THE MASTER (SAILING SHIPS).
So great is the difference in duties to be performed by masters of
sailing ships from those of masters of steamers, that they are almost
like members of another profession. The range, too, in status is
exceedingly extensive. Between the man in command of, say, a small
brigantine going foreign, and the commander of a four-masted steel
clipper carrying 5000 tons of cargo to and from the Colonies, there
is not only a great gulf of status, but a large number of gradations.
Yet it will readily be admitted by all shipmasters that the position
of master of even a fifth-rate steamship marks a step upward from
the same position on board of the finest sailing ship afloat. And
almost any shipmaster is glad to step down from the exalted pinnacle
he may have occupied for years as master of a splendid "wind-jammer"
and take a very subordinate position, say, as second, third, or even
fourth officer in a liner, as a means of rising to the coveted post of
commander of such a ship.
But perhaps we have had enough of steamers for a little while. For my
part, I shall only be too glad to quit that part of my subject for the
far more congenial one of the "wind-jammer," as she is contemptuously
called by steamer-men. It is essential, in order to success as a master
here, that a man should be a _sailor_. That is, in the original sense
of handling ships, a fine art, demanding high skill and courage as well
as constant practice. A good master nurses his ship under sail with
never-ceasing care. If he be ably seconded by his officers, his labour
is of course greatly lightened; but even then, if a smart passage is to
be made, the master must never relax his vigilance. Never, that is, in
the sense of allowing his officers to feel that the game is in their
hands entirely. To explain this for the benefit of my shore readers,
let me give a commonplace instance. I was an able seaman on board a
fine ship homeward bound from Manila to London. We were commanded by
an elderly, taciturn gentleman, whose appearance was as unlike that of
the typical sailor as could well be imagined. Yet every man on board
knew him to be a consummate ship-handler, and cool withal, so that
when, on the outward passage, we were tacking under a heavy press of
sail to get through the Sunda Straits, and in weathering a point of
Thwart-the-way-Island actually touched it with our bilge, the seamed
old face never blenched, never lost its sphinx-like mask of serene
watchfulness.
We did not know, though, until we had reached the eastern entrance to
Sunda Straits again, on the passage home, how excellent his seamanship
really was. In company with a dozen other ships, most of which had
gained upon us, we were becalmed in that dangerous vicinity when night
fell. Darkness shut down upon us, such a darkness as makes it necessary
for the sailor to know the running gear intuitively--to develop some
other sense to serve him in lieu of sight. Amidst a guttural growling
of thunder which was almost continuous, and a flickering glare of
lightning that was bewildering, it began to rain--not steadily, but
as if high overhead were passing a series of nimbus clouds that were
letting fall their contents in intermittent lumps. And from all
quarters successively came light puffs of wind, never steady for more
than ten minutes at a time. We had all the lighter sails made fast in
case of a sudden heavy squall and for greater facility of working the
ship.
Then for the whole of that Egyptian night, making a bewildering tangle
of courses that was enough to whiten a mathematician's hair to ravel
out, we toiled at the braces under the master's direct orders. _We_
had watch and watch, but he was on duty all night. Standing by the
compass, watchful and alert in spite of his seventy years, he utilized
every favourable cats-paw, manœuvred against the unfavourable ones,
remembering the possibilities of the unknowable currents beneath, and
keeping before his mental vision a picture of the contour of that
rugged coast.
When morning dawned he had his reward; for we were almost through the
Straits, with the first kiss of the south-east trade wind saluting us,
and the broad bosom of the Indian Ocean lying invitingly before us
under a canopy of stainless blue. And of our comrades of the previous
day only one could be seen, just discerned so far astern that she was
only a speck on the horizon. To grasp the significance of such a piece
of seamanship, it is necessary to remember that in a square-rigged ship
the swinging of the great yards is not a momentary affair, like the
slipping over of a schooner's fore and aft sails. Time and much labour
are required. Moreover, the closest attention is necessary in order to
utilize intermittent wind-breaths, as these were; for a big ship with
little motion obeys her helm but slowly, and soon loses, if she be
caught aback, that is, gets the wind on the wrong side of her sails,
what little "way" or forward motion she has--a loss that she is loth to
make good.
Again, in a sailing ship native courage in the master counts immensely.
