For sailors of ancient times. the fact that they could not see the sun or the stars was perhaps of more importance than a storm itself, because the sun and the stars were the points by which they navigated.

The wind kept on blowing very hard (see New English Bible “a great storm was raging”) is literally “no little storm was upon us.”

We finally gave up all hope of being saved (Jerusalem Bible “at last we gave up all hope of surviving”) appears in the New English Bible as “our last hopes of coming through alive began to fade,” of which “began to fade” is an attempt on the part of the New English Bible to bring out the force of the Greek imperfect tense. This final clause may be rendered in some languages as “at last we thought we would not possibly be saved,” “finally we thought, We cannot possibly remain alive,” or even “at last we said to ourselves, We will certainly drown.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .