Building the Deliverance and the Patience
While waiting for help from Virginia, Sir George Somers and Sir Thomas Gates decided to build a pinnace, in case of need. The work was put in charge of Richard Frobisher, an experienced shipwright. The only wood on the island that could be used for timber was cedar and that was rather poor, being too brittle for making good planks. The pinnace’s beams were all of oak from the wrecked ship, as were some planks in her bow, all the rest was of cedar. The keel was laid on the 28th of August, 1609, and on the 26th of February, calking had begun. Old cables that had been preserved furnished the oakum. One barrel of pitch and another of tar had been saved. Lime was made of wilk shells and a hard white stone, which were burned in a kiln, slaked with fresh water, and tempered with tortoise oil. She was forty feet long at the keel, nineteen feet broad at the beam, had a six-foot floor, her rake forward being fourteen feet, her rake aft from the top of her post (which was twelve feet long) was three feet; she was eight feet deep under her beam, four feet and a half between decks, with a rising of half a foot more under her forecastle, the purpose being to scour the deck with small shot if an enemy should come aboard. She had a fall of eighteen inches aft to make her steerage and her great cabin larger; her steerage was five feet long and six feet high with a closed gallery right aft, having a window on each side, and two right aft. She was of some eighty tons burden.
On the 30th of March, the pinnace was launched, unrigged, and towed to “a little round island” nearer the ponds and wells of fresh water, with easier access to the sea, the channel there being deep enough to float her when masts, sails and all her trim had been placed on her. “When she began to swim (upon her launching) our Governor called her The Deliverance.”
Late in November, and still with no word from Virginia, Sir George Somers became convinced that the pinnace which Frobisher was building would not be sufficient to transport all the men, women, and children from Bermuda to Virginia. He consulted with Sir Thomas Gates, the Governor, who approved his plan of building another pinnace. He would take two carpenters and twenty men with him to the main island where with instruction from Frobisher, “he would quickly frame up another little bark, for the better sitting and convenience of our people.” The Governor granted him all the things he desired, all such tools and instruments, and twenty of the ablest and stoutest men of the company to hew planks and square timber. The keel laid was twenty-nine feet in length, the beam fifteen feet and a half; she was eight feet deep and drew six feet of water, and was of thirty tons capacity. Sir George Somers launched her on the last day of April, giving her the name of Patience, and brought her from the building bay in the main island, into the channel where the Deliverance was moored.
After nine months on the islands, these fearless and undaunted men, with a stout determination to finish the voyage they had begun nine months before, set sail in the two pinnaces on May 10, 1610, and after eleven days, arrived at Point Comfort. “On the three and twentieth day of May, we cast our anchor before Jamestown.”