Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 12, 2025
Once again I studied the dim loom and tracery of intricate rigging and lofty, sail-carrying spars, thought of the mad, imbecile crew, and experienced premonitions of disaster. How could such a voyage be possible, with such a crew, on the huge Elsinore, a cargo-carrier that was only a steel shell half an inch thick burdened with five thousand tons of coal? It was appalling to contemplate.
They are no longer built for speed, nor are they manned before the mast by as sturdy a sailor stock, nor aft the mast are they officered by sail- carrying captains and driving mates. Speed is left to the liners, who run the silk, and tea, and spices. Admiralty courts, boards of trade, and underwriters frown upon driving and sail-carrying.
Later, when he and Lloyd wrote "The Wrecker" together, this very episode figured in the story, Captain Otis under the name of Captain Nares performing a similar sail-carrying feat on the schooner Norah Creina. Mrs. Strong, Stevenson's stepdaughter, and her family were waiting in Honolulu and gave them a warm welcome. The travellers soon found themselves the centre of interest among Mrs.
However, we were used to carrying on by this time, and had become so thoroughly intimate with the cutter's sail-carrying powers that we knew we might safely give her all the canvas her spars would bear. At eight o'clock next morning, nothing having occurred during the night worthy of record, we went about and stood away about north-east on the starboard tack.
As our confidence in her stability and sail-carrying powers thus became established, we grew anxious to try her paces, and forthwith got her topmast on end, the rigging set up, and put the square-headed gaff- topsail upon her.
Of course, when there is sport in it you set every kite you've got in your lockers and, you know, Elsa, I never took my mains'l in yet while there was one standing in the fleet, even ordinary fishing days." "I know it; you've scared me half to death a dozen times with your sail-carrying."
That Ellinwood and the daring Jimmie Thomas were thoroughly in accord with Schofield's preposterous sail-carrying was a foregone conclusion. But others of the crew were not of the same mind. An hour more here or there seemed a small matter to them as compared to the chance of drowning and leaving a family unprotected and unprovided for.
I proposed ballasting her down to her proper depth with sand-bags, but Bob seemed anxious to test her sail-carrying powers light as she was, urging that though we should start well down in the water, she would lift as our provisions grew short; and it was desirable to know by experiment beforehand how far we could lighten her with safety.
The typical Sydney boat is a handy sloop of great beam and enormous sail-carrying power; but a capsize is not uncommon, for they carry sail like vikings. In Sydney I saw all manner of craft, from the smart steam-launch and sailing-cutter to the smaller sloop and canoe pleasuring on the bay. Everybody owned a boat.
The two were, therefore, about equally matched, and it was evident that the contest would resolve itself into one of sail-carrying, seamanship, and nerve. "That other feller's comin' up fast!" said Pete Ellinwood, and Code looked back to see the strange schooner looming larger and larger in his wake.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking