Sailing master

“ After our baths and Juno’s nice dinners we usually went to sail, and in a few weeks the Captain let some of us take the helm, he sitting by to instruct us, and to remedy, if need be, any mistake of the young sailor who happened to be our skipper at the time. Sometimes, instead of sailing, we would row in an excellent boat which we had for that purpose, and, four of us being at the oars, try how quick time we could make from point to point of the shore. ”

“ SMALL-BOAT SAILING
A sailor is born, not made. And by “sailor” is meant, not the average efficient and hopeless creature who is found to-day in the forecastle of deepwater ships, but the man who will take a fabric compounded of wood and iron and rope and canvas and compel it to obey his will on the surface of the sea. Barring captains and mates of big ships, the small-boat sailor is the real sailor. He knows—he must know—how to make the wind carry his craft from one given point to another given point. ”

“ The "bucko mate" walked her decks, and the jack tar, stripped of his pigtail, his bell mouthed canvas trousers, his varnished sailor hat, and his grog, remained in plain dungaree and cotton shirt to work the biggest sailing craft in the history of the world on the last hard stages of their storm tossed voyages.
Mixed with our real sailors were the worthless (so far as sea lore went) scrapings of the waterfront. ”

“ When I was fifteen I was captain and owner of an oyster-pirate sloop. By the time I was sixteen I was sailing in scow-schooners, fishing salmon with the Greeks up the Sacramento River, and serving as sailor on the Fish Patrol. And I was a good sailor, too, though all my cruising had been on San Francisco Bay and the rivers tributary to it. I had never been on the ocean in my life.
Then, the month I was seventeen, I signed before the mast as an able seaman on a three-top-mast schooner bound on a seven-months’ cruise across the Pacific and back again. ”

“ We have the wind directly aft. Our fore studding-sails are out like the wings of a bird on the breast of a gale. We have run within the last two days four hundred and forty miles. This is good sailing considering we have six months’ provision on board, and lie consequently too deep for the greatest speed. The air is balmy, and the songs of our sailors, at sunset, rose exultingly into its blue depths. A sailor always sings with heart. His music rolls out like a dashing stream from its mountain source. It is never gay; it always has a deep vein of melancholy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is not in books or at the library table that the art of the seaman can be acquired. Quickness of eye, nerve, promptitude of judgment, are the indispensable gifts, which must be gained by long and varied experience at sea. The seamanship required in a gale of wind on the open ocean, the seamanship displayed in sailing matches in over-sparred yachts, sailed mainly in smooth waters, and the seamanship called for in pilotage waters not previously visited, and especially at night, are different branches of a wide profession. ”

“ And there was little else to learn during that seven-months' cruise, except fancy rope-sailorising, such as the more complicated lanyard knots and the making of various kinds of sennit and rope-mats. The point of all of which is that it is by means of small-boat sailing that the real sailor is best schooled.
And if a man is a born sailor, and has gone to the school of the sea, never in all his life can he get away from the sea again. The salt of it is in his bones as well as his nostrils, and the sea will call to him until he dies. Of late years, I have found easier ways of earning a living. ”

“ In order to come anywhere near accuracy by means of dead reckoning a mariner must be thoroughly familiar with the tides and currents through which he is sailing. He must be able to judge the strength of the wind; he must know just what his vessel will do under varying conditions; he must be able to guess very closely the leeway she makes, and he must bear in mind all the changes of course, all the tacks and all the shifting of sails which have been made. ”

“ He waits in port till he gets a slant—that is, until he has satisfied himself that in all human probability no wind of dangerous strength will blow in the course of the next few days—then he weighs his anchor, hoists his sails, and speeds across the broad sea as fast as he is able, knowing that should a gale of wind spring up before he has made the opposite coast, he will be in considerable peril and not improbably be lost. ”

“ In rough-water sailing a boat going to windward wants her sheet eased. Do not trim the sails dead flat, nor try to sail the boat very close to the wind; give her what is called a good full, and keep her moving all the time. Remember, that every wave is a hill that the boat has to climb over, and she needs all the drive possible in order to do it. You must learn how to help her with the helm to take these seas easily, first by luffing and then by bearing away.
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A man can only become a good windward helmsman by constant practice and by paying attention to every detail. ”

“ The study of navigation, the rule of the road at sea, the coast pilot, the learning of marlinspike seamanship and a rudimentary knowledge of the use of the palm and needle, so that if a sail should need some simple repairs they may be made 105without loss of time and without seeking aid from a sailmaker—all these the amateur will find useful. It is astonishing how much one can learn in one winter if he devotes only an hour a night to the acquirement of nautical lore. ”

“ The boat sailor must be very careful to keep to windward of the wherries in narrow waters, as their huge gaffs and sails take up a great deal of room, and if they catch your mast, they may carry it away, or capsize you. It is still more important not to get across the bows of a wherry, as she would get the best of the encounter, and a small yacht very much the worst of it. It is not often that accidents happen through any collision, but occasionally the crew of a row-boat get bewildered and row across the bows of a wherry, sailing fast, and a day of pleasure is turned into mourning. ”

“ TAKING CARE OF THE BOAT You must not only learn to sail, but you must learn to take care of your boat, to keep her neat and clean, and have everything above and below decks in shipshape order. Nothing looks worse than a slovenly kept and dirty yacht; a boat with fag ends of rope hanging about, loose and tangled messes of gear, sails not properly stowed, and a general air of untidiness apparent everywhere. The first attribute of good seamanship is order. Therefore, if you want to be considered a skillful sailor, keep your boat both above and below decks in shipshape fashion. ”

