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Updated: June 16, 2025
That the Diane was a perfect marvel in the matter of speed and a good sea-boat withal was undeniable; and as I stood aft, to windward of the helmsman, and watched the little hooker thrashing along, I felt sanguine that, should we be fortunate enough to encounter Senor Morillo, he would have but small chance of escaping us by showing a clean pair of heels.
A heavy gale came on in the evening which caused a great swell in the lake and in crossing the waves we had the satisfaction to find that our birchen vessel proved an excellent sea-boat. July 7.
They were in a good sea-boat, well manned and provisioned, with nothing to fear from the weather, and if they were lucky they might make Sandy Hook in a week. On the other hand, they might not; but it is always well to take a cheerful view of things. People who cross the Atlantic in yachts are very different from the regular crowds that go backwards and forwards in the great lines.
Bear Island is situated some eighteen miles from shore, and about equidistant between Asquith and Far Harbor, which latter we had to pass on our way northward. Although a brisk sea was on, the wind had been steady from that quarter all night, and the motion was uniform. The Maria was an excellent sea-boat.
"Yes, sir, I have, and more than one of 'em," was the reply. "I was caught in one off the Paracels, in the old Audacious frigate, as fine a sea-boat as ever was launched, and, in less time than it takes to tell of it, we was dismasted and hove down on our beam-ends; and it took us all our time to keep the hooker afloat and get her into Hong-Kong harbour.
The King-Shing showed herself a remarkably good sea-boat, but desperately slow. No device could get more than eight knots out of her, and this was much above her average. We encountered one or two violent storms, in which she behaved wonderfully. One night the wind, after veering all round the compass with vivid lightning and thunder, settled in the south-west and blew a perfect hurricane.
It was the first time, excepting when my father came out to meet us and pilot us in, that either of them had been outside the reef; and that they were now fairly at sea, and with a staunch and good sea-boat under their feet, seemed an earnest of their easy escape almost more convincing than the fact that the vessel in which that escape was planned to be made was now actually in the water.
And last, though not least, she was a superb sea-boat, and dry as a bone save for the spray which flew in over her weather cat-head notwithstanding her extraordinary speed.
She certainly looked as unlike our notions of a man-of-war as anything could be, though, as Paul Truck observed, "she would crumple up the Minotaur in a few minutes with her four thirty-five ton guns, powerful as the five-masted ship appears." Though she looked only fit for harbour work, Paul said that she had been out in heavy weather, and proved a fair sea-boat.
In her then condition, however, she was by no means fitted for her new duties; and he accordingly devoted all his energies towards effecting the alterations necessary for that purpose. The first step was to disencumber her decks of the long range of upper cabins, thus materially increasing her buoyancy as a sea-boat, and diminishing the area exposed to the enemy's shot and shell.
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