Part 15 (1/2)

APPENDIX

[Illustration: Again tied to the old stake at Fairhaven]

APPENDIX

LINES AND SAIL-PLAN OF THE ”SPRAY”

Her pedigree so far as known--The Lines of the _Spray_--Her self-steering qualities--Sail-plan and steering-gear--An unprecedented feat--A final word of cheer to would-be navigators

Froreat experience, I refrained, in the preceding chapters as prepared for serial publication in the ”Century Magazine,” fro fully into the details of the _Spray's_ build, and of the pri experience at all, I had nothat the trim vessels seen in our harbors and near the land could not all do as , for example, on a course with the helm lashed

I are that no other vessel had sailed in this lobe, but would have been loath to say that another could not do it, or thatin that reatly amused, therefore, by the flat assertions of an expert that it could not be done

[Illustration: Plan of the after cabin of the _Spray_]

The _Spray_, as I sailed her, was entirely a new boat, built over from a sloop which bore the same name, and which, tradition said, had first served as an oystero, on the coast of Delaware There was no record in the custom-house of where she was built She was once owned at Noank, Connecticut, afterward in New Bedford and when Captain Eben Pierce presented her to me, at the end of her natural life, she stood, as I have already described, propped up in a field at Fairhaven Her lines were supposed to be those of a North Sea fisher timber by timber and plank by plank, I added to her free-board twelve inches ahteen inches forward, and fourteen inches aft, thereby increasing her sheer, and ht, a better deep-water shi+p I will not repeat the history of the rebuilding of the _Spray_, which I have detailed in my first chapter, except to say that, when finished, her dimensions were thirty-six feet nine inches over all, fourteen feet two inches wide, and four feet two inches deep in the hold, her tonnage being nine tons net, and twelve and seventy one-hundredths tons gross

I gladly produce the lines of the _Spray_, with such hints aswill allow,been spent ive theeport, Connecticut, and, under the supervision of the Park City Yacht Club, was hauled out of water and very carefully measured in every way to secure a satisfactory result Captain Robins produced thein the ”lilies of the sea,”

very naturally will not think favorably of ht to their opinion, while I stick to mine They will take exceptions to her short ends, the advantage of these being s about the _Spray's_ deck ht be fashi+oned differently without ood reason why for a party-boat a cabin trunk ht not be built amidshi+ps instead of far aft, like the one on her, which leaves a very narrow space between the wheel and the line of the coht have improved the shape of her stern I do not know about that The water leaves her run sharp after bearing her to the last inch, and no suction is formed by undue cutaway

S?” They never crossed the Gulf Stream in a nor'easter, and they do not knohat is best in all weathers For your life, build no fantail overhang on a craft going offshore As a sailor judges his prospective shi+p by a ”blow of the eye” when he takes interest enough to look her over at all, so I judged the _Spray_, and I was not deceived

In a sloop-rig the _Spray_ h the Strait of Magellan, during which she experienced the greatest variety of weather conditions The yawl-rig then adopted was an improvement only in that it reduced the size of a rather heavyqualities on the wind

When the as aft the jigger was not in use; invariably it was then furled With her boom broad off and with the wind two points on the quarter the _Spray_ sailed her truest course It never took long to find the ale of rudder, required to hold her on her course, and when that was found I lashed the wheel with it at that angle The mainsail then drove her, and the main-jib, with its sheet boused flat areatly to the steadying power Then if the as even strong or squally I would soed out on the bowsprit, with, the sheets hauled flat aale of wind A stout downhaul on the gaff was a necessity, because without it the ht not have come dohen I wished to lower it in a breeze The a to the amount of wind and its direction

These points are quickly gathered from practice