From Joshua Slocum’s Sailing Alone Around the World. In this passage, Slocum explains to the doubters why they should be as confident as his dog Bruno that his calking job will hold.
The hull of my vessel being now put together as strongly as wood and iron could make her, and the various rooms partitioned off, I set about “calking ship.” Grave fears were entertained by some that at this point I should fail.
I myself gave some thought to the advisability of a “professional calker.” The very first blow I struck on the cotton with the calking-iron, which I thought was right, many others thought wrong. “It’ll crawl!” cried a man from Marion, passing with a basket of clams on his back. “It’ll crawl!” cried another from West Island, when he saw me driving cotton into the seams.
Bruno simply wagged his tail.
Even Mr. Ben J, a noted authority on whaling-ships, whose mind, however, was said to totter, asked rather confidently if I did not think “it would crawl.” “How fast will it crawl?” cried my old captain friend, who had been towed by many a lively sperm-whale. “Tell us how fast,” cried he, “that we may get into port in time.”
However, I drove a thread of oakum on top of the cotton, as from the first I had intended to do.
And Bruno again wagged his tail.
The cotton never “crawled.” When the calking was finished, two coats of copper paint were slapped on the bottom, two of white lead on the topsides and bulwarks. The rudder was then shipped and painted, and on the following day the Spray was launched.
As she rode at her ancient, rust-eaten anchor, she sat on the water like a swan.
See a line drawing of Spray’s sail plan here.
Leave a Reply