Clearing for home--In the calm belt--A sea covered with sargasso--The
jibstay parts in a gale--Welcomed by a tornado off Fire Island--A
change of plan--Arrival at Newport--End of a cruise of over forty-six
thousand miles--The _Spray_ again at Fairhaven.
On the 4th of June, 1898, the _Spray_ cleared from the United States
consulate, and her license to sail single-handed, even round the
world, was returned to her for the last time. The United States
consul, Mr. Hunt, before handing the paper to me, wrote on it, as
General Roberts had done at Cape Town, a short commentary on the
voyage. The document, by regular course, is now lodged in the Treasury
Department at Washington, D. C.
On June 5, 1898, the _Spray_ sailed for a home port, heading first
direct for Cape Hatteras. On the 8th of June she passed under the sun
from south to north; the sun's declination on that day was 22 degrees
54', and the latitude of the _Spray_ was the same just before noon.
Many think it is excessively hot right under the sun. It is not
necessarily so. As a matter of fact the thermometer stands at a
bearable point whenever there is a breeze and a ripple on the sea,
even exactly under the sun. It is often hotter in cities and on sandy
shores in higher latitudes.
The _Spray_ was booming joyously along for home now, making her usual
good time, when of a sudden she struck the horse latitudes, and her
sail flapped limp in a calm. I had almost forgotten this calm belt, or
had come to regard it as a myth. I now found it real, however, and
difficult to cross. This was as it should have been, for, after all of
the dangers of the sea, the dust-storm on the coast of Africa, the
"rain of blood" in Australia, and the war risk when nearing home, a
natural experience would have been missing had the calm of the horse
latitudes been left out. Anyhow, a philosophical turn of thought now
was not amiss, else one's patience would have given out almost at the
harbor entrance. The term of her probation was eight days. Evening
after evening during this time I read by the light of a candle on
deck. There was no wind at all, and the sea became smooth and
monotonous. For three days I saw a full-rigged ship on the horizon,
also becalmed.
Sargasso, scattered over the sea in bunches, or trailed curiously
along down the wind in narrow lanes, now gathered together in great
fields, strange sea-animals, little and big, swimming in and out, the
most curious among them being a tiny seahorse which I captured and
brought home preserved in a bottle. But on the 18th of June a gale
began to blow from the southwest, and the sargasso was dispersed again
in windrows and lanes.
On this day there was soon wind enough and to spare. The same might
have been said of the sea. The _Spray_ was in the midst of the
turbulent Gulf Stream itself. She was jumping like a porpoise over the
uneasy waves. As if to make up for lost time, she seemed to touch only
the high places. Under a sudden shock and strain her rigging began to
give out. First the main-sheet strap was carried away, and then the
peak halyard-block broke from the gaff. It was time to reef and refit,
and so when "all hands" came on deck I went about doing that.
The 19th of June was fine, but on the morning of the 20th another gale
was blowing, accompanied by cross-seas that tumbled about and shook
things up with great confusion. Just as I was thinking about taking in
sail the jibstay broke at the masthead, and fell, jib and all, into
the sea. It gave me the strangest sensation to see the bellying sail
fall, and where it had been suddenly to see only space. However, I was
at the bows, with presence of mind to gather it in on the first wave
that rolled up, before it was torn or trailed under the sloop's
bottom. I found by the amount of work done in three minutes' or less
time that I had by no means grown stiff-jointed on the voyage; anyhow,
scurvy had not set in, and being now within a few degrees of home, I
might complete the voyage, I thought, without the aid of a doctor.
Yes, my health was still good, and I could skip about the decks in a
lively manner, but could I climb? The great King Neptune tested me
severely at this time, for the stay being gone, the mast itself
switched about like a reed, and was not easy to climb; but a
gun-tackle purchase was got up, and the stay set taut from the
masthead, for I had spare blocks and rope on board with which to rig
it, and the jib, with a reef in it, was soon pulling again like a
"sodger" for home. Had the _Spray's_ mast not been well stepped,
however, it would have been "John Walker" when the stay broke. Good
work in the building of my vessel stood me always in good stead.
