Under Sail 10

Under Sail 10

The real sailors came to the fore during this time in both watches,

and Frenchy, Brenden, and Marshall, of our side, with Smith, Axel, and

Hitchen of the starboard watch, proved their rightful claim to the full

rating of A. B. Mr. Stoddard, who was a bit weak on his marline spike

seamanship, though a good watch officer, made up for things by the way

he bawled about and hurried and scurried his watch during the time the

mate was on deck. His men hated him thoroughly and we were glad that

he had very little to do with us.

 

Aboard a real shipshape and Bristol fashion deepwaterman of the old

school, if there be any such left today, everything is done according

to the custom of the sea. From the main truck to the keel, from the

outermost end of the flying jibboom to the last band on the spanker,

the ancient art of seamanship has decreed the exact way in which

certain things shall be done. The deadeyes carry their knots inboard,

forward to starboard, and aft to port. The lanyard lengths are justly

proportioned to the length of the stay they extend, so the required

"give" will be right, and the shroud pairs, stays, and backstays, are

passed over the mast heads and rest upon the trestle trees, in due and

proper form; the same in all ships worthy of the name.

 

Nations differ in their customs, and likewise in their rigs. No Italian

ship can sail the sea with a straight martingale, and no other ship

would venture forth with one that was anything but true.

 

For weeks at a time, after our entry into the southern trades, it was

hardly necessary to touch a brace except for the sweating up each night

in the last dog watch, when a swig or two on the ropes would bring

back any slack that had worked around the pins. The job of setting up

standing rigging completed, we turned our attention to the running

gear. We rove off new whips on all the braces, using an eye splice

that was a favorite with the mate, being tucked after the manner of a

sailmaker's splice, that is, the continuity of the strands of the rope

was preserved, the appearance of the whips being very trim.

 

The tops'l downhauls were rove off with new rope, and the gear of

all the lower stays'ls, lower tops'ls and courses was overhauled and

replaced where needed.

 

As we began to lift the Southern Cross and the trades left us, we again

shifted sail, an all day job that this time fell on a Sunday, and when

completed found us under our best suit of canvas ready for that storm

corner of the voyage, Cape Horn. We overhauled the rudder tackles,

reeving new purchases "with the sun," as indeed all purchases are

rove. Oil bags were made, shaped like beech nuts, bound with ratline

stuff, and fitted with a stout becket. By filling these with heavy

non-freezing animal or vegetable oil and puncturing them with a sail

needle, they afforded the best means for spreading oil on the waters

in time of storm.

 

One sail in particular that we bent at this time made a great

impression on me; this was a heavy storm spencer made of dark hemp

canvas, soft and pliable even when wet, unlike the stiff white American

cotton stuff that rips out your finger nails when fighting the bellying

folds, tough as sheet iron, as it slams out from a bucking yard. The

main spencer was evidently an acquisition from some Asiatic or European

voyage. It bent to an iron jackstay, and furled in to the mast with a

set of brails, being cut "leg-o'-mutton," the sheet hauling aft to big

eyebolts on either side of the waist.

 

Double lashings were passed on all of the lifeboat gripes. Rolling

and jumper tackles were got ready for the lower and tops'l yards,

to relieve the stress on yards and parrals, and straps and whips

were prepared, and laid aside, for use as preventer braces should

the necessity arise. In these preparations on the _Fuller_ we had a

foresight of what to expect when off the dreaded Cape; at the same time

we were certain that no vessel was ever better or more intelligently

groomed for heavy weather.

 

These preparations carried us well down to the latitude of the River

Plate; here we were warned by the wise ones to expect some weather,

which was not long in coming.

 

Our watch had just gone below at midnight, when a sou'wester zipped in

from the distant land, a live whole gale, sweetened with the breath of

the Patagonian prairies that stretched for leagues beneath its origin.

The starboard watch started to shorten sail, but by four bells in the

midwatch things were getting so far ahead of them that all hands were

called, and we tumbled out in the midst of a Bedlam of thrashing gear

and general confusion.

 

Most of the port watch were ordered aloft to take in the fore upper

tops'l, thrashing in its gear, while the ship plunged ahead under lower

tops'ls, reefed fore course and stays'ls. The starboard watch were

completing the job of furling the main tops'l, and with two of our men

to help, were about to tackle the mains'l.

 

I was on the fore upper tops'l yard, with Frenchy at the lee yardarm,

and Scouse in between me and the mast. We were just passing the last of

the sea gaskets, when the lower tops'l yard seemed to lift up in the

air with a sudden jump for we were standing on it, instead of on the

footropes of the upper tops'l. A great smashing below us, and the loud

impact of something big and hard banging against the yard under our

feet, sent us clambering to the upper stick for our lives.

 

"_Lee fore sheet's adrift!_" someone shouted. There was a rush in to

the mast to escape the heavy spectacle iron, and the cluster of flying

clew garnet blocks, and the next thing we knew we were ordered to lay

out on the fore yard and secure the sail.

