Coaster (ship)

“ Whilst waiting the advance of the succeeding spring-tides, therefore, the ship was taken northward to the river Tees, the nearest accessible port, and a supply of empty casks sent thither by a small coaster, whereby the men were usefully and savingly occupied throughout the interval in chopping up the loose blubber, from which its valuable contents in oil were perpetually oozing out, and securing it from further waste in the auxiliary casks. ”

“ After breakfast I took Grace on deck for a turn, but she was glad to get below again. All day long it continued dark weather, without a sight of anything, save at intervals the shadowy figure of a coaster aslant in the thickness, and once the loom of a huge ocean passenger boat, sweeping at twelve or fourteen knots through the grey veil of vapour that narrowed the horizon to within a mile of us. The wind, however, remained a steady, fresh breeze, and throughout the day there was never a rope handled nor a stitch of canvas reduced. ”

“ TAMING OF THE SAVAGES.
After a most successful cruise, we returned to our Bellona, and were received as behoves success, with ever so many rounds of cheers. It was true that we had sent before us, and now brought in, an awkward lot; but it is beautiful to see how in a large ship's company, and under a good commander, mere coaster fellows become true seamen, and even land-lubbers learn how to walk. Captain Drake Bampfylde did me the honour of asking my advice, as soon as his own opinion was settled ”

“ It is just the difference between the deep-sea steamer with twelve hundred people aboard, besides the poor beggars sweating and scorching in the stoke-hold, and the coastwise boat with a mixed cargo of ‘notions.’ And so, when the liner sees fit to salute the coaster in passing, that small boat is mightily encouraged. ”

“ Every now and then a tiny white speck would emerge from under the bluff into sight, and skim away until lost in the misty distance; and a coaster from the offing, as she hauled in for the bay, would as suddenly vanish for a time, until she again appeared, diminished in the distance to a sea-bird, gliding slowly along the glasslike surface of the small bay, when she would fold her white wings, and become stationary at anchor near the shipping-place, or Barquedier, as it is called. ”

“ There was a big four-masted coaster bound south, too, and light, and for the best part of the night we had a drifting match with her. Coasters as a rule are not great all-round 69 sailers, but some of them, with their flat bottoms and shoal draft, in a fair wind and going light, can run like ghosts, and this was one of that kind. We had our work cut out to hold this one while the wind was light and astern, but in the morning, when it hauled and came fresher, we went flying over the shoals. So far as the looks of it went the big coaster might as well have been anchored then. ”

“ The dull roar grows louder and louder.
The rapids catch us up and bear us along like chips on the foaming tide of a mountain stream. Our staunch vessel rocks like a toy boat. The coaster lashed to one side creaks and groans in its wild efforts to break away.
Calling Bulger to me I pass the line around him and lash him firmly to the main-mast, for I was fearful lest a sudden lurch might hurl him overboard. On, on, we speed through the frightened waters. The roar is deafening. I glance at my seamen. Their bronzed faces are blanched. They cling to the shrouds and stays. ”

“ From time to time a buoy is sunk, a lightship run into, and the Trinity Corporation offer a handsome sum of money for information, but without avail. The absence of all reference by shipmates to such occurrences must make one hope that they are mainly the work of foreigners. But whatever the flag under which a captain sails, his sneaking away from a disaster in which he has had a hand expresses a species of cowardice that presses heavily upon the humbler order of shipowners. A little coaster is run into by a fine large vessel, which stops a minute or two and then proceeds. ”

“ If a short cut can be taken, the coaster is sure to know it, and he can be followed through narrow channels with the greatest safety. A coaster rarely draws less than 6 feet when full up with cargo, or a barge less than 4 to 5 feet. ”

“ Then it was down with the wheel, down with headsails, let go fore-halyards, over with the anchor, and there she was, another fisherman of Gloucester, at rest in harbor after an all-night fight with a lively breeze.
And I left the master of the coaster there and went back to the Duncan, where the crew were standing along the rail or leaning over the house and having a lot of fun sizing up those who were 104 coming in. It is one of the enjoyments of the seining fleet––this racing to harbor when it blows and then watching the others work in. ”

“ I cared not a rush what kind of vessel this coaster was, whether old or new, bound on a cruise to New Orleans or Baffin's Bay; nor did I care whether the captain was a gentleman or a clown; a worthy man or an ignorant bully. I was anxious to obtain the vacant situation, and feared that the captain, following the fashion of the Long Island farmers, would not like the cut of my jib. I learned, however, that the schooner was a comfortable vessel, about a hundred tons burden, called the Mary, belonging to Newbern in North Carolina. The name of the captain was Thompson. ”

“ He has failed, despite the sinister sea-marks that litter the fairway. Down the river estuaries and out from the sea-harbour and roadstead, the coasters still join in company through the channels. An unending procession; the grey seascape is never free of their whirling smoke-wreaths. Passing and turning in the deeps, they steam close to the red-rusted, shattered hulls of their sister ships. The gaunt masses of tortured steel stand out as monuments to an indomitable spirit—or to an influence that calls their sea-mates out to steer by the loom of their wreckage. ”

“ Green, but we've a fast boat to do it in. Here is an offing ready made to our hands. Nothing in sight to the westward; not so much as a coaster, even! It's too early for the outward-bound craft of the last ebb, and too late for those that sailed the tide before. I never saw this bight of the coast clearer of canvass."
"Ay, ay, sir; it does seem empty, like. Here's a chap, however, to leeward, who appears inclined to try his rate of sailing with us. Here he is, sir, a very little abaft the beam; and, as near as I can make him out, he's a fore-tawsail schooner, of about our own dimensions ”

