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51-580: In 1614, Block sailed through the whirlpools ( Hellegat ) on the East River , and into Long Island Sound. There he named Block Island for himself. Block was also the first European to venture up the Connecticut River . He managed to get as far as the Enfield rapids, about 60 miles up the river. Besides finding several inland water routes, creating trading networks and mapping native villages,

102-594: A high-visibility vest and depth gauge . The mannequin was swallowed and spat up far down current with a depth gauge reading of 262 m (860 ft) and evidence of being dragged along the bottom for a great distance. About three miles (4.8 kilometers) downstream from Niagara Falls is the Niagara Whirlpool . Located mostly in Canada and partially in the United States, the whirlpool is crossed by

153-523: A detailed and accurate map. By then Maillefert had cleared the rock "Baldheaded Billy", and it was reported that Pot Rock had been reduced to 20.5 feet (6.2 m), which encouraged the United States Congress to appropriate $ 20,000 for further clearing of the strait. However, a more accurate survey showed that the depth of Pot Rock was actually a little more than 18 feet (5.5 m), and eventually Congress withdrew its funding. With

204-642: A direct rail link between New England and New York City. In 1936, it was spanned by the Triborough Bridge (now the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge ), allowing vehicular traffic to pass among Manhattan , the Bronx, and Queens. Periodically, merchants and other interested parties would try to get something done about the difficulty of navigating through Hell Gate. In 1832, the New York State legislature

255-587: A gigantic circular vortex that reaches the bottom of the ocean, when in fact it is a set of currents and crosscurrents with a rate of 18 km/h (11 mph). Poe described this phenomenon in his short story " A Descent into the Maelström ", which in 1841 was the first to use the word maelstrom in the English language; in this story related to the Lofoten Maelstrom, two fishermen are swallowed by

306-498: A large disaster comes from the fourteenth-century Mali Empire ruler Mansa Musa , as reported by a contemporary, Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari : The ruler who preceded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean that encircles the earth (meaning Atlantic), and wanted to reach that (end) and obstinately persisted in the design. So he equipped two hundred boats full of men, like many others full of gold, water and victuals sufficient for several years. He ordered

357-458: A little inward from the shore can hardly getaway. I have heard a certain high nobleman of the Gauls relating that a number of ships, shattered at first by a tempest, were afterward devoured by this same Charybdis . And when one only out of all the men who had been in these ships, still breathing, swam over the waves, while the rest were dying, he came, swept by the force of the receding waters, up to

408-480: A maelstrom, although only smaller craft are actually in danger. Smaller whirlpools appear at river rapids and can be observed downstream of artificial structures such as weirs and dams. Large cataracts , such as Niagara Falls , produce strong whirlpools. Saltstraumen is a narrow strait located close to the Arctic Circle , 33 km (20 mi) south-east of the city of Bodø , Norway . It has one of

459-788: A short story by Edgar Allan Poe named " A Descent into the Maelström " (1841). The second is Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870), a novel by Jules Verne . At the end of this novel, Captain Nemo seems to commit suicide, sending his Nautilus submarine into the Maelstrom (although in Verne's sequel Nemo and the Nautilus were seen to have survived). The "Norway maelstrom" is also mentioned in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick . In

510-492: A squall knocks the engine out of commission, they face the whirlpool. Torquil manages to repair the engine before the tide turns, and they return to the mainland. This part of the picture uses footage Powell filmed, while tied to a mast to leave both hands free for the camera, at Corryvreckan, incorporated into scenes shot in a huge tank at the studio. In the 2007 film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ,

561-516: A whirlpool, which sucked entire ships into its fold in the narrow coast of Sicily , a disaster faced by navigators. During the 8th century, Paul the Deacon , who had lived among the Belgii, described tidal bores and the maelstrom for a Mediterranean audience unused to such violent tidal surges: Not very far from this shore... toward the western side, on which the ocean main lies open without end,

