Having Hove Short, Cast Off The Gaskets,
And Made The Bunt Of Each Sail Fast By The Jigger, With A
Man on
each yard; at the word, the whole canvas of the ship was loosed,
and with the greatest rapidity
Possible, everything was sheeted
home and hoisted up, the anchor tripped and catheaded, and the
ship under headway. We were determined to show the "spouter" how
things could be done in a smart ship, with a good crew, though not
more than half their number. The royal yards were all crossed at
once, and royals and skysails set, and, as we had the wind free,
the booms were run out, and every one was aloft, active as cats,
laying out on the yards and booms, reeving the studding-sail gear;
and sail after sail the captain piled upon her, until she was covered
with canvas, her sails looking like a great white cloud resting
upon a black speck. Before we doubled the point, we were going
at a dashing rate, and leaving the shipping far astern. We had
a fine breeze to take us through the Canal, as they call this bay
of forty miles long by ten wide. The breeze died away at night,
and we were becalmed all day on Sunday, about half way between
Santa Barbara and Point Conception. Sunday night we had a light,
fair wind, which set us up again; and having a fine sea-breeze on
the first part of Monday, we had the prospect of passing, without
any trouble, Point Conception, - the Cape Horn of California,
where it begins to blow the first of January, and blows all the
year round. Toward the latter part of the afternoon, however,
the regular northwest wind, as usual, set in, which brought in our
studding-sails, and gave us the chance of beating round the Point,
which we were now just abreast of, and which stretched off into the
Pacific, high, rocky and barren, forming the central point of the
coast for hundreds of miles north and south. A cap-full of wind
will be a bag-full here, and before night our royals were furled,
and the ship was laboring hard under her top-gallant sails. At eight
bells our watch went below, leaving her with as much sail as she
could stagger under, the water flying over the forecastle at every
plunge. It was evidently blowing harder, but then there was not a
cloud in the sky, and the sun had gone down bright.
We had been below but a short time, before we had the usual
premonitions of a coming gale: seas washing over the whole
forward part of the vessel, and her bows beating against them
with a force and sound like the driving of piles. The watch,
too, seemed very busy trampling about decks, and singing out at
the ropes. A sailor can always tell, by the sound, what sail is
coming in, and, in a short time, we heard the top-gallant sails
come in, one after another, and then the flying jib. This seemed
to ease her a good deal, and we were fast going off to the land
of Nod, when - bang, bang, bang - on the scuttle, and "All hands,
reef topsails, ahoy!" started us out of our berths; and, it not
being very cold weather, we had nothing extra to put on, and were
soon on deck. I shall never forget the fineness of the sight.
It was a clear, and rather a chilly night; the stars were twinkling
with an intense brightness, and as far as the eye could reach,
there was not a cloud to be seen. The horizon met the sea in a
defined line. A painter could not have painted so clear a sky.
There was not a speck upon it. Yet it was blowing great guns from
the north-west. When you can see a cloud to windward, you feel that
there is a place for the wind to come from; but here it seemed to
come from nowhere. No person could have told, from the heavens,
by their eyesight alone, that it was not a still summer's night.
One reef after another, we took in the topsails, and before
we could get them hoisted up, we heard a sound like a short,
quick rattling of thunder, and the jib was blown to atoms out of
the bolt-rope. We got the topsails set, and the fragments of the
jib stowed away, and the fore-topmast staysail set in its place,
when the great mainsail gaped open, and the sail ripped from head
to foot. "Lay up on that main-yard and furl the sail, before it
blows to tatters!" shouted the captain; and in a moment, we were
up, gathering the remains of it upon the yard. We got it wrapped,
round the yard, and passed gaskets over it as snugly as possible,
and were just on deck again, when, with another loud rent,
which was heard throughout the ship, the fore-topsail, which had
been double-reefed, split in two, athwartships, just below the
reefband, from earing to earing. Here again it was down yard,
haul out reef-tackles, and lay out upon the yard for reefing.
By hauling the reef-tackles chock-a-block, we took the strain
from the other earings, and passing the close-reef earing,
and knotting the points carefully, we succeeded in setting
the sail, close-reefed.
We had but just got the rigging coiled up, and were waiting to
hear "go below the watch!" when the main royal worked loose from
the gaskets, and blew directly out to leeward, flapping, and shaking
the mast like a wand. Here was a job for somebody. The royal must
come in or be cut adrift, or the mast would be snapped short off.
All the light hands in the starboard watch were sent up, one after
another, but they could do nothing with it. At length, John,
the tall Frenchman, the head of the starboard watch, (and a better
sailor never stepped upon a deck,) sprang aloft, and, by the help
of his long arms and legs, succeeded, after a hard struggle, - the
sail blowing over the yard-arm to leeward, and the skysail blowing
directly over his head - in smothering it, and frapping it with long
pieces of sinnet.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 87 of 167
Words from 87912 to 88974
of 170236
