It was an inspiring sight, truly! The whole lee side of the schooner was under from cat-head to the end of the cabin house, and she was storming along, leaping and plunging, with the sea to leeward in a welter of white water, seething and roaring, in the drive of her passage. The wind was whistling in the rigging and drumming in low thunder from under the bending booms, and with sheets and weather shrouds bar-taut and the sails as full and as hard as though cut in marble, the West Wind tore along with her gang hanging on to the weather gear and her skipper holding her cleaving bow down to her course.
“Look at Burton!” yelled someone. In the lift of the rain, they saw the Annie L. Brown astern and running off. Her foretopmast had carried away and her balloon jib, the topmast, and a raffle of wire stays and halliards were being salved by her crew. “He’s out of it now,” remarked a fisherman, “but he did well. Where’s th’ Lunenburg feller?”
For a minute she could not be discerned, but when the rain dissipated, she showed up on the beam, forging along under her four lowers. She was a big vessel—a West India voyager, strongly rigged and well ballasted. The first fury of the squall was easing off now and the West Wind was showing her rail again.
“Away ye go on yer stays’l!” bawled Nickerson. “That feller’ll trim us ef we don’t watch aout!” And when the big fisherman’s stays’l went up between the masts, the whole gang tallied on to the sheet and swayed it down with excited yells, and the schooner rolled her rail under again.
In his seafaring, Donald had never experienced such a contest. He had seen some sail-carrying on the Kelvinhaugh and Helen Starbuck, but nothing to equal this. Judson was pressing the vessel to the limit, but he could do it, as he had nineteen husky men he could depend on to haul the sail off her when the time came. In the Kelvinhaugh, with her gang of no-sailors and weaklings, it couldn’t be done; in the Starbuck, with a small crowd, it would be suicidal. “If it were only for these races alone, I’d love this fishing game,” said Donald to the skipper. “This is simply great!” And he chuckled and snapped his fingers with the exhilaration of this windy driving of wood, iron and canvas.
With the stays’l on her, the West Wind drew ahead and the Lunenburger was evidently content to allow her the advantage, as he did not send his stays’l up. It was found out afterwards that he had none to send up—it having split to rags in one of the squalls. The skipper laughed. “We’ve trimmed ’em both,” he remarked happily. To Donald, he said, “Read the log!”
“Forty-six miles, skipper!”
“Good!” he said. “Forty-six miles in three hours and a half is fair going. We must ha’ logged sixteen knots in some o’ them bursts of wind. It’s easing off naow—her rail’s showin’.” And he grinned contentedly, while a fisherman remarked, “We kin trim Burton sailin’ anyway, an’ I cal’late we kin trim him afishin’ too—”
“Land ahead!” came the shout from for’ard. The skipper peered into the rainy mist and put the wheel over a spoke. A huge block of reddish stone showed up on the port bow a mile ahead. “Entry Island!” he observed. “I steer as good as Captain Clincher when he laid a course for the Eddystone Light and knocked it daown! Ye can keep a look-out for Pearl Rock buoy on the starb’d hand and get fifteen fathom of chain over th’ windlass.”
When they passed the island, the sea became smoother and the wind eased off. A misty rain was falling, which obscured the land, but a steamer could be seen anchored ahead. “Ice-breaker or Fishery Cruiser, I cal’late,” said Judson. “He’ll be anchored in plenty water, so we’ll jest jog to the west’ard of him without letting go the hook. Haul yer stays’l daown an’ git a dory over!”