In crossing the line there was no attempt at jockeying such as one often sees in yacht racing. There was no disposition on the part of any skipper to do anything that would set anybody else back. Of course, everybody wanted to be in a good berth and to cross between the guns; but the idea was to give the vessels such a try out as they would get out to sea––as if they were making a passage in a breeze. The course––forty-two miles or so––was very short 246 for a fisherman, for one great thing in a fisherman is her power to stand a long drag. Day and night in and day and night out and driving all the time is the way a fisherman wants it. Any sort of racing machine could be built to stand a little hard going for a while. But that wouldn’t be living through a long hard winter’s gale on the Banks––one of those blows where wind and sea––and in shoal water at that––have a chance to do their worst. Fishermen are built for that sort of work and on their sea-worthiness depends not only the fortunes of owners but the lives of men––of real men––and the happiness and comfort of wives and children ashore. And so the idea in everybody’s mind that day was to make this test as nearly fair as could be and see who had the fastest and most weatherly boat in the fleet. There were men to the wheel that day who could handle big fishermen as if they were cat-boats, who would have dared and did, later, dare to sail their vessels as close to a mark in this sea as men sail a twenty-foot knockabout in the smoothest of waters inshore––only with the fishermen a slip-up meant the loss of a vessel, maybe other vessels too, and twenty-five or fifty lives perhaps.
And so the skill of these men was not used to give anybody the worst of it. A fair start and give everybody his chance was the idea. Thus 247 Tommie Ohlsen could have forced the Withrow outside the starting boat and compelled her to come about and maybe lose a few minutes, but he did not. He held up and let her squeeze through. O’Donnell in his turn could have crowded Ohlsen when he let up on the Withrow, but he did not. He, too, held up in turn and let Ohlsen have his swing going across.
Across we went, one after the other. West-sou’west was the course to a stake-boat, which we were told would be found off Egg Rock, fourteen miles away. We had only the compass to go by, for at the start it was rain and drizzle, as well as wind and a big sea, and you couldn’t see a mile ahead. On the way we shot by the New Rochelle, which had started ahead with the intention of waiting for the fleet at the first stake-boat. Now she was headed back, wabbing awfully. From Billie Simms, who went over part of the course in the Henry Clay Parker ahead of the fleet, we got word of the trouble as we went by. The New Rochelle was beginning to leak. “You c’n spit between her deck-planks and into her hold––she’s that loose,” hollered Billie. I don’t think the fishermen aboard of her minded much so long as she stayed afloat, but her captain, a properly licensed man, did, I expect, and so she put back with some of them growling, I heard afterward, “and after 248 paying their little old three dollars to see only the start of the race.” Her captain reported, when he got in, that he didn’t see anything outside but a lot of foolish fishermen trying to drown themselves.
The first leg was before the wind and the Lucy Foster and the Colleen Bawn went it like bullets. I don’t expect ever again to see vessels run faster than they did that morning. On some of those tough passages from the Banks fishing vessels may at times have gone faster than either of these did that morning. It is likely, for where a lot of able vessels are all the time trying to make fast passages––skippers who are not afraid to carry sail and vessels that can stand the dragging––and in all kinds of chances––there must in the course of years of trying be some hours when they do get over an everlasting lot of water. But there are no means of checking up. Half the time the men do not haul the log for half a day or more. Some of the reports of speed of fishermen at odd times have been beyond all records, and so people who do not know said they must be impossible. But here was a measured course and properly anchored stake-boats––and the Lucy and the Colleen did that first leg of almost fourteen sea-miles in fifty minutes, which is better than a 16-1/2 knot clip, and that means over nineteen land miles an hour. I 249 think anybody would call that pretty fast going. And, as some of them said afterward, “Lord in Heaven! suppose we’d had smooth water!” But I don’t think that the sea checked them so very much––not as much as one might think, for they were driving these vessels.
XXXII
O’DONNELL CARRIES AWAY BOTH MASTS
We were next to the last vessel across the starting line. The Nannie O––we couldn’t see them all––about held the Lucy Foster and the Colleen Bawn level. The Withrow showed herself to be a wonderful vessel off the wind, too. Wesley Marrs was around the stake-boat first. In the fog and drizzle the leaders did not find the stake-boat at once. Wesley happening to be nearest to it when they did see it, got the benefit and was first around. We were close up, almost near enough to board the Withrow’s quarter rounding. I am not sure that the skipper and Clancy, who were to the wheel, did not try to give Hollis a poke with the end of our long bowsprit; but if they did, the Johnnie was not quite fast enough for that. The Withrow beat us around. Looking back we could see the others coming like wild horses. Every one of them, except one that carried away something and hauled up and out of it, was diving into it to the foremast with every leap the same as we had been. On that first leg nobody could stand anywhere 251 for’ard of the fore-hatch or he would have been swept overboard.
Leaving Egg Rock and going for Minot’s Ledge, the skipper left the wheel and George Nelson took his place beside Clancy. It was drizzling then, every now and then that settling down so that we couldn’t see three lengths ahead. At such times we simply hoped that nobody ahead would carry away anything or in any way become disabled in the road.