Flotilla

“ At length, when the line is run out, checked from time to time as much as can be done with safety, the crew take their oars and follow the course of the ray, which swims so fast, however, that it keeps the line taut, and drags the whole flotilla seawards. It depends on its size and strength to determine how soon it rises to the surface ”

“ A flotilla of panting tugboats takes up station on our inshore side and 'punches' into us—head on—to shove our stern round against the full pressure of the strong ebb tide. The little vessels seem absurdly small for their task. They 'gittagoin',' as instructed by the pilot, and wake the dockside echoes with the strain of their energy. White steam spurts from the exhausts with every thrust of their power. The ferry-boats turning in to their slips come through the run of a combined stern wash that sets them on the boarding with a heavy impact. Power tells. ”

“ Of these perhaps four hundred of the slower and more ancient craft, the lame ducks of the flotillas, some of them of outlandish type and antiquated gear, manned by boys and men past service in the wars, still drag their trawls or lie to their nets to keep the markets supplied. Since eighty per cent of our spoils of the sea go abroad in normal times, the home supplies can be maintained by the reduced fleet. ”

“ The nature of the build in the boats of the river requires no skill in naval architecture; the wood is not sawed, and it does not require seasoning, so that the utmost despatch might be used at all times in forming a flotilla, whether it were desired to navigate, cross, or bridge it. ”

“ We may now picture this great Fleet, with its flotillas and cruisers, steaming slowly out of Portland Harbour, squadron by squadron, scores of gigantic castles of steel wending their way across the misty, shining sea, like giants bowed in anxious thought. We may picture them again as darkness fell, eighteen miles of warships running at high speed and in absolute blackness through the Narrow Straits, bearing with them into the broad waters of the North the safeguard of considerable affairs. ”

“ The fleet was returning like a frightened herd in stampede, each boat plunging in the combers with the bellow of the tempest upon its heels. Would they make the lee of the Breakwater? The wind in devilish playfulness would here tear off a shred of canvas, there a yard, and there a mast or a tiller, till a rudderless craft, caught abeam by a mountain of greenish water, would seem surely to be swallowed up. ”

“ It is very sad, but this is war time, and the fleet must be manned.
All day long duty-boats keep going up and down. Now it is an admiral’s twelve-oared barge with the flag at the bows; now a captain’s gig, or a pinnace, pulling between ship and shore; now a midshipman’s boat scurrying off to answer the flagship’s signal. Ships’ long-boats with water-casks and pursers’ stores for various men-of-war in harbour, pass and repass, and beer hoys and yard craft of all kinds. ”

“ At the foot of a flight of broad stone steps leading to the water from a wharf on the quay near one of the bridges, a superior sort of ship’s boat was moored, where her crew, some resting on the benches, some lounging on the steps, were grouped in conversation, evidently directing their attention to a beautiful ship of small tonnage but perfect symmetry that lay at anchor at a short distance, easily distinguished from the numerous vessels in her neighbourhood by the smartness of her rigging and the elegance of her build. ”

“ A SHIP in dock, surrounded by quays and the walls of warehouses, has the appearance of a prisoner meditating upon freedom in the sadness of a free spirit put under restraint. Chain cables and stout ropes keep her bound to stone posts at the edge of a paved shore, and a berthing-master, with brass buttons on his coat, walks about like a weather-beaten and ruddy gaoler, casting jealous, watchful glances upon the moorings that fetter a ship lying passive and still and safe, as if lost in deep regrets of her days of liberty and danger on the sea. ”

“ The sails hang flapping from the yards, the sea is motionless, presenting a dull expanse of water as far as the eye can reach, and no zephyrs float through the atmosphere to give relief from the burning rays of the sun. The ship lies like a log on the water, the discontent and murmurs of the crew increase every day, and in vain do they try to drive the tedium away by practising all sorts of diversion. ”

