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Updated: June 15, 2025
I forgot to say that the first day out near the Irish Coast we saw a great three-masted full-rigged ship in the distance. She was a magnificent sight with all sails set. What a great sight a fleet of these sailing vessels must have presented in the days of Nelson. Now ships only showed low black platforms and smoke stacks. No novelty nor romance about them.
This is, however, un peu fort. It is now not at all uncommon to see three-masted vessels on Lake Ontario; and one alone, in November last, brought to Kingston a freight of flour which before would have required three of the ordinary schooners to carry, namely, 1500 barrels.
Summoned by the lightship's guns and rockets to the rescue for the red three-masted North Sand Head lightship was only two miles from the wreck the Ramsgate lifeboat, towed by the steam-tug Aid, came to the spot, and, after a long trial, failed to get the schooner afloat, and, having taken her crew out of her, returned to the shore.
Now, Gadabout began to sidle toward the port bank of the river as our next harbour, Chippoak Creek, was on that side. Here the shore grew steep; and at one point high up we caught glimpses of the little village of Claremont. At its pier lay a three-masted schooner and several barges and smaller boats.
Well down to the southward there was a large square-rigged, three-masted vessel, fraternising with one of our finest West Indiamen. The stranger looked tall, grim, and dark, with his courses up, but his top-gallant sails and royals set.
She was a fine, roomy vessel, three-masted, about 150 feet in length overall. She lay head up stream, and from where I lay by Hardenberg on the quarterdeck I could see her tops sharply outlined against the sky above the Golden Gate before I went to sleep. I suppose it was very early in the morning nearer two than three when I awoke.
A few minutes more, and the foremast passed through the same metamorphose, leaving the "Sea Witch" a three-masted schooner, with fore and aft sails on every mast and every stay. All this had been accomplished with a celerity that showed the crew to be no strangers to the manouvres through which they had just passed, each man requiring to work with marked intelligence.
And not the least delight of her new quarters was that they were high enough up so that from them she could overlook the sheltering Ilex-trees which made these marvellous gardens possible so close to the shore, and see the Channel ships a-sailing three-masted schooners laden with wood; fishing-smacks; London barges with their picturesque red sails bellying in the wind; and an occasional ocean liner trailing its black smoke across the horizon.
When he left his prisoner he went to the engine-room, and it was soon evident from the jar and shake of the vessel that he had instructed the chief engineer to increase the speed. Christy watched the distant sail for about three hours before he could come to any conclusion. At the end of this time he was satisfied that the three-masted steamer was gaining very decidedly upon the Snapper.
They were difficult to reef or lower in a blow until it was discovered that three masts instead of two made the task much easier. For many years the three-masted schooner was the most popular kind of American merchant vessel.
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