To the watch, bending over the yard with nought between them and oblivion but a slender foot rope, this was no easy task even in a moderate wind. In a gale, with wet or frozen sails, the stowing of this huge expanse of thrashing canvas can be better imagined than described.
STOWING THE OUTER JIB
A TYPICAL BOW
Here we have the bows of the barque “California” of New Bedford, built in the early eighteen forties.
Square-rigged whaling craft varied in size from two hundred and fifty to four hundred tons, seldom exceeding the latter figure.
Many were painted “frigate fashion” with black ports along the side—a relic of the days when merchant ships used this device to deceive pirates into the belief that they were heavily armed.
The whaler had a beauty peculiarly her own. She was rather a tubby little thing, but with much grace notwithstanding. She was held in supreme contempt by the officers and crews of her contemporaneous big sisters the flash clippers, who referred to her as “spouter” and “butcher shop.”
