She wins her bold course o’er the wide-rolling sea!
She bounds o’er the surges with gallant disdain;
She has stemm’d them before, and she’ll stem them again.”
“The life-boat must be a capital thing.”
“It is; but every vessel that sails on the seas is adapted to the service which it is to perform: the man-of-war, the frigate and the privateer are to carry, in their capacious hulls, the lightning and thunder of war; the smaller craft, such as cutters, schooners, and gun-boats, are to attend on fleets and supply the wants of larger vessels; and the life-boat is to rescue from destruction the shipwrecked crew and drowning mariner.”
“Why is it that the anchor does not keep the ship from being blown on the rocks, and wrecked?”
“Because anchors and cables are, like everything else, apt to break when tried beyond their strength. Now and then, when the wind blows hard, you find that the string of your kite breaks, and so it is with a cable; thick and strong as it is, it often snaps like a kite-string, when the storm is abroad in its strength,—man makes the cable, but God makes the storm; no wonder that the latter should be the stronger.”
“How thick is a cable? and how heavy is an anchor?”
“A good sheet-anchor-cable is a hundred and twenty fathoms, or two hundred and forty yards long. It is twenty inches round it, at least, and weighs five or six tons. It is made of almost two thousand threads, or rope-yarns.”
“One would think nothing could break it! And how heavy is the anchor?”