The Storm

It was past the Jewish Day of Atonement, or mid-October, when the wind finally changed. A fair wind from the south began to blow and the captain decided to make for a better harbor at Phoenix, on the western end of Crete. Because of the lateness of the season, his decision was controversial.

During the winter, no ships sailed on the Mediterranean. As Luke records, they could either winter at Fair Havens or use the temporary southern wind to make for Phoenix.

Luke maintains that Fair Havens was not a good winter harbor, and that the captain and the sailors wanted to try for Phoenix. The argument against sailing for Phoenix was the lateness of the season, with the real possibility of a sudden, adverse wind that could wreck the ship. (6)

There are two pieces of evidence that bear on this passage. First, although Fair Havens is not the best of harbors, modern surveys reveal that it is a safe winter harbor.

Second, Luke implies that the Centurion made the final decision to sail. Although it may seem odd to us today that an army commander would make this decision, in the Roman military there was no separation between land and sea forces. The Roman navy was an extension of the army, with army commanders serving as naval officers.

However, this was a private ship and not a naval vessel. Some scholars argue that the captain, who was the owner of the ship, would have made the decision, rather than the Centurion. But inscriptional evidence from the first century indicates that ship owners who took part in the vital grain trade between Egypt and Rome were generally licensed as agents of the Roman state. They were a kind of public utility and were under strict government regulation. Since the Centurion represented the Roman state, his permission may have been needed to sail. (7)

Map of Southern Crete

Scholars have also argued that the ship’s owner would not have wanted to risk his ship so late in the season. However, according to the Roman historian Suetonius, throughout this era the city of Rome faced continuing shortages of food during the winter months. Thus the Emperor Claudius offered substantial bonuses to ship owners who took the chance of sailing late in the season. This may have been the reason for the captain’s willingness to try for the harbor at Phoenix. From there, it would have been possible to make for Rome if the weather held. (8)

The location of Phoenix’s harbor remains something of a mystery. There are two bays at the western end of southern Crete, only one of which corresponds to Luke’s description as being open to the southwest and northwest. Today this bay is not deep enough to serve as a harbor, though it may have been of sufficient depth two thousand years ago. A geological survey has established that parts of the western coast of Crete are twenty feet higher today than in antiquity, the result of earthquake activity over the centuries. The line of the bay has been traced and has been shown to have been deeper in Paul’s time. Whether it was deep enough for use as a harbor remains an open question.

The second bay, which has a deep harbor and is used by ships today, faces the opposite direction from that recorded by Luke. If this is the bay for which Paul’s ship was heading, then Luke’s description of it is wrong. But then, Paul’s ship never reached Phoenix, so Luke may have erred because he never saw the harbor. On the other hand, he may not have been mistaken. There is simply not enough evidence to decide which of the two bays was the site of the ancient harbor. (9)

The Gale (Acts 27.13-.20)

In verse thirteen, Luke says that after leaving Fair Havens the ship sailed close to shore. While this passage demonstrates Luke’s reliability as an observer, it shows that he was no sailor. The ship did not sail close to shore on purpose. They had no choice in the matter. Cape Matala lies four miles south by west of Fair Havens, with the wind now coming from the south. Because ancient ships could not lie closer to the wind than seven points, they would have had a struggle to keep the ship from being blown against the coast until finally rounding the Cape. (10)

From Cape Matala, it was 34 miles to Phoenix, with the southern wind now favoring their course. They should have reached the harbor in a few hours. Instead, there was a violent change in the weather. A gale suddenly roared down on them from Crete’s seven-thousand-foot tall mountains, forcing them to turn and run before the wind.

Luke records that the sailors called this wind Euraquilo. An unusual name, it has been found in one ancient inscription and is a slang compound of Greek and Latin. The Greek Erus (east) and the Latin Aquilo (north) translates as "northeaster," a strong winter wind. Meteorological evidence reveals that a sudden change from a mild southerly wind to a violent northeasterly wind often occurs in late fall in the eastern Mediterranean. (11)

According to Luke, they ran before the wind to avoid capsizing, then found temporary shelter behind the small island of Clauda (or Cauda), southwest of Cape Matala. Luke says nothing about an attempt to anchor there, which indeed would have been impossible, since the only anchorage on that island is open to the east-northeast.

Temporarily safe behind Clauda, they had two choices. First, they could turn and run before the storm once more. In that case, they would be faced with the eventual possibility of the ship’s wrecking on the north African coast. Luke mentions the fear of the sailors that they would be driven onto that coast. Their second choice – which is the course that they took – was to secure the ship, point it into the wind, and drift slowly westward in the teeth of the storm.