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612-521: Is a body of rotating water produced by opposing currents or a current running into an obstacle. Small whirlpools form when a bath or a sink is draining. More powerful ones formed in seas or oceans may be called maelstroms ( / ˈ m eɪ l s t r ɒ m , - r ə m / MAYL -strom, -⁠strəm ). Vortex is the proper term for a whirlpool that has a downdraft . In narrow ocean straits with fast flowing water, whirlpools are often caused by tides . Many stories tell of ships being sucked into

663-467: Is determined to get to the Isle of Kiloran and marry her fiancé. Dangerous weather delays her crossing, and her determination becomes desperate when she realizes that she is falling in love with Torquil MacNeil ( Roger Livesey ). Against the advice of experienced folk, she offers a young fisherman a huge sum of money to take her over. At the last moment, Royal Naval Officer Torquil steps into the boat, and after

714-513: Is of the 1500s, Olaus Magnus , a Swedish bishop, who had stated that a maelstrom more powerful than the one written about in the Odyssey sucked in ships, which sank to the bottom of the sea, and even whales were pulled in. Pytheas , the Greek historian, also mentioned that maelstroms swallowed ships and threw them up again. The monster Charybdis of Greek mythology was later rationalized as

765-685: Is supposedly the whirlpool depicted in Olaus Magnus's map, labeled as "Horrenda Caribdis" ( Charybdis ). The Moskstraumen is formed by the combination of powerful semi-diurnal tides and the unusual shape of the seabed , with a shallow ridge between the Moskenesøya and Værøya islands which amplifies and whirls the tidal currents. The fictional depictions of the Moskstraumen by Edgar Allan Poe , Jules Verne , and Cixin Liu describe it as

816-519: Is that very deep whirlpool of waters which we call by its familiar name "the navel of the sea". This is said to suck in the waves and spew them forth again twice every day. ... They say there is another whirlpool of this kind between the island of Britain and the province of Galicia , and with this fact the coasts of the Seine region and of Aquitaine agree, for they are filled twice a day with such sudden inundations that any one who may by chance be found only

867-607: The Army Corps of Engineers to continue Maillefert's work, but the money was soon spent without appreciable change in the hazards of navigating the strait. An advisory council recommended in 1856 that the strait be cleared of all obstacles, but nothing was done, and the Civil War soon broke out. In the late 1860s, after the Civil War, Congress realized the military importance of having easily navigable waterways, and charged

918-562: The Dutch phrase Hellegat . It first appeared on a Dutch map as Helle Gadt . The name was originally applied to the entirety of the East River, by Dutch explorer Adriaen Block , the first European known to have navigated the strait, who bestowed the name sometime during his 1614–1616 voyage aboard the Onrust circumnavigating Long Island , from its namesake Hellegat on (the mouth of)

969-474: The Life of St Columba , the author, Adomnan of Iona , attributes to the saint miraculous knowledge of a particular bishop who sailed into a whirlpool off the coast of Ireland. In Adomnan's narrative, he quotes Columba saying Cólman mac Beognai has set sail to come here and is now in great danger in the surging tides of the whirlpool of Corryvreckan. Sitting in the prow, he lifts up his hands to heaven and blesses

1020-545: The Long Island Sound , Harlem River strait, Upper Bay of New York Harbor , and lesser channels, some of which have been filled), the Anglicization stuck. The strait was also known as Hurl Gate (or Hurlgate ), and so labeled on 18th and 19th century maps and annals, this name probably consisting of Dutch warrel 'whirl' and gat 'hole, gap, mouth', in effect denoting 'whirlpool'. For

1071-724: The River Scheldt , in Zeeland back in the Netherlands. This name Hellegat was taken from the Greek Hellespont ( Dardanelles ) which also has a dangerous reputation, in the opinion of historian Edward Manning Ruttenber . Alternatively, the name could be construed to mean "bright strait" or "clear opening", according to geographer Henry Gannett . Because explorers found navigation hazardous in this New World place of rocks and converging tide-driven currents (from

