The anchor snagged, turning the boat's stern in the direction of the rising waves, causing it to take on water and capsize.
When the line came about, Uggla and his ship Svärdet came on a collision course with the still floating wreckage of Kronan, and were forced to jibe (turn the stern into the wind direction) to avoid it.
The E. A. Bryan was completely destroyed and the Quinault was blown out of the water, torn into sections and thrown in several directions; the stern landed upside down in the water 500 feet away.
Longships were also double-ended, the symmetrical bow and stern allowing the ship to reverse direction quickly without having to turn around.
Petrus, our navigator, sat in the bow signaling directions to Sami, who was steering in the stern and couldn't see around us or hear above the aged Evinrude.
Pushing the stern sideways is tantamount to changing the direction of the hull, but this expedient is often not sufficient for low-speed maneuvering.
There are two debris fields in the vicinity of the wreck, each between 2,000 2,600 ft (610 729 m) long, trailing in a south-westerly direction from the bow and stern.
Behind the console came the light show, the different hues swirling in all directions and even Bach's stern features popping up occasionally".
Curves on the hull of a ship could create the impression of a wave, shapes on smokestacks suggested the ship was facing another direction, and patterns at bow and stern made it hard to see which was which.
Looking out, you'd have thought we were in a snow field — it was white in all directions, save for the black-and-red stern of the Yamal.