Luke does not actually state that they pointed the ship into the wind. He says only that they decided to drift with the storm. But for a sailing vessel to drift in a gale without capsizing, it must either face toward the wind or away from it. We know that they did not face the ship away from the wind, because in that case they would have drifted slowly to southwest, to the African coast. Since Luke records that they wrecked on the island of Malta, to the northwest, we know that they faced the ship into the wind.

While they were temporarily behind Clauda, three distinct operations were performed. First, with difficulty, they hauled in the small boat that, like other ancient ships, they towed on a line behind them. Second, they took ropes and undergirded the ship to strengthen it against the waves. Third, and most importantly, they trimmed the sail. This was probably done first, although Luke mentions it last. Each of these actions are steps that would have been taken to secure an ancient ship in a storm.

In modern translations of this passage, the lowering of the mainsail is usually not mentioned. Instead, Luke is quoted as saying that they lowered a sea anchor. However, the literal translation of Luke’s Greek is that they lowered "the ship’s gear," which would include the mainsail. (12)

The Adria (Acts 27.27)

Luke states that the ship drifted on the Adria for fourteen days, the gale continuing the whole time. Today, the Adriatic Sea is a body of water between Italy and the Balkans, a finger-like extension of the Mediterranean Sea. But in antiquity, the term denoted a more extensive area. In the second century AD, the geographer Pausanias and the astronomer Ptolemy both refer to the Mediterranean as far south as Sicily and Crete as being the "Adria." (13)

Voyage
Map

Drifting 14 Days in the Storm

Luke records that the ship drifted for fourteen days in the gale and then shipwrecked on the island of Malta, halfway across the Mediterranean. This account of a fourteen day gale, followed by a shipwreck on a remote island, reads like a tall tale. However, the meteorological and nautical evidence demonstrates, in rather spectacular fashion, that these events must have occurred just as Luke records them.

The most important piece of evidence is the compass bearing of the gale. This bearing can be established by means of three separate calculations.

First, Luke states that Euraquilo struck shortly after they left Fair Havens. In other words, the ship must have been less than halfway to their intended destination at Phoenix. This would put it somewhere between Cape Matala and a point seventeen miles W.N.W. of the Cape when the gale struck.

Second, there is the relation of the island of Clauda (or Cauda) to this start point. Cape Matala is on a bearing of east 7 degrees north from the eastern edge of Clauda, while the halfway point to Phoenix is east 40 degrees north. For the ship to get behind Clauda, Euraquilo must have been blowing from a point somewhere between these two bearings. The point midway between these two figures is east 25 degrees north (or E.N.E. 1/4 N.). This cannot be more than a point and a half off the actual direction of the wind.

Third, Luke states that when they got behind Clauda, the sailors were afraid that they would be blown onto the Syrtis sandbanks of the north Africa coast. However, for them to have been blown onto those banks from Clauda, Euraquilo would have had to have been blowing from a point somewhere between east 18 degrees north and east 37 degrees north. The point midway between these figures is east 27 degrees north. This figure is only 1/4 point off the mean figure of the previous calculation.

These three calculations establish that the direction from which the wind was blowing could not have been more than a point off the designation E.N.E. 1/2 N.

This brings us to a another dramatic piece of evidence. As the ship drifted west from Clauda, it would have been pointed due north. We know this because it could not have been pointed directly into the wind without capsizing. In other words, it had to have been pointed just off the direction from which the wind was blowing. Using this information, we can calculate with some precision both the direction and rate of the ship’s drift to the west.

Ancient records reveal that Egyptian grain ships were the largest vessels of the time, being about the size of an early nineteenth century sailing vessel. This size is implicitly confirmed by Luke’s statement that there were 276 people on board.

Since their ship was pointed due north, while the wind was from the northeast, we can roughly calculate the direction of ship’s lateral - or sideways - drift. The azimuth, or direction, of the ship’s drift from Clauda would have been approximately west eight degrees north. The island of Malta is not directly west of Clauda. Instead, Malta’s bearing from Clauda is exactly west eight degrees north.

This brings us to yet another piece of evidence. Luke states that it took them fourteen days to drift to Malta. The distance from Clauda to the easternmost point of Malta is 476.6 miles. To calculate the westward rate of drift of their ship, it is necessary to know two things: the size of the ship and the force of the gale. We know the approximate size of the ship and it is possible to establish the mean intensity of the gale. We can then calculate an average rate of drift for Paul’s vessel. This calculation reveals an average westward drift of one and one half miles per hour. Thus it would take Paul’s ship about thirteen days to drift to Malta. Luke records that it took them fourteen days. (14)

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Copyright © 1998-2001 by Jefferson White