“ Sailing as he will be on such occasions in company with yachts of various sizes, sail-carrying power and speed, the yachtsman who can keep station will have learnt not only to have a confidence in himself and his vessel, but also how to vary her degrees of sailing from the reeling off of knots to an up and down log line. ”

“ I used often to say, 'Bob, the oldest sailor living can't rule the waves and winds, and if you are such a mad cap as to go out sailing in such equally weather on this coast, as sure as you are alive you will repent it.' He and some young chaps hereabouts, got such a wonderful notion of sailing, and though I have sailed many and many a mile, in large vessels and small, I always hold to it that it is ticklish work for the young and giddy. ”

“ Knowing that inattention to your work will perhaps result in a spill, you will be constantly on the alert, and you will learn that by quick and proper movements of the helm you can control and maneuvre your boat so as to keep her on her bottom at all times.
If you have your boat ready take a day when the wind is light and steady and get somebody to go with you who understands sailing. Let the old hand tend the sheet while you handle the tiller. ”

“ Although a sailor may have no experience with the lead still he has a knowledge of its use in soundings. Long before I had ever taken a cast I knew how it should be done. My first experience of the deep-sea lead was on the Bermudan brig Excelsior. We were drawing near to the American coast bound in to New York, when we were enveloped in thick fog. Our captain was a competent navigator, and to make [144] sure of his whereabouts after sailing without the sun or stars for three days, it became necessary for him to seek information from the bottom of the sea. ”

“ I always liked to take a sail. I had been with him a dozen times already, and had been promoted to the position of able seaman on board, for I had taken the helm, and actually worked the boat alone for hours at a time. I had been out with the junior partner in some pretty heavy blows, and enjoyed them too. In fact, I considered myself as competent to handle the Florina as I was to make out a trial balance. I looked into the theory of sailing a boat, and understanding the principles, I found the practice easy. ”

“ The steersman should stand on the weather side of the vessel. To sail a yacht to windward with the greatest advantage requires considerable practice, and the novice is sure at first to yaw her about a good deal, now keeping her off the wind too much and now luffing till all the sails are shaking and she loses her way. ”

“ You must have got a pretty good notion of how to sail a boat, by watching them. Here, take the wheel. But you’ll find that practice in real sailing, and just having it in your head from watching others, are two different things. However, you’ll learn fast. I never knew any one who had any sort of courage, and any natural liking toward boat-sailing, but what he could pick it up fast, if he kept his eyes open.
“The first thing to do, to learn to sail a boat, is to take hold in moderate weather and work her yourself. ”

“ Yet men, adventurous and inquisitive, kept ever pushing forward into the unknown, until now there remain no strange seas and few uncharted and unlighted. The mariner of these days has literally plain sailing in comparison with his forbears of one hundred and fifty years ago. ”

“ If the ship be running before the wind, or be sailing large, and under a press of sail, the officer must exercise his judgment in rounding to, and take care in his anxiety to save the man, not to let the masts go over the side, which will not advance, but defeat his object. If the top-gallant-sheets, the topsail, and top-gallant-haulyards, be let fly, and the head-yards braced quickly up, the ship when brought to the wind will be nearly in the situation of reefing topsails. ”

“ If you get afraid or rattled, as it is called, by the boat getting a knockdown in a puff, just let her come up in the wind and rest, and you will see that she is perfectly safe, and your courage will soon return.
I have taught many—both boys and girls—to sail, and I always put them right at the helm, and insist upon them staying there. If they get in a tight place the beginner will generally want to give up the helm. ”

“ For this purpose the mizen top-sail is generally used; a hawser should be kept ready to wind her, and if the wind falls she must be hove apeak.—To back and fill. To get to windward in very narrow channels, by a series of [66] smart alternate boards and backing, with weather tides.—To back a sail. To brace its yard so that the wind may blow directly on the front of the sail, and thus retard the ship's course. A sailing vessel is backed by means of the sails, a steamer by reversing the paddles or screw-propeller.—To back astern. ”

“ It is this that makes the practice of seamanship so valuable to those who employ it only as a pastime. The care and handling of the sailing vessel furnishes most excellent training for the young. Aside from the skill it imparts, it takes men out into the open air; it offers to those whom the obligations of life keep at the counter and desk an opportunity to be free, to get away from and completely out of the business world. ”

“ Then the mooring can be slipped, and sail hoisted simultaneously, and the vessel will get way on at once and can be steered clear of everything.
The amateur, if he puts his mind to it, will in time be able to reason out the best method of getting his craft under way under every contingency of tide, wind, and surrounding obstacles. The manœuvre is often a difficult one ”

“ This was our best point of sailing, and probably the lugger’s worst; at all events that rig of vessel has generally the greatest advantage on a wind. Our square-sail, square-topsail, and every sail the cutter could carry was now set, to overtake the chase; and the breeze freshening as the day advanced, we bowled away at a famous rate.
“Do you think, Hanks, we have a chance of catching her?” I asked, as the old mate and I were intently watching her.
“As to catching her, depends upon circumstances. If we get the strength of the breeze before her, and she doesn’t hide away in another fog ”

“ Surely she must be an Englishman with a hard-boiled efficient skipper. You know how a British captain often is, with his nose right down on his job, with no thought except his cargo and his lookout for submarines and cruisers? Well, evidently this chap couldn't be bothered with a funny old Norwegian windjammer. Sails set and motor running, we held across his course and got in front of him. Now, at sea, a sailing vessel always has the right of way over a steamship because the latter can manœuvre more rapidly. ”