“ His gaze was fixed unvaryingly straight before him and he seemed to notice and observe more distant objects; the larger panorama of moving craft in the harbor, the fussy haste of the scuttling tugboats tugging nothing, the sullen reluctance of the urged scows, the outgoing and incoming pungies and schooners, the interwoven pattern they all formed together, the break in it now and again from the dignified passage of a towed bark or ship or from the stately progress of a big steamer. ”

“ The gallant ship spreads her broad wings one by one, and gracefully bending to the power of the breeze, glides, like a fleet courser, over the fathomless depths of the sea, while the mind that controls her motions again assumes his reverie on the quarter-deck. ”

“ All a fish has to do is to carry himself through the water; but a boat or vessel has to carry cargo, and [46] bear sail. A vessel made after that model wouldn’t stand up in the harbor with her spars in, and a boat made like it would have to be filled so full of ballast, to keep her on her legs, that she would be almost sunk; and the moment you put sail on her, in anything of a working breeze, her after-sail would jam her stern down, and she would fill over the quarter. ”

“ Or again, how a ship cuts the waves open and spreads them apart to roll up on her sides and follow after her in a long sweep of tilting water with a froth of foam melting on its crest, how the little tugs draw a ship across a harbor, four little tugs or three joined to a ship by a long cable that stretches tight, pulling the great lazy giant down a bay. ”

“ All lost to us, for no ships came in, and we lay at anchor, swinging ebb and flood—a useless hull and fabric, without a crew to spread the canvas and swing the great yards!
Every morning the Mate would put the windlass in gear and set everything in readiness for breaking out the anchor; but when we saw no tug putting off, and no harbour cat-boats tacking out from the shore with sailors' bags piled in the bows, he would undo the morning's work and put us to 'stand-by' jobs on the rigging. There were other loaded ships in as bad a plight as we. ”

“ When a ship wishes to gammon another, or, as it is pronounced at sea, gam’, the second syllable being dispensed with, the lee ship hauls aback her mainyard, or sets a signal signifying her wish, the weather craft squares her yards, puts her helm up, runs across the other’s stern and speaks her. Then the captain of one lowers away and boards the other, the mate returns in the boat with a fresh crew, the officers resort to the cabin, the boatsteerers to the steerage, and the crew to the forecastle. ”

“ Hour after hour unfolds the canvas of a never-ending panorama of shipping. Picture after picture goes by—the great ocean steamship, the little ratching ketch, the sturdy old collier, the white and shining yacht, the large and loftily rigged ship, the eager tug hissing through the trembling current, and all the life and light and colour and wondrous transformations of the river take a certain character of remoteness akin to unreality, as though what you gazed at was nothing but a series of noble paintings, indeed, from the quietude that prevails about you ”

“ The great hatch is scrubbed and placed upon the try-works; every cask is out of sight; all tackles are coiled in unseen nooks; and when, by the combined and almost simultaneous industry of the ship’s company, the whole of this duty is concluded, then the crew themselves proceed to their own ablutions, shift themselves from top to toe, and issue forth to the cleaned and white decks, fresh and all aglow, as bridegrooms new leaped from out the daintiest Holland. ”

“ The ships in the harbor, ketch-rigged, red-sailed, able to live in seas where huge liners perished, were eager to be liberated from their moorings Their crews, clumsy, awkward, inept on land, but dexterous, apt and graceful on sea-washed decks, breathed deeply, freely, once they stepped aboard the dinghies that they must row from the placidity of the inner harbor out into the surge. ”

“ There is a tug-boat taking out to its moorings the light-ship on which the safety of many other ships will depend.
There also are the ‘fast-sailing’ steam trawlers and carriers coming from, or going to, the fishing-grounds off Iceland and north of the White Sea—the representatives of the whalers of a hundred years ago—there the scurrying pilot boats and revenue cutters. And there is a great ocean liner riding at anchor and waiting the turn of the tide to allow it to enter the dock and discharge the cargo it has brought from the other side of the world. ”

“ We back out into the river, bring up, then come ahead, canting to a rudder pressure that sheers us into the fairway. The river is thronged by vessels at anchor or under way, docking and undocking on the top of the tide, and their manœuvres make work for our pilot. At easy speed we work a traverse through the press at the dock entrances and head out to seaward.
Evening is drawing on as we enter the sea-channels—a quiet close to a fine summer day. Out on the estuary it is hard to think of war at sea. ”

