Under Sail

by Felix Riesenberg

"It's Jimmy! Take him away! Take him away!" shouted several, Martin and Scouse among them. We were all tumbling out of our bunks. Frenchy shot through the open door of the fo'c'sle and Scouse close after him. Suddenly there was a wild mixture of screams and screeches and Australia exploded in a loud, whole-souled oath of relief. He held the struggling Jake by the tail feathers. The parrot had recently been about the only consistent listener to the doctrines of Charlie Horse, and his appearance in our fo'c'sle at night gave him a chance to retail some of his new line of talk. Someone had evidently left his cage open and he came in to get out of the draft. From this time on the bird got to be a nuisance as well as a reminder of our folly. Frenchy sold him to Chips for a suit of oilskins.

During these days of the voyage we overhauled our best suit of sails preparatory to bending them for the heavy weather off the Cape. I had by that time become fairly proficient in the use of the palm and needle and could sew a presentable flat seam, or round seam, as occasion demanded. Frenchy was the best sailmaker in our watch, and with Brenden and myself, constituted the sailmaker's gang to port. Old Smith, Hitchen and Axel were the starboard complement in this kind of work. We had our benches in the most comfortable part of the deck and of a morning, after the washdown, while we were getting the canvas out, the rest of the crowd would wipe the deck dry with pieces of old sugar bags, getting right down on their shin bones and rubbing the planks. We put in new tabling, renewed lining cloths, sewed on new leather at the clews, wetting it so that when dry the leather would shrink tight, gripping the bolt ropes so the strands would show through. In some of the older sails we sewed an extra line of stitching down the middle of the double flat seam where the cloths join.

I learned to properly work the reef and head holes. The canvas was cut with a "stabber" and a small fish line grommet laid over the edge, the hole then being finished off with a fencing of heavy waxed and double laid twine. In these later degenerate days, a brass eyelet ring is often crimped around the hole, a much quicker job and about one-third as strong.

In all of the lore of cutting canvas for sails, and we made a set of skysails on the voyage, the mate was a past master. The "roaching," the proper way to allow for gores in the cloths, the fact that "square" sails are anything but square; all such old-time knowledge was handed down and eagerly assimilated. We talked of the "hoist" of this sail, meaning sails that spread by hoisting the yard; and the "drop" of that sail, referring to the courses and lower tops'ls.

On the Fuller the mains'l and crojik (corrupted from the "crossjack" of the ancients) were fitted with "cross leeches" and a "midship rope." These were stout hemp ropes sewed to tabling clothes on the forward side of the sail, the cross leeches running from the head earings to the middle of the foot, and the "midship rope" from the head to the foot of the sail also on the forward side. This left the after side of the sail smooth so as to draw best when flattened on a wind. At the foot of the sail, and hooked into a stout thimble where the cross leeches and midship rope joined, the "slap line" led aft, and the "midship tack" led forward. With wind a point or two on the quarter, the weather clew garnets of the main and crojik would be hauled up and these sails set perfectly by the midship tack and the weather cross leech, in this way allowing a good share of the breeze to distend the great foresail for all it was worth. Sailors who have not been shipmates with this method of fitting the after courses will appreciate the utility.

One thing Mr. Zerk always harped upon was the necessity of making canvas set flat, whether on the wind or before it.

A large sail, the main course, for instance, is fitted with what at first blush appears to be a useless amount of gear. The sail being bent to the yard by means of the head earings and robands is handled by use of the following ropes: the tacks leading forward from the clews, the sheets leading aft. When before the wind the sail is held to the deck by the two sheets, the tacks being idle. When on a wind, that is, close hauled, the weather tack is boarded and the lee sheet hauled aft. To reef, the tacks and sheets are started and the reef band hauled up on the yard by the reef tackles. To furl, the clews are hauled up to the quarter of the yard by means of the clew garnets while the body of the sail is gathered in by the leechlines and the buntlines. Add to this bowline bridles for steadying out the weather leech when on a wind, slap line for keeping the foot of the sail away from the mast in light winds and calm, the midship tack used when sailing with the weather leech hauled up, and we have a very respectable lot of rigging on our sail. Upper tops'ls are almost as bad. Now this means nothing to the landsman, but a lot of queer names, yet the gear has come down through long ages of elimination and represents the utmost efficiency in handling sailing canvas. A main sail is a mighty spread on a large modern ship and may show to the wind as much as four thousand square feet of surface. Our mainsail on the Fuller was approximately of this size. Given a heavy press of wind, say twenty pounds to the square foot, and we have the sail urging our ship along to some purpose.

To get back to the voyage, after a reminiscent ramble with technicalities for which we ask forgiveness, though old, and perhaps new, "shells" may read it, I will add that the working of canvas is one of the best jobs aboard ship. We were excused from jumping up at every order to do some bit of pulling or hauling, and knowledge of the tricks of palm and needle stamped a man as of the real salt.

Australia, Charlie Horse, Tony, and a few others were kept busy renewing chafing gear, fitting sword mats and helping Chips, who was constantly employed about the ship at repair and renewal of the wooden fittings. The battens on the "swifters" were always being broken by the clew garnets, and had to be renewed, the pump leathers were overhauled at frequent intervals, hatch wedges were constantly inspected and "set up," and Chips was the man to do these things.