The First Mate: The Story of a Strange Cruise

by Harry Collingwood

Now, a sea voyage in an open boat is something to be attempted only as a last resource. A trip of a few hours’ duration in suitable weather is all very well; it is, indeed, a very enjoyable experience. But in a gale, when one is exposed hour after hour to the fury of the elements, is in momentary danger of being capsized, and has to bale for dear life!

Well, those who have been through it know what that means. I had been through it, therefore I knew that for those delicately nurtured women it was not to be thought of for a moment; our boat must be decked, that was a certainty.

This decision led naturally to the question of one of the principal dimensions—namely, the depth—of the proposed craft. She must be deep enough under her deck at least to allow her occupants to lie down and sleep in comfort. After careful consideration we fixed the depth at five feet in the clear. With that as a ruling dimension it was not difficult to decide that a suitable beam or breadth would be ten feet. After much consideration we fixed the length at thirty feet on the water-line, which, we decided, would afford sufficient room for ourselves, our immediate and indispensable belongings, and a sufficient supply of food and water to carry us to our journey’s end. Taking pencil and paper, we proceeded to draught out the boat, that we might see how she looked, and estimate the quantity of material needed for her construction.

Our first sketch showed the contours of a Thames punt, pure and simple; but when we pictured her in a heavy seaway, and endeavoured to imagine what her behaviour would be under such circumstances, we quickly came to the conclusion that certain modifications were imperative. These we proceeded to make forthwith; the final result being a craft of the dimensions already determined upon, flat-bottomed in cross section, but curved fore and aft, and with enough sheer to lift the fore end of her well above water. Being flat-bottomed, she would naturally be of light draught, and would consequently make a good deal of leeway when close-hauled, unless some special provision could be made to meet the case. We therefore decided to extend her two flat sides nine inches below her bottom, so as to form two keels; and, thus provided, we believed she would prove to be fairly weatherly. She was to be decked all over, with only a small cockpit aft; and light was to be furnished to her interior by four of the glass ports or windows to be removed from the wreck. She was to be sloop-rigged. The completed and finally approved design cost us an afternoon to produce, but when it was done we were very well satisfied with it. We believed that the craft ought to behave fairly well, even in heavy weather; while the design was so simple as to demand no special skill in carrying it out, and such loose timber as we had, supplemented by a certain quantity of deck planking, would be sufficient for our purpose.

The next thing to be done was to proceed with the actual work, and this we did forthwith.

I am not going to inflict upon the patient reader any wearisome details of our work, step by step; I believe they may safely be left to his imagination; moreover, I have other and more interesting things to tell. I will therefore dismiss this part of my story by mentioning that, although the work of building our craft proved to be considerably less easy than we had anticipated, chiefly because of my lack of knowledge of the details of carpentry, we made very fair progress after the first two or three days, and especially after I had acquired the knack of handling a plane properly. But I had to do every stroke of the actual work myself. The women merely helped me by holding the various parts in place while I bored the holes or drove the nails; and Julius positively refused to lend the slightest assistance, because, forsooth, he had not been consulted during the preparation of the plans! He would sit smoking cigarettes and fishing, and watch, unmoved, his mother and sister, to say nothing of the two stewardesses, straining themselves to help me to lift heavy weights and bend the stout bottom planks to the required curve. Also—chiefly, I think, because he knew that I objected—he would persist in shooting at the gulls with a rifle; until at length, in a fit of exasperation, I risked his mother’s displeasure and put an end to the wastage by locking up the ammunition and taking possession of the key.

I have already mentioned the arrangement which we had made in the matter of night watches. This, of course, only applied to those nights when the moon afforded light enough to permit a passing ship to be seen. My instructions were that, in the event of a sail being sighted, I was to be called at once, when I would decide as to the advisability or otherwise of making a flare to attract the attention of her crew. I was quite prepared to receive Master Julius’s refusal to participate in these night watches, but, strangely enough, he did not; and thereby hangs a tale.

The watches had been established a month or more, and no sail had been seen. Then, on a certain morning, when Julius called me at three o’clock—my watch followed his—I went on deck and, to my amazement, discovered the flare which I had prepared to serve as a signal blazing brilliantly, having evidently been lighted for quite a quarter of an hour. The full moon was hanging high in a cloudless sky, and the stars were shining with their usual tropical brilliance, but so bright was the light of the flames that I could see nothing outside the rail of the wreck. I therefore descended to the boy’s cabin, and, entering without ceremony, demanded to be informed of his reason for lighting the fire.

“Because I saw a ship,” he replied.

“Saw a ship!” I repeated. “Then why did you not at once come down and call me? You surely cannot have forgotten that I made it clearly understood I was to be called if a ship should heave in sight, and that nobody was to light the fire without first consulting me?”