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1122-637: The Whirlpool Aero Car . The basin of the whirlpool is 1,700 feet (518 meters) long and 1,200 feet (365 meters) wide. Its maximum water depth is 125 feet (38 meters). Old Sow whirlpool is located between Deer Island, New Brunswick , Canada, and Moose Island, Eastport, Maine , USA. It is given the epithet "pig-like" as it makes a screeching noise when the vortex is at its full fury and reaches speeds of as much as 27.6 km/h (17.1 mph). The smaller whirlpools around this Old Sow are known as "Piglets". The Naruto whirlpools are located in

1173-747: The whirlpool that develops in Hell Gate, the name Monatun was applied by Dr. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft ; the name is said to mean "violent, forcible, dangerous". In October 1776, Admiral Howe sailed some of the British fleet through the strait, an action which was considered reckless at the time. Hell Gate was spanned in 1917 by the New York Connecting Railroad Bridge, now called the Hell Gate Bridge , which connects Wards Island and Queens . The bridge provides

1224-477: The 3-acre (1.2 ha) Hallert's Point Reef off of Queens. The project would involve 7,000 feet (2,100 m) of tunnels equipped with trains to haul debris out as the reef was eviscerated, creating a reef structured like Swiss cheese , which Newton would then blow up. After seven years of digging seven thousand holes, and filling four thousand of them with 30,000 pounds (14,000 kg) of dynamite, on September 24, 1876, in front of an audience of people including

1275-546: The Army Corps of Engineers with clearing Hell Gate of the rocks there that caused a danger to navigation. The Corps' Colonel James Newton estimated that the project would cost $ 1 million, as compared to the approximate annual loss in shipping of $ 2 million. Initial forays floundered, and Newton, by that time a general, took over direct control of the project. In 1868 Newton decided, with the support of both New York's mercantile class and local real estate interests, to focus on

1326-427: The Hell Gate stretch of the river so dangerous to navigate. Ebenezer Meriam had organized a subscription to pay Maillefert $ 6,000 to, for instance, reduce "Pot Rock" to provide 24 feet (7.3 m) of depth at low-mean water. While ships continued to run aground (in the 1850s about 2% of ships did so) and petitions continued to call for action, the federal government undertook surveys of the area which ended in 1851 with

1377-592: The Naruto Strait near Awaji Island in Japan, which have speeds of 26 km/h (16 mph). Skookumchuck Narrows is a tidal rapids that develops whirlpools, on the Sunshine Coast , British Columbia , Canada with speeds of the current exceeding 30 km/h (19 mph). French Pass ( Te Aumiti ) is a narrow and treacherous stretch of water that separates D'Urville Island from the north end of

1428-776: The Onrust Project, a non-profit organization , directed by Don Rittner and Greta Wagle, built a replica of the Onrust at the Schenectady County Historical Society 's Mabee Farm Historic Site in Rotterdam Junction, NY . Master shipwright and naval architect Gerald DeWeerdt of the Netherlands, and shipwright Howard Mittleman of North River Restorations in Schenectady, N.Y. led the team of volunteers. Construction used both modern power tools and traditional hand tools to build

1479-761: The Seas (first published in New York in 1830 ), Hell Gate serves as the scene for an exciting pursuit of the brigantine Water Witch by HMS Coquette . The Water Witch is captained by Thomas Tiller, an adventurous sailor with a romantic flair, and HMS Coquette by Captain Cornelius van Cuyler Ludlow, a principled young officer in the Royal Navy and a native of New York. Informational notes Citations Bibliography 40°47′03″N 73°55′14″W  /  40.78417°N 73.92056°W  / 40.78417; -73.92056 Whirlpool A whirlpool

1530-554: The South Island of New Zealand. In 2000 a whirlpool there caught student divers, resulting in fatalities. A short-lived whirlpool sucked in a portion of the 1,300-acre (530 ha) Lake Peigneur in Louisiana, United States after a drilling mishap on November 20, 1980. This was not a naturally occurring whirlpool, but a disaster caused by underwater drillers breaking through the roof of a salt mine. The lake then drained into