No amount of experience will atone for a want of this quality. Some
men are so prudent, in other words, so lacking in courage, that they
will shorten sail at the first premonition of bad weather, instead of
reducing canvas as the weight of wind makes it impossible for the ship
to carry it with safety. Of course there are circumstances where such
prudence is absolutely necessary, as in the case of ships who do not
carry sufficient men, or whose crews are of such poor quality that they
are hardly competent to handle the sails in fine weather; also when the
equipment of a ship has been so shamefully starved that the carrying of
sail in anything like a breeze is bound to end in wholesale loss. And
this matter of prudence in carrying sail has its dangerous side also.
Many a dreadful storm has been endured by a ship that she would have
escaped altogether had she kept up her speed; many a ship has been
overtaken by a following sea and left almost derelict by its onslaught
that would have gallantly outraced it had she not been made helpless by
the clipping of her broad wings.
Of course, when it is remembered how great is a ship's individuality,
how immensely circumstances vary, even the least knowing of us will
have small difficulty in understanding the impossibility of laying down
hard and fast lines. Every master must needs work out his own salvation
in these matters, learn by experience and keep on learning; happy if he
can find a ship whose ways are ways of pleasantness, and who has not
either been built with or acquired some devilish habit of sea-spite
that makes her an abode of misery to her crew, and the command of her
a martyrdom to her master. Such ships abound, possessed by every vice
known to seafarers, yet presenting in dock, when newly "got up," an
appearance of smartness and seaworthiness that is deceitful to the last
degree. Such a ship it was my evil hap to light upon once in London,
bound for New Zealand. Every one of my shipmates were ecstatic in their
praises of her beauty; none doubted that she would be as comfortable
as she was lovely. But oh, the awakening from our pleasant dream!
Barely had we cleared the Channel, when, meeting the full vigour of the
Atlantic swell, she began her antics. There was no dry place on board
of her anywhere, except under the hatches among the cargo. For she had
not _all_ the vices of a ship; she was well and staunchly built, and
did not leak. But in finest weather, almost in calm, she invited the
sea on board; while in bad weather she was like a half-tide rock,
continually awash.
There were five passengers, and I warrant that none of them could ever
forget that passage of 117 days; because the after part of the ship
was even worse than the fore part. A massive structure of timber, like
the palisading of a block-house, was built across the front of the
cabin for its protection. She, however, thought nothing of sweeping
away the whole erection, and flooding the handsome state-rooms with
a foaming torrent of salt water. Never shall I forget the sight of
the podgy skipper, like some unlively porpoise, gambolling about the
saloon, swimming and scrabbling in water up to his waist in chase of
his sextant, which, secure in its box, was gleefully careering about
at every roll of the ship. That skipper was both smart and plucky,
but his command must have aged him at treble the ordinary speed. When
he carried on sail until the masts bent like fishing-rods and the
stitch-holes in the sails became elongated so that they looked like
columns of shining oats placed horizontally, instead of keeping ahead
of the sea, she took it over in appalling masses, both sides and astern
at once. And when it became suicidal to run her any longer, and we hove
her to--that is to say, we reduced sail to a mere speck, and turned her
head as near to the wind and sea as it would go--she acted as viciously
as any buck-jumping horse. No one on board ever found their sea-legs,
as the saying is, for you needed inch-long spikes or huge sucking-discs
on your feet to keep on your legs at all.
Then there is the needed acquaintance with the best routes at given
times of the year--the ability to direct your course so that you
shall find the minimum of calms with the maximum of favourable winds.
This is a prime quality in a successful shipmaster, and it cannot be
learned from weather-books or weather-charts. I came home once from
Australia, second mate of a magnificent ship, whose sailing qualities
were of the highest order, her crew ample in quantity, her equipment
beyond criticism. The master was a learned man, but his experience
of sailing ships was of the slightest. He had all the weather-charts
obtainable; he studied them continually, and faithfully followed their
guidance. In the result we made a four and a half months' passage home,
while a smaller ship, not nearly so smart, sailing from the same port
three weeks after our departure, arrived in London nearly four weeks
ahead of us. But _her_ master had been sailing ships between England
and Australia for many years, all the while accumulating first-hand
knowledge of the conditions obtaining over all those seas he traversed,
learning by experience the weather-signs and all the grammar of the
language that the ocean speaks in to its intimate friends. This
knowledge it is that constitutes the fine flower of seamanship as it
was (and is still in ships that depend upon sail only), but which will
soon be looked upon as a lost art as the sailing ship is gradually
pushed aside by that wonderful outcome of engineering science--the
steamship.
