The SS Umfuli Sea Serpent

In 1893 the Natal Line steamer Umfuli was brand new. Built that year by James Laing in Sunderland, she weighed 2,370 tons. Owned by Bullard King & Co., she was making her first voyage out to South Africa. Her master was Captain R. J. Cringle, who had earlier commanded the company's Congella and Umbilo.

4 December 1893. About 5:30 p.m. The ship was off the coast of West Africa, south of the Canary Islands, near 21°40′N, 17°30′W. "The sea was like a mirror," Cringle recalled.

Chief officer H. A. Powell had the bridge. According to The Mercury of Hobart, he "espied a strange-looking monster swimming through the waves." Through his glasses he "distinctly saw the serpent's mouth open and shut." The head looked about 7 feet long and armed with large teeth. Then Cringle came on the bridge and saw it too.

The log describes "a monster fish of the serpentine shape, about 80 feet long, with shining skin, and short fins, about 20 feet apart, on the back; in circumference, about the dimensions of a full-sized whale." Through his glass the chief officer saw "an enormous mouth with great rows of teeth."

The animal was "rushing through the water at great speed, throwing water from its breast." He saw "fully 15 feet of its head and neck on three separate occasions." "The body, which was not scaly, showed three distinct humps and was much thicker than the neck," he said. "I should not, therefore, call it a serpent." It was in sight for over half an hour.

Cringle ordered the ship after it. But "Umfuli's 11 knots stood her in poor stead to overtake the 'Leviathan' and the chase was ultimately abandoned." He put the creature's speed at 14 knots.

The report went into the ship's log, then into the press. By 31 March 1894 it had reached Tasmania, printed in The Mercury as "The Sea Serpent Again." The versions do not agree on every point. Cringle gave the distance as 400 yards. The paper said 800, and placed the ship "about two miles north of Cape Verde," far from the logged position.

For Cringle, the cost was personal. He was so ridiculed that for many years he refused to discuss the subject. "I have been so ridiculed about the thing that I have many times wished that anybody else had seen that sea-monster rather than me."

At the time, some suggested porpoises or a floating mass of seaweed. Cringle answered them directly: "if an island of seaweed can travel at the rate of fourteen knots an hour, or if a string of porpoises can stand 15 feet out of the water, then I give in, and confess myself deceived." No specific modern explanation has been proposed. No photograph exists. The log entry is known only through quotation, and a drawing that circulates online is of unknown origin.

Bernard Heuvelmans quoted Cringle's lament in the opening chapter of In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents, as the best expression of the derision that surrounded the subject. Earlier that same year, T. H. Huxley had written to The Times urging observers to separate what they saw from what they concluded. Cringle's account reads almost like a reply. Two officers, a calm sea, half an hour of watching, and a captain who refused to call it a serpent.