The Gulf of Pain

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They thought they'd gone far enough west to clear the Chilean coast, but they miscalculated and were too close to shore. One of the junior officers, Petty Officer, who was climbed the mast to fix one of the sails, looks out and he sees they are barreling toward land. So what do you do if you've got a gigantic ship barreling towards? I mean, it's not like you can put the motor in reverse. And certainly that, this isn't like modern sailboats. These sailboats to turn around took as long as an hour.

There’s an old sailors’ saying about the ocean at the southernmost part of the world — “below 40 degrees latitude, there is no law; below 50 degrees, there is no God.”

David Grann brings us the story of what happened when five British warships set off on a secret mission to steal a ship filled with treasure. They’d have to sail around the very bottom of South America — at 56 degrees south.

David Grann’s book is The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder.

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Artwork by Julienne Alexander.

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