Part 1 (1/2)
A Little Fleet.
by Jack B. Yeats.
A LITTLE FLEET
The following account of the Fleet, and of the various histories of the voyages of the vessels which compose it, has been written out by me at the request of the owners. I have also made for them the drawings and the chart which ill.u.s.trate the account.
The owners of this small merchant fleet had nowhere else handy to float their vessels in than the small and winding Gara river and a very small pond; the vessels when upon the river drove along with the stream, their sails, when they had any, only being of use to get them out of bad places, except occasionally when the current ran slowly; then, with a fair wind, the ”Pasear” and the ”Monte,” at any rate, would walk along at a fine pace.
Long, light sticks were carried to steer the s.h.i.+ps round dangerous corners, and through narrow and difficult channels like the Two Snags; and when I say she steered this way, or her skipper took such a course, you will understand it is just put that way because it sounds better.
The two longest voyages were those of the ”Theodore” and the ”Pasear,”
both of which vessels travelled about a mile along the river. The owners think that any other little boys who live near a stream sufficiently deep to float s.h.i.+ps drawing so little water might like to follow their example and build a fleet, therefore I am to tell you how each vessel was built, as well as the story of its voyage.
The chart shows the winding river down which the clippers voyaged, and on it are marked the various snags, rapids, and other dangers.
JACK B. YEATS, _Gara River_.
THE ”MONTE”
The ”Monte” was the first of our vessels, and was made out of a flat piece of wood about five inches long, shaped at one end for the bow. She had two masts of very thin wood, and was rigged as a fore and aft schooner with paper sails, which had holes in them so as to fasten them to the masts.
She had a stone underneath her to keep her upright, and a piece of string tied round her, amids.h.i.+ps, to keep on the stone. In the picture the stone is shown through the water, so that you can see how it was fastened on, but it did not really show like that.
THE ”MONTE'S” VOYAGE
She started from No Name Strait with wind and tide; it was blowing a gale at the time--of course you will understand that it was not blowing a gale _to us_, but in proportion to the size of her, it must have been a gale to _her_.
She kept her course toward the land, going by the Round Channel, as we had not then discovered the pa.s.sage through the Two Snags she then put her helm to port and bore away for mid-stream to avoid the nifty Snags that lie at the foot of the bluff called Pirate's Leap, called that because a poet who had been a pirate, I expect, was thinking about a poem when he ought to have been shoving the vessel off the rocks, and so he fell in.
The ”Monte” then put her head south-west by south, half south, a little southerly, sir, and tried to make the current called the Bully Bowline, but she kept too far to the west'ard, and so she got caught by the other current, the wrong one, called the Blackwall Hitch. The ”Monte's”
skipper got excited then, and tried to cross the middle of the river, but she dashed round in the current under the cliffs, and was only saved by very good steering from running straight into the very dangerous snags called the Bad Snags.
However, she weathered them and dashed on over the Marbley Shallows; we called them that because the stones under the water used to roll along like a lot of little marbles. She kept a fine course from that on, and went at a great pace, about fifteen knots; once she stuck her nose in the bank, but the sails swung her round, so on she went and ran beautifully into Safety Cove. But, like a silly, her skipper came out of it again before we could tell him not to, and hit against, oh! such a nasty rock; it heaved her on her beamends, and then she turned very slowly round until her masts and sails were underneath, and her stone keel on top. And that was the end of her.
This was what the Pirate Poet made about her:
And now by Gara rushes, When stars are blinking white; And sleep has stilled the thrushes, And sunset brings the night;
There, where the stones are gleamin', A pa.s.ser-by can hark To the old drowned ”Monte” seamen A-singing through the dark.