On the 23d of June I was at last tired, tired, tired of baffling
squalls and fretful cobble-seas. I had not seen a vessel for days and
days, where I had expected the company of at least a schooner now and
then. As to the whistling of the wind through the rigging, and the
slopping of the sea against the sloop's sides, that was well enough in
its way, and we could not have got on without it, the _Spray_ and I;
but there was so much of it now, and it lasted so long! At noon of
that day a winterish storm was upon us from the nor'west. In the Gulf
Stream, thus late in June, hailstones were pelting the _Spray_, and
lightning was pouring down from the clouds, not in flashes alone, but
in almost continuous streams. By slants, however, day and night I
worked the sloop in toward the coast, where, on the 25th of June, off
Fire Island, she fell into the tornado which, an hour earlier, had
swept over New York city with lightning that wrecked buildings and
sent trees flying about in splinters; even ships at docks had parted
their moorings and smashed into other ships, doing great damage. It
was the climax storm of the voyage, but I saw the unmistakable
character of it in time to have all snug aboard and receive it under
bare poles. Even so, the sloop shivered when it struck her, and she
heeled over unwillingly on her beam ends; but rounding to, with a
sea-anchor ahead, she righted and faced out the storm. In the midst of
the gale I could do no more than look on, for what is a man in a storm
like this? I had seen one electric storm on the voyage, off the coast
of Madagascar, but it was unlike this one. Here the lightning kept on
longer, and thunderbolts fell in the sea all about. Up to this time I
was bound for New York; but when all was over I rose, made sail, and
hove the sloop round from starboard to port tack, to make for a quiet
harbor to think the matter over; and so, under short sail, she reached
in for the coast of Long Island, while I sat thinking and watching the
lights of coasting-vessels which now began to appear in sight.
Reflections of the voyage so nearly finished stole in upon me now;
many tunes I had hummed again and again came back once more. I found
myself repeating fragments of a hymn often sung by a dear Christian
woman of Fairhaven when I was rebuilding the _Spray_. I was to hear
once more and only once, in profound solemnity, the metaphorical hymn:
By waves and wind I'm tossed and driven.
And again:
But still my little ship outbraves
The blust'ring winds and stormy waves.
After this storm I saw the pilot of the _Pinta_ no more.
The experiences of the voyage of the _Spray_, reaching over three
years, had been to me like reading a book, and one that was more and
more interesting as I turned the pages, till I had come now to the
last page of all, and the one more interesting than any of the rest.
When daylight came I saw that the sea had changed color from dark
green to light. I threw the lead and got soundings in thirteen
fathoms. I made the land soon after, some miles east of Fire Island,
and sailing thence before a pleasant breeze along the coast, made for
Newport. The weather after the furious gale was remarkably fine. The
_Spray_ rounded Montauk Point early in the afternoon; Point Judith was
abeam at dark; she fetched in at Beavertail next. Sailing on, she had
one more danger to pass--Newport harbor was mined. The _Spray_ hugged
the rocks along where neither friend nor foe could come if drawing
much water, and where she would not disturb the guard-ship in the
channel. It was close work, but it was safe enough so long as she
hugged the rocks close, and not the mines. Flitting by a low point
abreast of the guard-ship, the dear old _Dexter_, which I knew well,
some one on board of her sang out, "There goes a craft!" I threw up a
light at once and heard the hail, "_Spray_, ahoy!" It was the voice of
a friend, and I knew that a friend would not fire on the _Spray_. I
eased off the main-sheet now, and the _Spray_ swung off for the
beacon-lights of the inner harbor. At last she reached port in safety,
and there at 1 a.m. on June 27, 1898, cast anchor, after the cruise of
more than forty-six thousand miles round the world, during an absence
of three years and two months, with two days over for coming up.
