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Every vessel had several keelless whale-boats, pointed at both bow and stern, so that they could be rowed forwards or backwards. When a whale was seen in the distance the boats set out, each boat manned by six experienced whalers. One of them was the coxswain, another the harpooner, while the others sat at the oars.
Then again, if I should impair the precision of my five fingers by any such violent exercise, my brush would wabble as nervously over my canvas as a recording needle across a steam-gauge. Poling a rudderless, keelless skiff up a crooked stream by means of a fifteen-foot balancing pole is an art only to be classed with that of rowing a gondola.
We swept along before the wind, unsteadily, over Lake Chesuncook, at sea in a bowl, "rolled to starboard, rolled to larboard," in our keelless craft. Zephyr only followed us, mild as he was strong, and strong as he was mild. Had he been puffy, it would have been all over with us. But the breeze only sang about our way, and shook the water out of sunny calm.
But though his precise and logical mind seems then to have been incapable of fully realizing the conditions of war on the fickle, troublous, and tide-swept Channel, his admirals urgently warned him against trusting to shallow, flat-bottomed boats to beat the enemy out at sea; for though these praams in their coasting trips repelled the attacks of British cruisers, which dared not come into shallow waters, it did not follow that they would have the same success in mid-Channel, far away from coast defences and amidst choppy waves that must render the guns of keelless boats wellnigh useless.
But though his precise and logical mind seems then to have been incapable of fully realizing the conditions of war on the fickle, troublous, and tide-swept Channel, his admirals urgently warned him against trusting to shallow, flat-bottomed boats to beat the enemy out at sea; for though these praams in their coasting trips repelled the attacks of British cruisers, which dared not come into shallow waters, it did not follow that they would have the same success in mid-Channel, far away from coast defences and amidst choppy waves that must render the guns of keelless boats wellnigh useless.
The possession is a keel that gives to the craft a dignified balance upon the stream of life prevents it from being sailed too close to mud; helps maintain stability in sudden gale. Other craft are keelless they are canoes; bobbing, unsteady, likely to capsize in sudden emergency; prone to drift into muddy waters; liable to be swept anywhither by any current. Others, again and Mr.
While sailing well when before the wind, they yet, with their defective rig and keelless bottoms, carrying no weather helm, made little headway with the wind close abeam. On one occasion Isaac Brock left Lachine with a brigade of five batteaux, so that all hands could unite in making the portages.
But rudderless, keelless, this was not enough. The best he could manage with the now deployed steering oar was a straight line eastward, by precious yards slowly gaining the center of the stream. How he would hold it at the meeting of the two rivers and the open sea he could not imagine, though he exhausted his mind in trying. His fear and sense of helplessness grew with each passing moment.
But the best of Caspian mail-boats are most uncomfortable in rough weather for all but those whom no motion whatever can affect. Owing to the shoal water on all the coast circumference of this sea, the big boats are necessarily keelless, and may be described as but great barges with engines, and when at anchor in a rolling sea their movement is terribly disturbing.
However, when I ranged up alongside the mate's fish, to render what assistance was needed, he shouted to me, "We's all right; go'n git fas', if yew kin." That was enough, and away we flew after a retreating spout to leeward. Before we got there, though, there was an upheaval in the water just ahead, and up came a back like a keelless ship bottom up.
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