Well clear of the stake-boat, however, it lifted and we could see what we were doing. The Lucy Foster was still ahead with O’Donnell and Ohlsen and Hollis almost abreast––no more than a few lengths between. Practically they were all about just as they started. We were next. It was a broad reach to Minot’s Ledge and hard going for all hands. It must be remembered that we all had everything on, even to balloon and staysails, and our halyards were lashed aloft. The men to the mast-head, who were up there to shift tacks, were having a sweet time of it hanging on, even lashed though they were.
Everybody was pretty well strung up at this time. The skipper, a line about his elbow, was hooked up to the main-rigging––the weather side, of course––and it was up to a man’s waist and boiling white on the lee side. The crew were snug 252 up under the weather rail and hanging on––no mistake either about the way they were hanging on. Every once in awhile one of us would poke his head up to see what they were doing to windward of us. Mr. Duncan, who had come aboard just before we left the dock, was trying to sit on the weather bitt near the wheel-box. He had a line around his waist, too. He had bet a lot of money with Withrow on the race, but I don’t think that his money was worrying him half so much as some other things then.
So far as we could see at this time we were making as good weather as any of them. And our best chance––the beat home––was yet to come. The Johnnie had the stiffness for that. Had the Johnnie reached Gloucester from the Cape Shore earlier she, too, would have been lightened up and made less stiff. To be sure she would have had her bottom scrubbed and we would have had her up to racing pitch, with every bit of sail just so and her trim gauged to a hair’s depth, but that did not matter so very much now. The Johnnie was in shape for a hard drag like this, and for that we had to thank the tricky Sam Hollis. We began to see that after all it was a bit of good luck our vessel not being home in time to tune up the same as the rest of the fleet.
It was along about here––half-way on the reach 253 to Minot’s––that Tommie Ohlsen broke his main-gaff. It was the fault of the Eastern Point, the Boston steamer. She had gone ahead of the fleet, taking almost a straight course for Minot’s Ledge. Reaching across from Half-Way Rock to Minot’s the fleet began to overhaul her. She, making bad weather of it along here, started to turn around. But, rolling to her top-rail, it was too much for them, and her captain kept her straight on for Boston. That was all right, but her action threw Ohlsen off. She was right in the Nannie O’s way, and to save the steamer and themselves from a collision and certain loss of life, Ohlsen had to jibe the Nannie O, and so suddenly that the Nannie O’s gaff broke under the strain. And that lost Ohlsen his chance for the race. It was too bad, for with Ohlsen, Marrs, and O’Donnell, each in his own vessel in a breeze, you could put the names in a hat and shake them up. When we went by the Nannie O her crew were getting the trysail out of the hold, and they finished the race with that, and made good going of it, as we saw afterward. Indeed, a trysail that day would have been sail enough for almost any men but these.
Before we reached Minot’s there was some sail went into the air. One after the other went the balloons––on the Foster, the Colleen, the Withrow and at last on us. I don’t know whether 254 they had any trouble on the others––being too busy with our own to watch––but we came near to losing men with ours. It got caught under our keel, and we started to try to haul it in––the skipper having an economical notion of saving the owner the expense of a new sail, I suppose. But Mr. Duncan, seeing what he was at, sang out: “Let the sail go to the devil, Captain––I’ll pay for the new one myself.” Even at that we had to crawl out on the bowsprit––six or eight of us––with sharp knives, and cut it away, and we were glad to get back again. The Johnnie never slackened. It was desperate work.
Rounding Minot’s, Tom O’Donnell gave an exhibition of desperate seamanship. He had made up his mind, it seems, that he was due to pass Wesley Marrs along here. But first he had to get by the Withrow. Off Minot’s was the turning buoy, with just room, as it was considered, for one vessel at a time to pass safely in that sea.
O’Donnell figured that the tide being high there was easily room for two, and then breasted up to the Withrow, outside of her and with the rocks just under his quarter. Hollis, seeing him come, made a motion as if to force him on the rocks, but O’Donnell, standing to his own wheel, called out––“You do, Sam Hollis, and we’ll both go.” There certainly would have been a collision, with both 255 vessels and both crews––fifty men––very likely lost, but Hollis weakened and kept off. That kind of work was too strong for him. He had so little room that his main-boom hit the can-buoy as he swept by.
Once well around O’Donnell, in great humor, and courting death, worked by Hollis and then, making ready to tack and pass Wesley’s bow, let the Colleen have her swing, but with all that sail on and in that breeze, there could be only one outcome. And yet he might have got away with it but for his new foremast, which, as he had feared, had not the strength it should have had. He let her go, never stopped to haul in his sheets––he had not time to if he was to cross Wesley’s bow. So he swung her and the full force of the wind getting her laid both spars over the side––first one and then the other clean as could be.
Hollis never stopped or made a motion to help, but kept on after the Lucy Foster. We almost ran over O’Donnell, but luffed in time, and the skipper called out to O’Donnell that we’d stand by and take his men off.
O’Donnell was swearing everything blue. “Go on––go on––don’t mind me. Go on, I tell you. We’re all right. I’ll have her under jury rig and be home for supper. Go on, Maurice––go on and beat that divil Hollis!”