Kieran Doherty Quote

Like other ships of her time, the Sea Venture was built of long, thick planks laid flush, edge to edge and end to end over oak frames. These planks were laid just close enough to one another to allow the shipbuilder to pound caulking between the planks. This caulking, called oakum, was typically made using fibers from unraveled rope. Impregnated with tar, these fibers were packed into seams and joints, making the ship watertight. Under ideal, or even usual, circumstances, oakum caulking worked well. Over time, however, as a wooden vessel was worked by pounding waves in a storm, its planks moved and shifted. Eventually, the caulking between the planks would begin to work itself free, opening the vessel like a sieve. And that’s exactly what happened to the Sea Venture. The ship, Strachey said, in every joint almost having spewed out her oakum before we were aware (a casualty more desperate than any other that a voyage by sea draweth with it), was grown five foot … deep with water above her ballast.8