On November 10th, 1866, the full-rigged ship "Research", 14569 tons burthen, sailed from Quebec laden with timber consigned to Glasgow.  She was a Yarmouth vessel owned by Captain Thomas Killam of this town.  Her master, Captain George Washington Churchill (aged 29) and his nephew, Aaron Flint Churchill (aged 16), and the Boatswain, George Marshall, were all from Yarmouth, destined for world-wide fame at the voyage's end.

After a peaceful passage down the St. Lawrence and a safe clearing of the dangerous Strait of Belle Isle, "Research" headed into the Atlantic - soon driving into a sudden violent tempest blowing with fury from the North West.  Topsails were ripped from the yards.  A tremendous sea smashed the rudder.  Without topsails and rudder-less, "Research" wallowed helplessly in the tearing winter gales.

But Captain George Churchill was resourceful, inventive and determined.  That all-important rudder had to be repaired or replaced.  A man must go over the side, into the icy water, under the overhanging stern, and if possible, rig tackle so that the damaged rudder could be steered from the deck.  The job fell to the Mate, young, husky Aaron Churchill.  Over the side he went, the control rope gripped firmly by fellow crewmen, and Aaron sitting perilously in a bowline loop.  With one hand he struggled to rig the tackle; with the other hand he fought desperately to save himself from being smashed against the hull in the turbulent seas.  It was a task that he was to repeat many times in the long, agonizing weeks that followed.

Realizing that a new rudder had to be made, Captain Churchill worked feverishly and with native ingenuity.  As the days passed, with the storm still continuing, the battered "Research" began to take on water.  Pumps had to be manned, sails to be mended, food was running out - and all the time Captain Churchill drove his men to fashion the rudders he improvised.  One after one, these failed.  At last, on the eighth try, he got a working rudder into place.  His luck changed, too.  The winds subsided and the "Research" made her slow but triumphant passage to the Irish channel to the port of Greenock.

The voyage of many rudders had taken eighty-eight days, during which "Research" had tracked a wandering course from the Strait of Belle Isle to within a hundred miles of her destination, only to be blown down to the Azores, then back again to the Irish Sea.  When the long voyage was over, people on both sides of the Atlantic hailed the exploit of the "Research" and the Yarmouth men who sailed her.  The resolute Captain who had saved his ship and crew, the heroic Mate, and the hard working Boatswain all received tributes from the world that mattered - from Lloyds, the Glasgow Underwriters, and fellow seamen everywhere.

Sources:
"Record of the Shipping of Yarmouth, N.S." by J. Murray Lawson 
"Tales of the Sea" by Archibald MacMechan