Pitcher (drinking vessel)

“ In those days ships carried single topsails with four reef-bands, studding sails, ringtails, water-sails and sky-sails, when
"A yankee clipper and yankee crew,
A yankee mate and captain too"
were picturesque and even romantic objects of interest, which so many New England boys were unable to resist, and whose influence continued strong in after life; for the love of a ship and the sea once implanted is rarely, if ever, uprooted.
In what, then, does this pleasure of being on the ocean in a finely-equipped, well-manned and commanded sailing vessel really consist? ”

“ The low, long, flat hull cannot stand rough water, and the heavy mast with its weighted heel is a dangerous lever in the wrong position.
Regatta time.
Many yachts have been built after the plan of the wherry, but with yacht-like hulls above water. At first the simple wherry rig was retained, but soon there came a boom to the sail, and then a bowsprit and jib, additions which, no doubt, make the vessel faster, but mean more help in handling—two men instead of one, and so on. These barges, as they are called, have increased greatly in number during the last few years. ”

“ The leverage of the outside ballast is so enormous that the yacht becomes practically uncapsizable. But an excessive weight of lead on the keel will strain a vessel in rough water, she will recover herself with a quick jerk after heeling over to a puff, and her every motion will be violent. ”

“ It was about noon when anchor was hoisted, and, with the schooner leading, both vessels ran slowly in before a light wind that had begun to blow toward midday. In each vessel a man stood in the bows, sounding continually with lead and line. As they slowly opened up the harbor within the inlet, they could see the pirate sloop lying about three miles away. There was a boat just putting off from it to the shore. ”

“ An engine now gives her power, so{67} that she can make fast time to and from the fishing grounds, and her sails are used mostly to steady her in the sea while the men work. The engine also helps with the heavy work of handling the nets.
Each kind of fish has its own habits, and the fishermen know them well. Some fish, such as cod and flounder, live down near the floor of the sea. They are caught in drag nets which are towed at the right speed behind{68} the vessel. Men haul the net in, dump the catch into ice-cooled bins in the hold, then drag the net again. ”

“ The little staples on the keel, in which the bent pins work, are to be formed of brass wire. The stem of the rudder passes through a hole in the stern of the vessel, and is provided with a tiller. Before launching the ship, the tiller must be fixed so as to keep the rudder at the required angle. Many boys fear to launch their ships in large [607] ponds; but if a ship is properly rigged, and answers to her rudder, there need be no doubt as to her safe arrival at port.
SMACK.
The smack is not so graceful as the cutter, but is a capital sailer. ”

“ Every device which skillful seamanship could practice was put in immediate operation to increase the speed of the brig. There was but a solitary hope remaining, that they might fall in with some national vessel able to protect them from the pirate. The sails were frequently wet, the halyards drawn taut, and the captain himself took the helm. When all this was done, each sailor stood gazing upon the pirate as if to calculate the speed of his approach by the lifting of his sails above the water. ”

“ A form of seafaring which still retains many of the characteristics of the time when Yankee sailors braved all seas and all weather in trig little wooden schooners, is the pilot service at American ports, and notably at New York. Even here, however, the inroads of steam are beginning to rob the life of its old-time picturesqueness, though as they tend to make it more certain that the pilot shall survive the perils of his calling, they are naturally welcomed. Under the law every foreign vessel entering an American port must take a pilot. ”

“ That any yacht bearing away or altering her course to windward or leeward, provided there is no obstruction to prevent her keeping her course, thereby compelling another vessel to go out of her course, shall forfeit all claim to the prize. In running before the wind, the side the leading vessel carries her main boom is to be considered the lee side. ”

“ We got the hatch open at last—be pleased to know that I am speaking of the hatch in the lower deck, for there was another immediately over it on the upper or main deck—and returning to the powder-room rolled the barrels forward ready for slinging and hoisting away when we should have rigged a tackle aloft. We had not done much, but what we had done had eaten far into the afternoon.
"I am tired and hungry and thirsty," said the Frenchman. "Let us knock off. We have made good progress. No use opening the main-deck hatch to-night: the vessel is cold enough even when hermetically corked." ”

“ The loading of cattle-ships is interesting. The vessels are tied up to the docks in Jersey City and Weehawken, where the stock-yards are located, and the cattle are driven up a narrow gang-plank. When steamships take grain or other cargo in the hold and cattle on deck, the latter are usually loaded from barges at the wharf, or while the vessel is at anchor in the bay. Occasionally a fractious steer breaks away from the drivers, and, plunging over the side of the gang-plank, takes a bath in the water. ”

“ First the anchor is hove short, so that the yacht is nearly over it. Then the mainsail or mizzen, according to the strength of the wind, is hoisted. Then, while the anchor is being smartly got off the ground and hauled on board, the foresail is hoisted. The tide passing under a vessel while she is at anchor gives her steerage way; so, just before the anchor leaves the ground, the tiller is put over to cant the vessel on the desired tack, the foresheet is trimmed, and thus we get way on our craft without any delay, and are able to avoid the vessels that surround us. ”

“ It was open to yachts of 20 tons and over, and 17 started. The course chosen lay to the eastward, from an imaginary line between the flagstaff on the Spit Fort, and the committee boat, round the Nab Lightship, west buoy of the middle and committee vessel, leaving all on the starboard hand, to finish between the committee vessel and the Spit buoy. There was a strong south-westerly breeze blowing all day, which suited the large yachts well, and some of the finest sailing of the year was witnessed by those who were fortunate enough to follow the race. ”

“ A set of worthy gentlemen, who have formed themselves into a body, which they call the "Water Club," proceed a few leagues out to sea, once a year, in a number of little vessels which, for painting and gilding, exceed the King's yachts at Greenwich and Deptford. Their Admiral, who is elected annually, and hoists his flag on board his little vessel, leads the van, and receives the honour of the flag. The rest of the fleet fall in their proper stations, and keep their line in the same manner as the King's ships. ”

“ Again, during the recent racing season, the pilot-boat (about sixty tons) started from Kingstown Harbour for her cruising ground. The old pilot at the helm sucked his pipe with confident air as she slipped; you could almost imagine his saying, 'This old boat and I are old chums; I know her. See how, with one finger on the tiller, I make her gracefully fall off to avoid that group of yachts ahead!' Suddenly the smile disappears; (p. 129) the pipe is chucked from his mouth. She won't fall off! she is charging bang into the yachts! ”

“ SAFE over the Bar!" remarked the pilot of the Columbia, as the good vessel rounded Lighthouse Point and headed for Astoria, one fine morning late in the fifties. The tone implied much more than the words to the half-dozen passengers that heard it, for it was midwinter and a "rough bar."
The pilot of the ship is to most people a very attractive person; the position he holds while on duty makes him the superior of the captain, who has heretofore held all the honors, and been a little king. ”

“ If there is but little wind, a strong tide under one, and a crowd of vessels brought up close astern, it sometimes happens that the following method is the only one by which one can get away clear. Let one hand get the anchor up till the chain is nearly straight up and down and the yacht commences to drag slowly. Let him, by giving her chain or taking it in, keep her going thus, never letting her drag fast. As the tide is running by the vessel faster than she is dragging astern, she still has steerage way ”

“ A small amount of clumsiness in tacking a vessel will cause her to miss stays and get in irons, that is, she will lie up in the wind, all her sails shaking, and refuse to fill on either tack. She has now lost all headway, and commences to go astern. In order to get way on again, haul the head sheets to windward, which we will suppose is the port side. Put the tiller to starboard. As the vessel is going astern, the rudder will now produce the reverse effect of what it would were the vessel going ahead; so putting the tiller to starboard turns the vessel’s head to starboard. ”

“ By R. T. Pritchett
'Waterwitch,' 331 tons (Earl of Belfast) and 'Galatea,' 179 tons.
The start for a race for 1,000 guineas, September 1, 1834.
In former days, matches were made between yachts as between horses on the turf, and the stakes were often heavy, but such events are now almost unknown; the increase in the number of craft has divided the attention of the public, and the performance of each vessel is so well known that there are no dark sea-horses to bring out as a surprise. The records of bygone matches are, however, far from easy to obtain, if, indeed, they are obtainable. ”

“ No. 2 is a gallon pitcher, sacred to the gingerbread of two generations, and ornamented with a ship under full sail on one side and a coat-of-arms on the other, not now remembered, the whole article having recently disappeared in some way or direction unknown and untraceable unless by the most indefatigable of ceramists. The third is a smaller pitcher in mottled unglazed clay, antique in shape and ornamentation, except that a figure in the costume of Queen Bess's time stands cheek-by-jowl with a group resembling that on the Portland Vase. ”

“ When the helm is let go, the little vessel shoots so quickly into the wind that she might be put about on the other tack by backing the jib, without further touch of the tiller. In fact, so powerful is the great overhang of mainsail and jib in controlling the balance pivoted on the short keel that I have many times tacked a 4-ton boat up a narrow reach without touching the tiller at all, simply by manipulating the sheets, and this, too, while sailing single-handed. ”

“ Having baited a pitch one day, it should never be neglected on the next, as the fish will have had time to find out the bait, and will perhaps be collected together there. Of course the choice of a pitch will be guided very much by the species of fish the angler desires to fish for. The places they frequent are noted hereafter. When the angler has hooked a big fish which he cannot lift out without danger to tackle, he uses a landing-net, that is, a bag-net on an iron ring fastened to the end of a pole, which he slips under the tired fish and lifts securely to the bank. ”

“ The sea was running so high at the time we hoisted out the boats, that I scarcely flattered myself we should get them out in safety; and in. deed, nothing but the steady and orderly conduct of the crew could have enabled us to effect so difficult and hazardous an undertaking: it is a justice to them to observe, that not a man in the ship attempted to make use of the liquor, which every one had in his power. Whilst the cutter was getting out, I perceived one of the seamen (John Tipper) emptying a demijean, or bottle, containing five gallons, which, on inquiry, I found to be rum. ”

“ It blows still harder, and our vessel is running her nose into the short choppy sea, so it is decided that we shift the second jib for the third or smallest.
To do this properly while one is under way requires an experienced hand. To take in the jib, let go the outhaul, and as the sail on its traveller comes inboard along the bowsprit, muzzle it, that is, clasp it in your arms; then letting go the halyards, pull the sail down on deck to leeward of the foresail. ”

“ A sea would come rolling up out of the south in a great sky-scraping ridge of pea green and heel the yacht to starboard until the mainboom dipped into the water and buckled under the strain like a rod before the first rush of a ten-pound salmon. Then it would pass on, leaving the yacht to tumble off its back and roll her port rail under just in time to dip a deckful out of the next wave. Much of the time the foresail was lowered with the boom hauled amidships, and the mainsail, double-reefed, carried to starboard. ”

“ This little vessel is believed to have been the first yacht that sailed under the American flag.
Here we find the beginning of a custom that continued both in the United States and Great Britain until the last quarter of the nineteenth century—the disposing of yachts after their days of giving pleasure had ended—to fishermen and pilots. They proved useful vessels; for, though built for speed, they were well constructed and rigged and safe for sea-voyages—the type of vessel a seaman likes. ”