1581-509: The annals of commerce for this destruction of one of the terrors of navigation." Clearing out the debris from the explosion took until 1891. Newton had begun to undermine Flood Rock, a 9-acre (3.6 ha) reef, even before starting on Hallert's Rock, removing 8,000 cubic yards (6,100 m ) of rock from the reef. In 1885 Flood Rock was blown up as well, with Civil War General Philip Sheridan and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher among those in attendance. Newton's daughter once more set off

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1632-482: The blast, the biggest ever to that date and subsequently reported as the largest man-made explosion until the advent of the atomic bomb although the detonation at the Battle of Messines in 1917 was several times larger. Two years later, plans were in place to dredge Hell Gate to a consistent depth of 26 feet (7.9 m). In James Fenimore Cooper 's historical fiction novel The Water-Witch , or, The Skimmer of

1683-404: The chief (admiral) not to return until they had reached the extremity of the ocean, or if they had exhausted the provisions and the water. They set out. Their absence extended over a long period, and, at last, only one boat returned. On our questioning, the captain said: 'Prince, we have navigated for a long time, until we saw in the midst of the ocean as if a big river was flowing violently. My boat

1734-400: The edge of that most frightful abyss. And when now he beheld yawning before him the deep chaos whose end he could not see, and half dead from very fear, expected to be hurled into it, suddenly in a way that he could not have hoped he was cast upon a certain rock and sat him down. Three of the most notable literary references to the Lofoten Maelstrom date from the nineteenth century. The first is

1785-523: The final battle between the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman takes place with both ships sailing inside a giant whirlpool which appears to be over a kilometer wide and several hundred meters deep. The fantasy novels Eldest and The Bellmaker (otherwise unconnected) both feature a scene where the protagonists' ship escapes pursuit by successfully navigating a massive whirlpool, while

1836-442: The harbor was not created. In the 1850s the depth continued to lessen – the harbor commission said in 1850 that the mean water low was 24 feet (7.3 m) and the extreme water low was 23 feet (7.0 m) – while the draft required by the new ships continued to increase, meaning it was only safe for them to enter the harbor at high tide. The U.S. Congress, realizing that the problem needed to be addressed, appropriated $ 20,000 for

1887-400: The inhabitants of the insane asylum on Wards Island, but not the prisoners of Blackwell's Island (now known as Roosevelt Island) who remained in their cells, Newton's daughter set off the explosion. The effect was immediate in decreased turbulence through the strait, and fewer accidents and shipwrecks. The city's Chamber of Commerce commented that "The Centennial year will be for ever known in

1938-413: The lake. At the time of the whirlpool's formation, the lake was being drained after reaching its highest level ever. The Army Corps of Engineers , which operates the dam and lake, expected that the whirlpool would last until the lake reached normal seasonal levels by late July. Powerful whirlpools have killed unlucky seafarers, but their power tends to be exaggerated by laymen. One of the few reports of

1989-555: The maelstrom while one survives. The Corryvreckan is a narrow strait between the islands of Jura and Scarba , in Argyll and Bute , on the northern side of the Gulf of Corryvreckan , Scotland . It is the third-largest whirlpool in the world. Flood tides and inflow from the Firth of Lorne to the west can drive the waters of Corryvreckan to waves of more than 9 metres (30 ft), and

2040-413: The main shipping channels through The Narrows into the harbor silting up with sand due to littoral drift , thus providing ships with less depth, and a new generation of larger ships coming online – epitomized by Isambard Kingdom Brunel 's SS Great Eastern , popularly known as "Leviathan" – New York began to be concerned that it would start to lose its status as a great port if a "back door" entrance into

2091-411: The mine until the mine filled and the water levels equalized, but the formerly 10-foot (3.0 m) deep lake was now 1,300 feet (400 m) deep. This mishap caused a sinkhole, and in the end, resulted in the destruction of five houses, the loss of nineteen barges and eight tug boats, oil rigs, a mobile home, trees, acres of land, and most of a botanical garden. The adjacent settlement of Jefferson Island

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2142-516: The pursuing vessel fails to do so and is dragged under. One of the earliest uses in English of the Scandinavian word malström or malstrøm was by Edgar Allan Poe in his short story " A Descent into the Maelström " (1841). The Nordic word itself is derived from the Dutch word maelstrom ( pronounced [ˈmaːlstroːm] ; modern spelling maalstroom ), from malen ('to mill' or 'to grind') and stroom ('stream'), to form

2193-511: The roar of the resulting maelstrom, which reaches speeds of 18 km/h (11 mph), can be heard 16 km (10 mi) away. Though it was classified initially as non-navigable by the Royal Navy it was later categorized as "extremely dangerous". A documentary team from Scottish independent producers Northlight Productions once threw a mannequin into the Corryvreckan ("the Hag") with

2244-520: The ship, employing authentic 17th century Dutch ship building techniques rediscovered by ship archeologists in the Netherlands. The material is mostly white oak with pine decking, most of which was sawn nearby by one of the volunteers. The replica is held together by more than 4,000 hand-made black locust tree nails called trunnels and iron rivets. Much of the metal fittings and rivets were hand-made by local blacksmiths of wrought iron; others, as well as cannon, use authentic bronze. The replica Onrust

2295-566: The strongest tidal currents in the world. Whirlpools up to 10 metres (33 ft) in diameter and 5 metres (16 ft) in depth are formed when the current is at its strongest. Moskstraumen or Moske-stroom is an unusual system of whirlpools in the open seas in the Lofoten Islands off the Norwegian coast . It is the second strongest whirlpool in the world with flow currents reaching speeds as high as 32 km/h (20 mph). This

2346-453: The turbulent, terrible seas. Yet the Lord terrifies him in this way, not so that the ship in which he sits should be overwhelmed and wrecked by the waves, but rather to rouse him to pray more fervently that he may sail through the peril and reach us here. The Corryvreckan whirlpool plays a key role in the 1945 Powell and Pressburger film I Know Where I'm Going! . Joan Webster ( Wendy Hiller )

2397-585: The two first accurate maps of the east coast were drawn based on the voyages of the Onrust . Later in the year, Block rendezvoused with the Fortuyn , also under his command, near Cape Cod and sailed back to the Netherlands on 1 October 1614. The Onrust was last reported in 1616 as headed to explore the "New River", now known as the Delaware River under Cornelius Hendrickson . From 2006 to 2009

2448-632: Was first launched into the Mohawk River on May 20, 2009, and was able to participate in NY400 that year, commemorating the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage. Hell Gate Hell Gate is a narrow tidal strait in the East River in New York City . It separates Astoria , Queens , from Randall's and Wards Islands in Manhattan . The name "Hell Gate" is a corruption of

2499-465: Was presented with a petition for a canal to be built through nearby Hallet's Point, thus avoiding Hell Gate altogether. Instead, the legislature responded by providing ships with pilots trained to navigate the shoals for the next 15 years. In 1849, a French engineer whose specialty was underwater blasting, Benjamin Maillefert , had cleared some of the rocks which, along with the mix of tides, made

2550-526: Was reduced in area by 10%. A crater 0.5 miles (0.8 km) across was left behind. Nine of the barges, which had sunk, later resurfaced after the whirlpool subsided. A more recent example of an artificial whirlpool that received significant media coverage occurred in early June 2015, when an intake vortex formed in Lake Texoma , on the Oklahoma–Texas border, near the floodgates of the dam that forms

2601-597: Was the last one; others were ahead of me. As soon as any of them reached this place, it drowned in the whirlpool and never came out. I sailed backward to escape this current.' Tales like those by Paul the Deacon , Edgar Allan Poe , and Jules Verne are entirely fictional. However, temporary whirlpools caused by major engineering disasters, such as the Lake Peigneur disaster, have been recorded as capable of submerging medium-sized watercraft such as barges and tugboats. Besides Poe and Verne, another literary source

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