I know a man who, at the age of thirty, and while I was working the soul out of myself on cattle and horse ranch, in lumber-camp and salmon-cannery for an average of two dollars a day, bought a decked-in, dug-out canoe for twenty dollars, and with a capital of a like amount went clean up the British Columbia coast. During the summer he sailed, fished, and shot deer, trading his bag with farmers and store-keepers for other commodities that he needed. In the winter, he laid up the canoe, but lived aboard and trapped fur. He was his own man, and he lived. That was his dream, and he accomplished it. And I might have been doing precisely the same thing all those weary years, and come out a good deal better off at the end of them if I had only had the courage of my dream.
For the benefit of the apparent multitude whose dream lies along much the same lines as my own, I must attack the more technical side of the dream cruise, and, before doing so, I want it to be clearly understood that everything I may say in these pages is simply the outcome of my own personal experience. Others have had different and, perhaps, much wider experience, and will no doubt differ with me at every point. But then, after a woman, and a horse, there never was a subject more provocative of dissension than the proper conduct of a ship. So here's to it!
Out of the Deep;
The Main Products of Torres Straits. From left to
right:—Green Snail (used for buttons). Pearl-Shell
(with natural blister in form of an elephant).
Trochas (used for buttons, etc.). At back: Beche-de-mer.
The Dream Ship.—The dream ship is my idea of the ideal ocean cruiser to be handled by a crew of three. That is why I bought her, and she cost (second hand) £300 or about $1,500. She was designed as a North Sea pilot cutter by the late Colin Archer, who also designed the Fram for Nansen, and was the originator of this type of vessel. She was built at Porsgrund, Norway, in 1908, and I reduced her canvas to make for easy handling by a small and light-weight crew. For this reason she was slow going to windward, but I would not have had her otherwise for one cannot have everything—there is bound to be a compromise somewhere—and one does not expect to go round the world "on a wind."
An Islander's Home on T.I.;
The Tennis Handicap
Lines of the Dream Ship,
Designed by Colin Archer and Built
at Porsgrund, Norway, in 1908
Construction.—Her timbers were of pine and her planking of Italian oak, which is admittedly a reversal of the usual order of things, but is easily accounted for by the fact that Norway has plenty of pine (grown on hilltops so that the wind will make it "natural bent" for elbows and knees), but little or no oak; while Italy is oppositely placed, and the two countries trade their woods.