Shifts and expedients of camp life, travel & exploration

by William Barry Lord; Thomas Baines

Hints in emergencies.

A Prussian vessel, with the leaks gaining on her and her crew exhausted, was saved by lashing a spar across the mainmast, with one end projecting overboard with a barrel half full of water fast to it, so as to rise and fall with the sea. The pump brakes were made fast to the spar, and the vessel was thus kept afloat, while the crew were relieved from their labour.

A boat has been known to come ashore safe through a heavy sea by means of a handful of oil judiciously thrown over by one of the men whenever a wave threatened to break near her; and Captain Basil Hall relates how one of his boats was hove to all night under a droge of all her spars and sails and two or three seal skins, the oil of which working out calmed the water for a considerable distance.

Instances of this kind might be indefinitely multiplied; but we note only a few as suggestions. No amount that we could give would supply the want of presence of mind and the ready power of adapting the means at hand to the emergency.

Our space will not allow us to go into all the details of boat sailing, but we must find room for one or two general rules. In seeking to land through breakers, which must always be effected by the oars, wait just outside them till you find the heaviest roller coming in; then give way, and come in upon it, with your boat’s bow all but overhanging its crest, and, as it lands, you jump out and haul your boat beyond the power of its reflux. Some crews are in the habit of giving two or three powerful strokes just before they reach the shore, and then pitching their oars simultaneously as far from them as possible, picking them up again when they have secured their boat. It is well, however, to know that there is no current to set the oars out to sea before doing this.

In coming off face the breakers boldly, but judiciously watch the smaller waves, and give her good way through them. Keep your boat’s head on to the sea, and never let her take a breaker more than two points on either bow.

Trim the sails so that when brought to the wind the boat will very nearly steer herself, and she will attain her utmost speed. The action of the rudder has always a slightly-retarding influence, but if there is any want of balance let it be on the side of ardency or tendency to fly up in the wind, so that she may carry a little weather helm rather than want helping up by a lee one, and thus, in case of sudden squalls, the boat will, as if by instinct, obey the first touch of the lee helm, and, shaking the wind out of her sails, will right herself. The main sheet of an open boat should never be made fast, but held either by the steersman, or some one near him, in readiness to ease off. A squall seldom comes so suddenly that the first puff, if well watched, will not help the boat into the wind before the full strength comes; but on the coast of Australia we have known a squall come so suddenly through the dead calm of the night that it struck us at once like a blow from a sledge-hammer, and, though we had taken all the usual precautions, the sea was pouring like a jet-black cataract flecked with diamonds over 8ft. of the lee gunwale before the boat came to the wind; and we would say, therefore, if there is not an air to bring the boat’s head up when you expect a squall, help her with the sweep of an oar into the best position to receive it.

If you want to carry on sail do not attempt to stiffen the boat by making all the crew sit to windward; for, should the mast break, as is not unlikely with the increased strain, nothing can prevent her capsizing; let them sit in the bottom. In the way of ballast, nothing can be better than bags nearly filled with fresh water. They will assume the form of any place you want to stow them in, and will not sink the boat if she should fill; in fact, being lighter than salt water, they would impart a trifling buoyancy.

Temporary rudders.

The loss of the rudder, an accident which is by no means so unfrequent at sea as may be imagined, involves also, for a time at least, the loss of control over the vessel’s course. Even in the open sea this must be attended with considerable peril; but when it happens in the vicinity of rocks or shoals, and the vessel has not sea-room, the danger becomes appalling. The careful and vigilant trimming of the sails is the readiest means of regaining command of the vessel, and we believe the “Wager” was extricated from a most perilous position by this alone; but it is a work of immense labour, and harasses the crew severely. A stream cable payed out astern, and veered to either quarter, is sometimes used; or, if the accident should occur in moderate weather, by striking on a bar, the jolly boat with the plug out may be lowered and towed astern, but both these plans check the speed of the vessel, and are only useful when they can be made to impede one side more than the other; and that this is not the true principle of steering is known to every butcher’s boy, who apologises for wearing but one spur by saying “if one side of his horse goes the other must.” The rudder may be considered as a continuation of the keel, capable of moving on a hinge to an angle of 22½° on either side, and when the vessel moves forward, and the helm, for instance, is put to port, the water impinging on the starboard side of the rudder is reflected from it at an equal square to that of its incidence, and the resulting force tends to drive the stern to port and incline the head to starboard. But as the force acts in the direction of a line midway between the angles of incidence and of reflection, it has also a retarding tendency, and if the helm were put over to an angle of 45° the greater part of the power would be expended in stopping rather than in steering the vessel. If a ship could be made so flexible as to be converted like a fish into the segment of a circle either way at pleasure, the very perfection of steering would be attained, and the rudder is merely the best imitation of this that can be devised.