“ As yet we were outside the Stream, and consequently not in the usual line of the coasters, which are the dread of the liner's officers, for nothing is so uncomfortable as the sudden raising of the dim and sometimes half-extinguished lights of a schooner on a thick night while tearing along before a gale. Having the right of way, the sailing vessel has nothing to do but keep her course, while the steamship, with but a few seconds to spare, swings quickly to pass, sometimes missing a catastrophe by a few feet. A poor red light on such a night cannot be seen twenty fathoms. ”

“ The strain upon his physical strength, in thus by main force holding the tiller right, had for hours been unceasing—and one could see by his dripping face that he was deeply wearied. But sign of fear there was none.
Only a man brought up in the interior of a country, and who had come to the sea late in life, would have dared bring this tiny cockle-shell of a coaster into such waters upon such a coast. ”

“ The gale increased, and blackened the harbor and whitened the open sea beyond, where sail after sail appeared round the reef of Whaleback Light, and ran in a wild scamper for the safe anchorages within.
Since noon cautious coasters of all sorts had been dropping in with a casual air; the coal schooners and barges had rocked and nodded knowingly to one another, with their taper and truncated masts, on the breast of the invisible swell; and the flock of little yachts and pleasure-boats which always fleck the bay huddled together in the safe waters. ”

“ He alone had no strike feeling.
Battered and worn from the day's impressions I wanted to be alone and to think. I made my way in and out among trucks and around a dockshed out to a slip. It was filled with barges, tugs and floats jammed in between the two big vessels that loomed one at either pier. It was a dark jumble of spars and masts, derricks, funnels and cabin roofs, all shadowy and silent. A single light gleamed here and there from the long dark deck of the Morgan coaster close to my right. She was heavily loaded still, for she had come to dock too late. ”

“ We had amplified our wardrobes by the purchase of a leather coat apiece in Vardö, and we had on these, and slop-chest oilskins, but the frosty gale beat through them all as though they had been gossamer silk. To go below was impossible. The coaster’s ’tween decks was an Aceldama of unfettered sea-sickness. The only warm spot on the spar deck was the engine-room skylight, and that was occupied by a festive Jew carousing with the skipper and a couple of farmers from the Russian side. ”

“ The captain of many a coaster eyed her sharply as she passed; and, now and then, one would let his own vessel veer half a point off its course, while he took his pipe from his mouth and remarked, “There’s a clean craft. ”

“ The electric vessel from whose wheel there was an unobstructed view ahead, without smokestack, with masts that could for speed's sake be lowered, was steered like any sail-boat, from her heaving stern. The owner's hand marked half speed, quarter speed upon the indicator. To the disgust of the crew he gave orders not to have the speed increased except to keep out of sight of coasters. At dead of night the beauty was anchored in his own cove, opposite his clapboard shooting lodge on the marsh. No one noticed his approach. The marsh and the bay hid their secret. ”

“ It is like approaching another world. It is another world.
At the pass in the barrier reef off Papeete, a genial French pilot took charge, and secured us the best berth in the harbour. Here the coral wall that forms the beach is so sheer that it is possible to make fast to the trunk of a flamboyant, as though to a bollard on a quay, and walk ashore on a gangplank—which we of the dream ship promptly did and dined in splendour at the best hotel. ”

“ It is from four to five feet long, twenty inches broad, and seven inches high at the middle. The lower edge of each runner is curved from end to end with a long, sweeping line, and it is grooved to receive a round runner of steel, which a blacksmith will make and attach.
The frame of the coaster should be made of hard-wood five-eighths of an inch in thickness, and the three cross-ribs are one inch and a half in width and one inch in thickness. Laps are cut in the top edges of the sides, and the cross-ribs are let into them and made fast with screws. ”

“ On the third day they were stretching off the land, to meet the first of the tide, under a light breeze and smooth water, when Newton perceived various objects floating in the offing. A small thing is a good prize to a coaster; even an empty breaker is not to be despised ”

“ That spot of shining white should be the canvas of some craft, hovering in the offing!”
“Nothing more probable, in so light a breeze. Your coasters are in and out, like water-rats on a wharf, at any hour of the twenty-four—and yet to me it seems the comb of a breaking sea.”
“’Tis snow-white duck; such as your swift rover wears on his loftier spars!”
“A duck that is flown,” returned the stranger drily, “for it is no longer to be seen. These fly-aways, Captain Ludlow, give us seamen many sleepless nights and idle chases. ”

“ The sky was high with delicate, frostlike cloud, and the running river blue with the reflection of the heavens. The wind was a light summer breeze and blew from London, and many ships of many rigs floated before it, some of them lifting lofty fabrics of swelling breasts of canvas, some of them dark with a weather-stained look, like my father’s coasters. Here [168] at Blackwall I took a boat, and told the man to row me to the Warrior hulk. ”

“ A cloud rises to windward, looking a little black; the skysails are brailed down; the captain puts his head out of the companion-way, looks at the cloud, comes up, and begins to walk the deck. The cloud spreads and comes on; the tub of yarns, the sail, and other matters, are thrown below, and the sky-light and booby-hatch put on, and the slide drawn over the forecastle. ``Stand by the royal halyards''; and the man at the wheel keeps a good weather helm, so as not to be taken aback. The squall strikes her. If it is light, the royal yards are clewed down, and the ship keeps on her way ”

“ Whether liner or dream ship, it makes no difference to the infinite care necessary in navigating these reef-infested seas.
A young navy of pilots performs the miracle—for miracle it is. After long apprenticeship they learn the exact dimensions of every open stretch of water, and if they leave one side at nightfall, they can tell by the vessel's speed, and to a yard, when they have reached the other, when they anchor until dawn. The farther we progressed up the magnificently rugged coast of Queensland, the more varied became the nature of our passenger list. ”