Two Years Before The Mast - VII

(Wiki) (movie - 1946) (Audiobook)

Two Years Before The Mast - VII (Pages 44 - 57)


Sea Tales - Trade Winds

AS we saw neither land nor sail from the time of leaving Juan Fernandez until our arrival in California, nothing of interest occurred except our own doings on board. We caught the southeast trades, and ran be fore them for nearly three weeks, without so much as altering a sail or bracing a yard.

Sea Tales - Selling the Cargo

The captain took advantage of this fine weather to get the vessel in order for coming upon the coast. The carpenter was employed in fitting up a part of the steerage into a trade-room ; for our cargo, we now learned, was not to be landed, but to be sold by retail on board ; and this trade-room was built for the samples and the lighter goods to be kept in, and as a place for the general business.

Sea Tales - Tarring Painting & Sharks

In the mean time we were employed in working upon the rigging. Every thing was set up taut, the lower rigging rattled down, or rather rattled up (according to the modern fashion), an abundance of spun-yarn and seizing-stuff made, and finally the whole standing-rigging, fore and aft, was tarred down. It was my first essay at the latter business, and I had enough of it ; for nearly all of it came upon my friend Stimson and myself.

The men were needed at the other work, and Henry Mellus, the other young man who came out with us before the mast, was laid up with the rheumatism in his feet, and the boy Sam was rather too young and small for the business ; and as the winds were light and regular he was kept during most of the daytime at the helm, so that we had quite as much as we wished of it.

We put on short duck frocks, and, taking a small bucket of tar and a bunch of oakum in our hands, went aloft, one at the main royal-mast head, and the other at the fore, and began tarring down. This is an important operation, and is usually done about once in six months in vessels upon a long voyage. It was done in our vessel several times afterwards, but by the whole crew at once, and finished off in a day ; but at this time, as most of it, as I have said, came upon two of us, and we were new at the business, it took several days.

In this operation they always begin at the mast-head, and work down, tarring the shrouds, back stays, standing parts of the lifts, the ties, runners, &c, and go out to the yard-arms, and come in, tarring, as they come, the lifts and foot-ropes.

Tarring the stays is more difficult, and is done by an operation which the sailors call " riding down." A long piece of rope — top-gallant-studding-sail halyards, or something of the kind — is taken up to the mast-head from which the stay leads, and rove through a block for a girt-line, or, as the sailors usually call it, a gant-line ; with the end of this, a bowline is taken round the stay, into which the man gets with his bucket of tar and bunch of oakum ; and the other end being fast on deck, with some one to tend it, he is lowered down gradually, and tars the stay carefully as he goes There he " swings aloft 'twixt heaven and earth," and if the rope slips, breaks, or is let go, or if the bowline slips, he falls overboard or breaks his neck.

This, however, is a thing which never enters into a sailor's calculation. He only thinks of leaving no holidays (places not tarred), — for, in case he should, he would have to go over the whole again, — or of dropping no tar upon deck, for then there would be a soft word in his ear from the mate. In this manner I tarred down all the head-stays, but found the rigging about the jib-booms, martingale, and spritsail yard, upon which I was afterwards put, the hardest. Here you have to " hang on, with your eyelids " and tar with your hands.

This dirty work could not last forever ; and on Saturday night we finished it, scraped all the spots from the deck and rails, and, what was of more importance to us, cleaned ourselves thoroughly, rolled up our tarry frocks and trousers and laid them away for the next occasion, and put on our clean duck clothes, and had a good comfortable sailor's Saturday night. The next day was pleasant, and indeed we had but one unpleasant Sunday during the whole voyage, and that was off Cape Horn, where we could expect nothing better.

On Monday we began painting, and getting the vessel ready for port. This work, too, is done by the crew, and every sailor who has been long voyages is a little of a painter, in addition to his other accomplishments. We painted her, both inside and out, from the truck to the water's edge. The outside is painted by lowering stages over the side by ropes, and on those we sat, with our brushes and paint-pots by us, and our feet half the time in the water. This must be done, of course, on a smooth day, when the vessel does not roll much. I remember very well being over the side painting in this way, one fine after noon, our vessel going quietly along at the rate of four or five knots, and a pilot-fish, the sure precursor of a shark, swimming alongside of us. The captain was leaning over the rail watching him, and we went quietly on with our work.

Sea Tales - Bunking In The Forecastle

Stimson and I petitioned the captain for leave to shift our berths from the steerage, where we had previously lived, into the forecastle. This, to our delight, was granted, and we turned in to bunk and mess with the crew forward. We now began to feel like sailors, which we never fully did when we were in the steerage.

While there, however useful and active you may be, you are but a mongrel, — a sort of afterguard and " ship's cousin." You are immediately under the eye of the officers, cannot dance, sing, play, smoke, make a noise, or growl, or take any other sailor's pleasure ; and you live with the steward, who is usually a go-between ; and the crew never feel as though you were one of them.

But if you live in the forecastle, you are " as independent as a wood-sawyer's clerk' s), and are a sailor. You hear sailors' talk, learn their ways, their peculiarities of feeling as well as speaking and acting ;- and, moreover, pick up a great deal of curious and useful information in seamanship, ship's customs, foreign countries, &c, from their long yarns and equally long disputes. No man can be a sailor, or know what sailors are, unless he has lived in the forecastle with them, - — turned in and out with them, and eaten from the common kid. After I had been a week there, nothing would have tempted me to go back to my old berth, and never afterwards, even in the worst of weather, when in a close and leaking fore castle off Cape Horn, did I for a moment wish myself in the steerage. Another thing which you learn better in the forecastle than you can anywhere else is, to make and mend clothes, and this is indispensable to sailors. A large part of their watches below they spend at this work, and here I learned the art myself, which stood me in so good stead afterwards.