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Updated: May 14, 2025
The engineer now shut off his engines, and the great boat drifted slowly down upon the floating body of the dead bear, with just steerageway enough to enable the pilot to lay her alongside.
We had enough steerageway to drift over your position after a few turns of the screws down by the reef passage. You see, we didn't know what was going on, so we took no chances. Then, when we got into position, we got into the water without waiting to anchor. We dropped anchor right after we got both of you out, but you probably didn't notice."
In the stern sheets a young man stood, resting one hand on the tiller, his navigating a sinecure, for the wind was barely enough to give him steerageway. He was, one would say, about twenty-five or six, fairly tall, healthily tanned, with clear blue eyes having a touch of steely gray in their blue depths, and he was unmistakably of that fair type which runs to sandy hair and freckles.
There was still a small air out of the southeast, sufficient to give him steerageway in the swell that ran for hours after the storm. Between sail and power he made the Redonda Islands and passed between them far up the narrow gut of Waddington Channel, lying in a nook near the northern end of that deep pass when night came on.
And the Captain accepted her decision with resignation of his own. "Crafts of your bottom can't navigate in these waters," he agreed, earnestly; and, indeed, the room was so cluttered with his belongings that voluminous hoop-skirts could not get steerageway. "He has so much rubbish," Gussie complained; but it was precious rubbish to the old man.
As the little brig felt the breeze and gathered steerageway, she was headed for the chase, bringing the wind on her starboard quarter. In less than five minutes all the studding sails that would draw were set, as well as everything that would pull. The best quartermaster was sent to the wheel, with orders to keep the chase directly over the weather end of the spritsail yard.
In his crippled condition, in the gathering night, he figured that it would be impossible for him to make Portland harbor, the only accessible refuge. The one chance was to ride it out, and this he set himself to do, grimly silent, contemptuously reticent. He held her nose up to the open sea, allowing her only steerageway, the gale slithering off her flattened sail.
Springing to the tiller and slacking away on the main-sheet, for the wind favored, he headed the sloop down upon Joe. The latter made one tremendous spurt, then gave up in despair and hauled in his oars. French Pete let go the main-sheet, lost steerageway as he rounded up alongside the motionless skiff, and dragged Joe out.
She seemed to be falling off into the trough of the waves. "Keep her up!" yelled Ben to Bluewater Bill, who sat grimly at the wheel affixed to the cabin bulkhead. "I can't!" roared back Bill against the fury of the wind. "What's the matter?" "The engine's broke down, I guess; anyhow, she don't answer her helm, I can't get steerageway on her."
We had drifted a good deal since the morning, and the bows of the Glarus were pointed homeward, but as soon as the breeze blew strong enough to get steerageway Hardenberg put the wheel over and, as the booms swung across the deck, headed for the island again.
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