Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


Fair Weather, a Prosperous Wind, But it Didn't Stay That Way for America's
Pilgrim Fathers

Jamie Dettmer

   As the Mayflower set off from the English port of Plymouth 400 years
   ago this month, the 102 passengers and crew of nearly 30 were cheered
   by fair weather and "a prosperous wind." But the departure belied what
   they would encounter on a 3,000-mile journey across a turbulent ocean.

   Their transatlantic passage would take ten grueling weeks of
   seasickness and danger. They knew it would be harsh, but nothing could
   have prepared them for the terror of the almost continuous assaults
   from northeasterly storms and westerly gales that hardly eased for half
   of their crossing.

   Mountainous waves crashed down on the deck. For several days the crew
   did not dare hoist the sails for fear the Mayflower would be fatally
   de-masted. The ship, old and leaky, was little more than 100 feet long
   and had not been built with the Atlantic in mind but had been designed
   for trade off the coasts of western Europe.

   Only one passenger, Stephen Hopkins, knew the peril firsthand of an
   Atlantic crossing. He had been shipwrecked in Bermuda in 1609.'¯

.