 

"_Lay down and secure fores'l!_" came the order from the mate, who

stood on the fo'c'sle head, back to the gale, bellowing up his

instructions.

 

Six of us slid down to the top and out on the jumping foreyard. The

buntlines and leechlines were finally hauled home, and we got our

gaskets about the flying iron. A weird morning light was then breaking

in the east and as our watch below was gone, all hands remained on deck

for morning coffee after we hove her to under lower tops'ls, fore and

main storm stays'ls, and trys'l.

 

The Pampero gave us a taste of real weather, and came as an actual

relief after the long monotonous passage through the trades and

doldrums.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VI

 

LIFE IN THE FO'C'SLE

 

 

With livelier weather of the Southern latitudes we were often exercised

in tacking and wearing ship, and soon became a very well drilled

company, sending the big three-sticker about in record time. The

_Fuller_ was lively in stays and with our small crew required the

smartest kind of work in handling.

 

With all hands, including the "idlers," that is, the carpenter,

cook and cabin steward, we mustered twenty men forward, hardly a

man-o'-war complement, but enough, when driven and directed by superior

seamanship, to send the long braces clicking through the sheaves of the

patent blocks with a merry chatter.

 

"Hands about ship!" meant all hands, _and the cook at the fore sheet_,

a time honored station filled by the Celestial with all the importance

in the world. It was all the work that Chow ever did on deck and the

heathenish glee with which he would "let go" at the proper time, added

a certain zest to our movements, particularly as we always hoped to

have a sea come over and douse him, which often happened.

 

At the order, "Ready! Ready!" the gear of the main and cro'jik was

thrown down from the pins, clear for running. The command "Ease down

the helm!" and the order "Spanker boom amidships!" would quickly

follow, the vessel running rapidly into the eye of the wind with

everything shaking, and then flat aback.

 

"Rise tacks and sheets!" and the hands at the clew garnets would

sway up on the courses, lifting them clear of the bulwarks. Then all

hands would jump like monkeys to the main and cro'jik braces, at the

order, "Weather main, lee cro'jik braces!" the second mate, and Chips,

standing by to cast off on the other sides. By then, the wind being a

point on the weather bow, would come the hearty warning, "Haul taut!"

and "Now, boys, mainsail haul!" and the after yards, aback, with the

wind on their weather leeches, would spin about, the gear running

through the blocks like snakes afire, and the men on deck pawing it in

at the pins with feverish haste, belaying as the yards slammed back

against the lee swifters on the other tack.

 

By that time the ship would be practically about, with head yards and

head sails aiding in the evolution. As soon as the wind was on the bow,

all hands would spring to the lee fore braces. "Haul taut--_let go and

haul_!" thundered the order from aft. Chow would let out a wild yell as

he unhitched the fore sheet, and around would go the head yards. Then

with jib sheets shifted over, and the spanker eased off, as the tacks

were boarded, and the sheets hauled aft, we would pause to get our

breath amid the tangle of gear on deck.

 

"Steady out the bowlines--go below, watch below!" and as the watch

below would leave the deck, the order "Lay up the gear clear for

running," was the signal for the crowd on deck to get busy while the

good ship raced away on the new tack with the wind six points on the

bow, a bone in her teeth, and a half point of leeway showing in the

wake.

 

"I hope she holds this tack for a month," was a wish often expressed

after one of these frantic evolutions; but such hopes were vain with

the variable nature of the strong winds between the Plate and Staten

Land, that often sent us about a half dozen times a day, insuring us

plenty of healthful exercise and a minimum amount of sleep.

 

On a wind was the _Fuller's_ best point of sailing, so far as handling

was concerned, and she was as easy with the helm as a catboat.

 

"Keep the weather cloth of the mizzen skys'l shaking," was the order

for "full and by," and, under all plain sail, a spoke of the wheel

would hold her for hours, with a quarter turn of weather helm.

 

While our port watch crowd had at first thought themselves the losers

in the choice of officers, we soon realized that we were being favored

in many ways, mainly because of the superior ability of the mate. He

cursed unmercifully and made no bones about cuffing some of the crew

in a playful sort of fashion, accompanied with some ribald jest that

was meant to carry off the sting of a heavy blow, yet he managed to

give us the advantage in most operations requiring all hands. He never

hesitated to rouse out the starboard watch an hour ahead of time when

a sudden shortening of sail demanded all hands. On these occasions we

would work like fury and get below with the loss of a half hour's less

sleep than the other watch.

 

Ill feeling among the men of the second mate's watch became more and

more apparent as these tactics continued, and the talk in the fo'c'sle

had it that the second mate was afraid to stand up for his rights.

He was accordingly blamed for every trouble forward, so far as his

own watch was concerned. Things culminated in the wake of a squall

that struck us soon after passing the River Plate. The tops'l yards

having been lowered to the caps, we were called out near the end of the

afternoon watch to man tops'l halyards.