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Updated: May 7, 2025
Having reached the spars, we set-to with a very good will to shift away the weed and wrack that was piled over them, and very much entangled with the rigging. Presently we had laid them bare, and so we discovered them to be in remarkably sound condition, the lower-mast especially being a fine piece of timber.
Her foremast and jib-boom were under the bows, with all attached, and were hanging, a tangled mass of raffle, by the shrouds and stays, leaving about twenty feet of naked, jagged, and splintered stump of the lower-mast standing above the deck; and her main-topmast was also gone; but the wreckage of this had been cut away and had gone adrift, leaving only the heel in the cap, and the ragged ends of the topmast shrouds streaming from the rim of the top.
I looked in the direction he indicated, and there, upon our lower-mast- head, and also upon the trysail gaff-end, was a globe of pale, sickly green light, which wavered to and fro, lengthening out and flattening in again as the cutter tossed wildly over the mountainous seas.
But at the last moment he decided that it would be more convenient to step her lower-mast ere she left the stocks; and, one thing leading naturally to another, an additional day was devoted to the job of stepping this important spar, getting the bowsprit into position, setting up all the rigging connected with these two spars, and getting the main-boom and gaff into their places.
These vary in size, form, and number in different ships, but in all they serve the same purpose to support the sails. Lower masts of large vessels are never formed out of one tree. They are found to be stronger when built up of several pieces, which are fastened together by strong iron hoops. Masts sometimes consist of three distinct parts. The lower-mast, top-mast, and top-gallant-mast.
In nautical language it refers solely to a vessel having three masts, each consisting of a lower-mast, a top-mast, and a top-gallant-mast. At present we use the term ship in the familiar sense. Elaborate and complicated drawings having been prepared, the shipbuilder begins his work. The keel is the first part of a ship that is laid.
Hawsepipe undertaking with the assistance of the others to cut the yards adrift and separate the topmast from the lower-mast, I took another cruise with the warp, and was fortunate enough, after swimming about for over an hour, to bag a half-burned hen-coop with four dead fowls still therein, three hatches, and the remains of the mainmast with topmast attached, the latter spar being still in good enough condition to be serviceable, and the jibboom.
When, therefore, the morning broke, and the bright sun, shone out, and the gale had subsided, Henry found himself still clinging to the spar, and although much weakened, still able to make some exertion to save himself. On looking round he found that numerous pieces of the wreck floated near him, and that the portion to which he clung was the broken lower-mast.
And in the meanwhile, the rigging was prepared, and when this was finished, they made ready the shears to hoist the spare topmast, intending this to take the place of the main lower-mast.
Yet, further than this, the bo'sun bade the carpenter make wooden caps of six inch oak, these caps to fit over the squared heads of the lower-mast stumps, and having a hole, each of them, to embrace the jury-mast, and by making these caps in two halves, they were able to bolt them on after the masts had been hove into position.
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