The lateen (No. 6) has triangular sails with very long taper yards, the head and fore leach becoming one; indeed, if there be any distinct fore leach, the sail becomes an ill-shaped lug, and not a lateen. The masts are somewhat short; sometimes mere stumps, but then the halyards and the tacks must be enormously strong to counterpoise the immense length of the yard.
The proa sail (Figs. 7 and 8, p. 173), a triangle spread upon two bamboos, hitched upon a stump mast in small boats, we have described at p. 135. No. 9 is a modification of it, by which a boat sets jib and mainsail in one, the angle formed by the yard and boom becomes more acute at each reef as indicated by the lines. It would be difficult, however, to work the boat without a small mizen to help her round in staying. No. 10 is the shoulder-of-mutton sail, set on a single taper yard or mast.
Palm leaves are sometimes used as sails; our sketch represents three or more cocoanut leaves, so woven together as to present a surface to receive the wind. Blankets and articles of clothing are used in emergencies. Oars are set up, and a boat will gather considerable way under them. Planks, the broader and flatter the better, are excellent substitutes, and may be trimmed at pleasure. It must not be forgotten that, however graceful in art and poetry the bellying canvas may be, the chief object of the sailmaker is to get it “to sit like a board.”
Reefing of sails from the sides.
Sometimes when a sail is split, or otherwise rendered unserviceable, it is desirable to use another for a substitute without spoiling it by cutting. We remember reading of a vessel in which the topsail was split in a heavy gale; a spare foresail was got out and stout bands sewed on it, from the clews to the reef-band, diminishing upwards to the width the topsail head ought to be; eyelet holes were worked in, points or lacings inserted, and the sail, thus reduced, sent up to do duty as a topsail.
Captain (now Admiral Sir E.) Belcher, when in command of H.M.S. “Sulphur,” made use of a very clever expedient for imparting motion to his vessel when the wind failed. He constructed a couple of bolts, with stout umbrella framework covered with canvas at their heads, and with their butts so thickened as to fit loosely into the bow guns. A line was attached to each butt, and one was given in charge to the port and the other to the starboard watch; the first was fired to a good distance ahead, and as soon as the line was hauled upon the frame expanded and opposed its full resistance, so that, as it could not be drawn backwards through the water, the vessel must begin to move. Before this was hauled in the next was fired, the ship would increase her rate of progress, and, the impetus being once acquired, she would “hold her way,” so that eventually the men would have little more to do than gather in the slack of the line. No sailor likes the inaction of a calm, and besides this the captain had judged rightly in exciting the emulation of his men by giving one to each watch, and further stimulating it by an occasional glass of grog to the hardest working side, so that the cry of the port watch would be, “Haul away, and run her up to the umbrella before the starbowlines get theirs laid out,” and vice versâ, till sometimes a speed of four knots an hour was obtained. Thus was the good ship hauled out of many a belt of calms, and brought into the region of the winds, which might be only a few miles distant, while other vessels not so provided might have lain becalmed for weeks; and not only this, but her position in a bay or anchorage could be shifted at pleasure, and she became almost independent of wind or extraneous assistance by this ingenious expedient.
Paddles worked by mill sails have been proposed; but of these it will be sufficient to remark that the power of the paddles to drive the vessel’s head to wind will be less than that of the wind to drive her backward by the full amount of all that is expended in overcoming the friction of the machinery; in every other position the wind on the sails would do its work without the paddles.