At last it was necessary to reef main-sail and jib, the wind blew so hard and in gusts, and the adverse tide met me as it rushed out of Spithead with a heavy swell. Rain poured down slanting with the wind, and the rocks, uncovered at low water, looked very uninviting to leeward.
The little dingey was towed astern, as we had not expected so much sea with a north wind, but for the first time we found how perfectly this diminutive boat was adapted for towing, and after this trial she was never again stowed in the cabin. The bluff bow above, and the keelless, round, smooth bottom below, enabled the dingey to top the sharpest wave, and I often forgot my steering while turning round to watch the little creature as she nimbly leaped over the tumbling billows. The weather got worse, therefore we changed for a storm-mizen, and so many seas broke heavily over the Rob Roy, that the water in the well washed about my ankles, and finally we were compelled to give in and lie-to for an hour or more, after manning the pump.
This wind, rain, and sea together were the worst we had met with, but the yawl seemed in high spirits, like her owner; though the waves in the tide-way were sometimes so short and sharp that it was impossible to rise and fall fast enough, and she often buried deeply. It was here that my chart was so wet that it melted before my eyes, even with all endeavours to preserve it, and therefore I bore up for Brading Harbour, in the Isle of Wight, and somehow managed to get round Bembridge reef all safe into the quiet lake beyond.
Here, and on British soil again, was an end to all expected anxieties of the summer’s voyage. The rest to come were to be met, but not anticipated. There had been first the goal of Paris to be reached at a certain time for the Regatta there, and then there was the unknown voyage over the Channel, homeward bound; but henceforth no more dates or wide seas had to be thought of, and the rest of the vacation was free.
The shores and seas about the Isle of Wight looked more cheerful and lovely than ever, with a fair day next morning. Here we soon pass one of the new sea-batteries, a huge granite castle, reminding one of Bomarsund, but unfinished, and with scaffolds round that are worked or stopped, as Ministries go out or in, and as guns or iron plates are proved strongest in turn at Shoeburyness.
Portsmouth is in front, always with moving life on the waves. A squadron of ironclads presses heavy on the water at Spithead, and among them conspicuous is the five-masted Minotaur. White-winged yachts glide through the blue space between these and Ryde. Osborne basks in the sunshine with the “sailor Prince’s” pleasure-boat by the shore. If there be a gap or two in the horizon it is soon filled up by some rich laden merchantman, with sails swelling full in the light, and gay signal flags flowing out bright colours; and all the scene is woven together, as it were, by swift steamers flitting to and fro like shuttles strung with a thread of foam across a warp of blue.
But it is to that wooded point at Cowes we are steering, and the tall yellow masts clustered there shew already what an assemblage the yawl will meet at the Royal Yacht Squadron Regatta.
There was a certain amount of sailor’s pride as our yawl steadily advanced, steering in among these, the smallest of them all, but ready to be matched against any of its size and crew. She quietly approached the crowded quay, and I put my portmanteau ashore at the Gloucester Hotel; then the jib was filled again to sail up straight to Medina dock, where Mr. John White would see the craft he had modelled, and after a careful survey, the verdict upon her was entirely favourable. [192]
On her safe arrival at Littlehampton, after crossing the Channel, a short account of the voyage had been sent to the ‘Times,’ and this had reached the numerous yachtsmen at Cowes an hour before the boat herself appeared in front of the Club house. Therefore, the little craft required no more introduction. My flag was my card, and I was speedily made a member of the Club for the time being. Many old friends here greeted me, and many new visitors came on board to congratulate, while His Royal Highness the Commodore of the Royal Canoe Club, whose burgee flew at my mast-head, graciously shook hands.
While the ship carpenters at Medina Dock are making my new bowsprit, and a hundred other things, and Mr. Ratsey is putting the last finish to my sails, we may examine a little the upper gear of the yawl, for that has not yet been specially noticed; but as ladies and landsmen often come on board, who do not require a minute description of all the ropes and spars in the Rob Roy, they can skip the rest of this chapter.