Acts 27:17
Which when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven. Which when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven.
Acts 27:17 belongs to a first-century sea voyage made perilous by limited navigation and storm danger. Sailors of that time steered largely by the sun and stars, feared to enter the open sea when those guides were hidden and storms threatened, and faced seasons when safe navigation was almost impossible. The strengthening and other precautions of the verse were taken while the ship had brief shelter near the island of Clauda.
Those precautions included bringing the lifeboat aboard and strengthening and reinforcing the vessel to prepare it to withstand the tempest. Because the vessel was being driven toward quicksands, the sailors lowered or struck the sail and let the ship be carried along by the wind. Beyond those efforts to secure and prepare the ship they could do nothing more than drift before the storm and wind, for the shelter of Clauda soon failed and they again faced the full force of the storm.