We Had To Hoist Anchor By Hand,
Because The Power Transmission Was A Wreck.
Also, what remained of
our seventy-horse-power engine was lashed down for ballast on the
bottom of the Snark.
But what of such things? They could be fixed
in Honolulu, and in the meantime think of the magnificent rest of
the boat! It is true, the engine in the launch wouldn't run, and
the life-boat leaked like a sieve; but then they weren't the Snark;
they were mere appurtenances. The things that counted were the
water-tight bulkheads, the solid planking without butts, the bath-
room devices - they were the Snark. And then there was, greatest of
all, that noble, wind-punching bow.
We sailed out through the Golden Gate and set our course south
toward that part of the Pacific where we could hope to pick up with
the north-east trades. And right away things began to happen. I
had calculated that youth was the stuff for a voyage like that of
the Snark, and I had taken three youths - the engineer, the cook, and
the cabin-boy. My calculation was only two-thirds OFF; I had
forgotten to calculate on seasick youth, and I had two of them, the
cook and the cabin boy. They immediately took to their bunks, and
that was the end of their usefulness for a week to come. It will be
understood, from the foregoing, that we did not have the hot meals
we might have had, nor were things kept clean and orderly down
below. But it did not matter very much anyway, for we quickly
discovered that our box of oranges had at some time been frozen;
that our box of apples was mushy and spoiling; that the crate of
cabbages, spoiled before it was ever delivered to us, had to go
overboard instanter; that kerosene had been spilled on the carrots,
and that the turnips were woody and the beets rotten, while the
kindling was dead wood that wouldn't burn, and the coal, delivered
in rotten potato-sacks, had spilled all over the deck and was
washing through the scuppers.
But what did it matter? Such things were mere accessories. There
was the boat - she was all right, wasn't she? I strolled along the
deck and in one minute counted fourteen butts in the beautiful
planking ordered specially from Puget Sound in order that there
should be no butts in it. Also, that deck leaked, and it leaked
badly. It drowned Roscoe out of his bunk and ruined the tools in
the engine-room, to say nothing of the provisions it ruined in the
galley. Also, the sides of the Snark leaked, and the bottom leaked,
and we had to pump her every day to keep her afloat. The floor of
the galley is a couple of feet above the inside bottom of the Snark;
and yet I have stood on the floor of the galley, trying to snatch a
cold bite, and been wet to the knees by the water churning around
inside four hours after the last pumping.
Then those magnificent water-tight compartments that cost so much
time and money - well, they weren't water-tight after all. The water
moved free as the air from one compartment to another; furthermore,
a strong smell of gasolene from the after compartment leads me to
suspect that some one or more of the half-dozen tanks there stored
have sprung a leak. The tanks leak, and they are not hermetically
sealed in their compartment. Then there was the bath-room with its
pumps and levers and sea-valves - it went out of commission inside
the first twenty hours. Powerful iron levers broke off short in
one's hand when one tried to pump with them. The bathroom was the
swiftest wreck of any portion of the Snark.
And the iron-work on the Snark, no matter what its source, proved to
be mush. For instance, the bed-plate of the engine came from New
York, and it was mush; so were the casting and gears for the
windlass that came from San Francisco. And finally, there was the
wrought iron used in the rigging, that carried away in all
directions when the first strains were put upon it. Wrought iron,
mind you, and it snapped like macaroni.
A gooseneck on the gaff of the mainsail broke short off. We
replaced it with the gooseneck from the gaff of the storm trysail,
and the second gooseneck broke short off inside fifteen minutes of
use, and, mind you, it had been taken from the gaff of the storm
trysail, upon which we would have depended in time of storm. At the
present moment the Snark trails her mainsail like a broken wing, the
gooseneck being replaced by a rough lashing. We'll see if we can
get honest iron in Honolulu.
Man had betrayed us and sent us to sea in a sieve, but the Lord must
have loved us, for we had calm weather in which to learn that we
must pump every day in order to keep afloat, and that more trust
could be placed in a wooden toothpick than in the most massive piece
of iron to be found aboard. As the staunchness and the strength of
the Snark went glimmering, Charmian and I pinned our faith more and
more to the Snark's wonderful bow. There was nothing else left to
pin to. It was all inconceivable and monstrous, we knew, but that
bow, at least, was rational. And then, one evening, we started to
heave to.
How shall I describe it? First of all, for the benefit of the tyro,
let me explain that heaving to is that sea manoeuvre which, by means
of short and balanced canvas, compels a vessel to ride bow-on to
wind and sea. When the wind is too strong, or the sea is too high,
a vessel of the size of the Snark can heave to with ease, whereupon
there is no more work to do on deck.
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