“ Grey, tumbling waters are their winter portion, decks continually awash, frozen gear, intolerable motion. Watch that short bluff little vessel 100 miles from any port and a gale rising, with her high bows staggering up from the hollow of the wave that hid her from sight, streaming from rail to rail, to plunge headlong into the next hollow, climb up the approaching mountain to encounter the smothering crest, shake herself and disappear again into the turbid water between the bigger seas. ”

“ There is much to enjoy also in the busy scene of the harbor; vessels of all nations are loading and discharging their cargoes, tugs bustle about, and, while the pompous whistle of modern steamers announces their arrival, the graceful sailing ship glides silently into port, maintaining with dignity the credit of the good old days, in the face of these rival parvenus of twentieth century transportation. ”

“ A.—No, I have often been in a ship with decks flooded. She would shake the water off her decks, and away she would go, as lively as ever. That is a good sea boat.
Q.—I presume you will admit that hundreds of sea-worthy ships have been overwhelmed by the waves? A.—Yes, some of the best ships that ever floated have gone to the bottom. In a heavy gale of wind a ship, even riding at anchor, often founders. She strains herself, and opens out forward.
Q.—Assuming that the Alert was passed in England by Lloyd’s surveyors, would that shake your opinion as to the sea-worthiness of the ship? ”

“ If the cargo exceeds 36 ton and half, the ship will sink; if just 73,000 pounds, she will swim, though very deep in the water, and on the very point of sinking. And though she may float at sea, she will sink on entering the mouth of a river; fresh water being specifically lighter than sea-water, and in the proportion of about 63 to 73.
Previous to the voyage, therefore, the ship’s burthen ought to be more carefully ascertained than, perhaps, raw inexperienced navigators have hitherto imagined.
The ship’s pumps. 6. ”

“ A chilly blast hums in the taut rigging, causing the ship to tremble to her very keel, and the soaked men on her decks to shiver in their wet clothes to the very marrow of their bones. Before one squall has flown over to sink in the eastern board, the edge of another peeps up already above the western horizon, racing up swift, shapeless, like a black bag full of frozen water ready to burst over your devoted head. The temper of the ruler of the ocean has changed. ”

“ Reality would more frequently show a vessel being hurried out of dock on the top of the tide, putting to sea into heavy weather, with the hatchways open over hasty stowage, and all the litter of a week's harbour disroutine standing to be cleared by a raw and semi-mutinous crew. ”

“ While the masts are bending to the wind and the ship careening in the water, you see the yards covered with hundreds of the crew with no guard from destruction in the giddy height, but the habit of keeping their feet firmly on the foot-ropes, while their hands and arms are occupied in overcoming the fearful thrashings of the sails, and in gathering in the canvas and binding it down with the reef-points. ”

“ No wonder that in olden times the man who had passed these tempestuous and inclement seas should have considered himself an object of importance. Stand, in fancy, upon the deck of that labouring brig, and survey one of the countless aspects of marine life. The seas are breaking heavily over the port bow of the vessel, deluging her forward and racing aft in a foaming torrent as she sinks her stern to mount the huge surge that almost lays her yardarms level. The bitter, raw, flaying cold of the wind there is nothing in language to express. ”

“ When fishermen are out drawing up their nets, he skims so low over the boat that he may be stunned with an oar, and he is so attracted by bright and gaudy colours that he will shoot down recklessly on to the pennants of ships as they flutter in the wind, swinging to and fro with the roll of the vessel. ”

“ Gryde proceeded. “The ship is steering by the chart, as these people think, a degree or so to the south of the reef. As you know perfectly well, we are steering right on to it. When you feel the first shock, you will know exactly what to do. That water balance must be shifted as arranged to convey the idea that the vessel is filling, and thus increase the confusion. This course will also lighten the ship by the head, and enable her to float.” ”