Was the crew well? Was I not? I had profited in many ways by the
voyage. I had even gained flesh, and actually weighed a pound more
than when I sailed from Boston. As for aging, why, the dial of my life
was turned back till my friends all said, "Slocum is young again." And
so I was, at least ten years younger than the day I felled the first
tree for the construction of the _Spray_.
My ship was also in better condition than when she sailed from Boston
on her long voyage. She was still as sound as a nut, and as tight as
the best ship afloat. She did not leak a drop--not one drop! The pump,
which had been little used before reaching Australia, had not been
rigged since that at all.
The first name on the _Spray's_ visitors' book in the home port was
written by the one who always said, "The _Spray_ will come back." The
_Spray_ was not quite satisfied till I sailed her around to her
birthplace, Fairhaven, Massachusetts, farther along. I had myself a
desire to return to the place of the very beginning whence I had, as I
have said, renewed my age. So on July 3, with a fair wind, she waltzed
beautifully round the coast and up the Acushnet River to Fairhaven,
where I secured her to the cedar spile driven in the bank to hold her
when she was launched. I could bring her no nearer home.
If the _Spray_ discovered no continents on her voyage, it may be that
there were no more continents to be discovered; she did not seek new
worlds, or sail to powwow about the dangers of the seas. The sea has
been much maligned. To find one's way to lands already discovered is a
good thing, and the _Spray_ made the discovery that even the worst sea
is not so terrible to a well-appointed ship. No king, no country, no
treasury at all, was taxed for the voyage of the _Spray_, and she
accomplished all that she undertook to do.
[Illustration: The <i>Spray</i> in the storm of New York.]
To succeed, however, in anything at all, one should go understandingly
about his work and be prepared for every emergency. I see, as I look
back over my own small achievement, a kit of not too elaborate
carpenters' tools, a tin clock, and some carpet-tacks, not a great
many, to facilitate the enterprise as already mentioned in the story.
But above all to be taken into account were some years of schooling,
where I studied with diligence Neptune's laws, and these laws I tried
to obey when I sailed overseas; it was worth the while.
And now, without having wearied my friends, I hope, with detailed
scientific accounts, theories, or deductions, I will only say that I
have endeavored to tell just the story of the adventure itself. This,
in my own poor way, having been done, I now moor ship, weather-bitt
cables, and leave the sloop _Spray_, for the present, safe in port.
APPENDIX
[Illustration: Again tied to the old stake at Fairhaven.]
APPENDIX
LINES AND SAIL-PLAN OF THE "SPRAY"
Her pedigree so far as known--The Lines of the _Spray_--Her
self-steering qualities--Sail-plan and steering-gear--An unprecedented
feat--A final word of cheer to would-be navigators.
From a feeling of diffidence toward sailors of great experience, I
refrained, in the preceding chapters as prepared for serial
publication in the "Century Magazine," from entering fully into the
details of the _Spray's_ build, and of the primitive methods employed
to sail her. Having had no yachting experience at all, I had no means
of knowing that the trim vessels seen in our harbors and near the land
could not all do as much, or even more, than the _Spray_, sailing, for
example, on a course with the helm lashed.
I was aware that no other vessel had sailed in this manner around the
globe, but would have been loath to say that another could not do it,
or that many men had not sailed vessels of a certain rig in that
manner as far as they wished to go. I was greatly amused, therefore,
by the flat assertions of an expert that it could not be done.
[Illustration: Plan of the after cabin of the _Spray._]
The _Spray_, as I sailed her, was entirely a new boat, built over from
a sloop which bore the same name, and which, tradition said, had first
served as an oysterman, about a hundred years ago, on the coast of
Delaware. There was no record in the custom-house of where she was
built. She was once owned at Noank, Connecticut, afterward in New
Bedford and when Captain Eben Pierce presented her to me, at the end
of her natural life, she stood, as I have already described, propped
up in a field at Fairhaven. Her lines were supposed to be those of a
North Sea fisherman. In rebuilding timber by timber and plank by
plank, I added to her free-board twelve inches amidships, eighteen
inches forward, and fourteen inches aft, thereby increasing her sheer,
and making her, as I thought, a better deep-water ship. I will not
repeat the history of the rebuilding of the _Spray_, which I have
detailed in my first chapter, except to say that, when finished, her
dimensions were thirty-six feet nine inches over all, fourteen feet
two inches wide, and four feet two inches deep in the hold, her
tonnage being nine tons net, and twelve and seventy one-hundredths
tons gross.