How great a factor in the making of a successful passage under
sail this personal acquaintance with the route pursued is, may be
easily assessed from a superficial study of the ways of the Swansea
copper-ore traders. These are, or rather, I ought to say, were, smart
barquentines which sail, or sailed, from Swansea, bound round Cape
Horn from east to west, for the purpose of bringing home ore to the
world-renowned smelting-works of Wales. Their masters were not, in any
sense of the word, fine gentlemen, their calling hardly admitted of
the cultivation of the graces of life; but such was their knowledge
of this, the most arduous piece of navigation in the whole world,
that their passages were made with almost steamer-like regularity.
Only seamen themselves could give to these perfect mariners all the
praise that was their due. For all sailors know, either by experience
or repute, how cruelly hard are the conditions attached to forcing a
passage around that awful promontory that reaches down almost to the
Antarctic Circle, deep into the chosen habitation of the fiercest and
most persistent gales that rage around the planet. Here, for weeks on
end, you shall feel the weight of an unfaltering westerly gale, with
all its accompaniments of snow and sleet and darkness. One would say
that the attempt to get round the Horn from east to west, in the teeth
of such prevalent conditions, was madness, especially when the long
record of disaster attendant upon these attempts is known. Many a case
is on record where fine ships, after weeks of abortive struggle to get
to the westward round Cape Horn, have at last given up the fight, put
the helm hard-up, and fled before the inexorable westerly gale, right
round the world, to reach such a port as San Francisco, for instance.
Yet these little Swansea men came and went, from year to year, with the
utmost regularity; their skippers having learned by experience how to
out-manœuvre even the terrible monarch of the southern sea. No doubt
it was a hard life; but it was exultant, triumphant. These men knew
how good their seamanship was, how exact their weather-lore, and they
troubled meteorological charts not at all.
So, too, with the navigation of the Bay of Bengal. While not so
severe in any sense as that of Cape Horn, it is difficult, teasing,
and calling for constant watchfulness. Men who go that way only
occasionally will make a good passage of, say, from eighty to a hundred
days on one voyage, and then with the same ship, a year or two after,
make a passage that causes the owner to gnash his teeth as he cons
the portage bill. But to the men who used to sail there regularly how
nearly an exact science did their navigation of that baffling bay
become! One especially comes to my mind--Thomas Potts, of Messrs.
Brocklebank's famous old East-India line. Dozens of that old worthy's
log-books have passed through my hands, with their fair, unblotted
entries of business-like procedure from day to day. And so regular
seemed the rate of sailing that I once took the trouble to compile an
average of his passages out and between Liverpool and Calcutta for six
years, and I found it to be eighty-five days; a perfectly marvellous
achievement in the eyes of a seaman.
Of course, such splendid work as this presupposes a speedy ship. While
it is perfectly true that seamanship and diligence on the part of the
master can do great things in the way of passage-making even with a
sluggish vessel, yet it is heart-breaking work. And when, tired of the
never-ending struggle against adverse circumstances, the master becomes
listless and slack in his attentions, the result in such a vessel is
that she becomes overdue, and underwriters gamble feverishly on the
prospects of her non-arrival. Such vessels are still to be met with
in goodly numbers, not all obsolete ships either. One, for instance,
that I have in mind at the present moment, a huge steel ship not a
dozen years old, whose last few passages have been the cause of immense
sums changing hands among underwriters owing to her being continually
overdue. Another smart-looking barque that I saw in Auckland, New
Zealand, once, was actually eight months on the passage from Liverpool
thither, having apparently been taken into regions of almost perpetual
calm, whence it was a miracle that she ever emerged.
Between these two extremes of swiftness and slowness come all the host
of mediocrities, making passages of average length, speedy enough to
prevent owners grumbling, yet not sufficiently smart to call for any
praise. As in all other professions, these are the vast majority;
and the masters who thus quietly perform their duty without hope of
honourable mention are none the less worthy because they do not,
cannot, do anything that shall cause their names to be remembered among
seamen as the _élite_ of the profession.