Arlo Bates - "The Philistines"

Bram Stoker - "The Jewel of Seven Stars"

Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A. - "The History of the Thirty Years' War"

George MacDonald - "Thomas Wingfold, Curate V3"

Sailing Alone Around The World

J >> Joshua Slocum >> Sailing Alone Around The World




To answer the questions that might be asked to meet every contingency
would be a pleasure, but it would overburden my book. I can only say
here that much comes to one in practice, and that, with such as love
sailing, mother-wit is the best teacher, after experience.
Labor-saving appliances? There were none. The sails were hoisted by
hand; the halyards were rove through ordinary ships' blocks with
common patent rollers. Of course the sheets were all belayed aft.

[Illustration: Steering-gear of the _Spray_. The dotted lines are the
ropes used to lash the wheel. In practice the loose ends were belayed,
one over the other, around the top spokes of the wheel.]

The windlass used was in the shape of a winch, or crab, I think it is
called. I had three anchors, weighing forty pounds, one hundred
pounds, and one hundred and eighty pounds respectively. The windlass
and the forty-pound anchor, and the "fiddle-head," or carving, on the
end of the cutwater, belonged to the original _Spray_. The ballast,
concrete cement, was stanchioned down securely. There was no iron or
lead or other weight on the keel.

If I took measurements by rule I did not set them down, and after
sailing even the longest voyage in her I could not tell offhand the
length of her mast, boom, or gaff. I did not know the center of effort
in her sails, except as it hit me in practice at sea, nor did I care a
rope yarn about it. Mathematical calculations, however, are all right
in a good boat, and the _Spray_ could have stood them. She was easily
balanced and easily kept in trim.

Some of the oldest and ablest shipmasters have asked how it was
possible for her to hold a true course before the wind, which was just
what the _Spray_ did for weeks together. One of these gentlemen, a
highly esteemed shipmaster and friend, testified as government expert
in a famous murder trial in Boston, not long since, that a ship would
not hold her course long enough for the steersman to leave the helm to
cut the captain's throat. Ordinarily it would be so. One might say
that with a square-rigged ship it would always be so. But the _Spray_,
at the moment of the tragedy in question, was sailing around the globe
with no one at the helm, except at intervals more or less rare.
However, I may say here that this would have had no bearing on the
murder case in Boston. In all probability Justice laid her hand on the
true rogue. In other words, in the case of a model and rig similar to
that of the tragedy ship, I should myself testify as did the nautical
experts at the trial.

[Illustration: Body-plan of the _Spray_.]

But see the run the _Spray_ made from Thursday Island to the Keeling
Cocos Islands, twenty-seven hundred miles distant, in twenty-three
days, with no one at the helm in that time, save for about one hour,
from land to land. No other ship in the history of the world ever
performed, under similar circumstances, the feat on so long and
continuous a voyage. It was, however, a delightful midsummer sail. No
one can know the pleasure of sailing free over the great oceans save
those who have had the experience. It is not necessary, in order to
realize the utmost enjoyment of going around the globe, to sail alone,
yet for once and the first time there was a great deal of fun in it.
My friend the government expert, and saltest of salt sea-captains,
standing only yesterday on the deck of the _Spray_, was convinced of
her famous qualities, and he spoke enthusiastically of selling his
farm on Cape Cod and putting to sea again.

To young men contemplating a voyage I would say go. The tales of rough
usage are for the most part exaggerations, as also are the stories of
sea danger. I had a fair schooling in the so-called "hard ships" on
the hard Western Ocean, and in the years there I do not remember
having once been "called out of my name." Such recollections have
endeared the sea to me. I owe it further to the officers of all the
ships I ever sailed in as boy and man to say that not one ever lifted
so much as a finger to me. I did not live among angels, but among men
who could be roused. My wish was, though, to please the officers of my
ship wherever I was, and so I got on. Dangers there are, to be sure,
on the sea as well as on the land, but the intelligence and skill God
gives to man reduce these to a minimum. And here comes in again the
skilfully modeled ship worthy to sail the seas.

To face the elements is, to be sure, no light matter when the sea is
in its grandest mood. You must then know the sea, and know that you
know it, and not forget that it was made to be sailed over.

I have given in the plans of the _Spray_ the dimensions of such a ship
as I should call seaworthy in all conditions of weather and on all
seas. It is only right to say, though, that to insure a reasonable
measure of success, experience should sail with the ship. But in order
to be a successful navigator or sailor it is not necessary to hang a
tar-bucket about one's neck. On the other hand, much thought
concerning the brass buttons one should wear adds nothing to the
safety of the ship.

[Illustration: Lines of the _Spray_.]

I may some day see reason to modify the model of the dear old _Spray_,
but out of my limited experience I strongly recommend her wholesome
lines over those of pleasure-fliers for safety. Practice in a craft
such as the _Spray_ will teach young sailors and fit them for the more
important vessels. I myself learned more seamanship, I think, on the
_Spray_ than on any other ship I ever sailed, and as for patience, the
greatest of all the virtues, even while sailing through the reaches of
the Strait of Magellan, between the bluff mainland and dismal Fuego,
where through intricate sailing I was obliged to steer, I learned to
sit by the wheel, content to make ten miles a day beating against the
tide, and when a month at that was all lost, I could find some old
tune to hum while I worked the route all over again, beating as
before. Nor did thirty hours at the wheel, in storm, overtax my human
endurance, and to clap a hand to an oar and pull into or out of port
in a calm was no strange experience for the crew of the _Spray_. The
days passed happily with me wherever my ship sailed.

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