LAUNCHING THE LIFE BOATS
I used to discuss the method of landing the life boats with my friends at Nauset who keep a dory on the beach in which they go through the surf to the off-shore fishing grounds. Mr. Henry Daniels, surfman number one at Nauset, is known along the great beach as one of the crack boatmen of the Cape.
And this is the way they do it.
When there is a wreck in the surf and the lifeboat must be used, the first thing to do is to watch for a favorable opportunity and a favorable spot. The big waves break upon the beach in threes. This is not a superstition but a fact. When the third giant wave has thundered ashore and there is a small sea as far out as possible, then watch for the good moment and seize it when it comes. The three elements of success, once you have left the beach and are in the surf, are headway, speed, and strength. It is tremendously important to have powerful, skillful men in the bow. The captain steers. The difficulty lies in holding the boat bow on to the breakers, the undertow and the sweep of the surf tend to make the boat broach too, and if this happens over she goes. Sometimes just as a big wave looks as if it were about to crash down into the boat, headway and strength will save the day. Landing? Oh, there’s the hard part of it; landing a lifeboat is much more difficult than launching it. The thing to try to do is land as naturally as possible. If you let the sea run away with you, there’ll be a spill. If a boat is badly handled, the surf will rush her in with her bow tilted up in the air, and then tip her clean over when she strikes the sand. You see once you are under way coming ashore, you have got to go somewhere. A well handled boat comes ashore with the sea about amidships, then your bow is neither tilted up or down but lies in a natural position. And in coming ashore, just as in going out, you do your best to pick a favorable time.
There was recently a rather amusing case at Pamet River. A steamer journeying to New York from a port on the Great Lakes had suddenly and mysteriously developed boiler trouble while off the Cape, and sent a crew ashore to summon a tug. The ship was slowly drifting along, for her shallow length of anchor chain was never meant for the old ocean, and her anchors were trailing like fish hooks overside.
Boiler trouble? These innocent lake folk, accustomed to filling their boilers with water from the lakes, had been taking in water from the salt sea. They had been taking it regularly, and the salt in the boiler tubes had done the rest.
And this is remembered as a very good joke on fresh water sailors all over the Cape.
“The service is not what it used to be,” says the voice of the Cape. “Because recruits do not present themselves, less important stations have been practically closed and their crews distributed among vitally important posts, casual ‘substitutes’ are to be met with everywhere, and the guard has had to accept young boys who hardly know one end of an oar from the other. Everybody here knows that if things keep on getting worse, it will be the end of the guard.”
This local impression is a just one. The great service of the Cape is in genuine danger, a danger which deserves close national attention. Let us survey conditions.
To begin with, the coast guard service of Cape Cod is not one for which any casual good lad will do. If you want a real surfman, you must begin with a man who is used to seeing surf, and knows what to expect in the morning when a northeaster has been howling through the night. I do not aim at being melodramatic when I say that the sight of the violence of the surf in a big storm is one which takes the heart out of a stranger. Moreover, a surfman should be one who has grown up with boats, and has a kind of instinct for their ways.