I gladly produce the lines of the _Spray_, with such hints as my
really limited fore-and-aft sailing will allow, my seafaring life
having been spent mostly in barks and ships. No pains have been spared
to give them accurately. The _Spray_ was taken from New York to
Bridgeport, Connecticut, and, under the supervision of the Park City
Yacht Club, was hauled out of water and very carefully measured in
every way to secure a satisfactory result. Captain Robins produced the
model. Our young yachtsmen, pleasuring in the "lilies of the sea,"
very naturally will not think favorably of my craft. They have a right
to their opinion, while I stick to mine. They will take exceptions to
her short ends, the advantage of these being most apparent in a heavy
sea.
Some things about the _Spray's_ deck might be fashioned differently
without materially affecting the vessel. I know of no good reason why
for a party-boat a cabin trunk might not be built amidships instead of
far aft, like the one on her, which leaves a very narrow space between
the wheel and the line of the companionway. Some even say that I might
have improved the shape of her stern. I do not know about that. The
water leaves her run sharp after bearing her to the last inch, and no
suction is formed by undue cutaway.
Smooth-water sailors say, "Where is her overhang?" They never crossed
the Gulf Stream in a nor'easter, and they do not know what is best in
all weathers. For your life, build no fantail overhang on a craft
going offshore. As a sailor judges his prospective ship by a "blow of
the eye" when he takes interest enough to look her over at all, so I
judged the _Spray_, and I was not deceived.
In a sloop-rig the _Spray_ made that part of her voyage reaching from
Boston through the Strait of Magellan, during which she experienced
the greatest variety of weather conditions. The yawl-rig then adopted
was an improvement only in that it reduced the size of a rather heavy
mainsail and slightly improved her steering qualities on the wind.
When the wind was aft the jigger was not in use; invariably it was
then furled. With her boom broad off and with the wind two points on
the quarter the _Spray_ sailed her truest course. It never took long
to find the amount of helm, or angle of rudder, required to hold her
on her course, and when that was found I lashed the wheel with it at
that angle. The mainsail then drove her, and the main-jib, with its
sheet boused flat amidships or a little to one side or the other,
added greatly to the steadying power. Then if the wind was even strong
or squally I would sometimes set a flying-jib also, on a pole rigged
out on the bowsprit, with, the sheets hauled flat amidships, which was
a safe thing to do, even in a gale of wind. A stout downhaul on the
gaff was a necessity, because without it the mainsail might not have
come down when I wished to lower it in a breeze. The amount of helm
required varied according to the amount of wind and its direction.
These points are quickly gathered from practice.
[Illustration: Deck-plan of the _Spray_.]
Briefly I have to say that when close-hauled in a light wind under all
sail she required little or no weather helm. As the wind increased I
would go on deck, if below, and turn the wheel up a spoke more or
less, relash it, or, as sailors say, put it in a becket, and then
leave it as before.
[Illustration: Sail-Plan of the _Spray_ The solid lines represent the
sail-plan of the _Spray_ on starting for the long voyage. With it she
crossed the Atlantic to Gibraltar, and then crossed again southwest to
Brazil. In South American waters the bowsprit and boom were shortened
and the jigger-sail added to form the yawl-rig with which the rest of
the trip was made, the sail-plan of which is indicated by the dotted
lines The extreme sail forward is a flying jib occasionally used, set
to a bamboo stick fastened to the bowsprit. The manner of setting and
bracing the jigger-mast is not indicated in this drawing, but may be
partly observed in the plans on pages 287 and 289.]
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.
End of Project Gutenberg's Sailing Alone Around The World, by Joshua Slocum