May had been an unkind month for the American Bark, Vidette.
In 1885 Captain Sawyer and his vessel had witnessed something truly astounding:
“On May 17th a water spout appeared to form and rise in the northeast in a long spiral column – It rose until the sky above, extending over an area of a mile, was an inky black mass of heavy clouds, gradually moving in a southwest direction, until within a half mile of the vessel, when it seemed to burst, the rain coming down in torrents for two hours. This was accompanied by strong gusts of wind, shifting from one quarter to directly the opposite one, and with a force of six to eight. To the south and southwest before and during the formation of the water-spout …..the sky was black and very threatening, with thunder and lightning. This continued to the time alluded to and finally ended with several sharp claps of thunder and a fifteen minutes fall of hailstones – ..”
This unusual meteorically event was followed up a year later in the area today called the Bermuda Triangle. The Vidette had departed the Cuban city of Cienfuegos in April with a cargo of sugar, destined for New York.
On May 1, 1886, she encountered a vicious storm that beat her without pause for the next three days. According to the New York Times from May 17, 1886:
” She was knocked about by a heavy northwest gale, which was accompanied by violent squalls, thunder, lightning and rain.”
On the fourth day, the weather finally cleared and the Vidette thought she had left the worst behind her. The crew turned in for a much-deserved night’s rest when they were awakened by a commotion above deck. The ship’s sails were on fire. Again from the New York Times:
“On May 4 the weather moderated, and at 1:30 o’clock the next morning a meteor flashed across the sky and struck the bark’s maintop. The vessel was brilliantly lighted up from stem to stern. The mast caught fire, and in less than ten seconds was in full blaze. The mates and two sailors ran up the rigging and after a lively tussle for five or six minutes beat the fire out. The weather was fine and the sky nearly clear.”
The Vidette survived the voyage and arrived safely in New York on May 17.
Her string of bad-luck months of May apparently changed over the course of the next 13 years. No incidents made their way into the newspapers. But the month of August 1899 would finally do her in.
In early August, a vicious Atlantic hurricane swept in off Dog Island, Fla., near Panama City. The cyclone destroyed dozens of ships, including the Vidette.
It seems nature had thrown everything at the Vidette at one time or another during her service. Apparently the heavens had decided she was not to go forward into the 20th century.