned six months later, if it passed a ship returning home in the other direction then you would get a report of the sighting in the shipping column of the newspapers.

Ships were deliberately scuttled to claim on the cargo insurance,  it was usual for the captain, when he reached a foreign port, to be responsible for finding a return cargo as best he could, although some places may have cargo waiting, such as tea coffee or cotton.

No doubt experts will be along to correct me

Mike

[mazi]

A brief personal experience, my elderly aunt kept a telegram from her fiancée sent from Durban in 1922 saying his expected arrival back in Liverpool.

It was several weeks later that another telegram arrived saying regret SS xxx lost with all hands off the coast of Africa,

She never married and lived to be 98

Mike

[Rena]

I went to school in the Port of Hull in the 1940s-1950s when the maritime industry was part of the curriculum. 

In the time frame you're interested in, sailing ships/steamers made use of flags strung from their masts as shown on this webpage:-  http://www.beaufortonline.com/nautical-flag-guide/       The only flag that stays in my mind was being told about the "Yellow Flag", that meant don't come aboard this ship as there's (a plague) an infectious disease on board.

Semaphore was still being used but as mentioned by you, this had been superceded by Morse code as battery power had been invented. 

If you look at ye olde directories you'll see British seaports had long lists of foreign shipping agents, which kept in touch with captains at sea and customers by the Telegraph System.  I imagine ships owners had agents the length of Europe and Africa, etc., and their agents would relay via telegraph the latest news about cargos, arrivals, etc. :- https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/telegraph

My late OH's grandfather born 1840s was a ship's captain and his arrivals and departures were listed in newspapers' Shipping pages.  Additionally British newspapers often had an "Intelligence" section that would often contain news of British ships in foreign ports.

[Mart 'n' Al]

Rena, that's all very helpful.  I'd forgotten about semaphore.  (I wonder what the 'flags per minute' 'typing' speed was?!) Thanks for the links. 

I've got many references from 'Intelligence' pages.  It is so hard sorting the information into date order.  Especially if the same port was visited twice or more in one long voyage.  I realise that the information as printed could be weeks or even months out of date, until ships were sighted from the UK coast.  Who did that sort of thing - coastguards or merchants?

Martin

[Erato]

There were agents in the ports and at key points along shipping lanes who reported by telegraph.
By the 1880s, much of the world was connected by overland and and underwater cables.

http://atlantic-cable.com/Maps/

[Chris Doran]

Probably in a fiction film, I seem to remember that if you passed a ship going the other way, you both hove to and sent across a longboat to swap mail, particularly, I'd think, if carrying passengers. As to captains finding a cargo to take back, this was featured frequently in "The Onedin Line".

[Rena]

Rena, that's all very helpful.  I'd forgotten about semaphore.  (I wonder what the 'flags per minute' 'typing' speed was?!) Thanks for the links. 

I've got many references from 'Intelligence' pages.  It is so hard sorting the information into date order.  Especially if the same port was visited twice or more in one long voyage.  I realise that the information as printed could be weeks or even months out of date, until ships were sighted from the UK coast.  Who did that sort of thing - coastguards or merchants?

Martin

Good luck trying to find Coastguard records.  My gt. grandfather was a deputy dockmaster (in the Port of Leith) and his ancestor was a "seafarer", in the employ of the taxman as a coastguard and I have yet to find any record.

[mazi]

Probably in a fiction film, I seem to remember that if you passed a ship going the other way, you both hove to and sent across a longboat to swap mail, particularly, I'd think, if carrying passengers. As to captains finding a cargo to take back, this was featured frequently in "The Onedin Line".

I’d go along with that, I think every ship that was passed on voyage was noted in the ships log, ships can vanish without trace in a storm so “ last sighting” was useful info for Lloyds insurers.

Until radio came along ships at sea had no means of communication except flags, semaphore heliograph etc.  Navigation wasn’t that easy either another masters responsibility

Mike