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Updated: May 7, 2025
She was fully decked, with a sort of monkey-poop aft, about two and a half feet high and twenty feet long, beneath which was her principal cabin. Her bulwarks and rail were very solidly constructed; the former being pierced with rowlock holes for sixteen oars or sweeps of a side, in addition to holes abaft, one on each side of, and near the stern-post, for the short broad-bladed steering paddles.
Now we have had all the copper off, and the seams examined in the wake of this section of the vessel's bottom, from the fore-chains to the main; and, in my judgment, it will be found that something is wrong about her stem, or her stern-post. Perhaps one of her wood-ends has started. Such a thing might very well have happened under so close a squeeze."
The beach was strewn with bits of wreck and drift: some redwood and spruce logs, no less than two lower masts of junks, and the stern-post of a European ship; all of which we looked on with a shade of serious concern, speaking of the dangers of the sea and the hard case of castaways.
We soon had reason to suppose the principal injury had been received from a blow near the stern-post, and after cutting away part of the ceiling the carpenters endeavoured to stop the rushing in of the water by forcing oakum between the timbers; but this had not the desired effect and the leak, in spite of all our efforts at the pumps, increased so much that parties of the officers and passengers were stationed to bail out the water in buckets at different parts of the hold.
"Let's be thankful," I said, on further examination, "that no damage has been done to keel or gun'le." "Nor to stem or stern-post," added Lumley. "Come, we shan't be delayed more than a day after all." He was right. The whole of the day that followed the storm we spent in repairing the boat, and drying such portions of the goods as had got wet, as well as our own garments.
The stern-post rises from the opposite end of the keel, and also slopes a little outwards. To it are fastened the ends of the planking and the framework of the stern part of the ship. To it also is attached that little but most important part of a vessel, the rudder.
We laid out the steamer's purchase with an anchor secured upon the shore, and the day ended successfully by hauling the wreck exactly parallel to the bank, with her stem and stern-post above the surface. As the current was very powerful, the bow of the wreck had throughout the operation been firmly secured by two anchors laid out up stream.
The first adventure we made here had like to have been fatal to us all, for the sloop, being ahead, made the signal to us for seeing a sail, and afterwards another, and a third, by which we understood she saw three sail; whereupon we made more sail to come up with her, but on a sudden were gotten among some rocks, falling foul upon them in such a manner as frighted us all very heartily; for having, it seems, but just water enough, as it were to an inch, our rudder struck upon the top of a rock, which gave us a terrible shock, and split a great piece off the rudder, and indeed disabled it so that our ship would not steer at all, at least not so as to be depended upon; and we were glad to hand all our sails, except our fore-sail and main-topsail, and with them we stood away to the east, to see if we could find any creek or harbour where we might lay the ship on shore, and repair our rudder; besides, we found the ship herself had received some damage, for she had some little leak near her stern-post, but a great way under water.
In an hour's time the "Bertha Millner" was high and dry, and they could examine her at their leisure. It was Moran who found the leak. "Pshaw!" she exclaimed, with a half-laugh, "we can stick that up in half an hour." A single plank had started away from the stern-post; that was all. Otherwise the schooner was as sound as the day she left San Francisco.
The pack remained close, and on the 21st a heavy swell made the situation dangerous. The ship bumped heavily that night and fenders were of little avail. With each "send" of the swell the ship would bang her bows on the floe ahead, then bounce back and smash into another floe across her stern-post. This floe, about six feet thick and 100 ft. across, was eventually split and smashed by the impacts.
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