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Updated: May 26, 2025
This was doubtless the first of the south-east trade-winds; for by midnight it had so far freshened that, for the sake of our spars, it became necessary to take in our spinnaker and balloon-topsail, and to substitute for them the working jib and our jib-headed topsail.
This short lesson in navigation over, we will now rejoin the Water Lily, which we left at six p.m. off the Lizard, on the starboard tack. It was my "eight hours out" that night, and when I took the tiller at eight o'clock we were dashing along a good honest eight knots, under whole canvas and a jib-headed gaff-topsail.
We were not very long in getting our preventers rigged, after which we not only set our royal and flying-jib, but also shifted our gaff-topsail, hauling down Number 3, a jib-headed affair, and setting Number 2 in its place, a sail nearly twice as big as the other, with its lofty, tapering head laced to a yard very nearly as long as the topmast.
It was the Falkland group of barren and desolate islands in the vicinity of Cape Horn. As we had been expecting, the wind now drew round from the westward, fresh, though not so much so as to prevent our showing a jib-headed gaff-topsail to it.
The "trades" were blowing very moderately as it happened, and the weather was as fine as heart could wish, with a nearly full moon into the bargain, so we were able to carry not only a jib-headed topsail, but also our spinnaker at the bowsprit-end; and under this canvas the little beauty made uncommonly short miles of it, tripping along like a rustic belle going to her first ball.
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