Always, when anchored in an open roadstead, or in any place where you may have to get out in a hurry, reef your large sails before turning in. Then, if it comes on to blow in the night, you are ready for it. If you expect a squall to hit you, in a place where you cannot anchor, reef down, and do so in plenty of time. Before leaving harbor, if there is any question of weather outside, reef and carry them out with you, until you get the heft of the breeze; if it is lighter than you expected, it is a simple job to shake out.
Reefed jibs are not much use; they seldom work well, and it is far better to shift headsails than to reef them. The jibs should be snap-hooked on the stay; in this way they can be quickly shifted. Reefing on a bowsprit in a seaway is a difficult and dangerous job. I shall speak further of this matter of head-sails in another chapter.
ON ANCHORS AND ANCHORING
"Let's forge a goodly anchor—a bower thick and broad;
For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow I bode;
And I see a good ship riding all in a perilous road—
The low reef roaring on her lee; the roll of ocean poured
From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board;"
The bulwarks down; the rudder gone; the boats stove at the chains;
But courage still, brave mariners—the bower yet remains!
And not an inch to flinch he deigns—save when ye pitch sky high;
Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing—here am I."
—Ferguson
ON ANCHORS AND ANCHORING
One of man's oldest, simplest and most perfect instruments—the anchor. Like all early inventions, it obtained its present form by a slow process of evolution, and, as is the case with nearly all implements of the same nature, it is to-day to be found in use in every step-form which during the gradual process of development it assumed. The primal anchor of stone is still universally employed, its immediate successors, the stone-weighted net and log, are yet in use in the East, and iron forms that might have found their shape under the hammer blows of the sinewy Sidonian smiths still swing from the bows of vessels plying the Indian seas.
As to who first forged anchors of iron there is some doubt, the ancient historians disagreeing on this point with amiable unanimity that characterizes all their statements in regard to the origin of things, both animate and inanimate. The balance of evidence appears to favor the Phrygians, a people of Asia Minor, whose most celebrated king, Midas, is well remembered as the avaricious monarch who had the unfortunate experience with gold, as related in a yarn which probably originated in the imaginative brain of some ancient free-silver orator.